RIP Red Robinson, Canada’s first rock’n’roll DJ
All the American histories of rock’n’roll talk about the role of Cleveland (and later New York) radio DJ, Alan Freed. Going deeper, there was also Dewey Phillips, Wolfman Jack, Murray Kaufman, Bill Randle, and a couple of others. Another name that should be on this list is Red Robinson, quite possibly the first Canadian DJ to play rock’n’roll records on the radio.
While at CJOR/Vancouver on November 12, 1954, Red started playing this new music for his audience. He then jumped over to rival CKWX where he continued to hype rock’n’roll, meeting and interviewing Elvis, Buddy Holly, and The Beatles. His career took him to a number of other stations (a list can be found here). Here’s an aircheck of him working at CKWX in 1984. (More aircheck can be found here.)
Red continued to work in radio until 2007 when he retired. He died on Saturday (April 1), two days after his 86th birthday.
More here.
I grew up listening to Red, and to this day he is the radio voice that I compare all other radio voices to. I don’t think that rock in Canada would have been the same without him.