VT40 RADIO UPDATES HISTORY

Update #31 - July 29, 2020

Since the previous update in May, ten years worth of surveys have been added to the site, five years for CKLG and five years for CFUN.

-CKLG 1980 - complete year

-CKLG 1981 - complete year

-CKLG 1982 - complete year

-CKLG 1983 - complete year

-CKLG 1984 - complete year. The index page contains audio clips with Terry David Mulligan and Terry Reid, along with a Jingle montage. All courtesy of RadioWest.ca

-CFUN 1980 - complete year

-CFUN 1981 - complete year

-CFUN 1982 - complete year

-CFUN 1983 - complete year

-CFUN 1984 - complete year, the last year for CFUN in the Top 40 format. The Index page contains two audio clips, one of Russ McCloud, the other with Tom Jeffries. Audio courtesy of RadioWest.ca

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Update #30 - May 6, 2020

Since the last Update the following has been added to the Vancouver Top 40 Radio site:

C-FUN

A new section has been opened devoted to C-FUN in the seventies and eighties. This is a separate section from CFUN in the 50s and 60s. You can navigate there through the “Station Selection Page” (aka Page 2). Select from the five radio station icons the one leading to CFUN in the seventies. This will take you to a new Year Index page devoted to those later years. Here you will find newspaper ads from the Sun and Province that herald the return of C-FUN to the pop/rock music format. And you will also find links to the following:

1. CFUN 1978 Index Page - all charts for the year. The page also contains 4 audio files with jingles from the 1970s “You” series.

2. CFUN 1979 Index Page - all charts for the year. The page also contains 2 audio files with Daryl B and Tom Lucas.

MORE CKLG TOO!!

3. CKLG 1978 Index Page - All weekly charts for the year. Plus links to audio with Dan Williams’ last broadcast on LG in June 1979. And a link to audio featuring Fred Latremouille in Dec. 1978.

4. CKLG 1979 Index Page - All weekly charts for the year. Audio: 1979 disco jingle.

On all the CKLG and CFUN charts for the above years there are cross-links to each others’ charts for each given week.

IN THE C-FUN 50s & 60s SECTION:

5. CFUN 1963 Index Page - New audio files including jingles - While the charts for 1963 have long been posted, the Index Page has been revamped and expanded to include a large gallery of 12 jingles and 7 other audio files all of which have not been previously been posted. The jingles are from the same package as the familiar “This Is Vancouver” jingle and if you’re a jingle aficionado you’ll find them interesting. Thanks to Owen Coppin for sending these to me several years ago.

On the same page there are also some sound bytes with Red Robinson, Jerry Landa, Tom Peacock and a very brief clip of former BC Lions Running Back Willie Fleming, who had a weekend show on CFUN for a brief time in 1963.

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Update #29 - March 20, 2020

In these troubled and uncertain times I can only hope all of you will be safe and well. While it may seem that announcing a website update at this time to be a bit superfluous, on the other hand perhaps it may provide some of you a bit of diversionary time.

Since my previous update in January the following have been added to the site:

1. CKLG 1975 - all charts for the entire year

2. CKLG 1976 - all charts for the entire year

3. CKLG 1977 - all charts for the entire year

New Audio

Audio clips have also been added to the 1975 an 1976 index pages, featuring Roy Hennessy, Gord Robson and Doc Harris.

Audio conversion project:

-For the past few months I have been slowly converting the audio links found throughout my site (jingles, airchecks & montages) into embedded audio players. These audio clips are usually found on the numerous Index pages and Soundathons. With these audio players it simply means you can now click on the player and listen without a new page being opened. But if it should happen that your browser does not support these audio players you can still click on the accompanying text links the old way. The pages completed include:

-CKWX - 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962

-CFUN - 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1967 and Soundathons 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

-CKLG - all years where audio is featured.

Still to be converted:

CKWX - 1961

CFUN - 1963, 1965

For further browsing on my site I’ll refer back to December when I added the CKWX 1957 “Unofficial” surveys. Many of these surveys (indicated in the date index by *) are accompanied by retyped newspaper articles from the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province, including many of Red Robinson’s weekly articles. (It was my intention to add more in the future but the ones that are there now make for interesting reading.)

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Update #28 - January 23, 2020

The website has been updated as follows:

1. A New Home page - This has been open since mid-December. The new Home page features a new digital image by artist Bruce Stewart who has cleverly re-imagined Vancouver’s Theatre Row and it depicts both Red Robinson and Wolfman Jack driving in opposite directions along the mall. Don’t miss it.

2. CKLG 1973 Surveys - now available for viewing.

3. CKLG 1974 Surveys - now available for viewing.

Note that while the top 30 singles charts are complete for the above two years, a few of the Album charts are missing some information. This is because whenever I had to source a chart from the newspaper instead of the “record store” chart, the album information was often missing.

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Update #27 - December 4, 2019

For many years I’ve had surveys posted for CKWX starting from September 1958 and running through to March 1962 at which time 'WX made its exit from the Top 40 format.

This update takes us even further back in time. It is devoted primarily to CKWX in 1957 with a series of charts that takes us through 1958 up to early January 1959.

Actually CKWX had not yet adopted a Top 40 format in 1957. Like other radio stations it was undergoing a transition. Radio’s “golden age” had slipped into history and the new dominant staple of programming was becoming hit music.

Here, in this pre-top 40 era, we’re presenting two different series of charts beginning in 1957.

1. The “Unpublished” Charts of CKWX.
Beginning in Jan. 1957 and carrying through to mid-1958, a series of playlists that were not distributed to the public but were used in-house, these “unpublished” or “Station” charts, as we like to call them have amazingly survived and they came to us as barely readable photocopies from the collection of Alex Galbraith. I have retyped these charts for this site in the style of the original charts using a typewriter-style font (Courier) and have included all the typing idiosyncrasies and misspellings found on the originals.

