RadioActive wrote:

Do the Leaf radio games still alternate with TSN1050? If they use the TV audio, I'm sure they'll be thrilled hearing "you're watching Leafs hockey on Sportsnet," during every throw to commercial break. Nothing like continuous references to the competition on your own radio station to set management's teeth on edge. 

They must still be alternating, going by the following excerpt from Kevin McGran's article in today's Star about Kelly Hrudey being let go.

Some fear the Leafs will simply simulcast the television broadcast on radio, with games divided by the Sportsnet The Fan 590 and TSN 1050. That could become problematic when games on radio do not line up with their TV counterpart. In other words, if TSN is carrying the game, Gord Miller’s voice would be heard on a Sportsnet radio station. Ditto Sportsnet’s Cuthbert being heard on TSN 1050.
 

The beautiful instrumental hit "Our Winter Love" was originally written as a much faster song. Here's the story of what happened, from Song of the Day: Bill Pursell's "Our Winter Love":

One day, while sifting through some demos, Pursell and Justis came upon an acetate mailed to one of the local publishing companies by a Canadian songwriter named Johnny Cowell.  It was called "Long Island Sound."

Thinking it was a 45, the company's co-owner, Grady Martin, played the disc at that speed.  But as it turned out the acetate was a 78, and so what was intended to be an uptempo trumpet instrumental, with a brief piano intro, became a mid-tempo number with a haunting little piano hook for an opening.

Hearing the melodic piano at the slower tempo, Pursell and Justis both sensed that Martin was onto something.

Justis began working on an arrangement, while Pursell began slightly re-writing the melody into a complete verse, which he then simply repeated three times to form a full song.

To replicate the echo effect that the piano achieved when "Long Island Sound" was played at the slower speed, Pursell found that if he played the opening chords with stiff fingers and then repeated them by playing them again a fraction of a beat later, only much softer, he could virtually duplicate the haunting echo effect of the demo.

The technique gave the melody what Pursell would later claim was an "icy" sound, and it was soon suggested by someone that the song be renamed "Our Winter Love."

paterson1 wrote:

Chrisphen wrote:

One Cancon note - Sheriff had a small hit in Canada with the song 'When I'm With You' in the early '80s. About seven years later, long after the band called it quits, some DJ in Las Vegas dug out the single and started playing it. BOOM. Big hit!

According to wiki When I'm With You was originally released in 1983 and was a hit in Canada reaching #8 on the RPM Top 100 chart.  In the US peaking at #61 on the Billboard Top 100 the first time around.  Wiki says it was WDWB in Minneapolis/St. Paul who started playing the song again in November 1988. WKTI in Milwaukee also soon picked up the single.  Because of this Capitol records decided to re-release the tune and it entered Billboard at #26.  When I'm With You became #1 in the US on both the top 100 and A/C charts in February 1989.  It was the first #1 song by a Canadian band since BTO You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet in 1974. 

The song didn't do well in the UK, only on the chart two weeks at #112.  By the time Sheriff had the big hit in the US, most of the band had already formed a new band years before as Frozen Ghost.  They opted not to bring Sheriff back. 

Wikipedia doesn't say that it entered the Billboard chart at #26, which would have been an extremely high debut position for a band that had never reached the top 40 before; it states that "the song re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 on 26 November 1988." (It actually re-entered the chart at #84.) Also, it was just two members of Sheriff that went on to form Frozen Ghost, with two others opting to form Alias with some former members of Heart when their former bandmates declined to re-form Sheriff.
 

Time used to have a Canadian edition ... my family subscribed to it in the 1970s. Here's a brief description of it from Wikipedia:

From 1942 until 1979, Time had a Canadian edition that included an insert of five pages of locally produced content and occasional Canadian covers. Following changes in the tax status of Canadian editions of American magazines, Time closed Canadian bureaus, except for Ottawa, and published identical content to the US edition but with Canadian advertising.

