May 2nd, 1960. To some, radio history was made that day, while others would argue that's the day that radio took a turn for the worst.
WBCN: The American Revolution
On the night of March 15, 1968 the station began it's change to an "underground" progressive rock format. BCN's first Rock announcer, "Mississippi Harold Wilson" (Joe Rogers), used the station's first slogan, "The American Revolution" and played the very first song "I Feel Free" by the rock group Cream.
CHUM Radio
"1050 CHUM" pioneered rock and roll radio in Toronto, and was noteworthy for hosting many noteworthy rock concerts including, among others, visits to Maple Leaf Gardens by Elvis Presley (1957) and the Beatles (1964, 1965, and 1966).
Television Broadcasting Radio
In late 1975 a late-night Chicago television program invited some of the cities most popular radio personalities to discuss their shows and offer opinions on the state of their occupations and the future of radio.
Sweet Caroline
In the halcyon days of the early 1960's, many a youngster felt the BBC were failing in their duty to let them listen to the new favorites. And then Radio Caroline came along...
Shana was born Margaret Reichl to German parents at Camp LeJeune Air Force Base in North Carolina.
She learned English by watching Saturday-morning cartoons on television and began in radio at student-run WIDR while studying communications at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. After graduating, she worked at KWBB in Wichita, calling herself simply "Margo." Program director Michael Spears gave her the new on-air name "Shana."
Shana is presenting KFRC's "original" 610 Battle of the Hits on May 3, 1975. [ LISTEN ] (4:08), and here she is again at KFRC on September 22, 1976. [ LISTEN ] (1:01:01)
In 1974, at age 21, she became the first female disc jockey on Top 40 KFRC in San Francisco, and in 1976, she became the first female DJ to hit the airwaves of Top 40 KHJ (930 AM) when programmer Charlie Van Dyke lured her to Southern California. She began in the 2-to-6am slot and eventually moved to late nights.
After KHJ she moved on to KEZY during its album-rock years, followed by a year at KROQ (106.7 FM). But it was at KLOS (95.5 FM) where she really made her mark.
She started at KLOS in 1980, and took over morning drive. Her face was on every bus billboard in town. It was a huge accomplishment at that time. She was funny, with her smoky voice and quick wit. Shana put on a great show - very irreverent, a touch rowdy, some rock ’n’ roll gossip and lots of laughs. She also knew her music and most of the artists behind it.
In 1984 she was paired with newsman Chuck Moshontz to replace Frazer Smith on the morning shift, one of the few times a woman hosted a morning show. The same “experiment” was happening at crosstown rival KMET where Cynthia Fox was paired with newsman Pat Kelley.
KHJ
Shana is fondly remembered for her work and her sense of happiness and humor that permeated her shows at KLOS and later KLSX, where she stayed until 1995.
She was a writer and editor for Album Network Magazine, taught broadcasting classes at UCLA and Pasadena City College (even hosted a show on KPCC 89.3 FM in 1996 and 1997), worked as a talent coordinator for the syndicated radio program Rockline, did voiceover work and hosted fundraising events. Her last regular on-air shift locally was at KCBS-FM in 2005.
Shana died in her sleep at her home in Detroit on July 18, 2015. She was 62.
WHERE DID SHANA WORK? Here is the list: KFRC, KHJ, KLOS, KMET, KLSX, and KCBS-FM.
Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue was born Thomas Coman in South Bend, Indiana on May 21, 1928. His career started in 1949 on the East Coast of the U.S. at WTIP in West Virginia and continued at WIBG in Philadelphia and WINX in Maryland.
He moved to San Francisco in 1961 during the payola scandal involving Alan Freed, Dick Clark and several other East Coast DJs. He was brought to San Francisco by Les Crane, former Program Director at WIBG who had been hired to make a winner out of loser station, KYA. Crane also brought in Peter Tripp from WMGM, New York and "Bobby Mitchell" from WIBG.
From 1961 through 1965 Tom Donahue was not a San Francisco rock scene-maker, he was the scene. He and Bobby Mitchell took over the Cow Palace on occasional weekends and put together 20-act, two-song-apiece (some singers didn’t know more than two) package shows that constituted the be-all and end-all of live rock ‘n’ roll.
The sense of being leveled with and not being talked down to was present when Tom didn't like something. Donahue on a dance fad: "Of the 300 or so records we get here at the station every week, I'd say 250 of them are Twist...most of them bad." (December 1962)
Mad River (band), hanging out with Tom and some friends in San Francisco.
