Before the Beginning
In “The New Beginning” I was writing about how I went from just a guy in a rock band to a Program Director of a radio station in about six months time.
To explain how I had the audacity/courage to load my baby girl and her Mom into the car, wave goodbye to the Grandparents and head out across the snow laden prairie all the way to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan where I would become CKOM’s new Program Director and start a whole new life, means I have to digress a little.
Around the time I was thinking about leaving my band The Jury, three exciting things happened in about a weeks time that kinda sped up the need for me to make some lifetime decisions.
First I started hearing a rumor that the Radio Station was getting set to give me a big promotion. If this rumor was true it meant my part time job at CKY would soon turn into full time. As I was contemplating how I would handle that because it would surely end my band days, my old boss Jimmy Darin calls me.
Jim had been the afternoon drive Dee Jay and PD of CKY when I first started working there part time. Hey every artist needed a day job to help finance their run for fame, and I was very lucky because mine was very very cool.
You would think that would be enough excitement for the week, but no within a few days I also got a call from Randy Bachman who heard I might be leaving The Jury, so he called to recruit me for The Guess Who.
When I told Randy I wasn’t near good enough to play for them he said, George I can teach you all the music stuff, it’s that other stuff you do that The Guess Who needs.
The call from Jimmy Darin though turned out to be the mind boggling event of a very eventful week. Jim at this point was the newly appointed PD of WFIL in Philadelphia.
His new job was a career maker and he took himself off the air forever so he could totally focus on making the station #1.
Jim was a great Jock back then, but now he had his sights set on a whole new vision, and jockin’ just didn’t cut it anymore. He also no longer needed his stage name, so he went back his real name, Jim Hilliard.
During our very brief but very stimulating conversation on the phone, he explained he didn’t have enough time to really explain all the details, but he needed me to jump on a plane as quickly as possible and fly to Philly. He said he wanted to talk to me about me doing all the promos at The Famous 56.
Turns out he had always loved the way I did the promos for him at CKY when I was the production board op. He claimed they all sounded like movie trailers to him and he wanted a whole bunch of that on the new WFIL that he was presently in the middle of creating.
Just writing this of course brings back to me a few of unusual things that went on when I was a rookie and didn’t understand a lot of stuff.
One of them was a line Jim said that took me about four years to figure out. Jim said … I came to Canada as a Democrat but I will be leaving as a Republican.
I completely understood what he meant instantly when I opened up my first big paycheck after hitting the big time at CFTR in Toronto.
I stared in horror and disbelief at the total of all the tax deductions and I remember thinking … Boy this free health care is sure expensive ain’t it. Good morning America how are ya!
But much more on all that much later, lets get back to Jim’s unexpected but promising phone call.
His proposal was very scary and very exciting all at the same time. The most difficult part of it for me was just figuring out how you get to Philadelphia quickly.
I had two problems I needed to over come. First of all I had never been on an airplane before and secondly I wasn’t even sure where Philadelphia was exactly. Back then I had never been east of Kenora.
When you live in Western Canada unlike what they think down here in South Florida, you don’t speak French, and you don’t look east you only look further west at places like Calgary or Vancouver as maybe a good place to live when you finally can’t take the winters any more. As the saying goes, “Go West Young Man” Not east!
You don’t even go anywhere east for vacations. Hawaii is the chosen dream destination of western man, not the Bahamas. The Bahamas are even further east than Florida, why would you want to go there.
Even if for some reason when you were drinking with all your buddies and someone shouted out ” Lets drive to Florida” you would only head out to the west coast of Florida. There are no Western Canadians in Miami, not even drunk ones, trust me on this.
Those easterners are a way to too stiff and serious for we westerners. We like to say strange things like, good morning, how are you doing, hows your family, how are you feeling etc. We even smile at each other.
But then again there is something about the people of the east that we do love. We love to stomp them in the Grey Cup. The Grey Cup is the Super Bowl of Canada and pits the best of the East against the best of the West.
Just picture the differences between the folks in the North and the folks in the South here in America and you come a little closer to the feelings held in Canada. Whats that, What are you saying ??? The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are in the Eastern Division of the CFL now. You’ve got to be sh**ing me!
When Jim finished up his surprise call to me about my coming to Philadelphia, he told me not to worry about anything because he would have a travel agent take care of all the details, she would be calling me shortly.
He told me I needed to arrive hungry because he and Barb were taking me to dinner at a very special restaurant called Bookbinders which was a world famous fish place in downtown Philadelphia.
