The Jon Pearkins Collection
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Jon Pearkins grew up in greater Vancouver on Canada's West Coast. Radio was a huge part of his life for 13 years, first as a Top 40 listener, then a DXer and finally a DJ. Unless otherwise indicated, the airchecks heard here were recorded by Jon, but since he never collected and traded airchecks, they are exclusive to REELRADIO.
Over the years, beginning February 9, 1962, his favorite stations have been CFUN Vancouver, KJR Seattle, CKLG Vancouver, WBZ Boston, WLS Chicago, KYMN Oregon City, TGJ Guatemala, KOL Seattle, CJOR Vancouver, KGA Spokane, CKLG-FM Vancouver, CKVN Vancouver, KTAC Tacoma, CKRA-FM (K-Lite) Edmonton, CBX-FM Edmonton and CKUA Edmonton. For more than 30 years, his favorite DJ was the late Robert O. Smith, known best for his 1966 hit record "Walter Wart, the Freaky Frog", which can still be heard regularly on Dr. Demento's syndicated program. From 1968 to 1971, Robert O. did afternoon drive on KOL Seattle. Jon remembers, "Listening to Robert O. really taught me by example what I needed to know about working in radio. Here was a guy without a big ego who could react, second by second, to what he was saying just as a listener would." Jon started out in 1969 at 5 watt pirate station CFAY in Surrey (as George Walker). His next stop was Simon Fraser University's CKSF (now CJSF), then UBC's carrier current CYVR (now CiTR). His big break came in June 1971, when CHQM AM & FM hired him as an operator. After nearly a year at QM while going to university, a friend got him a summer job announcing at CJAT AM & FM in Trail, B.C. CJAT-AM was a well-run Top 40 station that even charted songs no one else played, but Jon was stuck in the lackluster FM station most of the time. That only lasted six weeks, and he spent the rest of the summer on the air at CFPR in Prince Rupert, managed by a rising star from CBC Toronto. His final radio job was part-time at CFYK in Yellowknife in Canada's Northwest Territories in late 1974. Since then, Jon has been in computing in Edmonton, but hopes to retire soon and get involved in radio again. "After reading that famous Billboard article about starting in radio at 18 in Fresno for $600/month and ending up back in Fresno at 30 for $850, I was too scared to think of radio as a career. Even though my best friend thought I would never come back from CBC Prince Rupert in 1972, the idea never entered my mind to do anything other than go back to UBC for third year Computer Science." The Repository thanks Jon for sharing! |
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In 1999, an Edmonton Jobber of deleted CDs cut a deal with several Sears stores in Edmonton to stock a discount bin right beside the Catalog Pickup area. The intent was to catch the eye of customers waiting either in line or while their packages were located “in the back”. Initial stock included the complete Cruisin’ series released on CD by Increase Records, after K-TEL had given up trying to sell them. At $6 each, I bought every entry in the series, since the few I had seen previously, before they were discontinued, were selling for nearly $20 each.
As well as the original entries that I was familiar with, there was Cruisin’ 1970, recorded by Kris Stevens in 1995, trying to recreate his WLS days  and this one, simply called “Cruisin’ with Porky Chedwick”, with no date other than when it was recorded (1993), but clearly trying to recreate how he sounded on WAMO in the late 1950s.
Porky Chedwick at WHOD
The Summer 1958 edition of Vane Jones Log, then known as “Jones North American AM-FM-Radio-TV Station Listings“, lists WAMO in Homestead, Pennsylvania, as a 250 watt daytimer, on 860 KHz, a Canada-Mexico Clear Channel, “specializing in Country-Western Music programs”, and as the CD liner notes add, “Except for Porky.”
WAMO began as WHOD in 1948, switching call letters to WAMO in 1956. As of 2014, the current call letters WAOB, are now licensed to Millvale, PA, with 1000 watts day and 830 watts at night.
Porky Chedwick pioneered the music that a couple of years later would be called “rock ‘n’ roll’. He passed away on March 2, 2014, at the age of 96.
This recording was NOT a part of the Original Cruisin’ Series.
Max Ferguson is still my favourite CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) personality of all time. His Rawhide program was breakfast fare for many Canadians at a time when television rendered CBC Radio’s ratings so low they were reported as “statistically insignificant† except during Max’s shows.
Max arrived at CBH/Halifax from CFPL/London on December 6, 1946, and was soon assigned to host After Breakfast Breakdown, playing Country music, which he loathed. To both hide his identity and force his replacement, he colorfully insulted each song in a voice of an elderly ranch hand named Old Rawhide. His first show generated 3000 positive letters from listeners across the CBC Maritime Network.
