It was quite common in the Fifties and Sixties to do radio remotes from furniture stores and car dealerships. In 1958 we were invited to Brown Bros. Ford to do my CKWX radio show live.  A group of teenagers showed up and danced on the parking lot.

My operator was Cal George. Cal had been a premier announcer for decades and when I look at these photos he looks out of place having to operate my radio show.  He must have felt like his world had ended and this brash young kid was moving in a direction he didn’t understand. Cal was a kind and generous man and never knocked rock and roll music but I really believe he did not like what he saw as the  future of radio. Cal is also sporting a beard to help celebrate 100 years of the province of British Columbia. That is how I was able to pinpoint the year as it was B.C.’s centennial year. Oh, the memories of simpler times when radio was king!

It’s interesting that with the advent of television many thought radio was doomed. At one point in the mid-Fifties all Vancouver radio stations came together to launch programs that promoted radio as a medium. Remote broadcasts proved to sponsors and prospective sponsors that radio still had power. In concert with those initiatives the deejay was born. Not that there hadn’t been deejays before but this became the golden age of deejays with every type of format you can imagine.

Vancouver’s top guns were Jack Cullen, Jack Kyle, Wilf Ray, Vic Waters, Al Jordan, and many more. We all had followings and sustained ratings that are only dreamed of today. These photos of yesteryear bring back a flood of good memories.

My friend Alyn Edwards salutes Brown Bros. Motors’ 65th birthday in the Vancouver Sun… read more here