#15: The Curtains Falling by Vicky Leandros
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: April 1968
Peak Position in Fredericton ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “The Curtains Falling”
Vasiliki Papathanasiou (Greek: Βασιλική Παπαθανασίου) was born in Greece in 1949. She took Vicky Leandros as her stage name. She is a Greek singer living in Germany. Leandros is the daughter of singer, musician and composer Leandros Papathanasiou (also known as Leo Leandros as well as Mario Panas). In 1965, she released a single titled “Messer, Gabel, Schere, Licht” which climbed to #16 in West Germany. In 1967 she achieved worldwide fame after gaining fourth place for the country of Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “L’amour est bleu”, which became a worldwide hit. It reached the Top 20 in Austria and Japan. Her album, L’amour est bleu, was a number-one selling album in 1967 in the French-language market in Quebec. As was the album Le temps des fleurs the following year again in Quebec.
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#1: Falling Tears by the Eternals
City: Dryden, ON
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: April 1968
Peak Position in Dryden: #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Falling Tears”
The Eternals were formed in 1961 by brothers Ron & Ted Paley from Rosa, Manitoba, and brothers John & Harry Hildebrand from Steinbach, Manitoba. Ted Paley played drums and fiddle. Ron Paley played piano, organ, drums and saxophone. John Hildebrand played on bass guitar and lead guitar. While Harry Hildebrand played bass guitar, rhythm guitar and lead guitar. The group was sometimes billed as Ronny and The Eternals.
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#10: You Can Cry If You Want To by the Troggs
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: September 1968
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “You Can Cry If You Want To”
Lyrics: “You Can Cry If You Want To”
The Troggs formed in 1964 and decades later were dubbed by music critics as the “first British punk band.” Never strangers to controversy, many of their records were considered by radio programmers and social conservatives as too suggestive for the masses, and they consequently banned them. The band’s first big hit was “Wild Thing” which is rated by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the Top 500 songs in the rock ‘n roll era. While they racked up their biggest string of Top Ten singles between 1966 and 1968, the band consisted of co-founders Reg Presley and Ronnie Bond, as well as Pete Staples and Chris Britton.
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#397: Everything That Touches You by the Association
City: Vancouver, BC
Radio Station: CKLG
Peak Month: February 1968
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #10
YouTube: “Everything That Touches You”
Lyrics: “Everything That Touches You”
Terry Kirkman was born in Salina, Kansas, in 1939. He learned to play a number of brass instruments in his childhood and majored in music in Chaffey College in southern California. He met Frank Zappa in college in 1959, and the pair performed in coffeehouses through to 1961. As a salesman visiting Hawaii in 1962, Kirkman met Jules Alexander, who was in the United States Navy. They planned to meet again when Alexander would be discharged from his military duties. Kirkman moved to Los Angeles with Alexander in 1963. The pair founded a folk group they named the Inner Tubes. At one time The Inner Tubes included both Cass Elliot and David Crosby. The Inner Tubes slowly grew from a small group into a 13-piece band called the Men. In February 1965, when The Men disbanded, Kirkman and five other members formed their own band. To find a new name, they perused a dictionary and chose “the Association” after it was suggested by Kirkman’s fiancée.
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#34: Sunshine Girl by Herman’s Hermits
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: April 1968
Peak Position #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube: “Sunshine Girl”
Lyrics: “Sunshine Girl”
Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone was born in a suburb of Manchester, England, in 1947. Keith Hopwood was born in 1946, in the same suburb of Davyhulme. Karl Anthony Green was born in 1947, also in Davyhulme. Derek “Lek” Leckenby was born in Leeds in 1943. Jan Barry Whitwam was born in 1946 in Manchester. Both Leckenby and Whitwam were members of a band called the Wailers who played covers by Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and other early rock recording artists. Peter Noone originally was in an amateur band called the Cyclones. He moved on to the Heartbeats in 1961, a Buddy Holly cover band. Just after he turned 14, Noone debuted on Coronation Street, playing the role of Stanley Fairclough starting in December 1961. In the fall of 1962 Herman’s Hermits was formed. Peter Noone was the lead vocalist. Karl Green played bass guitar. Keith Hopwood played rhythm guitar. “Lek” Leckenby played lead guitar and Barry Whitwam played drums.
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#35: Porpoise Song by the Monkees
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: November 1968
Peak Position in Edmonton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Porpoise Song”
Lyrics: “Porpoise Song”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won a talent contest at San Antonio College. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He became the “hoot master” at a regular hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. In 1963 Nesmith released a 45 of a song he wrote called “Wanderin'”. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in 1967.
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#24: Jennifer Eccles by the Hollies
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: April 1968
Peak Position in Edmonton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube: “Jennifer Eccles”
Lyrics: “Jennifer Eccles”
The Hollies are an English rock group formed by Allan Clarke and Graham Nash in the early 1960’s. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and early 1970s. They enjoyed considerable popularity in many countries, although they did not achieve major US chart success until 1966. Nash left the group in 1968, and then formed Crosby, Stills and Nash. The Hollies had 30 charting singles on the UK Singles Chart, and 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their hits included “Bus Stop”, “I Can’t Let Go”, “On A Carousel”, “Stop, Stop, Stop” and “Carrie Anne” in the mid-60s.
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#60: Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles
City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: January 1968
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Magical Mystery Tour”
Lyrics: “Magical Mystery Tour”
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. He attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and met fellow classmate George Harrison on a school bus. When Paul was 14 his mom died from a blockage in one of her blood vessels. In his early teens McCartney learned to play trumpet, guitar and piano. He was left-handed and restrung the strings to make it work. In 1957, Paul met John Lennon and in October he was invited to join John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, which Lennon had founded in 1956. After Paul joined the group his suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. Other original members of the Quarrymen, Len Garry, Rod Davis, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Pete Shotton left the band when their set changed from skiffle to rock ‘n roll. John Duff Lowe, a friend of Paul’s from the Liverpool Institute, who had joined the Quarrymen in early 1958 left the band at the end of school. This left Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as remaining trio. On July 15, 1958, John Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident.
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#69: Mr. Businessman by Ray Stevens
City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Mr. Businessman”
Lyrics: “Mr. Businessman”
Harold Ray Ragsdale was born in January 1939, in Clarkdale, Georgia. In high school he formed a group called The Barons. When he was 18, he was signed to Capitol Records on their Prep label. His debut single was “Five More Steps”. The single charted briefly on CKWX in Vancouver in February 1958. In the summer of 1960, Stevens “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon” climbed to #22 in Vancouver. While in 1961, Stevens released a single about unscrupulous pharmaceutical products pitched to cure whatever ails you. “Jeremiah Peabody’s Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills” reached #8 in Vancouver, and also charted in the Top 50 in Winnipeg and Montreal. For several decades, Ray Stevens’ song was the longest song title to make the Billboard Hot 100.
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#60: Sadie The Cleaning Lady by John Farnham
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: May 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #12
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Sadie The Cleaning Lady”
Lyrics: “Sadie The Cleaning Lady”
John Peter Farnham was born in 1949 in Essex, England. He moved with his family to Australia in 1959. While in Grade Ten, in 1964 he began performing as Johnny Farnham a local Melbourne band called the Mavericks on weekends. In late 1965, he became the lead singer for Strings Unlimited. In 1967, Farnham was signed to the EMI label and recorded a novelty song titled “Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)”
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#35: Elephant Candy by The Fun And Games
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: December 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Elephant Candy”
Lyrics: “Elephant Candy”
There was a band of musicians from a high school in Houston, Texas, that included rhythm guitarist, trumpet and recorder player, and vocalist Rock Romano (born 1945). Rock was playing guitar by the age of 13. Romano was joined by classmates Mike Cemo, guitar player and vocalist Paul Guillet, and John Bonno. When they added Richard Bain, D. J. Greer, and drummer Carson Graham, the students took the name The Six Pents. They worked as the house band at La Maison in Houston. They also recorded a single at local studio named Andrus. After releasing the single, they changed their name to The Sixpentz. They released a single on Matrix label titled “Your Girl Too”. They moved to the Geer label and released “Good To You”. A third garage rock tune, “Summer Girl”, was released on the Kidd label in 1966.
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#54: Milk Train by the Everly Brothers
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: November 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Milk Train”
Lyrics: “Milk Train”
Isaac Donald “Don” Everly was born in 1937 and Phillip Jason “Phil” Everly was born in 1939. Don was born in Muhlenberg County in Kentucky, and Phil was born in Chicago. Their dad, Ike, had been a coal miner who decided to pursue music as a guitar player. From the mid-40s Ike and his wife, Margaret, sang as a duo in Shanendoah, Iowa. Later they included their sons “Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil,” on local radio stations KMA and KFNF. In time they were billed as The Everly Family. In 1953, the family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. Family friend and musician Chet Atkins got a record deal for the Everly Brothers with RCA Victor in 1956. However, their first single release was a commercial failure and they were dropped from the label. Next, Atkins got them connected with Archie Bleyer, and the boys were signed to Cadence Records. In 1957, their first single on the label, “Bye Bye Love“, became a million-seller and launched their career.
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#53: When Friends Fall Out by the Guess Who
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: July 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “When Friends Fall Out”
Lyrics: “When Friends Fall Out”
Randolph Charles Bachman was born in 1943 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When he was just three years old he entered the King of the Saddle singing contest on CKY radio, Manitoba’s first radio station that began in 1923. Bachman won the contest. When he turned five years he began to study the violin through the Royal Toronto Conservatory. Though he couldn’t read music, he was able to play anything once he heard it. He dropped out of high school and subsequently a business administration program in college. He co-founded a Winnipeg band called Al & The Silvertones with Chad Allan in 1960.
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#50: She Says by 49th Parallel
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: January 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “She Says”
Lyrics: n/a
Singer Dennis Abbott and guitar player Dan Lowe formed a band in the mid-60’s called The Real McCoys. The name was soon discarded in favor of The Shades of Blond. The band consisted of Abbott and Lowe, joined by Bob Carlson on guitar, Dave Petch on organ, Mick Woodhouse on bass guitar, and Terry Bare on drums. The Shades of Blond played covers of British Invasion hits. As well, they began to write some songs and experimented with a fuzz-guitar garage rock sound. This got them a contract to record on International Master Discovery Records, which put out an album featuring four of the new Calgary bands. By ’67 they’d changed their name to 49th Parallel, and had all but outgrown the local circuit. They played the prairies relentlessly for the next year or so, making over a dozen stops in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan at The Temple Gardens alone.
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#2: Baby You Come Rolling Cross My Mind by the Peppermint Trolley Company
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: July 1968
Peak Position in Guelph #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #59
YouTube: “Baby You Come Rolling Cross My Mind”
Lyrics: “Baby You Come Rolling Cross My Mind”
In 1966, the Peppermint Trolley Company was a group formed in Redlands, California. There was a band named the Mark V which had been together since 1962. It consisted of members Danny Faragher, Jimmy Faragher, Steve Hauser, Dave Kelliher, Brad Madson and Dick Owens. They teamed with producer Dan Dalton, who urged the band to change its name. The Peppermint Trolley Company’s name was proposed by Jimmy Faragher and chosen by a committee of the Mark V band members. The Peppermint Trolley Company’s debut single was “Lollipop Train”. The song was co-written by P.F. Sloan and Steve Bari. It was another song passing on advice to those lacking insight into interpersonal and societal issues. “Lollipop Train” was a Top 20 hit in Chico (CA) in October 1966. When the group called it quits in February of 1967, Danny and Jimmy, along with Dalton, decided to continue recording under the “Trolley” name. The PTC would now be a duo consisting of Danny and Jimmy Faragher. Danny played trombone, marxophone, and melodica.
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#4: It’s Nice To Be With You by the Monkees
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: July 1968
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “It’s Nice To Be With You”
Lyrics: “It’s Nice To Be With You”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won a talent contest at San Antonio College. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He became the “hoot master” at a regular hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. In 1963 Nesmith released a 45 of a song he wrote called “Wanderin'”. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in 1967.
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#5: Sky Pilot by Eric Burdon and the Animals
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: June 1968
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Sky Pilot”
Lyrics: “Sky Pilot”
Eric Victor Burdon was born in 1941 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. He was born into a working class family. Due to the river pollution and humidity in Newcastle he suffered asthma attacks daily. During primary school, Burdon writes in his memoir, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, he was “stuck at the rear of the classroom of around 40 to 50 kids and received constant harassment from kids and teachers alike”. He goes on to say his primary school was “jammed between a slaughterhouse and a shipyard on the banks of the Tyne. Some teachers were sadistic…and sexual molestation and regular corporal punishment with a leather strap was the order of the day.” In his song “When I Was Young”, he states he met his first love at 13, who was very experienced while he was not. He also says he smoked his first cigarette at 10 years old and would skip school with his friends to drink.
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#1: Happy Feeling/If There’s A Thought by the Happy Feeling
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: November 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ Hit-bound #36
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Happy Feeling”
Lyrics: N/A
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: March 1969
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
B-side: “If There’s A Thought”
Happy Feeling was a band from Calgary, Alberta. They formed in the late 60s. Gordie Moffat played bass guitar, keyboards, harmonica, lead and backing vocals. Bob Moffat played rhythm guitar, lead guitar, keyboards, percussion, and backing vocals. Jim Aiello played keyboards, and was the frontman and lead vocalist for the band. Bruce Frost played bass guitar. Gerry Mudry was the bands’ drummer, and Dan Ferguson played lead guitar, and shared lead and backing vocals.
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#2: Blue Bonnie Blue by 49th Parallel
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: February 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Blue Bonnie Blue”
Lyrics: N/A
Singer Dennis Abbott and guitar player Dan Lowe formed a band in the mid-60’s called The Real McCoys. The name was soon discarded in favor of The Shades of Blond. The band consisted of Abbott and Lowe, joined by Bob Carlson on guitar, Dave Petch on organ, Mick Woodhouse on bass guitar, and Terry Bare on drums. The Shades of Blond played covers of British Invasion hits. As well, they began to write some songs and experimented with a fuzz-guitar garage rock sound. This got them a contract to record on International Master Discovery Records, which put out an album featuring four of the new Calgary bands. By ’67 they’d changed their name to 49th Parallel, and had all but outgrown the local circuit. They played the prairies relentlessly for the next year or so, making over a dozen stops in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan at The Temple Gardens alone.
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#4: Jezebel by Witness Inc.
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: February 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Jezebel”
Lyrics: “Jezebel”
Witness Inc. was a band from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. They formed in 1967 and won the Saskatoon Teen-Town Band Battle. They immediately became a touring sensation in the western provinces. They released a series of singles which became increasingly pop after the second. The band finally caught on in Ontario after several years and many personnel changes. The original band consisted of Kenny Shields on lead vocals, Ed Clynton on guitar, Dennis Tremeer on bass guitar, Les Bateman on organ and piano, and Craig Kaleal on drums. The website, Citizen Freak, “was surprised to learn that the band traveled to New Mexico to record their first 45, probably at Norman Petty’s studio in Clovis.” Their first single release was “I’ll Forget Her Tomorrow”. It peaked at #3 in Regina on CJME in August 1967. The picture sleeve for “I’ll Forget Her Tomorrow” features a different band lineup than the group on the recording, with new members Dave Tupper on drums and Allen Ayers on bass.
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#7: (Alone) In My Room by Willie and the Walkers
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: February 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “(Alone) In My Room”
Lyrics: N/A
Will MacCalder was born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1947. His family moved to Edmonton, Alberta, while he was an infant. In his teens he began to follow the CFRN hit parade in Edmonton. At the age of 13 he began to learn to play the saxophone. He formed a band called the Barons, and subsequently the Casuals and in the mid-60s, the Tempests. Another bandmate with the Tempests was drummer Rolie Hardie. MacCalder recalls, “I thank him from the bottom of my heart. He taught me what it was to play in time! And he caught me on numerous occasions playing out of time! He just had the knack.” Rolie Hardie was born in Kelowna, British Columbia, in 1949. His older brother, Bill – born in 1947 in Kelowna – learned to play Hawaiian steel guitar. Bill Hardie was part of a band called the Nobles, and later the Vacqueros who had a guitarist named Dennis Petruk. Before they split up, the Vacqueros recruited Rolie Hardie from the Tempests to join their band.
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#17: My Little Red Book by Gainsborough Gallery
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: April 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “My Little Red Book” – Standells version
YouTube: “My Little Red Book” – Manfred Mann version
Lyrics: “My Little Red Book”
At first there was a guitarist and lead singer named Mel Degan (B. 1943) and bass guitarist Dennis Paul who were based in Edmonton. They formed a band called The Skeptics. In 1964 they relocated in Calgary and were joined with vocalist Jae Mack, guitarist Peter Marley and drummer Ray McAndrew. They got a reputation on the local scene playing at coffee shops and halls. By 1966 they were billing themselves as The Gainsborough Gallery. This was in honour of the Calgary art museum of the same name (and where they also received fan mail). Tim McHugh (b. 1945 in Calgary) joined the band on keyboards.
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#18: Do It Again by the Beach Boys
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: September 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “Do It Again”
Lyrics: “Do It Again”
Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, in 1942. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin’s book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, he relates that when Brian Wilson first heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” it had a huge emotional impact on him. As a youngster, Wilson learned to play a toy accordion and sang in children’s choirs. In his teens he started a group with his cousin, Mike Love and his brother, Carl. Mike was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and Carl was born in 1946 in Hawthorne, California. Brian Wilson named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance in the fall of 1960 at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Their set included some songs by Dion and the Belmonts. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was born in Hawthorne in 1942. He was so impressed with the performance that he let the group know. Jardine would later be enlisted, along with Dennis Wilson to form the Pendletones in 1961. Dennis was born in Inglewood in 1944.
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#5: People Sure Act Funny by Arthur Conley
City: Belleville, ON
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #8
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #58
YouTube: “People Sure Act Funny”
Lyrics: “People Sure Act Funny”
Arthur Lee Conley was born in rural McIntosh County, Georgia, on the Atlantic coast in 1946. At the age of 13, in 1959 he recorded as the lead singer of Arthur & the Corvets. With this group, he released three singles in 1963 and 1964—”Poor Girl”, “I Believe”, and “Flossie Mae”. In 1964, Conley released the single “I’m A Lonely Stranger” on a small Baltimore label. It got the attention of Otis Redding, and was re-recorded on Redding’s Jotis Records in 1965. The single climbed to #2 in December 1965 on the R&B station WAWA in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. More single releases followed as Conley switched to the Fame label, including “I Can’t Stop (No, No, No)”, which peaked at #3 on WRBD in Fort Lauderdale. While Fame Records release “Take Me Just As I Am” made the Top Ten on the Miami R&B station WAME, also in December 1966.
