Gary Burbank

Burbank circa 1973.

Gary Burbank was born William Purser on July 29, 1941 in Memphis, the son of a fireman and a housewife. "My dad was also a songwriter. He had a couple of things recorded. He was a bit of a poet." Billy Purser grew up in the Memphis of the '50s, a red hot music town. "At one time Elvis lived in the same neighborhood," said Burbank. "Johnny Cash was on my paper route. He didn't take the paper though."

He learned to play the guitar and sing. And while he was in high school, he started his own band, Billy Purser and the Red Hots.

After completing high school in 1959, he joined the Army. His unit went across to Europe on a troop carrier. He suffered from seasickness, and kept throwing up everywhere. Some time during the journey, somebody mentioned there was an opening on board, for a drummer in a band. He knew how to hold the sticks. He was coordinated enough to keep the beat a little bit. So he talked himself into the job to avoid doing undesirable duty, like swabbing the deck.

He was discharged in '62, but the only skill the Army had taught him was playing drums. He went back to school, to Memphis State. After two semesters he decided to dive in all the way at being a musician.

He did session work at Stax records and played with such Memphis music legends as Rufus Thomas, Ace Cannon and Gene Simmons. Then he became the drummer in the Mar-Keys shortly after they had a hit with "Last Night."

Gary's infamous WAKY drunk on the air show on New Year's Eve 1972.

Music is a long road, and unless you have a big hit or a big bank account, a hard road. And Burbank now had a wife and a son. He decided to quit the band and go to radio school while working two jobs to support his family. After graduating, he took a job at KLPL-AM in tiny Lake Providence, Louisiana.

He headed west to Monroe, Louisiana, then back east to Jackson, Mississippi, before landing in Memphis and WDIA, the soul station. He was Johnny Apollo, your blue-eyed soul brother on the front row, putting slide in your glide, dip in your hip, bump in your rump, always playing scoot-your-bootie, roll-your-belly music.

He put some slide in his glide and slid on back to Jackson, then scooted his bootie back up to Memphis to WMPS. Then the offer came from WAKY in Louisville, and he leaped at the chance.

He arrived in the fall of 1968, a skinny Southern kid with a huge voice and not much else. But it was at WAKY that Billy Purser aka Johnny Apollo, officially became Gary Burbank, a name taken from radio and television legend Gary Owens, who as a regular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In would announce that he was broadcasting from "beautiful downtown Burbank." (Burbank's natural voice is remarkably similar to Owens' on-air voice.)

Burbank sopped up the technical stuff, how to keep a show moving, how to use his diaphragm, but the maturation wasn't complete. He still wasn't "Gary Burbank."

He had always read widely, who had always joked about the foibles of local politicians, altered his humor. It was no longer the old deejay stuff, "Did you hear what the mayor said last night?" Now he began using voices and creating fictitious characters and entire scenes.

Gary Burbank had arrived. But his first marriage didn't survived the trip. He has since remarried. He met Carol Anderson, his current wife, during his WAKY years.

Before he became Gary Burbank at WAKY, he was "Johnny Apollo" at various other stations. At KUZN in West Monroe, Louisiana, he was "Johnny Apollo The Weird Beard." Hear his final few breaks at KUZN on July 14, 1967. KUZN Johnny Apollo Aircheck (5:48).

Gary in 1969 (3:53), GB in 1971 with commercials and news from Michael Summers intact. 1971 (19:02), 1972 #1 (16:20), 1972 #2 (13:44), 1973 #1 (This includes a Jason O'Brian remote break.) (4:24), 1973 #2 (5:11), 1973 #3 (4:49), 1973 #4 (12:43) 1973 #5 (8:08), 1973 #6 (13:28) Here's the first part of Gary's final WAKY show in 1973. Gary Burbank's Last WAKY Show (7:47).

Gary gets shot during his last hour on WAKY in 1973. Gary Burbank Gets Shot (6:33), and GB does mornings at WNOE in April 1974 with news from fellow WAKY alum Len King. Gary Burbank on WNOE (7:35).

At that point, he moved to New Orleans for a brief stint as program director of WNOE. From New Orleans, Burbank went on to CKLW, and then back to Louisville for a long successful afternoon gig on WHAS-AM.

Burbank left Louisville again for a brief spell in Tampa, Florida at WDAE, but moved to the Ohio Valley in 1981 when he signed with WLW, originally doing morning drive time but later moving to afternoons. It is there that he has enjoyed his greatest success, developing his best-known characters:

Earl Pitts

Gilbert Gnarley, senior citizen who made crank calls to various people and businesses.
Earl Pitts Uhmerikun, a full-blooded redneck who makes daily commentary on everything from politics to family to friends.
Eunice and Bernice, the "Siamese twins joined at the telephone" ("turr-a-bull, turr-a-bull, turr-a-bull")
The Right Rev. Deuteronomy Skaggs, radio preacher who encouraged listeners to "dig in them jeans and pull out them greens" (money). Skaggs and Eunice and Bernice carried over from Burbank's WHAS days.
Ranger Bob, children's show host.
Riley Gert, of the U.S. Senseless Survey, who prank calls people asking obscure and sometimes awkward questions for the Survey. Riley was not actually a characterization of Gary Burbank, but of his sidekick Doc Wolfe.
The Synonymous Bengal, a mole in the Cincinnati Bengals organization who calls in to provide anonymous rumors about the team using frequent malapropisms.
Dan Buckles, newscaster (takeoff on Dan Rather and David Brinkley); his on-air partners, Kevin "Doc" Wolfe and Leah Burns, portrayed vocal spoofs of Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer in the news segment. Buckles didn't hide the fact that he loved to dress in women's clothing and often made comments about his high heels or how tight his dress happened to be as he transitioned from one news item to the next.
Bass Ackwards, news commentator

Howlin' Blind Muddy Slim

Howlin' Blind Muddy Slim, Your 60-Minute Jelly-Belly Toejam Man (a/k/a Blues Break 201), a Friday afternoon music show which featured blues artists as guest stars.
Lars Peavey, talk show host (tribute to the comedy team of Bob and Ray)
Ludlow Bromley, the "richest dude in the world" (named after Northern Kentucky cities)
Thelma Hooch, helpful hints, Maw Hirishi, advice columnist, and Bruiser LaRue, football player.
Big Fat, AKA, The Big Fat Balding Guy With a Stubby Cigar in His Mouth and His Pants Half-Zipped, pushy con man seller of worthless junk. Often joined by his mascot, Timmy the Termite who would endorse the product or pretend to be a famous celebrity endorsing the junk. Sign off line was always "And dis time I'm being honest wit' youse."

