This month, Danny Marks and BLUZ FM celebrate 25 years on the air, a milestone that lands in the middle of what Marks calls a triple play of a year: hosting the inaugural Canadian Blues Music Awards in January, watching his new album ‘Back to the Blues’ climb to Top 5 on Canada’s Big Blues Chart, and now marking a quarter century of the program that made him one of the most recognizable voices in Canadian blues broadcasting. “It’s a positive affirmation that creativity is born out of adversity, turning coal into diamonds,” Marks says of the convergence. “In this moment, that’s the icing on the cake.”
The story of BLUZ FM begins in the summer of 2001, when Marks got a call from CJRT general manager Chuck Camroux about bringing the blues back to 91.1 FM as the station rebranded into JAZZ FM91. Marks walked from his home in Cabbagetown to meet Camroux, who asked what he’d call the show. “Saturday Night Blues is taken,” Marks told him. “The station is JAZZ FM, I’ll be BLUZ FM.”Camroux had his assistant register the domain on the spot and hired Marks before the meeting was even over. That September, BLUZ FM took to the air, and Marks still has the script from his first broadcast as a keepsake, though he abandoned scripts entirely not long after, choosing instead to riff on the music in a stream of consciousness that has defined the program ever since.
That first episode opened with “Let’s Have a Party” by Amos Milburn, a tribute to Toronto blues champion Dave “Daddy Kool” Booth, and closed with “Lights Out,” a track from Marks’ own 1996 album ‘Guitarchaeology.’ That closing song, along with his signature sign off, “Good Night and May the Good Blues Be Yours,” has ended every broadcast since – one of several old-fashioned touches Marks has kept deliberately intact through 25 years of change in how people find and listen to music.
BLUZ FM launched into a Toronto blues scene that was thriving seven days a week, from Albert’s Hall, where Marks’ own band produced the Stormy Monday television show for Rogers Cable 10, to Grossman’s, the Elmo, the Silver Dollar and the wider Wing Circuit of clubs across the city. International legends including BB King, Albert King, Freddie King, Etta James and Hound Dog Taylor were still touring, and the Toronto Blues Society was actively building the local scene that would eventually give rise to the Maple Blues Awards.
Over 25 years and thousands of hours behind the microphone, Marks has met and hosted a remarkable list of guests. BB King, he says, may have been the most impactful of them all, an artist he places in the same company as Louis Armstrong for the reach of his influence. Buddy and Phil Guy, Robbie Robertson, Ronnie Hawkins, Eric Burdon, Bettye Lavette and Texas soul man Roy Head all passed through the studio, alongside Canadian greats like Harry Manx, Donnie Walsh, David Wilcox and Rita Chiarelli, each leaving Marks with stories he still tells today.
Canadian talent has always been at the centre of the show, with BLUZ FM carrying a self-imposed Canadian content commitment well beyond industry standard. Marks was the first to play Crystal Shawanda in a blues context, gave Jim Bowskill, now of Blue Rodeo, an early platform, and continues to break new Canadian artists like Dee Long of Klaatu. Heather Morgan’s “Johnny Edwards” remains the single most requested song in the program’s history, and Marks has made it part of his mission to keep the memory of artists no longer with us, from David Clayton Thomas era contemporaries to lesser-known local legends, alive on the airwaves.
None of it came without challenges. Marks points to management turnovers at the station as some of the toughest stretches BLUZ FM has weathered, moments when knowing when to stay quiet mattered as much as knowing what to play. “The soul of CJRT has prevailed through tough times thanks to the listener,” he says, and today he counts the station’s current leadership among the strongest it has ever had.
Marks arrives at 25 years with plans already taking shape for what comes next, including a home broadcast and recording studio currently under construction that will let him bring live music and rare vinyl deeper into the program. Between the anniversary, the CBMAs and ‘Back to the Blues,’ Marks calls this moment exactly what it looks like: a lifelong student and champion of the blues still finding new ways to share it. “The future looks bright,” he says, “all the colours of the blues, one beautiful, blessed day at a time.”
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