FOREWORD: FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN ANYTHING TO DO WITH HIT PARADE/TOP 40 RADIO OF THE 1950s AND 1960s (ESPECIALLY TORONTO,BUFFALO,DETROIT AND BOSTON), AND DON'T HAVE HIGH SPEED MODEMS, IT WILL BE WORTH WAITING TO DOWNLOAD THE IMAGES WHILE YOU READ THE TEXT. THANK YOU.

ANNOUNCEMENT! WE'RE MOVING! I'm moving this website to a new location where I have a bit more capacity (ie. 10 mb vs. 5 mb) I'm keeping the existing text here for a while, but moving the pictures and audio airchecks to the new site at http://webhome.idirect.com/~radio50s

LINK TO MY NEW WEBPAGE LOCATION

NEW (December 8, 2000)-April 1958 - Red Robinson - CKWX(Vancouver, British Columbia)- Very early aircheck - See further down page

Welcome to my new (and first )web page, first unleashed onto an unsuspecting cyberworld in October 1999. This site was created and designed by your's truly, therefore the lack of the usual "bells and whistles". "Just the facts ma'am"! I couldn't have accomplished any of this without the help of a company called "maranGraphics" which puts out the very best computer books, bar none.

This site will be devoted to the music and radio stations that many baby boomers grew up with. I will be featuring memorabilia dealing with the above, such as printed material, photos, radio station charts or surveys( such as CHUM CHARTS, CKEY surveys, WHIL record surveys),and audio clips of actual radio broadcasts from that era (ie.airchecks). I hope to even show some old home movies of some of the old disc jockeys and musical groups of the era(ie. Al Boliska, Richie Knight and the Mid-nights of Charlena fame).

While this site will be primarily dealing with the Toronto radio scene, I will also include airchecks, surveys, vintage interviews with singers etc. from other radio stations, such as WKBW, CKLW, CKY, WHIL, WCOP etc. that I happen to have in my collection. Some of the exclusive, uncirculated new material from my collection that I plan on adding in the near future are:

1. Highlights from the earliest known CHUM aircheck, made by yours truly in July 1957, with Harvey Dobbs and Josh King, the "dean" of Canadian country and western and rockabilly music.
2. Brian Skinner's popular Grooveyard show on CHUM in the early 60's.
3. Norm Perry on CKEY in early 60's, spinning records
4. Duff Roman on CHUM with an exclusive interview with Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees in 1967. Duff asks Mickey tough questions about whether or not the Monkees write any of their own material. Very interesting!
5. An exclusive interview by a Manitoba radio station with Neil Young in 1967. I doubt if anyone else has this interview.
6. An interview with Elvis Presley in Germany in 1959. I don't know if this has ever been officially released.
7. Some of the CHUM "Maple Leafs Forever" radio cartoons and other such radio cartoons by CHUM in the early 60's. These were made by using bits and pieces of current songs at the time, just like The Flying Saucer and Mr. Jaws by Dickie Goodman.
9. "The Black Flag is Flying". CHUM's amazingly grisly and macabre announcements of the latest traffic fatalities in Toronto, accompanied by sombre music and grisly details. These early 60's announcements were unbelievable!!!!
10. Late 1950's and early 1960's Detroit airchecks of Paul Winter. Also, Paul Winter at a New Mexico radio station in the early 1960's. These came from his personal archives and are uncirculated!
11. WKBW's Sound Spectacular in 1961, playing all the oldies from the golden age of rock and roll in the 1950's. This may be one of the earliest "golden oldie weekend" specials known to mankind!
12. A recently-discovered aircheck of the famous Jackson Armstrong on CHUM in July 1968. No one else has a copy of this so far!
13. Some early CHUM-FM airchecks from 1972 and 1973. This was in the days when CHUM-FM had a totally free-form format, and was right over the edge. Frank Zappa used to listen to CHUM-FM when he was in Toronto, and HE was freaked out listening to the out-of-control format and music! Imagine that!
14. Some early CFRB airchecks from the early and late 1960's, and an amazing cold-war editorial by CFRB's legendary John Collingwood Reade in 1956! CFRB doesn't have any of this material!
15. An early 1960's aircheck from Scandinavia, probably Sweden or Denmark, where some American artists like Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker are played.
16. An early interview with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones on Canadian TV in 1964. This has never seen the light of day as far as I can tell!
17. The World's Worst Jokes by Al Boliska on CHUM in the early 1960's. These were recorded off the air and not from the record album from 1963 when Boliska was working at CKEY. Al Boliska and his sidekick "Just Plain George".
18. I've got tons and tons of more material from all over and hope to share a lot of it here, so keep posted. Once I get more capacity, courtesy of a web host such as NBCi(formerly known as Xoom), I'll be able to have longer airchecks on my web site.