Donahue was among the first to see talent in local kid Sly Stone, whom he hired as producer for his Autumn and North Beach labels. Together, they produced hits out of the Beau Brummells and non-hits from the Great Society, the Tikis, the Vejtables, the Mojo Men, and the Knight Riders.
Listeners got the chance to know Donahue on KMPX, and later on KSAN. He took care with his shows, working carefully to build a set of three to six songs toward some pleasing resolution. Always, Donahue was open to new music, and never was he forgetful of the old.
With Phil Spector and Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers in 1965
KQED News report from 1969 featuring a press conference by Tom Donahue, who discusses the Wild West Rock Festival that was to have taken place in Golden Gate Park but was cancelled due to protests by locals [ WATCH }
While a disc jockey at Top Forty station KYA in San Francisco, Donahue and Mitchell formed a record label.
Autumn Records had subsequent hits with Bobby Freeman and The Mojo Men, and Sly Stone was a staff producer. But Autumn's biggest act was one that Donahue discovered, produced, recorded, and managed, The Beau Brummels, which he later sold to Warner Bros. Records.
Donahue at his best working at KSAN in 1968-69. [ LISTEN ] (1:01:28) Tom is talking about the beginning of KMPX on this 1972 broadcast.
[ LISTEN ] (45:43)
Played recordings from WMPX days include some marijuana talk, a conversation with Dusty Street and Katie Johnson. A Blue Cheer album (Vincebus Eruptum) commercial. An (allegedly) stoned Larry Miller plays "White Rabbit" and talks about Grace Slick. Larry asks his listeners to stop requesting Eric Burdon and The Animals records. He "doesn't like The Animals and Burdon is a phoney!", and he tosses an Animals' LP over his shoulder. Bob McClay recalls being the first to play Jimi Hendrix in 1967.
Donahue is behind a KSAN microphone in 1968-69 (starts with Cream). [ LISTEN ] (49:47)
Buckle up and prepare for a Ginger Baker solo that is mind-blowing. Tom pitches a Lafayette Radio Electronics offer that includes a reminder to pick up a KSAN station poster for only 25¢.
He also opened a psychedelic nightclub (Mothers on Broadway in San Francisco), and produced concerts at the Cow Palace and Candlestick Park with his partner Mitchell (later known as Bobby Tripp in L.A. radio; real name Michael Guerra). Together, they produced the last public appearance of The Beatles on August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park.
In 1967, Donahue and his young wife Raechel were listening to the Doors first album, while rearranging their brain cells via Dr. Tim's magic snake oil.
The playing cards were starting to melt, and it became increasingly difficult to tell the hearts from the diamonds, when through the haze of incense and acid, Donahue shifted his enormous bulk and posed the question, "Why in the hell aren't we hearing any of this on the radio?"
Donahue wrote a 1967 Rolling Stone article titled "AM Radio Is Dead and Its Rotting Corpse Is Stinking Up the Airwaves", which also lambasted the Top Forty format. He subsequently took over programming for a foreign-language station KMPX and changed it into what is considered to be America's first alternative "free-form" radio station. Playing album tracks chosen by the DJs on the largely ignored FM band, this one move introduced progressive radio to the U.S.
In 1969, besides his roles as a DJ, station manager, and live show producer, he also managed Leigh Stephens (former lead guitarist of the San Francisco psychedelic rock group Blue Cheer), Micky Waller (a British drummer who played in the Steampacket, Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll & The Trinity, the Jeff Beck Group 1968-69), and Pete Sears in the band Silver Metre, and in 1970 Stoneground.
Donahue and his DJ wife Raechel also took over programming of free-form radio stations KMET and KPPC-FM in Los Angeles. In 1972, he moved to the role of general manager at KSAN, where he encouraged DJs to play music from different eras and genres interspersed with interesting commentary.
On April 28, 1975 Donahue died from a heart attack. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a non-performer, one of only three disc jockeys to receive that honor. In 2006, Donahue was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame as a member of the first class of broadcasters enshrined.
Donahue was inducted into the Rock Radio Hall of Fame in the "Legends of Rock Radio-Programming" category in 2014 for his work at KSAN and KMPX.
WHERE DID TOM WORK? Here is the list: WTIP (1949), WIBG (1951), KYA (1961-1965), KMPX/KPPC (1967-1968), KMET (1968-69), and KSAN (1968-72).
