Newly restored! This selected audio recording was digitally enhanced by Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
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Tom Howard, shared his comments (April 4): Jim, this 30 minutes aircheck from March 20, 1970 was sent to me from CKLW PD Paul Drew. This recording was from the master open reel to reel tape and was taped directly from a studio board feed, that’s why it sounds so good.
The late Rosalie Trombley, Tom Howard, and Jo-Jo Shutty MacGregor. (Photo: Tom Howard)
March 17, 1970 was on St. Patrick’s Day, and my grandmother, on some days, began recording CKLW just before 6 AM the Todd Wallace show, getting the day started, and also that of my good friend Big Jim Davis (Edwards). It was taped on a C90 cassette tapes. Later in the afternoon, it was Duke Roberts . . . also, recorded — unedited and unscoped — both the same day. It was great listening to CKLW in the late ’60’s and ’70’s. My grandmother would then mail the tapes to me here in Orange County, in Southern California. My friend, Charlie Ritenburg, a dear friend of mine living in Toronto, restored many of my recordings, including this one as well.
Enjoy this stellar, CKLW Duke Roberts memory from 1970. On the radio once again like it was only yesterday . . . 54 years ago. –T. Howard
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NEW!A special THANK YOU to our friend, Tom Howard, of Riverside, California, for this recent contribution for our Motor City Radio Flashbacks airchecks repository.
NEW! A special THANK YOU to Randall Carlisle and Charlie O’Brien for recently contributing this featured CKLW 20 20 News audio memory, from April 1972, for our airchecks repository.
“The listing of records herein is the opinion of CKLW based on its survey of record sales, correlated with listener requests.”
The featured CKLW chart was digitally restored in its entirety by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
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CKLW BIG 30 December 12, 1967
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A sincere thank you Mrs. Patti Griggs. This featured presentation would have not been possible without your generosity, dedication, and your continuous support.
Above CKLW music chart courtesy of Mrs. Patti Griggs and the George L. Griggs estate.
A MCRFB Note: The above ad/date also commemorates Tom Shannon’s debut broadcasting night at CKLW. Shannon transitioned to the Windsor, Ontario station from WKBW, Buffalo, New York.
The above featured Detroit Free Press CKLW advertisement/ article was digitally re-imaged by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
Missed any of our previous ‘Detroit Radio Back-Pages‘ features? GO HERE
MCRFB Note: Special THANKS to our friend, John Bartony (a.k.a. Jukebox John) St. Clair Shores, Michigan, for providing the above Detroit Free Press CKLW RKO General ad (December 1964) for this site, as featured today.
A special thank you to senior MCRFB consultant Greg Innis, of Livonia, MI., for contributing the Newspapers.com archives (Detroit radio related) articles, ads, and images we have provided for this site, since 2016.
Thank you, Greg Innis, for making these historic Detroit radio features possible. 🙂
ON YOUR PC? You can read this entire newsprint article/ad — the fine print — ENLARGED. For a larger detailed view click above image 2x and open to second window. Click image anytime to return to NORMAL image size.
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At the time this letter was circulated by management at CKLW in May of 1966, CKLW had long ceased publications of any weekly music chart surveys for some time, most notably, by the end of September 1964 (and it was partial run of the CKLW charts that year). In 1965, not one single CKLW chart was printed nor made available for retailers and for the public in general.
CKLW was a radio station owned by RKO General at the time (which they purchased outright in 1963). RKO (according to CKLW’s Charlie O’Brien) owned Essex Broadcasters, which operated CKLW AM and CKLW FM only. RKO General also owned five other radio stations in the United States.
Presumably, at CKLW RKO, the music survey sheets were, for the most part, just another unnecessary cost factor not having been appropriated in the station’s budget overall (i.e., like radio contests promotions as well).
CKLW, in the letter above, essentially put out word that the music surveys would only become available to interested music retailers and dealers if they were willing to pay for them. And in looking at the numbers CKLW attached in their letter, you will note they were all optional, yet an ‘expensive’ proposition (in monetary terms at the time) the station offered for music retailers to choose from, for this service having been offered, back in May of 1966.
The above featured Detroit Free Press CKLW advertisement/ article was digitally re-imaged by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
Missed any of our previous ‘Detroit Radio Back-Pages‘ features? GO HERE
MCRFB Note: Special THANKS to our friend, John Bartony (a.k.a. Jukebox John) St. Clair Shores, Michigan, for providing the above Detroit Free Press CKLW RKO General ad (April 1961) for this site, as featured today.
A special thank you to senior MCRFB consultant Greg Innis, of Livonia, MI., for contributing the Newspapers.com archives (Detroit radio related) articles, ads, and images we have provide for this site since 2016.
