Page 17 - MidWeek - June 30, 2021

Evans Has Fond Memories Of Hawai‘i Upbringing
FROM PAGE 12
he also interviewed music giants Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Frank Zappa.
school basketball games. “After only a couple of gigs, they started using their names, Sonny and Cher ... I was with them in the studio when they did Look at Us and the hit I Got You Babe,” Ev-
player for the Boston Red Sox.
Later, Evans switched over to working at KRLA.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Evans’ career became a whirlwind of excitement. For example, he did a gos- sip segment for the National Star and was the West Coast sports and entertainment ed- itor for the New York Post.
“It was 1963. That was when I met Sonny (Bono). Casey Kasem and Bob Eu- banks were disc jockeys at the station. Sonny was a re- cord guy and I was only 17. I was working at the station as the flunky helping Bob Eubanks and he brought The Beatles to the Hollywood Bowl,” Evans notes.
ans reminisces.
“From 1971 to 1974, I
JUNE 30, 2021 MIDWEEK 17
He also met people who would change his life for- ever. They included noted music agent Jerry Heller, who eventually had a movie made featuring him called Straight Outta Compton. Using know-how gleaned from part-time work for Heller, Evans started book- ing the musical act called Caesar and Cleo at high
sold a syndicated daily base- ball interview show that ran in nine markets every day, Monday through Friday, and I traveled with the L A Dodg- ers and (California) Angels,” he adds.
“I got to interview every- body from John Wayne to when they sent me out to East Lansing (Michigan) to inter- view Magic Johnson when he was still in college. And I was in some movies, Fast Break with Gabe Kaplan,” he recalls. “I had a chance to do a one-on-one with John Wayne, which was really a treat, which was about a year before he died. Great, great guy.”
One vivid memory he has is of a special person he met when the Angels visited the Washington Senators during the 1971 season.
test radio station in the coun- try. I did mornings there, and also middays there. But three different times, twice I quit and once I got fired, and all three times I left KROQ, I went back to Hawai‘i,” Ev- ans remembers.
“We walk into the man- ager’s office and I’m sitting there talking to the manager of the Washington Senators, and that was Ted Williams. That was a big deal,” says Evans of the Hall of Fame
“From 1981 to 1989, most of those years I worked at KROQ in Los Angeles, which was the biggest, hot-
In the islands, he joined KPOI in 1983 as Mike “The Hose” Evans. Three years later, he teamed up with Jay Stone at I-94 and then again two years later at the FOX.
While traveling with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1970s, Evans found time to get to visit with a number of the game’s greatest players, including “Charley Hustle” Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds. PHOTO COURTESY MIKE EVANS
“Being raised in Hawai‘i and it being my home, I miss everybody,” he says, adding he longs for local food, es- pecially malasadas. “It’s so much a part of my life. It’s just the best. The happiest times in my life were grow- ing up in Hawai‘i.”
Another twist in Evans storied life came during the early ’90s.
(Top) Mike Evans and his wife, Cheryl, enjoy some malasadas.
(Above) Evans visits an Amish farm in Canada that admired his radio reports. PHOTOS COURTESY MIKE EVANS
“I started pitching this Hollywood gossip and big-story commentary radio feature for morning shows,” he recalls. “I started calling morning show friends that I had around the country to see if they were interested, including Michael Perry, who I’ve known all these years.”
presidential inaugurations, World Series and Super Bowls.
‘Mike, let go of his hand.’” In recent years, Evans and his wife, Cheryl, have divid- ed their time between their houses in Palm Springs and Dallas, and traveling to visit their children and grandchil-
This resulted in Evans making a daily report from the courthouse during the 1994 O.J. Simpson murder trial. Beyond Hollywood, however, he has covered a number of significant events, including the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks — not to mention multiple
“I shook his hand, and went, ‘You walked on the moon,’ and he goes, ‘yeah,’ and I kept shaking his hand, and I go, ‘You’re the first hu- man to leave the planet and go to another sphere. There’s nobody in the world like you’ ... finally Tommy said,
Above all, Evans confess- es he still has fond memories of his days in the Aloha State.
“Of everybody I’ ve ever met — presidents, movie stars, Ted Williams — there’s only been one person I was so in awe of I made a fool of myself,” he says.
dren.
“I’m a golf fanatic, and I
That man was astronaut Neil Armstrong, who he was introduced to by baseball manager Tommy Lasorda during a game.
play golf four to five days a week,” Evans adds.