The Great Sound of the Big 8!

Listen to the following sounds from CKLW (all in standard .WAV format unless noted):

Please note: When this page was first put up, hardly anything was being offered in MP3 format, and "TrueSpeech" was a preferred format for compressed material on Web. Well, times have changed, and I have tried to convert most of the sounds to MP3 format, but there are a couple for which I have misplaced the originals and which I only kept copies of in TrueSpeech format, so those remain on this page in that format only. However, if anyone has original tape or higher quality copies, etc. of any of the airchecks shown below, and you can get it into .WAV file format, I now have the ability to convert it to MP3. So if you e-mail me the .WAV file, I will encode it and put it up. If you want to convert the file to MP3 format yourself, please write me first (at the address on the main page) because there are certain technical requirements I'd like to uphold for any MP3's posted here - in particular, please don't encode in stereo if it's a monaural source!

Please note: The following are airchecks, not music. Please don't write asking where the music is... there isn't any. If you're not familiar with the term "aircheck", an explanation is provided at the end of this section.

CKLW Jingles and Liners

The .wav file versions of the following jingles and liners were digitized by J. Lee Smith:

The following Jingles and Liners were contributed by Steve Chappell. The weekend ID's #1 & #2 were used all thru 1968. Steve says that he's not sure exactly when they were introduced, but knows for a fact that they were dropped June 13, 1969 and never used again. All jingles were dropped for a couple weeks and then More Music jingles slowly added back. They used the silly sounding sped-up Motor City ID for a week and then returned to the good one. Charlie Van Dyke was gone and Jim Edwards took over the morning drive. Steve also says he doesn't ever remember hearing weekend ID #3 used.

  • Weekend ID #1: "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Listening to the Solid Gold Sound of a Million Dollar Weekend, All Weekend from..." - (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format).
  • Weekend ID #2: "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Listening to Much More Music on a Million Dollar Weekend, Presented by..." - (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format).
  • Weekend ID #3: "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Listening to a Million Dollar Weekend with the Greatest Hits of All Time, Presented by..." - (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format).
  • Weekend ID #4: "And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Million Dollar Weekend" - (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format). This one was actually found as a WRKO (Boston) ID; we substituted the CKLW jingle. Also the original version of this does not have the trumpets at the start, so we also offer a re-edited version with the trumpet opening (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format).
  • CKLW Top and Bottom of Hour ID: "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Listening to The Much More Music Station" - (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format). This is believed to be from around August of 1967. The original version of this does not have the trumpets at the start, so we also offer a re-edited version with the trumpet opening, and a better quality sample of the vocal ending (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format).
  • Sunday Morning 6 A.M. ID: "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Listening to..." - (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format). Steve says that this ID was used Sunday morning at 6 A.M. to stop the music to introduce "Canada Now", the Canadian weekly news program. At 9 A.M. CKLW would come back with a big music sweep. Steve remembers Jim Edwards once played 29 in a row, and Frank Brodie once played 22.
  • Voice with Tymp: "Number 1 Then and Number 1 Now" - (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format). Used between a former number 1 song and the current number 1 on the big 30. The listener was alerted that this transition was going to be played because the jock would intro the "golden" #1 as "a former #1 song." Dropped in June, 1969 and then brought back in April, 1970 only for a few weeks.
  • (Number) Years Ago Today - in groups of five years: one through five, six through ten, eleven through fifteen, sixteen (only). Dropped in June, 1969 and then reintroduced in April, 1970 for only a few weeks.
  • Tymp, drum roll or "the bang" - used for contests, end of news ("And that's what's happening today"), and intro-ing records.
  • 20-20 news jingle used before June 13, 1969 - (Also in "FM Quality" MP3 format). This was replaced by the one we all remember.