Humble Harve Miller began his career in 1958 at radio station WAAT in Trenton, New Jersey. Soon after, he moved to WIBG in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked from 1958 to 1962. Miller subsequently moved to Los Angeles, California, and after a stop at KBLA he became part of the enormous hit station KHJ as part of the "Boss Radio" DJ teams working under Bill Drake and other executives.
Harve narrated Mondo Mod in 1967.
KBLA 1966
Harve was the top-rated nighttime disc jockey throughout a five year period, and also did commercials, voice-over work, and narrated the 1967 counterculture documentary film Mondo Mod. He also narrated the late-1969 syndicated version of KHJ's The History of Rock and Roll 48-hour special, which aired throughout the early 1970s.
Miller with his wife.
His tenure at KHJ ended in 1971, when he was 36 years old. On May 7th of that year, he allegedly shot and killed his wife. The story goes that she had been unfaithful to him, and she taunted him by saying that if he didn’t like it, he should get a gun and shoot her. Which he did.
After two weeks in hiding (at Phil Spector’s mansion, according to one account), he was caught. Miller pleaded guilty, got five-to-life for second-degree murder, and went to prison in August.
In December, Billboard reported that Miller was going to program a new radio station set up at the Chino Institute for Men, where he was incarcerated. Radio stations and record labels would donate equipment and records. (Miller was supposedly furloughed from prison to make a trip to San Diego, driving his own car, to pick up donated records from radio station KGB.)
The Columbia School of Broadcasting of Los Angeles planned to offer classes for inmates, although Billboard snarked that “Harve doesn’t need any lessons, of course.” In January 1972, a one-line item in Billboard reported, “Chino Men’s Prison has been hearing some good rock since disk jockey Humble Harve began serving his term.”
Music surveys featuring Harve at KHJ
Harve at KRLA
It’s unclear just how long Miller was in prison. One source mentions that he “received a 14-month sentence.” If that’s how long he served, he would have been out in October 1972. A May 1974 edition of Billboard noted Miller’s return to the Los Angeles airwaves on KKDJ. In July 1974, he sat in for Casey Kasem on American Top 40.
When KKDJ was purchased by the owners of KIIS in 1975, he was installed on an evening shift, the same daypart he worked on KHJ in the 60s. His voice was featured in the 1975 movie Aloha Bobby and Rose, as the title characters listen to their car radio. And in 1976, he became the host of the National Album Countdown. (However, another source states he wasn't released until 1980.)
Among the Los Angeles radio stations Humble Harve has worked for throughout the years are KIQQ, KIIS, KUTE, KRLA, KRTH, KCBS-FM, and KZLA. In addition, Miller also worked for WIBG in Philadelphia in 1985 and KVI in Seattle, Washington from 1986-1989, and also narrated a variety of syndicated radio specials during the 1980s and 1990s.
Harve c.1979.
What happened to Harve in recent years is not totally known, although one report had him working for KHTS in Los Angeles, California. He was also doing satellite radio in the early 00s, and he’d be past 80 years old now. Reading between the lines of the news reports and retracing the arc of his career, it’s pretty clear that he had lots of friends in the radio industry. In 1995 Miller was inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.
They did not abandon him when he went to jail, or afterward. All these years later, in a less-forgiving media era, one must wonder if a similarly prominent person convicted of such a crime would ever get his local gig back, let alone gigs of national prominence.
WHERE DID HARVEY WORK? Here is the list: WAAT, WIBG, KBLA, KHJ, Armed Forces Radio Service, KIQQ, KKDJ, KIIS, KUTE, KRLA, WFIL, KRLA, KVI, KRLA, KRTH, KCBS-FM, KZLA, and KIEV.
Joe Niagara was born on July 4, 1927 as Joseph Nigro, Jr. Joe took the name Niagara from Niagara Falls, because it was recognizable and non-ethnic sounding.
As a kid Joe listened to the radio and thought broadcasting was exciting. He knew then it was something he wanted to be connected with. At the early age of 13, Niagara visited WFIL radio personality Leroy Miller who inspired Niagara to be persistent. Miller told him to keep knocking on doors, and eventually one would open. At age 18, Niagara served in the U.S. Army, based for one year in the U.S. Panama Canal Zone.