2. The Red Robinson Teen Canteen charts.
When Red Robinson arrived at CKWX on April 1, 1957 it wasn’t long before he began to compile his own chart which started as a ‘Top 30.’ Soon it became a ‘Top 30 plus 10’ and by September of ’57, due to the numerous new song releases, he expanded it to a ‘Top 50.’ (referenced in Red’s Vancouver Sun column of Oct. 4th). Red’s chart was an integral part of his Teen Canteen program and it was compiled over the phone by two girls who came in and took votes for two hours every afternoon.

Like the “Station” charts mentioned above, these were not distributed to the public and they too would be lost to history if not for the fact that, in late July, the top ten songs from his chart began appearing as a weekly feature in the Vancouver Sun along with a weekly column that Red contributed. These weekly top tens are presented here on my site and also include, for a number of randomly selected weeks, some of Red’s weekly columns that accompanied those top tens.

Both the ‘Station’ charts and the Teen Canteen top tens appear side by side on the same page, week by week. You can view them together and compare what songs Red was playing on his show with what songs the other WX deejays such as Bill Davis and Bob McGavin were playing. Since the dates of each series do not match exactly—the ‘Station’ charts had a Sunday effective date and Red’s charts had a Saturday effective date—the dates in the index will display the ‘Station’ chart’s date as the dominant date. Clicking on one date will bring up both charts for that week. (Note that Red’s charts do not begin appearing until July 28). To confuse the dating matters a little more the Vancouver Sun printed Red’s top tens six days after the date that Red aired his countdown.

The 1958 and 1959 Index pages which, as I said earlier, have been on the site for many years have been modified to include the links to the these two series, both of which continue into these years.

Audio
The CKWX 1957 Index Page contains 14 audio clips. Foremost is a 45-minute piece featuring Red Robinson’s show on CKWX on September 16, 1957. (Incorrectly dated Sept. 14 in some sources.) Thanks here goes to Dale Patterson of the Rock Radio Scrap Book website for allowing me to link to this file. Other audio includes some interesting jingles.

Images
The 1957 Index Page also contains numerous images, mostly from 1957 newspaper ads.

Bonus Extras:
1. Bruce Stewart has contributed another of his magnificent paintings, this one titled “Juicy Fruit Frame” which depicts James Dean and Natalie Wood in a 1956 Meteor and enjoying a view parked high above LA. It appears on the 1957 Index page where you can click on the image to get a much larger high resolution image. Thanks to Bruce for this wonderful image.

2. The Disc Jockey’s Theme Song by Steve Allen, a 1957 recording that never charted but included for your amusement as an embedded YouTube file.

About the Newspaper articles and YouTube links.
-As you browse the surveys week by week you will occasionally stumble upon newspaper articles that appeared that same week as the surveys, many of them containing Red Robinson’s weekly column. These appear only on a select number of surveys (about 25%). In Red’s column he often makes predictions about up-and-coming hits. Youtube links have been provided to some of these songs, some of which became smash hits and others which fell into obscurity. Clicking on these Youtube links will take you directly to Youtube.

Articles by other newspaper writers have also been included, even a few written for the Sun by Jack Cullen and others. Many of these articles provide some interesting insights into the times and reflect the reactions and dismays to rock and roll by various people.

As I indicated these new articles and Youtube links only accompany a select number of surveys and you’ll come across them as you browse. The inclusion of newspaper articles and Youtube links is somewhat of an experiment and may be expanded, depending on what reactions, if any, that I receive from any of you.

Jim Bower

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Update #26 - November 5, 2019

This is somewhat of a mini-update, which contains no new uploaded charts. The additions mentioned here were intended to have been part of a very huge update that is coming in a few more weeks but I decided to open up the following items in advance of that.

1. Many of you are familiar with the images of Bruce Stewart that adorn various locations on my site. There are nine of them in all on the site, including paintings such as “Dave McCormick and the Swinging Men” “Peter’s Ice Cream”, “Red Robinson & the White Spot”, while others are digital images such as the “Olds-Panorama Skyline” which currently forms a wallpaper backdrop on my home page. Bruce’s contributions have gone a long way in helping to make my website a better place.

Now, a tenth image of Bruce’s has just been added, one that I’ve been holding in reserve for a long time. It’s called “Dairy Queen Date” and it’s a beautiful rendering depicting teens hanging out at the Dairy Queen at Fraser & 47th Avenue in May 1960. And why that date? Well, in the scene next to the DQ is the Fraser theatre and on its marquee it lists the movie “A Summer Place” starring Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee. This movie (although released in the U.S. in Nov. 1959) played at the Fraser from May 2 to 9, 1960. (Source: Vancouver Sun theatre pages.)

You may ask, what is the connection here with Top 40 Radio in Vancouver? Well, in the scene we have teens (described by Bruce as “both hardrockers and squares”), vintage cars, and a beautiful Vancouver night street scene. Naturally we can assume that someone in the picture has a transistor or car radio playing hit tunes of the day, tunes that would have at that time included “Stuck on You” by Elvis, “Cathy’s Clown” by the Everly Brothers, “Sixteen Reasons” by Connie Stevens, “Step by Step” by The Crests, “Stairway to Heaven” by Neil Sedaka, and many more. (Sometimes the imagination can furnish more details than what’s in the image.)

This beautiful painting can be found on the CKWX 1960 Index/Memorabilia Page. The painting forms a wallpaper backdrop for the entire page, and if you scroll down the page you’ll find the complete image. Click on the picture and it will open up a beautiful hi-resolution image which, thanks to Bruce’s generosity, allows you to download and print. If any Dairy Queen people out there chance upon this image I’m sure they’ll be very happy with the free advertising they’re getting.

Thanks again to Bruce Stewart for sharing his beautiful images with us.

While on this page you may enjoy browsing other items from that you may have missed from previous visits. You can still view the Sensational Sixty charts week by week. Toward the end of 1960 it morphed into the Fabulous Forty. You might also enjoy revisiting the blog devoted to former DJ Buddy Clyde, one of WX’s star personalities of the time.

