Doug Paterson, KUOW studio engineer and East African music aficionado, dies at 72

KUOW lost one of its own this month. Doug Paterson was a trusted audio engineer at the station for almost 20 years. His work behind the scenes made much of what you heard on the radio possible. He was 72.

Doug was known for his meticulous ways, and for his love of East African music. In 1985, while teaching in Kenya, he met his wife Annah at a live concert.

“He was only the white person in the crowd,” Annah recalled. “Everyone else was of Kenyan descent. He thought it was so funny because I was dancing with everybody. He came and talked to me and asked me where I was from.”

Doug asked her to lunch, and eventually they married.

Four years later, in 1989, the couple moved to Seattle with their daughter, Salome, and soon Doug found himself working at two radio stations. At KUOW, he was a production engineer. And at KBCS, a public radio station in Bellevue, he was the co-host of the program Music of Africa.

Jon Kertzer, who co-founded the show with Doug in the early 1990s, said that Doug was one of the foremost experts on East African music popular music in the U.S.

“He’s one of the foremost compilers and people writing about the music,” Kertzer said. “He introduced this music to a wide range of people.”

Doug was a trained cultural anthropologist who would later work with record companies and East African musicians to create compilation notes, with Doug writing detailed liner notes. He wanted to preserve the music, and also help it reach as many people as possible.

“He learned Swahili, and of course, his wife was from Kenya, so he was able to translate the lyrics and make people understand what the songs were about,” Kertzer said.

At KUOW, Doug’s ability to engineer live shows made a love of music possible. The show Weekday, with host Steve Scher, often relied on him. Steve hosted the show for two decades and worked closely with Doug on many events.

“We had Macklemore on, and one of the songs they did was with the whole group — five, six people. Two vocals and then the set up for the guitar and the drums,” Steve recalled.

“At the end of it, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis both said, ‘Doug, that was beautiful,’ and Doug said, ‘Yeah it was pretty good.’ But then, when it was over, and they left, Doug said, ‘But I’m just going to tweak it a bit in the post production, because I think I can do a little better.’”

Video: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, featuring Ray Dalton

Live on KUOW’s “Weekday,” aired 01/09/2012. (You can see Doug at the 2:10 mark.)

Doug retired from KUOW at the end of 2016. Before that, he trained Tim Meinig to take his place.

“When I think of him, it’s the Doug smile. That just like — eeeee — you know, it’s like, he was so smart, and he could have done anything. He’s Dr. Doug Paterson. He’s a teacher, and a learner, and was always like that.”

Two things come up when people talk about Doug: his kindness and his generosity.

“He helped my family with whatever they needed,” Annah said. “We put children through school. He changed so many lives.”

When asked what Doug loved most, Annah smiled.

“He loved me. He loved his family. He loved music. He loved African music. He cares so much about his friends. And the list goes on.”