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#1: I’m A Midnight Mover by Wilson Pickett
City: Belleville, Ontario
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #27
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
YouTube.com: “I’m A Midnight Mover”
Lyrics: “I’m A Midnight Mover”
Wilson Pickett was born in Prattville, Alabama, in 1941. He was the fourth of 11 children. He referred to his mother as “the baddest woman in my book.” Pickett told historian Gerri Hirshey, “I get scared of her now. She used to hit me with anything, skillets, stove wood … [one time I ran away and] cried for a week. Stayed in the woods, me and my little dog.” His grandfather also beat him when Wilson was found with a copy of Louis Jordan’s “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens”. Pickett eventually left Prattville at the age of 14 to live with his father in Detroit in 1955. He joined a gospel group called the Violinaires. But his interest in music shifted to R&B.
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#2: This Wheel’s On Fire by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity
City: Belleville, Ontario
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #106
YouTube.com: “This Wheel’s On Fire”
Lyrics: “This Wheel’s On Fire”
Julie Driscoll was born in 1947 in London. She became a professional musician in her teens, singing in nightclubs with her dad’s band. She recorded her first single on Columbia Records, titled “Take Me By The Hand”, when she was fifteen. Hearing that maker-shaker Giorgio Gomelsky was looking for a ‘girl’ singer to record, she approached him at his club in Richmond, The Crawdaddy. While waiting for a suitable song for her, Gomelsky and organist Brian Auger started putting together a soul revue that would be called Steampacket. Julie was chosen as one of the frontline singers. In 1965, at the age of seventeen, she joined fellow vocalists Long John Baldry and Rod Stewart, Auger, bassist Rick Brown and drummer Mickey Waller. Julie Driscoll & the Brian Auger Trinity emerged out of Steampacket around 1966, when Baldry and Stewart left to pursue solo careers. The new group continued the revue format to considerable live success performing.
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#187: Beyond The Clouds by the Poppy Family
Peak Month: November 1968
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Beyond The Clouds”
Lyrics: “Beyond The Clouds”
Susan Pesklevits was born in 1948 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. When she was seven years old she was a featured singer on a local radio station. At the age of eight her family moved to the Fraser Valley town of Haney, British Columbia. When she was 13 years old she had her own radio show. In a December 1966 issue of the Caribou newspaper, the Quesnel Observer noted that Susan Pesklevits had auditioned for Music Hop in the summer of 1963 when she was only 15 years old. She had her first public performance at the Fall Fair in Haney when she was just 14 years old. It was noted she liked to ride horseback, ride motorcycles and attend the dramatic shows. Asked about what she could tell the folks in Quesnel about trends in Vancouver, Pesklevits had this to report, “the latest things in Vancouver are the hipster mini-skirts, bright colored suit slacks, and the tailored look. The newest sound is the “Acid Sound,” derived from L.S.D…. it is “pshodelic” which means it has a lot of fuzz tones and feed back. As an example, she gave “Frustration” recorded by the Painted Ship” a local band from Vancouver. Pesklevits added that on the West Coast “the latest dance is the Philly Dog. It mainly consists of two rows, one of girls and one of boys. The idea is to take steps, move in unison, while doing jerking motions and using a lot of hand movement.”
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#235: Susie Q by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Peak Month: October 1968
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Susie Q”
Lyrics: “Susie Q”
John Fogerty was born in 1945 in Berkeley, California. He was raised in nearby El Cerrito. He learned to play guitar in his youth. In 1959 John Fogerty, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford formed a trio named the Blue Velvets. Based in El Cerrito, California, just north of Berkeley, they were joined in 1960 by John’s brother, Tom, who had been in a band called The Playboys. The Blue Velvets were influenced by Little Richard and other rock ‘n roll greats. They played a number of hits on the radio and their cover of Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Want To Dance,” was an audience favorite. In 1964 the Blue Velvets changed their name to the Golliwogs. They had a Top Ten hit called “Brown Eyed Girl” in San Jose (#7), Fresno (#3) and Miami (#8) in the winter of 1965-66. It was a blues infused tune, but not the same-titled song that Van Morrison would take up the charts the following year.
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#242: Little Arrows by Leapy Lee
Peak Month: November 1968
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
2 weeks Hit Bound
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube: “Little Arrows”
Lyrics: “Little Arrows”
Graham Pulleyblank was born in Eastborne, East Sussex, England, in 1939. He began to sing in his teens and in the early 1960s took the stage name Leapy Lee. This was due to his first being nicknamed Leapy at school as “I was always a leaper.”At the age of 22 he released a single titled “It’s All Happening”. However, the song was a commercial failure. Four years later he released a cover of the Elvis Presley tune “King Of The Whole Wide World.”
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#257: The Inner Light by the Beatles
Peak Month: March 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #96
YouTube: “The Inner Light”
Lyrics: “The Inner Light”
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. He attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and met fellow classmates George Harrison on a school bus. When Paul was 14 his mom died from a blockage in one of her blood vessels. In his early teens McCartney learned to play trumpet, guitar and piano. He was left-handed and restrung the strings to make it work. In 1957, Paul met John Lennon and in October he was invited to join John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, which Lennon had founded in 1956. After Paul joined the group his suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. Other original members of the Quarrymen, Len Garry, Rod Davis, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Pete Shotton left the band when their set changed from skiffle to rock ‘n roll. John Duff Lowe, a friend of Paul’s from the Liverpool Institute, who had joined the Quarrymen in early 1958 left the band at the end of school. This left Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as remaining trio. On July 15, 1958, John Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident.
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#285: Delilah by Tom Jones
Peak Month: May 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Delilah”
Lyrics: “Delilah”
Thomas John Woodward was born in Wales in 1940. His father was a coal miner. Young Tom began singing at an early age and was in a children’s choir. At age 12 he had tuberculosis. While convalescing he spent more time developing an interest in music and listening to records. In 1963 he was the lead singer for the Welsh band Tommy Scott and the Senators. They had a record made with Tornados producer Joe Meek. In 1964 Jones was heard by a manager in the music industry based in London. Jones was brought to London and renamed Tom Jones. This was a strategy to get his attention after the successful musical Tom Jones won four Academy Awards in 1963, including Best Director and Best Picture.
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#288: Harper Valley PTA by Ricky Page
Peak Month: September 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Harper Valley PTA”
Lyrics: “Harper Valley PTA”
Ricky Page was born June Evelyn Kuykendall in 1929, in Lindsay, Oklahoma. She was one of five children. She recalled in an interview in 2005 that she began singing from the age of two. She remembers singing along to the radio, as her family couldn’t afford a record player. They also had hoe downs. She moved to Fresno, California, and worked at a Jewish Deli. It was there that she met George Motola, an LA producer of R&B singer Jessie Belvin, The Shields and other acts. Motola left her a five dollar tip for serving him a milkshake. They were subsequently married and she began to write songs credited to Riki Page. In 1957 Page was the only singer for a recording act billed as The Georgettes. When the Georgettes appeared in concert, several other women would be hired to perform though they were never at the recording studio. The Georgettes were named after George Motola who cowrote a rockabilly song “Love Like A Fool”. It made airplay in San Francisco and Los Angeles in November 1957. And in early 1958 charted to #15 in Buffalo, as well as Top 30 in Phoenix and Houston, and the Top 40 in Toronto.
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#349: San Francisco Girls by Fever Tree
Peak Month: July 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
2 weeks Hit Bound
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube: “San Francisco Girls”
Lyrics: “San Francisco Girls”
Dennis Keller was the lead vocalist of the psychedelic-rock band Fever Tree. On bass guitar was E.E. “Bud” Wolfe, the bands percussionist was John Tuttle, on lead guitar was Michael Knust. While multi-instrumentalist Rob Landes played cello, clavinet, flute, harp, harpsichord, organ, piano and recorder. The genesis of Fever Tree was a Houston, Texas, cover band called the Bostwick Vines. Back in the fall of 1965, teenagers Keller and Knust had been working on developing a band with a new sound. Keller and Knust were both from Spring Branch, Texas, a small town half an hour north from San Antonio.
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#375: The Straight Life by Bobby Goldsboro
Peak Month: December 1968
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube: “The Straight Life”
Lyrics: “The Straight Life”
Bobby Goldsboro was born in Mariana, Florida, in the Florida Panhandle in 1941. Shortly after his birth his family moved 35 miles north to Dothan, Alabama, where he was raised. Goldsboro learned is musical skills as he grew, by the age of twenty-one, Goldsboro became a guitarist for Roy Orbison. From 1962 to 1964 Goldsboro toured with Orbison, including the tour where The Beatles appeared as the opening act on the UK tour with Orbison as headliner. He roomed with Roy Orbison and they became close friends. In 1962, Goldsboro released his first of four singles on Laurie Records. Only one of these, “Molly,” made the Billboard Hot 100, and only marginally.
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#380: I Wanna Live by Glen Campbell
Peak Month: June 1968
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube: “I Wanna Live”
Lyrics: “I Wanna Live”
Glen Travis Campbell was born in 1936 in the village of Billstown, Arkansas. His dad was a sharecropper. He moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and at the age of 18 joined his uncle’s band, Dick Bills and the Sandia Mountain Boys. Campbell also had guest spots on a local KOB children’s TV show, K Circle B Time. In 1958, Campbell formed the Western Wranglers. In 1960 he moved to LA and joined The Champs of “Tequila” fame. Campbell also became a session musician in a group that would become known as The Wrecking Crew. During this time Glen Campbell played on recordings for Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and others. He recorded his first single in 1961 titled “Turn Around Look At Me.”
