Cynthia Doyon dead at 48: She hosted KUOW’s ‘Swing Years’, notes the P-I.

I’m really bummed out. Ms. Doyon is an apparent suicide.

She was the Saturday evening host of a retro radio show, “The Swing Years and Beyond,” and I have spent many Saturday nights happily learning about that era of American popular music in this gracious and knowledgeable woman’s virtual company.

Each Saturday, she opened the show with a slightly cheesy, deliberately old-fashioned audio montage of the sound of waves lapping shore over the show’s theme.

“The Swing Years and Beyond” was the only radio show devoted to music in the region that I responded strongly to. Ms. Doyon’s encyclopedic knowledge of her subjects and the self-effacing sense of humor that she brought to her broadcasts filled my home with joy on many Saturday nights.

I also noticed over the years that when I was up overnight, so was she: her voice was by far the most likely to host overnight shifts at KUOW, and without realizing it, I guess I had begun to consider her a part of my life – just a voice on the radio, but a friend, someone else who knew how to greet the dawn after a night of work, reading, or the black black.

I should note that I more-or-less never watch any television but nearly always have a radio on. Radio fills the same place in my life that the tube does for the great majority of my fellow inhabitants of the United States.

I am posting this before I go to sleep. In my certain sleeplessness I will envy her current peace. There’s a hole in my life. I’m sure it will close quickly for me. May it heal with speed for those closer to Ms. Doyon.

UPDATE: a few days later, I posted this entry, and both draw comments, so I’ve decided to link them.

UPDATE II: In January, 2004, the Seattle Weekly published a piece on suicide and led with Ms. Doyon’s last moments. There’s a lovely phptp of her accompanying the article, and that photo is also the magazine’s cover for the issue.

21 thoughts on “Cynthia Doyon dead

  1. truly sad! When they started the announcement of her death on KUOW, I thought she might have been ill and died of cancer, perhaps. But suicide!

    Her show was so excellent. I’ll miss it!

  2. I can’t get this woman’s death out of my mind. Cynthia, according to a note by her person, was apparently despondant about finances, and her prospects for the future,. She remained unmarried and never had kids.

    Her radio show, done for 24 years, was anachronistic. Her WWII-generation core audience is now hemoraging octagenarian members by the day, and I find myself wondering if the recent death of Bob Hope weighed heavily on her mind.

    One got the undeniable feeling that, if charged with the prospect of updating her show from it’s current 40-50’s dance music format to something more modern, that, well, Cynthia would simply not be the person for the job. This is what she knew, what she did so well, what she mastered over 24 long years, what was in her soul.

    I am welded to thoughts about parallels in my own life. We’re both 48. We both lived in Shoreline. We both, apparently share the same despodencies; I am a dot-com bust making 40% of what I used to make, exhausted my savings, and find myself wondering if I’ll ever find the one I’ll marry – the only thing I’ve ever really wanted in my life.

    Then there’s my pride-and-joy Sig Sauer .40 caliber target pistol, as shockingly lethal as it is accurate, with which I am an expert. Cynthia chose a gun.

    I looked for pictures of Ms. Doyon in the press. Not unattractive in an unsuprisingly 40’s spinster kind of way. By all accounts, she was kind, brilliant, didn’t miss a day of work in 24 years, and was well-liked at the station. What are the chances of meeting such a person? Sure knowing tells me that, in Doyon’s case, it would be zero. Sociality as it is in this day and time, somehow would never let slip such an introduction.

    Yet, all in all, I’m a lucky guy. My 86 year old dad is a millionaire, and my high-tech career has many nimble layers, allowing me to find some sort of work, where many of my more talented friends have failed. My lifelong zen practice, as well, gives me what it takes to embrace hardship like Tyler Hamilton gutting it out in the Tour de France with a broken collarbone.

    Yet what a thin line is it, when faced with the most formidable of enemies, ourselves? I can clearly imagine that if Cynthia’s future was told her, even in quite recent years, she would have dismissed the story of her real and immenent demise as a clear and apparent fiction . . .