WHO SHOT JR?

Burbank regularly satirized former Cincinnati mayor Jerry Springer, along with other local politicians, newscasters, and celebrities, such as former Cincinnati Reds owner "Saint CEO" Marge Schott. Satirical radio serials were also used to lampoon the (often struggling) Reds baseball team ("The Reds and the Restless") and the Cincinnati Bengals ("All My Bengals"). Burbank also hit the Top 100 in 1980 with the song "Who Shot J. R.?", a novelty record about the cliffhanger on that year's season finale of Dallas.

Another feature of his show was the sports trivia quiz show Sports or Consequences which ran during the 4:00 hour during his afternoon show on 700 WLW. The show was unusual in that the callers asked the hosts (Burbank and his supporting cast, plus a number of other WLW on air personalities) sports trivia questions, instead of the hosts asking the callers questions.

Burbank often did his show from a home in north central Florida, while the rest of his show's cast and crew was in the WLW studios in Cincinnati.

Burbank's show in the late 1990s was syndicated out of WLW to other regional stations (including WTVN in Columbus, WAKR in Akron and WERE in Cleveland). By 1999, the show would revert to being only on WLW, although a weekly "best-of" show dubbed the Weekly Rear-View – which featured mostly character bits and little-to-no Cincinnati-centric material – would run until his retirement. The network (and eventually, the program itself) was called "The BBC: The Broad-bank Burb-casting Corporation," a send-up of Gary Owens' classic line.

Gary guests with Johnny Randolph on WAKY-FM to talk about Burbank's biography and his time at WAKY. (October 14, 2009) Gary Burbank on WAKY-FM (57:59)

Burbank has won several major awards, including back-to-back Marconi Awards as Large Market Personality of the Year in 1990 and 1991.

In November 2012, Burbank was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: 79 WAKY, LKY Radio.

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Joey Reynolds

Joey Reynolds is the pseudonym of Joey Pinto, long-time radio show host and disc jockey.

Reynolds' radio career started at WWOL in Buffalo with Dick Purtan, then WKWK, in Wheeling, WV. He continued at several venerable stations, including WKBW in Buffalo, New York, WNBC and WOR in New York, KQV in Pittsburgh, KMPC and KRTH in Los Angeles, WDRC in Hartford, WIXY in Cleveland, and WIBG and WFIL in Philadelphia.

Rockin' the 60s.

He rose to fame as a Top 40 radio personality during the 1960s and 1970s, amassing large audiences in places such as Hartford, Connecticut, Cleveland, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and his hometown of Buffalo, New York. Reynolds is often regarded as an early progenitor of "shock talk radio", whose outlandish on and off-air stunts garnered widespread publicity.

Whereas most radio stations and DJs had jingles cut in Dallas by Pams or TM, Joey got Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons to crank out a custom version of his. It was recorded after he wrote the liner notes to their "Sherry" album. Also during his time in Buffalo, he and fellow DJ Danny Neaverth recorded a novelty single entitled "Rats in My Room" (a rearranged cover of a Leona Anderson song of the same name).

This WKBW aircheck gives us a taste of the excitement when the Fab Four first arrived in North America. Everybody was talking about the Beatles except Reynolds, who thought the Beatles weren't much better than the "best group in each and every town in this country." Nonetheless, he plays lots of Beatle tunes on his show. February 22, 1964 [ LISTEN ] (46:24)

Reynolds and Neaverth, on behalf of WKBW, were offered the chance to bring The Beatles to Buffalo Memorial Auditorium on February 10, 1964, the day after the band had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. It would have been the Beatles' first concert in North America.

Joey’s career began in the 1960s in Hartford (WPOP, WDRC), Buffalo (“KB Radio” WKBW), Cleveland (WIXY), L.A. (KMPC) and Philadelphia (both WIBG and WFIL). Here is Joey in Detroit on WXYZ in 1966. (30:09)

The date is April 19, 1966. WXYZ 1270 is set on your radio dial. The time is 9:00 PM on a Tuesday evening here in the Motor City.

Coming in fresh from Cleveland’s WIXY, listen in as Joey Reynolds introduced himself on The Joey Reynolds Show for the very first time when he first came over to Detroit.
[ LISTEN ] And here is Joey again, this time about one month later, in May of 1966. [ LISTEN ]

Unwilling to risk the $3500 appearance fee for a Monday night concert, in the poor February weather, for an unproven band he did not expect to sell out the auditorium, the two declined the offer. It was not until after Beatlemania swept the nation that they acknowledged that it was a mistake to not bring them in. In the three years the band toured North America, they never performed a show in Buffalo.

Joey Reynolds was in the category of disc jockey, playing music on music intensive radio stations from the very late 1950s until the mid-1980s during his time on Z100 and WFIL.

In 1986, he arrived at the former WNBC in New York City doing the afternoon drive, Howard Stern's previous shift. That station was attempting to move into a more talk intensive full service format with music taking a backseat but still heard. Reynolds was basically playing a mix of oldies and adult contemporary cuts along with comedy and personality, and was most notably on the air when the station's traffic helicopter crashed, killing reporter Jane Dornacker. He exited WNBC at the end of February 1987 and was replaced by Alan Colmes.

