Family and friends of Los Angeles record industry veteran and ice cream entrepreneur Don Whittemore gather in Woodland Hills on Saturday, May 17, 2025, to celebrate a life well lived, 86 full years from February 25, 1938 to February 24, 2025.
Stephen K. Peeples is among the longtime friends his family invited to share personal tributes and favorite memories of “Dandy Don,” and will deliver the following appreciation (or an edited version).
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Thank you, Linda, Darcy, and Donnie, for the opportunity to join the chorus with a few personal memories about your husband and your dad.
Thanks also to everyone attending here and virtually, and to the others folks coming up here to share their truths, lies, and alibis for indulging mine today.
You’ll find a version of the following remarks with lots of photos on my website at stephenkpeeples.com.
In the early ’70s, before I met him, “Dandy Don” Whittemore was the sharp-dressed man you see in that photo of him on the steps of the RCA building on Sunset. He owned that nickname.
When I did met him – exactly 50 years ago next week, in fact – he was a bearded, hipper Dandy Don, and happily engaged to the lovely Linda Goettsch.
One of the biggest reasons I’m standing here now is because in that third week of May 1975, Don Whittemore took me, a brand-new, completely unknown music journalist, under his wing.
Back then, Don was almost the first label person I connected with as a freshly hatched radio editor and West Coast country editor at Cash Box magazine, at 6565 Sunset, a few blocks west of the RCA Building at 6363.
How I broke into the biz writing for that venerable music trade is another movie for another time.
But in a nutshell, I’d been raised by newspaper journalists, photographers, and music lovers. It was in the family DNA. I grew up loving all kinds of music. My Pop took me to my first concert, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, in 1959, when I was 8. About then, I also had a transistor radio surgically implanted, tuned to Miami’s Top 40 stations all through the ’60s. Started playing drums in sixth grade. Even took a few years of jazz lessons.
So I might have had the background to write about music at age 23, but I was raw, barely knew how to use a typewriter, had zero contacts in Hollywood. And I was borderline terrified.
About like now.
On my first day at Cash Box, Monday, May 12, 1975, I asked David Budge, the editor who’d bravely hired me, for advice. He asked what labels I wanted to contact first. I said, Capitol – because they had the Beatles, Beach Boys, and McCartney – and RCA – Elvis, the Airplane, Bowie, Waylon, and (old) Willie.
David was such a great help. He gave me a record label directory and suggested I call Patti Wright and Kyo Sharee at Capitol and Grelun Landon and Don Whittemore at RCA.
Kyo and Grelun took my calls that day, were incredibly gracious, welcomed me to the circus, and said to call anytime. I spoke with Patti soon after and she, too, became a valued contact.
But I didn’t hear back from Don right away.
Meanwhile, on my third day at Cash Box, May 14, Grelun’s colleague Paula Batson called to ask if I’d like to interview Waylon Jennings that afternoon at RCA (eternal thanks to her).
A photographer friend, Matt Cupp, was handy, and we were at RCA in 10 minutes.
Waylon was in good spirits and we had such a good conversation, he invited me to join him and his wife Jessi Colter and friends when he guested on Jimmy Rabbitt’s radio show on KMET-FM that night. This was before anybody had cleaned up, mind you.
A considerably sanitized recap was the opening item on my very first Cash Box radio column, published May 24 (page 25):
“Waylon Jennings stopped by to visit fellow Texan Jimmy Rabbit’s country radio show last Wed. night on KMET-FM in Los Angeles . . . joining in the festivities were Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser, Mel Tillis, Ken Mansfield (Jessi’s co-producer at Capitol) and his lovely wife Terry; Larry Hayes and Lynn Adams, RCA West Coast promotion men; and master sound mixer John Hensch. John was at the board mixing Waylon and Jessi’s Santa Monica Civic show Friday, May 16.”
My extended Waylon piece finally ran in Cash Box’s July 12, 1975 issue. It was my very first published feature.
