CHVC o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2005-02-07 published
'Mac' led heady days at
CHUM
Disk
Jockey
Bob
McADOREY as popular as music
'Bon vivant' later a Global television fixture
By Jim BAWDEN,
Television
COLUMNIST
Bob McADOREY helped usher in radio's rock 'n' roll era and set
the musical agenda for a generation of Toronto teens.
Few today realize the power that Disk Jockeys like
McADOREY exerted
over Toronto popular culture 40 years ago, when radio ruled.
It was a cozy time for music -- and then
CHUM entered the fray,
blew the cobwebs away and ushered in the crazy days of rock broadcasting.
McADOREY, 69, died Saturday at St. Catharines' Hotel Dieu hospital
after a long illness.
McADOREY grew up in Niagara Falls and attended Stamford Collegiate,
also the alma mater of Titanic director James
CAMERON. He was
in the same graduating class as Barbara
FRUM, the legendary Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation-television interviewer.
As a teen,
McADOREY won a province-wide public speaking contest
and was the popular president of his high school fraternity.
He also played ragtime piano.
"Crowds would go around him," said his older brother, Terry
McADOREY.
McADOREY's radio career started in 1953 when the Niagara Falls
native first signed on with
CHVC near the Falls, introducing
listeners to his unique style of easy-going patter.
"I looked like Buddy Holly back then,"
McADOREY told the Toronto
Star in a 1981 interview. "I weighed about 95 pounds and we played
songs like 'Que Sera Sera.' Everything was a lot softer, smoother
then."
After additional stops in London, Guelph, Hamilton and Dawson
Creek, McADOREY wound up at Toronto's
CHUM, coaxed to climb aboard
by resident star Disk Jockey Al
BOLISKA.
"I'd lived with Al above a variety store in London and he kept
telling me to come to
CHUM. I asked for $600 a month, after all
Gordie TAPP was making $100 a week, and to my surprise I got
the job."
Starting in 1960,
McADOREY began a stint that many people consider
rock programming at its finest: brash, spontaneous and pretty
wild. And the Disk Jockeys were the stars.
CHUM became the rock station to listen to and
McADOREY was the
man who told you if a song was going places. The guy who hung
out with The Beatles and The Stones when they were in town (and
introduced them from the stage) was known simply as "Mac."
For years, he hosted the all-important 4 to 7 p.m. slot.
CHUM's
chart of the week's top records was posted everywhere: in record
stores and high school lockers. Eaton's and Simpson's would only
stock those 45s that were on the
CHUM list. When a new record
called "The Unicorn" came in,
McADOREY liked it so much he immediately
put it on the air and it sold 140,000 copies in Canada in two
weeks and made The Irish Rovers.
Thinking back on those heady days,
McADOREY said, "We kept it
all clean up here. There was no payola as in the U.S. and we
deliberately helped a lot of Canadians. It was personality radio.
We were promoted like crazy back then. And the pressures were
unbelievable. We dictated what records were going to go. And
what kids would eat, drink.
"I could have written five books about what happened at
CHUM.
There'd be one book if I saved my memos. The most frightening
thing was the British invasion. There weren't enough cops to
handle the crowds -- it was out of control."
Off the air, he was a bon vivant, said 72-year-old Terry
McADOREY.
"We did a lot of drinking. He was a good friend of Ronnie
HAWKINS."
In 1968, the
CHUM deal fizzled. When owner Al
WATERS brought
in American consultants,
McADOREY felt the business was becoming
too heavily formatted and left.
McADOREY headed to
CFGM in Richmond Hill, which was trying to
invade Toronto with a country music format. As morning man, he
energized the station. He moved to
CFTR in 1970 and after a few
years returned to
CFGM.
A constant listener was Bill
CUNNINGHAM, head of Global television
news, and he asked
McADOREY to contribute satirical bits, which
eventually became a full-time job.
Sample segment: during an airline strike
McADOREY headed out
to Terminal 2 with bowling equipment and pins to demonstrate
the building was only of use as a bowling alley. Royal Canadian
Mounted Police officers saw nothing funny in this and whisked
him out as the piece was being filmed.
Another time during a city campaign to get dog owners to scoop
up deposits,
McADOREY and a cameraman went out to do field tests,
which consisted of chasing terrified dogs whose owners had failed
the test.
By 1980, he was entertainment editor. In 1983, Global tried to
fire him when he disagreed over assignments. Global's Three Guys
at noon telecast was a big hit (the others: Mike Anscombe and
John Dawe) and hundreds of daily phone calls forced management
to reconsider. For a time, Global even outperformed Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation's Midday.
McADOREY later got his own afternoon entertainment show where
he'd report from movie junkets and comment on the entertainment
scene.
I last chatted with him in 2000 when he was railing against Global's
retirement-at-65 rule. But he looked frail and had been off for
months after a fainting attack.
McADOREY had a farm at Gormley and a place in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Despite his television success he still yearned for the golden
days of radio: "I'd walk into the booth in pyjama tops and jeans
and talk one-on-one to people. At least that's the way I always
imagined it."
McADOREY leaves daughter Colleen, her husband Jim
TATTI, a Global
sports broadcaster, and four grandchildren.
He was predeceased by his wife Willa, daughter Robin and son
Terry.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at St. Patrick's
Church in Niagara Falls.
With files from Gabe
GONDA
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