Mark Parenteau

Mark Parenteau was a well known disc jockey at WBCN in Boston, Massachusetts. Born in Worcester. Parenteau was the older of two siblings. His father, Paul, was an electric lineman. His mother, the former Lorraine Crean, helped steer her first-born into radio. She worked, sometimes on-air, for a woman who had a radio talk show in Worcester. When Parenteau was around 7, he recorded a commercial, and was hooked from then on. He began his radio career while still in high school. He started at WORC-AM in Worcester, Massachusetts, and eventually got his first big-city break in Detroit. In Detroit, Parenteau first interviewed the members of Aerosmith and became friends with singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry. His friendship with the two remained strong for his entire life. Parenteau returned to Massachusetts in the 1970s to work at WCOZ-FM and then jumped to WBCN. Along with interviewing rock stars such as John Lennon and David Bowie, Parenteau spent years giving radio time and career boosts to comedians such as Anthony Clark and the late Sam Kinison. Parenteau left WCBN in 1997 and eventually moved to XM Satellite Radio in Washington, D.C. In 2003, Parenteau was indicted on a host of charges, including sexual abuse of minors, prostitution, and conspiracy. In January of 2004, he agreed to plead guilty to a single count of child sexual abuse. (He was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy.) Parenteau went on to serve three years in federal prison on that charge. Mark Parenteau died in June of 2016 at the age of 66.