In 1949, Max moved to Toronto and Rawhide was heard across the country right after the eight o’clock morning News. By this time, there were fifty regulars on the show, all voiced by Max Ferguson, in skits that parodied literary classics, current events and CBC personalities. Old Rawhide still hosted the show even after the music switched to Folk from around the world, making Max a World Music pioneer.
Allan McFee and Max Ferguson
In 1962, Rawhide was replaced by The Max Ferguson Show, airing each morning for 25 minutes after the 8:30 News. All of the characters were gone and the program was hosted by Max and his best friend Allan McFee, the original bad boy of the CBC who had been hired shortly after the CBC was created in 1936.
I always thought that McFee’s antics were fully documented in Max’s award-winning autobiography (“And Now…Here’s Maxâ€Â, 1967, reissued 2009) but a recent Edmonton Broadcasters Club talk by Allan’s board operator explained what wasn’t fit to print in 1967.
The show continued, done Live every morning on the AM network until June 25, 1971, as a combination of World Music, a bit of discussion between Max and Allan, and what everyone tuned in for: two daily skits, many of which lampooned the recent activities of Canadian politicians, done in their own voices by Max.
Max Ferguson and Allan McFee
Continuing on a weekly basis, as mainly World Music and a bit of discussion, the final program was aired on the CBC FM network on Saturday morning, September 5, 1998. Despite retiring nine years earlier, Allan McFee co-hosted every program until ill health prevented his commute; Allan died December 12, 2000, at age 87. Max passed away on March 7, 2013, at age 89.
Debuting here at the time of his death, this exhibit was originally aired on December 7, 1996, 50 years and one day after Max Ferguson joined the CBC. It opens with his signature opening theme, a parody of CBC Radio biographical documentaries, and an excerpt from an early Rawhide program where Max lampoons the pompous CBC commercial announcers of the 1950s.
As for that voice, I better let Max explain that himself:
With a desperation born of despair and with just twenty seconds to air time, I hit on the idea of disguising my voice by dropping the register, thrusting out my jaw, and clamping my back teeth together…out came the words, “Howdy! Welcome to After Breakfast Breakdown† in a low, aged, hard, flat, sloppily sibilant voice that surprised even myself. “This is your old pal Rawhide.â€Â
The 2011 REELRADIO Holiday Presentation of this aircheck marks the tenth anniversary of the CHMB broadcast on December 9, 2001. There were some parts missing in the original recording, so a few segments from the December 2, 2001 show were merged into this exhibit.
Bill Reiter’s impact on Vancouver radio is substantial. His voice is still heard most days on the radio as far away as Edmonton, Alberta. This special All Christmas, All The Time show is a continuation of his franchise Groovin’ Blue show, featuring “New World African Music”, comprised of “Jazz, Soul, Funk, R&B, Reggae, Blues and Gospel”.
Groovin’ Blue, produced and hosted by Bill Reiter, first aired on Vancouver radio station CKLG-FM in October, 1967. CKLG management wanted to air a unique program that echoed the type originally hosted in San Francisco by Russ “The Moose” Syracuse on KYA’s “All Night Flight”. AM 1320 CHMB LogoSince that original show, the Groovin’ Blue format has aired on other Vancouver radio stations including CKST-FM (Coast 1040), CJVB-AM/1470, and CHMB-AM/1320.
For this special Holiday show, Bill is DJ Zig Zag, and his co-host Sunny Wong appears as Sweet Daddy Fonk. Sunny never worked in radio, other than with Bill. One promo that includes short clips from Wolfman Jack on XERB and Art Laboe offers a clue for Reiter’s influences. He dedicates a song to the incarcerated (“things are bad, but they could be worse”) and tells a story about receiving a Rooty Toot for a Christmas present.
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CKUA has proven itself an indestructible public radio station that has been heard throughout the Canadian province of Alberta for most of its history. First, with a great low frequency AM groundwave on 580 KHz, and then, beginning in the mid-1970s, with 16 simulcast satellite-fed stereo FM transmitters across the province. CKUA began in 1922 as Edmonton Radio Supply owners’ Jim Taylor and Hugh Pearson put Edmonton’s second radio station on the air. Then known as CFCK, with 50 watts on a shared frequency, it grew to become Selkirk Broadcasting, one of Canada’s most influential radio owners until it was sold to Maclean Hunter in 1989. But in 1927, Taylor and Pearson sold CFCK to the University of Alberta for $600, and the call letters were changed to CKUA, with the “UA” for University of Alberta. A new 500 watt transmitter was fired up on November 21st and CKUA was on the air, sharing its 580 KHz frequency with three other Edmonton stations.
