KURATED NO. 239
CANADA’S FIRST
MAJOR MARKET
FEMALE DJ: Ellie O’Day
Part Two of a 2-part feature by Connie Kuhns
Ellie O’Day selling Raffle tickets at the Vancouver KidsFest
(Tim Matheson photo)
• PLAYLIST
Over decades of following her passion for music, O’Day’s ears have been wide open, headphones on and instincts tuned to popular music’s shifts and changes. Combined with astute personal tastes from 50s’ Top 40 radio, the cool jazz and blues of the 60s, 70s’ punk rock, 80s’ New Wave and all things reggae to her current obsession – Cuban jazz – she’s put together an informed, succinct and eclectic musical survey. Here’s her 33–song Playlist – DJ Ellie O’Day’s Decades of Favourites on Spotify and YouTube.
• ONE SONG Listen by Jodi Proznick (feat. Laila Biali)
• ABOUT CONNIE KUHNS
A brief biography of the award-winning writer, photographer and founding radio host of Co-op Radio’s Rubymusic, her women’s radio program which ran from (1981-1996).
1989 at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. Ellie was co-managing the The Dots who shared a workshop with the Sun Rhythm Section. Paul Burlison from the original Rock’n’Roll Trio (far right) with the Burnette Brothers. Over Ellie’s right shoulder is DJ Fontana, Elvis’ longtime drummer. (Rosamund Norbury photo)
Introduction: Everyone has a story
I met Ellie O’Day in August 1988. We were invited to emcee a small women’s music festival in Vancouver. By this time, everyone knew who she was and what she represented. I remember being slightly taken back by this slight, yet powerful woman who had achieved what was at that time impossible. She had inserted herself into the very male world of radio, specifically rock radio, and as a music journalist she had distinguished herself with her insightful and passionate interviews.
Very recently, musician and songwriter Roy Forbes told me about meeting her in 1979 at the Prince George Rock Festival and how her open spirit put him at ease, and how in 1985 she helped him research Christmas songs for his album with Connie Kaldor, and how moved he became reading the obituary she wrote for Muddy Waters in the Georgia Straight in 1983. He recited the last line from memory: Bless your deep blue soul.
This is the kind of reaction I got whenever I mentioned that I was writing about Ellie O’Day for Kurated. Even over dinner one night, musician Tom Upex had a memory of Ellie coming by the rehearsal space when he was playing with Art Bergmann in Poisoned. Everyone has a story.
As for what is written here, I’ve had to resign myself to ending sooner than she deserves. But know that it is not the end of the story. Since leaving the music business exclusively, she used her knowledge and skills to work with art and multi-cultural festivals, theatre groups and venues. She’s served as a mentor, teacher (she developed a music business curriculum), as well as sitting on the Board of Directors for at least 20 different organizations including many outside the music sphere. As a resident of the Performing Arts Lodge in Vancouver, she is currently on the executive of the PAL Canada Foundation.
When I express my admiration for her and her mind-blowing career, she says, in her self-deprecating way, “I guess much like the grass-is-always-greener effect for so many artists, I’m too close to it to appreciate. Sure, some stuff I’m proud of. But so much of it I blundered through. Like many of us.” ~ CK
Having fun at the Vancouver’s KidsFest (Tim Matheson photo)
LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL
The Story of Ellie O’Day, Canada’s First Major Market Female DJ
by Connie Kuhns
PART TWO
After achieving what was considered impossible by becoming the first woman in Canada to blast rock music on Canadian radio, Ellie left CFOX in 1980 for Phantasmagoria, a record store and music hub in Vancouver. “I quit CFOX over sexism and their resistance to new music. Until I could land another radio gig, Phantasmagoria was stimulating work. It paid better than radio and my indie band contacts meant I was in charge of the consignment singles. Staff discounts were also attractive.”
But leaving CFOX was just the beginning. In 1981, she began writing for the Georgia Straight, another pioneer position she held down for eight years. As Charles Campbell remembers: “At the Straight, covering the local music scene in a credible and informed way has been, since the beginning, a cornerstone of the Straight’s success. Writing about music, though, has generally been a job for the boys. Music remained a field for boys for way, way too long, particularly given that we imagine it as progressive. Ellie was always a quiet champion for another path just by being there.”
Expanding opportunities
Ellie was a fan of CFMI and made her move when Tim Burge, who had been opposite her on evenings when she was at CFOX, got promoted to Program Director. “In radio they always say that you live and die by your ratings, and I kept beating him.” With Tim’s spot open on CFMI, she went for the vacancy, opting for weekend mornings so she could continue with her freelance work.
“CBC Radio One found me while at Phantasmagoria and started hiring me for reviews and commentaries.”
