Cleveland rocker Michael Stanley died at age 72 after fighting lung cancer
CLEVELAND – Michael Stanley, a Cleveland rocker who with his band of the same name reached the Top 40 in the 1980s with the hits “He Can’t Love You” and “My Town” before moving on to a long career as a radio jockey record , died. He was 72 years old.
Stanley died on Thursday after a seven-month battle with lung cancer, his family said in a statement. Cleveland’s rock radio station WNCX, where he worked for 30 years, posted a message from Stanley himself, saying:
“Hey, guys … Well, if you’re reading this, then I’m going out to follow that big club tour in heaven. But before the bus leaves, I would like to thank you all for being part of my musical journey, both on stage, on recording, and behind the microphone here at WNCX. “
Accompanied by his signature, Stanley’s farewell continued: “Someone once said that if you love your job, it’s not really work. And if that is true (and I definitely think it is), then I have been happy without work for more than fifty years! “
The Cleveland legend released his first album while still in college and formed the Michael Stanley Band in 1974. After a brief period of national popularity in the early 1980s, sales fell and the band broke up in 1987. Stanley, also a songwriter, continued recording and touring, and remained loved in his hometown as a radio and television personality, performer and musical artist.
“He was so emblematic of that raging heart that he doesn’t care if he’s going to lose – he’s still going to leave everything on the pitch. And when he wrote these songs, those children in a city where the river caught fire and the lake died, they felt that their lives mattered, ”music critic and author Holly Gleason told Cleveland.com. “If you were a boy who was growing up in Cleveland in the 70s or 80s, he was our hand on the bronze ring.”
A private funeral for Stanley was planned.