Joe Niagara got his start in radio a couple of months before his 20th birthday on Easter Monday April 7, 1947 at WDAS in his hometown of Philadelphia. At that time, disc jockeys played 78 rpm records and one of the first artists that 19 year-old Joe Niagara spun was Doris Day. (Niagara and Day would become close, personal friends a decade later). Seemed that Joe had a crush on Doris ever since first saw her perform at the Earle Theater in Center City Philly. At that time, she was a big band singer with Pennsylvania's own Les Brown.
In 1949, Niagara moved to WIBG (taking over the previous shift held by Roy Neal who went to Channel 3 and later to NBC-TV). It was at Wibbageland in 1957 where he would get his handle "The Rockin' Bird" from WIBG’s Station Manager. The name came from a 1957 single by Peggy Lee, "Listen to the Rockin' Bird."
Joe Niagara married his childhood sweetheart, Evelyn Vignola, in 1952.
Joe Niagara’s evening broadcasts became the hit of the city. The next year, WIBG went all Rock & Roll (except for Doug Arthur's program featuring pop and big band standards). In 1958, Arthur left the station and for the first time in history, Philadelphia had a 24 hours a day Rock & Roll station.
Niagara's Rock & roll started as an experiment on WIBG because of the success of disc jockeys (in other cities) like Alan Freed.
November 1960
Success meant spot sales and that created a better bottom line. In 1956, Joe was playing the standard fare heard over WIBG like Perry Como and Doris Day. However, he segued in some Elvis Presley, the Platters, Chuck Berry and Bill Haley. As the program gained in popularity, there was more rock & roll and less pop standards.
A young Joe Niagara is playing records at WIBG on June 2, 1957.
[ LISTEN ] (29:10)
Bobby Darin's Million Dollar Baby kicks this aircheck off, then for an Earning Power In Diesel free book offer, call MA7-0334, Four Walls by Jim Reeves, The Six Teens with Was It A Dream Of Mine, and all you pay is $2391 for a new Dodge station wagon from the Thornton Fuller showroom, and much more.
Niagara got caught up in the payola scandals of 1959 & 1960 and was forced off WIBG's air. While Niagara was never the target of any payola investigation, WIBG wanted new faces. In 1960, he went to KBIG (Los Angeles) where he stayed for two years before returning to WIBG where he remained until 1970.
Joe Niagara had a small bit role in “Blue Hawaii,” the Elvis Presley smash motion picture, and a voice-over for the movie, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” both released in 1961.
During the mid-sixties when Channels 17, 29, and 48 all came on the air within 6 months of each other, Philadelphia telecasting found itself searching for programming. Early on, Joe found himself hosting a one-hour daily afternoon dance show on WIBF-TV, Channel 29. The show originated live from the basement studios of WIBF-TV, located in the Benson East Apartments in Jenkintown, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia.
Joe was back at WDAS (this time WDAS-FM) doing an oldies format in 1971. This format was the successor to Hyski's Underground. The oldies jock lineup was amazing. The station had Joe Niagara, Hy Lit, Harvey Holiday and also from WIBG, Rod Carson. WDAS-FM sounded great, but owner Max M. Leon thought the format was too limiting. It was replaced with a forerunner of today's urban contemporary format.
It's April of 1983 and Joe is working behind the mic at WPEN. [ LISTEN ] (4:04)
Joe piches an upcoming 950 Club, Washington state apples commercial, a George Washington quiz question, and more tidbits (scoped).
In 1980, while at WPEN, Joe got into the Guinness Book of World Records for playing more than 500 different versions of "Stardust." Each day for two years, he played a different rendition.
Hy Lit and The Rockin’ Bird
While Joe is probably best known for his WIBG days and secondly for WPEN (back to playing the pop standards), he also worked at Famous 56, WFIL while the station was at its peak. He filled in for months while Dr. Don Rose recovered from an illness. Some industry leaders believe that Niagara never sounded better than during his WFIL days.
Niagara also worked for WIFI-FM, WCAU AM & FM (all in Philly). He retired from WPEN on July 30, 1999 but continued doing fill-in work for the station until 2002.
Joe Niagara was a true professional in every sense of the word. No matter what anyone asked of him, he would deliver 110%. Joe was one of a rare breed.
The Rockin' Bird passed away at the age of 76 on June 4, 2004 following surgery at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, PA. Joe had suffered from bladder cancer for several years and died of heart failure. Joe and his wife Evelyn had one child, Joe the III. The couple had three grandchildren, one was grandson Joe the IV.