This will hopefully be an interactive site, featuring not only material from my collection , but also material that some of the viewers may have and want to share with everyone. I'm particularly interested in finding any old airchecks that people may have made with their old reel-to-reel or even wire recorders back in the 50s and 60s. I have learned over the years that most people who had these machines back then probably recorded music off the air and may have deliberately or inadvertantly recorded the voices of the disc jockeys, newscasts, commercials, weather reports etc. etc. These types of recordings (airchecks) allow us "old-timers" to relive those old, great radio days and also others who were not around then to hear what real top 40 radio sounded like back then. Unfortunately, contrary to popular opinion, most radio stations did not keep much in the way of their old radio broadcasts, so that's why I'm appealing to the general public for this type of material.

Fortunately, there is a network of other people in Toronto and even across North America interested in similar archival radio material from their own home towns and elsewhere. Therefore, if you're interested in a particular radio station or disc jockey or time period, there may be some airchecks etc. that other people have searched out and made available on web pages or can be obtained via cassettes. I have some links to other similar web pages at the bottom of the page.

For those that may have in their posession some old reel-to-reel audio tapes or wire recordings, and don't know what's on those tapes or don't have the machines to play them on, I and others who do have these machines, can listen to and transcribe and even make cassette or CD copies for you if you wish.

I will launch my web page with a tribute to Buddy Holly, and adding new material as time allows (and deleting items possibly depending on the allowable storage on my web page, presently only 10 megs), so you may want to check periodically to make sure you're not missing anything of interest. Alternately, you can send me an Email and I'll notify you when I have added new material,

TRIBUTE TO BUDDY HOLLY, RITCHIE VALENS AND THE BIG BOPPER

OCTOBER 1999-- February 3 was of course the 40th anniversary of the tragic plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. I remember that fateful day, for on that day I happened to be using the family reel-to-reel tape recorder, taping songs off the air, as I was wont to do even back in 1957, taping songs off Canada's first all-rock and roll radio station, namely CHUM 1050 AM. Though I had already realized that it was neat to record not only the songs but also the voices of the disc jockeys, newscasts etc., on this fateful day I was just hoping to record certain songs for my tape collection. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but I thought I remember taping a Chuck Berry song, when in the middle of the song I heard a news bulletin interrupting the song. My first reaction was to stop the machine and to curse because my song was being ruined by a news bulletin. Needless to say, when I started to pay attention to what the news bulletin was about, namely the plane crash, I was quite shocked, since I had already been a fan of all three, especially Buddy. Fortunately, I had the foresight to record the next news reports on both CHUM and CKEY 580 AM.

My CHUM newsclip has been used on several radio and TV documentaries, namely CHUM's award -winning Evolution of Rock and lately a TV documentary called Rock 'N Roll Invaders. In both cases the entire clip was not used, so if there is enough interest I may put the entire clip on this website, along with some of the tribute songs and commentaries that CHUM played that very night. My CKEY newsclip, which is in fact a lot longer than the CHUM newsclip, can be heard here. I believe the news announcer may have been Howard Cooney.
PRESS HERE TO HEAR OR PRESS HERE TO HEAR (This MAY work faster with SOME computers because you may not have to download the audio clip. Ignore the funny-looking display with the large PLAY, STOP etc. buttons and maximize the Real Audio window from the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Then press the PLAY button on the Real Audio window that has popped up on the screen. I've had problems with these audio clips, so until someone can explain how to do all this better, I'll have to go with what seems to work) (PS. Oct 17, 1999 If you're having problems playing the audio clip, you may also want to check into upgrading your browser just like I had to do. The good folks at Real Audio's tech support suggested that I upgrade my Netscape Navigator 3.01 to 3.04 or even better, to Netscape Communicator 4.7. I have now upgraded to the latter, and am now able to play my own audio clip as well as audio clips on other web sites that I had been unable to do so previously)

I have also included here photocopies of the Boston Daily Record newspaper article, WHIL surveys feauturing Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, and a CHUM Chart with a tribute to all three. Incidently, I'm looking for copies or photocopies of WHIL surveys( from Medford, Massachusetts( Boston area)) from 1956 and 1957. I have a few from these years, and have most from 1958 to 1963. In general, I'm looking for any radio station suveys or charts from the 50's and early 60's, especially WHIL, WGH, CHED and any others that feauture photos of artists, disc jockies, celebrities etc.

