The Gary Tinnes CKLW Collection

The first five minutes of this composite of Johnny Williams was taken from a 30-minute segment recorded in May 1972. This was about a month after I started working at CKLW. We were still at the old studios on Riverside Drive. We would always mix from a radio receiver in the studio so that we heard exactly what was going on the air. I think the background noise may have been from when we switched to a 5 KW transmitter, on Sunday nights, so that they could do maintenance on the 50 KW transmitter. I think we were the only station, on the air and playing rock music, on Sunday night. Everyone else was either off the air or dumped their religious programming into that time slot. There is a complete promo for the CKLW Top 300 of 1972.

“would you put on your hub caps please” “who wants wine, I’ll take the girl” “George Baker Selection and his Little Green Bag… I think I took her out last night” “what you see is what you get, an underfed, underpaid, disc jockey” “Hollies, he ain’t heavy, he’s the competition… uh-huh..what competition” “clean up the slippery spots in your work area… ok, Mr. Engineer, get out” “well son-of-a-gun yourself… what’d you expect KHJ?” “it takes two… I knew I was doing something wrong” “we’ll send that one out to the PJ party in Hazel Park, and, uh, girls, I forgot my toothbrush there last night” “this is solid gold, and Three Dog Night, Mama Told Me Not To Cooommmme” “your momma don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock’n’roll… what do you do… oh, I can’t say that” “fee, fi, foe, fum…look, there goes my Sealy again” “jumbalaya, honey, catfish pie, what does he say there… I don’t want to eat it anyway” “high time we went, certainly is, but I don’t have a dime” “the best news I’ve seen in a long time, the four parties in the Vietnam war signed a peace treaty in Paris this morning” “Blue Haze and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and then it gets in your throat and you sound like this…” “Peggy Scott, Jo Jo Bension, let’s you and I go to the no-tell place” “Funkadelic, your folks and my folks gettin’ together… gee, I hope we don’t get caught” “Edwin Starr, You See My Baby, SOS, that’s not army talk, stop her on sight” “Three Dog Night, my all time favorite, Mama Told Me Not To Come, but I went anyway… so take that mama”

The next five minutes was ‘scoped from a 35-minute segment from September 1972. We had moved into the new studios that summer. They had started to implement changes to the sound and you can hear the difference. You will hear parts of Crazy Jack’s Sound Factory spots. In hindsight, I wish I had taped the entire spot. Some of them were really creative.

The next eleven minutes comes from a one and a half-hour segment in January 1973. The rest was taken from various shorter segments.

There is a Christmas Wish promo for a date with Byron MacGregor, around 29 minutes into the segment, with voice over by Eddie Rogers. This was not recorded off the air, but it was featured. It includes the Christmas Wish jingle, probably one of the nicest jingles ever made.

[Description by Gary Tinnes]Alice Cooper (left) with Ted Richards (right), 1975. © 2001, Gary Tinnes

This is Ted Richards’ 1974 Halloweenie show (6-9 pm) on CKLW.
It features the Celebrity Suspect Contest with the voice of Lieutenant Kojak (Telly Savalas).

Ted also talks to Kafildafitch, The Motor City Witch.
I believe the voice of Kafildafitch is the program director’s secretary who shall remain unnamed. This is virtually the entire show, scoped, of course.

Contributor Gary Tinnes (left) with Ted Richards (right), 2002.© 2002, Gary Tinnes

I took the picture of Ted with Alice Cooper when he came (to CKLW) in 1975 & 76. It was probably taken in 1975.
I did both of those (Alice Cooper) shows but I never thought of recording them. The novelty of recording the sets had worn off by then, I guess.

The other picture was taken in the CKLW lobby at the Big 8 reunion in 2002. Ted is on the right, with me on the left

[Description by Gary Tinnes] Mike Kelly, from a December 1973 CKLW TOP 30 The first ten minutes of this segment is an hour and twenty minutes of Mike Kelly’s second show on CKLW in February 1973. You will hear Max Kinkel’s top of the hour jingle since they did not have a jingle for Mike yet. I tried to keep as much of the material around the set as I could while trying to make it flow. You will hear parts of Crazy Jack’s Sound Factory spots. In hindsight, I wish I had taped the entire spot. Some of them were really creative. The remainder of the segment is various sets over the next several months in 1973 (according to my notes). However, you hear several different styles of jingles (e.g., Motor City Rock, The Beat Goes On). So it may not be all 1973, but they were tinkering with the format at the time. Mike Kelly and Jo Jo Shutty, CKLW Reunion, October 2002. Picture Copyright 2002 Gary Tinnes The segment has lots of layovers. Mike was always up for trying a layover. Some were not so great. Two of my favorites are the Amboy Dukes, Journey to the Center of Your Mind, and the Who, Won’t Get Fooled Again, over the top of the hour jingle. You will also hear the “not available in Ontario” tags at the end of U.S. beer spots and the voices of Pat Holiday, Johnny Williams, Marc Daly (news), Randall Carlisle (news), and Max Kinkel (not available in Ontario tag recorded with the spot — usually the jock said it live). I took the picture of Mike with Jo Jo Shutty at the Big 8 reunion in October 2002. Mike passed away in August of 2005 in California.

[Description by Gary Tinnes] Ted (The Bear) Richards is a perfectionist and an extremely talented guy. You didn’t just do his show, you lived it. Allan and Donny Osmond (left) with Ted The Bear Richards (right). Photo copyright 2001, Gary Tinnes On Sunday nights, he started doing these “stars” nights. You will hear various clips recorded by Pat Holiday (as Billy Preston, Ed Sullivan, John Wayne), Marc Daly (Fats Domino), etc. You will hear Ted trying to lower his voice to sound like he was doing the voice because officially we weren’t supposed to be running taped clips like that. It didn’t fit the format. I think that privilege was reserved for the Gary Burbank show in the morning. The second segment has a High-Low Jackpot contest with a very young contestant. See if you can figure out her answer! The background noise is not another station but leaking from the other track on the tape. The clip is not the best quality, but priceless.

[Description by Gary Tinnes] Rick Dees (and his Cast of Idiots) joins Tom Shannon, Byron MacGregor and Jo Jo Shutty on CKLW in 1976. This aircheck was made after Dees left WMPS and just a few days before he returned to WHBQ in Memphis. Part 1 of this two-part aircheck was recorded between 7:00 am and 8:00 am, and features: Rick Dees voices: Elvis, Dog Man Dees, CB Sissy, and Billy Graham Byron MacGregor and Jo Jo Shutty Rick talks about the beginning of his radio career. Premier of Bad Shark Page 602 (in the Sears catalog) and the National Wet-Off Shannon talks with Dees about the disco era, his real name, conflict of interest at WMPS, and “Barely White”.

This is a composite of three short clips. The first clip features Max Kinkel and The Sound of ’72. It begins with a Bill Withers voice clip and a layover of Lean On Me. The voice of Pat Holiday and various other staff members are heard on A Moment from Yesterday contest.The second section includes some clips from a Saturday morning show with Dave Shafer. Shafer passed away May 7th, 2006 from complications following sinus surgery.

Layovers, what Big Eight Board Ops were noted for, are sprinkled throughout my clips. I usually taped layovers to hear them later and determine how good (or bad) they were. The third section of this composite includes several layovers taped in isolation. The layover of Big Girls Don’t Cry goes into an edited clip of Marc Daly news, and the layover into Corina, Corina is coming off the news with Randall Carlisle.