December 12, 2019

J. Anthony Brown Returns to The Tom Joyner Morning Show on His Final Broadcasts Week

D.L. Hughley, George Wallace, j anthony brown, rickey smiley, Tom Joyner Morning Show, Tom Joyner Retirement

Tom Joyner is winding down 25 years of broadcasting his syndicated morning show across America. His show was the first music formatted morning radio show in syndication. The others in syndication before him were Howard Stern and various AM radio talk shows.

Salute to the legendary radio host @TJMShow who is broadcasting the "Tom Joyner Morning Show" live, in-studio for the last time tomorrow. He started his radio career through protests during the civil rights movement. pic.twitter.com/12WwpeXbbs
— The Undefeated (@TheUndefeated) December 12, 2019

Before syndication Tom Joyner worked for years in Chicago radio at 107.5 WGCI. Tom arrived in CHI-Town in the 1970's at WJPC AM (the radio station owned by Johnson Publishing Company, of the Ebony and Jet magazine fame). Joyner became known as "The Fly Jock" in the 1980's as he did morning radio in Dallas at K-104 and afternoon radio in Chicago. He boarded a commercial airline daily to hold down both radio gigs and racked up over 7 million frequent flyer miles.

During this week many, many, many surprise guests called in to the show. Guests included Tyler Perry, Oprah, Jamie Foxx, and his childhood friend Lionel Richie. (Way too many to mention here.)

His final live broadcast was on Friday, December 13, 2019 as the 70 year old Joyner is retiring from radio. However the ever popular Tom Joyner Foundation Fantastic Voyage cruise will still go on in 2020. The show will go into "best of" mode until The Rickey Smiley Morning takes over in January.

Comedians D.L. Hughley, George Wallace, and his one time co-host J. Anthony Brown stop by to pay tribute to Tom on Thursday. Brown joined Thursday's broadcast as a co-host from Los Angeles, the day before the final show.

J. Anthony, now heard on the Steve Harvey Morning Show, was a big part of the show's popularity and success, having joined the show in 1996.

The Hughley, Wallace, Brown and Huggy Lowdown segments --are some really funny stuff!

[Listen below]

On the final show on Friday, Tom was joined by Sheryl Underwood, who was also a former cast member on the TJMS. She now has her own radio show and stars on the CBS TV afternoon talk show The Talk.