Remember the 80’s tune by Denise Williams called ‘Let’s Hear it for the Boys’, well this year's version, should one be recorded today, could be called, ‘Let’s hear it for the Paul’s as in Paul Kennedy and Paul Meagher, who volunteer their time and efforts for a community radio station.

More about them in a minute but first.

I do one hell of a lot of radio listening.  Like the McGuire Sisters song, “radio in the morning, radio in the evening and radio at supper time” I seem to have my radio on be it the car, office or home, most of the day, the local community radio station, Seaside-FM.

There may be a few who actually listen to radio and ‘spin that dial’ or ‘get a blister from  being a dial twister’ more than me but there can’t be that many.

To a degree it may be an age thing having grown up and working in the radio business for over 35 years.  I do some teaching at a media school and many of the students in the 19-25 age group don’t listen to radio. Some have no idea of an A.M dial or where to find one.

They get their info and music from the net, their cd’s or ipods, but for me, radio is like water and coffee, I have to have it.

It’s a combination of a lot of things from working either at home or driving around getting stories and in both cases I am within an arms length of a radio station. And the internet does help as I at times listen to CBC (Don and Liz), News 95.7 (Doug and Erica in the am, and Scott Simpson and Deb Rent in the pm), The CJCH Hotline with Rick Howe and I can even get Seaside-FM and their great easy listening on the web.

So doing  research on a sports project, writing a book (I’m on another one), doing a column for the Daily News or elsewhere, radio is on and it’s been on in my life for nearly 50 years, so I’m not about to change now.

News, sports, politics, open line shows and music from the 50’s-to the 80’s are my passions and I enjoy them and that’s what I get from radio.  I used to enjoy radio ‘personalities’ but they are now few and very far between.  Sorry but reading a few liner cards doesn’t cut it.  Most of the personalities in this market are on morning shows.  I think Brian Philips is, and has been strong for years and the oldies format at CJCH suits him well.

Like many of you I am a creature of habit and also find myself listening to radio very critically.  Being a former owner, manager, news director, open line host and just about every other position, will do that to you.  I like some of what I hear and at other times wonder how in the hell did someone get a job in the radio industry. One of these days I will list the good, bad and ugly and we have plenty of all those categories.

I’m the first to tell you that I don’t expect radio to ‘go back to the good old days’ because in some cases they weren’t regardless of nostalgia, all that good.

But there are parts of ‘yesteryear’ that I still enjoy and a few of them are the “Pauls”.  The only Paul I know and have heard more in the last 25 years was the late Pope Paul, but in this market when I think of Paul, I think of two very competent broadcasters in Paul Meagher (sometimes spelled Marr, which is incorrect) and Paul Kennedy.

Both, are very good broadcasters and have been in the radio business for decades and it shows.  They do something that many have forgotten and that is they communicate with their listener and stick to the basics.  Both ply their trade these days at 94.7 Seaside FM, the volunteer community non-for-profit- radio station that beams in from Eastern Passage.

Both Paul’s are informative, professional and polite, traits that have been lost of some of the guys and gals who entered this media biz over the past 10 or so years.

Paul Meagher is and has been the easy listening king of metro for years.  In the late 70’s and 80’s that title did belong to Tony Beech.  But the operative word is ‘did’.  Tony is long gone from the metro airwaves and his spot has been taken over, by the soothing sounds of one Paul Meagher.

Turn on the easy listening station and the chances are you are not far from the Seaside Café and studio ‘B’ where Meagher plies his trade. Studio ‘B’ is the Meagher home and a huge part of that household is devoted to his pride and passion, easy listening music, and that is ‘Studio B’ where he records the Café.

Paul Meagher is good, no, let’s make that very good at what he does and that is handle Metro’s best easy listening shift.   You can find the easy listening musical maestro just about morning, noon, night and all night, on Seaside-FM.

The last time I checked he had over 50 hours of programming time on the station.  50 hours!!!!   No one else in this market comes even close to that on-air figure.

And when it comes to music, Paul Meagher is, as the Seaside station suggests, ‘the easy listening choice’.  Now, Seaside FM does have some specialty shows that are not easy listening such as barbershop show, and a jazz show and a gospel program that have been accepted  by the listeners of the Eastern Passage outlet, but with Meagher, it’s easy listening, all the time.

And the man knows his easy listening music.  Be it Dean Martin or Al Martino, Montavani, the Living Strings or (Paul) Muriat, (Johnny) Mathis or easy listening melodies done by a variety of artist, you can hear it from the Musically inclined Meagher.

I usually pick him up in the afternoon between 2-4.  He’s also on most nights from 10pm until 7am in the morning.  There are days where I feel that I am being followed by Meagher as he is the voice of Atlantic Superstore and Zellers just to name a few clients who use his vocal talents.  

A TV show once had a western called ‘Paladin, have gun will travel’, I’m convinced with this guy its ‘Meagher, have voice will travel’.

I first met Meagher in the early 70’s when he was working or doing an internship at CHNS.  He was in the library, where else?   He loved music back then and I can still see him looking at all the albums and 45’s that were in the room.   It was a very big library and I’m convinced most of those records found their way, via garage sales, to out right buying them, into his record library.  And he has a big one occupying the basement of his house.  Hundreds if not thousands of LP’s and 45’s are in his collection.

The most interesting part of Seaside-FM and the component that really makes this station an ‘easy listening’ station are the instrumentals and no one plays more of them then Meagher.

I think those who have gotten into the business in the last 20-25 years don’t realize just how big instrumentals were in the history of popular music and with Paul Meagher many of those get played.

