- Freddy Vette - a rocking deejay spinning
50s & 60s records
-
- By John Cosway
Nostalgic baby boomers wanting to relive the 50s and 60s are
hard-pressed to find rock and roll oldies on the radio and deejays
with an Alan Freed flare these days.
-
- Freed, credited with coining the phrase rock 'n' roll in
the mid-50s, was one of a rare breed of high-energy platter spinners
who pushed the envelope when it came to AM standards.
-
- Other DJ legends included George "Hound Dog" Lorenz
in Buffalo; Murray "The K" Kaufman in New York City;
Toronto's own Dave Mickie. Their on-air energy was contagious.
-
- One by one, AM stations across North America eventually bowed
out of rock oldies in favour of all news, all sports, all talk
or other formats, leaving 50s and 60s rock and roll fans wanting.
-
- When stations in Peterborough and Kingston dropped their
AM rock oldies formats in 2009, the same year 1050 CHUM in Toronto
again dropped out of oldies, fans were deflated.
-
- But then along came Freddy Vette, a Stirling, Ontario, farm
boy and 50s and 60s rock and roll revival musician, who switched
on his mic and his multi-personality persona at CJBQ in Belleville
and instantly had us all shook up.
-
- It didn't matter that Freddy, born Scott Haggerty, a sixth
generation Haggerty on the farm since his ancestors arrived from
County Cork, Ireland, in the 1830s, was born May 1, 1972. He
knew his vintage rock and roll and provided track facts to go
with the music.
-
- Freddy, weaned on 50s and 60s rock, knew there was a radio
audience. All he needed in 2009 was a little nudge from his wife,
Betty, a backup singer in his Freddy Vette and the Flames band.
-
- "My wife finally convinced me that I should approach
CJBQ even though it was a full-time country station at the time,"
says Freddy. "Luckily, the timing was right, as they were
looking to make changes in their afternoon programming."
-
- The small and predominantly country 10,000-watt radio station
down by the Belleville waterfront handed Freddy the reigns in
August 2009 without a rigid Top 40 format, rare in radiodom.
-
- Freddy offered a mix of rock, doo-wop, bop, R&B, blues
and unique comedy and in two short years he captured a strong
local audience and, thanks to cjbq.com/freddy.html,
listeners from around the world, live and in podcasts. Belleville
newspapers voted him No. 1 DJ for 2011.
-
- "I'm not surprised there is an audience for the show.
I knew the audience was out there before I ever reached the air.
The success of my band told me they were there. I'm pretty sure
I am one of very few shows with a true 50s/60s format left on
terrestrial radio."
-
- And it's not only rock and roll his listeners appreciate.
His sidekicks are a hoot.
-
- Listeners driving by CJBQ might think it is wall-to-wall
people inside, with Freddy and all of his guests. But Freddy
is a one-man show.
-
- He voices 12 on-air characters: Russell (old man); Zero (hippy);
John Goodvoice (ex-CBC announcer); Gusty Winds (exotic dancer);
Lowell Pressure (weatherman); Roadrage Rusty (trucker); Dawson
Bells (poet); Dick Ritwidge (host of What's New in Books); Man
from New York City (corrects Freddy's grammar); Alistair Hudson
(family tree society); Larry the Engineer (interrupts the show);
Helicopter Harry (traffic reporter).
-
- "That's 12, but always room for more," says Freddy.
"Many of the characters on my show are based on real people.
Having said that, they have all become a part of me."
-
- Russell is dispatched daily to the dark and dusty basement
archives to fetch the most obscure requested songs and Zero appears
daily with his favourite Flower Power track.
-
- Freudians might think Freddy's dozen alter egos are related
to childhood behavior, but Freddy says he didn't dabble in voices
until 2010 - after he was hired by CJBQ.
-
- "I slowly started to work on my characters around the
beginning of 2010. It was something I discovered when I listened
to some radio from the 60s. Some announcers used characters,
particularly (fast talker Big) Jack Armstrong, with his sidekick,
The Gorilla. He switched back and forth so fast, a lot of people
thought there was another person in the studio.
-
- "This was intriguing to me in a couple of ways. It gave
him someone to play off of and it allowed him to say things through
the character that he may not get away with himself. Once I looked
into Jack's history, I discovered his influence was a (Baltimore-born)
guy named Jack Gale. He had a multitude of characters on his
show, all voiced live by him."
-
- Freddy says Lowell Pressure, Helicopter Harry, Dawson Bells,
John Goodvoice and the man from NYC are all interpretations of
characters from Gale's show. As far as performing the characters,
"it has taken a lot practice to make it sound seamless,
to go from voice to voice quickly. Especially difficult, when
I'm performing three voices at the same time.
-
- "Russell and Zero, which I perform the most, are the
most natural to perform. Mostly because they've gone from just
funny voices in the beginning to completely flushed out personalities
with back-story and history."
-
- So, do most listeners realize Freddy's sidekicks are fictional?
-
- "It's a question I get asked all the time. Some people
believe I have a room full of people with me. Many people like
to come to the studio and see me perform them live. They get
a kick out of it.
-
- "Radio is Theatre of the Mind and most broadcasters
have forgotten that. I enjoy making use of it as much as I can.
Whether it's doing the show from a bathtub, having a man on a
horse deliver the weather, or simply having the characters enter
the studio through a door. I'm a big fan of Old Time radio shows
like Jack Benny. I like to incorporate those elements when I
can."
-
- No apologies from Freddy for being retro. Music has been
his life all of his life.
-
- His parents, Jim and Diane Haggerty, performed and recorded
as The Haggerty's. Their singles included Hot on the Heels of
Love. It reached No. 9 on the Top 40 RPM country chart in 1986.
