While in the KPTZ studios playing music the other night, I experienced a bout of radio nostalgia.

I was there for an out-of-office visit with my G.P., Dr. Gary Forbes, who grew up in Michigan near the best radio city in the country, Detroit. (Trivia Corner: Detroit’s the only city in the U.S. where you look south to see Canada).

Forbes, bass player in the Unexpected Brass Band here, hosts “Soundings,” which airs Thursday nights at 6:30 on KPTZ. He shares my love of soul and R&B music, and when I told him I once had my own music show on a major station up in Montreal, he invited me to “Spin a few platters,” as they used to say.

There are a few vinyl discs in KPTZ’s  studio, but mostly CDs now. Forbes asked me to email  some of my favorite albums from my show that aired on Montreal’s CKVL–FM. I obliged, gladly.

One of them was phenomenal Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher, a repeat winner of U.K. music bible Melody Maker’s Top Guitarist award, a huge honor.

I “broke” Gallagher’s music in Montreal, and received the daunting honour of introducing the talented, high-energy bluesman before an audience of — yikes  — 10,000 fans. I was quite nervous but still glad to do it. I even followed Gallagher a few months later to a town north of London, Hemel Hempstead, to hear him play. Until our show, Gallagher may not have ever been played here on KPTZ before, despite his huge British fame. 

Forbes also played more of our favorites that night. People like bluesman Howlin’ Wolf (whom I was lucky enough to interview twice), John Lee Hooker (ditto), legendary saxman Junior Walker, Marvin Gaye, and also the title cut from arguably the greatest pure rock and roll LP ever, The Rolling Stones’ “Let It Bleed.” (Famed Detroit-based rock critic Lester Bangs liked to say that this amazing album “had it all…sex, drugs, AND rock and roll).” 

My Montreal station, CKVL, was a French-language outlet that, ironically, played mostly Brit and American rock and blues. I usually broke the rules and spoke some English on the air. Forbes let me indulge in speaking some French on KPTZ the other night, which brought back memories of that great city where I was the rock critic for the morning daily, the Montreal Gazette. I was also Canadian correspondent for Melody Maker in London, which gave me an entree to interview the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bad Company, and many more.

I loved the chance in Montreal to introduce the Stones’ new album, “Exile on Main Street,” en français as “le nouveau microsilion des Rolling Stones.” Being able to speak French in a francophone metropolis while also having access to the biggest British rock bands was a rare privilege, one I revisited in the KPTZ studio with “Doctor Feelgood,”  Forbes.

There’s a turntable with a vinyl record over in one corner of KPTZ, and it brought back a memorable, now-funny Montreal radio moment I recounted to Forbes.

I’d just interviewed Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson, rock’s only flautist/rock star. And he was definitely the only guy I ever interviewed who was wearing a codpiece. (Part of his stage clothes).

One night, when Tull’s LP “Thick as a Brick,” was atop the charts, I wanted to leave the radio studio early so I could drive out to our country place an hour from Montreal and smoke dope with some pals.

So I put “Thick As a Brick” on the turntable — it was 20 minutes long on each side” — and drove off.

I was enjoying listening to my own radio show. But… about 15 miles down the road, came the unexpected: The record got stuck and kept repeating the same two bars over and over. Yipes!  “And your wisemen don’t know…how it feels…to be thick as a brick,” etc., etc. 

I wasn’t about to drive back and flip the damned record over. Typical stoner moment. But hey, it was the ‘70s.

Fortunately, the station’s engineer came in early, flipped over the repeating disc…and saved my great bilingual radio gig. 

Port Townsend’s ex- DJ Bill Mann is now Newsmann9@gmail.com.