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#434: Never Going Back by the Lovin’ Spoonful
Peak Month: August 1968
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
YouTube: “Never Going Back”
Lyrics: “Never Going Back”
Bass player Steve Boone (born on Long Island) and drummer Joe Butler (born on Long Island in 1941) had been playing in a band called The Kingsmen based on Long Island in the early 1960’s. By 1964 their band (not to be confused with the Kingsmen from Washington State who had a hit with “Louie Louie”) were one of the top rock and roll bands on Long Island. Their live sets included folk songs put to a rock beat, pop standards and some new hits showcasing the British Invasion. Steve’s brother, Skip Boone, and several three other bandmates filled out the group. In 1964, Joe and Skip chose to relocate to Manhattan. They focused on writing original material and blending a rock bass and drums with their jug band sound. Three other bandmates chose not to move, except Steve Boone, who joined Joe and Skip in New York City’s Greenwich Village, the nexus of the folk music scene.
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#452: Master Jack by Four Jacks And A Jill
Peak Month: June 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
YouTube: “Master Jack”
Lyrics: “Master Jack”
Clive Harding was born in South Africa in 1944. At the age of eighteen he met Graham Woods in October 1962. Woods was in a band called The Atoms. Harding agreed to join the band if he could be the leader. The band changed their name to the Nevadas just before Graham Woods died from injuries sustained in a car crash in January 1963. Till Hannemann and Tony Hughes were among the new members of the ever-changing lineup in the Nevadas. The band changed their name again to the Zombies (different from the Zombies in the UK who had a hit called “She’s Not There”). The South African Zombies wore Beatles haircuts. At a concert in Cape Town the Zombies met Glenys Lynne Mynott who was a solo recording artist. She soon became a member of the Zombies, and shortly they changed their name to Glenys & the Zombies.
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#470: I Can Take Or Leave Your Lovin’ by Herman’s Hermits
Peak Month: February 1968
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube: “I Can Take Or Leave Your Loving”
Lyrics: “I Can Take Or Leave Your Loving”
Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone was born in a suburb of Manchester, England, in 1947. Keith Hopwood was born in 1946, in the same suburb of Davyhulme. Karl Anthony Green was born in 1947, also in Davyhulme. Derek “Lek” Leckenby was born in Leeds in 1943. Jan Barry Whitwam was born in 1946 in Manchester. Both Leckenby and Whitwam were members of a band called the Wailers who played covers by Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and other early rock recording artists. Peter Noone originally was in an amateur band called the Cyclones. He moved on to the Heartbeats in 1961, a Buddy Holly cover band. Just after he turned 14, Noone debuted on Coronation Street, playing the role of Stanley Fairclough starting in December 1961. In the fall of 1962 Herman’s Hermits was formed. Peter Noone was the lead vocalist. Karl Green played bass guitar. Keith Hopwood played rhythm guitar. “Lek” Leckenby played lead guitar and Barry Whitwam played drums.
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#473: Tuesday Afternoon by the Moody Blues
Peak Month: August 1968
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
YouTube: “Tuesday Afternoon”
Lyrics: “Tuesday Afternoon”
Born in 1941 in wartime England, Ray Thomas picked up harmonica at the age of nine. He was in the Birmingham Youth Choir and in October 1958 he joined a skiffle group called The Saints and Sinners. The band split up in June 1959. The Saints and Sinners helped Ray discover how well his vocals were received by audiences. Next, he formed El Riot and the Rebels, featuring Ray Thomas as El Riot dressed in a green satin Mexican toreador outfit. The band won a number of competitions in the Birmingham area. It was here that Ray became known for making an entrance onstage by sliding to center stage on his knees. On one occasion Thomas sent a row of potted tulips flying into the audience. El Riot and the Rebels appeared several times on a local variety show called Lunchbox. They made their debut on Lunchbox on November 14, 1962, and played “Guitar Tango” and “I Remember You”. Mike Pinder joined El Riot and the Rebels on keyboards. On April 15, 1963, El Riot and the Rebels performed at The Riverside Dancing Club in Tenbury Wells as the opening act for The Beatles. Pinder went off to serve in the British Army. When he returned, Thomas and Pinder left El Riot and the Rebels and formed a new band called the Krew Kats.
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#490: On The Road Again by Canned Heat
Peak Month: September 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube.com: “On The Road Again”
Lyrics: “On The Road Again”
Robert Ernest Hite was born in 1943 in Torrence, California. He took an interest in blues, rhythm & blues and rock ‘n roll by the early 50s. His record collection of 78 RPMs grew to over 15,000, which he liked to sing along with. Plump into his twenties, Hite was nicknamed “The Bear.” Alan Christie Wilson was also born in 1943, in Arlington, Massachusetts. He was part of a high school jazz ensemble and played trombone. But in 1959, at the age of sixteen, Wilson turned his attention to the blues after he heard The Best of Muddy Waters album. Inspired by Little Walter (“My Babe”), Wilson began to play the harmonica. In 1964, blues legend Mississippi John Hurt performed at Cafe Yana in Cambridge (MA). Alan Wilson was invited to come on stage and accompany Hurt. At the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, Alan Wilson was able to interact with bluesman Skip James. It was from James he learned high-pitched blues singing which he later employed while singing “On The Road Again” and “Going Up The Country”.
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#492: Words by the Bee Gees
Peak Month: March 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube.com: “Words”
Lyrics: “Words”
Barry Alan Crompton Gibb was born in 1946 on the Isle of Man. Maurice Ernest Gibb and Robin Hugh Gibb were twins born on December 22, 1949, also on the Isle of Man. In 1955 Barry, who had learned to play guitar, convinced his younger twin brothers to form a skiffle band as vocalists, that he named The Rattlesnakes. Barry also got his young neighbors, Paul Frost (drums) and Kenny Horrocks (bass) to join. The Rattlesnakes played songs by Tommy Steele, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Paul Anka, Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. In 1958, during a performance the Gibb brothers sang as a trio for the first time, performing the Chordettes Top Ten hit “Lollipop”. But The Rattlesnakes had to disband in the summer of ’58 when Gibbs parents announced that the family was moving to Australia.
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#535: She’s A Rainbow by the Rolling Stones
Peak Month: January 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com: “She’s A Rainbow”
Lyrics: “She’s A Rainbow”
Michael Philip Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent, England, in 1943, some 18 miles east of London. Though his father and grandfather were both teachers by profession, and he was encouraged to be a teacher, the boy had different aspirations. “I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just liked to sing. Some kids sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio–the BBC or Radio Luxembourg –or watching them on TV and in the movies.” In 1950 Mick Jagger met Keith Richards while attending primary school. They became good friends until the summer of 1954 when the Jagger family moved to the village of Wilmington, a mile south of Dartford. The pair bumped into each other at a train station in 1961 and resumed their friendship.
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#554: Home From The Forest by Ronnie Hawkins
Peak Month: January 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Home From The Forest”
Lyrics: “Home From The Forest”
Ronnie Hawkins was born in Huntsville, Arkansas, on January 10, 1935, two days after Elvis Presley. Hawkins’ mother was a teacher; his father, a barber. Known affectionately over the years as “Mr. Dynamo,” “Sir Ronnie,” “Rompin’ Ronnie,” and “The Hawk,” Hawkins’ love of music started in high school. He formed the first version of his band The Hawks while studying at the University of Arkansas in the 1950s. Ronnie remembers, he’d commandeer an old gas station on Dickson street for rehersals. “We’d unplug their outside Coke machine and plug in our instruments,” Hawkins said. “They had the warmest Cokes in town.” In 1958, on the recommendation of Conway Twitty – who considered Canada to be the promised land for a rock’n roll singer – Hawkins came to Hamilton, Ontario to play a club called The Grange. He never left. Adopting Canada as his home, Hawkins became a permanent resident in 1964. In 1958 he released his first single, “Hey, Bo Diddley”. This was followed the next year by “Mary Lou”, which turned Hawkins into a teenage idol, along with “Forty Days”. In 1959, Morris Levy signed Hawkins to Roulette Records for five years. Levy tried to lure him back to the United States, but Hawkins had fallen in love with Canada and didn’t want to leave his new home.
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#602: The Unknown Soldier by The Doors
Peak Month: May 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube.com: “The Unknown Soldier”
Lyrics: “The Unknown Soldier”
The Doors were a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles featuring Jim Morrison on vocals, Robbie Kreiger on guitar, Ray Manzarek on keyboards and drummer John Densmore. In 1965 Morrison and Manzarek were UCLA film students. They met each other for the first time on Venice Beach. Morrison had graduated and was living a vagabond life, sleeping on the beach, taking drugs and writing poetry. Morrison told Manzarek, “I was taking notes at a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll concert going on in my head.” Then he sang “Moonlight Drive” to Manzarek. Discovering their addition interest in music, the two decided to form a band. Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne (FL) in 1943. He was the oldest child and his father was a U.S. Naval officer. Morrison suggested the name of the band. It came from the novel by Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. Huxley’s novel, in turn, drew inspiration from poet William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” In that poem Blake writes: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The Doors signed a record contract with Columbia Records in the winter of 1965-66.
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#609: A Man Without Love by Engelbert Humperdinck
Peak Month: July 1968
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “A Man Without Love”
Lyrics: “A Man Without Love”
Arnold George Dorsey was born in 1936 in city of Madras (now Chennai) during the British Raj. His father was a British Army officer and the family returned to England in 1946. It was only in 1954 he first sang in public at a pub contest. He was conscripted into the British Army in 1955 and after being discharged he recorded his first record. Billed as George Dorsey, his debut single was Decca Records was “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”. He worked in nightclubs until 1961 when he suffered from tuberculosis. In 1965 his former roommate, Gordon Mills, had become the manager of Tom Jones. Mills suggested Dorsey change his name to Engelbert Humperdinck, after a 19th Century German composer.
