#9: Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: January 1985
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #48
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Netherlands Singles chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Smalltown Boy”
Lyrics: “Smalltown Boy”
James “Jimmy” Somerville was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1961. He moved to London in 1980 and attended the London Gay Teenage Group. In 1983 he co-founded Bronski Beat with Steven Forrest, the latter adopted the stage name Steve Bronski. Forrest was born in 1960 in Glasgow. Larry Steinbachek was also born in 1960, in his case in London. He worked as an electrician and was studying to be a musician prior to forming Bronski Beat. The three mates were sharing a flat in Brixton when they decided to form a group. They first performed publicly at an arts festival, September in the Pink. The trio were unhappy with the inoffensive nature of contemporary gay performers and sought to be more outspoken and political.
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#21: Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: December 1985
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #22
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #38
Peak Position on Dutch Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #5
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #5
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #8
YouTube: “Sun City”
Lyrics: “Sun City”
Artists United Against Apartheid was a protest ensemble created by Steven Van Zandt in 1985. It consisted of DJ Afrika Bambaataa, Puerto Rican bandleader Ray Barretto, punk rocker Stiv Bator, Pat Benatar, Jamaican DJ Big Youth, Panamanian singer-songwriter Ruben Blades, rapper Kurtis Blow, U2 lead singer Bono, Jackson Browne, jazz bass player Ron Carter, E Street Band member Clarence Clemmons, Jimmy Cliff, George Clinton (of Parliament-Funkadelic), Bob Dylan, The Fat Boys, Peter Gabriel, Peter Garrett (of Midnight Oil) Bob Geldof (of the Boomtown Rats), rapper Grandmaster Melle Mel, Herbie Hancock, actress Daryl Hannah (Jackson Browne’s girlfriend at the time), Labelle “Lady Marmalade” singer Nona Hendryx, B.T. Express singer Kashif, Eddie Kendricks, hip-hop artist DJ Kool Herc, Darlene Love (lead singer on “He’s A Rebel” credited to the Crystals), Finish rocker Michael Monroe, Bonnie Raitt, lead singer of the Ramoes – Joey Ramone, Lou Reed, Keith Richards (of the Rolling Stones), David Ruffin (of the Temptations), Run-DMC, poet and singer Gil Scott-Heron, Indian musician L. Shankar, Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr and his son Zak, Pete Townshend (of The Who), Bobby Womack, and Ronnie Wood (with the Faces, Jeff Beck Group and Rolling Stones).
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#14: Be Still My Beating Heart by Sting
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: March 1988
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #28
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Be Still My Beating Heart”
Lyrics: “Be Still My Beating Heart”
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was born in Wallsend on Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, England, in 1951. His mother was a hairdresser and his father was a milkman and engineer. When he was ten-years-old, young Sumner got introduced to Spanish guitar, when a family friend left it at the Sumner residence. After high school he was variously a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer. He went to college and from 1974-76 was a public school teacher. Sumner performed jazz in the evening, weekends and during breaks from college and teaching, playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname, “Sting,” due to his habit of wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought Sumner looked like a bee which prompted the name “Sting.” According to Sting, in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, “they thought I looked like a wasp, and they’d joke. They called me Sting. They thought it was hilarious…That became my name.”
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#16: Double Dutch Bus by Frankie Smith
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: August 1981
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
Peak Position on Dutch Singles Top 100 ~ #7
YouTube: “Double Dutch Bus”
Lyrics: “Double Dutch Bus”
Franklyn “Frankie” Leon Smith was born in Philadelphia in 1940. As a child, he taught himself to play piano. He studied a minor in music at a college in Tennessee. One of his uncles was comedian Pigmeat Markham. In 1973, Frankie Smith and Bill Bloom wrote a song called “Double Dutch” after a game of skipping rope popular across America. However, the single was not a hit. Through the 70s, Frankie Smith wrote songs recorded by Melba Moore, Barbara Mason, Archie Bell & The Drells, Billy Paul, and others.
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#3: Boy In The Box by Corey Hart
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: October 1985
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #26
YouTube: “Boy In The Box”
Lyrics: “Boy In The Box”
Corey Hart was born in 1962 in Montreal, Quebec. He is best known for his international Top Ten hits “Sunglasses at Night” (#7 Billboard Hot 100) and “Never Surrender” (#3 Billboard Hot 100). Hart is known as one of Canada’s most successful singer-songwriters. He’s sold over 16 million records worldwide. On the Billboard Hot 100 Hart scored 9 consecutive Top 40 Hits. Back in Canada he succeeded in charting 30 top 40 singles (including 11 Top 10 singles during his career). Hart is a Grammy Nominated, ASCAP & multiple Juno and ADISQ award winner. He has also written and produced several songs for fellow Quebec recording star Celine Dion.
