Toasting a Legendary Radio Voice and Force in Santa Barbara
Overflow Crowd Packs SOhO for Gary Fruin Memorial, with Karla Bonoff, Alan Parsons, Michael McDonald, and Kenny Loggins Performing

For three-plus decades, Gary Fruin has been a calming and uniting voice on Santa Barbara’s radio airwaves as half of the K-LITE morning shows with partner Catherine Remak. The pair have brought cheer, solidarity, and portions of good humor to the radio listening public while also supporting causes and events and local musicians on air.
Following Fruin’s death in January, from esophageal cancer at age 68, Remak organized a special public memorial at SOhO last Sunday afternoon. Not surprisingly, considering his local celebrity status and vast friend and fan base, an overflow crowd showed up to pay respects. One of the added attractions was the presence of global music celebrities who showed up to pay respects on stage — Karla Bonoff, Alan Parsons, Michael McDonald, and Kenny Loggins, all Santa Barbara–based artists who benefited from exposure and support on the “Gary and Catherine in the Morning” show.





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Friends, colleagues, and family got up to pay homage to Fruin before the musical portion of the afternoon. His widow, Camille — long a senior advertising executive at the Santa Barbara Independent — took note, as many did, of Fruin’s humility, and that “He didn’t want to take the kind of accolades we’re here to give him today.”
Leading up the musical tapestry of the afternoon to come, Remak remarked “That sometimes, when words are lacking, music fills it in.”
Longstanding Santa Barbara resident Bonoff came up to sing her hit “Home” and the fitting spiritual “The Water is Wide” (joined by tasty guitarist and harmony singer Sean McCue), leading into the section of the program featuring a strong backline rhythm section. Up front, local R&B favorite Leslie Lembo kicked things up with a couple of soul songs, and Lois Mahalia brandished her powerhouse version of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”



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Another crescendo-driven power ballad followed, in the form of Alan Parson’s “Time,” with its challenging range taken on by Michael Henszey. Parsons himself took the microphone for the lower-keyed vocal part of “Eye in the Sky.” Also in the mix at SOhO, with a career currently perched between lift off and fully grown, was the dazzling young singer Hunter Hawkins, whose strong yet subtle version of Sting’s “Fields of Barley” impressed mightily.
By some accounts, McDonald essentially stole the show, partly due to the aptness of his gospel hyphen infused vocal/piano renditions of his own moving spiritual “Peace” and “I Can Let Go Now,” an ode to lost love which took on a different meaning in this memorial. The full band then kicked up the familiar strains of McDonald’s hit “Takin it to the Streets,” with Loggins and Hawkins joining the onstage mini-choir. Loggins then rekindled the “home” theme launched by Bonoff with his early hit “Celebrate Me Home,” replete with a singalong.
In one of McDonald’s sincere tributes to Fruin, he offered a warm summation” he was a lucky man. He lived doing what he loved most and had a lovely family.”
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