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#614: The Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp by O.C. Smith
Peak Month: March 1968
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube.com: “Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp”
“Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp” lyrics
Ocie Lee Smith was born in Mansfield, Louisiana, in 1932. Mansfield was the site of a battle in 1864 where Confederate troops turned away Union troops from their conquest of the state capitol of Shreveport. Smith’s parents divorced in his and he decided to move to Los Angeles. According to his biography, Little Green Apples, Smith didn’t want to become a farmer like his father. After finishing his senior year in college he came back home. Within days he climbed on his mule, headed toward the freight train passing by, tied the mule to a nearby tree, hopped aboard a train and left Leesville, Louisiana, where the family then resided. According to Ocie “if nobody has gone down to untie that mule, he is still standing there, tied to that tree.” He joined the U.S. Air Force in July 1951 and was stationed in Europe and several bases in the USA. While stationed in Alaska for fifteen months Smith won first prize in a talent contest.
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#618: Louisiana Man by Bobbie Gentry
Peak Month: May 1968
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #100
YouTube.com: “Louisiana Man”
Lyrics: “Louisiana Man”
In August 2017, Rolling Stone magazine celebrated the 50 year anniversary of Bobbie Gentry climbing into the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Writer Tara Murtha described the scenario. “In July of 1967, Capitol Records released “Ode to Billie Joe,” a spooky wisp of a song by an unknown artist named Bobbie Gentry. Industry wisdom said “Ode” was too dark, too long, too different to get played on the radio. It was a smash hit. With no special promotion, the song unexpectedly climbed up the charts past the Doors, Aretha Franklin and the Beatles, ultimately knocking “All You Need is Love” out of the Number One spot. By August, the mysterious tale of Billie Joe McAllister jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge was ubiquitous, the inescapable sound of the darkening days of the so-called Summer of Love.”
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#627: Too Much Talk by Paul Revere And The Raiders
Peak Month: March 1968
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “Too Much Talk”
Lyrics: “Too Much Talk”
A band called The Downbeats formed in Boise, Idaho, in 1958. Paul Revere Dick started the band originally as an instrumental group. They had their first chart single in Vancouver in 1960. It was an instrumental riff on the piano tune, Chopsticks, which they titled “Beatnik Sticks”. They changed their name to Paul Revere And The Raiders in 1960. Between 1960 and 1976 they released 41 singles. They charted five songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA. These included “Kicks”, and “Hungry” (1966), “Him Or Me – What’s It Gonna Be?” (1967) and their cover of Don Fardon’s 1968 single “Indian Reservation,” which peaked at #1 for the band in 1971. They were even more popular in Vancouver where they charted over fifteen songs into the Top Ten on the local charts here on the West Coast.
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#877: The Happy Song by Otis Redding
Peak Month: June 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position: #5
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com link: “The Happy Song”
Lyrics: “The Happy Song (Dum Dum)”
Otis Ray Redding Jr. was born in Dawson, Georgia, in 1941. At the age of two he moved to Macon, Georgia. His dad was a sharecropper and subsequently worked at the Air Force base at Macon. In his childhood he sang at a local African-American church choir and learned to play the guitar and piano. While he was a teenager, Otis performed gospel songs on Sundays on a local radio station, WIBB, earning $6 for each appearance. When his father got tuberculosis in 1956, Otis quit school to earn extra cash for his family. He worked as a well digger and a gas station hop. In 1958 he won a $5 prize at a teenage talent contest fifteen weeks in a row. In 1958 he joined Pat T. Cake and the Mighty Panthers and toured the chitlin circuit in the Deep South. Soon afterward, he joined the Upsetters to replace Little Richard who had given up rock ‘n roll for religion.
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#1355: Ride My See-Saw by The Moody Blues
Peak Month: November 1968
5 weeks on CKLGs Vancouver Charts
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #61
YouTube.com: “Ride My See-Saw”
Lyrics: “Ride My See-Saw”
Born in 1941 in wartime England, Ray Thomas picked up harmonica at the age of nine. He was in the Birmingham Youth Choir and in October 1958 he joined a skiffle group called The Saints and Sinners. The band split up in June 1959. The Saints and Sinners helped Ray discover how well his vocals were received by audiences. Next, he formed El Riot and the Rebels, featuring Ray Thomas as El Riot dressed in a green satin Mexican toreador outfit. The band won a number of competitions in the Birmingham area. It was here that Ray became known for making an entrance onstage by sliding to center stage on his knees. On one occasion Thomas sent a row of potted tulips flying into the audience. El Riot and the Rebels appeared several times on a local variety show called Lunchbox. They made their debut on Lunchbox on November 14, 1962, and played “Guitar Tango” and “I Remember You”. Mike Pinder joined El Riot and the Rebels on keyboards. On April 15, 1963, El Riot and the Rebels performed at The Riverside Dancing Club in Tenbury Wells as the opening act for The Beatles. Pinder went off to serve in the British Army. When he returned, Thomas and Pinder left El Riot and the Rebels and formed a new band called the Krew Kats.
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#726: Call Me Lightning by The Who
Peak Month: April 1968
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #5
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube.com: “Call Me Lightning”
Lyrics: “Call Me Lightning”
The Who are an English band who emerged in 1964 with singer Roger Daltry, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. The band enjoyed popular singles, such as “I Can See For Miles”, “Pinball Wizard” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. In Vancouver the band had eleven Top Ten hits, while in the UK they charted fourteen singles into the Top Ten. But in America they only charted one single into the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100, “I Can See For Miles”. The band were innovators of new genres in rock n’ roll with their rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia. The Who early on were known for outlandish antics on stage. At the Railway Hotel in Wealdstone, England, in June, 1964, Peter Townshend destroyed his guitar on stage and smashed it into other instruments. The Who stand alongside The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as among the most influential rock bands from Britain. They had their first Top Ten single in the UK and in Vancouver in 1965 titled “I Can’t Explain”, which peaked at #8 in the UK and #2 in Vancouver.
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#739: The Snake by Al Wilson
Peak Month: August 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube.com link: “The Snake”
Lyrics: “The Snake”
Allen LaMar “Al” Wilson was born in 1939 in Meridian, Mississippi. By the age of twelve he was singing in gospel choirs. Meridian, Mississippi, was the same hometown where James Chaney, the Civil Rights worker who’s killing, along with two others, led to the infamous “Mississippi Burning” trial. Young Al Wilson was friends with James Chaney and the Wilson family knew the cost of living in segregated Mississippi. Alene Wilson-Harris, a daughter of Wilson, said of her father’s upbringing: “My father, well, he grew up in a very volatile time for a young black man. And, he was, unfortunately, in a position to have to know what it was to actually leave a place because there were life-threatening circumstances and hardships and all of those type of things in order to try and make a life for yourself somewhere else where those factors didn’t exist.”
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#748: Autumn Of My Life by Bobby Goldsboro
Peak Month: August 1968
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “Autumn Of My Life”
Lyrics: “Autumn Of My Life”
Bobby Goldsboro was born in Mariana, Florida, in the Florida Panhandle in 1941. Shortly after his birth his family moved 35 miles north to Dothan, Alabama, where he was raised. Goldsboro learned is musical skills as he grew, by the age of twenty-one, Goldsboro became a guitarist for Roy Orbison. From 1962 to 1964 Goldsboro toured with Orbison, including the tour where The Beatles appeared as the opening act on the UK tour with Orbison as headliner. He roomed with Roy Orbison and they became close friends. In 1962, Goldsboro released his first of four singles on Laurie Records. Only one of these, “Molly,” made the Billboard Hot 100, and only marginally.
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#754: Down At Lulu’s by The Ohio Express
Peak Month: August 1968
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #33
YouTube.com: “Down At Lulu’s”
Lyrics: “Down At Lulu’s”
The Ohio Express was a brand name for a group of studio musicians in New York City with lead vocals on the single releases from 1968 to 1969 by Joey Levine. At the same time the musicians who toured as the Ohio Express appearing live in concert were a different group altogether. In 1967, Super K Productions arranged a contract with a rock group from Mansfield, Ohio, called Sir Timothy and the Royals. With no group available to promote the debut singles by The Ohio Express (as they were anonymous studio musicians in New York City) Sir Timothy and the Royals became the touring band for Ohio Express concerts. The live and in concert version of The Ohio Express was made up of rhythm guitarist Doug Grassel, vocalist and lead guitar player Dale Powers, bass player Dean Kastran, keyboard player Jim Pfahler and drummer Tim Corwin. The Ohio Express’ debut single, “Beg, Borrow And Steal,” was actually a re-mix of the Rare Breed recording from 1966. Rare Breed were also a group of anonymous studio musicians in New York City and the Rare Breed name for the studio musicians became obsolete by 1967.
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#757: Skip A Rope by Henson Cargill
Peak Month: March 1968
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com: “Skip A Rope”
Lyrics: “Skip A Rope”
Henson Cargill was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His grandfather was a liberal mayor elected several times in the 1920’s who was opposed to the Ku Klux Klan. Henson Cargill studied veterinary medicine at a state university in Fort Collins, Colorado. Returning to Oklahoma City, he eventually became a deputy sheriff. At that time he was invited to play with a group called The Kimberleys. In 1962 he became the host of a TV show called Country Hayride. This led to an opportunity to record some songs in Nashville in 1967. One of these songs had been passed over by other recording artists. The name of the song was “Skip A Rope”.
