#29: Mirror Man by Human League
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: March 1983
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #4
YouTube: “Mirror Man”
Lyrics: “Mirror Man”
Human League was formed in 1977 and were originally named The Future. By early 1978 the band changed their name to Human League. Philip Oakley was co-founder and frontman for the band. He was born in 1955 in Leicestershire, England. He left school without finishing exams and worked at a university bookshop, and as a hospital orderly. Oakley’s former schoolmate Martyn Ware had already formed the band with Ian Marsh. Ware and Marsh were looking to get a new lead vocalist and Oakley agreed. In 1978, a non-album single titled “Being Boiled” was released. It climbed to #6 in the UK, and West Germany, #10 in Ireland, and #17 in Austria. Human League released their debut album, Reproduction, in 1979. A second album, Travelogue, was released in May 1980. Shortly after, Ware and Marsh left the band and later in 1980 formed new wave/synth-pop band Heaven 17. At the time of their departure, Human League was contracted to start a European tour the following week.
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#48: For A Penny by Pat Boone
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CKOY
Peak Month: May 1959
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #22
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
YouTube: “For A Penny”
Lyrics: “For A Penny”
Pat Boone was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on June 1, 1934. He was the son of Margaret Virginia (Pritchard) and Archie Altman Boone. The Boone family moved to Nashville from Florida when Boone was two years old. In a 2007 interview on The 700 Club, Boone claimed that he is the great-great-great-great grandson of the American pioneer Daniel Boone. Boone is a singer, composer, actor, writer, television personality, motivational speaker, and spokesman. He won a talent contest on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. He became a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He has sold over 45 million records, charted 38 Top 40 hits between 1955 and 1962. Boone has also appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films. He still holds the Billboard record for spending 220 consecutive weeks on the charts with one or more songs each week.
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#34: Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFGO
Peak Month: December 1978
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Dutch Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #2
YouTube: “Dreadlock Holiday”
Lyrics: “Dreadlock Holiday”
Kevin Michael Godley was born in 1945 in a suburb of Manchester, England. Raised in a Jewish family, he formed a group named Group 17, along with four other members of the Jewish Lads Brigade. Godley studied Art and Design at Stoke On Trent College of Art from 1966-68. In the late ’60s, Kevin Godley met Lol Creme at a wedding. Laurence Neil “Lol” Creme was born in 1947 in the same suburb of Prestwich as Kevin Godley. Creme was also raised in a Jewish family. The pair co-founded a band in 1970 named Hotlegs, which included Graham Gouldman. Hotlegs had a #2 hit in the UK titled “Neanderthal Man”. The band split in 1970 and morphed into 10cc.
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#9: I Would Be The One by Kensington Market
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Guelph ~ #10
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “I Would Be The One”
Lyrics: “I Would Be The One”
Keith McKie was born in St. Albans, England, in 1947. He moved with his family to Canada in 1953. After high school, he formed a band called The Shades. This later morphed into the Vendettas. After that band dissolved, McKie was sought out by former Paupers manager Bernie Finkelstein who suggested he form a new group. To join McKie, they got former Bobby Kris & the Imperials guitarist and pianist Gene Martynec to sign. Martynec was born in 1947 in Coburg, West Germany. Former Vendettas bandmate, Alex Darou, was added to the emerging band. Darou, who played bass guitar, was born in Sault Ste. Marie (ON) in 1943. The oldest member of the band, he had already been part of a jazz trio. They also added drummer Jimmy Watson, who was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1950.
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#36: Planet Claire by B-52s
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFGO
Peak Month: February 1982
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #35
YouTube: “Planet Claire”
Lyrics: “Planet Claire”
Frederick William Schneider III was born in 1951 in Newark, New Jersey. He went to college in Atlanta and wrote a book of poetry for one class project. After college, he was a janitor as well as a Meals on Wheels driver. At the time the B-52’s formed, Schneider III had very little musical experience. The B-52’s got their start when the fledgling bandmates played an impromptu number after drinking at a Chinese restaurant in Athens, Georgia. The band played their first real gig in 1977 at a Valentine’s Day party for their friends. Ricky Helton Wilson was born in 1953, and learned to play guitar in the winter of 1972-73. In the summer of 1969, Ricky Wilson met Wilson met Keith Strickland at a marijuana shop. In the following months, Wilson quietly came out as gay to Strickland while the two were in their teens. During mid-1969, both Wilson and Strickland collaborated in writing and performing music, loosely calling themselves Loon, and aspired to perform live. From 1969 to 1971, Wilson and Strickland collaborated with two high school friends in the four-member band Black Narcissus.
