Ralph Lockwood woke up listeners in Montreal from 1972-1981 and again 1985-1987. He was known as the Birdman, cracking jokes about everyone, whether they were on staff at CKGM or celebrities. In those days, CKGM was hands-down the most listened to station in Montreal, even with FM in the picture during the latter years of the Top 40 format. During the 70s and very early 80s, you could hear things in English OR French, before Canada’s licensing authority, the CTRC, stomped that practice out (the regulators said that by speaking in both tongues, CKGM had an unfair advantage over other stations who generally either broadcast in one or the other language).
In this short scope that sounds as if it originally came from the CKGM studio skimmer machine, you’ll only hear one quip by the Birdman in French, otherwise, its all English… and mostly all jokes! Dan Ingram, Lockwood is not. But one wonders if he stayed up all night before his shift thinking these things up or if it was all off the top of his head! He really WAS that good!
CTV News quoted another longtime CKGM personality, Marc Denis, who had this to say about Ralph Lockwood:
“He was like a cross-between Groucho Marx, WC Fields and Don Rickles all rolled into one and he didn’t have that radio voice disc-jockey.kind of voice, he was kind of the guy at the bar telling the jokes at happy hour,” said Marc Denis, who co-hosted special shows with him.
“His technique was to make people the butt of his jokes and the huge apprehension we all had at the radio station was to be mentioned on radio and be the butt end of his jokes.”
Lockwood worked elsewhere in Montreal, at one point at 800 CJAD. He even did a talk show on CFCF-TV channel 12 for a while.
Ralph Lockwood died January 12, 2020 at his home in Pennsylvania. He was 80.
TECHNICAL
This audio is courtesy of Contributor Daniel Coulombe. The quality is good, although it sounds like a second-generation copy. It’s clear and there were sections where one could tell that the source recording came right out of CKGM’s studio skimmer machine. It arrived Telescoped, and clean. The telltale sign of a second generation copy is the lack of treble response. I’ve compensated for much of that in post-production, so the aircheck as you hear it sounds much the way it would coming out of your car speakers if you were listening to CKGM in 1978.
LISTENING OPTIONS
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