Another radio legend has left us. It is becoming too regular. Brian Lord was a great deejay and one of the best wordmasters ever encountered. He was also a character. Although I met Brian and talked with him many times I did not really know him. He was one of the original C-FUN Good Guys. I followed a few years later when Dave McCormick and Brian left for the U.S. I did see him from time to time when he visited Vancouver.

Original Good Guys: Dave McCormick, Frosty Forst,
Cameron Bell, Mike Powley, Brian Lord and Jerry Landa.

Stories about Brian circulate to this day in various broadcast outlets in our city. His nickname during those halycon days on C-FUN was Baby Blue. Allow me to say “farewell Baby Blue, a new journey has begun.”

(More on Brian Lord at radiowest.ca)

We also mourn the passing this week of two music legends: Etta James at 73 and Johnny Otis at 90.

Etta first hit the charts as a teenager, taking The Wallflower (Roll With Me, Henry) — an “answer record” to Hank Ballard‘s Work With Me, Annie — to No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1955.

She had a string of R&B and pop hits, many with lush string arrangements… the most memorable being At Last:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW3kXNywZa0

Besides writing Willie and the Hand Jive, Rhythm-and-blues singer, songwriter, drummer, bandleader and disc jockey Johnny Otis discovered Etta James, Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, and Hank Ballard. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Sit back and enjoy this classic Johnny Otis performance: