OTTAWA — Singer, songwriter and perennial Ottawa media personality Dick Maloney has died at the age of 77.
The crooner was an Ottawa fixture, performing in clubs and hosting a Sunday morning radio show called “Sentimental Journey,” later renamed “The Dick Maloney Show” on Oldies 1310.
Maloney started his career in radio and hosted a Saturday dance show on CJOH in the early 1960s. In the summer of 2006, he tripped on a sidewalk on Metcalfe Street while going to meet his wife, Carrie, for lunch. The fall broke his neck and left Maloney a paraplegic.
Although the accident diminished his voice and left him unable to move, it didn’t stop Maloney from pursuing his broadcasting career. Technicians would visit his hospital room every week, and Maloney would record his anecdotes and introductions to the songs by performers like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Maloney’s last show was broadcast on Sunday.
Veteran Ottawa broadcaster Gord Atkinson, a long-time friend, said Maloney would be remembered both as a gifted vocalist and for his engaging personality.
“Some of the recordings he did — some of his best — were right in the year before he had his accident. It made it doubly tragic,” said Atkinson. “He wrote a song for Carrie called So Little Time. It was one of the most beautiful ballads ever written.”
Funeral plans have not been finalized.