Brother
Jake
December 11, 2001
To his legions of
fans, ROCK 101's Brother Jake Edwards is known as The Champ.
In a case of life imitating
art, the term also applies in reference to Edwards's immense popularity on the
airwaves.
And, in the latest BBM
ratings results, the pre-dawn rock radio phenom and Canadian Broadcaster
Personality of the Year award winner has delivered another knockout punch.
Further expanding his
decisive stranglehold on male listeners, Edwards, along with sidekicks Martin
Strong and Oly the Joke Guy, gain more ground in the pivotal time-slot,
propelling ROCK 101 to its third-straight best showing.
Often outrageous on
the air, Edwards is virtually the mirror opposite away from it, living a
comfortable life in Lynn Valley and dutifully assuming the role of both devoted
husband and father. And, in true Horatio Alger-like fashion, the Brother Jake
story is one replete with career highs and lows.
A relative newcomer to
the local airwaves, success for the Moncton, N.B., native has been nothing
short of spectacular since transplanting himself to Vancouver in 1996.
After he was fired
following a stint at Toronto's Q107 radio station, Edwards, his wife Lori,
their teenage children and the family dog, made the trek west in two cars and a
U-Haul.
Edwards landed
part-time work at ROCK 101 where his edgier brand of radio proved an immediate
hit with Vancouverites.
Fifteen months later
he became the station's afternoon host; soon after he took over the morning
show.
In this latest ratings
campaign, Brother Jake and crew have placed first again in the stations key
audience target: Adults 25- 54.
For the 47-year-old
star of the show, things couldn't be better.
"I can't recall
anything this exciting ever," said Edwards. "The evolution was quick
and the learning curve has been pretty sweet."
Not to mention profitable.
For program director Ross Winters, the Jake factor has been an incredible,
revenue-generating weapon in the station's arsenal.
"Among his
extraordinary talent, one of the things Jake is capable of is bringing new
people to the table," said Winters. "He's the kind of personality
that creates a buzz in a radio market and delivers audience numbers that can
put a radio station over the top."
As proof, Brother Jake
leads the pack in all of ROCK 101's key audience demographics. He's No. 1 in
adults 25-54, men 25-34, men 25- 54, men 35-44, men 18-34 and men 18-49.
Jake's personal
audience share of 22.1 is double that of The FOX, the closest competitor in the
category.
But like all public
figures who court controversy, along with the scores of devoted Brother Jake
fans, there is also a number of detractors who dismiss his style as being
crude, offensive and juvenile in nature, often resorting to nothing more than
penis and fart jokes.
Its a charge the
surprisingly sensitive radio veteran is loath to hear.
"Vancouver is a
pretty hip radio market, where every morning show does its thing," said
Edwards.
"Whether it's
Larry & Willy or Fred Latremouille or Frosty, they all have a distinct
style and approach. What I do, and all I've ever tried to do throughout my
career, is offer my own style of adult radio, only it's got more of an edge to
it than anything else in Vancouver, or across Canada for that matter."
Opinions and
individual tastes may vary but one thing is clear: Brother Jake commands
attention.
So far, his particular
brand of radio has proven to be a winning formula; one that Vancouver listeners
have taken to from the very first time his pipes boomed out over the airwaves.
He's simply The Champ.
***
November 29, 2004
Jake Edwards is the man
behind the Champ, a popular radio character and the undisputed champion of low
blows and double entendres
He is talking about
his days as a running back with the Minnesota Vikings, back when Bud Grant was
the coach and the football field was seen as a holy gridiron -- a grassy
battleground where players got good and dirty.
"After one
particularly muddy game against Chicago I overheard one of the linemen,
Knuckles Muldoon -- he was my cut man from when I fought Liston -- say to my
wife: 'Hey, Mrs. Champ, would you mind polishing my purple helmet?'
"And I go:
Pardon?
"Knuckles says,
'I said Champ, I just asked your wife to polish my purple helmet for me.'
"And so I lose
it," says the Champ. "I snap. I head fake him with the Gatorade --
and the idiot goes for it -- I hit him so many times he thinks he's surrounded,
I swing him around by the nostrils until his butt-hole whistles ..."
As the undisputed king
of the double entendre, the Champ has been protecting his wife's honour from
the likes of Knuckles Muldoon on radio stations across Canada for almost 20
years. Jake Edwards, a wiry 51-year old disc jockey from Moncton, N.B., is the
voice behind the boxer.
Edwards' inspiration
for the Champ came from two East Coast legends Blair and Gary MacLean.
"MacLean and
MacLean were real salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar humour," says the Frank
Zappa look-a-like from his North Vancouver home. "One of their sketches
was a punch-drunk fighter, who basically beat up anybody he could. They used to
skat in the control room, and what they'd do is slow down a tape of Gary going:
'Hey, hey, jeez, my wife looked at me sideways at breakfast, so I head- fake
her with the toast, and I took her out right there ...'
"So let's just
say the Champ's origins are a little on the shady side."
Even if the punch
lines weren't exactly fit for mass consumption, Edwards loved the idea of the
palooka. His fighter took shape in the early '80s, while he was working at Q104
in Halifax. But the Champ didn't become a real champ until 1985, when his
creator moved to Toronto to do the morning drive show at Q107, a classic rock
station.
And now, some two
decades and 5,000 double entendres later, Edwards claims the Champ hasn't aged
a day.
"I'm as exuberant
as a six-month-old black Labrador on a bucket of peanut butter," he said.
"The Champ is kinda like that -- he is in the back of my brain -- and as
long as I'm telling a story and people are getting off on it, it doesn't get
stale."
Radio syndication took
the comedy sketch from coast-to-coast, and then in 1996 the Champ took Edwards
and his family to Vancouver. The idea was to spin the spots into a cartoon --
and to cut a few albums -- all of which Edwards did until his wife, Lori, let
him know the old heavyweight was bankrupting the family.
"I said to my
wife, 'When are we officially broke,' and she said. 'Friday.' I went OK, let me
mark down all the things I can do ... ah, ah, I don't do anything but
radio."
So the radio host went
back to doing classic rock. These days, when Edwards isn't on the air or skiing
at Whistler, he can often be found training with the Champ. And live comedy is
one of his favourite forums.
"People have this
idea of what the Champ looks like so when I come on stage -- this 5-foot-11,
185-pound guy -- they are like, 'Hey, you're not the Champ.'
"But then once I
get the mike," he says, slipping into the Champ's voice, "I captivate
the crowd with the different solar plexus shots, and uppercuts, and the old in-and-out
like a fiddler's elbow."
Edwards' Champ is
never lacking for new material. The brain behind the boxer sees potential
sketches everywhere -- in the person on the street, in the newspaper and on
television.
"For
instance," Edwards says. "You know Tony Hawk, the skateboarder? He
was just in town, and he had his brother Mike Hawk with him. I'm going -- Mike
Hawk? Come on, I mean I'm all over that.
"It's a
lay-down."