R.I.P.: Radio Personality Jim Brady Dies

Jim Felton Brady 2008

Jim Felton — a longtime personality, born and raised in Toledo, who, as Jim Brady, delivered the No. 1 morning show in Toronto for years at Top 40 CFTR-AM, had died of cancer.

Felton was 67-years-old, according to the Toledo Blade.

He enjoyed a five-decade run in radio that included stints in three of the biggest markets in North America, including Los Angeles and Dallas-Forth Worth. In his hometown Toledo, he’s best known for his career bookends at WCWA-AM 1230 in the 1960s, when it was still WTOL-AM, where he first broadcast, and WRQN-FM 93.5, where he signed off for good in 2008.

In 1973, programmer Chuck Camroux upped the ante in the Toronto radio "Rock and Roll Wars" by tweaking CFTR's notoriously bad signal, adding some reverb, and hiring a new morning man Jim Brady, to rival 1050 CHUM's Jay Nelson. Both stations hovered near one million listeners per week. Although Brady finally topped Nelson in the ratings in 1979, over-all, CFTR surpassed CHUM in the Toronto BBM ratings by 1978. CHUM dropped Top 40 in favor of an Adult Contemporary format 1986.

Brady also worked at KLAC, Los Angeles in 1987-88.

As a popular morning DJ, Felton interviewed hundreds of celebrities. He partied with a Monty Python and a Beatle — Eric Idle and George Harrison — on a first-class flight to London. And in 1977, he was among the lucky few to watch the Rolling Stones perform one of the band’s legendary surprise club dates at the El Mocambo in downtown Toronto.

“He’s had the career in radio that only some of us could dream of,” said longtime friend Matt Zaleski, himself a former Toledo radio jock. “When you look at where he’s been and what he’s done, it’s nothing short of amazing.”

In 2010, two years after retiring, Felton considered a return to radio, but that wasn’t to be. During a routine physical, Felton’s first in a decade or longer, he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. After intense chemotherapy, the cancer retreated, only to return, retreat again, and come back with a final vengeance, spreading to his lower spine.