Pervis Spann was an American broadcaster, music promoter, and radio personality.
Pervis Spann was influential in the development of blues music in Chicago, Illinois.
Pervis Spann was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2012.
Under the G.I. Bill, Pervis Spann attended the Midwestern Broadcasting School, before starting work on WOPA radio in 1959. Spann organized his first concert, featuring B.B. King and Junior Parker, in 1960.
Three years later, when Leonard and Phil Chess launched WVON, Pervis Spann was given a regular late-night blues slot,[1] and won attention with an 87-hour “sleepless sit-in” on the station to raise money for Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1991, Spann ran for mayor of Chicago as a Republican, but lost in the primary to George Gottlieb.
Pervis Spann died on March 14, 2022 of complications of Alzheimer’s disease, aged 89.
Pervis Spann Wife
Pervis Spann is survived by his wife of 67 years, Lovie Spann
Pervis Spann Daughter
Pervis Spann has four children – including Midway Broadcasting chair and chief executive officer Melody Spann Cooper.
Pervis Span Family
Pervis Spann was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi.
During his teenage years, he cared for his family by picking cotton and managing a local movie theater, The Dixie Theater after his mother could no longer do that because she suffered a stroke.
Pervis Spann, his sister and mother moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1949.
Shortly after moving to Michigan, Pervis Spann left to work in Gary, Indiana, and spent a time in the forces in the Korean War, before returning to live in Chicago, Illinois, where he worked in a steel mill, drove a taxi, and repaired television sets.
