Burt McCollum

About The Artist Burt McCollum was a veteran disc jockey at CKLB, having been there in Oshawa, Ontario for over six years by 1954. He was also a bit of a songwriter, mostly sacred Western numbers they told us in a 1954 article. One of his tunes, "Church Bells at Twilight" was said to be ready to be recorded on the ARagon Records label. When not working over CKLB, he directed several local singing groups, played the piano and accordion not to mention an instrument he created himself out of soda straws, called a "sodaphone". Burt began his career in radio in 1947 over CHUM out of Toronto, where he was in charge of a studio show for the Red Cross. From there, he moved to Oshawa in 1948, he worked a variety of the shifts there and was then the News editor, doing 14 newscasts a day. But on Monday nights, he had his own "Hillbily Jamboree" show that went on the air in 1950. It began as a 25-minute show and was fully sponsored, though they say that sometimes the commercials weren't exactly read the way the sponsors intended, but nonetheless, the show was successful. Credits & Sources Country Song Roundup No. 30; March-April 1954; American Folk Publications, Inc.; Derby, CT

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