Bob “The Funkmeister” Ottey (July 24, 1940-September 29, 2019): The Freeform and Elephant Man Par Excellence
Bob at KUNM
He was a Navy man, a world traveler and a fierce defender of whales, elephants and all
creatures of the planet. He was a jazz aficionado, an avid reader, and a long distance bicyclist
who traversed continents. He sported a tattoo of Burning Man on his leg, and always rooted for
his beloved Philadelphia sports teams. He was a husband, a father and a grandfather. And if all
that wasn’t enough, he was an unstoppable late night DJ on KUNM.
For the “insomniacs” who listened to him on KUNM, he was “The Funkmeister,” the man who religiously spun George Clinton and other masters of bass booming boogie. Complementing the musical cuts, he kept his nighttime listeners tuned in with a sweet and sassy voice that cut through the night skies like a great horned owl soaring toward the stars.
Born one July in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, Pennsylvania, Bob Ottey acquired a life-
long love of music thanks in great part to an uncle who was into jazz.
“He always liked to listen to local music and jazz, jazz was his greatest joy,” said daughter Dawn
Ouellet, who credited her father for inspiring her own love of music. “Music is joy and it brings
joy into people’s lives. (Dad) never put down other people’s music, no matter what the genre.”
Ouellet recalled that Bob’s favorite jazz artists included Miles Davis and Stanley Clark, the
bassist and composer who Bob admired so much he once named a kitten that he rescued from
a tree in Albuquerque “Stanley” before flying the feline cross country to his daughter.
Music was just one of the earthly and galactic elements that Mr. Ottey embraced during a long
and culturally rich life that many would envy.
Deterred by an injury from a promising athletic career, Bob nevertheless served in the U.S.
Navy for six years. He met his first wife Ethel while stationed in Providence, Rhode Island. The
couple had two daughters, Dawn and Robin.
Throughout his life, Bob traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia, where
he once had a job helping install early cell phone technology.
“He was well read. He was such an interesting person, and he’d been to many places in the world,” said his close friend Prudence Page. “Whenever you said, I visited that country or that
country, Bob would say, ‘Oh, I’ve been there too.’
Bob and Prudence were neighbors in the Northeast Heights of Albuquerque when they met in
2014, quickly discovering that they shared much in common. “Neither Bob nor I were
conventional people. I think that’s part of the connection,” Page added.
In the musical and literary realm, Mr. Ottey displayed deliciously eclectic tastes befitting a
freeform man. His vast CD collection, “bookcases,” according to Page, included George Clinton, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, David Byrne, Eric Krasno, and Bootsy Collins, to name a few.
Bob’s authors included Langston Hughes, Tom Robbins, Edward Abbey and Morgan llywelyn, among others. “He was really into dragons,” Page recalled. “He was really into Celtic mythology.”
Stirred by the social, political and environmental conditions of the world, Bob was drawn to
activism. Bringing rhythm to protests, he had a drum for such occasions. One summer he was a crew member of the Sea Shepherd, the direct action spin-off of Greenpeace whose members
became known for physically risking their lives while obstructing whaling ships on the high seas.
One of Bob’s treasured possessions
Community radio was a vital part of Bob’s life. Long before KUNM, he volunteered with WPKN, the legendary Connecticut station which like the New Mexico station is regarded one of the last
bastions of freeform.
Indeed, radio ran in his family’s blood. Bob’s sister, Georgianne “Shan” Ottey, paved a storied
path of her own in community radio during her long stint with KRAB, the Seattle FM station co-
founded in 1962 by community radio activist and visionary Lorezno Millam which achieved a
lofty place in the annals of alternative media before shutting down in 1984.
An early gay rights activist, Shan was severely injured during the historic Stonewall uprising of
New York City in 1969. Two years later, along with Paul Barwick, she launched one of the
earliest gay and lesbian radio programs in the U.S. on KRAB under the name “Make No Mistake about It, It’s a Faggot and a Dyke.”
At KRAB, Shan was an integral member of the LGBTQ collective. In 1973, ever the trailblazer,
she played the song “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears” by the Seattle band Lavender Country, a fortuitous spin which earned her the attention of the FCC.
Once called the “brainchild” of songwriter Patrick Haggerty, Lavender Country’s album of the same name was considered the first gay-themed country LP ever released.
Not to be bothered by the FCC, Shan (and Bob too) were reputedly practitioners of pirate radio,
the mysterious and unlicensed broadcasts that once crackled defiantly on the FM spectrum in
different parts of the nation.
As a footnote, it should be mentioned that one of Bob’s favorite authors, Tom Robbins, hosted the show “Notes from the Underground” on KRAB during the 1960s.