The following Jingles and Liners were acquired from various sources:

Other CKLW Sounds

  • NOW AVAILABLE IN MP3 FORMAT FOR HIGH-BANDWIDTH USERS: An American Airchexx segment on CKLW, in MP3 format (WARNING: large file, about 26.3 meg!), streaming RealAudio format (lower sound quality, but should start playing almost immediately if you have the RealPlayer installed), or downloadable RealAudio format (right click on the previous link to download) only due to length of ~21 minutes. From American Airchexx Volume 1, Number 11, dated October 8, 1976. American Airchexx was a radio industry "audio magazine" produced by Bob Gowa (now with AMI News / San Francisco) and Shadoe Stevens (now an actor/comedian, who is probably best known for his role on the situation comedy "Dave's World"). Chuck Morgan from CKGM in Montreal was the guest narrator. There are many great CKLW airchecks in this segment (my personal favorite is the Hi/Lo contestant that can't quite seem to settle on a guess)!


  • Big Jim Edwards aircheck - a short aircheck with a couple of ID's from November, 1967, including "Ladies and Gentlemen, you're listening to the much more music station" followed by the CKLW jingle. This file is also available as a (slightly cleaned) MP3 file (520K).
  • Charlie O'Brien airchecks from circa 1975 in three parts - Part 1 (878K), Part 2 (793K), Part 3 (394K). All three parts combined are available as an MP3 file (469K).
  • Charlie O'Brien airchecks (1018K) from a September, 1975 morning show (5 A.M. - 6 A.M.), while sitting in for Bob Moody. This file is also available as a (slightly edited) MP3 file (457K).
  • Charlie O'Brien airchecks (434K) from 1977, including a contest announcement. This file is also available as a (slightly cleaned) MP3 file (272K).
  • Bud Davies aircheck (459K) courtesy of Tommy Ryan, from the "Giant CK" era (circa 1966?) on April Fool's Day. We think that it is Dick Smythe ending the news at the start of this clip. This file is also available as a MP3 file (272K).
  • Dave Shafer airchecks courtesy of Mark Elliot - August, 1963 from the CKLW studios (6657K) and live from Bob-Lo Island (4000K). These are from the pre-Drake days and you can tell the difference - as Mark wrote, it "includes the mundanities of 'The Fishing Report', and a pre-Drake jingle package!" Due to size these are available in MP3 format only.
  • Gary Mitchell aircheck (725K) courtesy of Tommy Ryan. This file is also available as a MP3 file (330K).
  • Johnny Morgan aircheck (337K), also probably from 1966 or thereabouts and also courtesy of Tommy Ryan. This file is also available as a MP3 file (153K).
  • Steve Hunter airchecks (3.3 Meg) - digitized by J. Lee Smith, this has a running time of about 5 minutes. Also has an intro for Walt "Baby" Love at the end. This file is also available as a MP3 file (1.5 Meg).
  • NEW Ted "The Bear" Richards aircheck (5.2 Meg in MP3 format) - digitized by Bill Conners, this has a running time of 5 minutes, 27 seconds.
  • Walt "Baby" Love airchecks (3.7 Meg) - digitized by J. Lee Smith, this has a running time of about 7 minutes 40 seconds and is also available as a MP3 file (2.3 Meg).


