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Stuart McLean

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Andrew Stuart McLean, Template:Post-nominals (April 19, 1948 – February 15, 2017) was a Canadian radio broadcaster, humorist, monologist, and author, best known as the host of the CBC Radio program The Vinyl Cafe.<ref name=canenc>Stuart McLean Template:Webarchive, The Canadian Encyclopedia.</ref> Often described as a "story-telling comic" although his stories addressed both humorous and serious themes,<ref>"Vinyl Cafe gets up close and personal; Stuart McLean tells the tales". Edmonton Journal, October 30, 1998.</ref> he was known for fiction and non-fiction work which celebrated the decency and dignity of ordinary people,<ref>"Telling tales: Stuart McLean is one of Canada's most beloved storytellers". Ottawa Citizen, January 29, 1999.</ref> through stories which often highlighted the ability of their subjects, whether real or fictional, to persevere with grace and humour through embarrassing or challenging situations.<ref>"'The Vinyl Cafe' Radio Show Host Stuart McLean Dies at 68". The Hollywood Reporter, February 15, 2017.</ref>

Personal lifeEdit

McLean was born in Montreal West, the eldest of three children to Australian immigrant parents, Andrew McLean and Margaret Godkin.<ref>"C'mon in to the Vinyl Cafe: CBC storyteller McLean brings make- believe and music to Montreal". Montreal Gazette, November 19, 1998.</ref><ref name=highbeam>"McLean, Stuart 1948-". Contemporary Authors, January 1, 2006.</ref><ref name="mcleandead" /> His interest in radio programming developed during childhood when his father gifted him a Motorola radio to pass the time during an illness. This early fascination with radio persisted into adulthood, shaping McLean's career trajectory in media and journalism.<ref name="canenc" />

McLean was educated at Lower Canada College and Bishop's College School in Quebec.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He admitted to feeling like an outsider to the other students at the private school, feeling neither athletic enough nor smart enough to fit in.<ref name="mcleandead" /> McLean graduated from Sir George Williams University with a B.A. degree in 1971.<ref name="canenc" /> Following his graduation, he worked in student services for Dawson College, and as campaign manager for Nick Auf der Maur in his first Montreal City Council election.<ref name="mcleandead">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

McLean married Linda Read, a potter, in 1982.<ref name="highbeam" /> They had two children together, Robert and Andrew, and McLean was stepfather to Read's son, Christopher Trowbridge, from her first marriage.<ref>"Stuart McLean, Who Created Radio’s ‘The Vinyl Cafe,’ Dies at 68". The New York Times, February 17, 2017.</ref> McLean and Read later divorced in 2002.<ref>"Stuart McLean's bent vision". The Globe and Mail, October 18, 2003.</ref>

He was also a sponsor of the YMCA's Camp Kanawana, establishing a charitable fund to provide financial support for underprivileged youth to attend the camp,<ref name="billboard">"Stuart McLean, Canadian Radio Legend, Dies at 68". Billboard, February 15, 2017.</ref> and served as honorary colonel of the Canadian Armed Forces' 8 Air Maintenance Squadron at CFB Trenton.<ref name="billboard" />

Media careerEdit

Early workEdit

McLean first joined CBC Radio as a researcher for Cross Country Checkup in 1974,<ref>"He's a radio junkie". Victoria Times-Colonist, November 8, 1998.</ref> later becoming a documentarian for the radio program Sunday Morning.<ref name=torstar>"Stuart McLean, longtime host of CBC Radio’s ‘Vinyl Cafe,’ has died". Toronto Star, February 15, 2017.</ref> He won an ACTRA Award in 1979 for "Operation White Knight", his Sunday Morning documentary about the Jonestown Massacre.<ref>"CBC scores landslide in ACTRA awards" The Globe and Mail, April 5, 1979.</ref> From 1981 until 1983 he was the show's executive producer.<ref>"CBC marriage works, as it happens". The Globe and Mail, November 28, 1981.</ref>

McLean was a professor of journalism at Ryerson University from 1984 until 2004, when he retired and became a professor emeritus.<ref name="canenc" /> When he died in 2017, former students of McLean recalled how he concerned himself with their success in the journalism industry. CTV reporter Scott Lightfoot remarked, "I went to university twice, I took a lot of courses, I never had another professor offer to make phone calls on my behalf."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

During the 1980s and 1990s, he was a frequent contributor to and sometime guest host of Morningside,<ref name="torstar" /> for which he often produced human interest documentaries and audio essays about everyday people and places.<ref name="upsandtowns">"The ups and towns of being an author". The Globe and Mail, January 4, 1993.</ref> He would later characterize his Morningside work as celebrating "the importance of being unimportant",<ref>"Gentle voices overheard at The Vinyl Cafe". Financial Post, January 27, 1996.</ref> and as ultimately helping him find his own voice as a writer.<ref>"Stuart McLean, the man of a thousand stories". Toronto Star, December 6, 2013.</ref> Morningside host Peter Gzowski remembered fondly the work McLean did for the program: ”On the surface, they seemed inconsequential, but in fact they were exquisitely crafted pieces of journalism.”<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref>

