September 05 1998 Max Ferguson signed off for the last time on CBC Radio Two

[DanNospamSay]

In 1998, The Max Ferguson Show signed off for the last time on CBC Radio Two ("CBC Radio Also" as his sidekick Allan McFee had called it before his health worsened a few years earlier). It had debuted on the AM network on October 1, 1962, as a follow-up to Max's tremendously popular Rawhide show. Rawhide had begun as Max's way to deal with playing Country music, by doing the show entirely in the voice of Old Rawhide. The new show had Max in his own voice, with Allan McFee alongside, beginning at 8:35 a.m. each morning, doing two sketches in character voices, based entirely on stories Max had found in the morning paper. "And music Ferguson style" was selected across a broad range of genres, typically Folk Music from around the world, including a heavy dosage of Celtic. The sketches had long disappeared by 1998, but Max always had something interesting to say. Max came back to introduce a tribute to Allan upon his death in 2000. Allan had hosted Eclectic Circus for 17 years, 6 nights a week in the early years of the series. Max's bio is at http://broadcasting-history.ca/personal ... rguson-max and Allan's at http://broadcasting-history.ca/personal ... cfee-allan

There are lots of other Max clips around, but here is one at the end of his Rawhide days, from 1961: http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/humour ... heid-stand

Max Ferguson died on March 7, 2013 at age 89. The CBC's "In Memory of" began: "He was the CBC's first major radio star."