Pioneering DJ Red Robinson has left his mark in the business world
by Malcolm Parry
Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, August 14, 2008
                                                            
RED ALWAYS IN THE BLACK: Pioneering rock-and-roll disc jockey Red Robinson has met, helped or been helped by two generations of pop-music personalities since first turning on a CJOR-station microphone in November 1954. You can see and read about a fraction of them -- but still an enormous number -- in the memoir Backstage Vancouver, which was written by former Vancouver Sun reviewer Greg Potter and published by Howard White's Harbour Publishing firm.

Robinson has also published maybe millions of his own words, not least at TV Week, in which his 20-year column comes to an end this week. He's also hosted TV shows, appeared in endless commercials, been inducted into the Cleveland, Ohio-based Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and even received the B.C. government's nod as one of history's most influential 150 people here.

Behind the glitz and the hype, though, he's founded business corporations, one of which, with Robinson long gone, still operates profitably a half century later.

The first, though, was Arctic Records, which he founded in 1956 with $200 and after-hours access to a state-of-the-art recording studio the CKWX station had built for its afternoon Rhythm Club (sic .. does he mean Rhythm Pals?) show. There, Robinson waxed extended-play 45s of artists like Jimmy Morrison (not The Doors star), the Stripes (with budding sax virtuoso P.J. Perry, and the young Ian Tyson.

His next effort was the true long-player. That was JAG Enterprises, Ltd., which he and band member-promoter Les Vogt named after a ceramic mantelpiece ornament of a wild cat. Making some $25,000 a year -- "Big money in 1960," Robinson says -- and eventually $100,000, they staged shows by the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty and Roy Orbison. The latter's 1963 B.C. tour provided the down payment for Robinson's first house, and earned the $800-a-show artist an unexpected extra $1,000. That paid off at Expo 86, where Robinson and Vogt staged rock concerts for 13 weeks, and then-stellar Orbison cancelled another contract "because you two are the only ones who ever bonused me."

Still a good friend, Vogt took over the firm in 1967, and still operates it as Jaguar Productions. Robinson put up $5,000 to found Trend Advertising Ltd., and had George Tidball and Herb Capozzi walk in wanting to promote "a little hamburger joint George had acquired called McDonalds." When that account required Robinson to produce a die-cut coupon for Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, printing-shop operator Dick Smith introduced an ink-smeared chap for the press floor who said he could do it. That's how Robinson met Frank Palmer, who made millions after co-founding the Palmer Jarvis advertising agency and heading giant DDB Canada.

Palmer and Rich Simmons bought Trend when Robinson joined Jim Pattison's CJOR station in 1970. Four years later, Robinson and Steve Vrlak took over the fractured Dixon Advertising firm and its accounts, renamed it Vrlak Robinson, and acquired the Hayhurst agency in 1986. By 1988, when they sold it to the McKim agency for $2,900,000 each and an undisclosed number of McKim shares, Vrlak Robinson was billing some $35 million yearly.

Seven months into a five-year management contract, Robinson cashed out, founded Red Robinson Management Ltd., and had rock-management mogul Brice Allen invite him to locate in an office above Gastown's Town Pump. It turned out to be one earlier occupied by Frank Palmer. When Allen and developer-financier Rob McDonald bought the former B.C. Electric headquarters building at Hastings and Carrall Street in 2001, Robinson inherited and still occupies late BCE president Dal Grauer's office, from which he also runs concert-staging Dr. Wizard Productions Ltd.

Robinson, 71, says his next firm will be name Red Inc. -- a novelty for someone who hasn't used any in 52 years.