1 of 1- RadioActive
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The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
If this story hadn’t happened to me, I’m not sure I would have believed it. It all started when I was looking through some old copies of long yellowed and saved newspapers that I’d kept over the years in a long unopened drawer for some reason.
One of them was the “After Four” section from 1968, a part of the long defunct Toronto Telegram. On one of the pages, there was an ad for CKFH, a would-be competitor to CHUM. As you can see by the copy of it below, they were running a “Be A Boss Jock” contest open to the high school students they hoped were their demo.
I didn’t think much about it and kept turning the pages. On one of the last ones, I saw it – an article on the kid who had won that week’s contest. Talk about doing a double or even triple take. There staring out from the page, half a century earlier, complete with photo (also below) was a smiling, skinny 17-year-old kid named Bill Marshall.
Bill was the overnight news anchor for 36 years at Broadcast News/The Canadian Press and is well known by many on this board. So how can I be sure it’s him? He confirmed it in an email:
“Yup, it's me.
In the late '60s, CKFH 1430 (owned by Foster Hewitt, hence the FH in the call letters) made a failed push to try to lure listeners away from 1050 CHUM, the top rock station in Toronto at the time. This contest was part of "FH's push.
I was GODAWFUL as a rock jock. But, at least it got my toe (toenail maybe) in the door. I still have a hard copy of that clipping from the Toronto Telegram, which went under in the fall of 1971.”
Today Bill is happily retired and seeing regular daylight for the first time in many decades.
But what are the odds that the only copy of the Telegram that I saved 50 years ago would contain that exact article on someone I would come to know and listen to some 20 years later? That is simply amazing and it’s the kind of lucky coincidence that’s truly one in a million.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go out and buy a lottery ticket!
Last edited by RadioActive (March 29, 2018 4:03 pm)
- Old Codger
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
ECI? I almost went to ECI. But no...I lived on the supposed 'wrong' side of Anglesey Blvd. Half of my pals from Humber Valley Village P.S. went 'southish' to ECI. The rest of us traveled 'northish' to RCI.
ECI sucks!!! 
- Dale Patterson
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
Don't forget about my alma mater, BCI, just a few miles away to the south-west.
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- Dale Patterson
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
'FH had lots of great jocks, including John Donabie, Chuck McCoy, John Rode, Duff Roman, Don Daynard, Big G. Walters, Keith Hampshire, Dan O'Neil and Norman B. to name a few. They definitely had a wider playlist than CHUM.
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- Old Codger
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
Tom Fulton too Dale. Yes...I used to listen to FH...especially at night when the music was a little more 'mature'...and the presentation more compelling. Maybe the main reason why CHUM brought in Jackson Armstrong...The Old Leader!!!
BCI eh? I believe 'we' put on a pretty big concert there in your concourse...The 'Poor People's 2' event with The 5 Man Electrical Band, Leigh Ashford, Truck and somebody else/can't remember...Brutus I think... all for a buck 99. When we booked the 5 Man 'E' Band...for 900-950 dollars...the magic had yet to happen. By the time they headlined at the BCI show 'Signs' had reached the top 10 across N. America [thanks to Nevin Grant flipping over Hello Melinda Goodbye and playing the 'B' side at CKOC] They would play the next night down in Houston for 10 grand.
We used CKFH and CHUM FM to advertise it...plus posters...everywhere.
- maybo
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
“Up your dial...”
- mace
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
Regarding 5 Man Electrical Band: The original single with "Signs" as the "B" side was released in Oct 1970 on MGM-14182. The re-release with "Signs" as the "A" side happened Jan 1971 on Lionel-3213.
- Dale Patterson
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
Old Codger wrote:
Tom Fulton too Dale. Yes...I used to listen to FH...especially at night when the music was a little more 'mature'...and the presentation more compelling. Maybe the main reason why CHUM brought in Jackson Armstrong...The Old Leader!!!
BCI eh? I believe 'we' put on a pretty big concert there in your concourse...The 'Poor People's 2' event with The 5 Man Electrical Band, Leigh Ashford, Truck and somebody else/can't remember...Brutus I think... all for a buck 99. When we booked the 5 Man 'E' Band...for 900-950 dollars...the magic had yet to happen. By the time they headlined at the BCI show 'Signs' had reached the top 10 across N. America [thanks to Nevin Grant flipping over Hello Melinda Goodbye and playing the 'B' side at CKOC] They would play the next night down in Houston for 10 grand.
We used CKFH and CHUM FM to advertise it...plus posters...everywhere.
We had some pretty good acts at Burnhamthorpe - the Staccatos, the Stampeders, Lighthouse and many others. Nowadays I think they have deejays at high school dances, but back then we had live bands!
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- cGrant
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
Nowadays I think they have deejays at high school dances
Not even. The geeky, gender-fluid media nerd (with an almost deeply disturbing penchant for Hungarian film noir), hooks up his/her cell phone to the gym PA and plays a combo of EDM to his/her peers. It's the one day of their high school career that they get the slightest minimalist acknowledgment of existence.
- betaylored
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
Dale Patterson wrote "but back then we had live bands!"
We sure did, I got dragged to see a very young Bruce Cockburn at John Abbott College CEGEP in my first year, which was Quebec's version (aversion?) to high school grade 12, then life more than made up for it when we moved to Toronto, for grade 13 and the amazing Max Webster band played my new high school, Stephen Leacock you-can't-drink-booze-here-cuz-you're-underage-in-Ontario Collegiate Institute. And like Mae West, I wasn't ready for an institution after the freedom and boozy fun of CEGEP, but Kim Mitchell, and the other concerts, Saga and I think Rush, sure helped.
It was so cool to to discover the music of the early Cars, Genesis, Bowie, Toto, Styx. The world after Fairlight computers, but before autotune and some of the newer tech was a good place to grow up in. And radio was a big part of that world.
Last edited by betaylored (March 30, 2018 1:56 pm)
- maybo
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
I don’t think there was a high school anywhere in southern Ontario that didn’t book Major Hoople’s Boarding House at least once in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s...
- Old Codger
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Re: The Amazing Toronto Radio Coincidence 50 Years In The Making
I don’t think there was a high school anywhere in southern Ontario that didn’t book Major Hoople’s Boarding House at least once in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s...
Maybo and I remember when he was, in fact, merely Corporal Hoople. [and we also recall something about Cream as well...Duh dud duh DUH!!!...]