Veteran Vancouver DJ was an early spinner of rock ‘n’ roll

Red Robinson began spinning tunes on the radio when rock was young – and he was, too.

Mr. Robinson was only 17 and still attending King Edward High School when he became the host of Theme for Teens at Vancouver radio station CJOR in 1954. According to the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame, he was the first disc jockey to play rock music regularly in Canada.

“At one point, in 1956, I was on the air with rock ‘n’ roll 55 hours a week, and I didn’t care what the hours were – it didn’t matter,” Mr. Robinson told The Vancouver Sun.

Older DJs dismissed the music as a fad, but Mr. Robinson, who died on April 1 at the age of 86 after a stroke, kept the faith.

Like the music, Mr. Robinson’s DJ career endured, spanning more than six decades and earning him entry to the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame (1997), U.S.-based Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1998) and Rockabilly Hall of Fame (2000), and B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame (1992).

“It’s nothing I planned,” Mr. Robinson told CBC about his career shortly before turning 80 in 2017. “I just decided I love this, and I’m going to do everything I can while I’m here.”

As rock’s popularity was rising, Mr. Robinson took the stage as an emcee during concerts performed by some of the world’s biggest solo acts and bands. In 1957, he was the emcee for Elvis Presley’s only Vancouver performance, at Empire Stadium, which was also Canada’s first outdoor rock concert and the icon’s last event staged outside of the United States.

Mr. Robinson also introduced the Beatles as the lads from Liverpool played Empire in the summer of ‘64. After about 20 frenetic fans were injured in a crush, Beatles manager Brian Epstein told him to go on stage and stop the show.

After Mr. Robinson climbed up, John Lennon told him in expletive-laden language to leave the stage.

“John, look down at the edge of the stage, " Mr. Robinson shouted over the noise, according to his biography, Red Robinson: The Last DJ. “Your boss ordered me up here to settle down the crowd!”

Seeing the mob, Mr. Lennon subsequently relented, and Mr. Robinson calmed the crowd for a while and the Beatles played on – until they sprinted out of the stadium to an awaiting motorcade as the push to the stage peaked.

Chaos almost ensued in 1970 when thousands of music lovers descended on Vancouver’s Kitsilano Beach, which is accessible via only one main road and many side streets, to witness an outdoor concert by Paul Revere and the Raiders. Contrary to earlier plans, Mr. Robinson and organizers arranged for the band to get in and out by barge because of the intense traffic.

“You’d see funny things like that, but they weren’t funny things,” said Bruce Allen, a long-time artists agent, concert promoter and close friend of the DJ. “People just didn’t understand the power of rock ‘n’ roll music – and he did.”

Robert (Red) Gordon Robinson was born March 30, 1937, in the waning years of the Great Depression, in Comox, B.C., located on Vancouver Island. He was the elder of two sons born to Gordon and Alice (née Surgenor) Robinson.

Prior to the Depression, Gordon worked as a logger throughout the Comox Valley. When Robert was born, Gordon toiled at a sawmill and the family lived in Fanny Bay, B.C. In the 1940s, the patriarch was fired for beating up a co-worker; the family subsequently moved to Vancouver, where he found work at a Boeing aircraft plant.

“Dad walked out when I was 12 and didn’t reappear until I was 20,” the younger Mr. Robinson told his biographer, Robin Brunet, for The Last DJ.

(In the book’s foreword, the radio personality acknowledged that he was not the last DJ, but said he chose the title because radio has become unimportant compared with its halcyon days.)

Gordon did not provide any financial support after he left and had minimal contact with the family for the rest of his life. Raising her sons as a single mother, Alice worked in the restaurant industry for legendary entrepreneur Nat Bailey. Robert and his brother, Bill, delivered newspapers and meat, and did other odd jobs to help out the family financially.

Originally, Robert, who took drawing lessons, aspired to be a commercial artist. But he became obsessed with Vancouver DJ Jack Cullen and his controversial ad-lib style. Robert practised as a DJ by reading his beloved music magazines on a friend’s tape recorder and sought jobs without success.

In 1953, he called into Al Jordan’s show Theme for Teens on CJOR impersonating U.S. actor Jimmy Stewart, who was then shooting a movie in Vancouver. Duped newspaper columnist Jack Wasserman noted it was nice of the actor to call in. When Robert called in again and imitated actor Peter Lorre, Mr. Jordan caught the teen in the act and invited him to the station.