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#762: Morning Dew by Lulu
Peak Month: September 1968
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #4
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #52
YouTube.com: “Morning Dew”
Lyrics: “Morning Dew”
Born in 1948 as Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, Lulu is a singer and actress from Scotland. In a 2015 interview with the Telegraph in the UK, she said “I’ve been one of the luckiest people but I’ve been thrown from pillar to post, emotionally. I’ve dealt with demons, sadness … anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. I wasn’t happy. I don’t want people to really see me, I don’t want you to see my pain, I don’t want to have to tell you about the angst and craziness going on in my head. And I was trained to do that, as a very young girl. I’ve always tried not to be vulnerable. I’m fine, that’s what I always say. I’m fine. Let me tell you what my brother says FINE means? F—ing Incapable of Normal Expression!” She told reported Neil McCormick that her emotional roller coaster ride stems from her childhood.
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#786: Bitter Green by Gordon Lightfoot
Peak Month: December 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Bitter Green”
Lyrics: “Bitter Green”
Gordon Meridith Lightfoot Jr. was born in Orillia, Ontario, on November 17, 1938. His parents, Jessica and Gordon Lightfoot Sr., ran a dry cleaning business. His mother noticed young Gordon had some musical talent and the boy soprano first performed in grade four at his elementary school. He sang the Irish lullaby “Too Ra Loo Rah Loo Rah” at a parents’ day. As a member of the St. Paul’s United Church choir in Orillia, Lightfoot gained skill and needed confidence in his vocal abilities under the choir director, Ray Williams. Lightfoot went on to perform at Toronto’s Massey Hall at the age of twelve when he won a competition for boys who were still boy sopranos. During his teen years Gordon Lightfoot learned to play piano, drums and guitar.
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#794: 1941 by Tom Northcott
Peak Month: February 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #88
1 week Hit Bound
YouTube.com: “1941”
Lyrics: “1941″
Tom Northcott is a Vancouver folk-rock singer with hits on the local pop charts from the mid-60s into the early 70s. He became known to a Canadian audience by his regular appearances on CBC Television’s Let’s Go music program in 1964-68. He was nominated as best male vocalist for a Juno Award in 1971. Later he co-founded Mushroom Studios in Vancouver and produced records. His hits are played regularly on Canadian oldies music stations.
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#795: Choo Choo Train by The Box Tops
Peak Month: July 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #26
1 week Hit Bound
YouTube.com “Choo Choo Train”
Lyrics: “Choo Choo Train”
William Alexander Chilton was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1950. His parents were both musicians who performed jazz in the Memphis area and recorded several records. Alex was influenced by the music scene and when he was at Central High School he entered a talent contest. At the age of 15 he was invited to join a band called Ronnie and the Devilles. To avoid confusion with another band from New York that went by the same name, they chose to call themselves the Box Tops. The founder of the group was drummer, Danny Smythe. Other bandmates were Garry Taley who played electric sitar, lead guitar, bass guitar and was a backing vocalist. Bill Cunningham provided backing vocals, bass guitar and keyboards. John Evans played guitar, keyboards and also was a backing vocalist. In addition to being lead singer, Chilton played guitar. Bill Cunningham’s brother, B.B. Cunningham Jr., was lead vocalist for another Memphis band called The Hombres, who had a hit in the fall of 1967 titled “Let It All Hang Out”. But keeping The Hombres out of the #1 spot on the pop charts was the Box Tops debut single, “The Letter”.
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#797: Black Day In July by Gordon Lightfoot
Peak Month: May 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
1 week Hit Bound
YouTube.com: “Black Day In July”
Lyrics: “Black Day In July”
Gordon Meridith Lightfoot Jr. was born in Orillia, Ontario, on November 17, 1938. His parents, Jessica and Gordon Lightfoot Sr., ran a dry cleaning business. His mother noticed young Gordon had some musical talent and the boy soprano first performed in grade four at his elementary school. He sang the Irish lullaby “Too Ra Loo Rah Loo Rah” at a parents’ day. As a member of the St. Paul’s United Church choir in Orillia, Lightfoot gained skill and needed confidence in his vocal abilities under the choir director, Ray Williams. Lightfoot went on to perform at Toronto’s Massey Hall at the age of twelve when he won a competition for boys who were still boy sopranos. During his teen years Gordon Lightfoot learned to play piano, drums and guitar.
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#841: Love Me Two Times by The Doors
Peak Month: January 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com link: “Love Me Two Times”
Lyrics: “Love Me Two Times”
The Doors were a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles featuring Jim Morrison on vocals, Robbie Kreiger on guitar, Ray Manzarek on keyboards and drummer John Densmore. In 1965 Morrison and Manzarek were UCLA film students. They met each other for the first time on Venice Beach. Morrison had graduated and was living a vagabond life, sleeping on the beach, taking drugs and writing poetry. Morrison told Manzarek, “I was taking notes at a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll concert going on in my head.” Then he sang “Moonlight Drive” to Manzarek. Discovering their addition interest in music, the two decided to form a band. Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne (FL) in 1943. He was the oldest child and his father was a U.S. Naval officer. Morrison suggested the name of the band. It came from the novel by Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. Huxley’s novel, in turn, drew inspiration from poet William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” In that poem Blake writes: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The Doors signed a record contract with Columbia Records in the winter of 1965-66.
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#842: Money by The Lovin’ Spoonful
Peak Month: January 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #48
YouTube.com link: “Money”
Lyrics: “Money”
Bass player Steve Boone (born on Long Island) and drummer Joe Butler (born on Long Island in 1941) had been playing in a band called The Kingsmen based on Long Island in the early 1960’s. By 1964 their band (not to be confused with the Kingsmen from Washington State who had a hit with “Louie Louie”) were one of the top rock and roll bands on Long Island. Their live sets included folk songs put to a rock beat, pop standards and some new hits showcasing the British Invasion. Steve’s brother, Skip Boone, and several three other bandmates filled out the group. In 1964 Joe and Skip chose to relocate to Manhattan. They focused on writing original material and blending a rock bass and drums with their jug band sound. Three other bandmates chose not to move, except Steve Boone, who joined Joe and Skip in New York City’s Greenwich Village, the nexus of the folk music scene.
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#844: And Suddenly by the Cherry People
Peak Month: September 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube.com link: “And Suddenly”
Lyrics: “And Suddenly”
Harry Lookofsky was a trained violinist who ran a small recording studio in New York City. His son, Michael, had an aptitude for music and became his production assistant at the studio. Michael Lookofsky changed his name to Michael Brown. He gathered together some other musicians, including Bert Sommer and Estaban “Steve” Martin Caro. They created a Baroque Pop band featuring the harpsichord, and called themselves The Left Banke. Caro became the lead vocalist. The Left Banke’s first single was a Top Ten hit titled “Walk Away Renee”. Their follow up single, “Pretty Ballerina”, climbed to #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #4 in Vancouver. Michael Brown wanted to stay at home and write songs, like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. But the other members headed out on tours of college campuses and Brown released “Ivy Ivy”. The B-side was titled “And Suddenly.” Bert Sommer sang lead on both sides. Sommer went on to perform in the Broadway musical Hair. He was one of the performers on the opening night of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains. Bert Sommers wrote “We’re All Playing in the Same Band” while at Woodstock and later it was a minor hit single for him. Michael Brown left the band in 1967 and formed The Stories in 1970, but left just before their million seller, “Brother Louie”, was released in 1973.
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#879: Do Something To Me by Tommy James And The Shondells
Peak Month: November 1968
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #38
YouTube.com: “Do Something To Me”
Lyrics: “Do Something To Me”
Thomas Gregory Jackson was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1947. From infancy his mother recalled the only thing she could do to stop him from crying was to turn on the radio where he’d listen to the music. Living in South Bend, Indiana, when he was ten Tommy got his first guitar. When he was fourteen, he formed a rock ‘n roll band called the Tornadoes. They were the namesake of a popular instrumental group from the UK who had a #1 hit that year titled “Telstar“. The family moved to Niles, Michigan, and at the age of 17 Tommy was going by the stage name of Tommy James. He was the lead singer of The Shondells. In 1964, they recorded a B-side recorded in 1963 by The Raindrops called the “Hanky Panky”. The song was composed by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich of Brill Building fame. Tommy James’ version charted well in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana. However, Snap Records had no national distribution, so the single failed to chart elsewhere.
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#884: Tapioca Tundra by The Monkees
Peak Month: April 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #34
YouTube.com: “Tapioca Tundra”
Lyrics: “Tapioca Tundra”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won the San Antonio College talent award, performing folk songs and writing his own songs. By 1963, he had moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He also was hosting a hootenanny at the Troubador in West Hollywood, as the “hootmaster.” Nesmith released a 45 single titled “Wandering'”, which he penned. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in late 1967.
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#902: I Put A Spell On You by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Peak Month: December 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #58
1 week Hitbound
YouTube.com: “I Put A Spell On You”
Lyrics: “I Put A Spell On You”
In 1959 John Fogerty, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford formed a trio named the Blue Velvets. Based in El Cerrito, California, just north of Berkeley, they were joined in 1960 by John’s brother, Tom, who had been in a band called The Playboys. The Blue Velvets were influenced by Little Richard and other rock ‘n roll greats. They played a number of hits on the radio and their cover of Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Want To Dance,” was an audience favorite. In 1964 the Blue Velvets changed their name to the Golliwogs. They had a Top Ten hit called “Brown Eyed Girl” in San Jose (#7), Fresno (#3) and Miami (#8) in the winter of 1965-66. It was a blues infused tune, but not the same-titled song that Van Morrison would take up the charts the following year.