Born in Rochester, New York, in 1919, Collins grew up on Long Island, New York. In 1941, while attending the University of Miami in Florida, he substituted as the announcer for his English teacher's campus radio program and decided he wanted to pursue a career in radio.
Collins began his professional career as a disc jockey at a bluegrass music station in Logan, West Virginia. By 1943, he was at WKPA in Pittsburgh, moving in 1945 to WIND in Chicago, and in 1946 to KNAK in Salt Lake City.
Collins moved to New York City, and landed the overnight shift at independent powerhouse WNEW in 1950, where he invented the imaginary subterranean studio, when he looked around at the violet paint job in the announcers' booth and began telling his listeners about a glowing grotto with stalactites and mushrooms.
Mad Magazine c.1964
The Purple Grotto
Soon, Collins and his night-owl audience invented a cavern filled with imaginary friends like Harrison, the 176-year-old purple Tasmanian owl with bright orange eyes, named after onetime "Talk of the Town" columnist Harrison Kinney of The New Yorker.
In New York, he did dog food ads by speaking directly to the dogs. Collins was such a character that Mad Magazine once did a cartoon spread on him and his imaginary characters in the 1960s.
He loved purple, once had a Porsche covered with purple velveteen and topped with a faucet, and he wore jumpsuits made by his wife, Patti, along with little hats.
He was also on the air in Utah, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. After 10 years of making his WNEW Purple Grotto a hipster's haven in New York, he came to San Francisco in 1960 and became part of the fabled air staff of KSFO. Collins was also one of the first disc jockeys to use an informal, conversational tone on the air. He would improvise, much like a jazz musician, often over background music.
He made several appearances on The Tonight Show with Steve Allen in the early 50s.
Jazzbo made up "Grimm's Fairy Tales for Hip Kids" and jazzy, beatnik nursery rhymes such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Jack and the Beanstalk”. [ LISTEN ] (3:18), and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”. The kids really dug these 78s.
In 1957, NBC-TV hired him for five weeks as the host of the Tonight show when it was known as Tonight! America After Dark in the period between hosts Steve Allen and Jack Paar. In 1957 Collins starred in an episode of NBC radio's science fiction radio series X Minus One. By 1959, he was with KSFO in San Francisco.
On television he hosted The Al Collins Show, which aired on KGO-TV. The format included appearances by celebrities such as Moe Howard of the Three Stooges. A popular segment on his show was the "no stinkin' badges" routine.
Al would politely request the main guest don a Mexican bandit costume, complete with ammo belts crossing the chest, six-guns in holsters, a huge sombrero and large fake mustache. The guest then posed in front of cameras for the TV audience.
With pistols pointing at the camera, the guest had to say "I don't got to show you no stinkin' badges." If the guest did not say it with sufficient sinister tone Collins made him or her repeat it until in Al's opinion the guest got it right. Collins' bit was a play on a famous exchange in the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Contained on one of Jazzbo's record albums, (where you can also send in for an official Bandido sticker), is Jazzbo issuing the Bandido Oath. [ LISTEN ] (2:02)
Later in the 1960s, he was the host of Jazz for the Asking, and he worked with several Los Angeles stations late in the decade including KMET, KFI, and KGBS.
He changed the spelling of his name to "Jazzbeaux" when he went to WTAE in Pittsburgh in 1969, and then moved to WIXZ in 1973, before returning to the West Coast three years later. While in Pittsburgh, he briefly hosted a late night television show titled Jazzbeauxz Rehearsal, an eclectic sampling of anything that caught Collins's interest.
In 1976 he returned to San Francisco, at KMPX, followed by an all-night program at KGO. He began the program with "Blues in Hoss Flat" by Count Basie. He also worked a late shift at KKIS in Pittsburg, California, in 1980.
After a stint in New York and WNEW in 1981, he was back in San Francisco at KSFO in 1983, and KFRC in 1986. Then he returned ato WNEW from 1986–90, KAPX in 1990, and hosted a weekly jazz show at KCSM - College of San Mateo, California - beginning in 1993.
Al "Jazzbo" Collins died on September 30, 1997 from cancer. He was 78. He was survived by his wife of 31 years, singer Patti Collins, and seven children from three marriages.
