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- Jay
Telfer may have handed over the reigns of the Wayback Times to
Sandy and Peter Neilly, but he is still going to be visible in
the newspaper.
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- The
longtime resident of Prince Edward County will be writing Jay's
Blog, a column on his ongoing love of antiques and life in the
Quinte Bay area.
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- Jay's
Wayback Times, founded in 1995, published 1.7 million papers
in 11 years and more than 258,000 kms
- were
traveled for visits
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deliveries to antique
shows, stores and markets.
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- Jay
Telfer's final issue
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and now
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- 1050 CHUM turns 50 - And I turn 60
By Jay Telfer
When I first found CHUM AM in the summer of 1957, Elvis Presley
had a great song out called “Teddy Bear”. It was at
the top of the charts. When playing it, CHUM would always start
with “Number One on your Hit Parade, here at CHUM 1050 in
Toronto, (DidyDidyDidyDidyDiBumbumbumbum),” leading right
into “A-baby let me be, Your lovin’ teddy bear . .
."
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- I just assumed that “Number One on your Hit Parade”
(despite the key change and the call letters), was part of the
Elvis song. It was at Number One for seven weeks! How was I to
know?
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- I had my chores as a young teenager and whenever there were
dishes to be washed, I was on it immediately. Why? Because the
1949 RCA radio we had was up on a shelf right by the sink. I
listened to rock ‘n roll CHUM for 25 minutes and when the
news came on, I switched over to CKEY and then back to CHUM when
the music resumed. (News makes no difference to a 14 to 18 year
old.)
 In August 1967, I was a member
of a rock ‘n roll band called A Passing Fancy. We had just
released our third record, “I Believe In Sunshine.”
Along with our first two records, we knew it would hit and climb
the famous CHUM Charts, which were the only Canadian record of
the movement of time back then. They were printed out every week
and placed in every record store in the city. And those charts
were “from information no more reliable than a handful of
Toronto record store sales estimates.” (Toronto Star). Dick
Clark has several CHUM Charts framed in his offices.
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- Our band was sure about the charts, because we were playing
outside on the stage of the CHUM Booth outside The Princes Gates
at the CNE - and they played our song every hour! We handed out
3,000 copies of our picture and I am sure that the entire band
signed most of them.
It was great for the five piece band, performing at the CHUM
Booth - five years before anyone ever thought of demanding that
Canuck music must be played on Canuck stations, meaning the CRTC
regulations.
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 When our song hit number 28 out
of 50, listed on the same charts were: The Ugly Ducklings - “Gaslight”;
The Lords of London - “Cornflakes and Ice Cream”; The
Esquires - “Get On Up.” And on other summer CHUM charts
were Mandala - “Opportunity,” or “Love Ite-is”;
The Staccatoes - “Half Past Midnight”; The Paupers
- “If I Call You by Some Name,” and “Simple Deed.”
And also on the charts was Peter, Paul & Mary singing "I
Dig Rock 'N Roll Music," backed up by one of the best drummers
ever, Skip Prokop - of the Paupers and, later on, Lighthouse.
CHUM was a highlight for Canadian Music, long before the CRTC
arrived. We had four singles on the CHUM charts in 1967. Not
bad for a tiny band from Downsview with no help from the "guvmint."
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- During that great summer day at the CNE, a model I was chatting
with told me I had a cute butt. I have lived with that one silly
comment for 40 years.
Nobody else has ever mentioned my butt, not when I was gaining
girth or when I began slimming back down. I've never checked
it out, but deep inside, I felt my butt was still reasonably
cute.
Last month, the Wellington Lion’s Club had an outing; we
were to take a bus ride up to Stirling, have dinner and then
go on to the Stirling Theatre to see Buddy Whas’isname and
The Otherfellas, a great group from Newfoundland.
I live on the north side of Prince Edward County and when I was
picked up by the yellow school bus filled with all 22 members
of the club, I took a seat. But unlike other tour buses I have
been on (most recently in Jamaica) this bus did not have the
right set of springs, dampers, shock absorbers, extra juicy gum
and whatever, to make the ride more pleasant. The last time I
was on a school bus was back in the days of Boy Scouts when we
trekked up to Algonquin Park in the early 60s.
