Did you you read Caitlin Hernandez's LAist longread about the history of LAX and how to keep it from driving you totally around the bend? This time on Off-Ramp we're digging into one of the most surprising and weirdest aspects of the airport's history ... when the airport created a ghost-town that today resembles what LA will look like a few months after the apocalypse. We'll drive there with author Denise Hamilton, who set a novel there, and a former resident.

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.

When the Grammy Museum honored Big Jay McNeely in 2017, when he was 90, they said:

McNeely is a true original and the last of a generation of blues/R&B musicians who inspired the early rock pioneers, and are still around to remind us where popular music came from.

As Off-Ramp jazz correspondent Sean J. O'Connell put it when he interviewed him for the show: 

"Big Jay McNeely was etched into pop music immortality in 1951. Photographer Bob Willoughby captured McNeely at a concert at Los Angeles's Olympic Auditorium 1951. In the photo, the Watts native is blasting his tenor sax on his back, the camera capturing the raised fists of post-war teenage hysteria seething in undershirts and pompadours at the foot of the stage. From Central Avenue with Charlie Parker and Art Tatum in the 1940s to the R&B circuit of the '50s and '60s, McNeely was there through a roller coaster of musical evolutions and had a good time along the way. His showmanship and soul are both youthful and timeless. He is rock & roll history, alive and well."

Big Jay died a year later, but not before our listeners got to hear his story, and now you do, too.

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.

Bob Willoughby photo used with permission from his estate.

Karaoke meet your maker: We visit the Classic Rock Singalong, where everyone gets to belt out songs while a live band backs them up.

He's a New KPCC Member; Dinner Party Download: Where Anatomy meets Astronomy; Date Shake Quest: Part 1; Gary Owens Tells All; Date Shake Quest: Part 2; Caspian Rain; Date Shake Quest: Part 3; She Drew the Line; Racy Dates?; A Music Odyssey; Gary Owens' Secret Power

Why Contribute to KPCC?; He's Alive; The Ashes of Oakridge; Hard Times Hit Home; Skunk Be Gone; Food Banks in Need; Food for All; They Produce

The Eyes of the City; Tomato Tips; Thanks for the Monsters; Festival of Whales; Forrest's Friends; Mr. Indie, Michel Gondry; Mahavishnu John McLaughlin; Bamboodles; Hard Times Hit the Port; Hop on the Soul Food Express

Tomato Time; QUAKE CITY: A Sensitive Subject; Trailer Tales; The Miracle Cleaner; QUAKE CITY: Prediction Impossible; Porn Again?; Take a Pilgrimage in L.A.; QUAKE CITY: Native Mythology; Pierogi Paradise; Special Agent Man; Storycorps: Friends, Lovers, Parents; Jerry Stahl on Love Without; The Ashes of Oakridge

Dinner is Served!; The Ashes of Oakridge; Sushi Zen; Sushi 101; I Eat Ramen, Here Me Roar!; Would You Eat Granny?; Urban Survivalist; El Pollo Chino; Seven Spicy Seas; No Frills B.B.Q.; Umami=Yummy; The Best Milkshake in Riverside; Too Fresh Fish; Sushi Delicacies; Your Own Sushi Chef

Ashes of Oakridge; We've Been Recognized

StoryCorps: In Sickness and Health; Cherryholmes: Live in-Studio; Next Week: The Ashes of Oakridge; The Man Behind StoryCorps; Sparks Will Fly; Sparks Will Fly; Happy Birthday, Lincoln Imposter!; Snowdays in SoCal; Harold and Belle's Authentic Creole; For Every Lover, a Schlepometer; Bluesman John Bigham; Animation Nation