Joey's at WNBC in New York between January 7th and 11th, 1974. [ LISTEN ] (1:27:08)

This starts out with Reynolds’ trademarked theme song sung by Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons. You’ll hear plenty of callers, some of whom remember Reynolds from WKBW Buffalo – and they do mention call letters on the air. In fact, Reynolds even mentions WMCA by calls and ‘the left most station to the right’. He even plays a Dan Ingram jingle!

His next stations were morning shows and at that point Joey had evolved into more of a talk intensive program. He was less a DJ and more like a talk show host. By 1995, Joey was no longer playing music on his shows and in 1996 he arrived at WOR in New York. He has been a talk show host since.

While Reynolds' present persona can be considered mellower by comparison, he still retains a loyal audience. In Denver, Colorado, he hosted a radio-television simulcast on KOA-AM, and launched (and hosted) the first nationwide satellite radio programming featured on more than 35 radio stations coast-to-coast.

Reynolds' career memoir is titled, "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella, But Don’t Get a Mouthful of Rain". He maintains a second home in Florida and spends most weekends with his two daughters.

On March 10, 2010, it was revealed that WOR would pick up Coast to Coast AM from Premiere Radio and would cancel "The Joey Reynolds Show." (Coast to Coast had been heard on crosstown rival WABC for several years, before that station dropped the show in favor of an in-house offering from Doug McIntyre, which led Premiere to seek WOR as the new New York affiliate.) Reynolds' last show, which was segregated into the "Final Gay Hour," the "Final Jewish Hour" and "The Final Hour," aired the morning of April 3, 2010.

Reynolds later hosted All Night with Joey Reynolds on WNBC-DT2, the digital subchannel of television station WNBC-TV known as "New York Nonstop." It was broadcast live from the NASDAQ site in Times Square at 43rd Street and Broadway. Reynolds was reunited with his former WNBC radio sidekick, Jay Sorensen, as the program's announcer. The series ended on April 25, 2011.

Reynolds made a cameo appearance on the ill-fated Buffalo Night in America broadcast on WBBZ-TV in July 2012.

Beginning on September 18, 2016, Joey returned to radio on WABC-AM in New York with a Sunday evening program, The Late Joey Reynolds Show.

Taped at Art Vuolo's birthday party on Sept. 26, 2010, here are two radio legends (with a third - John Records Landecker thrown in for good measure) Shotgun Tom Kelly (KRTH-101) and New York's Joey Reynolds, telling some cool stories! This segment focuses on how Shotgun Tom got his "Shotgun" name.

WHERE DID JOEY WORK? Here is the list: KQAQ, WNDR, WPOP, WKBW, WDOK, WIXY, WXYZ, WDRC, KQV, WIBG, KMPC, WGAR, KRTH, WHTZ, WHYT, KMGG, WFIL, WHLW, WNBC, WSHE, WQAM, WIOD, WBZT, WFLY, and WOR.

Some of the materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Motor City Radio Flashbacks, Airchexx, videoholics2000s, Rock Radio Scrapbook, Geoff Fox, Man From Mars.

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Gary Stevens

Consider for a moment how the major broadcasting chains evolved into the forces they are today: companies like Westinghouse, Bonneville, Gannett and Malrite, all rich in history but not quite like Doubleday Broadcasting — “which really should not exist,” suggest Doubleday president Gary Stevens. “The only reason it does because I couldn’t get a job. People wanted to generalize me as an ex-deejay who had no business acumen.”

In all fairness to a near-sighted industry, never before (or since the likes of) Gary Stevens, formerly a night-time Top 40 disk jockey, has led to running a radio station. The road to management usually runs through sales, and occasionally takes a left turn through programming.

Gary is the first to point out it wasn’t easy. “Even after I’d been successful in Phoenix and Minneapolis, nobody would take me seriously. I knew that if I wanted to do what I’m doing, I had to build my own company.”

KICKIN' IT AT KEENER

In July of 1964, WKNR has cemented it’s reputation as the hottest rock n roll radio station in Detroit. The jock line-up looked included Frank “Swingin'” Sweeney, Robin Seymour, Jerry Goodwin, Gary Stevens, Bob Green and Bill Phillips.

In this air-check, we hear Gary at the peak of his powers, complete with a pitch for Edgewater Park, the introduction of a new food product, “Dannon Yogurt”.

Then comes a visit from the Wolly Burger, a game of "Keener baseball" with a caller, and also a generous helping of British Invasion talent including Billy J. Kramer and Peter and Gordon. [ LISTEN ] (12:21)

Stevens has become more than a builder. He’s the architect of one of the fastest-growing chains of radio properties in America. Interested in broadcasting since the age of eight (“my mother would take me down to sit in with the jocks at the local station”), the son of the chief executive officer for a chain of Buffalo department stores started his career ay WWOW in Conneaut, Ohio while on vacation from college.

The next years at the University of Miami brought him work at several stations, including WCKR and WAME, “where I worked with Frank Ward, one of my idols. He was one of the four guys who were ‘Guy King’ at WWOL. The other three were Tom Clay, Bruce Bradley and Dick Purtan. Some of the guys who went through Buffalo were amazing,” reminisces Stevens.

From WAME, Gary gravitated to WFUN, which had just signed on the air in Miami, “where I stay until 1961, where I left to go to WIL in St. Louis. My whole career moved so quickly because I worked with such good people and I learned from them. WIL had Ron Lundy in afternoons; I did seven to midnight; Dan Ingram, who had just left to go to New York; Roger Barkley; Gary Owens. I kept finding myself in the company of excellent people. I was there from 1961 to 1963, when Mike Joseph hired me to go to WKNR in Detroit.

Gary Steven’s last show at WKNR on Saturday, March 27, 1965. [ LISTEN ]

In 1965 I came to New York. I’d been pitching Ruth Meyer (the program director at WMCA) since St. Louis. When I went to Detroit, I sent her a note and said, ‘watch what we do.’ I’d figured if we did what we said we would, I’d have a job, and if we didn’t, she wouldn’t remember anyway.”