McLean eventually compiled a selection of his work for Morningside in his first book, The Morningside World of Stuart McLean.<ref>"McLean's Morningside". Ottawa Citizen, January 20, 1990.</ref> The book was a Canadian bestseller and a finalist for the 1990 Toronto Book Awards.<ref name="canenc" /><ref>"Contest finalists announced". Toronto Star, February 28, 1990.</ref> Following the success of his first book, McLean was approached by Penguin Books to write a travel memoir about life in small-town Canada.<ref name=":0" /> Released in 1992, Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Canada<ref>"McLean`s book lifted by people". Calgary Herald, December 5, 1992.</ref> featured stories from seven small communities, and won the Canadian Authors Association for best non-fiction book in 1993.<ref name="slice">"Slice of life comes from smalltown Canada". Calgary Herald, October 22, 1993.</ref>

McLean often reported for CBC news programs The Journal and The National, where he focused on human interest stories, talking to "regular people" and delving into their often funny or poignant experiences. These segments about everyday people helped to inspire The Vinyl Cafe, which in the same vein looked at the lives of average Canadians.<ref name="mcleandead" />

The Vinyl CafeEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} In 1994, McLean launched The Vinyl Cafe as a summer series featuring stories about a fictional second-hand record store.<ref>"CBC revamps weekend schedule". Edmonton Journal, July 2, 1994.</ref> Although the early stories focused on a diverse group of characters loosely linked through the titular Vinyl Cafe record store, by the time the series became a permanent one the stories were focused more squarely on the store's proprietor, Dave, and his family and friends.<ref name="starvehicle">"Vinyl Cafe a star vehicle for McLean". Kingston Whig-Standard, February 13, 1998.</ref> Following the show's second summer run in 1995, McLean published Stories from the Vinyl Cafe, his first book in that series.<ref>"Consummate storyteller unveils memorable collection". Kingston Whig-Standard, November 4, 1995.</ref> The show joined CBC's permanent regular-season schedule in 1997.<ref>"CBC Radio changes name and schedule: Renaming of two networks reflects massive restructuring of programming". The Globe and Mail, August 20, 1997.</ref>

File:Stuart McLean.jpg
Stuart McLean on stage at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg, Manitoba

Beginning in 1998, McLean took The Vinyl Cafe on the road to theatres across Canada and the United States.<ref name=torstar/><ref name=starvehicle/> Some stories would be repeated at multiple shows—in particular, an early story about Dave's awkward attempt to cook a turkey for Christmas dinner became one of the most famous and most frequently performed stories of McLean's career<ref>"Vinyl Cafe brings a new bird". Victoria Times-Colonist, November 22, 2012.</ref>—but McLean would often perform slightly different versions of the stories to keep his audiences engaged.<ref name=grand>"Vinyl Cafe's McLean returns to Grand". Kingston Whig-Standard, January 29, 1999.</ref> One episode of The Vinyl Cafe each year was also dedicated to the "Arthur Awards", McLean's own awards program to honour acts of kindness and community engagement by ordinary Canadians that might otherwise "go unheralded and even unnoticed".<ref name=ccc>"Remembering Stuart: What everyday act of an ordinary person in your community do you think should be honoured?" Cross Country Checkup, February 19, 2017.</ref>

The Vinyl Cafe was broadcast every weekend on CBC Radio, and later as a weekly podcast.<ref name=demara>Bruce DeMara, "McLean steps down from his Vinyl Cafe: CBC Radio host says year-long battle against melanoma is not going 'exactly as planned'". Toronto Star, December 14, 2016.</ref> McLean's books of stories from The Vinyl Cafe won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour three times.<ref name=canenc/> Several albums of his performances of Vinyl Cafe stories were also released. In the 2010s a spinoff edition, Vinyl Café Stories, aired on CBC Radio in a weekday afternoon time-slot, featuring two previously broadcast stories on interrelated themes.

Cancer treatment and deathEdit

Following McLean's diagnosis with melanoma in November 2015, The Vinyl Cafe stopped touring and producing episodes.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> McLean announced on December 13, 2016, that he required a second round of treatment, meaning further delay in producing episodes, and that repeats of past shows would stop airing on CBC Radio One effective January 2017 to "make room for others to share their work on the radio."<ref name="demara" /> McLean died of cancer on February 15, 2017, in Toronto, aged 68.<ref name="mcleandead" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His archive was donated to McMaster University.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

One day after his death in February 2017, a tribute special hosted by Michael Enright under the title Canada's Storyteller: A Tribute to Stuart McLean, aired on CBC Radio; it was repeated the following Sunday in The Vinyl Cafe's former timeslot.<ref>"Canada's Storyteller: A Tribute to Stuart McLean". CBC News, February 16, 2017.</ref> CBC Radio's documentary series The Doc Project produced a special episode after McLean's death, re-airing his 1979 Sunday Morning documentary "The New Goldrush",<ref>"Celebrating a side of Stuart McLean you may not know: documentary maker". The Doc Project, February 16, 2017.</ref> while Cross Country Checkup devoted a tribute episode to its own version of the Arthur Awards, asking callers to share stories of acts of kindness that had made a difference in their lives.<ref name="ccc" /> In April 2018, Cross Country Checkup devoted a second episode to the question "Who would you nominate for Stuart McLean's Arthur Awards?"<ref>"Bringing back Stuart McLean's Arthur Awards: who would you nominate and why?". Cross Country Checkup, April 23, 2018.</ref>

WorksEdit

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BibliographyEdit

DiscographyEdit

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AwardsEdit

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  • Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe (2007)<ref name=qq/>
  • Officer of the Order of Canada, awarded in 2011 "for his contributions to Canadian culture as a storyteller and broadcaster, as well as for his many charitable activities".<ref name="qq" />

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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