TRIBUTE TO DON DAYNARD OF CHFI 98.1 FM

Veteran radio personality Don Daynard retired from his morning show On December 11, 1999 and we wish him all the best. For those who may not know, Don had been the long-time morning man at the very popular morning show on CHFI-FM for many years , as well as the host of the Saturday night and Sunday morning oldies shows on the same station.

The accompaning photo of the CFGM 1310 AM radio survey from November 27, 1964 shows a youthful Don as one of the "Country Gentlemen" on the country music station. He was known as Don "Danard" back then, the original spelling, but changed it to "Daynard" later so that people would not mis-pronounce his name. This bit of information was kindly supplied by L-VS. So folks, "now you know the REST of the story!"

The aircheck that you're about to hear is from November 1964 and starts off with the end of a song by Tommy Collins and then with Tommy himself introducing Don Danard. This clip (PRESS HERE TO HEAR) is made possible thanks to an old friend from Leaside, namely Martin McKinney who also had an early interest in tape recorders etc. and made some great airchecks back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. One gem which I will be featuring soon is of the legendary Ray Starr on CKEY in 1962 with his Royal Order of the Purple Candle Club show. This may very well be the only known aircheck of this amazing show. The first person who can correctly tell me what his theme song was will win a mint CHUM Chart from 1958. People who I know are not eligible, since I've probably mentioned the song to them a million times.

NEW YEARS COUNTDOWN ON DECEMBER 31, 1958 ON CHUM 1050 AM

DECEMBER 19, 1999- As we all now await the grandaddy of all New Years countdowns to 2000, let me take you back to an even more important countdown, during the golden age of rock and roll, namely the end of 1958 and the start of 1959. This is probably one of the more unusual type of airchecks that we used to make with our tape recorder. What we have here is the last 3 minutes of 1958 and a few seconds of the beginning of 1959. (PRESS HERE TO HEAR) OR (PRESS HERE TO HEAR)(This MAY work faster with SOME computers because you may not have to download the audio clip. Ignore the funny-looking display with the large PLAY, STOP etc. buttons and maximize the Real Audio window from the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Then press the PLAY button on the Real Audio window that has popped up on the screen. I've had problems with these audio clips, so until someone can explain how to do all this better, I'll have to go with what seems to work) I have also included a photo of the back cover of the CHUM Chart of January 5, 1959 wishing everyone a Happy New Year. Those of you who were around back then can try and remember what you were doing back then, and the rest can let their imaginations run wild. Enjoy.

TRIBUTE TO RED ROBINSON- APRIL 1958- CKWX- VANCOUVER

My contribution is a CKWX survey from December 1958 and a cover of Music World magazine showing Red at the Vancouver press conference with Elvis Presley in 1957. Also, I've got part of what could be the earliest known aircheck of Red, on CKWX in early April, 1958, doing a remote broadcast from the Hudson Bay Company in Vancouver. As well as playing songs like Book of Love and Pink Petal Pushers by Carl Perkins, Red displays his quick humour and charm talking to the teenage girls about pink petal pushers and slim jims. This amazing broadcast was found on a reel-to-reel tape at a thrift store by one Alex Taylor. Many thanks to Alex for saving this precious recording from what could have been a one-way trip into a garbage bin or erasure. I've included a picture of the box that the tape came in for those who might be interested. (PRESS HERE TO HEAR) OR (PRESS HERE TO HEAR)(This MAY work faster with SOME computers because you may not have to download the audio clip. Ignore the funny-looking display with the large PLAY, STOP etc. buttons and maximize the Real Audio window from the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Then press the PLAY button on the Real Audio window that has popped up on the screen. I've had problems with these audio clips, so until someone can explain how to do all this better, I'll have to go with what seems to work)

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Hopefully, my first effort with this web page will be successful, and I will be featuring other memorabilia as time allows. Keep checking to see what new material has been added, or send me an Email for updates. Kal

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