Hard enough not to get emotional whenever I hear "Can I Change My Mind" by Tyrone Davis, which Soul Town (Sirius/XM) just played, without the association with the late John Dolan, RW member soundguys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_tW3q-ZNss (original album cut/single)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIM8SRUeJKg (recorded in the last 20 years, I would guess)
John was just such a giving guy. I mentioned here on RW that I never had heard the song (Tyrone's first hit), so Mr. Dolan pulls out his vinyl copy of the 45, and sends me an mp3. Lifelong habit of giving, as Doug Thompson tells the story of asking John for a set of CHED jingles, back when Doug joined CJCA fresh out of high school in the mid-1960s. John didn't know Doug "from a hole in the ground", but over came the jingles that same day!
I tried to follow John's example. After buying the original album that includes "Can I Change My Mind", I passed along a copy to W-14-40 locally and they added it to their library (they already had been playing "Turn Back the Hands of Time").
Over half the pictures on the Edmonton Broadcasters Club CHED station page are from John, too:
http://edmontonbroadcasters.com/ebc/stations/ched-am/
When John Dolan died a few months ago, many of the comments came from Toronto, where he spent most of his long career. Same story. No matter how famous he became, or how busy he was, a broadcaster at another station, a competitor, would ask him for something, and John was there with it right away.
We really miss you, John.
As for Tyrone Davis, 10 years ago, I had only ever heard one of his songs, "Turn Back The Hands of Time". And I always associated it with the late Robert O. Smith because he played it so much on KOL when it first came out in 1970.
Then I bought an out of print sampler CD from the defunct Ichiban label. Lead cut is "Something's Mighty Wrong", from 1991, Tyrone Davis. Still a great voice, arrangements are decent, though inexpensively done with drum machines, instead of hiring a real drummer, etc.
For whatever reason, Soul Town plays "I Had It All the Time" (1972) in fairly heavy rotation, even though it peaked at #5 on Billboard's R&B charts, while "Mind", "Time" and "Turning Point" (1976) all made it to #1.
Just as I was finishing up this post, and finding some YouTube entries, I discovered that Tyrone Davis died in 2005 due to complications from a stroke. He was only 66, but had been married for more than 40 years.