2. A few C-FUN tidbits have been added as well. Some time ago Jamie Anstey sent me images of three flyers advertising C-FUN Hi-Fi Club dances, two from 1959 for dances in Ladysmith and Nanaimo, and the third for a 1960 dance at the Panda Supper Club in White Rock, all hosted by Dave McCormick. The musical artists featured include Steve & the Viscounts (Ladysmith & Nanaimo), The Mysterians (Nanaimo), Les Vogt & the Chantelle’s (White Rock) and The Citations (White Rock)

The first two of these have been posted on the C-FUN 1959 Index/Memorabilia page. The third has been placed on the the C-FUN 1960 Index page.

3. One other small item: The jingle “This Is Vancouver” which used to play automatically on my Home page back in 2005 when I premiered by site, has been re-activated. Many of today’s web browsers however, have disabled “autoplay” as a default setting so unless you have manually enabled “autoplay” in your web browser’s ‘preferences’, you may not hear it upon launch, (and I realize some people prefer it that way). And I should add that, as I understand things, it will not autoplay from an iPad or other tablet. In all cases the jingle can be played or stopped manually by the small player at the page bottom. Many of you are, of course, familiar with this jingle which was written back in 1964 by Frosty Forst and Red Robinson.

Next:

I am putting the finishing touches on a huge update coming your way in a few weeks, hopefully well before Christmas. This is a long delayed project devoted to the “unpublished” charts of CKWX in 1957 and 1958, and also the “top tens” from Red Robinson’s Teen Canteen charts for that same time period. Accompanying the charts will be more audio clips including jingles. Also radio station newspaper ads and articles, including many by Red Robinson.

Beyond that, in the new year, more CKLG charts from the seventies will be added along with a new section devoted to latter-day C-FUN in the seventies and eighties.

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Update #25 - August 31, 2019

After many years of inactivity the Vancouver Top 40 Radio website has been updated. I won’t go into the reasons (and excuses) that took me away from working on the site for so long, but suffice it to say I’m back at it, actively working on the site.

This summer over 312 new charts have been added to the site, all re-typed, one chart at a time, from the originals. There are now over 1000 charts on the site.

New additions include:

1. CKVN - A new section devoted to the brief few years when CKVN, after dropping its all-news format and before returning to become C-FUN, had adopted the Top 40 Format.

2. CKVN - 1970 - all weekly charts.

3. CKVN - 1971 - all weekly charts plus the CKVN All-Time Top 300 chart issued in the summer of 1971.

4. CKVN - 1972 - all weekly charts.

5. CKLG - 1970 all weekly charts plus the CKLG All-Time 300 Hits, an 3-day event that ran the Labour Day weekend in 1970

6. CKLG - 1971 - all weekly charts.

7. CKLG - 1972 - all weekly charts.

New Audio:

8. CKVN Year Index Page
a) Five audio montages featuring an assortment of Jingles, courtesy of RadioWest.ca.
b) Two audio bytes featuring Michael W. Morgan and Phil Toombs. Courtesy of Larry Morton.

9. CKLG 1970 Index Page - Three audio bytes featuring Rick Honey, Roy Hennessy and Bob Morris. Thanks to Larry Morton for providing these.

10. CKLG - 1971 Index Page - Two audio bytes featuring Ched Miller and Don Stevens. Again, thanks to Larry Morton.

Other changes and additions:

11. Vancouver Top 40 Radio “Home” page - revamped and updated. New graphics added. Wallpaper background is Bruce Stewart’s digital image of 1960 Olds overlooking Vancouver skyline.

12. “Station Select” page redesigned, probably not for the last time.

13. Links page updated. Old ‘dead’ links removed. New ones added. All in all, many evenings worth of radio-related browsing on other sites.

14. CKWX Year Index Page - new and better quality photos added of the "rock house" on Burrard Street.

15. CFUN Year Index Page - new station photo added courtesy Red Robinson.com

Next Project: The long-delayed addition of the CKWX unpublished charts of 1957 and 1958 along with the Red Robinson “Teen Canteen” top ten songs from those same years.

To Be Followed by: More charts from the seventies, slowly working our way to the eighties and nineties.

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There’s one last thing I would like to mention. Some of you may have noticed on the Amazon website that, a few years back, someone published at least four different books printing all the charts from CFUN, CKWX and CKLG, that appear on my site. In fact the pages in the book are direct reproductions of my site’s typed pages which means that the author, whose name shall not be mentioned here, has profited from all the many hours of typing I did on the charts. This individual has also visited many other oldies sites including ARSA and Oldiesloon has published books of other cities’ radio charts, reproducing the transcribed charts from these sites.

I want to make it clear that I am not connected with these books in any way. If you see these books please be aware that you will find nothing in them that you can’t find for free on my site.

Update #23 - December 6, 2009

Many of you in the past have enjoyed the paintings and digital images of Bruce Stewart, many of which Bruce has generously allowed me to display on the Vancouver Top 40 Radio website.

I am pleased to now have the privilege of displaying Bruce's latest artistic work, competed this very year (2009), and his first painting in many years. This digital painting pays tribute to 'Big Daddy' Dave McCormick and the original "Swinging Men at 1410", Al Jordan, Brian Lord, Frosty Forst, and Jerry Landa. The year is 1961 and the scene is inside, not the "real" C-FUN control room, but "a fantasy image of what the listener (namely Bruce himself) imagined what the DJ board at C-FUN might look like amid the chaos of a Summer Soundathon week -- if radio had pictures! Only in the mind's eye of a listener, out there, everywhere around a place called Funland!"

You'll find Bruce's new painting on the C-FUN 1961 Index page and you can enlarge it and read more about it by clicking on the image.

