For any teenager, juggling work with
school is a challenge, but it was one that Doug handled with one hand behind his back. He already had developed an acute sense for business, and soon parlayed his love of music into a paying gig. In the early 60s, Sandy Gardiner was
writing a weekly “Teen Page” for the Ottawa Journal. He was looking for a way to chart record sales in Ottawa. Doug McKeen, always eager, jumped at
the opportunity and started canvassing local record shops on a weekly basis to see what was selling. He would pass along the info to Sandy, and then, in what spare time he had, would print, cut and fold up small print versions of the charts and drop them off at Treble Clef and Sherman’s Record stores. He called the chart “The Swing Set”. The savvy McKeen had an ulterior
Doug McKeen By JIM HURCOMB
Sharing his first love He is known to some as “The Mayor of the
Glebe”, and it’s an honour that is well deserved. Doug McKeen grew up on Fourth Avenue.
Today he lives one street over, on Third. He has run three successful businesses in the neighborhood – McKeen Electronics, the Glebe Apothecary and McKeen’s IGA – and now he’s the brains behind an online radio station called “
radioglebe.com”. It’s a place where he can share his first love, music, with his friends and neighbours. That love was ignited in the mid-50s when
rock and roll first roared. There was always music in the McKeen house. Doug remembers himself as “a lonely kid who spent a lot of time in my room listening to music”. He still has the first album he ever bought with his own money. It was the debut album by Elvis Presley. It was in his early teens that he launched his
52 BOUNDER MAGAZINE
first business venture, McKeen Productions. In modern terms, it was a DJ service. Doug and his staff would host record hops all over town, in church basements and halls, playing rock and roll for the kids. At its height, Doug’s equipment would be out four times a week, and his staff swelled from four to 20. Popular spots would be St. Matthew’s Church and St. James Church in the Glebe, and St. Thomas the Apostle on Merivale.
motive for doing this. He contacted the major American record companies to let them know about the chart, and soon was on the mailing lists for all the new releases,
which he would play at his music hops. CFRA Radio would eventually buy advertising space in “The Swing Set”, using it as a promotional vehicle for its DJs. One of my many favourite “McKeen”
stories revolves around the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. He and a buddy took still camera photos of the appearance right off the TV, and within 24 hours had a 32 page book of pictures selling on the streets of Ottawa. Says Doug, “We just did it. We didn’t
worry if it was legal or not. We figured if we’d done this much work on it we should be able to sell it.” Doug was also closely involved with
Ottawa’s hottest group of the time, the Esquires. He remembers borrowing a tape machine from his high school English teacher so the band could record some demo tapes. Those tapes secured a deal with Capitol records, and a few months later Doug McKeen was in the studio with the Esquires as they became the first Ottawa rock and roll band to record an album. These were the pre-superstar days of rock
and roll, even for major acts. “The bands that toured then just brought
their guitars, nothing else,” he says. “They would let promoters know what equipment they needed, and we would supply it.”
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