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- The trip was a success. The meal was great and the laugh-out-loud
show was injurious to my own and many other people's ribs. When
we headed back home, what I noticed was that my bum, what I sit
upon, while cute, was no longer there to prevent the ride from
becoming rough.
I have never been a fan of checking out my backside, but when
I got home, just to make sure that there were no bruises, I checked
it out. I discovered that it is no longer there. My cute bum
has disappeared over the past 40 years of sitting on it and riding
on it and walking with it (demurely covered.) So, my ego has
shrunk, along with my posterior.
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- What a bummer! How can I walk down the street without the
40 year old memory of a model, whose name I never knew, giving
me words to uplift me?
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- I just returned back from the 40-year running “Summer
of Love” festival in
Yorkville. Twenty years ago, in 1987, A Passing Fancy performed
at the
event. This year the festival organizers had in performance The
Kensington Market, Luke & The Apostles, Jon & Lee &
The Checkmates, Shawn & Jay Jackson and Sylvia
Tyson.
I loved it. The Kensington Market - my heroes, played solid music
that people still say is psychedelic. As a songwriter, I disagree.
It was magic hearing those great (old?) songs again. And what
is it that makes the magic? Is it the tunes, is it the voices,
is it the beat, or is it just nostalgia?
When I lived at #1 Yorkville with our Passing Fancy roadie, Kevan
Staples, (now inducted into the Indie Songwriters Hall of
Fame through his band, Rough Trade) we had no money, no food,
a fridge that could cook butter from the inside, no washing machine,
no cars, no locks on the doors, and especially, no TV and no
telephones. We paid for our instruments monthly and never thought
of going on welfare. We would take the subway or walk if we wanted
to meet someone. I remember going to the Upper Crust and begging
for a steak sandwich from a waitress or a cook.
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- There was another three piece band from North York trying
to make a go of it at that time. One of the guys used to visit
me at #1 Yorkville after high school. His name was Alex Lifeson
- from RUSH.
Through the poverty, we all saw every possible band; saw Jimi
Hendrix, saw Albert King, saw Ricky James and
the Mynah Birds, saw The Paupers (multiple times), saw The Band,
saw The Turtles, saw Procol Harum, saw Blood Sweat & Tears
and many, many other bands. That was a dreamy time to be a musician
with no money! My thoughts are gently wishing we had those times
back again.
In the late 60s, CHUM had grown from an AM station to a psychedelic
FM station and we learned everything about concerts, musicians
and their lives, just by listening to the radio. And we grew
out of the older CHUM AM personalities; Al Boliska, Bob
McAdory, Dave Johnson, John Spragge, and "Jungle
Jay" Nelson. It was at this time that Jimi Hendrix’s
first single, a well remembered, everyone-knows-it song, “Foxey
Lady” (CHUM's spelling) climbed the charts to number 36
and lasted the usual five weeks there. I think you can see why
FM moved in.
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- As Greg Quill said in the Toronto Star: “It was
a radio and television empire that began with the purchase by
the late Allan Waters of a sunrise-to-sunset broadcast
licence for a few thousand dollars in 1957, and was sold last
year for nearly $2 billion.”
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- It is hard to believe that Jane Fonda, who looks great
at any age, will turn 70 this year. It seems impossible. John
F. Kennedy, were he alive, would be 90 and would probably
be found on the Cape making ex-presidential comments on the chaos
of the US, just as Carter has recently done.
It was a magic time. I love going back there, I love the “groovy”
feelings I get from it, but time does pass on. Another 2.5 billion
people have been born since then. What will their memories be?
Will they have a time and place (like Yorkville) with music spurring
them on? I doubt it. I will keep my musical memories forever.
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- On June 30, A Passing Fancy will reunite for a get-together
up on Lake Simcoe. We will laugh, reminisce, show off our unblistered
musical hands, and then talk about our gorgeous grandchildren.
And this year I will turn 60. “Never trust anyone over 30
... times two!”
Other articles by Jay Telfer
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