Bruce, now retired, lives in Victoria. He was once a medical illustrator and ran the department in the 1980s in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. He has worked on many paintings over the years, many of them Vancouver-themed, having diplayed his vast collection at art shows throughout the lower mainland. It is extremely fortunate, and I am extremely grateful, that Bruce has graciously allowed many of his images to be posted these past few years on the Vancouver Top 40 Radio website. These images include:

1) Summer Soundathon painting (Soundathon Index page)
2) Red Robinson and the C-FUN good guys at the White Spot drive-in (C-FUN 1964 Index page)
3) Capilano Stadium view from Little Mountain. (CKWX 1959 Index page)
4) Peter's Ice Cream on West Broadway (C-FUN 1966 Index page)
5) Kits Beach summer fun (Soundathon #12 page)
6) Lazy Summer Night from Stanley Park (Soundathon #10 page)
7) John Oliver High School reunion (Soundathon #8 page)
8) Oldsmobile/Vancouver panorama digital image (CKWX 1960 Index page)

The remaining changes on the site all center around C-FUN, and involve changes I've made over the past several months but as yet have not reported in an update. If you've been a regular visitor to the site you've probably already noticed them and there will be few surprises here. Otherwise here' a rundown:

1. DJ Photos and Survey scans.
2. Jingles reorganized and expanded. These are C-FUN's first jingles from CRC, heard in that banner year of 1960 and into 1961. Courtesy of Radio West and Owen Coppin.
3. Hits of the Day Jingles. Courtesy of Radio West.
4. Audio Montage of the very first C-FUN chart. Compiled by, and courtesy of, Larry Morton.
5. Read about C-FUN's Saturday night "Party Line" show. Hear the audio clip courtesy of Radio West.
6. More survey scans.
7. Brian Lord's Radio Stories. From the forum pages of Radio West.ca. These are must-read of fans of early C-FUN. You can read the early installments from links on my site or, for all 18 installments, go directly to the Radio West forum at http://www.radiowest.ca/forum/
8. Two new audio promos for the Hi-Fi Club, one featuring Frosty Forst and another with the Beau-Marks.

C-FUN 1961 Index Page - In addition to Bruce Stewart's new painting, this page has been completely reorganized to include:

1. DJ Photos and Survey scans.
2. Jingles reorganized and expanded. More from the CRC series. Courtesy of Radio West and Owen Coppin.
3. Audio promo with Frosty Forst plugging an upcoming DJ G0-Kart race at Westwood Racing Circuit.
4. Audio promo for the 1961 local hit "Fujikami the Warrior" by the Hi-Fives.
5. A recording of the local novelty hit "The Corruptibles" by the C-FUN Good Guys. Courtesy of Radio West.
6. Battle of the Bands. Read about this event from the May 1, 1961 issue of Box Office Showmandiser, then hear the audio clip by Al Jordan.
7. More installments of Brian Lord's Radio Stories from the Radio West forum.

1. DJ Photos showing many of the outgoing and incoming personalities of that year.
2. Jingles reorganized and divided into two groups:
-in the left column are the last of the CRC jingles of that era.
-in the right columnds, from late 1962, the first of the PAMS jingles, and for the first time C-FUN now heralds itself as Channel 14. (These jingles were originally on the 1963 page but moved here to be more in keeping with the timeline.)

Update #22 - March 31, 2009

The Vancouver Top Forty Radio website has been updated to include the following:

1) CKLG 1968: All surveys for the year are now up on the site including the year-end Top 173.

2) CKLG 1968 Audio: The index page for the year features eight audio montages of varying lengths recorded from that year. They include Daryl 'B', Stevie (Grossman) Wonder, Terry David Mulligan, Dave Palmer, Bob Allen, and over 10 minutes of J.B. Shayne. Thanks goes to Larry Morton who recorded this audio back in 1968 and has contributed much in the way of audio to the site. (Larry also helps proofread the charts after I type them, before they're opened to everyone else.)

3) CKWX 1959: The long sought-after missing surveys have been found, thank to CISL's Jerry O'Day. Thanks to Jerry for this contribution. 1959 is now complete! Remaining to be found are what I believe to three early surveys from 1958. Assuming these were published at all they would probably be dated Aug. 18/58, Aug. 25/58 and Sept. 1/58. If you have any leads that will uncover these charts I'd love to hear from you.

Coming:

- The long-delayed CKWX 1957 section featuring the station's unpublished charts and Red Robinson's Teen Canteen charts (top tens only).

- More jingles.

I'm happy to say that my site in on the move again after a long hiatus since last summer. While I do occasionally take breaks from work on the site, this one was extended unexpectedly when my wife became hospitalized, seriously ill back in December. With her recovery at home extending through January, along with the trials and tribulations of raising a 16-year-old boy with Autism, I lost all my momentum. Getting it back is always difficult, but now that I'm back on track, hopefully it will stay that way for a while.

Have a funtastic day!

Now, as well, the years 1958, 1959 and 1960 are completely redone. In addition to the reformatted charts, new audio and memorabilia have been added, to be found on the Index page for each year as follows:

1. Five more surveys added. These are Top Twenty charts for July and August and were among the station's very earliest surveys, preceding the Sensational Sixty charts that followed soon after. The originals of these were typed out on CKWX stationery, mimeographed and were distributed to the public. Thanks to Alex Galbraith for providing the photocopies of these and to Red Robinson for providing valuable information about them.
2. One partial survey has been added for the week of Sept. 1. This is a reconstruction using the Last Week column on the Sept. 8 survey, meaning that some chart information is missing.
3. New audio clips have also been added, among them one of Buddy Holly plugging Red's Teen Canteen.

1. Two partial surveys added for the missing weeks of February 9 and March 2. Both are reconstructions using the 'Last Week' columns on the following weeks' charts.
2. One new jingle added, courtesy of the Jamie Anstey collection. Long-time WX listeners may recognize this once-familiar "Top Personalities, Best In the West" jingle.
3. Also not to be missed is another of Bruce Stewart's classic paintings, this one a fabulous Vancouver scene of Capilano Stadium from a 1959 Corvette parked on Little Mountain. In my opinion this is one of Bruce's best. Click on the picture for a larger image which will fill your screen, along with a description and explanation by me as to how the subject matter of this scene (baseball?) can possibly be connected with "Top Forty" radio.

1. Remember Buddy Clyde? Well the index page now contains a brief tribute to the popular DJ, who arrived in Vancouver in April of that year. You'll also hear audio clips by three well-known artists plugging Buddy's program. A link will take you to more Buddy Clyde memorabilia which includes a letter Buddy typed on WX stationery to his friend Jim Reeves, describing his stay at CKWX.
2. Four jingles have been added to the 1960 index page, courtesy of the Radio West collection.
3. An 8-minute audio piece containing what could best be called "generic" promos, all by a variety of different artists. Courtesy of the Jamie Anstey collection.
4. Also added to this page is Bruce Stewart's digital image of a 1960 Olds against a nighttime backdrop of the Vancouver Skyline. This image was moved here from another part of my site. Click on the image and you'll get a larger panoramic view.