She remembered. In just two monthly Hoopers, WKNR emerged as the No. 1 station in Detroit, climbing over such giants as WXYZ, WJBK and CKLW. It wasn’t long before Gary Stevens wound up where he’d always wanted to be, on the air in New York City. “I stayed there (at WMCA) doing nights until 1968, when I didn’t want to be on the air anymore. I moved to Europe, which was something I’d always wanted to do.”

WMCA’s Gary Stevens in 1965 as one of the Good Guys.

When Stevens returned to the United States, he learned the harsh realities of being a former WMCA ‘Good Guy’ in search of a management position. In spite of the grim prospects, his perseverance paid off when he heard that Doubleday Broadcasting was about to acquire KRIZ in Phoenix. “I called the president and told him about my background. I paid my own way to Dallas, where the company was located at the time, to talk to him about the job, and he hired me on the spot,” Stevens recalled.

Gary's first show on WMCA from April 8, 1965. Gary comes out flying on his first night on the air. Lots of enthusiasm and excitement playing the "Goldies" the "Sure Shots" and, of course, the hits. [ LISTEN ] (4:30)

“I went to KRIZ after having been gone for two years, and I put on the greatest 1968 radio station you ever heard — in 1970. We bombed. We were almost run out of business, but then I analyzed what was wrong and we fixed it. We became the highest rated Class IV in the United States, as well as perhaps the highest billing 250-watter. I stayed there until 1974. The truth is, nobody else took me seriously as general manager. The disc jockey thing still hung over me.”

After Stevens joined WMCA, he started sending taped shows across the Atlantic to go out on “Swinging” Radio England in 1966. He also appeared on BBC Television's Juke Box Jury in October, 1966 while on vacation in the UK. He recalls: “the (Radio England) shows were provided at no cost to the station. We were given assistance by the American record companies which provided the funds to produce the programs.”

He visited the ship once, when it first signed on. He went out and back on a Dutch tender from Felixstowe. Gary presented a one hour show each weekday but Radio England only lasted six months. Here's a short clip of Gary on Swingin'Radio England during the summer of 1966. [ LISTEN ] (2:55)

So when an opening came within the Doubleday chain for a manager at KDWB in Minneapolis, Stevens went for it. “When I got there, there was KSTP consulted by Burkhart, Storz’s WGDY, and WYOO, which had just come in. We beat ’em all, and by 1976 I still couldn’t get a job. I thought, ‘How many times do I have to do this?’ “

Before Stevens had the chance to contemplate the answer, an offer to manage a large East Coast station won him a promotion within his own company. He was named senior vice-president director of research. “A lot of people don’t know this, but nobody before us was doing music research. When Todd Wallace joined us at KRIZ, he was the first guy to market a a music research system. Steve Casey was our all-night man and a computer nut. He refined the system and suggested things like playing parts of a song to listeners over the phone” — which, while commonplace today, was quite innovative in the early-1970s. Casey followed Stevens to Minneapolis along with another KRIZ personality, John Sebastian. “John became our program director. You heard of Sabastian/Casey, well, they got together under me at KDWB.”

1965

In 1977, a change in the structure of Doubleday led Stevens’ being named president of the company. Since that time, Doubleday had gone through several changes and emerged as a force to deal with.

Actually, the company had benefited by the underestimation of it’s abilities. A few years ago, many people thought Doubleday was getting out of radio. They’d sold half the company. All they had was Minneapolis and Denver and a construction permit for St. Louis. But Stevens was far from ready to fold. By then, there was no question where FM was going. Gary got into the right technology, selling off the AMs and buying only FMs starting with Detroit.

One thing he learned in Phoenix is was that work is harder for less money in smaller markets, so the central core strategy was top 20. But after his experience in Detroit, he realized the big markets brought three to five times the return, and redefined that strategy as top 10.

Assessing the future, Stevens is ambivalent about the fate of his two remaining AM properties. “Our AMs don’t cost us anything to operate, but they don’t bring in any revenue either. I don’t see any future in AM. As for AM stereo, it’s too little too late. The problem between AM and FM is coverage, not stereo. AM stations were engineered 30 to 40 years ago, and they don’t cover today’s market.

“Nobody could have envisioned the tremendous growth our cities have undergone, and because of that, most AMs can’t compete. FMs being non-directional are winning to a great degree because of a signal advantage. So AM stereo won’t be a solution to the basic problem,” said Stevens.

The Doubleday chain currently includes WAPP in New York, WAVA in Washington, D. C., WLLZ in Detroit, KDWB AM-FM in Minneapolis, KWK AM-FM in St Louis, and KPKE in Denver, and is in the process of acquiring WMET in Chicago from Metromedia. All are operated under what Stevens terms “the module concept, where all the stations are similar in format and facility.” (Once Top 40, the chain is now AOR, a move Stevens generally credits to former Doubleday program director Bob Hattrick).

“While we’re committed to AOR for the foreseeable future, we really look at our company as seven very good FMs in seven very good markets delivering whatever the public wants. Keeping the philosophy and physical setups the same is the reason we’ve been able to grow so fast. And though there are enormous musical differences among the stations, the positioning and promotion remains consistent, and that gives us a good synergy and allows our people to become interchangeable from station to station.”

People is a key word with Stevens. “That’s the edge we have. Our people last. Most people don’t want anybody good. They feel threatened by them. I really believe that. One of radio’s biggest problems today is the definite lack of professional management. Radio is a margin business, not a gross sales business. Two bad books and you lose your revenue. And while revenues in this business have been increasing each year by about 10%, profits have been consistently going down. That’s a stunning indictment of management’s failure to realize that they’re operating a margin business. And that impacts all of us because we get our future management from the system that’s producing these people. And I want the best I can get.”