Laurie Mercer, whose time in the Vancouver scene was spent as an agent, concert promoter, band manager and co-founder of the Pacific Music Industry Association (PMIA), told me: “I knew of her long before I met her. I was a record collector and big music fan, so I had heard DJ Ellie, either on CKNW or the Fox or elsewhere. Her warm tone, her chatty insider-ness, her obvious knowledge and – most of all her openness to NEW music and sounds and trends made her one of my (and many others) radio friends. A trusted source, I was always looking for new, exciting, intelligent or adrenalin-boosting music. As a voracious reader it was always great listening to someone who was erudite, who enjoyed information, who paid attention to tidbits of detail. And she had the left of center social vibe that was important to me.”
But the glass ceiling wasn’t entirely broken.
“I was a regular contributor of interviews with touring artists to Switchback, the weekend teen show on CBC TV, in the early to mid-80s” Ellie says. “Richard Newman stepped down as host, and auditions were set up. I asked for an audition and my producer actually said, “We weren’t thinking of a girl’ and indeed, men had been hosting in the past. I said ‘You can’t do that. I want to audition.’ So, I got my first audition. I recall making up a schtick around a feature on the show called The Dictionary Man who, in a trench coat, would lurk in corners of the CBC building and introduce vocabulary. For my piece I picked ‘resonance’. I wasn’t successful; a male high school student was hired.”
A reluctant band manager
Her work with indie bands came the other way around. When the B-Sides approached her to manage their band, she said “I can’t yell to get my way or your way like (talent agent rep) Bruce Allen does.” Their response: “That’s why we wanted you.” They were convinced she’d make a good manager but she wasn’t so sure.
Regardless, she was a reluctant manager and only managed two bands: Stubborn Blood, and Nick Chursinoff and the Drop Dolls. But as she acquired more skills, she realized she could offer limited management services to more bands, which included Sandy Scofield, The Stoaters, Roots Round-Up, and The Dots. She published a monthly newsletter with their updates, which was the beginning of her PR work.
“I never went on the road with any bands. I wasn’t even keen about hanging out backstage. I liked being right up front and screaming my heart out! By this time, I’d been to London three times, gathering interviews with all the hot new British bands, which aired on CFMI and in the Straight and other magazines.”
Ellie may have only managed two bands, but she handled publicity, promotion and career development for dozens of musicians and record labels for almost two decades. Here’s where her degree in Anthropology comes in; the artists on her roster played everything – jazz, contemporary jazz, acoustic jazz, vocal jazz, folk, country folk, Celtic, Celtic folk, world music and classical. She understood nuance. She handled tour publicity, CD releases, grant applications, and festival bookings.
“Then came Expo 86. I was able to sell some stories to two or more English-speaking countries. I got my teeth fixed. Then in 1987, broadcasters laid off freelancers. For some months I worked for ProCAN (the precursor to SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) where I learned to read a publishing contract. In shorter succession I worked for CJOR on the morning show team, and on CHRX playing ‘oldies’ on air. Finally, I became the Promotions Manager at CKWX. I hated it. But another round of lay-offs dealt with that.
“Eventually both bands I was managing split up. I began teaching at colleges part-time, mostly about the music business, and did some work doing tour publicity, record releases and tracking.”
Ellie with fellow former broadcaster Lynn McNamara
Helping Vancouver’s music scene be its best
In 1990, The Pacific Music Industry Association (PMIA) was founded. It had a difficult start, as co-founders Laurie Mercer and Maureen Jack (Jack of Hearts Productions) were outliers in a music town dominated by Sam Feldman and Bruce Allen. The idea was to set up an industry association. Unravelling the history of this organization is complicated. However, the two of them got if off the ground. Once the non-profit was created, they needed someone to take over as Executive Director.
Says Laurie Mercer: “The Board decided to come up with a list of potential candidates to take over as ED who was ‘right’ to represent our industry and could be trusted to take our ‘baby’ (the PMIA) into the future. Some bad blood and mistrust needed to be bridged to get a truly effective organization that could legitimately represent the entire industry. Ellie was the only real choice. Beloved by all, conscientious, energetic, articulate, organized and available. What more could we want!”
Ellie spent 10 hard but valuable years with PMIA, often working 70-80 hours a week developing music contacts and resources while meeting with politicians and government agencies. She published the annual Canadian Pacific Music Industry Directory, produced a compilation album of West Coast world music, wrote and edited the Pacific Music News, ran a monthly forum for managers, and produced the West Coast Music Awards.
Ellie promoted, nurtured and coaxed the music scene to be its best self. And her work was well received and highly regarded. But she had a sense that the musical momentum was waning. But just around the corner something new was coming.
“By the time I stepped down from PMIA in 1999, the local indie music scene had lost steam. I was delighted to encounter an indie theatre scene that had all the giddy recklessness, energy and collaboration that the music scene of the late 70s to 90s had. There are plays from the 2000s that still thrill me – and unlike my CDs, I’ve never had the opportunity to see them again. That’s resonance!”
And like the day she picked up the phone with an offer to come to CKLG, she got a phone call from visionary arts producer and PuSh Festival founder Norman Armour inviting her into the theatre world. The next 25 years of her working life began.
