CKUA host Baba Singh remembered for music mastery

Dilbagh Singh Bhangoo—known to CKUA listeners as Baba—died in mid-May, leaving behind a legacy of meticulous radio craft and an uncompromising love of music that few in the city could match.

We don't know much about Baba's early life with certainty. His daughter Namananda recalls that record-keeping in Chandigarh, India, where he was born, was "just a little different, especially in 1947." He guessed his own birthday: September 8. He came to Canada sometime in the early '70s and worked a series of jobs—driving cabs in Toronto, delivering the Globe & Mail, stints in a machine shop and a nuclear power plant. His close friend and fellow CKUA host Grant Stovel says Baba wasn't forthcoming about his pre-radio life, but he dropped clues over the years.

He moved to Edmonton with his wife Margaret and their young family in the '80s. Already a known figure around town due to his imposing height, flowing robes, Sikh ceremonial knife, and turban, Baba eventually decided radio was where he belonged. He showed up at CJSR, the free-flowing university station, in the late '90s as Master Crocodile, hosting a show called Crocodile Connection.

Baba eventually set his sights on CKUA. According to Stovel, he kept applying until he finally got his chance—a last-minute Christmas Day slot one year from former programme manager Brian Dunsmore. "And then he just never left," Stovel recalls.

What might have seemed like seat-of-the-pants radio to casual listeners was actually deeply premeditated. Stovel watched Baba practicing crossfade transitions between songs on a little DJ CD deck, perfecting how one track could flow into the next. He would not tolerate disrespect to a musical artist's work.

"He always loved music, and that was such a big part of my growing up," Namananda says. "We used to watch the Woodstock movie together. I was obsessed with the '60s in my teen years, and so we bonded a lot over that."

Baba's eclectic taste—everything from psychedelic rock to soul to world music—made him a fixture on Edmonton's radio landscape. He brought precision and passion to every show. For three decades, he was the voice that helped the city discover music it didn't know it needed to hear.