  • A CKLW "20-20 News" open (136K) from CKLW's short-lived revival in the early 90's. Definitely NOT an example of the "tight" sound that CKLW had been noted for. This file is also available as a MP3 file (62K).
  • "CKLW, North America's #1 Music Station" ID and CKLW news bulletin (1.4 Meg) - the most amazing thing about this news bulletin is how Byron MacGregor breaks in, gives the essential details on a fire and advises motorists to use alternate routes, and gets listeners right back into the music in approximately 20 seconds flat! Also available as a MP3 file (222K).
  • Don West "20-20 News" aircheck (435K in MP3 format) - two short airchecks, also from the early 90's. The 20/20 news intro (using the older jingle), followed by Don giving the weather. As you can tell, CKLW was running "The History of Rock and Roll" at the time. Contributed by Blair West (Don's son).
  • Randall Carlisle from September 1975, ending a 5:20 A.M. edition of "20/20 News."
  • Grant Hudson aircheck from a "20/20 News" segment. Note the sound of the (recorded) teletype in the background! This file is also available as a MP3 file (272K).
  • Byron MacGregor aircheck from a "20/20 News" segment. This file is also available as a MP3 file (167K).
  • Keith Radford (291K) - Keith was a CKLW news director after Byron MacGregor, and this clip is a report from the CK traffic chopper during an Elton John concert at the Silverdome - one of the first big shows there. They were expecting 80,000 for the show and a ton of traffic. CK was there - but Keith's chopper had antenna trouble and couldn't talk to the studio from the air except when when live. This file is also available as a (slightly cleaned) MP3 file (182K).
  • Dick Smythe aircheck from a "20/20 News" segment recorded May 26, 1969, in TrueSpeech Player format and TrueSpeech .wav file format only due to length.
  • Clark Weston (2.8 Meg) - Doug Fernlock says that he was transformed into "Clark Weston, CKLW 20/20 News" whenever the superstars were sick or "on holiday." This 20/20 news aircheck is from sometime in the summer of 1973, and also includes segments by Derek Chase (former CKLW-FM newscaster) and Jon Belmont (who later became a long time fixture at the ABC radio network). This file is also available as a MP3 file (1.3 Meg).
  • Various CKLW 20/20 News airchecks - digitized by J. Lee Smith, this is a .WAV file that is approximately 4.4 Meg long, with a running time of 9 minutes 13 seconds. It illustrates what some have called the "blood and guts" style of CKLW 20/20 news, and is not recommended for the squeamish.

  • An audio segment from The History of CKLW (14.7 Meg in MP3 format), a program that aired circa 1980 (exact date unknown). This segment (about 10 minutes in length) contains a little bit about why CKLW sounded so good compared to other stations, plus segments from and about the night that an irate hockey fan cut the guy wires on the CKLW tower on Riverside Drive in Windsor.
  • A shorter version of the tower story, provided by Dennis Kreish. This file is also available as a (cleaned) MP3 file (602K).


  • An audio segment about Rosalie Trombley (3.9 Meg in MP3 format) from The History of CKLW.


  • WKNR ("Keener 13") (459K) was CKLW's chief competition in the Motor City market. This clip is courtesy of Tommy Ryan, and features Ted Clark introducing the Platters' "With This Ring" from Easter Sunday of 1967. This file is also available as a MP3 file (208K).
  • Another competitor to CKLW in the mid-60's was WXYZ. This clip, courtesy of Tommy Ryan, features the intro to the first Joey Reynolds show on WXYZ (in TrueSpeech Player format and TrueSpeech .wav file format only due to length of nearly three minutes). Joey takes a couple of swipes at competing stations CKLW and WKNR, plus on-air personalities Scott Regan and Duke Windsor, and hopes aloud that the show lasts. It didn't.

The following links are to other Web sites as noted:

Just for fun:

  • Ten bell dings over teletype sound effect (Also in MP3 format). Just a sound effect to convey urgency - if you get e-mail news bulletins from one of the major news sites, configure your e-mail program to play this whenever a new e-mail from that site arrives, and you'll be alerted to breaking news! The teletype sound is, of course, the same one that was used during "20/20 News."

Note: The TrueSpeech .wav file format sounds can be played on some systems (such as those running most versions of Windows) directly, without requiring an external player. We would like to replace the remaining TrueSpeech files with another, somewhat more universal format, if we can get a copy of the original source material.

A word about airchecks: In the radio industry, these are generally demo tapes, often intended to show off the announcer's talents to prospective future employers, etc. As such, they generally don't contain any music, and few jingles. Potential employers do not want to hear music, they want to hear what the announcer sounds like!


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