From Chariots of Fire, to Mauriat’s ‘Blue, Blue, my love is Blue’, to ‘Sail Along by Billy Vaughan and even ‘Telstar’, one can hear an easy listening instrumental just about every 15 minutes on his show. The Canadian Brass, Floyd Cramer and James Last get lots of airplay with the easy listening dee jay.

Doris Day, Perry Como, Ed Ames, Dinah Shore, to Teresa Brewer and so many great artists from the 50’s to today, spun with Meagher.

One of the things he really does well is he’ll take a well known artist and play that artist doing a cover version of a big hit.  Also, and it is the beauty of an easy listening station is that there are so many great groups that cover the ‘hits’.

The Johnny Mann singers, The Ray Coniff singers, The Ray Charles group and so many more and you can hear them on Seaside-FM with Meagher.

While he is the easy listening master he also does a few other shows such as the Tartan Hour on Saturday mornings and Music From the Heart on Sundays.

There is no doubt about it, in the world of easy listening music, Paul Meagher has caught up and exceeded the likes of Gerry Parson and Tony Beech and that is no easy matter.

The other Paul is Kennedy and he’s on Seaside on the weekends.

Much like Meagher I recall Kennedy when he broke into the Halifax market from Amherst I believe.  I say recall because I was upstairs living in the CHNS-CHFX (Country 101) News room while he was in the country booth.

The truth was we in the news/sports department did not pay much attention to the country FM station at the time.  All our ‘live’ sportscasts were on CHNS.  The dee jay on the FM station would ‘tape’ the live broadcast and re play it on his FM show.

Much like the other Paul (Meagher) in easy listening, this Paul (Kennedy) is an oracle in country music and if this were a college or university course he would have a PhD in it.  He would also have a degree in east coast or Atlantic music.

I worked for nearly a year at Seaside and I can honestly say that while I knew the music of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s I had little awareness of the variety of east-coast music.

I’ve learned more about east coast music in doing some morning shows and listening to Paul Kennedy on the weekends then by reading any periodical(s).

In the world of music it’s all about promotion and Kennedy and his firm do as much as anyone else in promoting east coast music in this part of the world.

How many ‘live’ interviews are done these days by radio announcers and if a few dee jays do them, they are of the 3-5 minute (if that) variety.

Paul Kennedy shows up on Seaside FM on weekends.  He’s on for six hours a weekend with three on Saturday (3-6pm) and three more the next day (noon-3).

I swear I catch most of them as I’m either at the office writing a column or doing some paper work or I’m running around with my trusty camera shooting high school sports.  Either way, office or car, I’, tuned in and catch that ‘East Coast feeling’ or Mellow country or ‘top 40 easy listening favourites which is my favourite part of the hours he puts in.

One of the great features that he does is spotlight an artist and that artist could be as they say in the old cowboys flicks ‘dead or alive’.  In the past few months I’ve heard a tribute to Johnny Cash, Gene Pitney and so many others.  It’s a great feature.

As for East Coast music I’ve heard some great east coast artist from Evans and Doherty to a surprise performer in Hal Bruce.  When I caught Bruce a year ago I had never heard of him, now I’m a fan. This guy does Beatles songs as well as any I have ever heard.  In fact, as a result of Kennedy, I brought Bruce into the studio myself for an hour.

While Paul Kennedy is known and respected for his knowledge and commitment to country music (and was recognized by the country hall of fame for his efforts a few yeas ago) he is also a veritable encyclopedia of pop music from the 50’s to the 70’s or 80’s. He also plays what I consider are the songs that were very big but simply don’t get played on today’s radio stations.

Over the years I have listened as both CHNS and CJCH have to some extent either called themselves ‘the oldies’ station but still have a very restricted play list.  Kennedy’s list is not a few hundred records but must be in the thousands. And that is one of the big features of Seaside radio.

Here’s an example.  Steve Lawrence was a big artist from the 60’s and once in a while you may hear of the song, “Go away little girl” that made it to #1 in January of 1963.  But Lawrence had many others and the other day I heard “Walking Proud” which was a Top 40 hit (as high as #26).  How many stations in Halifax in the past 20 years have played that?

Each week, I hear tons of such music, from ‘Popsicles, Icicles (Murmaids 1963) a one hit group that made it to the top 5.  I call these songs nuggets and Paul Kennedy seems to be the only dee jay in the city to play them.

The other day I heard a song by Bobby Vee, Charms I believe.  Who plays Bobby Vee a big star of the 60’s and if you do get a Bobby Vee song it’s always ‘Rubber Ball”.  Vee had tons of big hits and Kennedy seems to be the only one to spin them.

I know that Kennedy is a big fan of Jay Black of Jay and the Americans, and I hear one of those ‘nuggets’ once in a while be it Cara Mia, to Come A little bit closer to ‘Lets lock the door and throw away the key’.

The other fact is, most of not 100% of the time, Paul Kennedy is the only LIVE announcer in this city on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  Think about that for a minute. We get 16 radio signals into metro and it’s a small station, a non-profit one at that, which provides us the only live announcers.

One other plus for this Paul (Kennedy) and something he has over the other Paul (Meagher) and that is sports knowledge and interest. Kennedy is a decent sports fan and will keep his/her listeners up to date on NFL scores, curling results especially in the big provincial and national playdowns.

I come to know that he really enjoys baseball and got to do something I never did, and that is see Sandy Koufax pitch and beat the Yanks in a World Series.

Both Pauls have done yeomen service, one (Meagher) for really being the face of ‘Metro’s easy listening” while the other (Kennedy) making his show one of the most diversified and interesting in metro.

Paul and Paul…it’s a good radio combination.

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 Pictured Above: Seaside FM's Easy Listening Master, Paul Meagher