Former WYEP 'Soul Show' host Stephen Chatman dies of covid-19

Stephen Chatman was a different kind of radio host.

His former colleagues at WYEP remember him as easygoing at the microphone — never formal. He spoke to listeners like he was talking with friends, casually and unhurried.

“It was that really personal aspect that he brought,” said Michael Canton, WYEP’s current host of the program Chatman spearheaded, “The Soul Show.”

“That’s what people loved.”

Chatman died Monday morning from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. He lived in the Phoenix, Ariz., area.

On Facebook, Chatman continually updated his friends an followers on his worsening condition. But, for those who remember Chatman at WYEP, his death was untimely and devastating, nonetheless.

“He was way too young and way too good,” said Rosemary Welsch, afternoon host and senior producer. “Here is somebody who had so much more to give.”

Welsch was program director of “The Soul Show” when Chatman and his then-co-host, Don Patterson, pitched the idea to WYEP in 1996. The show would feature classic and modern R&B music, as well as some quality discussion on the genre and its history. Welsch said she was able to be very “hands-off” with Chatman as host.

“He knew what he was doing,” she said. “He knew his material and he presented it in his own way.”

Canton said one of the greatest lessons he learned from Chatman was the importance of knowing everything about each song they played on the show, so they could talk about it extemporaneously. Chatman had a habit of weaving the history of the music into the timeline of his own life, Canton said. He would tell listeners where he was when a song first came out, who he was dating at the time, who he danced to it with.

Welsh said Chatman instilled a lesson to all of his viewers through this quality on “The Soul Show.”

“He didn’t allow us to forget what music meant to us when we were young,” she said.

Chatman left WYEP in 2009, taking a job in Erie and then later moving to Arizona. But he remained a legend at the station.

“I don’t throw around the word ‘legend’ too often, but he is definitely a Pittsburgh radio legend,” said Brian Siewiorek, a WYEP producer.

Canton co-hosted “The Soul Show” with Chatman for three years before he moved on. Continuing the program without him, Canton said, was a labor of love.

“I have never been able to see it simply as a show, but as a mission,” Canton said. “He planted something that has to live for a long time. I’ve taken it very seriously. We never really talked about the future of the show, but by the time he left, I understood the importance of it to live forever.”

Chatman’s colleagues all remember him as unwaveringly kind, and funny in an honest, self-deprecating way. Those he mentored say he made them comfortable as they learned the radio business at their own pace. Listeners that have taken to social media consistently testify that Chatman’s demeanor on “The Soul Show” as a bright point in the darkest of times.

Now, Canton said he is sifting through crates of old show recordings, listening to excerpts and compiling material for a special tribute show this Saturday, April 4.

“It’s important, and it will be hard,” Canton said. “But it will be a pleasure.”