All Roads Lead to KUNM
Bob’s first wife Ethel passed away at the young age of 44. In 1988, he married Denise Luttrell, whom he met while both were employed for UPS in Connecticut. Bumping into each other on their delivery routes, Bob and Denise began talking about music. “That’s what connected us,” Luttrell said.
For their honeymoon, Bob and Denise embarked on the trip of a lifetime. A long journey kicked
off with camping and backpacking in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park followed by a big swing south. Flying from Miami to Caracas, Venezuela, the new couple traveled across South America, Central America and Mexico by any means they could- bus, boat and thumb, eventually winding up the U.S. Southwest.
Hitchhiking through Chile, Bob and Denise happened to be in the capital city of Santiago on the
day of the 1988 plebiscite that rejected the Pinochet dictatorship’s bid to extend a 15-year rule which was ushered in with the violent, CIA-backed overthrow of President Salvador Allende.
“And it was pretty crazy in the streets,” Luttrell remarked about the jubilant, popular reaction to the vote. Outside Santiago, the couple came across a band on the street that was playing the tunes of Inti-Illimani, one of the iconic groups of Latin America’s Nueva Canción musical wave whose songs were banned during the dictatorship. Overjoyed to hear the long-suppressed songs, “people were crying,” she recalled.
During the epic honeymoon, Bob was sometimes mistaken for others. “They’d see this big, tall blonde guy and think he was German and start talking to him in German,” Luttrell said. On a freighter off the far southern reaches of South America, crew members insisted that Bob resembled the Hollywood actor Jack Palance. In Luttrell’s remembrance, Bob would reply in his broken Spanish: “Jack Palance, muy hermoso.”
“Jack Palance, very pretty.”
Bob in South America
After an adventurous year-long honeymoon Bob and Denise decided to give living in New
Mexico a try. At first, they attempted to live in Santa Fe but soon abandoned that plan after
realizing that the cost of living was lower and the jobs more plentiful in Albuquerque than in
the City Different. In short order, the couple moved to the Duke City.
In 1989-90, Bob and Denise first tuned in to KUNM. Depicting the national reach of community
radio, one old photo shows Bob wearing his WPKN t-shirt while Denise is proudly displaying her
KUNM t-shirt. More than a decade before he was the Funkmeister, Bob Ottey was a KUNM fan.
Wanderlust kicked in before too long, so Bob and Denise bicycled back to the East Coast from
Albuquerque, suffering only one flat tire along the way in Harlem, New York City. After about a
year, the couple toured Europe by bicycle and then headed to Africa for a six month stint in
Zimbabwe.
“He was 20 years older than me, he was in better shape than me,” Luttrell reminisced. Bicycling
was a “wonderful way” to see the country and the world, she added.
Arriving in Zimbabwe during the early years of the country’s independence and liberation from
minority colonial white rule, Luttrell recalled the prevailing mood at the time as “jubilant” and “hopeful,” especially among young people who expressed optimism about the future. “We felt like we were there for a seminal moment.”
In Zimbabwe, Bob’s past, present and future converged. According to Prudence Page, a captive
elephant that physically touched Bob when he was a child left a lasting impact on a young boy.
As an adult in Zimbabwe, Bob was so awed by observing the big animals in the wild that he
soon gave his all to the movement to protect elephants from ivory poachers.
Bob at an elephant crossing in Zimbabwe. The huge mammals deeply shaped the life of the future Funkmeister
Once their worldly adventures wound down, Bob and Denise moved to Boulder, Colorado, split
up after a while and never crossed paths again.
Yet Bob was so committed to elephant conservation that he returned to Zimbabwe on his own,
bought a house and planned to spend the rest of his life in the African nation. But, alas, the new
nation’s political and economic environment soured, and Bob apparently found himself on the
wrong end of the political winds. He was then forced him to abandon the country forever-
minus his house and belongings.
The Funkmeister Is Born
Back living again on the East Coast, Bob was geographically closer to his daughters Dawn and
Robin. But his previous residence in Albuquerque years earlier had apparently left a deep
impression and a restless yearning. In the early 2000s, he moved back to Burque, first finding
employment delivering auto parts.
“He just loved it. He had visited (New Mexico) a couple of times. He just loved the culture and
the climate,” Oullet said.
Still bitten by the radio bug, Bob was back on the airwaves by the fall of 2003, this time as a
volunteer at KUNM. His most noted contribution to the station was the epic four-hour
Overnight Freeform segment from 1 am to 5 am Wednesday mornings he delivered with
midnight flair, broadcasting under the “Funkmeister” handle.
Bob began his shows with a signature sign-on of two funk classics and ended the long shift with Monte Python’s “Look on the Bright Side of Life.” Yes, that’s the one from the Life of Brian film with Eric Idle singing a cheery song from a cross to his fellow crucified mates on the hillside.