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#1: Boys Do Fall In Love by Robin Gibb
City: Yellowknife, NWT
Radio Station: CJJD
Peak Month: September 1984
Peak Position in Yellowknife ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #7
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #10
YouTube: “Boys Do Fall In Love”
Lyrics: “Boys Do Fall In Love”
Robin Hugh Gibb was born with his twin brother, Maurice Gibb, on December 22, 1949, on the Isle of Man. He was one of the three brothers who became the Bee Gees. Living in England, the brothers initially formed a band called the Rattlesnakes. The boys, with their older brother Barry and their parents, moved to Australia in 1959. Barry, Robin and Maurice began to perform locally and build up a reputation in their new hometown in Australia. The Gibbs brothers started to perform to raise spare change and spending money. They were introduced to Brisbane radio presenter jockey Bill Gates by dirt track racing promoter and driver Bill Goode, who had hired the brothers to entertain the crowd at the Redcliffe Speedway in 1960. The crowd at the speedway would throw money onto the track for the boys, who generally performed during the breaks. Gates changed their name from the Rattlesnakes to the BGs (Barry Gibbs initials).
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#10: Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJAD
Peak Month: July 1963
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #27
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #27
YouTube: “Ring Of Fire”
Lyrics: “Ring Of Fire”
John R. “Johnny” Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, in 1932. At the age of five he started working with his sharecropping parents and siblings in the cotton fields. During his childhood his family home was flooded twice. He began singing and playing guitar by the age of 12. He moved to Detroit in his late teens for work. He was drafted and served in the U.S. Air Force as a Morse Code Intercept Operator for Soviet Army transmissions at a base in Germany from 1950 to 1954. When he was discharged from the military he and his new wife, Liberto, moved to Memphis. Cash worked as an appliance salesman while trying to get a break in the music industry. Cash got to audition with Sun Records in 1954. He had his first charting single on the Billboard Country charts in 1955 titled “Cry! Cry! Cry!” Subsequently single releases, “So Doggone Lonesome” and “I Walk The Line” climbed to #4 and #1 on the Country charts. The latter hit also was his first debut on the Billboard pop charts where it made it to #17 in 1956.
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#17: Dance Little Lady Dance by Tina Charles
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: December 1977
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #6
YouTube: “Dance Little Lady Dance”
Lyrics: “Dance Little Lady Dance”
Tina Charles was born Tina Hoskins in London, England, in 1954. By the age of 14, in 1969, she was working as a session singer. When Hoskins was taken to CBS Records, that year she released her first non-album single titled “Nothing in the World” with a then obscure piano player in the studio named Reginald Dwight (who was soon took the stage name Elton John). During the early 1970s, she supplied vocals for the Top of the Pops album series of cover versions of contemporary hits. In 1971, she made appearances in the first series of The Two Ronnies, the BBC1 sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, performing “River Deep – Mountain High”, “Ruby Tuesday” and other pop hits. Starting in the 70s, Tina Charles provided vocals and spoken word on a variety of TV commercials. These include Crosse & Blackwell, Vauxhall, Interflora and others.
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#18: It’s Raining Men by the Weather Girls
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: March 1983
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #46
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Ireland Single chart ~ #5
Peak Position on Norway Singles chart ~ #8
YouTube: “It’s Raining Men”
Lyrics: “It’s Raining Men”
The Weather Girls are a singing duo formed by Martha Walsh and Izora Armstead in San Francisco in 1976. Walsh was born in San Francisco in 1953, and sang in a school choir in high school. After graduation she joined the gospel group NOW (News Of the World). She also worked as a secretary at a hospital. In 1976, she auditioned to be a backing singer for Sylvester. He was impressed with her vocals and asked if she had another friend who could join her on stage. Walsh invited Izora Rhodes to join her and the pair were named Two Tons o’ Fun, as they were both big girls.
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#7: With Pen In Hand by Billy Vera
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Guelph ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #43
YouTube: “With Pen In Hand”
Lyrics: “With Pen In Hand”
William Patrick McCord was born in Riverside, California, in 1944. He grew up in New York State. His father was radio announcer Bill McCord. His mother, singer Ann Ryan, was a member of The Ray Charles Singers backing Perry Como on his TV show and his hit records. In 1962, at the age of 18, Bill jr. was a member of the Resolutions. He also recorded fronting Billy Vera and the Contrasts. In 1967, he wrote a song about interracial love titled “Storybook Children”. He also sang a duet with Judy Clay, a black singer. The single made the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart in 1967. He released several more duets with Clay and they appeared several times in concert at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem (New York City). Though the topic of interracial dating had been the subject of previous songs like “Society’s Child” (Janis Ian in 1966), Vera and Clay pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in the age of movies like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
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