David Grierson obit

[Dan Say]

The CBC's Shelagh Rogers will host a memorial celebration on
Dec. 11 at the Alix Goolden Performance Hall in Victoria. It will
be recorded for future broadcast.

DAVID GRIERSON, BROADCASTER 1955-2004
Classically trained clarinetist was the affable and unflappable host
of a popular and whimsical Vancouver Island radio show
By TOM HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail
UPDATED AT 3:46 PM EST Tuesday, Dec 7, 2004

VICTORIA -- To his regular listeners, David Grierson's voice heralded
a new day as much as the thump of a newspaper on a porch, or the perky
drip of a coffee maker.

Mr. Grierson rose in the darkness before dawn each weekday to prepare
for CBC Radio's On the Island, a program based in Victoria that goes
on the air precisely one minute before the 6 a.m. news.

From the resource town of Gold River to the tweedy enclave of Oak Bay,
from blue-collar labourers to blue-rinse ladies, Mr. Grierson
introduced the disparate and isolated peoples of Vancouver Island to
one another. He revelled in his role as on-air host, bringing to his
interviews a light-hearted touch filled with anecdote and personal
recollection.

Among technicians and producers, Mr. Grierson earned a reputation for
being unflappable whatever the mayhem away from earshot. During an
outdoor broadcast, a gust of wind scattered his script. The listening
audience had no idea of the calamity as Mr. Grierson smoothly carried
on even as staffers tried to corral the windblown pages.

Another time, a parrot failed to live up to its billing for verbosity.
The host filled a five-minute slot with whimsical tales from the
animal kingdom, checking in regularly with his reluctant guest in the
false hope it might wish to contribute to the conversation. The
booking of a mute parrot remained a benchmark for difficult
interviews.

At the street-front studio in Victoria, where he could be seen at the
microphone by pedestrians and commuters, Mr. Grierson found a pulpit
from which to preach his enthusiasm for local authors and musicians.
He was ever curious about the creative process, especially music, and
became a champion of Mae Moore, Todd Butler, Stephen Fearing, and the
Ecclestons, among many others.

Each edition of On the Island opened with a brief essay. These were
called Breakfast Epiphanies. He also enjoyed a good pun and delighted
in word play.

He aired live broadcasts of his show from outside the lighthouse at
Race Rocks, a barren and windswept outcropping in the Strait of Juan
de Fuca; donned a yellow survival suit before being thrown overboard
to be rescued by the Coast Guard, an exercise in the hardships faced
by fishermen; and danced in gumboots before a raucous morning crowd on
Saltspring Island.

David Alan Grierson was born in Toronto on Feb. 19, 1955. His father's
career as a hospital administrator led him to spend his childhood in
Memphis, Minneapolis, Toronto, Winnipeg, Brandon and the Vancouver
suburb of Richmond.

Mr. Grierson, who trained as a classical clarinetist and sang in a
church choir, graduated from the broadcasting program at the British
Columbia Institute of Technology. He worked as a program producer for
easy-listening CHQM, as a program director for pioneering jazz station
CJAZ, and as an executive producer for soft-rock CKKS after CJAZ
changed its format. All are on the FM dial in Vancouver.

Mr. Grierson wrote The Expo Celebration (Whitecap, 1986), a
bestselling coffee-table book that was the official retrospective of
the Expo 86 world's fair. He also contributed articles to a variety of
magazines.

He found a natural home at the CBC, where his youthful zest and
passion for the arts coincided with a management desire to renew the
radio service. After three years as host of The Arts Report on CBC
Radio in Toronto, Mr. Grierson replaced Bob Oxley as host of the
classical music program Stereo Morning in May, 1991.

He brought an energy to the genteel program that grated on some
listeners who preferred a quieter wakeup. Globe and Mail columnist
Michael Valpy campaigned for a return to the show's previous format.
While he acknowledged Mr. Grierson as "warm and affable," Mr. Valpy
complained the new host "bubbles and chuckles, he talks, talks, talks,
he tells jokes."

Mr. Grierson returned to Vancouver the following summer to take a job
as a staff announcer. In 1997, he created North by Northwest, a
weekend arts program he hosted and produced. Mr. Grierson also acted
as producer of a benefit CD featuring 15 songs by his guests, titled
Eight Thirty-Eight Saturday Morning after the timeslot in which their
performances aired.

Of his untold hours before a microphone, however, Mr. Grierson always
said he was most proud of his briefest contribution. In British
Columbia, his was the voice of the daily National Research Council
time signal.

A talent for writing parody lyrics led Mr. Grierson to enter a
Vancouver Sun contest to rewrite Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the
Republic to honour the annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival. His
opening stanza included the lines: "Mine eyes have seen my neighbours
retrogress like ne'er before./ They are brokers, profs and teachers
now, but this they can't ignore./ It's a primal love of folks songs,
it's our history we adore/ So put your poncho on."

He credited his submission to Julia Howard, a play on the name of the
author. He won and was photographed dressed in drag for the
newspaper's front page. The headline read, Best hymn wasn't from her,
but him. The prize of free tickets was donated to a needy family.

The following year, he rewrote Bob Dylan lyrics under a pseudonym and
once again won top prize. Blew It In the End included timely
references to the riot that followed the failure of the Vancouver
Canucks to win the Stanley Cup.

In 2000, he took the stage at the festival to parody a popular beer
company commercial. His rant, which ended with the proclamation "My
name is David! And I am a folkie!" earned him a standing ovation and
has become a legend on the circuit.

The format of On the Island, for which he became host four years ago,
had Mr. Grierson conducting interviews about the nuances of the
province's cutthroat political scene followed by an investigation into
the mysteries of the Giant Himalayan Lily. In the studio, he kept at
hand a kazoo, a clown nose and a rubber chicken.

Away from the microphone, Mr. Grierson was an amiable and chatty bon
vivant.

The guest list for a potluck dinner at the Esquimalt home he shared
with Kathryn Mulders, a literary agent, might include the poets
Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier, as well as the likes of Olympian Simon
Whitfield and the founder of the Shady Creek Ice Cream Co., all of
whom shared in common only their experience as one of Mr. Grierson's
radio guests. He was also much in demand on Vancouver Island as a
master of ceremonies and public speaker.

Mr. Grierson was on assignment in Tofino when he died of a heart
attack.

The unexpected silencing of a familiar voice precipitated an
outpouring of grief from the show's audience.

Some who called the station to leave a recorded message of condolence
dissolved into sobs. The radio station received hundreds of cards and
e-mails, as well as gifts of food and beverages for the host's
co-workers as they produced morning and afternoon tribute shows on
Nov. 22.

The public's intense reaction was a result in part of the medium's
intimacy. As one listener noted, Mr. Grierson was "the other man I
wake up with every morning."

David Grierson was born in Toronto on Feb. 19, 1955. He died of
a heart attack on Nov. 20 in Tofino, B.C. He was 49. He leaves his
partner Kathryn Mulders; sons Patrick and Graeme and their
mother, Sheri Grierson; his sister Maureen, brother Peter; and par-
ents Marjorie and Charles Grierson.

The CBC's Shelagh Rogers will host a memorial celebration on
Dec. 11 at the Alix Goolden Performance Hall in Victoria. It will
be recorded for future broadcast.