On May 27, 1957, at 4:23 p.m. in Toronto, CHUM broadcaster Phil Stone changed Canadian radio forever.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new sound for you and I hope you like it," he told his listeners.

"It goes like this ..."

He played "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets, the first rock 'n' roll piece ever played on radio in Canada.

Stone, who died last week aged 94, was a pioneer in many ways, his son Glen said in a telephone interview.

"The rock 'n' roll thing turned out to be a good idea," Glen Stone said.

Rites for the veteran of Canadian radio, public relations and print journalism, and supporter of numerous charities, were held on Friday. He leaves Mildred, to whom he was married for 65 years, and two other sons, Jay and Doug, as well as four grandchildren.

Glen Stone said his father had been part of CHUM radio since the late 1940s and was there when it became a 24-hour Top 40 station.

Before that, Glasgow-born Stone had a long history in broadcast and print journalism, including becoming a self-taught writer whose laurels included simultaneous columns in the Toronto Star and Toronto Telegram.

He also wrote sports for the Star and he founded his own sports magazine, Sports Digest, in 1947, after serving as an army public relations officer during World War II.

"The magazine did quite well," his son said."Then it was knocked out by a new magazine published in the States called Sports Illustrated."

Stone's successes in journalism were made more remarkable because he had been forced to drop out of school at age 14 to help support his widowed mother Leah and his younger sister Anne.

His father died in a flu pandemic that struck Glasgow in 1919, when Stone was 6, and the family experienced "real poverty," eking out a living in Glasgow, and in the northern England towns of Leeds and Sheffield.

They moved to Toronto, into the then traditionally Jewish area of Toronto along Spadina Ave.

In his first Toronto neighbourhood, Stone struck up a friendship with a young neighbour named Ed Mirvish, who became Toronto's famous Honest Ed and a lifelong friend.

When Stone was interred at Pardes Shalom Cemetery in Vaughan, he was laid to rest one row over from his old friend Mirvish, his son said.

In Toronto, after working in a variety of menial jobs, Stone taught himself to type, and started submitting articles to newspapers and magazines. He was also doing publicity for the new radio station, CHUM, and eventually got a sports slot on weekends, his son said.

He then got a daily show as a disc jockey on CHUM, and from there came the events of 1957 that brought rock 'n' roll to Canada's airwaves.

Until the early 1960s, Stone remained as a rock jock at CHUM, then became the vice-president of the station, responsible for promotions and charitable work.

By the time he left the station in 1964, he was on the board of 45 different charities. He then founded his own public relations firm and, in 1972, started the radio program at Humber College. He also taught at York University and Conestoga College.

At age 73, he went back to school and got his bachelor of arts in English at York University.

"How he would like to be remembered is for helping people," his son said. "He loved to help young people. There are thousands who benefited from his advice."

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