Category: People

  • Arnie Nelson signs off

    Photo courtesy Vancouver Radio Museum and Brian Walks Just the other day I received word that Arnie Nelson had passed away. Arnie was only a kid when he worked for CKNW. He appeared on many of the old “live” radio shows of the Forties and Fifties and was well known as a steel guitar player…

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  • We lose another radio great: Al Jordan passes

    Al Jordan audio courtesy Owen Coppin Sad news today: the passing of someone special in my life. Al Jordan was one of the most gifted announcers ever to work in broadcasting in this country. (Click here for Dan Russell‘s tribute to Al… courtesy radiowest.ca) (Click here for Brian Lord‘s tribute to Al… courtesy radiowest.ca) When…

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  • Ted Reynolds dies, Garry Raible retires

    It was the best of times in radio and television. Back in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s Vancouver enjoyed a myriad of radio, television and print personalities… unlike today when a citizen is hard pressed to name 12 major personalities in our town from media. He covered it all in his long and illustrious career,…

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  • RRHF Report with fm 1049’s Scott Miller!

    I’m in Cleveland for the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions! fm 1049 morning guy Scott Miller and I talk about the festivities. Click to listen:

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  • Little Anthony, DJ Fontana, Bill Black inducted into RRHF

    Spend just a few moments in the company of Little Anthony and the Imperials and it’s easy to understand why they’re one of the most successful and highly regarded vocal-harmony groups of the past half-century. (More from John Soeder in the Cleveland Plain Dealer) Elvis Presley was one of the first Rock Hall inductees in…

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  • Paul Harvey — 1918-2009

    Paul Harvey was one of the classiest broadcasters of all.  His wonderful voice and almost theatrical presentation made him a household word for decades.  His style and grace were important factors in making him one of the best loved of radio performers.  I can’t think of the number of performers who have tried to copy…

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  • BBC Radio 2 Remembers Gene Vincent

    I always felt sorry for the early rockers. In the late ’50s an investigation into graft in the record and radio business forced radio stations and record companies to turn much of the music from the rock and roll era into basic vanilla. This way they could sustain their Top 40 programming but gear the…

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  • Stacks Of Wax! Mounds Of Sound!

    I was guest on Rock 101’s Bro Jake morning show and took in some of my favorite rock cuts from vinyl albums. His theme for weeks now has been “On the Record” or the “Wax Museum”. I suggested he change it to “The Vinyl Frontier”. (L to R – Josh, Bro Jake, Rock Girl Alece,…

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  • A Vancouver legend’s brush with Buddy Holly

    Fifty years ago, three young musicians boarded a four-seat propeller airplane after playing a show at a Midwest ballroom. They flew in a storm to avoid another overnight ride on an unheated bus during an arduous midwinter tour. By morning’s light, searchers found the wreckage on a cold, windswept Iowa farm. The crushed fuselage held…

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  • On Radio: O’Day is still Seattle’s voice

    Pat and me in Roche Harbor, 2004 Of all the voices that have crossed the radio airwaves in Seattle the past half-century, none may be so immediately identifiable to so many people, even today, as Pat O’Day’s. A half-century, as it happens, is the appropriate time frame to consider O’Day’s place in Seattle radio lore,…

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