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My First Lunch with Don Whittemore
Shortly after the Waylon interview at RCA and the Rabbitt show on KMET, Don called back. He invited me to lunch – not at Martoni’s, this first time, but at Simply Blues, on top of the CNN building, across Sunset from RCA.
He looked dandy but hip, while I was neither, as a longhaired counterculture-type usually wearing a t-shirt or denim work shirt, Levi’s, and cowboy boots.
Don said he’d heard from his RCA promo colleagues that the Waylon and KMET encounters went great. Encouraging, but I confided that I was running on instinct, and 99 percent clueless about the biz.
That sparked the first of many great conversations about how radio and records worked, who was who, who did what, and why. And Don clearly loved his job at RCA.
He was a quick-witted jokester with a wicked sense of humor. I wasn’t surprised when he told me later he’d done standup, among other things, in his misspent youth.
It meant a great deal that Don took the time to tune me in fast, even if he did have an ulterior motive – to hustle me for more free press for his artists. It was a win for both of us.
Don’s Life-Changing Advice
As we left Simply Blues, and walked across Sunset to RCA, I was feeling a lot less clueless. Then Don shared some personal advice that helped change the arc of my career.
“You know that Cash Box gig won’t last long, right? High turnover,” he said. “So make all the contacts you can ASAP. You’ll need ’em.”
Which is exactly what I did. Networked every day, as if it were my last.
Good thing, too, because, sure enough, after eight months, Cash Box’s management laid me off two weeks before Christmas 1975, because I refused to sell ads for the rag’s year-end edition.
But, packing my Rolodex stuffed with contacts, I used Cash Box as a launchpad for a career that went from print to records, then from radio and TV to the web. The survival skills he shared have served me half a century. And I’m not done.
In Their Hollywood Bungalow
As some of you may recall, back in mid-1975, Don and Linda lived in a leafy Hollywood bungalow at 1308 Martel Avenue, off of Fountain, and just a few minutes from the RCA Building.
On work days, Don and I would occasionally meet at Martel for a quick lunch or to decompress. I’d usually leave with plenty of inside info I could use for my radio column, and not just about artists on RCA. His network of insider spies was astonishing.
Linda, meanwhile, was working at the upstart industry trade Radio & Records, for Bob Wilson. She would also occasionally join Don for lunch at Martel, and if I happened to be there, it was cool. She never gave me the stink-eye, or told me to beat it. I guess I passed her audition. Linda, Don, and I had lots of interests and passions in common, and it was fun to hang out together.
They kindly invited me to their wedding at St. Mark’s in Glendale on December 27, 1975, and reception nearby at Pike’s. As someone relatively new in their universe, I felt honored to be among the guests. It was indeed the event of the season. So much so, that my memories of it are a tad out of focus.
Perhaps other wedding attendees with better recall who are here now can fill in the blanks about that delightful day. I just hope I behaved.
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Dandy Don’s Catered Sundae Bar
From Cash Box, my trajectory led to media relations gigs at Capitol (where my office was next to Kyo’s on the 9th floor) and then Elektra/Asylum. I regret losing touch with Don and Linda in the crazy ’80s, as I married, had a couple of kids, and in 1983 segued from the record biz to radio at Westwood One.
I’d been a writer-producer there a couple of years when one weekend I attended a backyard birthday party in Agoura Hills for a friend in the movie biz. The birthday boy’s wife had hired an ice cream sundae catering outfit called Dandy Don’s, that also catered to the studios.
The red-striped cart carrying Dandy Don’s sundae bar was designed in an old-time ice cream parlor motif.
When I got to the front of the serving line, Don and I recognized each other immediately. As if on cue, he launched a full-on W.C. Fields carnival barker spiel touting the fabulosity of Dandy Don’s homemade ice cream and how much fun you can have right here, right now, building your own sundae.
He was a riot. Dandy Don and his ice cream rocked the party. My friends couldn’t believe I knew the guy.
Many sundaes later, as Don and his crew were packing up, he and I had a chance to catch up.
He told me he’d quit the record promo game several years earlier, that he and Linda had jumped into the ice cream biz, and the catering side was taking off. They also had two kids now. He said he was loving this new phase in their lives, and being more in control of their own destinies.