PLAYLIST + TRACKLIST
DJ Ellie O’Day’s Decades of Favourites
Hear the playlist on Spotify and YouTube. There are some minor differences between the two. Some songs are unavailable on both platforms. The YouTube versions feature some videos.
In the chronology below Ellie outlines some milestones over seven decades.
1950s
- My first single purchase Butterfly Charlie Gracie
- Bye Bye Love Everly Brothers
1960s
- 1959 was a remarkable year for jazz releases: Kind of Blue, Miles Davis; Take Five, Dave Brubeck; Giant Steps, John Coltrane; Ah Um Charles Mingus
- I used to refer to this as early punk – Louie Louie and dozens of local and indie titles (The Witch, The Sonics)
- Then we became hippies! Piece of My Heart Janis Joplin constantly screamed out of our all-women’s university rooming house in Madison Wisconsin
- Madison was a regular stop for Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Walkin’ Blues (shared a doob with them once)
1970s
- Miles Davis, Bitches Brew Miles Runs the Voodoo Down (I remember the day we got this new double LP)
- Bruce Springsteen Rosalita (The Rolling Stone printed a letter I sent to one of their writers about seeing Bruce at the QET)
- Bowie! Jean Genie
- The Clash London Calling and I went!
1980s
- I was a sucker for pub rock Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions Graham Parker and the Rumour, Watching the Detectives Elvis Costello
- The post-punkers: Ever Fallen Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve) Buzzcocks, Heart of Glass Blondie
- It Won’t Last (Art Bergmann and) Poisoned
- The Crawl Spirit of the West
- I was bitten hard by reggae and ska in the 80s – Stepping Razor Peter Tosh, Stir it Up Bob Marley (front row @QET, a year before he died)
1990s
- As ED of Pacific Music, my focus for the decade was on local; it also included the Fraser MacPherson Music Scholarship Fund and I had a copy of the union contact book for musicians to adjudicate the tapes and auditions – I got to know a lot of union players, and developed a love for big bands like VEJI A Trombone Freeabin
- Slow Have Not Been the Same
- Neko Case Timber from her first Mint album
- Carolyn Mark Not Another Other Woman
- Robbie Fulks She Took A Lot of Pills and Died (I have several of his often hilarious CDs)
2000s
- Loretta Lynn Van Lear Rose (I love this album! What a collab!)
- At the start of the 2000s I began working with Moshe Denberg in his goal to create, commission works for, and fund an Inter-Cultural Orchestra, and got to know more people in “world music” and those crossing over from jazz into world; I was also working with composer Mark Armanini, who wanted to pitch his inter-cultural compositions to orchestra in Europe
- Mei Han/Randy Raine-Reusch Tokyo Crows (a one-off album by two remarkable Vancouver musicians who improvise and are marked; I pitched a couple tracks to world music shows on campus radio stations)
- In the early 2000s I was doing publicity and tracking for a small label in Whitehorse; one of their releases was from Cuba’s Valle Son, who owner, David, brought to Whitehorse and then recorded there, and their thank you: Descaiga en Yukon
- Hard Rubber Orchestra, a big band, like Hugh Fraser’s VEJI, though with bandleader John Korsrud’s stamp Cruel Yet Fair (I still hardly miss a Vancouver show)
2010s
- I’ve kept track of Linda McRae since the 80s, from Terminal City to Spirit of the West, and then a string of great albums; though she married and lives in Nashville, she came back to Vancouver to record this – a whole bunch of us are singing in the chorus behind Be Your Own Light
- Obsessed with Cuban jazz now, Hilario Duran Contumbao
Tracklist
Scroll through the playlist below to see all the titles.
About Connie
Connie Kuhns has a 45-year history as an essayist, journalist, photographer and broadcaster.
For fifteen years (1981-1996) she was the producer and host of the innovative program Rubymusic on Vancouver Co-op Radio which focused on the then nascent women’s music scene. A selection of her interviews and essays, Rubymusic: A Popular History of Women’s Music and Culture was published in 2023 by Caitlin Press.
Other essays and flash fiction have been published in Geist Magazine, Creative Non-Fiction Magazine’s Tiny Truths, the Southampton Review, the LA Review, the NYT’s Modern Love 13-word love stories, and KuratedMusic. Her photography has been featured in solo and group shows and her photographs of musician Ellen McIlwaine were published in the UK Independent, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and Globe and Mail upon the musician’s passing.
Kuhns has been a finalist for a National Magazine Award, the LA Review Literary Awards, Prism International’s CNF Competition, the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize and the Best American Essays series. She is the recipient of the Dan McArthur Award of Merit for Excellence in Radio News Broadcasting and Outstanding Salt Spring Artist in the Salt Spring National Art Prize.
A selection of her essays can be found at www.geist.com/authors/connie-kuhns To read her previous work in Kurated search under Connie Kuhns.