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#908: Lydia Purple by The Collectors
Peak Month: July 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
1 week Hitbound on CKLG
YouTube.com: “Lydia Purple”
Lyrics: “Lydia Purple”
The Vancouver rock band The Collectors, was formerly named The Classics who were a Vancouver group led by Howie Vickers in the mid-60s. The Classics were part of the regular line-up on Let’s Go, a show on CBC TV. Though the Classics released several singles the group needed room to grow and reformed as The Collectors. They would become one of the most innovative of Vancouver’s recording acts through the rest 60s. In the spring of 1967, Vickers was asked to put together a house band at the Torch Cabaret in Vancouver. Along with Claire Lawrence on horns, they recruited guitarist Terry Frewer, drummer Ross Turney and Brian Newcombe on bass. Within a couple of months, fellow Classics member Glenn Miller replaced Newcombe on bass and Bill Henderson, a student at UBC, replaced Frewer on guitars. With Vickers now handling vocals, their sound changed from doing covers of R&B tunes to psychedelic rock. This led them to gigs along the Canadian and US west coast. Their strongest fan base in America was in California. There audiences welcomed their complex arrangements mixed with harmonies and extended solos and musical ad-libs.
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#919: Here’s To You by Hamilton Camp
Peak Month: June 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #76
1 week Hitbound CKLG, April 20, 1968
YouTube.com: “Here’s To You”
Lyrics: “Here’s To You”
Bob Camp was born in London, England, in 1934. His family moved to the United States during World War II. At the age of twelve he got his first part in a motion picture called Bedlam, a B-horror movie starring Boris Karloff. Camp got cast as a shoeshine boy in Outrage in 1950, the second film out of Hollywood concerning a plot about rape. He played in the film noire classic from 1950, Dark City, and in another horror film, The Son of Dr. Jekyll. Over a career in film from 1946 to the mid-2000’s, he played in sixty movies. Some of the actors played alongside over his with include Errol Flynn, Robert Preston, Charlton Heston, Jack Webb, Olivia de Havilland, Richard Burton,Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner, William Holden, Fredric March, Shelley Winters, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Tommy Sands, Pat Boone, Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Jim Backus, Ryan O’Neal, Tatum O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Billy Crystal, Joan Rivers, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Christopher Plummer, Art Carney, Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Julie Andrews, Larry Hagman, Stockyard Channing, David Carradine, Demi Moore, Nick Nolte, Ed Harris, Tim Robbins, Clint Eastwood, Madeline Kahn, Mickey Rooney, Forest Whitaker, Al Pacino, Madonna, Catherine O’Hara and others.
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#922: 1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero by Bobby Russell
Peak Month: November 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
1 week Hitbound on CKLG
YouTube.com: “1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero”
Lyrics: “1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero”
Robert L. Russell was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1941. As he grew up Nashville was becoming a city known for country and pop music. In 1958, when he was 17-years-old, Bobby Russell recorded “The Raven”, backed with “She’s Gonna Be Sorry”. It was a rockabilly number backed with his group, The Impollos. It was not a hit. But his second release, “Dum Diddle”, another rockabilly number, made the Top 30 in Des Moines, Iowa, in the spring of 1959. He kept on releasing solo records and in 1966 his single, “Friends And Mirrors”, got airplay in several states across the USA and Australia. It also made the Top 40 in Edmonton (AB) and Montreal.
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#924: What’s It Gonna Be by Dusty Springfield
Peak Month: January 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #49
YouTube.com: “What’s It Gonna Be”
Lyrics: “What’s It Gonna Be”
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born in West Hampstead in north London, in 1939. Along with her oldest brother, Dion, she recorded her first tape of a song they sang while still children. Her dad was an unhappy accountant who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but never became one. While Mary’s mother, according to the Karen Bartlett autobiography, Dusty: An Intimate Portrait, “was continuously drunk and sat all day in cinemas.”As she grew up, Mary went to school at a Roman Catholic Convent. At the age of 18 she became a member of a female group named the Lana Sisters. The group sang backup to pop singer Al Saxton who had several Top 30 hits in the late 50’s in the UK, including a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Only Sixteen” and “You’re The Top Cha”. While Saxton enjoyed his moments of fame, Mary teamed up with her brother, Dion, and a friend of theirs named Tim Field. By the end of 1959 she had taken the stage name of Dusty Springfield. The trio, now known as The Springfields, got a record deal with Philips Records in 1961.
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#940: You Ain’t Going Nowhere by The Byrds
Peak Month: June 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #74
1 week Hitbound ~ CKLG May 11, 1968
YouTube.com: “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”
Lyrics: “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”
Around 1963 a folk trio that named itself the Jet Set, consisted of Roger McGuinn on vocals and lead guitar, Gene Clark on vocals tambour and rhythm guitar and David Crosby on vocals and rhythm guitar. In 1964 the trio released a single that was a commercial failure and credited to The Beefeaters. They added bass (and mandolin) player Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke and became The Byrds. They offered up a fusion of folk-rock and became an instant hit with two #1 hits in Vancouver and the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965: “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn”. The former was written by Bob Dylan and the latter by Pete Seeger. A single between their #1 hits was another Dylan tune titled “All I Really Want To Do“. The Byrds were perennial favorites in Vancouver who consistently had better chart runs in Vancouver than back in their home country of America. Aside from their two #1 hits, they failed to chart other songs into the Billboard Hot 100. But in Vancouver they charted ten songs into the Top Ten.
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#961: Girl From The North Country by Tom Northcott
Peak Month: August 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Plus 1 week Hitbound on CKLG
YouTube.com: “Girl From The North Country”
Lyrics: “Girl From The North Country”
Tom Northcott is a Vancouver folk-rock singer with hits on the local pop charts from the mid-60s into the early 70s. He became known to a Canadian audience by his regular appearances on CBC Television’s Let’s Go music program in 1964-68. He was nominated as best male vocalist for a Juno Award in 1971. Later he co-founded Mushroom Studios in Vancouver and produced records. His hits are played regularly on Canadian oldies music stations.
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#970: Red Red Wine by Neil Diamond
Peak Month: May 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
1 week Hitbound on CKLG
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube.com: “Red Red Wine”
Lyrics: “Red Red Wine”
Neil Leslie Diamond was born in Brooklyn in 1941. His parents were Russian and Polish immigrants and both Jewish. His dad was a dry-goods merchant. When he was in high school he met Barbra Streisand in a Freshman Chorus and Choral Club. Years later they would become friends. When he was sixteen Diamond was sent to a Jewish summer camp called Surprise Lake Camp in upstate New York. While there he heard folk singer, Pete Seeger, perform in concert. That year Diamond got a guitar and, influenced by Pete Seeger, began to write poems and song lyrics. While he was in his Senior year in high school, Sunbeam Music Publishing gave Neil Diamond an initial four month contract composing songs for $50 a week (US $413 in 2017 dollars). and he dropped out of college to accept it.
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#996: A Question Of Temperature by The Balloon Farm
Peak Month: April 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube.com: “A Question Of Temperature”
Lyrics: “A Question Of Temperature”
Before The Balloon Farm formed, Don Henny and Ed Schnug first played together in a band called Adam, which made one single for the Mala label entitled “Eve” in 1966. Adam’s gimmick was that all four members of the group adopted the first name of Adam: Adam Taylor, Adam Dawson, Adam Schnug and Adam London. After the band named Adam disbanded, Henny and Schnug were joined by Mike Appel and Jay Saks and adopted the name The Balloon Farm. They took the name from a New York City nightclub.
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#1072: Mr. Soul Satisfaction by Timmy Willis
Peak Month: February 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Mr. Soul Satisfaction”
Timmy Willis was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in further south in Columbus. His debut single was “Mr. Soul Satisfaction”. The song was written by George McGregor, a producer/arranger in Detroit. McGregor released his own single in 1967 called “Temptation Is Hard to Fight“, billed as George McGregor and the Bronzettes. Though McGregor’s song was not a hit, it was featured decades later on an episode of Mad Men. As for “Mr. Soul Satisfaction,” the song was released on UA/Veep records. “Mr. Soul Satisfaction” was not like the typical sound coming out of Detroit in 1967. The song resembled material that Otis Redding was putting out and had more of a Memphis/Stax sound. “Mr. Soul Satisfaction” got some attention in the R&B scene in the UK as it was also released there. Timmy Willis also had releases on Jubilee and Epic.
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#1208: Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife ~ Glen Campbell/Wayne Newton
Peak Month: August 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32 (Campbell)/#60 (Newton)
YouTube.com: “Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife” Glen Campbell
YouTube.com: “Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife” Wayne Newton
Lyrics: “Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife”
Glen Travis Campbell was born in 1936 in the village of Billstown, Arkansas. His dad was a sharecropper. He moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and at the age of 18 joined his uncle’s band, Dick Bills and the Sandia Mountain Boys. Campbell also had guest spots on a local KOB children’s TV show, K Circle B Time. In 1958, Campbell formed the Western Wranglers. In 1960 he moved to LA and joined The Champs of “Tequila” fame. Campbell also became a session musician in a group that would become known as The Wrecking Crew. During this time Glen Campbell played on recordings for Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and others. He recorded his first single in 1961 titled “Turn Around Look At Me“. In the mid-60’s Campbell appeared as a regular on Shindig! and Hollywood Jamboree. He also was a studio musician for The Beach Boys 1966 album, Pet Sounds, and for four months was a member of The Beach Boys and went on tour with them when Brian Wilson was ill. That same year Campbell was part of a backing band for Rick Nelson on a tour of the Far East.