Stevens’ track record is indicative of a man who gets what he wants. A list of his former programmers, for instance, read like a radio who’s who. Names like Todd Wallace, Dan Clayton, John Sebastian, Gerry Peterson, Dave Hamilton and Bobby Hattrick, most of whom were in their infancy when they came to Doubleday, had gone on to notable careers.

“From 1970 to the present, we’ve had an unending strings of successful program directors who have emerged from nowhere. I don’t program the stations. But I know how to pick a good program director.”

A WMCA GARY STEVENS ’68 FLASHBACK!
GARY STEVENS * September 13, 1968 * WMCA 570 New York
WMCA, September 13, 1968

WHERE DID GARY WORK? Here is the list: WIL, WKNR, WMCA, Swinging Radio England, Radio City 299, KRIZ, and KDWB.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Keener Podcasts, Motor City Radio Flashbacks, Offshore Radio.

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Dave McCormick

Big Daddy, as he was affectionately known on the air, was born David McCormick in MacGregor, Manitoba on June 6^th 1936. Dave's radio career began on his 14th birthday at CHML in Hamilton, Ontario, where he developed a deep appreciation for and knowledge of music as a gopher for the on-air guys.

He would memorize all the names and even the back-up musicians noted on the LP covers. By the time he and his family moved to Vancouver, his love and enthusiasm for radio was well entrenched.

After attending North Van High and University of British Columbia, where he joined the Radio Club Radsoc, he was hired by C-FUN Radio as the all-night record man back when they didn't play rock and roll. In 1959, Dave turned that around, and along with friends Brian Lord, Brian Forst, and Al Jordan, transitioned that station into Vancouver's first full-time Top 40 Rock operation.

They were the "swinging men at 1410", and later the "C-FUN Good Guys". It turned into a fun radio station. "We taught the city how to rock" he would say. Dave and the others drew 100,000 members into the station's Coca-Cola Hi-Fi Fan Club. It was during his five years at C-FUN that Dave acquired the nickname Big Daddy.

In 1959 he had introduced and hosted a weekday afternoon program of popular tunes called the "House of Hits". Additionally Dave hosted the Vancouver chapter of the nightly "Hi-Fi Club" sponsored by Coca-Cola. Dave also began producing his own weekly surveys, reportedly using the one-finger method on his home typewriter. The survey was called the "HI-FI FORTY".

Dave's Hi-Fi Forty for the week of December 5th to 11th 1959

For the first few weeks the surveys were not publicly distributed, but soon a limited number were printed out on a Ditto copier, typos and all, and with Dave's hand-drawn C-FUN logo at the top.

They were then issued to a limited number of Vancouver record stores. Then he moved from DJ to Music Director and then Co-Program Director. Dave was creative and went up against established CKWX and won the ratings battle. He was inventive, promotion minded and saw the future. He knew what the kids wanted and delivered with great deejays and music.

Dave hired Frosty Forst, Jerry Landa, Brian Lord, Andy Laughland and Al Jordan and called them The Good Guys; the first in North America to use this phrase.

CFUN with Red Robinson c.1962

His career took him next to KYNO Fresno California, then to KOL in Seattle where he was Program Director from 1966-67, and then PD and Music Director at KMEN in San Bernardino from 1967-’71.

In 1972, Dave and his family moved back to Vancouver, and over the next 14 years, he worked at CKNW in the early evening time slot. His creativity knew no bounds. Dave developed, crafted and hosted "Discumentary", an award-winning daily one-hour music history anthology of rock and roll on sister station CFMI from 1971-86, which was syndicated across North America and Australia.

In 1986, Dave rekindled his love affair with country music when he was the first to be hired by the brand new JR Country (CJJR) station. He was a one-man band, interviewing all the major country acts of the day for "Countrymentary" and writing and editing all the material. His intelligent, well-researched and good-natured interview style earned him accolades from everyone he met.

He was able to obtain interviews with hundreds of music celebrities locally and in Nashville. Many of these interviews turned into long-time friendships. At Christmas, there would be cards from Garth Brooks, Reba McIntyre and the Judds, among many others. Dave hosted p.m. drive at CJJR from 1986 to ’98, and then middays at its sister station CKBD from 1998-2008.

He was named BC Broadcaster of the Year, BC Country Music Association On Air Personality of the Year (four times), Inductee to the BC Country Music Association Hall of Fame, and BC Entertainment Hall of Fame (Star Walk). He developed an amazing reputation and an infinite expertise, yet he remained humble and was widely regarded as one of the 'nice guys' in radio.

Dave and Red Robinson in 2013

In 1996, Dave was promoted to host mid-days on sister station AM600, working until Pattison Co. turned the frequency in for an FM license (2008) and Dave lost his job. Out of work for less than two weeks, Dave was hired as a music consultant and on-air broadcaster in the coveted 10-2 slot weekdays at C-ISL, where he turned their moldy-oldies into a more contemporary listening format. He handled middays and special events at C-ISL from 2008 to 2010.

As a sideline, Dave hosted several cruises and vacations with avid fans. It was on one such hosted trip to Cuba that he met his love, Lynda. Together they had numerous worldwide travel adventures, and developed a regular series of travel tips for C-ISL called Travel Curios.

Dave passed away in Vancouver, BC Canada on March 29, 2017.

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Fred Latremouille

Fred Latremouille (left) and Red Robinson on the set of CBC's "Let's Go" c.1964.

Fred Latremouille's voice, as smooth as cream liqueur, provided a background soundtrack for British Columbia's baby boomers, who aged along with the popular broadcaster.

He first hit the airwaves in Vancouver at age 17 in 1962, building a following on Top-40 radio stations as a disk jockey spinning the latest rock and pop singles. By his 30s, he had transformed from swinging teenaged heartthrob to wisecracking television weatherman. His final public act was as an amiable and affable morning radio host alongside Cathy Baldazzi, a traffic reporter who would become his wife, on a laid-back show called “Latremornings.”

A familiar voice on the airwaves for decades, Latremouille's ability to connect with his audience made him a much in-demand pitchman for radio and television commercials, where he displayed a deft comic touch.