WHERE DID JAZZBO WORK? Here is the list: WKPA, WIND, KNAK, WNEW, KSFO, VOA, KMET, KFI, KGBS, WTAE, WIXZ, KMPX, KGO, KFRC, KAPX, KCSM.
When it comes to the classic Top 40 radio "one-man show" morning host, look no further than to the legendary Ralph "The Birdman" Lockwood on Montreal's 980 CKGM.
Lockwood was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania on December 10, 1939. He got his start in the broadcasting business hosting a nightly polka show in the early 1960s.
He made his Montreal radio debut in 1968 hosting AM drive at Top 40 outlet 1470 CFOX, but left in 1971 and landed a job on a morning show in West Palm Beach, Florida. Returning to Montreal in 1972, Lockwood quickly became one of the city’s top morning hosts at CKGM. His arrival on CKGM mornings was a key element in the station's unprecedented popularity and success during the '70s and signaled the beginning of the end for CFOX.
Ralph with his traffic reporter Mary Ann Carpentier, 1974
He was like a cross-between Groucho Marx, WC Fields and Don Rickles all rolled into one and he didn't have that radio disc-jockey kind of voice, he was kind of the guy at the bar telling the jokes at happy hour.
A fast-talking, cigar-smoking wisecracker, his taglines caught on with Montrealers. How’s your bird? How’s your old oiseau? That’s what she said at the Bell Canada picnic. Don’t forget to put on your Côte des Neiges.
Lockwood is behind the mic at CKGM on July 3, 1973. [ LISTEN ] (5:41)
On this aircheck, along with Ralph, veteran newsman Robert Vairo and sultry traffic reporter Terri Stacey are also featured. Hear Ralph cleverly use a fictional phone call from (then) Expos' baseball hero Boots Day to set-up his latest joke and throw it to Professor Frydock for a couple of laughs as well.
Ralph leads off during this CKGM composite from 1973. [ LISTEN ] (9:33)
Lockwood voiced his own fictional sidekicks — Professor Frydock, Dorion Smith and a caricature of Mad Dog Vachon. An early morning institution, he had a penchant for corny one-liners and double entendres — and doing his show shirtless. One morning, he played Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog over and over, claiming he had locked himself in the studio.
Bar-B-Barn
Lockwood was also known for his quirky television commercials — he donned a barrel for a Dorion Suits ad, and for the Bar-B-Barn restaurant, he devoured succulent chicken and ribs for 30 seconds without uttering a word.
He left CKGM in 1981, but remained a Montreal media mainstay.
He became CFCF radio’s afternoon show host before moving to TV as host of a daily morning show on CFCF-TV. For a time, he was also the the play-by-play caller on the Montreal Concordes’ CJAD football broadcasts, and host of a weekly football highlights show on CFCF-TV. In 1985, CKGM, hoping to revive its flagging morning show, hired Lockwood for five years at a six-figure salary. But the effort failed and Lockwood was fired in 1987.
A year later, Lockwood returned to the United States to host the morning show on WSBA, a station in York, Pennsylvania, not far from his hometown. He worked there for 11 years, going on to do radio consulting and public relations.
Although he eventually leaves Montreal to return home to Pennsylvania radio in 1988, Lockwood is still fondly remembered by all today as the master of the one-liner and of the latest groaner, always delivered with impeccable timing and often with back-up assistance from his zany cast of characters.
Mention "Ralph Lockwood" and legions of Montrealers still today recall the Birdman's daily greeting of "How's Your Bird?", which he also delivered, tongue firmly in cheek, in Greek, Italian, Polish and French.
Ralphie tried to return to Montreal to visit once a year, usually on his birthday, which he celebrated with old friends and colleagues at Montreal's legendary ribs and chicken eatery, The Bar B Barn. Let us not forget that yummy Colt cigar for breakfast either.
In an era when AM radio flourished in Montreal with a variety of legendary morning men like George Balcan, Ted Blackman et al, Lockwood was in a wacky, politically incorrect class all his own.
Ralph (right) and friend Marc Denis, 2014
In a 2002 interview with the Montreal Gazette, Lockwood said: “I miss radio like crazy — except when I listen to where it’s going, with all the bitching and complaining. I saw it as a nice vehicle for entertaining people. I made it like a bubble. It was my escape. And, geez, I miss the Bar-B-Barn.”
Lockwood died on January 12, 2020. He was 80 years old.
Miller with his wife.
Hy Lit and The Rockin’ Bird