 CKUA Transmitter, 1927 Within five years, CKUA’s existence was already being threatened. Not by the Great Depression, but by a British Privy Council decision that Radio is a federal responsibility in Canada. Although a planned BBC style government radio monopoly never became a reality, radio ownership by “other levels of government” was disallowed. But CKUA somehow survived, first by its operations being moved to Alberta’s government-owned telephone company on May 1, 1945, and then, on March 31, 1974, to a special Alberta government entity created to meet changing federal regulations. In 1987, the Alberta government wanted to get out of anything that looked like Business, including Broadcasting, first trying to sell CKUA, then setting it adrift to fend for itself in 1994. And CKUA survived again, despite being taken off the air on March 21, 1997, by its Board of Directors. A new Board was formed after a very large outpouring of public support and donations, and CKUA was back on the air in five weeks. And hasn’t looked back since. The CKUA Style heard here may remind you of the FM Underground format of the late 1960s, but the station actually invented it themselves in 1964, well before the San Francisco Sound, thanks to the collaboration of two CKUA announcers, the late John Runge and the retired Bill Coull. John later left CKUA for a time, to help launch Canada’s first FM Underground station, CKLG-FM in Vancouver, on March 16, 1968. |
Tom Coxworth
To celebrate the 09/09/09 release of the remastered Beatles albums, Tom Coxworth‘s weekly Folk Routes program became Beatles Routes. Hour one explores the early influences on the Beatles, while Hour two looks at musicians influenced by the Beatles. Tom certainly has the credentials to pull this off, having hosted a weekly program for the last 23 years from his own 10,000 album library.
You’ll hear Bert Weedon, The Goons, Lonnie Donegan, The Vipers, Chris Barber, Gene Vincent, The Shadows, Marty Wilde, Cliff Richard, The Everly Brothers and many more, including The Quarrymen without Ringo. And that is just in Hour One!
This aircheck’s debut on REELRADIO coincides with the week of the first anniversary of the 09/09/09 release of the remastered Beatles albums.
Because I first heard this program while channel surfing in the car, I have no recording of my own. When I asked a friend at the station for a copy, I discovered that they only had the MP3 copy that they aired because Tom records the program in his Calgary home studio earlier the same week.
My friend got me CD copies of Tom’s original program masters, but that left me to re-create the original breaks and a few seconds of missing audio from the program itself. I did that by recording Tom’s program off-air two weeks later and piecing together some “best of” breaks for this aircheck.
The items in each break were chosen not just for content, but also the range of CKUA announcers that voiced them. For example, Bob Chelmick, who does the station ID in the middle of the first hour, was an announcer at the station in 1969. He left for 28 years with the CBC, where he became a popular Supper Hour TV News Anchor, before returning to CKUA in 2001 to do Morning Drive. Most recently, he moved to an isolated cabin where he does a one hour show four evenings a week.
Bob’s 1969 start date is by no means a station record. Another announcer heard each week started with the station in 1949!
The Doors – A 40th Anniversary Celebration was syndicated to radio stations across Canada to mark The Doors debut in 1967. Warner Music Canada, music retail chain HMV Music, and major station owner Corus Radio got together to produce this one hour Special, in the true sense of Specials that were heard so frequently on Top 40 and FM Underground radio. This Special was based on a single lengthy interview conducted by Jeff Woods in Autumn 2006 with Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek in Los Angeles. Of course, the majority of the program is music from the five short years of the group’s success, prior to the death of Jim Morrison in Paris on July 3, 1971.
This is how it was heard on AM Stereo Cool 8-80, CHQT Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, March 30, 2007. You will hear both the commercials included in the Special and the local Edmonton content: commercials, promos and imaging. It was recorded off cable FM from the stereo studio feed provided by the station.
Jeff Woods
Host Jeff Woods celebrated his 200th Legends of Classic Rock episode just five weeks later. It was heard on nine stations across Canada, some Corus-owned and some not. Cool 8-80 has never aired the series, and this Doors special was not part of that series. Jeff developed the series while Music Director at CILQ-FM Toronto (1997-2004), continuing while Program and Music Directors at CFMI-FM and CFOX-FM Vancouver (2004-05), and now at Corus Radio Interactive. Woods began his career at Sony Music Canada. His current position at Corus Radio Interactive sees him work with both station managers and program directors at all Corus stations to continually develop their web sites.
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To my ear, Robin Mitchell does everything right on this pair of airchecks from Seattle’s KOL in February, 1971. As off-air Program Director, he likely had not been on the air for months and probably not have been awake at 5:00 a.m., when the first aircheck begins.
