''Night Lines'' was a Canadian radio series, which aired on CBC Stereo from 1984 to 1997.Michael Barclay, Ian A.D. Jack and Jason Schneider, '' Have Not Been the Same: The Can-Rock Renaissance 1985-1995''.

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. . The show, which aired on Friday and Saturday nights, profiled

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and

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music. It was a weekend companion to the network's weekday overnight show '' Brave New Waves'',"Radio with a difference". ''

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'', November 7, 1986. and aspired to revive the freeform style and creative experimentation associated with rock radio stations in the 1960s and 1970s. The show's original host was Ron Robinson."CBC's Night Lines: a renaissance for rock radio". ''

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'', September 27, 1986. Ralph Benmergui succeeded him, and was in turn followed by David Wisdom, who hosted the program from 1987 until the end of its run. During the early years with hosts Robinson and Benmergui the show was produced from CBC Winnipeg by Ross Porter. When David Wisdom took over the hosting duties in 1987, the show moved to CBC Vancouver and was produced by Susan Englebert.

Features

Regular features of the show during Wisdom's tenure included: * Ten Singles in Alphabetical Order. After host David Wisdom alphabetized his mammoth 7" vinyl 45 rpm singles collection by artist, he set aside time each weekend to play one single each by ten consecutive alphabetized artists, starting at "A" and continuing until he reached the end of his collection in the "Z"s (approximately nine years later). * Listener requests via answering machine. Night Lines listeners could call up an answering machine in CBC's Vancouver studios and, after answering a "skill-testing question" (by rule, something open-ended and usually bordering on philosophical, such as "What do you want to be when you grow up?"), request a song for Wisdom to play during the following weekend's shows. Regular callers to the request line became part of the show's fabric. Some consistent callers included Vicki from

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(who later moved and became Vicki from

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

), Gilbert from

Transcona Transcona is a ward and suburb of Winnipeg, Manitoba, located about east of the downtown area. Until 1972, it was a separate municipality, having been incorporated first as the Town of Transcona on 6 April 1912 and then as the City of Transc ...

(who used a mock-

Gilbert Gottfried Gilbert Jeremy Gottfried (February 28, 1955 – April 12, 2022) was an American stand-up comedian and actor, best-known for his exaggerated shrill voice, strong New York dialect, his squint, and his edgy, often-controversial, sense of humor. Hi ...

voice on the answering machine), Norm from

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, Rocky from

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, Milton the Cabbie, Joanna from

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

, Sonya from Port Lambton, Ontario, Sean from Brandon, Manitoba, and Lori from Southfield, Michigan (USA). * Soundbite Sensation Contests. Once each year, Wisdom would create a 6-to-8 minute audio

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

containing bits of 50-100 different songs, and challenge listeners to identify the songs found within, with prizes (usually Night Lines T-shirts) going to the top entries. The collages usually had a unifying theme, among them guitar riffs, beginnings of songs, and celebrity names sung in song lyrics. * The Hour of Power, in which control of the airwaves was turned over to an audience member for one hour each weekend. When this feature started, listeners would send in scripts containing text for Wisdom to read on-air and lists of songs to play in-between the spoken text. As time went on, more and more Hours of Power were performed live in-studio by listeners, musicians, friends of David Wisdom's, etc. Grant Lawrence, now one of the hosts on

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, began his association with the CBC as a contributor to ''Night Lines'', calling the show to share stories about life on tour with his band

The Smugglers ''The Smugglers'' is the completely missing first serial of the fourth season in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 10 September to 1 October 1966. In this serial, ...

Cancellation

''Night Lines'' ended on August 31, 1997. The show's final episode featured an in-studio performance by

Rheostatics Rheostatics are a Canadian indie rock band. They were formed in 1978, and actively performed from 1980 until disbanding in 2007. After a number of reunion performances at special events, Rheostatics reformed in late 2016, introducing new songs a ...

. Rheostatics subsequently released that performance on CD as '' The Nightlines Sessions''. Wisdom went on to cohost the new series '' RadioSonic'' with Leora Kornfeld. ''RadioSonic'' eventually evolved into today's

. Some individual tracks from ''Night Lines'' sessions by other bands, including

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, cub,

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and

, were released in 2006 on the compilation album '' Mint Records Presents the CBC Radio 3 Sessions''.

References

{{reflist CBC Music programs Canadian music radio programs Rock music radio programs 1984 radio programme debuts 1997 radio programme endings 1980s Canadian radio programs 1990s Canadian radio programs