I thought it was terrific that they’d given the music biz their middle fingers and reinvented themselves, necessity often being the mother of invention.
Tour of the Dandy Don’s Ice Cream Plant
Another torrent of years later, around 2011, after I’d segued from Westwood One to Rhino Entertainment to Warner New Media, then to The Signal newspaper, KHTS radio, and SCVTV near me in the Santa Clarita Valley, Don and I reconnected again via Facebook.
By then, Dandy Don’s Ice Cream was a thriving enterprise, available at retail, in several fine restaurants, and on movie and TV sets and location shoots. He invited me to visit their plant in Van Nuys, which I did on September 7, 2012.
As he gave me the grand tour, Don was properly proud of the enterprise he and Linda had built, cheerfully admitting that as president and chief accountant, she really ran the business.
Linda was away that day, but I did get to say hello to the door to her executive suite. It was festooned with signs and stickers and ephemera that reflected her love of life and the vibe at the plant even in her absence.
Over sandwiches from a nearby takeout joint, Don and I had a large time catching up on family antics and swapping tales from the ’70s.
He sent me home with a care package of assorted flavors. It was the best ice cream ever, perfect texture, not too sweet, but bursting with natural flavor.
For promotional and other considerations, of course.
Music Industry Reunion 2019
Don and I stayed in touch via Facebook, but it was almost another full-tilt decade before I saw him again. It was at the Music Industry Reunion at the Canyon Club in Agoura on May 13, 2019. I was editing the SCVNews.com website for SCVTV then, and all our kids were grown. He was in great spirits, but I could tell time was beginning to catch up with him.
We don’t always verbalize things we feel, for myriad reasons. But now, as people like us reach a certain age, we never know if we’ll ever have another opportunity. So, I made it a point to spend some time with Don, and thank him for his guidance and encouragement a lifetime ago back in 1975.
He graciously said he appreciated that, and joked that he only wanted to save me from stepping on some career-ending landmine. Fortunately, I did avoid most of them, with big thanks to him.
Music Industry Reunion 2023
At the May 3, 2023 Music Industry Reunion at the Sagebrush Cantina in Calabasas, Don looked very frail. We stood on the sidelines for some time, catching up, mostly on family. I thanked him again for his mentorship.
A few other contemporaries and mentees also stopped to say hello to Don and share stories like mine, and like others you’re hearing today.
Among them was Jerry F. Sharell, another record industry legend, who quite coincidentally was my Creative Services SVP at E/A from 1980-1983, and another significant mentor. I had no idea they knew each other.
In closing, with Linda, Darcy, Donnie, and all of us here remembering him as we do – if the saying is true, that one does not die until the last person who remembers them also passes away, I’d say “Dandy Don” Whittemore’s legacy will last many lifetimes beyond our own.
Rock in perpetuity across the universe, DW.
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Dandy Don Whittemore Celebration of Life Invitation & Zoom Link
ZOOM LINK: Please share widely!
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82464773030?pwd=D9v9OM3qPeCbyrmtUh1SQDwbhpbOHh.1
Passcode: 051725
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Stephen K. Peeples is a Grammy-nominated multi-media writer-producer and award-winning radio/record-industry veteran raised in Miami and Los Angeles by career newspaper journalists and music lovers. Based in Santa Clarita, California, he is (as of spring 2025) developing an art book-biography, “Boyd Elder, Artlaw: The Greatest Artist You’ve Never Heard Of,” profiling the Texas artist who created the skull art for three classic albums by the rock group Eagles and much more (due in 2026). Peeples is also authoring a new Digi-book celebrating the 60th anniversary in 2024-2026 of Bruce Brown’s epic surf movie “The Endless Summer” (due in summer 2026). See the “Stephen K. Peeples” page on his website. More original stories and exclusive interviews are posted there and on his YouTube channel.
Article: ‘Dandy’ Don Whittemore – A 50-Year Appreciation
Category: News and Reviews
Author: Stephen K. Peeples
Article Source: stephenkpeeples.com