Like many of his peers, Latremouille came to radio broadcasting as something of a loner, a boy who moved often and heard on the airwaves the exciting sounds of Elvis Presley and early rock ’n’ roll, finding in it an unseen community that shared his interests.

Frederick Bruce Latremouille was born on Oct. 22, 1945, in Nanaimo, B.C., to Margaret and Bruce Latremouille. His father, a wartime pilot officer, trained other Royal Canadian Air Force flyers on Tiger Moths. The couple divorced when Fred was two. His mother later married Robert Harlow, the regional director of CBC Radio, and the boy grew up in a duplex in West Vancouver. Bill Good, a popular sportscaster, lived on the same block. His namesake son and young Fred bicycled around the neighbourhood and maintained a friendship that would see both become legends in Vancouver broadcasting.

“We didn't so much go to school together,” Bill Good Jr. said recently, “as skip school together.”

Young Latremouille earned spending money as a teenaged caddy at Gleneagles Golf Course, gaining a love for the sport. At age 16, he spotted a newspaper advertisement seeking an announcer for radio station CKYL in Peace River, Alta. With a song about tumbleweeds playing in the background, the teenager recorded an audition tape in the family basement that he mailed to the station. He lied about his age, telling them he was 20. His ruse was discovered when he arrived at the radio station, but, having already invested the price of an airplane ticket, the station retained the precocious youth, who dropped out of Grade 11 to read the news and host a morning show.

The gig lasted about a year before he returned to Vancouver, enrolled again in high school, and began hanging out in the waiting room of radio station CJOR trying to cajole the staff to listen to his tape. He pestered station manager Vic Waters for months before being hired to handle an afternoon show featuring country-and-western music. The young jock slipped onto the playlist pop tunes of interest to his peers. He claimed to have been the first in the city to play a record by the Beatles and was a keen promoter of the Motown sound.

In 1964, he was lured away to a popular hit-parade station whose boss jocks were known as the CFUN Good Guys, billed as “tops on the teen scene,” and whose weekly charts were called the CFUNtastic Fifty. He even took a pay cut to be able to work at a station more dedicated to pop music. (In later years, as his popularity and effect on the ratings became more obvious, he proved to be a shrewd negotiator.) Mr. Latremouille won the coveted assignment to act as master of ceremonies for the Beatles concert to be held at Empire Stadium in Vancouver in August, 1964. Unfortunately, he developed mononucleosis and the task fell to Red Robinson, who had introduced Elvis Presley at the same venue seven years earlier.

The following year Mr. Latremouille played drums with the station's house band, the CFUN Classics, on a rollicking instrumental song titled, “Latromotion,” released on the London label. It first appeared on the CFUNtastic Fifty at No. 45 on Feb. 13, 1965. The tune spent seven weeks on the station's charts, rising as high as No. 13. (The Classics formed the nucleus of the band Chilliwack, chart-friendly rockers who enjoyed several hits in the 1970s and ’80s.)

For a time, the station promoted him as Fred Latrimo, though he soon reverted to his given name. Mr. Latremouille (pronounced LAH-trah-moe) had been called, briefly, Fred Lane, and, later, Fearless Freddie. He also created an alter ego known as the Legendary Chief Raunchy Wolf, who wore a coonskin cap, a fringed buckskin jacket and spoke in risqué double entendres.

In the mid-1960s, he was invited to become a business partner in night clubs. He declined in the end, but the night spots — one in Vancouver and the other in suburban New Westminster — thrived under Latremouille's suggested name, The Grooveyard.

In an age of frenetic delivery and motormouth patter, his cool insouciance stood out, and he was tabbed to be host of television shows airing on the CBC in the 1960s, including “Let's Go,” “Where It's At” and “New Sounds.” He described Mr. Robinson, the first deejay to play rock ’n’ roll in the city and a later coworker at CFUN and co-host of “Let's Go,” as a mentor. For his part, Mr. Robinson says of his pupil, “greatest natural talent I ever saw.”

A restless figure confident in his abilities, Mr. Latremouille flitted from job to job, knowing he was in demand. He worked briefly at CFAX in Victoria before returning to Vancouver for two years at CKLG, a Top-40 rival to CFUN. At ’LG, he joined with fellow jockey Roy Hennessey under the name Froyed to record a parody of the Rolling Stones' “Ruby Tuesday” renamed “Grubby Thursday.” The parody lyrics joked about unclean hippies and rhymed DDT with LSD.

While he missed out on the Beatles, Latremouille got to emcee a 1966 performance by the Rolling Stones. “The Stones rolled out of a big black Caddy limo in a cloud of marijuana fumes,” Latremouille once told Vancouver Sun columnist Denny Boyd. “Some girls had a birthday cake for Mick Jagger, but he just scooped up some icing on his finger and kept walking. Keith Richards didn't say a word, but I talked a lot to Charlie Watts. When they started, my mouth dropped open at how good they were, what a great lead singer Jagger was. Then, right in the middle of 'Paint It Black,' the kids charged the stage and all hell broke loose.” The show included several arrests, broken windows, and a bomb scare.

The 1960s had reached Vancouver. The radio host grew his blond hair into a mod, mop-top bowl with long sideburns, while also wearing a velvet-trimmed Edwardian morning coat, or a red serge military tunic in the Sgt. Pepper style. He performed alongside Paul Revere and the Raiders and chugged Southern Comfort with Janis Joplin. At public events, the deejay would be mobbed like a rock star.

Mr. Latremouille became a co-editor of the Georgia Straight newspaper in 1967 seven issues after its debut, a time when the underground paper faced harassment from the police and threats from Vancouver's mayor. “Sometimes we had to step over the dopers on the floor to get work done,” he once said, “and the Marxists were always coming in to tell us we were too soft.” He personally sold the paper on street corners at 10¢ per copy and conducted a telephone interview with John Lennon during his honeymoon bed-in for peace with Yoko Ono in Amsterdam in March, 1969.

A diagnosis of testicular cancer in 1972 seemed to barely slow his pace, though the radiation treatment would damage his bones so that he would be unable to golf in his later middle ages. He was host of “Hourglass,” a dinnertime news program airing on CBC-TV in Vancouver, and later showed up on the dial on a lunchtime program titled “Fred and Friends,” which was taped at locations around the city. By the early 1980s, he was the weatherman on BCTV's “News Hour,” a ratings juggernaut in the market.

He also appeared in bit parts in Hollywood movies filming in Vancouver, including playing a cop in the Donald Sutherland crime caper, “A Man, a Woman, and a Bank” (1979), an airport guard in the George C. Scott horror movie, “The Changeling” (1980), and a reporter in the made-for-TV thriller about a serial killer, “Jane Doe” (1983).

Radio host Fred Latremouille reflects back on his early days in radio and some of the musicians who he was able to connect with. This excerpt was taken from the television program Conversation filmed in 1990. The interviewer was Joe Leary. The show was directed and produced by John Richardson.

Mr. Latremouille was a popular spokesman for Chevron gas and Kokanee beer, but a series of spots on behalf of the provincial government, called “The Province Reports,” were criticized by some commentators for being propaganda masquerading as news. The Opposition NDP complained of factual errors putting the governing Social Credit party in a favourable light.

In 1984, he returned to C-FUN, where he handled morning-show duties alongside a bright, young broadcaster named Cathy Baldazzi, who reported on traffic and weather. They married — his third, her first — in 1987. A move from C-FUN to rival KISS-FM in 1992 shook up local radio lineups, as rivals scrambled to counter the city's top-rated morning man. (At the same time, Red Robinson wound up hosting the morning show at rival CISL. “When he was on the air,” Robinson said of Latremouille, “the ratings came.') The couple got Prime Minister Kim Campbell to join them one morning, as she selected music and introduced the traffic report.

The pair retired in November, 1999, with Mr. Latremouille saying it was time, as he told one newspaper, to “bury the alarm clock, sleep in and hit some golf balls.” The couple returned to the airwaves six years later on Clear-FM, broadcasting from their suburban seaside home in which a studio had been built. After a year, they retired for good, building a summer home on 25 acres on Prince Edward Island.

Cathy Baldazzi and Fred Latremouille broadcasting from their home studio.

Like many broadcasters, Mr. Latremouille dedicated much time to charity fundraising and was known for promoting with his wife the annual Christmas Wish Breakfast, a yuletide tradition in which people bring toys for distribution to needy children.

The broadcaster was inducted into the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2006 and was named to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Hall of Fame the following year.

Mr. Latremouille died on March 5^th 2015 at Scottsdale, Arizona, where he maintained a winter home. He left his wife of 27 years.

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Frosty Forst

Brian "Frosty" Forst was raised in Vancouver's Kerrisdale neighborhood. He comes from a prominent local family - the Forst family business (in furniture and appliances) had several locations around the Lower Mainland. Forst Stores sponsored the noon news on the hillbilly station in New Westminster for many years.

Forst graduated from Magee High School in 1956 and pursued his passion for radio by taking a training course in broadcasting run by John Ansell of CKWX. Through contacts at school he made a connection with CKPG in north-central British Columbia. He arrived in Prince George in 1956 and spent some time in training, but was chosen as Teen Jock at Vancouver's CJOR a year later, replacing Red Robinson. Bruno Cimolai was his co-host at CJOR.

In 1958, Forst returned to AM 600 to read the news, but was forced to leave again. Disappointed, he started exploring other occupations, including working in a warehouse for a women's undergarment store. Frustration led him to a new North Vancouver station -- CKLG, which was playing to the older MOR crowd—in 1959.

Forst became "Frosty" in 1960, when he was hired by CFUN. There, he teamed up with Al Jordon, Dave McCormick, Ken Chang and Brian Lord to become the Good Guys, who were on air 24 hours a day with modern music, bringing the local radio market into the modern world.

Within three years, many of the CFUN staff had taken jobs elsewhere. Forst, following his father's advice, sought a position at CKNW, where he was hired by program director Hal Davis in 1964. From there he advanced to a million-dollar contract, a vast audience, and 31 years as CKNW's morning air personality. His ratings in Canada remain unsurpassed.

Frosty Forst (right), with fellow C-FUN jock Dave McCormick

Forst's life has been turbulent. He has had a number of marriages and other romantic relationships, and sired a second family late in life. Throughout his career, he had public-relations issues, but his fans stayed faithful and his popularity seldom wavered.

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Ron Lundy

Ron Lundy was born June 25^th 1934 in Memphis, Tennessee, the only child of Fred and Mary Lundy. He served in the United States Marine Corps after graduating from high school. Following the completion of his military stint, he returned to his hometown and attended a local radio broadcasting school on the G.I. Bill.

At the same time, he worked across the street at WHHM-AM, where he got his first on-air experience one night when he substituted for the regular disc jockey who failed to report for his shift. This resulted in Lundy being hired as a full-time radio announcer by Hodding Carter for WDDT-AM, the latter's new station in Greenville, Mississippi.

After a stop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at WLCS-AM, Lundy was brought to WIL-AM in St. Louis, Missouri in 1960 by Dan Ingram, who was the station's program director until the middle of the next year. Nicknamed the "Wil' Child", Lundy had a style which was described as a combination of "country and crawfish pie" by Bob Whitney, who also played a major role in the appointment.

Ron on WIL in St. Louis on February 28, 1962. [ LISTEN ] (24:27)

On this aircheck, you'll hear references to two other New York DJ's to come; Gary Stevens would become a star on New York's WMCA and Robin Scott would go by his real name, Bob Dayton on WABC. Ron would replace Bob Dayton on WABC three years later.

At the very beginning of WIL "Action Central News" you'll hear Dan Ingram's voice in the news intro. Dan had been at WIL until 1961 and the station was still using the audio he previously recorded.