Thank you, Greg Innis, for making these historic Detroit radio features possible.🙂
ON YOUR PC? You can read this entire newsprint article/ad — the fine print — ENLARGED. For a larger detailed view click above image 2x and open to second window. Click image anytime to return to NORMAL image size.
Click your server’s back button to return to MCRFB.COM home page.
ON YOUR MOBILE DEVICE? Tap on newsprint image. Open to second window. “Stretch” image across your device screen to magnify for largest print view.
The Rosalie Trombley Commemorative Day Event: Windsor, Ontario. Sunday, September 17, 2023
FROM BLITZ MAGAZINE’S WEBSITE and FACEBOOK PAGE
By Michael McDowell
If you believe that the 1970s represented a banner era for hit singles, you can thank Rosalie Trombley.
[Photo: The Windsor Star]
The position of Music Director at a radio station could vary widely in terms of aesthetic gratification, commensurate with the state of the art. For such visionaries as Frank “Swingin’ ” Sweeney and Paul Cannon (who each held the position at suburban Detroit’s legendary WKNR Keener 13 throughout the mid to late 1960s), being Music Director meant selecting an average of six to ten new singles for airplay out of the roughly 300 to 600 stellar new releases that surfaced each week throughout that most dynamic and creative of musical eras.
However, doing so meant that hundreds of landmark singles were overlooked at the time of their release. For the past several decades, Blitz Magazine – The Rock And Roll Magazine For Thinking People has been working in tandem with countless musicologists and record collectors around the world to chronicle, celebrate and archive that tremendous body of material.
Deverons and Guess Who alumnus BURTON CUMMINGS, Saint Clair College President PATTI FRANCE and Rosalie’s son, TIM TROMBLEY after the unveiling of the statue honoring former CKLW Music Director ROSALIE TROMBLEY in Winddsor, Ontario on Sunday 17 September 2023.Photo by Michael McDowell. C&P 2023 Blitz Magazine – The Rock And Roll Magazine For Thinking People. All rights reserved.
Conversely, with mainstream music at large having entered into a protracted aesthetic slump by the end of the 1960s, the job of Music Director by definition required a great deal more due diligence in order to sustain the momentum that had been generated by the likes of Sweeney and Cannon. As Music Director for Windsor, Ontario’s CKLW-AM throughout that period, Leamington, Ontario native Trombley nonetheless managed to separate the wheat from the chaff in similar fashion. In the process, she helped enable The Big 8 to dominate the North American market throughout the decade.
On the morning of Sunday the seventeenth of September, hundreds of radio and entertainment industry veterans gathered together with Trombley’s family and friends at Windsor’s Open Streets Festival along Riverside Drive for the unveiling of a statue in her honor. Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens was joined in his opening remarks by Saint Clair College President Patti France, statue artist Donna Jean Mayne and others, including former Deverons and Guess Who vocalist and keyboard man, Burton Cummings.
“I remember the few times I really talked to Rosalie”, said Cummings.
“She really knew the stuff. There are many musicians who are very talented, who didn’t make it. I never took that for granted. Because of Rosalie, I still hear myself on the radio all the time. And she was there, right at the launching point”.
BURTON CUMMINGS (left, back to camera) after the unveiling of the statue honoring former CKLW Music Director ROSALIE TROMBLEY, as Windsor, Ontario Mayor DREW DILKENS and big8radio.com CEO CHARLIE O’BRIEN look on in amusement. Windsor, Ontario, Sunday 17 September 2023.Photo by Michael McDowell for Blitz Magazine – The Rock And Roll Magazine For Thinking People. All rights reserved.
Following the unveiling of the statue by Cummings, CKLW veteran and big8radio.com CEO Charlie O’Brien and others, Saint Clair College hosted a lunch reception for the industry vets in attendance. Also on board were CKLW legends Len Robinson, Pat Holiday, Ted Richards, JoJo Shutty-MacGregor and Joe Donovan, along with Motor City Radio Flashbacks’ curator Jim Feliciano, Edison Media Research’s Sean Ross, renowned musicologist Jim Johnson and Trombley’s son, Tim.
At the reception, Tim Trombley shared at length about his mother’s unwavering ability to balance her pioneering work at CKLW with her ongoing responsibilities as a single parent, In the process, he provided one of the event’s most moving moments.
Conversely, Richards spoke of Trombley’s lighter side by sharing the secret of “the record that Rosale hated”.
“It was C.W. McCall’s Convoy”, Richards said, in reference to the November 1975 MGM label tale of the world of truck drivers and their CB radios.
“We aired it late at night!”