If anyone out there has any information that could lead to the two missing surveys from 1959 along with the summer of 1958, I'd love to hear from you.

-I'm still not finished with CKWX. Some of you may have noticed the dead link to 1957 that's been there on the Year Index page for some time. I do have plans for this, a transitional year for the station. It will include a number of unpublished, pre-Top 40 charts put out by the station, along with Red Robinson's Teen Canteen charts (or the portions that have survived.)

Unlike the summer Soundathons of past years which featured only past summer hits, Soundathon #14 was a full-fledged Top 300 like the year-end Soundathons.

1. To commemorate this event the Soundathon 14 chart is now posted on my site, which essentially completes the section of my site devoted to the Soundathons.

2. Below the chart you'll find what I hope you'll consider a big treat -- over 77 minutes of audio recorded from this event! This audio was recorded by Frank Carpenter, a longtime resident of the United Kingdom. During the mid-1960s, while in his early twenties, he lived in Vancouver's Kitsilano district. He attended BCIT with the hope of breaking into radio in our city, and while Frank says that didn't happen here, he did eventually get into radio in the UK, and even did broadcasting stints in Tehran, Iran and Vienna, Austria. He recorded this audio using a professional portable UHER 4000L mono reel-to-reel recorder.

Frank sent me over 5 hours of this audio on 4 CDs, which I have edited down to 77 minutes by means of "scoping" the songs. (Scoping is essentially the removal of all but the beginning and end of each song, leaving just the DJs intros and jingles.) DJs heard include Peter Alpen, Terry David Mulligan, Neil Soper, Lee Gabori, John Tanner and (briefly) Red Robinson.

You'll also hear parts of local C-FUN newscasts describing the racial strife in Detroit and a major earthquake in Turkey. The audio is presented in four parts for easier loading into your mp3 player. If anyone out there remembers Frank from his BCIT years, he would love to hear from you. You can contact him via my email.

Two months after the last Soundathon aired, on September 16, 1967, C-FUN exited the Top Forty format, ending a chapter in radio history.

Update #19 - April 24, 2008

It's been a while, in fact over six months since my last update.

On the Index page for the year you'll find links to four audio montages of varying lengths featuring Boss Jocks "Don Richards" (2:08)), "John Tanner" (1:51), "Stevie (Grossman) Wonder" (9:48), and a short one with J.B. Shayne (0:23). Thanks to our friend Larry Morton for this audio.

Larry also sent some scans of the CKLG 1967 Yearbook which are also included on the index page.

2. C-FUN Soundathon #13. This event began airing Jan. 13, 1967 and featured the all-time top 300 hits to that time.

The chart also includes yet another audio montage, albeit a short one (3:14), from the actual event of those many years ago. Four DJs can be heard but the one I can't identify starts at the 0:10 second mark and runs to 0:47. If anyone can help ID this guy I'd appreciate hearing from you. The other three are Tom Peacock (0:48 to 2:03), Don Richards (I believe) from 2:04 to 2:55, and Al Jordan (2:55 to 3:15.) Again, thanks to Larry Morton for this audio and for all the other montages he has previously provided.

3. The "This Is Vancouver" jingle that plays when viewing my title page got corrupted a while back. It has now been repaired. But if you have never heard it playing while viewing the title page, then you need to have Quicktime installed on your system.

4. Additional work is being done on the site to remove various glitches here and there, so that the charts will retain the same appearance in the many different browsers out there. This work is ongoing. For one, steps are being taken to eliminate unwanted "line wraps" which were occasionally occurring on some of the charts causing misalignments between the song title and artist.

These were the final months of C-FUN as a Top 40 station in the sixties. The final survey was issued Sept. 16, 1967 and was a special commemorative "farewell" edition which featured a collage assembled by Red Robinson of all the radio personalities who worked at the station during that era. Thanks to Red for providing me with an original copy of the survey which allowed me to make a fairly decent scan which is posted on the Index page. Note that my typed edition of the final survey is a composite containing information from both the "commemorative" survey and the version printed in the Vancouver Province.

-You'll also find two pieces of audio on the index page. The first is a series sometimes referred to as the "low-budget" jingles, which were heard from mid-1966 through 1967. The second is a scoped aircheck of Red Robinson's A.M. drive show from January 25, 1967. You'll hear Red's hilarious conversation with a man in a phone booth at Georgia & Granville.

Note that the links at the bottom of each survey, which normally cross-link the C-FUN and CKLG surveys for quick week-to-week comparison, are not active at this time as I have not completed the CKLG surveys for that year.

Summertime on radio through much of the sixties meant "Summer Soundathon"to C-FUN listeners. Unlike the year-end Soundathons which presented in ranking order the all-time 300 flashbacks compiled from listeners' votes, the Summer event devoted a few days each July to favorite hits from summers past. There were no song rankings and no votes were compiled. Soundathon #4 was the first of these in July 1962, followed in subsequent summers by numbers 6, 8, 10, with 12 being the last Summer Soundathon in 1966. The song listings for #4 and #6 were never published or distributed but last summer on this site, in absence of song listings, I devoted a one-page presentation to each of these which included scanned photos of Vancouver beach scenes , along with sound clips from the events recorded right off the radio those many years ago.

Summer Soundathons 8, 10 and 12 WERE published however, and the song listings from these are now up on my site. Songs are listed, as I said, not in any ranking order, but in groups by year and month for each July and August dating back to 1960. Feel free to browse the lists and recall your personal radio memories from those fabulous summers of the sixites.

