Fifty years ago, Tim Burge was coming to the end of his great gamble to find a home in Vancouver for a San Francisco format known as "Underground". He had left behind his secure post as CKLG Boss Jock, after being unsuccessful in convincing CKLG management to move to the San Francisco Sound on either AM or FM.
At first glance, CJOR in 1967 sounds likely an unlikely home for Tim and his new music, but the station had recently been doing quite a good job at a "Chicken Rock" format, as we called it in those days.
As I remember it, most played artist on Tim's evening show was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. His show immediately caught my attention. And I finally found something that did not strain my ears, as Wolfman Jack did each evening on XERB-1090, trying to null out 50,000 watt KING Seattle from my East Burnaby home.
It was about this time of the year that it all came a sad, crashing end for Tim and the Program Director who had hired him. Rumour has it that Jim Pattison himself hated what he heard Tim play.
Soon, Tim was back at CKLG, and became deeply involved in CKLG-FM a few months later when it went full-time Underground, with John Runge as Music Director. John had been playing a similar format at Edmonton's CKUA, though not full-time, since 1964.