The first clip starts with a bit of CFNY and you hear Jim Reid ( or is that Earl Jive ?) for a few seconds at 00:55. The rest of the clip is taken from the old Ryerson College radio station, CKLN which was found at 88.1 on the Toronto radio dial. There’s a unknown announcer heard at 05:13 and then at 09:31 you hear the late Toronto rockabilly and country legend Handsome Ned. He had his own show on the station. There’s also a full news and sports cast and that part of the clip can be dated to Feb. 1985. The newscast featuring Bill Hutchins and Mark Bunting is book-ended by a couple of Gram Parsons tracks played by Ned. The audio quality on the tracks is poor.
The second clip features a DJ on WUWU FM ( James Braun or Jeff Gordon ? ) and he’s in full “modern rock” mode playing Shriekback and Simple Minds and ending the set with the comedy rock of Blotto. The DJ can be heard at 09:48 along with a few ads.
This Webcast is taken mostly from prerecorded reel to reel tapes that I purchased many years back. The quality is not A grade. I was inspired to do this as a result of a discussion about The Wild Honey album by the Beach Boys and the fact that it is advertised on the reel to reel cover as “Full Dimensional Stereo” but is in fact mono to my ears. Have a listen and you decide. Playlist includes selections from Friends and Wild Honey by The Beach Boys, Through The Past Darkly by The Stones and Let It Be by The Beatles all taken from reel to reel tapes plus a flexi-disc of Gypsy Rider by Gene Clark that came with the magazine Bucket Full of Brains back in 1988. You will also hear two Byrds tracks taken from mono vinyl recordings.
The “Stereo” Wild Honey selections start at 38:42.
I dedicate The Beach Boy’s How She Boogalood it from Wild Honey to the memory of Lou Whitney of The Skeletons. Lou passed away recently and his band covered the tune.
***A note to air check traders. Please do not record these air checks and try and trade. I have the original tapes many of which I recorded myself and thus the authenticity can not be in doubt and can be easily traced.
The DJ patter on this clip is regrettably short. You will hear John Donabie at 00:59 for a few seconds plus Roger McCall on WPHD at 19:58 and perhaps John Farrell or Jeff Lubeck on WPHD at 26:32.
The clip consists mostly of music. The John Donabie segment features Van Morrison, Al Kooper, Otis Redding, The Bee Gees ( yes the Bee Gees and have no fear no disco, this is from the time the Bee Gees were actually an FM Act), Carly Simon, Dave Mason and The Chamber Brothers with a cover of The Midnight Hour. I know these selections are all from one continuous air check as there are no pauses or stops on the CHUM FM portion of the tape. The musical selection sounds very much like what Mr. Donabie would have played. An amazing seven tracks on one set with one spoken break near the beginning. Such spoken breaks were a feature of free form radio as the DJ would do more than back announce the tracks. They would often create a narrative or theme or tell a story with non commercial spoken-word breaks mixed with music.
The WPHD segment has the final moments of an hour of the Byrds. Daily features of various musical acts were common on Free Form. I believe the announcer is John Farrell. Before that we hear “”Unkle” Roger McCaul after the Hollies. After this Roger went to WCMF in Rochester and I have a few longer clips of him there on the site.
WPHD and WBUF in Buffalo both featured various artists for an hour each weekday and John Donabie on CHUM FM did the same for half hour sets. Comedy selections were regularly interspersed into the presentation and you will hear a few seconds of the great Firesign Theater.
Chronologically speaking, the latest release date for the musical selections is Anticipation by Carly Simon from November 1971 and so I think this clip is from late 1971 or early 1972 when John Donabie was doing the 10 PM to 2 AM shift.
I wish I had more of the announcers on this but the clips does re-open a window into the world of free form radio from the early 1970’s. I would appreciate any corrections to the dates and announcer names etc. Please send me an email.