They also won the RPM Magazine Big Country Award for Outstanding
New Artist in 1986.
-
- Today, Freddy's mother manages his band and his father drives
the tour bus.
-
- "Since my parents have extensive knowledge about the
business, they work with me. Truthfully, they are the only ones
I trust to run the business. Unlike an agent, they always have
my best interest at heart, not just trying to make a percentage."
-
- From his days as a toddler, his parents encouraged his interest
in music: Piano in Grade 3, drums in Grade 7, guitar in his teens.
His first public singing performance was in a vocal trio at 13
at the Stirling Festival of Sacred Praise. He sang a spiritual,
Shout Amen. They won first prize.
-
- "That was the first time I remember feeling the rush
of performing and enjoying it. Not too long after that, I joined
my parent's band as a drummer then, later moved to guitar/backing
vocals."
-
 Playing
Ontario bars with his parents as a teen was "a great learning
experience," as were various teen bands he was in, including
Cliché, The Screws, The Flickers and the Cadillacs, before
he formed Freddy Vette and the Flames in 2002 when he was 30.
-
- Scott changed his stage name to Freddy Vette when hired by
the Cadillacs as lead singer.
"Freddy because I needed a 50s name with a "y",
like Johnny or Bobby, and Vette because I needed a 'car' last
name. It was a joke name that stuck."
-
- He also found a new love in the Cadillacs, Joanne "Betty"
Hartman, a backup singer he would marry in a 2006 ceremony at
Elvis Presley's Graceland in Memphis. They walked down the aisle
to the music of Buddy Holly's True Love Ways.
-
- As for the CJBQ gig, Freddy credits Betty, a two-year broadcasting
course at Loyalist College in Belleville in 1991 and 1992, and
an Internet radio program he created to work on his DJ skills.
-
- Freddy says CJBQ hired college students part-time and he
got airtime as Scott Haggerty. After graduating in 1992, he worked
full-time at 750 CKGB in Timmins before being laid off four months
later. Stations were downsizing.
-
- "With that, I left the business, returned home, milked
cows, played in the bands. I still followed the radio business,
kept my friends at CJBQ, which would eventually turn into an
opportunity."
-
- In 2006. Freddy turned to the Internet, creating his own
90-minute online weekday show at freddyvette.com, paying homage
to 50s and 60s DJs.
-
- "It was a labour of love, no money and basically no
listeners . . . maybe my mom. I looked at it as a way to knock
nearly 15 years of rust off of my limited radio skills and have
some fun. Since my music of interest is 50s/60s, I figured the
show would have to sound like a show from that era."
-
- The Internet, he learned, is a goldmine for air-checks and
audio clips of deejay legends.
-
- "I basically immersed myself in Top 40 radio. I started
listening to DJs from the past, trying to learn from them, emulate
them, and basically rip them off for my show. The more I listened
to it, the more I loved it. I also realized that kind of radio
wasn't being done anymore. Not just the music, but the personality,
high-energy delivery, humour etc. I still listen to many old
audio clips on a weekly basis."
-
- The Internet program kept Freddy occupied for three years.
In 2009, his history with CJBQ as a broadcasting student and
Freddy Vette being a known live concert entity, got him the day
job.
-
- As a warm-up, he hosted a fake non-Internet show five days
a week, two hours a day, for several months. And, as Scott Haggerty,
he spun country tunes on the CJBQ night shift for two weeks.
-
- For his 2009 afternoon debut, CJBQ management gave Freddy
two hours.
-
- Tearing a page from early deejay headlines, he soon locked
himself in the control room and played Bobby Curtola's Fortune
Teller over and over until his boss, Sean Kelly, phoned him on
air and conceded to demands for a third hour. He now has four
hours.
-
- Freddy gives a lot of credit to Sean Kelly, his program director,
and to Quinte Broadcasting.
-
- "Unlike a lot of management in radio, Sean has afforded
me the trust and creative freedom to make the show what it is.
That is worth a lot to me. It's pretty much unheard of these
days."
-
- Positive feedback is international.
-
- Jerry Bond, 65, a record collector since the 1950s, listens
to Freddy live on the radio in Rochester, New York. He is a frequent
caller with obscure recordings requests.
-
- The accountant grew up listening to rock DJs on both sides
of the border, including WKBW in Buffalo, WABC in New York, CHUM
in Toronto and WLS and WCFL in Chicago.
"We were fortunate to hear some of the greatest Top 40 radio
personalities of the era, such as Dick Biondi on WKBW and later
WLS, Cousin Brucie on WABC, Larry Lujack and Jackson Armstrong,"
Jerry told the Wayback Times.
-
- "Freddy Vette is a throwback to the era of energetic,
fast-talking DJs and that is very appealing. So many stations
now feature voice tracking with boring announcers, but Freddy
is live and local and a real talent."
-
- "Jukebox" George Millaire, a former DJ and radio
station program manager, is a regular caller.
-
- "I refer to Freddy as the Russ Knight (Radio KLIF, Dallas,
Texas) of Prince Edward County, Russ being one of the top DJs
in the world back in the early 60s," says George.
-
- As the song goes, rock and roll will never die, not as long
Freddy Vette has a say.
-
- Oh, and who is the King of Rock and Roll?
-
- Elvis, hands down, says Freddy.
-
- "I've done two Elvis theme shows on the date of his
death. Nothing even comes close in listener response. Not the
Beatles . . . no one."
-
- Photos:
-
- 1 - Freddy Vette in the CJBQ studio
-
- 2 - Sax player Wayne Mills performs on stage with Freddy
Vette
|