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#38: Working For The Weekend by Loverboy
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: February 1982
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
YouTube: “Working For The Weekend”
Lyrics: “Working For The Weekend”
Loverboy is a band formed in 1979. It has been stated by Mike Reno that their name was chosen due to a dream by Paul Dean. He had come up with the name after spending the previous night with some of the bandmates, including Reno and their girlfriends, before going to the movies. The girlfriends were browsing through fashion magazines, where the guys in the band saw a Cover Girl advertisement. Cover Girl became Cover Boy, and then became Loverboy in Dean’s dream later that night. After being told by Dean about the dream the next morning, Reno agreed to try it out and it stuck.
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#43: Cat People by David Bowie
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: July 1982
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #67
Peak Position on Finnish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Norwegian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Swiss Singles chart ~ #8
YouTube: “Cat People”
Lyrics: “Cat People”
David Robert Jones was born in 1947 in Brixton, a suburb in the southern part of London, UK. From an early age he demonstrated talent as a singer and especially through dance and movement. When he was nine years old his father brought home some 45’s by Elvis Presley, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, Fats Domino and others. When David Jones heard Little Richard sing “Tutti Frutti” he later said in an interview that he “heard God.” Growing up, David learned to play the recorder, ukulele, piano and baritone saxophone. In 1962, at the age of 15 he formed a band named the Konrads. In 1964 he formed a band named David Jones and the King Bees. They appeared on the variety show Ready Steady Go! to sing their debut single, “Liza Jane”. Jones briefly moved on to join the Mannish Boys before being the front man for Davy Jones and The Lower Third. They released a single in 1965 titled “You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving”. Due to the growing popularity of another English recording artist named Davy Jones (who went on to become lead singer for The Monkees), David Robert Jones decided to change his professional name to David Bowie. He chose his surname after a 19th Century American pioneer named James Bowie who invented the Bowie knife.
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#40: Tell All the People by The Doors
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: July 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #10
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #57
YouTube: “Tell All the People”
Lyrics: “Tell All the People”
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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#47: La Vie En Rose by Grace Jones
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFGO
Peak Month: April 1978
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #109
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Dutch Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #13
YouTube: “La Vie En Rose”
Lyrics: “La Vie En Rose”
Grace Jones was born in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, Jamaica, in 1948. Her father was an agricultural worker. When her moved to the United States, her father became a Pentecostal minister. Jones remained with her sisters and brothers in Jamaica and was raised by a grandmother and her second husband. The relationship was physically abusive. Grace Jones moved with her siblings to be with her parents when she was 13 years old. She broke away from her Pentecostal upbringing and became immersed in the Sixties’ counterculture. In her late teens she made a living as a go-go dancer, took LSD and lived in a hippie commune. At the age of 18, she moved to Manhattan and became a Wilhelmina model. She was subsequently hired to walk the runway in modeling shows with Yves St. Laurent, Claude Montana, and Kenzo Takada.
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#52: If You Go Away by Terry Jacks
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFGO
Peak Month: July 1974
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68
YouTube: “If You Go Away”
Lyrics: “If You Go Away”
Terrence Ross Jacks was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1944. During his career as a recording artist he became a household name and recognized as a singer, songwriter, record producer and environmentalist. His family moved to Vancouver in 1961 and he formed a band named The Chessmen along with local guitarist, Guy Sobell. The Chessmen had four singles that made the Top 20 in Vancouver, two which were double-sided hits. These included three Top Ten hits: “Love Didn’t Die”, “The Way You Fell” and “What’s Causing This Sensation”. In 1966 Terry Jacks met Susan Pesklevits on a local CBC music show called Let’s Go.
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