When the travel agent finally called me with my trip details she informed me that I would be flying from Winnipeg to Toronto where I would change planes and fly to La Guardia in New York.
Once at La Guardia I would board a Helicopter for the short flight to JFK, there I would board my flight which would take me directly to Philadelphia.
Say what … Do What?? Are you kidding, there has to be another way. I have never been on an airplane before and that’s going to be scary enough. There is no way I’m getting in a helicopter, are you crazy.
She informed me that the only other way I could do it was a milk run that went from Winnipeg down to Minneapolis where I would start changing planes and landing in every city between Minneapolis and Philadelphia. I said … I’ll take it!
Much much later that evening when I finally arrived in Philly I was by now of course a seasoned flyer that was very anxious to stop flying
Jim and Barb picked me up at the airport in a bright red Cadillac convertible and off we went to Bookbinders. Jim asked me when I had left Winnipeg, I told him around dawn. He asked what took so long, when I told him he said I should have taken a bus it would have been a lot faster.
We get to Bookbinders and spend a very enjoyable evening chatting about a bunch of the folks we all knew when we worked together back in Winnipeg.
The meal was excellent but as we were eating and I was kinda looking around drinking it all in, I just have to describe the whole scene to you as I saw it that night.
First off Bookbinders as I remember it, was kinda old looking with a very conservative feel to it. The place was filled mostly with lawyers who were very easy to spot because they were all wearing the Brooks Brother suits with yellow or red power ties.
Even a radio rookie from Winnipeg could pick them out of a crowd, they looked exactly like they do in the movies.
Jim and Barb on the other hand to put it mildly just didn’t seem to quite blend in with this serious Pennsylvania crowd.
Jim was wearing a wine colored Nehru suit with a huge gold medallion around his neck that hung down to about the middle of his chest.
Barb on the other hand was decked out in what can best be described as a very short white Toga. She had on gold Grecian sandals that went perfectly with all her ancient looking gold jewelry.
The sandals had very long straps on them that kinda wound up and around her legs from her ankles to her knees. Her blond almost golden hair was piled a way up high with long ringlets that cascaded down to her bare shoulders.
Wile we were chatting I was also looking around a little and I started to notice the whole place was staring at our table and maybe even whispering to each other a little.
When I mentioned this fact to Jim he said they were just pissed because he made more money than them.
The next morning we went into the station which I thought was really neat looking because the building was round and sorta looked like a stack of 45 records to me.
Once inside It was time to fill out a bunch of the company’s paper work. I of course also had to swear that I had never been nor planned on becoming a member of the Communist party.
That was the only kinda boring part of the whole trip. But it soon started to heat up real good when I got to meet all the great jocks who were fast on their way to becoming radio legends, Dr. Don Rose, Jim Nettleton, Jay Cook, George Michael and Long John Wade. The sad thing when I think about that exciting day now is, they are all gone except for Jim Hilliard who is the only one from that very special day that is still with us. Wow, how sad.
Once I finished all the paper work and meeting the Jox, I went back into Jim’s office where he told me he needed me to join his team immediately. He wanted me to start producing some great sounding promos right now
I later learned that Bill Drake’s right hand man Paul Drew was coming to WIBG to do battle with him, and up until that time the Drake format had never been beaten.
Jim said I could send for my then pregnant wife Lana later, because we had a lot of work that needed doing and we needed to get at it as quickly as possible.
At some point during the time we were discussing all this, I remember someone in human resources mentioning to him that it just wasn’t possible to have a Canadian just start working in America.
You need to apply, and the way you applied was by filling out a bunch of complicated immigration papers. A mere formality, Jim snorted … We’ll have you here in no time squirrel!
By the time that mere formality came through I was the Station Manager of CFTR in Toronto.
But that story and how I got there is way way down the line, and I may be too bored by then to write it and you will probably be too bored to read it.
I returned to the station and did get the promotion I heard the rumor about, in fact I got two promotions. I became the Production Director and the Music Director of CKY and soon after the birth of my daughter Candis, left the band business forever.
A few short months later I got the offer to become the new Program Director of CKOM in Saskatoon. I didn’t have hardly any radio experience which kinda made it a very scary proposition.
But what popped into my head and gave me the courage/arrogance to accept that position I think was … Hey if I’m good enough to work with Jim Hilliard, Dr. Don, Gentleman Jim, Jay Cook, King George and Long John in Philly, plus be good enough play for The Guess Who … How tough could Saskatoon be!
