Longtime Santa Rosa radio broadcaster Hank Bassior dies at 76

For a good many years, Sonoma County music lovers and radio listeners savored the voice and wide band of talents of Hank Bassior.

From the mid-1970s to the mid-’90s, Bassior worked the mic as a musician and a broadcaster. Older listeners of KZST-FM may recall his Sunday evening program that began with classical music and transitioned to conversations with guests fluent in politics, the environment, health, the arts and all manner of topical issues.

“He was that rare combination of intelligence, truth, talent and compassion that gave you hope,” said Brent Farris, the station’s morning voice.

Bassior died April 3 at a Santa Rosa hospital. He was 76.

“He was really fighting to stay with us,” said his wife of 30 years, Mary Myland Bassior of Sebastopol.

Her husband confronted serious health issues since 2010, when he suffered a heart attack that shut down his kidneys. Despite his struggles, his wife said, he lived with gusto and joy to the end.

“He had such a strong spirit,” she said.

Hank Bassior was born and grew up in Montreal, Quebec.

“His love of radio began as a high school kid,” Mary Bassior said.

He was a teenager in his first year of college when a mostly French station in Saint-Jérôme brought him on to provide some English language programming. After attending Montreal’s Sir George Williams University, he moved to Sarnia in Ontario, Canada, and took a job at a radio station.

From there he returned to Montreal and, calling himself HK Bassior, joined the on-air crew at CKGM. As was typical in radio in those days, he reported news, played records, hosted a talk show, did whatever needed being done.

Mary Bassior said he was in his mid-20s when he resigned and took off for an extended European adventure. While in Paris, he made some traveling money by playing his guitar and singing on the streets.

“Hank had a beautiful voice, like Gordon Lightfoot,” his wife said.

Upon returning to Canada, he was hired back on at CKGM as a broadcaster and operations manager. In 1969, he left Montreal for Los Angeles, where he married, worked in sales and began to write songs.

He and his first wife, Jean-Noel Bassior, formed a musical duo and began to schedule performances.

As “Hank and Jean,” they relocated to Sonoma County in 1974 and found a regular gig at the Lyon’s restaurants - like the one where Santa Rosa’s In-N-Out Burger is now - which had cocktail lounges. They separated in about 1980.

Hank Bassior returned to radio, hiring on to KZST to create commercials and host the Sunday evening program. A few years later, Mary Myland joined the station’s sales staff.

“We met my second day of work, which happened to be his birthday,” she said.

They married in 1986. They gave birth to two daughters, Lila and Liana, both of whom inherited their dad’s love of music and performing.

At a memorable point in 2008, Lila appeared in the cast of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” at Cal State Fullerton just after Liana performed in the same musical at Sebastopol’s Analy High School.

Their father the broadcaster and musician was also adroit as a voice-over performer and someone who could write, produce and act the speaking part or parts of a radio commercial. For a time, he was staff announcer for the former KFTY-Channel 50, and the radio voice of the former Petrini’s markets.

“Hank could do it all,” his wife said.

Bassior continued to work in radio advertising as an independent contractor after the heart attack and resulting kidney failure of nearly six years ago caused him to undergo dialysis several times a week.

His wife and their daughters, both of whom live in the Los Angeles area, were with him when he died at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

Bassior is also survived by sisters Karen Abramovitch and Jewel Smith.

His family anticipates there will be a celebration of his life later this spring.