Casey Kasem

This is the forty-fifth of Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. Contributing writer, John Mason, depicts our forty-fifth pathbreaker, Casey Kasem, born in 1932 in Detroit to Lebanese Druze parents. He was an American disc jockey, actor, and radio presenter. Kasem created and hosted almost four decades of ‘American Top 40’ popular song countdown programs and provided character voices for 2,000 cartoon episodes and 10,000 commercials. His rich, velvet voice was immediately recognizable to those who grew up listening to Casey.