Lee Baby Sims

Lee Baby Simms: The Radio Poet Who Defined an Era

Lee Baby Simms wasn’t just a DJ—he was a mood, a moment, and a master of radio’s most intimate art form. His voice, hypnotic and warm, had a way of drawing listeners in, making them feel like they weren’t just part of an audience but part of a secret, late-night conversation. For three decades, from the 1960s through the 1980s, Simms was a restless presence on the airwaves, never staying in one place too long, never conforming to the rigid demands of corporate radio. He was a renegade, a storyteller.

“one of the last of the real poets in radio. ~ Ron Jacobs”

Born Gilmore LaMar Simms in Charleston, South Carolina, he was drawn to radio from an early age, captivated by the magic of the medium. By sixteen, he had dropped out of high school and was already working at WTMA in Charleston, going by the name “Hot Toddio on the Radio.” He quickly made a name for himself, his voice smooth, almost hypnotic, and his delivery more like a jazz musician riffing than a traditional Top 40 jock. His early years saw him bouncing between stations, picking up bits of style and influence from each market he passed through, refining his signature sound—cool, intimate, and effortlessly charismatic. Simms’ career would take him to more than 35 stations in 22 markets. He never stayed long, and that was just the way he liked it. He once admitted he had been fired over 25 times, not because he wasn’t good at his job—he was brilliant—but because he refused to take orders that didn’t sit right with him. “I never accepted an insult from anyone,” he said later in life. That rebellious streak, that unwillingness to compromise, became the defining trait of his career.

In the mid-1960s, Simms found himself at KILT in Houston, where he began to shape the style that would define him. He was different from the other jocks, who shouted their way through their shifts, hyping the music and pushing contests. Simms took his time. He let the music breathe. His intros were more like poetry than announcements, and he treated each record like a chapter in a story he was telling. Listeners had never heard anything like it.

His next stop, KCBQ in San Diego, cemented his legend. Here, he perfected his signature laid-back style, refusing to play by the rules of high-energy Top 40. If a song moved him, he’d talk about it for minutes before pressing play. If a playlist didn’t fit his mood, he’d ignore it. One night, after a heated argument with management, he locked the studio door, put on an entire side of The Doors’ “The End,” and left the station to get a drink. It was reckless, but it was pure Lee Baby Simms. His voice carried him to some of the biggest stations of the era—KRLA and KROQ in Los Angeles, WPOP in Hartford, WMYQ in Miami, KOIL in Omaha, and KFOG in San Francisco. In each city, he cultivated a devoted audience that felt like he was talking to them, and only them. He had no interest in being a celebrity, no desire for the spotlight beyond the glow of the “On Air” sign. He wasn’t a radio personality in the conventional sense—he was an artist using the microphone as his canvas.

Sims quickly moved up the radio ranks, but stability was never his thing. He worked at an astonishing number of stations—KCBQ San Diego, KISN Portland, WPOP Hartford, WKBW Buffalo, KOIL Omaha, KCBQ San Diego, KFOG San Francisco, and WMYQ Miami, among others—leaving a lasting impression at each stop.

At KRLA in 1971, he became part of a remarkable lineup that included B. Mitchell Reed, Don Burns, Shadoe Stevens, Russ O’Hara, and Jimmy Rabbitt. He later joined KROQ in 1973, where he occasionally went by the alias “Doc Frail,” his deep, knowing voice weaving stories between tracks. Every stop along his nomadic radio journey added another layer to his legend.

The 1970s were his peak. He pushed freeform radio to its limits at WMYQ in Miami, where he could monologue for minutes between records, breaking every rule in the book. He was a voice for the counterculture, the cool older brother who understood music in a way no one else did. At WKTQ in Pittsburgh, he clashed with management over playlists and rigid formats. He had no tolerance for corporate radio’s increasing demands for conformity. He refused to be a human jukebox.

By the 1980s, as radio became more formatted and personality-driven radio began to fade, Simms found refuge at KFOG in San Francisco. The station, with its album-oriented rock format, was one of the few places that still allowed DJs to be themselves. Here, he thrived, still crafting his on-air experience like a master storyteller, still speaking to his audience like they were old friends sitting across from him at a dimly lit bar. But the industry was changing, and Simms saw the writing on the wall. The freedom he had built his career on was vanishing.

Simms walked away from radio quietly. He didn’t fight for one last job, didn’t try to adapt to the new era of corporate playlists and research-driven programming. He had always been a drifter, and when radio stopped making room for people like him, he drifted away for good.

He spent his later years in Walnut Creek, California, far from the industry that had once tried to contain him. On January 28, 2015, Lee Baby Simms passed away at his home, battling cancer in the final months of his life. He was 72.

For those who heard him, he wasn’t just another DJ. He was a voice that could make the radio feel like a private conversation, a guide through the music, a poet in a world that was becoming increasingly mechanical. He was a relic of a time when radio was an art form, not just a business.

Lee Baby Simms never played by the rules, and because of that, he created some of the most unforgettable moments to ever hit the airwaves. The industry might have moved on, but for those who remember, his voice still lingers like the last note of a favorite song, fading into the night.