#1: The Hula Hoop Song by Georgia Gibbs
City: Charlottetown, PEI
Radio Station: CVER
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in Charlottetown ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #39
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “The Hula Hoop Song”
Lyrics: “The Hula Hoop Song”
Georgia Gibbs was a traditional pop singer who sang with the Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and other big bands in the 40s. She went on to have numerous hits prior to the arrival of Elvis Presley in 1956, who with other rock n’ rollers swept many traditional pop singers like Georgia Gibbs off the pop charts. Gibbs was born in 1919 as Frieda Lipschitz in a Russian-Jewish immigrant home in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father died shortly after she was born and as an infant lived in an orphanage until she was seven years old. Before she left the orphanage her musical talents were in bloom and she got lead roles each year in the orphanage’s variety show. Back at home when her mother got work as a midwife, young Frieda was often left on her own for weeks at a time with only a Philco radio for company.