  3. Cynthia Doyon was a person out of step with the times. I feel that way all of the time. Her show made me feel more normal, somehow. I’m glad she was able to do what she loved for 24 years. Suicide is always shocking for those left behind. I like to think I would have been able to help. I spoke with her once and said how I wished the show was on everyday. I’m glad I had that chance to express my deep apreciation for her hard work. The void she left will never be filled.

  4. I am absolutely heartbroken over Cynthia’s suicide. I have known and admired Cynthia since I worked at the station in 1988. She provided the music for my wedding reception. I remember her happily flitting around, handling the music and working the crowd. She was at my house for a party Friday night and she seemed just fine, but maybe a little too thin. She seemed to be in good spirits, she brought gifts for the kids, and really seemed to enjoy herself. When I looked into her eyes, there was warmth and welcome there, not despair. Now she is at peace and I feel despair. Cindy, why didn’t you talk to us and get help?

  5. I, too, was an avid fan and listening to her show. I feel a void…and am so sorry that she didn’t know how much joy she brought to people’s lives.

  6. I was out of town last week and did not hear the terrible news. I’ve spent many Saturday evenings over the past 15 years listening to her show while reading or playing Scrabble. Her show always seemed a joy, full of gems from yesteryear with stories to make me believe I’d actually lived then, too. Her subtle wit made any wintery evening warmer. Oddly, I had always wanted to write her and tell her how much I appreciated her show, and now feel the missed opportunity. It’s so easy to think something good like that will continue forever…

  7. I am horrified to hear about Cynthia. Her musical tastes were mine; I hope that all of us listeners will think about an appropriate memorial. Her show was one of a kind; she must have been the same. Goodbye, Dear Cynthia.

  8. I tuned into the Swing Years and Beyond last night only to hear a different host. I thought at first that Cynthia Doyon was taking the night off, then the host, Amanda Wild, revealed that Ms. Doyon had passed away. Finding out that it was suicide makes it even more shocking. I started listening to the Swing Years and Beyond in February when I was stuck in Harborview hospital after a motorcycle accident. I continued listening after I was released from the hospital and really enjoyed the show. I sent her e-mail once telling her how much I enjoyed the show and she responded almost immediately.
    I don’t know if I want the show to continue. I love swing and big band music but Cynthia was what really made the show.

  9. I work at KUOW and am deeply moved by the profound tributes to Cynthia. I didn’t know Cynthia well as our schedules did not often sync. She was a thoughtful, compassionate, yet immensely private person with a remarkable work ethic and as dedicated to her position as anyone I have ever known.

    Long before I went to work at KUOW, I listened to SYAB with my father-in-law, a D-Day paratrooper who often remarked of the importance of that era’s music and the hope and survival instinct that it instilled as a young man in combat. He often said his war experience was the best and worst of times; the music that Cynthia played took him to the best of those times; again and again, on Saturday nights that we would spend playing marathon Scrabble for five hours or so, drinking his decent scotch until our friendly allegtions of cheating and making up new words for the English language for triple word score would compell our respective spouses to leave the table.
    So many people have written KUOW to share what Cynthia meant to them, providing a soundtrack to so many Saturday evenings; so many of them pleasurable.

    Thanks to all for sharing. As someone remarked last week at a employee gathering in her honor,
    she was truly KUOW’s last disc jockey.

  10. I fell into the regular habit of listing to SYAB and Cynthia during the 14 months I spent in Seattle in 1999-2000. I have always enjoyed the genre of music she played and her warm and witty style of presenting it.

    Returning to the Far East, where I have spent most of my life, I never missed her show thanks to the streaming signal of KUOW on the web, except for the past few weeks while on vacation. Cynthia would always appear like clockwork following Prairie Home Companion on what are Sunday mornings here in Korea.

    When I heard the news finally this morning, I couldn’t help but shed a tear and shed even more when I learned the circumstances of her death.

    The one communication I had with Cynthia, an exchange of emails, was a warm one and endeared her even more to me.

    Sunday mornings will never be the same.

