A star sense

Trailblazer for women in radio could hear hit miles away

She changed Burton Cummings’s life, midwifed a hit for Elton John and rebuffed Gordon Lightfoot — until “If You Could Read My Mind.”

Her family says in a statement that Rosalie Trombley, celebrated for her impeccable ability to sense a mega-hit and put it on the airwaves, died peacefully on Tuesday at age 82.

Nicknamed the “girl with the golden ear,” the longtime music programmer at Windsor, Ont.’s CKLW-AM shaped an era of rock music, curating playlists from behind the scenes that reverberated across the Detroit border and beyond.

“Mom possessed an innate sense for music and could hear a hit from a mile away,” her son, Tim Trombley, said in a statement issued Wednesday.

“But more than that, she had the ability to connect with music from a multitude of artists across many genres. Although we are heartbroken, we are comforted by the fact that her legacy and her influence will live on.”

That included exposing freshfaced musicians Lightfoot, the Guess Who and other emerging acts to both listeners and other radio-station programmers who looked to her as a tastemaker.

“She changed my life completely,” recalled Cummings in a 2016 interview.

It was Trombley’s faith in the Guess Who’s “These Eyes” that helped rocket them to stardom. All it took was putting the track into heavy rotation on “the Big 8,” a name the station earned for its powerhouse 50,000-watt signal at 800 on the AM dial, and a star could be made.

“I owe her lifelong thanks,” Cummings added. “She believed so much in ‘These Eyes’ and Canadian music in general.”

Other artists owe a debt of gratitude to Trombley’s good taste, too. Over her tenure as music director at CKLW radio from 1967 to 1984, she shone a spotlight on Paul Anka’s “You’re Having My Baby” and Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Taking Care of Business.”

She also convinced Elton John’s label that “Bennie and the Jets” was destined to be a huge song, if only they’d release it as a radio single.

Her influence gave many young Canadian acts a chance to break into the U.S. market, but it also drew the ire of some musicians who didn’t always benefit from her influence.

Bob Seger was one of them, and frustrated with her authority over the airwaves, he wrote the tonguein-cheek tribute song “Rosalie,” in which he proclaimed: “She’s got the power, got the tower, Rosalie.”

Back in the 1970s, the influence of CKLW was bar none in the radio industry. Aside from its transmitters that reached Detroit and the U.S. Midwest, the station was packed with a powerhouse of talent on the air, almost all of them strong male personalities, such as news anchors Byron MacGregor and Dick Smyth.

Trombley’s role was less obvious to listeners, and she was one of the rare women in the radio industry at the time.

“She had to be strong and not be afraid to stand up to some very powerful music industry icons,” her son said in a 2016 interview

Trombley not only exposed homegrown artists stateside, but she welcomed many songs from Black musicians onto Canadian radio too.

Hits including James Brown’s “The Payback” and Funkadelic’s “I Got A Thing, You Got A Thing, Everybody’s Got A Thing” found spins on CKLW long before they were embraced in other markets.

Her contributions to Canada’s music scene were recognized at the 2016 Juno Awards where she was given the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award — the first time a woman received the honour.

“

She believed so much in ‘These Eyes’ and Canadian music in general.

BURTON CUMMINGS