After the reception at Saint Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, following the unveiling of the statue honoring former CKLW Music Director ROSALIE TROMBLEY. Left to righr: Musicologist JIM JOHNSON, CKLW alumnus LEN ROBINSON, Motor City Radio Flashbacks’ curator JIM FELICIANO, Blitz Magazine – The Rock And Roll Magazine For Thinking People Editor / Publisher MICHAEL McDOWELL, CKLW alumnus and big8radio.com CEO CHARLIE O’BRIEN.Copyright 2023, Blitz Magazine. All rights reserved.
Nonetheless, all concurred that Trombley (who succumbed to a lengthy battle against Alzheimer’s disease in her native Leamington in November 2021 at age 82) was unwavering in her determination to keep the atmosphere in the CKLW studios like that of one big, happy family.
“We had fun!”, said Holiday.
To be certain, it was fun that was augmented by gratitude. And perhaps no individual at the day’s festivities was more grateful in that respect than Cummings.
Having left the Deverons in 1966 to join the Guess Who for the release of their third album, ‘It’s Time’, the band went on to sign with Larry Uttal’s Amy label in the United States. At Amy, the Guess Who released their Dave Clark Five – inspired “His Girl” single.
Meanwhile, the Guess Who continued to record for Quality at home. The results included such magnificent singles as Clock On The Wall and their ambitious cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong”.
However, with the departure of original front man Chad Allan (who had provided the lead vocal for the Guess Who’s 1965 monster classic cover of Johnny Kidd And The Pirates’ “Shakin’ All Over” for Florence Greenberg’s Scepter label), the band remained in transitory mode for more than a year. In addition to those various projects for Amy and Quality, they managed to sustain their momentum in part by hosting a musical variety television series from their native Winnipeg, Manitoba.
But thanks to Rosalie Trombley, that all began to change at the end of 1968.
A summit meeting of sorts, at the reception following the unveiling of the statue honoring former CKLW Music Director ROSALIE TROMBLEY in Windsor, Ontario on Sunday 17 September 2023. Left to right: Edison Media Research’s SEAN ROSS, Blitz Magazine – The Rock And Roll Magazine For Thinking People Editor / Publisher MICHAEL McDOWELL, CKLW alumnus and big8radio.com CEO CHARLIE O’BRIEN.Copyright 2023, Blitz Magazine. All rights reserved.
Around the time they had completed a joint album project at home with Capitol Records stalwarts, The Staccatos, The Guess Who switched label affiliations to RCA Victor in the United States and Nimbus in Canada. Their resultant Wheatfield Soul album produced an ambitious original ballad (composed by Cummings and Guess Who lead guitarist Randy Bachman), “These Eyes”.
After that single had enjoyed brief success at home in late 1968, Trombley lent her support to the record, putting it in heavy rotation at CKLW in the early weeks of 1969. The single became an instant classic.
One magnificent Guess Who single after another followed in succession, from mid-1969 throughout the first half of the 1970s. Among the highlights were “Laughing / Undun”, “No Time”, “American Woman” / “No Sugar Tonight”, “Hand Me Down World”, “Rain Dance”, “Albert Flasher”, “Dancin’ Fool”, “Share The Land” / “Bus Rider”, “Sour Suite”, “Glamour Boy”, “Orly” and their sublime signature single,” Running Back To Saskatoon”. Without exception, Trombley afforded each and every one of them heavy rotation at CKLW.
“When it comes to Rosalie Trombley, I have no problem saying very easily that she changed my life”, said Cummings. “It would occur to me once in a while that if it weren’t for Rosalie, I wouldn’t be here.
“I kept a journal, as we didn’t have laptops back then. We traveled all over the world. I wouldn’t have had that luxury had Rosalie Trombley not launched our first (RCA Victor) record.
“Rosalie was a huge part in launching that record. This was the gateway into Detroit, where a lot of people heard it for the first time. I would not have a wall of beautiful gold records at home, were it not for Rosalie. For that, I am eternally grateful. I will never forget her.”
The statue of Rosalie Trombley can be viewed from Riverside Drive at the intersection of McDougall Street.
—Mike McDowell September 19, 2023
Copyright 2023. Blitz Magazine. All rights reserved.
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A special THANK YOU to Mike McDowell, Editor of Blitz Magazine, for his guest article published here today at Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
All photographs were taken and is property of Mike McDowell.
A special THANK YOU to Terry Scott. The You Tube video presentation below is courtesy of CKLW 580 newsman Terry Scott.
Also, visit the newly-launched website (September 17, 2023), ‘Honouring Rosalie Trombley’, go HERE
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A MCRFB Note: For detailed and enlarged viewing of all images presented here, double-click over each photo with your PC mouse. Tap over photo and stretch image across your mobile device window for expanded detailed view.
Newly restored! This selected audio recording was digitally enhanced by Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
NEW! A special THANK YOU to our friend, Tom Howard, of Riverside, California, for this recent contribution for our Motor City Radio Flashbacks airchecks repository.
