CKGM-AM radio celebrates 50th anniversary with reunion

By Ian Howarth

There was a time when Montreal English AM radio shone brightly through the haze of middle-of-the-road programming, bringing Montreal the sound of Top 40 hits and celebrity DJs like Ralph Lockwood, Marc Denis and others through the airwaves and into the radios of hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners.

Last Saturday at Club Soda, more than 150 on-air personalities and behind-the-scenes staff came together for an evening of food, fun and live entertainment to celebrate the 50th anniversary of CKGM-AM, which officially went on the air with 10,000 watts of power on Dec. 7, 1959. With some programming detours along the way and despite the British Invasion, it wasn’t until 1970 that competition between CFCF-AM, CFOX-AM and CKGM came to a head in the battle for young listeners that CKGM went to a 24-hour Top 40 format. Eventually, CKGM obliterated their fiercest rock format challenger, the Pointe Claire-based, Gord Sinclair Jr.-owned CFOX, pulling in an amazing 800,000 listeners in the Montreal’s Olympic year of 1976, a statistic unheard of since in a mostly French radio market.

“It was our heyday, the highest rated period in the history of CKGM,” said Marc Denis, the force behind the idea for the 50th anniversary reunion. Denis was also part of history at the station from 1974 to 1980, one-third of the triumpherate known as The Connection Francaise, which included DJs Scott Carpentier and Rob Christie, all of whom did their shows in both of Montreal’s official languages. Denis himself has been around the dial and back with stops at CKOI, Rhythme FM, CJFM, and Toronto’s 97.3 EZRock. He now devotes his time to his production company doing voice-over and TV/video work. “The idea for the reunion started about six years ago when I set up my CKGM and CFOX tribute Web pages,” explained Denis, who still uses his on-air moniker, Marc “Mais Oui” Denis. “But I thought I’d wait for the 50th anniversary date. It was a gigantic task getting people together, but my reward was all the smiling faces and all decades of CKGM represented.”

Buster Beau Dean was at CKGM from 1978 to1982 and like many other DJs of the day, he used an on-air name different from his birth name. “Wolfgang Fritzche (his real name) just wouldn’t have cut it as a radio name,” he said.  In town from Winnipeg where he now works for classic rock station Bob FM, Beau, as his wife he met at CKGM calls him, was just happy to be in Montreal, the big time for a 26-year-old who started at a small station in Thompson, Manitoba. “I remember the first song I played at CKGM. It was A Horse With No Name by America. Coming to Montreal in 1978, I thought I had arrived.”

He remembers the Stanley Cup parades, the Expos and introducing such acts as Jethro Tull, the Bee Gees and Rod Stewart at the Forum. He also recalled the day a deranged man with a gun came into the station demanding to go on air to talk to René Lévesque and Pierre Trudeau. “He had some kind of weird political agenda,” Dean remembered. “He shot at our program director, Robert G. Hall, just missing him before he headed for the control room where I was on the air. Fortunately, the police got there before he got in and subdued him, but not before a few more shots were fired. It was a crazy time.”

Rob Christie, at CKGM from 1975 to 1978, was born Rob Lowe, cousin to Edmonton Oilers star and now GM, Kevin. The McGill graduate got his start early at the age of 17, getting $10 for doing the all-night shift at CFOX in 1969 using the on-air name Jeff Douglas. “I rode my bike from Pierrefonds to the station. My friends thought I had the coolest job,” said Christie. After stops in Sydney, N.S., Calgary and Edmonton, Christie came to CKGM at the top of his game and the station’s nadir. “It was an exciting time. It was the beginning of the disco days,” said Christie, now 59, who would often MC at Montreal clubs. “CKGM aired live my introduction of the Pink Floyd concert at the Big O in ‘76 with the big pink pig floating over the stage, then another big concert featuring Emerson, Lake and Palmer at the Big O. The place was packed. Those were heady times.” 

CKGM-AM’s Top 40 format eventually flamed out, changing its identity and programming several times over the years before finally in 2001, it became The Team 990 owned by Toronto-based CHUM radio. But there was a time when they were making history, which is something to celebrate.