Obituary of Mr. John Michael Donabie
He leaves behind his wife Ala, son James, daughter Samantha (Alasdair) and grandchildren, Skye, Islay, Lachlan and McKinlay.
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Canadian Radio Icon DJ John Donabie Has Passed Away
Larry LeBlanc
TORONTO (CelebrityAccess) — Over the weekend Canada’s social media platforms buzzed with the news that legendary radio DJ John Donabie had passed away in Toronto on Thursday, January 30th after a long fight with cancer. He was 78.
During his six decade career Donabie introduced Canadian radio audiences in Oshawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver to a generation of prime rock, folk, country, and jazz performers and their recordings.
His interviewing skills are legendary, and his background includes highly collectible interviews of John Lennon, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson of The Band, Meatloaf, Joe Cocker, Melanie, Garth Brooks, Ronnie Hawkins, and many, many others.
From his early days at CKLB-AM in Oshawa, Ontario in the late ‘60s to his high-profile stints at CKFH-AM, CHUM-FM, Q107 (CILQ-FM), CKFM, CJRT-FM, and CIUT-FM in Toronto, as well as at CJFM Montreal, and CKLG-FM Vancouver, Donabie forever championed Canadian music, helping to father the work of so many emerging musicians to a national audience.
While working in Vancouver in 1976, Donabie got a call from Levon Helm of The Band who informed him the group was packing it in, and did he want to be his guest at something they were calling “The Last Waltz.” Donabie jumped at the chance, and stayed in San Francisco for a week going to all the Last Waltz rehearsals and, of course, the famous Thanksgiving Day concert.
In 2013, Donabie was awarded the Canadian Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame Award, and the Allan Waters Broadcast Lifetime Achievement Award at Canadian Music Week in Toronto.
“I just want to say that I have been in love with the medium of radio since I was a very little boy,” Donabie shyly said at the ceremony. “I still am.
“I was lucky enough to work for two families in my career,” he continued. “The Waters family and the Slaight family. Thank you, Jimmy (Waters), thank you Gary (Slaight). I can only hope some of you have the opportunity to work for family-owned radio stations in your career. There’s nothing else like it.”
At a gala dinner and induction ceremony at the Jubilee Pavilion in Oshawa on November 7th, 2024, Donabie was honored by the Oshawa Rotary Club as one of six new inductees to the Oshawa Walk of Fame.
Donabie hailed from Courtice, Ontario, a community adjacent to Oshawa, about 60 km (37 mi) east of Toronto.
As a teenager Donabie was a true music fan. The first 45 he bought at the Wilson and Lee music store in downtown Oshawa in 1959 was “She Say (Oom Dooby Doom)” by the Diamonds. Soon afterwards he bought Lloyd Price’s “Personality.”
His radio career suitably started at Oshawa’s CKLB-AM in 1965 after he sought out one of its announcers, George Gudgeon, to ask about renting a PA system for Linda and the Chancellors, a local R&B group he was managing.
That encounter led to Donabie being hired for his own show at CKLB-AM. He left after 18 months for an all-night R&B show at CKFH-AM in Toronto in the fall of 1967, followed by a high-profile show at CHUM-FM. After stints at CJFM Montreal, and CKLG-FM Vancouver, Donabie returned to Toronto to be part of newly launched rock station Q107 (CILQ-FM) in 1977,
Next came shows at CFRB-AM, CKFM-FM, CISS-FM, and JAZZ.FM.91 in Toronto.
Donabie hosted CBC-TV’s news and information series “Afternoon Delight” in the late 1970s.
He retired in 2018 after hosting for six years the weekly “Mixed Bag” show on the University of Toronto campus station CIUT-FM.
