Jeff Code

Jeff Code performed at the Delta Harvest Festival in Ontario on Saturday, September 25, 2021. Here’s what we chatted about before the show. A bit of trivia: this summer I also interviewed his brother.

At the end of the interview, I have added some quotes from a newspaper reporter and my comments.

GOCCM: Jeff Code, I’m so pleased to meet you after hearing you on the radio for what seems like forever.

JC: It’s been a long, long time I been doing the show now.

GOCCM: How many years?

JC: I started in ’94 on another radio station in Kingston and 17 years at the station I’m at now, 93.5, so it’s been 27 years now I believe since the show started.

GOCCM: I was thinking it was over 20. I have a little story to tell you. My mother-in-law, well we all listen to it, but my mother-in-law particularly loved it; and my son, when he was in his early twenties, he would bring his friends and they would all go to his grandmother’s and sit and listen to “Sunday in the Country.”

JC: Ya, well that’s nice. I didn’t realize that.

GOCCM: We raised our son well I guess. Well not just him but the girls too. So you come from a musical family and you have your own band, Jeff Code and Silver Wings. Tell me about that background.

JC: My Dad and my Uncle played music since when I was a small kid, and I grew up listening to them around the Prescott area where we were living and where I grew up. I played with my Dad’s band for a few years back in the 90s. I started the Silver Wings band back around 2007 so we’ve been going for about 13 years 14 years now up in the Kingston area where I’ve lived since ’86.

GOCCM: We’re talking today at the Delta Harvest Festival where you and Silver Wings will soon be taking the stage. Who are the members of this band you’ve been with for so long?

JC: Well I have Pat Dowling on drums; he’s been with us since the start of the band. And Gary Wales on bass and vocals; he’s been with us about 3 years now. And John Kot on the guitar and vocals, and he’s been here about 3 years also. So this [in]carnation has been going for 3 years. A couple guys moved on, so we’ve got a couple new players in the last 3 years.

GOCCM: That’s probably fun, new people to get to know and travel with.

JC: Yes it is definitely.

GOCCM: Several years ago when we could still go to dances, I attended a dance at the Lyndhurst Legion, where you performed. Pre-covid, what types of gigs did you often play?

JC: Mostly legion shows around the Kingston and surrounding area: Collins Bay, Kingston, Lyndhurst and Seeleys Bay, Napanee and all that area. We did do some private parties and functions like that and fairs. We’ve been here at the Delta fair a couple times, out in the tent in the last couple of years. But it’s mostly legion dances that we do. They kept us busy each weekend.

GOCCM: Well, they seem to be the ones that actually have dances.

JC: Yes, we’ve been doing the circuit of Legions around the area for the last 13 or 14 years.

GOCCM: I know another gentleman who is from up north who did a few Legions in the north and was hoping to break into some in the south and then, of course, Covid hit.

What style of music do you play?

JC: We do the older style, the stuff I play on Sunday mornings most of the time, the old traditional country — George Jones, Merle Haggard — that people like. We also do some old fifties and sixties rock and roll, The Everly brothers and Elvis and stuff like that, to mix it up and liven things up a bit.

GOCCM: That’s what people love. My girlfriend and I were just mentioning this week that the music from the fifties and early sixties is still known by kids today like it’s just transcended the ages I think.

JC: Yeah. It’s good dancing music.

Jeff Code and Silver Wings, Delta Harvest Festival

GOCCM: What do you like most about performing, being on that stage, what do you like most about that?

JC: I just enjoy the camaraderie with the other musicians on stage, and I do most of the singing in the band, and I really enjoy that. I just enjoy getting up there and just decide, I’ll do this song and give it a try and away we go.

GOCCM: Being on stage is fun and obviously you like being the radio host for “Sunday in the Country,” so what do you like best about that?

JC: I like the interaction with the callers that I get and not knowing what song they might ask for, what they’ve got to say at the time when they’re talking to me and what names they mentioned for the dedications and all that — so just interaction with the caller that makes the show I think. That’s really a major part of the show.

GOCCM: And you get to recognize their voices.

JC: Well I do try to. I get it wrong sometimes. I give the wrong name out thinking of somebody else. But I’ll tried to identify them if I know their voices because they like that and I like to do that too; say Hi So-and-So.

GOCCM: Back to my son, he said they got to know who some of them were too and they would say it along with you.

So do you have any merch with you today?

JC: I do have a CD that I just have been working on since everything kind of quieted down the last year and a half or so. I have the CD with me for sale here today and then future shows I’ll have them with me also.

GOCCM: Good. At a meet and greet I attended someone asked the artist his favourite flavor of ice cream. I thought that was a unique question so I’m gonna ask it of you.

JC: Oh, I like most kinds but I would say French Vanilla would be my favourite. It’s the one I buy most often.

GOCCM: Anything else that you would like our listeners to know about Jeff Code?

JC: Well I guess just that I love doing the Sunday show. l get up for that every Sunday morning and just can’t wait to get there and get at it and I love playing with the band again. We were off for that year and a half pretty well not doing anything with the band, so I just love getting out meeting the people and getting the good old classic country music out there. I really enjoy that.

GOCCM: We enjoy the fact that you do it, that’s for sure. Where can we find you on social media?

JC: We have a Facebook page for the band Jeff Code and Silver Wings and I put our dates on there and promote those. I have my own Facebook page just myself and just put my own personal things on there. That’s where you’ll find me on Facebook.

Find Jeff on Social Media

GOCCM: So Jeff Code and Silver Wings, okay. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you Jeff.

JC: Thank you very much.

GOCCM: Have a great show today.

Not every artist nor radio announcer become known nationally, but, they all have their own loyal fans and bring much joy to their followers. At the Delta show, Jeff’s faithful fans were all smiles in the front row. His listeners on Sunday morning are mentioned in this Kingston Whig Standard article from 2019, written by Patrick Kennedy.


[Since about 2005], Code has hosted the immensely popular Sunday in the Country radio show on Country 93.5 FM, fielding requests from near and far for classic country tunes while quietly and unintentionally attracting a large following. Indeed, there are likely priests and parsons and people of the cloth out there who can only dream of addressing such a tuned-in multitude on the Sabbath.

In person, Code comes across exactly as he does on the radio: uncomplicated, modest, pleasant, plainspoken, personable, polite to a fault, and as Canadian as maple syrup….

“Jeff is a throwback to what we in radio call a personality,” said seasoned radio host Garry McColman, who made Code his second hire when Country 93.5 went on the air in 2004. (The station was sold years later to current owner Rogers.) “The whole idea in radio is to have listeners identify with a personality, which is what makes Jeff so popular,” he added.


Check out these past interviews...