He caught a break after writing and performing detective-show skits and doing more impressions there for a year. Mr. Jordan had departed to a Penticton, B.C., station by 1954 and his replacement on Theme for Teens was fired for alleged inappropriate contact with studio audience members.

Mr. Robinson did a tryout hosting Theme for Teens and was hired after one well-received show, when the station’s telephone switchboard “lit up like Vegas,” according to his biographer. During the show, he called himself Red for the first time – owing to his hair colour and his desire to conceal himself from classmates, should they consider him “a sissy.”

Having discovered rhythm and blues, he aired songs by such artists as Lloyd Price, Ruth Brown, Wynonie Harris and LaVern Baker, whose “race records” were considered taboo in Canada. Mr. Robinson regularly got a ride to nearby Bellingham, Wash., and purchased the records, which came in plain brown paper sleeves, from stores there, he told Mr. Brunet.

“We would have to tuck these records under our arm and leave the store, as if they were pornography, something we should be embarrassed by,” Mr. Robinson said.

Mr. Robinson’s driver and friend Jim Greenwood told Mr. Brunet that they would then “smuggle” the music back across the border and Mr. Robinson would play it on the radio.

“He was a champion of that kind of music and his attitude was: If our parents didn’t like it, it had to be good. So he helped promote a lot of Black artists,” said Phil Mackesy, a former DJ and business partner who now manages his online media and other intellectual property.

In 1959, joint Portland, Ore., radio-TV station KGW wooed Mr. Robinson to the U.S. with a big salary. It was the ideal job for Mr. Robinson, who dreamed of working in both TV and radio in a major American market, like his idol Dick Clark.

But after hosting radio and TV shows for a year, Mr. Robinson, who had been given a green card, was drafted into the U.S. Army and served with the U.S. infantry at Fort Ord in Monterey, Calif., near Los Angeles.

“When I wasn’t training, all I could think about was that I had gone from making $22,000 a year to $67 per month in the Army,” he told his biographer. “The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge my job would still be intact when I returned to KGW.”

Despite being promised a future job at an L.A. radio station, Mr. Robinson felt he would be better off in Vancouver and, after completing his military duty, returned to Canada in 1961.

Before and after moving to the U.S., he also worked in Canadian television on music shows for CBC, introducing viewers to the likes of Randy Bachman, the Guess Who, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Terry Jacks and the Collectors. He also hosted the CBC game show Trivia Challenge (1979-80).

Mr. Robinson’s TV endeavours included hosting Red’s Classic Theatre (1989-2001), which aired stories about Hollywood’s golden age, for Bellingham-based KVOS, which broadcasts into Vancouver. Along with a partner, he also operated a successful event booking agency, arranging and hosting gigs for music legends such as Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Roy Orbison and Little Richard.

With another partner, Mr. Robinson ran an advertising agency. In 1967, he advertised the opening of Canada’s first McDonald’s in Richmond, B.C., en route to appearing in several TV commercials for the restaurant chain.

“He was always moving,” Mr. Allen said.

On many days, Mr. Robinson spent the morning at a radio station, the afternoon at his advertising agency and the evening at a charitable event.

“Red Robinson loved being Red Robinson,” Mr. Allen said. “He was there for everybody. I was amazed at how much he did for charity.”

Among his many charitable activities, Mr. Robinson hosted the Timmy’s Christmas Telethon for 23 years, helping to raise more than $100-million for the B.C. Lions Club (a charitable group, not the Canadian Football League team). He also helped raise millions of dollars for other groups, including the Children with Intestinal and Liver Disorders (CHILD) Foundation.

CHILD’s activities were deeply personal to him. His adopted son, Jeff, suffered from Crohn’s, an extremely painful inflammatory bowel disease, and died at age 33 in 2002.

Mr. Robinson became a part-time DJ in 2007 and signed off for good, at age 80, in 2017 as new owner Rogers converted oldies station CISL into all-sports station Sportsnet 650. He played down his success and many accolades.

“I’m no legend, just a broadcaster who has endured,” he told his biographer.

Mr. Robinson leaves his brother, Bill; daughters, Sheri and Kellie; two grandchildren and other relatives. He was predeceased by his wife of 57 years, Carole, who died in 2020.

Editor’s note: Jim Greenwood is the friend who drove Mr. Robinson to Washington State. An incorrect name appeared in an earlier version of this obituary.