Broadening his playlist of George Clinton, Janis Joplin, Afro-Pop pioneer Fela Kuti and countless
others, the Funkmeister added dashes of comedy, parody and satire to his shows. Listeners
might hear the recordings of the late countercultural comedian George Carlin or “The FCC Song” by Eric Idle, the tune which tells the FCC and high U.S. government officials to shove it in four loud letters.
The Funkmeister at the KUNM controls
Broadcasting to an audience of night owls, Bob was one of those DJs who established a
personal connection with his listeners, including some who taped the shows and became his
friends. “I’d mentioned ‘Knee Deep’ to Bob in an email message, so he put it on for me, and I was lucky enough to catch it on tape,” one listener wrote to KUNM.
Somehow, Mr. Ottey found the energy to return to KUNM Wednesday evenings to oversee the
control board while the syndicated program “Art of the Song” that was aired for many years on KUNM lilted into the airwaves. KUNM Operations Manager Steven Emmons remembered Bob as a frequent drop-in to the station who liked to chat. “He was sort of always here,” Emmons said. Ever willing to help keep the music and information flowing day and night on 89.9 FM, Bob also subbed for the jazz show, Freeform and Saturday All Things Considered.
“Bob was among the most committed KUNM volunteers ever, not only to his shows but to the
institution of community radio and keeping KUNM thriving as an essential place for locally
produced programming while, in an age of automation and algorithms, preserving the live, local
and unique human voice for the listenership,” said KUNM colleague Kent Paterson.
“He was a regular participant in volunteer meetings related to station governance, and would
like to get his two cents in, so to speak, sometimes sharing his experiences at WPKN as they
might be relevant to KUNM. It was always fun to watch Bob pull into the parking lot late
Tuesday evening, unload his mobile music library and troop into the building with a tale or two
to tell while carting an overflowing load of sound and ready to kick ass over the airwaves.”
As Bob aged, he grappled with health issues. Also ailing, his daughter Robin passed away before her father. Still, like an old bull elephant not yet ready to leave the herd, the Funkmeister did his best to maintain his footing.
“I think one of the really saddest things for him was when he was really sick and knew he was
gonna die, he called (KUNM) and said he couldn’t come in,” Prudence Page said.
Steven Emmons took the final, apologetic call from Bob: “Oh, Steve, I just can’t do it anymore.”
For Page, Bob had a special talent of relating to people, even in adversarial circumstances. She
recalled one time when Bob had a brush with a reckless driver and pulled alongside the man
with a sign that read “I have got your license number.”
Next act, Bob was peacefully engaging and soothing the other driver, who turned out to be a
vet suffering a mental health crisis. “He could do that. He had a calmness that was remarkable,” Page said.
“My Dad was very loving and very caring. He was always somebody I could look to. I could say anything,” said his daughter Dawn. “It was like the judgment free zone.”
The Funkmeister certainly knew how to have a good time. Progeny of the City of the Brotherly
Love might know that you can take a Philadelphian of out Philadelphia but you can’t take Philly out of a Philadelphian, especially when it comes to sports teams. To the very end, Bob was a devoted fan of the Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia Phillies. For a cool one, Bob enjoyed Albuquerque’s Marble Brewery.
Appropriately, Bob’s memorial was held at another place he loved-the Elena Gallegos
Recreational Area at the foot of Albuquerque’s Sandia Mountains.
Bob Ottey’s service at the foot of the Sandias
In honor of the Funkmeister, friends and family gathered with KUNM colleagues and listeners
one beautiful fall day in 2019, mere months away from the time when the world as we knew it
would be altered in ways still playing out. An old Janis Joplin concert poster greeted the
attendees.
Sister Shan and her wife rolled in from Seattle, as did his granddaughter Alicia, while daughter
Dawn arrived from Florida. Remembrances poured forth as the KUNM radio tower atop Sandia
Peak that once transmitted Bob’s voice stood tall and proud above the gathering, birds flitting
about the rocky high desert.
Visiting Bob’s old stomping grounds, Shan and her wife, Marni, dropped in on KUNM while they were in town for the memorial. Shan passed away on August 14, 2022. Two of community radio’s most creative and dedicated individuals were now gone.
Shan and her wife by the KUNM logo
Later on, KUNM’s Steven Emmons took a shrine dedicated to Mr. Bob Ottey to the Burning Man
Festival in the California desert.
Bob Ottey’s Burning Man Memorial
Burning Man memorial: The Funkmeister’s first ever KUNM aircheck
It’s nigh impossible to tell the story of such a rich, multidimensional life like the one lived by Mr. Bob Ottey in a few pages. Perhaps his signature sign-off on KUNM Wednesday mornings begins approaching the task. Fortunately, you can listen to a slice of an unforgettable voice and his famous sign-off that once so enriched New Mexico nights.