As an added treat each each of these three Soundathons is presented against a backdrop of three paintings by Bruce Stewart (whose other works you'll find at various places on my site). Each painting has a summer-related theme. #8 features Bruce's rendition of the 1964 Grad dance at John Oliver High School. #10 features "Lazy Summer Night" with a dreamy 1965-view from Stanley Park looking toward Point Grey. #12 features Bruce's Mad Magazine-like scene of Kitsilano Beach and its swarm of sun-bathers. Each scene has a link at the bottom of each chart that will enlarge the paintings to their full splendor on your screen.

And feel free to revisit the pages devoted to the earlier Summer Soundathons 4 and 6 which I put up on the site last summer. The Soundathon #6 page has one NEW AUDIO MONTAGE added featuring Red Robinson.

Next update: I'll be doing some tweaking on the site over the remainder of the summer to correct glitches from some of my early efforts. Other than that my next update will probably be in September.

1. C-FUN 1966 - all surveys for this year have been retyped and are now up. The 33 surveys previously done by Gary Pfeifer have been replaced by my own. My thanks to Gary for having let me use his work up to this time which helped to boost my site's meager content in its early days of development. Gary is a regular contributer to the "Airheads Radio Survey Archive" website which contains many surveys from radio stations around North America. You can visit the site at http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/

In addition to the new surveys the C-FUN 1966 Index Page contains another incredible painting by Bruce Stewart. How many of you remember Peter's Ice Cream, located at West Broadway and Blenheim? Click on the picture to open a much larger hi-rez image and read the story behind this masterpiece by Bruce.

2. CKLG 1966 - All surveys are now up. The index page contains pictures of many of the Top Cats, who later become Boss Jocks. Also find images of six CKLG Bumper stickers of which the station issued many during that summer. If anyone has any more of these and would like to send scans to me for inclusion on this page that would be appreciated.

As always the C-FUN and CKLG surveys are cross-linked to each other for easy comparison between the two stations.

Audio:
-The CFUN 1966 Index page contains a large gallery of audio clips. This includes nine more jingles from the "a-go-go" era which continued through much of that year. There are several more clips including three short audio montages featuring:

All audio for this page came to me from Larry Morton and by Owen Coppin. Thanks to both.

Links:
-Some new and interesting sites have been added to my links page:

Old FortyFives.com - This incredible site contains several short Flash movies that you can click on to take a nostalgic journey through the Rock 'n Roll past of the Fifties and Sixties. NOT TO BE MISSED! Make sure your sound is turned on. Thanks to my sister Barbara for sending me this link.

Oldies Music - by Ron Smith. This site contains history, trivia and charts pertaining to the music of the 50s, 60s and 70s. This includes a huge archive of links that will lead you to the web site of nearly every oldies artist that ever lived.

Lyrics World - This site contains an ever-expanding collection of lyrics for rock and pop songs that charted in the Top 40 from 1930 to 1999. You'll find the titles of over 11,000 songs, each listed under the year in which it charted along with the peak chart position (Billboard, USA) and the artist who recorded it.

SuperOldies.com - Tired of the "same old" oldies? On this site you can listen to over 12,900 tracks from 4000 artists that aired between Jan. 1955 & Dec. 1969. Includes regional hits and rare hits from the U.S., Canada and the UK. Site owner Shawn Nagy says you can listen for 24 hours straight, 7 days a week, and not hear the same song again.

-Someone asked, "Where are the even-numbered Soundathons?" That question will be answered in a few short weeks.

Back in the late summer/early fall of 1959 a young DJ named Dave McCormick began hosting an afternoon program on C-FUN called the "House Of Hits" which featured the top Rock 'n' Roll and Pop tunes of the day. Dave also hosted, for a half-hour each evening, the Vancouver chapter of the "Hi-Fi Club", a dance club organization for teens featuring contests and prizes, sponsored by Coca-Cola, and which included member stations from all over North America. Dave's "House of Hits" and "Hi-Fi Club" drew consistently high ratings for C-FUN.

Dave also began compiling, from the favorites of his listeners, his own hit parade chart. The first edition, pencil-dated September 21, 1959 had no name. The next edition dated Oct 2 carried the name "Hi-Fi Club Top 40". On subsequent charts the name was shortened to "Hi-Fi Forty". Dave spent countless hours tallying the votes and requests, typing out a new "Hi-Fi Forty" chart each week on his home typewriter. The first 5 or 6 charts were never printed for distribution. Only a typed original and a carbon copy were made, one of which would be taped to the studio window for Dave's on-air reference. By November he began typing the charts on a stencil, while hand-drawing the C-FUN logo at the top. From this a limited run was printed on an old Gestetner mimeograph with the resulting copies appearing in LIGHT PURPLE INK! These received limited distribution to music outlets in the city, and today, as collectibles, are extremely rare.

The last of these "unofficial" homemade charts was dated March 5th, 1960. Two weeks later on March 19, the "official" more professional-looking charts debuted, and these received much wider distribution to record stores through our region. By the summer of 1960, with Dave's programs continuing to score consistenty high ratings, station management finally took the historical step and turned C-FUN to a 24-hour pop/rock format. The "Hi-Fi Forty" eventually became the more fondly remembered "C-FUN-Tastic Fifty".

Getting back to the "homemade" surveys, for over a year now seven of these rare charts have been, in retyped form, posted on my site. Due to their scarcity it seemed somewhat doubtful that any more would surface. But I'm happy to say that, in what has been described as the greatest survey discovery in the last 46 years, that 15 more of these charts HAVE been found and are now included on the site! And yes, this includes Dave's VERY FIRST CHART and other early ones that never saw publication. Furthermore, you'll find, from Feb. 1960, Dave's special all-time Elvis chart featuring the top 90 Elvis hits up to that time.

While my retyped versions do not appear as exact duplicates of the originals, I have typed them out in a somewhat "homey" style, much in the spirit of Dave's originals, using an ordinary typewriter font, and they appear in either deep carbon blue or Gestetner purple! All typos and other anomolies are included. And you'll notice that the format of the surveys changes from week to week just as Dave's did. The wallpaper backgrounds are my own addition.

