Not sure I was totally subscribed when trying to send this the first time, but
thought it would be a great article with which to launch the new list at its new
home!!
Linda G.
When rock got sleepy Hogtown rolling; Shortly after Elvis shook the Gardens,
The Toronto Star, May 31, 2015News
When rock got sleepy Hogtown rolling; Shortly after Elvis shook the Gardens,
CHUM launched its Top 40 hits format
Graphic: The "Houn' Dog" hit the front page on April 3, 1957. When
Toronto-based band Lighthouse performed a free outdoor concert in 1970, the
square around
City hall was so jammed full of the rock faithful that they took to climbing
the
Arches over the pool. In 1974, the Band performed at Varsity Stadium before
42,000
dedicated fans who braved the drizzle to sit through what was described as
"one of the most accomplished musical happenings ever in the Toronto pop
music scene."
Once Upon A City is a weekly series that looks back at significant events or
eras in Toronto's history, based on reporting and photography from the
Star's archives.
If fathers of teenage girls were braced for their worst nightmare back in
the
'50s, they found it in a hip-swivelling singer known as "the King."
"There's not a girl I know who wouldn't want to marry Elvis," declared
19-year-old Barbara Bromley in the Toronto Daily Star the day after Elvis
Presley appeared
at Maple Leaf Gardens on April 2, 1957.
Bromley, president of his fan club, tried to reassure parents, calling it "a
good, clean show."
But the entire city was reeling over the body-shaking spectacle glimpsed -
cameras stayed above the waist - on The Ed Sullivan Show a few months
earlier: There'd
be the devil to pay if this "rock and roll music" with its pulsating beat
and
suggestive lyrics took hold.
But the invasion of rebellious new sounds from the south kept coming,
marking a
pivotal point in Hogtown's music and social history.
The Star devoted 10 pages to the "Presley phenomenon," even soliciting views
from a church organist, child psychologist and sociologist. The organist
pronounced him a "sick Aztec god reeling up and down in his
dreadful finery." The sociologist bemoaned the squealing hordes' lack of
maturity. But
the psychologist attempted to assuage angst, saying it was perfectly normal
for
girls to be all shook up over the idol's bumps and grinds.
Evaluating his performance, music critic Hugh Thomson trashed "the lurchin'
urchin, Elvis the Pelvis" for a total absence of talent.
"One rock 'n' roll ballad sounded just like the other and the basic theme
and
appeal were sex, which Elvis lays on with the subtlety of a bulldozer in
mating season,"
Thomson groused, clearly concerned for the thousands of girls who "shrieked
in
ecstasy (over) the gyrating guitar-strummer."
Back at home, the family Philco was getting set to explode. On May 27, 1957,
just weeks after the King raised the rafters on Carlton St., 1050 CHUM on
the AM dial
flipped the switch on its new sound as Canada's first rock-around-the-clock
station. "Radio must be exciting," owner Allan Waters, inspired by American
airwaves,
told staffers before unleashing upbeat jingles, crazy contests and the
dreaded rock
'n' roll - with Elvis' "All Shook Up" the first record played that day.
Spinning the Top 40 hits and hosting concerts for musical heavyweights
helped
cement CHUM's place in broadcasting history.
"They were very influential. They led the way and other stations would
follow,"
recalls Roger Ashby, a golden oldie in his own right, having joined the
lineup of disc
jockeys in August 1969, three days shy of his 20th birthday.
"Bobby Curtola was one of the first big Canadian stars," thanks to 1050
CHUM's
boost, says Ashby, still a much-loved morning fixture on sister station
CHUM-FM.
The brazen broadcasters further raised the station's profile with a
pastel-coloured pamphlet known as the CHUM chart. The weekly publication
listing the top-ranking songs was a big hit over its 29
years and is still a collector's item. Ironically, "All Shook Up," which was
No. 1 on
the first chart published the day of the station's relaunch, was also the
last song
played 44 years later when the music died to make way for a sports format.
Ashby, a walking music encyclopedia, remembers 1970s' visits to CHUM
headquarters at 1331 Yonge St. by huge fan magnets such as the Bay City
Rollers and the Osmonds.
The family group, featuring teen heartthrob Donny, had to be spirited in the
back door to escape fandemonium on the street. Their hidey hole in the
building became known as "the Osmond room," which was
later "a euphemism for 'Do you want to smoke a joint?'" laughs Ashby.
More than the music, "it was promotions that set them apart," Ashby says of
CHUM.
In 1974, the first annual Graffiti Parade and Greasers Ball drew "hundreds
and
hundreds" of vintage '50s and '60s vehicles that cruised down Yonge St. from
the city's
north end to City Hall, where 50,000 had gathered.
Ashby leaks a secret about a contest when CHUM wanted to give away a new
Corvette. It was worth way more than the $5,000 maximum allowed by
broadcasting regulations
at the time, so they drove it to the U.S. on a business trip, then had it
certified as a used vehicle worth $5,000 - "even though it was still brand
new," he says.
Located midway down Yonge, CHUM was a gateway of sorts to the entertainment
scene developing downtown in the '50s and '60s.
"Yonge St. was a star, not us," says Ronnie Hawkins, a rompin', rockin' wild
man
from Arkansas who landed there with drummer Levon Helm in the late 1950s.
"That
whole strip was the only place that you could get entertainment and booze
(together)
at that time," he recalled in Bruce McDonald's 2011 documentary, Yonge
Street:
Toronto Rock & Roll Stories.
"The Hawk," now an 80-year-old grandfather, formed a group of musicians who
evolved into the Band, led by legendary guitarist Robbie Robertson.
If Yonge St. was for rockers, Yorkville was for folkies. In the '60s, the
hippie
hangout hummed with such emerging talent as Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell
and
Neil Young. The rest of the city was still uptight, with bars and movie
theatres having only
just opened their doors for Sunday business. When Beatlemania swept in seven
years after Elvis stormed the Gardens, parents still hadn't learned to chill
out.
In a bid to scrutinize the Liverpool lads before their appearance in April
1964,
the Star sent a posse of prominent figures to a screening of A Hard Day's
Night.
Rabbi Jordan Pearlson dismissed the mop-topped musicians as "kids who don't
go
to the barber" while child psychologist Dr. William E. Blatz concluded their
worst
effect might be boredom.
Like Elvis, the Beatles got 10 pages of coverage, including reporter Ray
Timson's comparison of the show to "standing directly behind a supersonic
jet readying
for take-off." But he breathed a post-concert sigh of relief that "all our
children
are accounted for."
In the wake of the "delirium" afflicting 33,522 kids at two record-setting
performances, he warned that the British exports' next visit would require
"a vaccine against
them." And he ended his dispatch on an ominous note: "There's a new group on
the rise in England and they're known as THE ANIMALS."
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