 Terry McManus hitches a ride to work, 1969 |
Debuting just after the 35th anniversary of their original broadcast, this exhibit includes much of the TM “Where Your Friends Are” jingle package. These two airchecks introduced those jingles and the Terry McManus-voiced production elements to KOL listeners. These are Robin’s own studio recordings copied from 15 ips mono tape to Dolby cassette in 1988, then, more recently, to CD. REELRADIO has recreated the airchecks in unscoped stereo by adding the music.
[Songs restored in the first aircheck were not restored in the second.]
I’ve always loved Terry’s imaging work. “Serving the Northwest since 1922” shows a station that was proud of its history, which was almost as rare then as it is now  especially for a Top 40 station aiming at a “young” audience. They had a heritage to be proud of, already slugging it out in the ’50s with perpetual Top 40 leader KJR. KOL was also the station that brought the late Lan Roberts to Seattle from New Orleans in mid-1961, then lured him back from KJR in 1969 as Program Director.
 Bill Drake with Robin Mitchell, 1971 |
If you ever listened to KJR, you will recognize the Attention Tone that Robin uses so freely, and to such great effect. Its history at KOL was filled with contradictions. In the mid-’60s, when Dave McCormick brought the Drake style to KOL from Fresno, KOL had such a different sound than KJR, but made heavy use of the Attention Tone. By 1969, KOL had moved heavily into personality radio, which had been KJR’s winning formula, but the Attention Tone had disappeared from KOL. So, it is a real surprise to hear it here. But, then again, many of the KOL DJs only rarely played a jingle.
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I, like most KOL listeners, was confused about Robin Mitchell. He hadn’t had a regular air shift in years, but he voiced many of the station’s promos and ads. In fact, he left the station for nearly a year in 1969, with a short stint at KING Seattle and PD at KEED Eugene, before being offered PD at KOL. Robin began his career in Portland in 1964 with his First Phone license and a weekend job at KKEY Vancouver several months before graduating from high school.
I undoubtedly heard him, as Jerry Johnson, when he moved to Top 40 KYMN, patterned after Denver’s KIMN. Early in 1965, KYMN switched to background music, and Robin went to Oregon Top 40 stations K-GAL, KEED and KASH before being hired by KOL in 1967. In 1972, he left for WRKO, then WIFE, KYYX, KLBB, KRCK, KRXY and KKUR, before a long stint back in Portland PD’ing KWJJ-FM. He currently manages six stations in Eugene, Oregon. |
By this time, I had been listening to KOL every day for about five years. On this particular day, I didn’t hear Robin, but I do remember Robert O. Smith doing AM and PM Drive that week, to help cover for Lan Roberts’ vacation to Honolulu. Robert O. tells me that he was given a small color television by the station in appreciation of his extra work.
KOL really did debut upcoming hits, as you will hear Robin allude to in this aircheck. Proof positive is the airing of Carly Simon‘s first hit, nearly two months before Billboard charted it, three months before WLS and four months before CHUM.
If you are confused by some local Seattle references, the following explanations might help. Burl Barer‘s Nighty with the Springfield Rifle is neither dress nor weapon, but a short early evening show at a local high school featuring a local group whose biggest hit was “Start from the Bottom“. Robin’s “First, Boeing…what a loss for Seattle” refers to the Dec. 3, 1970 government cancellation of Boeing‘s Supersonic Transport (SST) contract that almost wrecked the Seattle economy.
 KOL Survey Sheet, 02-19-1971. Click to Enlarge |
To date this aircheck, Bruce Portzer and I played amateur historians. I narrowed it down by knowing that Robin returned to KOL in 1970 and that Robert O. moved to PM Drive on KOL-FM in mid-1971. A review of the music played against Billboard data narrowed it down to early 1971. Robin’s only mention of chart position is #1, “Timothy” by The Buoys, which Bruce checked against his collection of KOL charts: Feb. 12 to March 5 all list Timothy as #1. Robin referred to “Friday, February 26th” as a future date in one of his recorded commercials, and repeatedly mentioned Monday as today, so that narrowed it down to February 15 or 22. A perpetual calendar verified that 1971 is the right year, i.e. – that Feb. 26 was a Friday that year.
The final piece of the puzzle is in the newscast read by Robin at 5:55 a.m. “Last Friday night” is when retired Seattle Police officer Hazard P. Butterfield was shot to death in his home. Bruce found an Internet genealogy database but it only listed the month and year of Patrolman Butterfield’s death. I thought the easiest solution would be to contact the Seattle Police Department, but Bruce suggested a visit to the Bellevue Public Library in his lunch hour. There he found microfilm of the Seattle Times back to the 1960s. The Feb. 20 ’71 paper has the story from the night before.