And just who, you ask, was the mystery benefactor who provided us with these rare charts? Why, it was none other than "Big Daddy" Dave himself, who freely gave his time, first, to give me a tour of the 600AM studios, and then to photocopy the needed surveys from his own collection. Many thanks to Dave for helping to fill in these gaps in our "Top Forty" radio history. I also learned from Dave a few other small secrets, such as the fact that he and the other "Swinging Men at 1410", as they were called by mid-1960, had an absolute ball as they transformed C-FUN, and created an entirely new radio culture in Vancouver. In Dave's own words, "We should have been paying them to work there, not them paying us." (Tsk! Tsk!)

Note that the survey for Oct. 23/59 is a partial survey reconstructed from the Last Week column on the Oct. 31 survey.

You may notice other missing dates on the index page. First, it may never be known for certain whether a survey was issued between the ones dated Sept. 21 and Oct. 2. The gap between the dates is only 11 days, rather than a full two weeks as one would expect. Likewise, there is a gap with no survey for Nov. 21. But the absence of a "Last Week" column on the Nov. 28 chart suggests the possiblity that no chart was made for the 21st. Again, we may never know. We do know for certain, however, that no survey was issued for Dec. 18 as Dave confirmed that he was vacationing in Hawaii that week. As for the first two gaps mentioned above, I'm inclined to believe there likely were no surveys compiled for those weeks. All in all I believe the C-FUN collection is as complete as it's going to get.

Finally, for anyone interested in knowing more about the Hi-Fi Club, there's a link on my site--it's been there for quite some time actually--that will take you to a brief history of the organization. It is written by Bill Combs, former president of the Coca-Cola Collectors Club. You can link to it by clicking on the bright red Hi-Fi Club logos located on both the C-FUN index pages for 1959 and 1960. The Hi-Fi club, incidently, ceased operation on Dec. 31, 1961.

10 jingles have been added to the CKLG 1965 Index page. These are from the mid-sixties when LG was affectionately known as "The Station with the Happy Difference."

These jingles came to me from clear across the continent--Florida no less--and thanks goes to Steve Geisler for sending these. Steve's website 560.com is a tribute to station WQAM in Miami, to which Steve devotes his efforts with the same passion that we do with our stations here. The site also features a large collection of PAMS jingles from stations all over North America and Steve also sent me some additional C-FUN PAMS jingles which I'll be including on the site at a later date.

-One individual has described it as the most important discovery of surveys in 47 years! 15 more of the so-called "Unofficial" C-FUN surveys from late 1959 and early 1960 (there are presently 7 on my site) have been discovered. These are sometimes affectionately known as the "Dave McCormick" surveys because they were hand-typed by Dave himself and now are extremely rare to almost non-existent due to their limited distribution. And how you ask were these surveys uncovered? Well, (heh-heh) the identify of our mystery benefactor will remain a secret until next time.

-And yes, work is also underway on the promised C-FUN and CKLG surveys for 1966.

In case you missed the previous announcement the site has moved to its own domain. The new address is:

Please update your bookmarks, and if you have a link from your website to mine please update it as well.

New on the site is a huge collection of audio which has been added to the CKWX section as follows:

-CKWX 1961 Index Page - A total of 54 pieces of audio have been added. Of these 21 are jingles, and each vocal jingle has an instrumental-only counterpart. Whether these insrumental versions were used on air is unknown, but they're there for your enjoyment.

Additionally there are eight promos done for CKWX by some of the pop stars of the day, each promoting CKWX and its DJs. Outtakes included. The stars include, Bob Luman, Myron Lee, Jimmie Rodgers, Pat Boone, Eddie Hodges, Buddy Knox, Johnny Burnette, and the hilarious Rolf Harris.

The above audio is from the collection of Jamie Anstey, and a special thanks to Jamie for sharing the collection. Further thanks also goes to Larry Hennessey (of Larry and Willy fame) who, at Jamie's request, burned a copy of Jamie's CD and mailed it to me. This all happened late last Fall and I been working at it every since to get it up there.

I have been working on a complete revamp of the CKWX section. The surveys in this section are being reformatted to eliminate viewing problems in some browsers.

1. Red Robinson introducing the Fabulous Forty Show.
2. A better quality track of a previous one with Red plugging his Platter Party show.
3. Another promos by Red "First and Getting Firster."
4. A 5-minute clip of Red Robinson in his car driving to work at the CKWX studios.

-CKWX 1962 Index Page - the waning days of CKWX as a Top Forty station, this page now contains the following audio.

1. A 19 minute aircheck with Red Robinson in early March 1962, not long before Red left the station for CFUN. Red interviews Gene McDaniels who was performing in Vancouver at the time at Isey's Supper Club.

The songs in this aircheck are scoped, and yes, I am the culprit who did this, reluctantly I might add. As much as I hate doing this sort of thing as I believe scoping undermines the integrity of the original broadcast, I believed it was necessary at this time until I gain a better understanding of the legal implications of including "unscoped" material.

-The surveys for the two years mentioned above have been reformatted and down-sized slightly. This was necessary due to fact the previous charts were presenting viewing problems, mostly mis-aligned column, in some web browsers, namely the increasingly popular Firefox browser.

-CFUN and CKLG charts for 1966.
-Summer Soundathon charts 6, 8 and 10.
-A continuation of the revamping and reformatting of CKWX years 1958, 59 and 60.

The Vancouver Top Forty Radio website has moved to its own domain! The new address is:

You can still access the site from the old address, which will remain active for a while yet, but all links on the title page will route you to the new server.

The acquisition of additional web space allows me considerably more latitude in adding new material to the site, especially audio, and this was a necessary step prior to putting up the extensive collection of CKWX audio, which I have been promising for the last few months. I'm happy to say that this project is very much in progress and the first part of it, which includes a huge collection of CKWX jingles and promos, should be coming your way in a couple of weeks.

-C-FUN a'go-go 1965. All surveys for that year are now posted. The Index page has been newly designed. The a'go-go era jingles are still there plus more.

-Mad Mel Audio - the C-FUN 1965 Index page also includes a few brief and very rare audio clips from the Mad Mel program. Mel joined C-FUN during the Spring of 1965 and was with the station for a short, but memorable stay of about six months. Unlike the station's other DJs who were commonly known as "The Good Guys", Mel earned a spot as C-FUN's "Bad Guy." Few pictures of Mel have surfaced and when they do his features are hidden by huge glasses, or a long black false beard, sometimes both.

