Rock’n’Radio Blog

Brownstein: Montreal radio legend George Morris had a golden voice and golden heart

In the age of podcasts and streaming, you could be excused for forgetting that commercial radio still exists. Indeed, it lumbers on, mostly for audiences either too entrenched in their habits to change them (listeners of classic rock, CBC, AM talk radio), or who don’t know any better (Top 40 pop). When I listen to local classic rock station CHOM, large chunks of the commercial breaks are devoted to the corporate owners’ satellite network and to hawking ad time on the station – not a good sign. Into this twilight era, like an only-slightly-premature obituary, comes local author Ian Howarth’s Rock ‘n’ Radio, a passionate paean to the golden age of the airwaves here in Montreal.

When Howarth, early in the book, uses the phrase “one of the most exciting eras in Montreal AM radio,” you get a strong sense of his overall tone: very specific, very enthusiastic, and very nerdy. He profiles the DJs and station owners – mostly men, along with a few women who tolerated the era’s Mad Men-like gender politics – who dominated the airwaves of English-language radio from the fifties to today, though the focus is mainly on the commercial and cultural heyday of the sixties and seventies.

Read the entire review here

Review by Malcolm Fraser is a writer, musician, and filmmaker based in Montreal.

Growing up in Montreal during the mid-sixties, I was a huge follower of my city’s English-language radio stations, especially when it came to Top 40 Music.  I devoured all the elements of three AM stations; CFCF, CKGM and CFOX; the music, the weekly hit lists, and of course, the patter and crazy antics of their resident DJs.  Ian Howarth’s Rock n Radio is a solid gold mine of insights and anecdotes from that era.  The book’s conversational tone and accessible style made it a fun and absorbing read for me.  As much as it is a fantastic trip down a groovy memory lane, its author also reveals that our favourite radio jocks often lived with high levels of job insecurity, where creative reinvention became the key to career survival.  That these one-time Montreal icons opened up to Ian Howarth so honestly is a tribute to his skill as an interviewer.  I would recommend this fascinating book to anyone who, like me, grew up with a transistor radio soundtrack to homework and bedtime.

Review by Norm Horner

Before CDs, Napster, iTunes and music streaming apps, there were 45s, LPs and radio.  Ian Howarth’s “Rock ‘n’ Radio” takes us on a nostalgic trip back to a time when colourful DJs and savvy Program Directors ruled the English airwaves in Montreal.  Ian‘s research and anecdotes tell the story of the early days of Rock ‘n’ Roll on Montreal AM radio from Dave Boxer and Buddy Gee to FM’s Terry DiMonte. It will take you back to a time when you skillfully turned the dial on your transistor radio from CFCF 600 to CKGM 980 to CFOX 1470 to try and catch your favourite song.  A great, insightful read that will have you asking “How’s your bird (the old oiseau)?”

Reviewed by Alan Takenaka

Wow. Ian Howarth has just released a wonderful, well written, and researched tribute to the mostly 60’s/70’s DJ and radio station scene in Montreal.
The book unveils how important the DJ’s in Montreal were to baby-boomers who turned to music for fun, protest and liberation. The book harks back to the days when a transistor radio was your ticket to the world and “album-based” FM radio was a novel low budget experiment. Howarth ties the Montreal scene to DJs south of the border like “Cousin abrucie.” Very well written and packed with information, the book could not have been easy to organise. I like how Ian Howarth put it all together. He also covers the clubs where the DJs introduced The Stones, and local bands like The Haunted (check out their song “1-2-5”), Mashmakhan (“And As the Years Go By”). This book is a must for all baby boomers who loved listening to the radio during the 60’s and 70’s. 

Reviewed by Christopher Viereck

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