    Michael Wengert, NPR News Seoul

  11. The winter of 1999, our first in Seattle, was a lonely one for me and my husband. We started listening to The Swing Years and Beyond after having dinner with Prairie Home Companion. Neither of us had much affinity for swing music before, but Cynthia Doyon’s wonderful selections, interesting commentary and warm, enthusiastic, unpretentious quality drew us in. We became fans and Saturday nights something we looked forward to. We moved to San Diego and continued to listen nearly every Saturday night. The show provided a continuity in our lives, a consistent, comforting pleasure, and so much of that was due to Cynthia. I wish she could know that and I am so sorry she died. She will be missed. My condolences to her friends and family.

  12. Wish I had written Ms. Doyon to let her know how very much her program meant to me. She had a lovely voice, introduced me to so many artists I had not heard of before (contributing to my large CD collection!). I wonder if we had all taken the time to let her know how much she contributed to our lives, if she would have picked up the gun.

    I miss her so – very grateful the show is continuing. I like to think she is listening….

  13. I fully respect Cynthia’s decision to take her own life even though she will be greatly missed by all of us. I think if you’re raised well, to be A good citizen, then You go into a creative field (with its low pay and often little recognition) suicide is an ever present option because it hurts, it aches, to try and live by, exalt in, the arts when it renders life all pinch and scrape. Poverty makes a person feel so vulnerable. It’s heartbreaking to work so hard at what you love and yet not be able to pay the rent-ask any writer, painter, performer. You see a poster for a show, a CD release–do you realize how often the artist paid for that, from their own pocket? Paid for the venue? Paid for the poster? Or that The voice on the radio we love so is only paid for a few measley hours a week? We don’t support arts enough in the U.S., not for a second. Doyon’s work meshed integrity and romance and I think she lived in that old-timey dream. That she chose to slumber on elsewhere is sad to us but I know it brought her great peace…

  14. My boyfriend and I have broken up many times, always coming back together because, despite differences, we are just so madly in love. There were many Saturday nights when, instead of being with each other, we would be in our separate apartments, both listening to the Swing Years and feeling that–if a little lonely–Cynthia Doyon’s show made us appreciate the solace of being alone with good music, the nostalgia of an age in which true love was perhaps overly simplified but also simply represented in truly human ways. When we were together, coming home from weekend trips late Sunday nights, we heard her and were grateful we have love like she was playing. Our own future may be uncertain, but we are both deeply saddened that hers is over.

  15. I tuned in to “The Swing Years and Beyond” tonight for the first time since the last week of July as I have been unable to spend time with my radio until now. I heard different theme music, and then a different voice. I thought, “where is Cynthia tonight?” I also thought, “she must be on a vacation, or maybe she is sick. I have been a regular listener for about three years up to last July and, as often happens with public personalities, I felt like I knew her. I sent e-mails to her a number of times to thank her for the terrific show. I once expressed regret for having missed the last twenty years. She would always send a short reply to my messages expressing appreciation for my thanks which I thought was remarkable as she must receive many e-mails in an evening.

    So I went to my computer and brought up the web sight and saw the picture of Amanda as the host (she is doing a great job by the way) and a shock wave went through my entire body. I knew something terrible had happened even before I read the report.

    I am so devastated by her death. I cried when I read she had taken her own life. I cried even more when I read that she had never married and had no children, that she was worried about her future. I cried because people who take their own life must suffer terrible pain of the worst kind. I suffer from depression myself and so I think I have at least a partial sense of what it is like. And yet Cynthia always sounded upbeat and cheerful on her program. I am so very sad.

    Thank you for posting her picture on the web sight now as it was never there before. I see that she was a very beautiful woman. I also see now that she was one year younger than myself and that makes me so sad as well.
    As devastating as this is for me as a listener I know it is much harder for her family and also for all of you there at the station who knew her personally. My deepest sympathy to all of you.

    As a final note I present some encouraging Bible verses to show that Cynthia, and all others like her still live in God’s memory and hence have a future, a future of life on earth when all injustice and suffering will be gone.

    Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment. – John 5:28,29

    With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. 4 And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” – Revelation 21:3,4

    “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.” – Psalm 37:29

    “Happy is the people whose God is Jehovah!” – Psalm 144:15

  16. I tuned in to “The Swing Years and Beyond” tonight for the first time since the last week of July as I have been unable to spend time with my radio until now. I heard different theme music, and then a different voice. I thought, “where is Cynthia tonight?” I also thought, “she must be on a vacation, or maybe she is sick. I have been a regular listener for about three years up to last July and, as often happens with public personalities, I felt like I knew her. I sent e-mails to her a number of times to thank her for the terrific show. I once expressed regret for having missed the last twenty years. She would always send a short reply to my messages expressing appreciation for my thanks which I thought was remarkable as she must receive many e-mails in an evening.