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#1424: I Wish I Knew by Solomon Burke
Peak Month: May 1968
5 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68
YouTube.com link: “I Wish I Knew” Solomon Burke
“I Wish I Knew“Billy Taylor Trio
In 1940 James Solomon McDonald was born in his grandmother’s home in a row house in West Philadelphia. Burke was the child of Josephine Moore and an absentee father. His mother Josephine was a nurse, schoolteacher, concert performer and pastor. Burke was consecrated a bishop at birth by his grandmother in the Solomon’s Temple, a congregation of the United House of Prayer for All People, which she founded at her home in Black Bottom, West Philadelphia. When Burke was nine, his mother married rabbi and butcher Vincent Burke and had James Solomon McDonald had his name changed to Solomon Vincent McDonald Burke.
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#1116: Suddenly You Love Me by The Tremeloes
Peak Month: April 1968
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube.com: “Suddenly You Love Me”
Lyrics: “Suddenly You Love Me”
In 1956 at Park Modern Secondary School in Barking, Essex, two school mates, Brian Poole and Alan Blakley, started a band. On family holidays together, they’d tell their parents about their dreams of being on TV. They learned a couple of tunes by Buddy Holly and Everly Brothers, got two acoustic Hofner guitars, and asked their saxophone and bass playing school mate, Alan Howard to join them. Once they started performing at local parties, they met drummer Dave Munden, who soon joined them. Soon Alan Blakley, Dave Munden and Brian Poole found that they could harmonise any song they wanted to and developed a style of their own, with all of them singing and playing and Alan Howard on bass guitar. At this time they did not have a name but soon opted for Tremilos after the sound on the new amplifiers which they could not yet afford. In time, the lead guitarist from Joe & The Teems, Ricky West, was added to the band in 1960. They began touring and got a BBC spot on Saturday Club. Dave Munden, Brian Poole and Alan Blakley were also being hired on as a backing vocalists for session work by Decca Records on numerous hit records for Tommy Steele, Delbert McClinton, US Bonds, Clyde McPhatter, Jet Harris & Tony Meehan and the Vernon Girls and others.
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#1146: Dear Delilah by Grapefruit
Peak Month: March 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube.com: “Dear Delilah”
Lyrics: “Dear Delilah”
In 1938, Alexander Young was born in Glasgow, Scotland. When he was 25 years old, his family moved to Sydney, Australia. But Alexander, who had developed talents as a singer, songwriter, saxophonist, bassist and guitarist, chose to stay in the UK. He sought out ways to advance his musical career, including becoming a session musician. He adopted the stage name George Alexander, and was a member of the Bobby Patrick Big Six. Young’s family were very musical. One of his younger brothers, George Young, formed a band called The Easybeats who had an international hit in 1966 called “Friday On My Mind”. His much younger brothers, Malcolm (born 1953) and Angus (born 1955) founded the hard rock group AC/DC.
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#1397: Time For Everyone by Northwest Company
Peak Month: September 1968
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
The Northwest Company was a band in the Fraser Valley from the town of Haney, about 25 miles east of Vancouver. The bands members were bass player Gowan Jurgensen, lead vocalist Rick McCartie, lead guitar and vocalist Ray O’Toole, rhythm guitar player Vidor Skofteby and on drums and vocals, Richard Stepp who was from Sicamous, British Columbia. Before moving to Vancouver in his late teens, Richard Stepp had been a paid musician in two Sicamous area bands called the Esquires and the Rebels. McCartie had been lead vocalist, and Richard Stepp the drummer, with the short-lived Vancouver band, The Questions, in 1965-66 (a group that won the Battle of the Bands in 1965 at the Pacific National Exhibition). The Northwest Company was originally named the Bad Boys. This was named after The Bad Boys Rag Shop, a trendy clothing store in Vancouver back in ’67. However, CFUN deejay Tom Peacock, encouraged the band to come up with another name that wouldn’t strike fear into parents of the groups female fan-base. It was Gowan Jurgensen who suggested to his bandmates the North West Company, based on the Montreal fur trading business founded in 1789. The band agreed, but distinguished themselves from the fur trading company with “Northwest” instead of “North West.”
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#1169: On The Way Home by Buffalo Springfield
Peak Month: November 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #82
YouTube.com: “On The Way Home”
Lyrics: “On The Way Home”
In 1966 a folk-rock band was formed in Los Angeles from a mix of Canadian and American musicians. It was called Buffalo Springfield. The band consisted of Stephen Stills (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Dewey Martin (drums, vocals), Bruce Palmer (electric bass), Richie Furay (guitar, vocals), and Neil Young (guitar, harmonica, piano, vocals). Like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield’s debut album blended musical strains of folk and country music with British invasion. However, their second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, showcased their shift into psychedelic rock. The name of the group was inspired after the Buffalo-Springfield steamroller made by the Buffalo-Springfield Roadroller Company in Springfield, Ohio.
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#1179: Fading Away by Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers
Peak Month: May 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Fading Away”
Lyrics: “Fading Away”
Born in 1934, Robert Edward Taylor was born and grew up in Washington D.C. From the age of three he began to sing. Taylor told the South China Morning Post in a 2011 interview that he could sing Gregorian chant and still knew it by heart in 2011. His mother was friends with Billie Holiday. The musical connection led the young Bobby Taylor to meet Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Miles Davis, among others, while he was a boy. He graduated from high school at the age of 14. The Ku Klux Klan had weekly meetings on the steps of the Capitol buildings in D.C. This frightened young Bobby Taylor and he enlisted to join the U.S. Army in the Korean War where he thought he’d be safer. Taylor was signed up to be a cook in the Korean War. However, he was assigned to an all-black unit that fought in the war. His commanding officer had told Bobby Taylor, “They’re not going to be able to see you.” At the age of 17 Taylor was discharged by the end of 1951. He relocated to New York City in the early 50s and sang in street corner doo-wop groups. Among the singers he sang with included future members of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers and Little Anthony and the Imperials.
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#1209: Rice Is Nice by Lemon Pipers
Peak Month: April 1968
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #46
Youtube.com: “Rice Is Nice”
Lyrics: “Rice Is Nice”
The Lemon Pipers were an Oxford, Ohio, about 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, along the border with the state of Indiana. Their genre was sunshine psychedelic pop, and the group formed in 1966. Their sunshine pop sound gave them a number one hit called “Green Tambourine“. The band consisted of Ivan Browne on vocals and guitar, Bill Bartlett on vocals and guitar, Steve Walmsley on bass, R.G. Nave on keyboards and drummer Bill Albaugh.
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#1197: Hitchcock Railway by Jose Feliciano
Peak Month: November 1968
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #77
YouTube.com: “Hitchcock Railway”
Lyrics: “Hitchcock Railway‘
In 1945 José Montserrate Feliciano García was born blind and spent his first five years in the town of Lares, Puerto Rico. He had ten brothers. His website references his first infatuation with music when an uncle of his had him accompany him on a tin cracker can. In 1950 his family moved to New York City. At age six he learned to play the concertina, a smaller cousin of the accordion. When he turned nine Feliciano performed at The Puerto Rican Theater in the Bronx. Using records as a means of instruction, young José learned to play the guitar. As he listened to Rock n’ Roll, he began to sing.
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#1207: I Was Made To Love Her by King Curtis & the Kingpins
Peak Month: February 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #76
YouTube.com: “I Was Made To Love Her” ~ King Curtis
YouTube.com: “I Was Made To Love Her” ~ Stevie Wonder
Lyrics: “I Was Made To Love Her”
Born Curtis Ousley in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1934. His trademark was a honking Texas tenor sound inspired by his main influences Illinois Jacquet, Earl Bostic, Arnett Cobb albeit with a rock and roll edge. He moved to New York in 1952 and played with Lionel Hampton’s and Horace Silver’s jazz groups. He began doing session work for R&B and rock and roll artists in the mid-Fifties. One of his most memorable solos, and the one that sealed his reputation as a rock and roll sideman, appeared in the Coasters’ 1958 smash, “Yakety Yak”.
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#1341: Lazy Sunday by the Small Faces
Peak Month: June 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #114
YouTube.com: “Lazy Sunday”
Lyrics: “Lazy Sunday”
In 1947 Steve Marriott was born in London, UK. By the age of 12 Marriott had formed several bands and writing songs influenced by Buddy Holly. In 1960 he was cast as the Artful Dodger in the new musical Oliver! at a theatre in London’s West End. In 1963-64 his band, Steve Marriott and The Moments, were a back-up band to headliners The Nashville Teens, The Animals, Georgie Fame and others at concerts in London. Marriott played guitar and was his bands’ lead vocalist. After the group disbanded in July 1964 Marriott met bass player Ronnie Lane and drummer Kenney Jones at a club when they were playing with their band, the Outcasts. They added Jimmy Winston on keyboards and began releasing singles, including Sha-la-la-la-lee,” which went to #3 in the UK in 1966. The Small Faces were part of the British mod subculture, sharp-dressed and absorbed with looks and fashion. The word faces signaled as much, and small was a reference to all of them being no taller than 5’6″.
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#1317: Of A Dropping Pin by The Guess Who
Peak Month: December 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Of A Dropping Pin”
Lyrics: “Of A Dropping Pin”
Originally there was a band in Winnipeg called Al & The Silvertones. The band had some lineup changes and became Chad Allen & The Expressions. In time they changed their name again to The Guess Who ?, with a question mark at the end of their name. They had a hit in Canada in 1965 called “Shakin’ All Over”, a cover version of the original by the UK’s Johnny Kidd And The Pirates in 1960. The Guess Who?’s version became a Top 30 hit in the USA. The Guess Who? tried to tour in the UK themselves in 1967 to support their single, “His Girl.” However, they didn’t have the proper documentation to perform, and “His Girl” only ended up spending one week on the British singles charts.
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