Rediscovering the rich history of 610/CKTB

As many of you know, my arts writing and reporting duties are a sideline to my full-time job as producer for the morning show on Newstalk 610/CKTB here in St. Catharines, where I have been gainfully employed for over 31 years now.   As such, I write about radio in general and CKTB in particular whenever the mood strikes me, as is the case this week.

Since I have been at the station for so long now, many colleagues come to me with questions about the so-called "early days" at the station, even though I only arrived there in 1981 as a new chapter was beginning at the station.  Still, I have always had a keen interest in the rich history of the station that now extends to 80 years - quite a milestone I am sure you'll agree.  When we celebrated the 60th and 75th anniversaries of CKTB I did extensive research on the past and at one point even considered writing a book about the storied history of CKTB.  Alas, making radio history every day now at the station takes up such a lot of my time I think it will likely be relegated to a self-published retirement project once I myself fade to black as a daily employee at the station.

Of course, the rich history includes something I personally am particularly proud of:  the annual Midnight Mass broadcast at the Cathedral of St. Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria in downtown St. Catharines, which itself is now 80 years old.  I am only the third host of these annual broadcasts, taking over from the late Johnny Morrison in 1989, so 2013 will be my 24th year handling the broadcast.  I figure I will need another 7 or 8 years in order to claim the crown of longest-serving host for the broadcast, currently held by the founding host of the broadcast, Mr. Boyne at about 31 years.  Will I be around long enough to host the 100th broadcast in 20 years?  I certainly hope so, but we'll have to see.

At any rate, I thought this year on an occasional basis I would explore that rich history of the station and share it with you in this space throughout the year beginning this week.  This idea was precipitated by an email I received a couple of weeks ago from a good friend of mine, chef extraordinaire Greg Willis, who used to run The Cellar Bench in the basement of the old Court House at King and James Streets downtown.  He now does a lot of cooking to order for clients in their homes, it seems, and he told me of one couple he cooks for in St. Catharines who actually own a good-sized piece of CKTB history.  He suggested I contact them to arrange a meeting which I did, and what awaited me was astounding!

If you are of a certain age, you remember tuning in to CKTB Radio mid-mornings to hear Clarence Colton tinkling the ivories of a concert grand piano in the studio and chatting up the housewives of the day on the air with friendly banter.  The piano Clarence played, apparently, was a Heintzman piano  and it was in fact one of two concert grands in the CKTB studios for many years.  The other was an even larger Steinway, so you can imagine how large this one studio was at the station at 12 Yates Street back in the day.

When it came time to retire the pianos from active duty, about the time when radio stations started to shift from live in-studio performances to personalities hosting music shows and playing records, this couple I met in St. Catharines were connected to the late manager of CKTB Radio at the time, Mary Burgoyne by a third party, and a deal was struck to acquire the Heintzman piano.  They told me this past week the piano was in pretty rough shape when they first saw it, as apparently work had started on renovating the studios before the pianos were even removed!  But they got it out of the studio and into their north St. Catharines home where a loving restoration was undertaken.  It was then moved twice more as the family moved, including a memorable move up an elevator at a south St. Catharines condo development.

The couple, whom I won't identify at their request, originally purchased the piano to fill their home with music as they grieved the loss of a young daughter in the 60s, and they still have the piano in their home.  It is now painted off-white and needs a good tuning, but still looks absolutely spectacular.  It was a great pleasure for me to not only see but actually touch a piece of CKTB history from so many years ago.

I so far have not seen any pictures of the studio nor the pianos during that time that ended with extensive studio renovations in the mid-60s, but I would certainly love to.  I will be checking the St. Catharines Historical Museum to scour the archives sometime soon where a wealth of CKTB articles and pictures reside.  If you have any old pictures of the station from many years ago or even some memorabilia, I would love to hear from you.  It would be a great way to celebrate our storied past and share it with a wider audience.

If you have anything at all, by all means get in touch with me either through the comments section of my blog or email me directly at music@vaxxine.com.  Any information that comes my way will perhaps even make it into a future blog posting as we celebrate a rich broadcast heritage in St. Catharines-Niagara with 610/CKTB.

By the way, a good book I am working on ordering for myself that documents a lot of Canadian radio's early years including some parts on CKTB and the Clarence Colton era is "Nothing on But the Radio:  A Look Back at Radio in Canada and How it Changed the World" by Gil Murray, published by Dundurn Press.   It is certainly worth checking out yourself if you get a chance sometime.

Happy Listening!

February 18th, 2013.