Thanks for this, RA. As the administrator of The Oldies Music Board, I have a setting turned on that notifies me of every new post, and a couple of weeks ago I stopped receiving these notifications. I had tried turning this setting off and back on again to no avail, and so I figured something must have gone wrong with Boardhost. On the weekend I started getting numerous notifications about new posts that I'd already seen, so this would explain it. Glad that things are back to normal now. 

RadioActive wrote:

I'm counting on the Assembled Multitude (who did the the Overture from Tommy in 1970, but I digress) not to take it too far. Thanks. 

Fun fact re the Multitude, from Wikipedia:
"Many of the musicians in the ensemble were regulars at Sigma Sound Studios . . . . Those musicians became, as MFSB, the backbone of Philadelphia soul, working with producers Gamble and Huff, and Thom Bell, and artists such as The O'Jays, Billy Paul, The Stylistics, and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes."
 

"Maybe Tomorrow" did spend 3 weeks on the CHUM Chart, peaking at #20. But on Billboard it only got to #67.

Fitz wrote:

Fleadh wrote:

The Horse by Cliff Nobles.
Hard to prove, but some say it's the only top 10 hit - was No. 2 - where the credited person, as opposed to something like the Archies, doesn't actually appear on the track. (It was a B-side, instrumental version by his backing group of the A-side)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7g-b1ZaCPA

There is also the case of All American boy by Bobby Bare which was originally credited to Bill Parsons. Not sure of the chart position though.

It also peaked at #2. I had noticed that it was on Sirius' list, and in my opinion it shouldn't be since the real artist was far from being a one-hit wonder. I've seen a lot of one-hit wonder lists over the years, and I don't ever recall seeing this song included on one before. 

RadioActive wrote:

Let's not forget about Lorne's excellent "Oldies Music Board."

Thanks very much, RA. Yes, postings like this would be more than welcome on the oldies board. 
 

Might be of interest that the Blues Magoos' Peppy Castro was later in the group Balance, who had a #22 hit in 1981 with "Breaking Away".

RadioActive wrote:

Fascinating information - a CHUM country DJ intros Elvis in Toronto. I never would have guessed. I wonder if the plans were in the works at the time for the Top 40 switch. 

I wondered the same thing. Also, because many of Elvis' early singles had done very well on the country charts, I'm guessing that King was the best choice that CHUM had at that point to MC the shows.

I had actually thought about mentioning "December 1963" as another song that was a hit twice for the same artist in two different versions. But in this case the second version was a remix of the first, and that aspect of it didn't involve the original artist; it was done by Dutch DJ and producer Ben Liebrand. The original went to #1 in 1976, and the remix reached #14 in 1994.

I wasn't listening to CHUM-FM in 1973/74 and so I don't know if they, or Marsden specifically, might have been the first to play Rush locally ... it certainly wouldn't surprise me. But for what it's worth, the first that I heard Rush on the radio was when "In The Mood" from their first album got airplay on CKOC. It was released as a single in December 1974, so that means that they would have been playing it by early 1975.

torontostan wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

Does The Keg and Swiss Chalet have similar TV and radio ads?  Same owner. 

not really the same product 

As someone who used to work in market research, I complete agree. Metro and Food Basics have much more in common than The Keg and Swiss Chalet do, and from what I've read about supermarket customers becoming increasingly price-sensitive in general, I think Walter's comment is correct as well. In addition, it could well be the same ad agency coming up with both marketing campaigns. I don't think that any similarity between them is a problem at all.

Walter wrote:

With due respect to the loss of the beloved Catherine O'Hara, the painfully awful 'Sleep Country' spots with our 'Sleep Daddy' Eugene Levy seem to have finally been shelved.  They were right up there with many of the rightfully mentioned awful ads above.

I completely agree with your opinion of these commercials and I was hoping that you were also right about them being shelved, but unfortunately I've seen them a couple of times today.