    So I went to my computer and brought up the web sight and saw the picture of Amanda as the host (she is doing a great job by the way) and a shock wave went through my entire body. I knew something terrible had happened even before I read the report.

    I am so devastated by her death. I cried when I read she had taken her own life. I cried even more when I read that she had never married and had no children, that she was worried about her future. I cried because people who take their own life must suffer terrible pain of the worst kind. I suffer from depression myself and so I think I have at least a partial sense of what it is like. And yet Cynthia always sounded upbeat and cheerful on her program. I am so very sad.

    Thank you for posting her picture on the web sight now as it was never there before. I see that she was a very beautiful woman. I also see now that she was one year younger than myself and that makes me so sad as well.
    As devastating as this is for me as a listener I know it is much harder for her family and also for all of you there at the station who knew her personally. My deepest sympathy to all of you.

    As a final note I present some encouraging Bible verses to show that Cynthia, and all others like her still live in God’s memory and hence have a future, a future of life on earth when all injustice and suffering will be gone.

    Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment. – John 5:28,29

    With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. 4 And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” – Revelation 21:3,4

    “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.” – Psalm 37:29

    “Happy is the people whose God is Jehovah!” – Psalm 144:15

  17. I was stunned to hear that Cynthia had committed suicide. Even moreso that it seems she didn’t confide in anyone, at least that we know of. And her show was so loved, and long-running.

    Let’s not let that happen to anyone else. Let’s watch out for each other, and not be afraid we’re intruding when we encourage someone to talk. And to those among us who are depressed: talk to someone. Even call a crisis hotline. They’re there 24 hours a day. An option if it’s too embarassing to talk to a friend.

    God bless, especially Cynthia’s family, friends and colleagues.

  18. I moved to Seattle in 1983, fresh out of college. As a lover of Jazz Music I immediately fell in love with “The Swing Years and Beyond”. I spent much of my high school and college years playing in Jazz Bands and so it was inevetable that I would be impressed and captivated by the knowledge and understanding that Cynthia had for the music that she and I both loved.

    My years in Seattle were not happy ones. I struggled professionally and personally. Many Saturday nights Ms Doyan and her music were my default date for the evening and often I would fall to sleep to her music and to the rhythms of her lovely, gentle voice.

    Once at a party I met a couple who were KUOW board members. Of course what I wanted to know was “do you know Cynthia Doyon, and what is she like?” I told them how much I admired Cynthia’s show and was surprised to find out that she was not much older than I was (+5yrs). They suggested I should write a note of appreciation or even drop by the station to say hi. I couldn’t believe that this lady who I practically idolized might be accessible to an ordinary listener. I didn’t take their advice and never met Cynthia.

    After 6 years in Seattle I moved to Portland (native Oregonian, nuff said) and found a much more rewarding personal and professional situation. I was happy to get out of Seattle but I knew that I would miss Saturday nights with TSWB.

    I eventually learned that I could listen to the show over the internet. It was a delight to hear that music and Cynthia’s wise and gentle voice again.

    My listening was sporadic and thus it’s only now – 4 months after the unbelievable event – that I find out that my lovely friend is gone. The way that she chose to leave only compounds the sad news. I cried to think that the one who brought so much warmth and comfort to this lonely music lover apparently could not find the comfort and support to see her through her dark night of doubt and depression and safely into a new morning.

    To Cynthia (from Johnny Mercer’s Skylark, a TSWB favorite)

    And in your lonely flight,
    haven’t you heard the music in the night?
    Wonderful music
    Faint as a will o’ the wisp
    Crazy as a loon
    Sad as a gypsy serenading the moon.

    Oh Skylark
    I don’t know if you can find these things
    but my heart is riding on your wings
    so if you see them anywhere, won’t you lead me there?

    Oh Skylark, won’t you lead me there.

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