A few years back I wrote a blog post about Rev. J.G. Joyce who, before coming to Verdun, founded a radio station in Saint John’s in order to broadcast his services to members of the congregation who could not, for one reason or another, get out to worship. That radio station, VOWR, still exists and is approaching its centenary. I stumbled upon this CBC story from 2018 about a young musician’s experience working on air and as a general factotum at the station, and thought I’d share it.
How I found my groove at a century-old church radio station
by Kenney Purchase with Sarah Smellie
Letting a record play while heading to the bathroom at VOWR is a dangerous game.
I can't even count the number of times I've sprinted at full speed from one end of the station to the other, rushing back to the studio from the washroom as a song is coming to an end.
One night, I let a Beach Boys record play for a little too long while hosting a popular easy listening show. Smiley Smile is a weird one in the Beach Boys discography, and when Good Vibrations ended, a bizarre interlude began.
I managed to get into the studio just as the phone started ringing.
"Stop playing that Jesus Halloween music, it's August!"
VOWR first crackled onto the airwaves on July 24, 1924.
The station was started by Rev. Dr. J.G. Joyce, then the pastor of the Wesley Methodist Church — now the Wesley United Church — as a way to bring services to congregation members who, for whatever reason, couldn't make it in to the church on Patrick Street.
He was a real pioneer. According to the station's history books, he rigged up a way to broadcast his sermons straight from the pulpit to people's telephones. In solving that technical problem, he created a social one: lots of folks seemed to think the transmissions were the work of the devil.
But he managed to convince them otherwise.
VOWR now broadcasts across the province 24 hours a day. Sixty-odd volunteers breathe daily life into the station, most of them 30 or 40 years older than me, and you never know what you'll hear when you tune in.
The usual mix is old-school easy listening, from folk to classical music to church hymns. But there are some real oddballs in the library that give VOWR its undeniable charm.
Like classical pieces with the orchestra swapped out for a band of dinky synthesizers, or an out-of-place new-wave version of The Phantom of the Opera, which sounds closer to Depeche Mode than it does to an Andrew Lloyd Webber piece.
Soul Bossa Nova by Quincy Jones, redefined by my generation as the theme music for the Austin Powers movies, is a frequent hit. So is the The Benny Hill Show theme song, where I can't help but picture a cartoonish chase sequence the moment that saxophone comes in.
I've found some real gems in that library, some which I can't find any record of online.
The darkness of April's Angel Food Cake, an album by New Brunswick country singer Norma Gale, made me stop the tape mid-song and rewind it.
The Sanderlings were a Newfoundland band of siblings in the 1960s, way ahead of their time. While many other bands here were recording traditional music, these guys were playing catchy pop songs.
Go to the original CBC story to read more and see pictures.