Mary Turner Pattiz, who as Mary Turner was a silky-voiced disc jockey at KMET, the album-oriented rock station that was the soundtrack of Southern California within the Seventies and early ’80s, earlier than leaving radio to develop into an dependancy counselor and philanthropist, died on May 9 at her dwelling in Beverly Hills. She was 76.

The trigger was most cancers, mentioned Ace Young, a former KMET information director.

KMET was a hard-rocking upstart within the early Seventies, with its laid-back jockeys delivering a gentle circulate of latest music from bands just like the Who, Pink Floyd and Steely Dan, together with barely naughty patter — a little bit of sexual innuendo, limitless stoner jokes — that was a welcome counter to the Top 40 hits churned out by AM stations.

They have been proud renegades, mixing surf studies with information protection of occasions like the Mexican government’s spraying of its illegal marijuana crops with paraquat, a lethal poison. (When Jim Ladd, a late-night D.J., informed his listeners to telephone the White House to protest the apply, 5,000 callers jammed the White House switchboard.) Their vivid yellow billboards have been ofteninstalled the wrong way up. They had a signature cheer, “Whooya” (the “w” was silent), that every one the jockeys labored into their packages; the neologism was a refinement, Mr. Young mentioned in an interview, “of the coughing sound we made when we smoked too much pot.” Ms. Pattiz — then Mary Turner — was often known as “the Burner,” a nickname mentioned to have been given to her by Peter Wolf, the lead singer of the J. Geils Band, for her seductive supply and attractiveness, and he or she had the prime nighttime spot, from 6 to 10 p.m.

When main bands got here to city to carry out or promote a brand new document, they made a cease at KMET to be interviewed by Ms. Pattiz. She was soft-spoken and conversational, a gentle interlocutor who once teased Bruce Springsteen by asking, “Do you really know a pretty little place in Southern California, down San Diego way, where they play guitar all night and all day?” (She was quoting “Rosalita,” a tune from Mr. Springsteen’s second album.) Most necessary, she let her topics speak with out interruption. For his half, Mr. Springsteen was so taken along with her that he requested her on a date, and at his performance at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., the evening after the interview, he devoted the tune “Promised Land” to her.