An early Top 40 station in the 1960s

The date is January 4, 1963, and Ron is putting on another show at 1430 WIL. [ LISTEN ] (1:00:05)

A young Ron Lundy is playing records and working the phone lines at the station.

Lundy was reunited with Ingram at WABC-AM in 1965. He made his New York radio debut on September 1, working the overnight shift as "The Swingin' Nightwalker." Beginning in May 1966, he became the midday fixture at the station for the next sixteen years.

The Last Show

With his catchphrase "Hello, Love–this is Ron Lundy from the Greatest City in the World," he usually preceded Ingram's afternoon drive time program, and sometimes when Ingram was running late to the studio, Lundy would keep going until Dan arrived, doing impressions of The Shadow, where he would play Margo Lane and Lamont Cranston. The two best friends hosted "The Last Show" before WABC's format switch from music to talk radio at noon on May 10, 1982.

In February 1984, Lundy resurfaced at New York's oldies station WCBS-FM in the mid-morning slot, following former WABC colleague Harry Harrison. According to program director Joe McCoy, the station created the slot especially for Lundy, reducing other shifts from four hours to three. In June, 1997, Lundy's WCBS-FM show was awarded the 1997 "BronzeWorld Medal" at the New York Festivals Radio Programming Awards for the "best local personality". His signature phrases were "Hello Luv.... This is Ron Lundy" and "It's 10:00 in the morning in the Greatest City in the World!".

Lundy retired from WCBS-FM on September 18, 1997. Upon retiring from radio, Ron and his wife Shirley moved to the small town of Bruce, Mississippi. However, during this time, Lundy did occasional interviews with Mark Simone on The Saturday Night Oldies Show for his former station, WABC.

Lundy's voice made a cameo appearance in an early scene in Midnight Cowboy, when Joe Buck, hearing a Lundy WABC broadcast while listening to his portable radio, realized that the bus he was riding soon approached New York City.

Bruce Morrow, Ron Lundy, Dan Ingram

It's September 18, 1997, the day of Ron Lundy's final broadcast on WCBS-FM.

Lundy was inducted into the St. Louis Radio Hall of Fame on January 1, 2006.

Lundy passed away of a heart attack at age 75 on March 15, 2010. He was a sincerely nice guy, and a great DJ. You couldn't help but like him.

WHERE DID RON WORK? Here is the list: WHHM, WDDT, WLCS, WIL, WABC, and WCBS-FM.

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Airchexx, Media Confidential, Musc Radio 77

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Bob Barry

Radio announcers come and go. But there is only one "Beatle" Bob Barry.

Bob Barry was a broadcasting icon and one of the most popular personalities the state of Wisconsin has ever seen. He had a career of over 50 years on radio and television. At 19, the Milwaukee native took a short term sales job at WTKM radio in Hartford. And by the end of his first year he had his own show, "Badger Teen Time", and sold most of it's advertising himself.

He then moved on to Milwaukee in 1960 for short stints at WEMP and WRIT, before landing an all night show at WOKY in 1962.

Bob remained at WOKY until 1976, moving into the prime time evening slot, and eventually into the all important morning drive chair.

During this heyday in his career Bob scored his biggest koo when he was chosen to emcee the Beatles' appearance in Milwaukee, during their first U.S. tour in 1964.

But it almost didn't happen, because Barry initially turned down the opportunity.

When the promoter asked him to introduce the Beatles at the Milwaukee Arena on September 4^th 1964, Barry said during a recent interview, he asked: "What does it pay?" When he was told, "'We're not paying any of the DJs around the country,'" Barry said, he "took a pass."

But WOKY music director Arline Quier talked Barry into calling back and agreeing to do it.

That was bad luck for Eddie Doucette, a DJ at rival Top 40 station WRIT-AM, who had already agreed to emcee the show and who ended up introducing the opening acts: Jackie DeShannon, Bill Black's Combo, The Exciters and New Orleans R&B artist Clarence "Frogmouth" Henry ("Ain't Got No Home").

Barry said emceeing the show that night was "incredible." He had to stall because the band wasn't in the building and every time he mentioned one of their names, the audience would scream. The screams even blew out a tube in a tape recorder he was going to use to tape the show, (despite being told not to).

Barry did not get to meet the Beatles until the next day when he interviewed them at the Coach House Motor Inn, N. 19th St and W. Wisconsin Ave, now a Marquette University dormitory.

Barry said the band asked that the stuffed animals and presents from fans be sent to Children's Hospital, but that they kept the mail.

He later gave away their autographs to listeners. When he and the group stepped into another room for photographs, someone stole Barry's audiotape recorder containing the interview. It was later found by a nun in a pew of the chapel of the School Sisters of St. Francis on S. Layton Blvd.

Barry's adventures with the Beatles ended there. But his association with them continued, and forever after known as "Beatle Bob" he simply parlayed that special moment into an even more successful career.

Showing his versatility. when he switched to the morning drive show he reinvented his approach and developed 'Bob Barry Calls The World' as a theme, and called many celebrities, sometimes surprising them in awkward situations.

Bob was so popular in Milwaukee that one time he competed with himself, on radio and television, doing his own radio show live, while WITI-TV ran a pre-recorded interview show that he emceed. And he was so good at what he did, he was recognized four times as regional personality of the year by Billboard magazine - was honored as Milwaukee's radio personality of the year - and in 1975 was named Billboard's top radio personality in the country.

Bob finished out his on-the-air radio career with stops at WEMP, another 5 years at WOKY, then WISN, and finally in the mid-1990s, at the new Milwaukee's oldies station WZTR.

To many he was the sexiest DJ in Milwaukee. And to many others he was simply Beatle Bob. But to all of his listeners during his 50+ year career, he provided the best entertainment that radio could provide wherever he was slotted. In the morning, in the evening, and all night long.

He was inducted into the Wisconsin's Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2001.

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