There are three audio clips. The first two are intros, one of them the famous "OK Mel, you can come out of your cage now. It's time to start the show." Thanks to Larry Morton for these.

The third clip is an all-too-brief piece provided by Alex Galbraith and edited together by Larry Morton from a number of shorter bits. In it Mel is broadcasting from the C-FUN studio, attempting to play his recent interview with Paul McCartney. But Mel is having problems queuing the interview and so calls upon his alter-ego "Granny Scoopshovel" to "get the machines" working. We hear a brief C-FUN jingle after which Granny, having solved the problem, begins playing the taped interview. We cut to a part of the interview, which takes place at an airport. As it turns out, Paul McCartney is actually interviewing Mad Mel! We also learn that it's Mel's birthday and he's just turned 19. Not much else is known of the circumstances surrounding this ocassion. As I said, the clip is brief and at present, is the only audio of Mad Mel in our possession. Hopefully, more will turn up.

Next in line is a project I've been looking forward to for several months. Recently I acquired a huge collection of CKWX audio from collector Jamie Anstey. Included are many jingles from the early sixties, along with promos for the station by stars as Bob Luman, Jimmie Rodgers, Buddy Knox, Johnny Burnette and more, along with additonal audio from other sources. All this plus a remake of the entire CKWX section. This is a big project and I can't say at this time whether I'll redo the whole CKWX section all at once or a bit of time. But hopefully I'll have something up on the site by this spring.

Incidently, some of you may have noticed that in my more recent efforts I've been attempting to make my retyped surveys bear more of a resemblance to the original distributed surveys, slight though that resemblance may be at times.

Back in the bygone era of the sixties, Vancouver's 'Top Forty' radio giant C-FUN presented its year-end Soundathon featuring the top 300 all-time favorites. These charts were compiled from as many as 225,000 mailed-in votes from listeners. The event usually began December 29 with the songs being played in descending order starting with #300 until, some 16 hours later, and with great fanfare, the #1 song would be reached. Then songs would continue to be played in random chart order, usually as per listeners' requests, until midnight on New Years Eve when Soundathon ended with a re-playing of the #1 song.

Soundathons 1, 3, 5 and 7 were all year-end Soundathons and the chart listings for each of these has previously been included on this site.

Today is December 29 and, to commemorate the Soundathon era, I have added the following charts and audio montages:

1. Soundathon #9 - featuring the Top 300 songs from year-end 1964. Included is a short 3 min. 58 sec. audio montage featuring highlights of the event. Heard in the montage are the voices of Fred Latremouille, Ed Karl (aka Kargl), and John Tanner. And you'll even hear short bits with Christopher Columbus and Cleopatra! (Yep! We have it all here!)

2. Soundathon #11 - This Top 300 was heard in November 1965. It was moved to the late Fall to make way for a new year-end event "Calendar Countdown" which featured the greatest hits from the past year. Soundathon 11 includes a short audio montage, 3 min and 27 sec. Voices include that of Red Robinson, along with a very short snippet at the end which I believe to be that of Daryl 'B'.

As before, these audio montages have been compiled by our friend Larry Morton, who recorded the audio on reel-to-reel directly from the radio during the actual events those many years ago.

3. While on the subject of these audio montages you may wish to revisit the montages for Soundathons #5 (1962) and #7 (1963). Larry managed to uncover another reel and was able to expand these two montages. Soundathon #5 montage has an additional 3 1/2 minutes of audio bringing it to over 12 minutes in length. The Soundathon #7 montage has been doubled in length bringing it up to a whopping 16 minutes.

I have also attempted to identify the DJs heard in each. A question mark after the name of a DJs indicates a best guess on my part. If you disagree with any of my guesses please let me know.

1. The completion of the CKLG 1965 surveys and the addition of all C-FUN surveys for 1965, both slated for completion some time in January. Also to be included are some very brief audio clips from the Mad Mel show.

2. A complete revamp of the CKWX section which will include a huge collection of jingles, promotionals and other CKWX audio from the collection of Jamie Anstey, along with some additional audio. This is a big project, and some of it is already being worked on. I hope to have it completed and on the site some time in February.

At this time I would like to wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

UPDATE # 1 - NOVEMBER 27, 2005 - This site is officially launched. This is a work in progress. The site is still being tweaked and improved, and there are many inactive links. Currently up:

The idea for this site began back in the Spring of this year [2005], after browsing the Internet looking for anyone who might have posted Vancouver's surveys, and finding few. Numerous other sites were posting retyped surveys from stations around the USA, and CHUM in Toronto had the good sense to keep their surveys archived and have them posted to the web. But few Vancouver surveys were to be found. Having kicked myself many times for discarding my old surveys years ago, I called the Vancouver library. They had none but they called the radio stations in question who also had none. It was beginning to appear that Vancouver's surveys were all but lost. I called Neptoon Records. The fellow there (Jamie Anstey) put me in touch with Al Rose, a well-know collector. Al graciously took the time to photocopy his collection of surveys, not knowing who I was or whether I would follow through with my plans. He has since become a valued friend, and has offered much input as I've moved through the phases of site construction. But there were still many gaps to fill in the survey collection. I spent a number of days over various periods of time at the Vancouver library browsing the microfilm archives of the Vancouver Province which printed all the C-FUN surveys from 1962 to 1967, (and I'll be returning someday to get the CKLG surveys printed from 1967 on.)

Work on the site began in August. I decided that I could not justify the expense for a professional web designer. So using an old edition of Claris Home Page and two Macintoshes, I learned to build the site from scratch. After months of fussing, tweaking, experimenting, changing things around, changing them again, I reached the point that I'm at now. The site is now there for all to see, but many changes will likely be made in the months to come. Many thanks also to Jack Bennest, Gord Lansdell, Brian Walks, Red Robinson, Ted Wendland, Dale Patterson, Gary Pfeifer, and others, for their support. Stay tuned.