Rock Radio Scrapbook

AIRCHECK OF THE WEEK
For week of March 15, 2015
Edition #826

Talent: BIG JIM EDWARDS
Station: CKLW Windsor, Ont.
Date: March 17, 1970
Times: 1:18:53 (unscoped)
18:57 (scoped)

(left to right - Tom Howard, Jim Davis (Big Jim Edwards), Charlie Ritenburg)
Photo credit: Colin Kennedy (former CKLW board op)

There's a lot more to an aircheck that meets the eye ... or ear in this case.

First of course you need an on-air talent worthy of recording for posterity (luckily there was plenty of that in the Top 40 era). Then you have to have someone with the foresight to actually record that talent. Then - much later on down the line - it helps to have someone who can digitally restore that aircheck into an audio masterpiece.

All three elements are at work on this aircheck. First, there's the on-air talent, none other than Big Jim Edwards - a.k.a. Jim Davis - one of the top CKLW jocks during its glory years as the Big 8. The person who did the recording is Tom Howard, a radio historian who saved countless CKLW shows that otherwise would have been lost. Then there's Charlie Ritenburg, aircheck collector and production whiz whose expertise at restoring this and this and other airchecks is second-to-none.

Enjoy Part One of Big Jim Edwards on CKLW (UNSCOPED) here.

Enjoy Part One of Big Jim Edwards on CKLW (SCOPED) here.

(The Tom Howard Collection)

More from The CKLW Years here!