#66: Twelve Thirty by the Mamas and the Papas

City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJMS
Peak Month: October 1967
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #14
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #16
YouTube: “Twelve Thirty”
Lyrics: “Twelve Thirty”

John Edmund Andrew Phillips was born in Paris Island, South Carolina, in 1935. His father was a military officer and John was sent to Linton Hall Military School from age seven to eleven. He hated the school and its corporal punishment. In his autobiography, Phillips recalls he also thought it was creepy that “nuns used to watch us take showers.” In high school he assembled several doo-wop groups. After he dropped out of a Naval Academy in 1953, John Phillips studied at a men’s college until 1959. In 1958 he formed a doo-wop group named the Abstracts, fashioned after the Four Preps and other popular groups of the era. The Abstracts changed their name in 1959 to the Smoothies. Another member of the group was Philip Blondheim III, who later changed his name to Scott McKenzie. The Smoothies played at night clubs in New York City with chorus girls and comedians.

Continue reading →

#84: The World We Knew by Frank Sinatra

City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJMS
Peak Month: September 1967
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “The World We Knew”
Lyrics: “The World We Knew”

Francis Albert Sinatra was born in 1915 in Hoboken, NJ. Sinatra spent much time at his parents’ tavern in Hoboken, working on his homework and occasionally singing for spare change. After leaving school before graduating, Sinatra began performing in local Hoboken social clubs and sang for free on radio stations such as WAAT in Jersey City. In New York, Sinatra found jobs singing for his supper or for cigarettes. He got his first break in 1935 when his mother persuaded a local singing group called the 3 Flashes to let him join. Baritone Fred Tamburro stated that “Frank hung around us like we were gods or something”, admitting that they only took him on board because he owned a car and could chauffeur the group around. Sinatra soon learned they were auditioning for the Major Bowes Amateur Hour show, and “begged” the group to let him in on the act. With Sinatra, the group became known as the Hoboken Four, and passed an audition from Edward Bowes to appear on the show. They each earned $12.50, and ended up attracting 40,000 votes to win first prize—a six-month contract to perform on stage and radio across the U.S. Sinatra quickly became the group’s lead singer, and, much to the jealousy of his fellow group members, garnered most of the attention from girls.

Continue reading →

#16: Making Every Minute Count by Spanky and Our Gang

City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJBK
Peak Month: September 1967
Peak Position in London ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #30
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “Making Every Minute Count”
Lyrics: “Making Every Minute Count”

Spanky and Our Gang was a sunshine pop group led by Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane. She was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1942. In 1959, she arrived in Chicago and began to perform in jazz clubs with Lil Hardin Armstrong (Louis Armstrong’s second wife), Earl Hines, and Little Brother Montgomery. She soon got involved with the burgeoning folk crowd and formed a trio with Roger McGuinn (future frontman of The Byrds) and Guy Guilbert called the Old Town Trio. The trio played in local Chicago area bars and coffee houses for a summer. In 1962, she joined the New Wine Singers. Fellow singer Arnie Lanza nicknamed her Spanky because of the similarity of her last name, McFarlane, to the last name of child actor George McFarland who played Spanky in the Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals) comedies about poor neighborhood children and their adventures. The nickname stuck.

Continue reading →

#47: Walkin’ Mary Home by the Nomads

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: March 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Walkin’ Mary Home”

The Nomads formed in 1958 and had nine members. Notable lead vocalist, Lennie Richards, was born in Edmonton in 1940. He joined the band in 1961. In 1962 Lennie Richards and the Nomads released “Teem Twist” in 1962. On the back of the 45 RPM record jacket it read “When he was 16 he began singing and playing the guitar. An Edmonton disc jockey heard him sing and arranged an audition which launched him on his singing career. Lennie performed with various local “Rock n’ Roll” groups throughout his high school days and after graduation up until 1961. In the spring of 1961, he joined the Nomads as their feature vocalist and rhythm guitar player. Today, Lennie Richards is one of the most popular young singers in Western Canada.” The band also released a cover of the Bell-Notes 1959 hit “I’ve Had It”.

Continue reading →

#35: Canada by the Sugar Shoppe

City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in London ~ #20
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Canada”
Lyrics: “Canada

The Sugar Shoppe was formed in Toronto by lead singer, songwriter and pianist Peter Mann. Born in 1940 in New York City, Mann grew up in Miami before working as an arranger and relocating to Canada in 1965. There, he met University of Toronto School of Music student and singer Laurie Hood, and singers Lee Harris and Victor Garber, an actor and singer who was also studying in Toronto as well as singing in the city’s clubs. Garber was born in 1949 in London (ON) and began acting at the age of nine in 1958. He enrolled at the University of Toronto’s theatre training program at Hart House when he was 16 years old. In the mid-60s he performed as a folk singer before joining the Sugar Shoppe in 1967. With two male singers (Mann and Garber) and two female (Hood and Harris), they modeled themselves on the Mamas & the Papas and began working in the studio on a project to mark Canada’s Centennial in 1967.

Continue reading →

#1: Let’s Spend The Night Together by Rolling Stones

City: Kitchener, ON
Radio Station: CHYM
Peak Month: February 1967
Peak Position in Kitchener ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55
YouTube: “Let’s Spend The Night Together”
Lyrics: “Let’s Spend The Night Together”

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.

Continue reading →

#5: Casino Royale by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #35
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube: “Casino Royale”

Herb Alpert was born in 1935 in Los Angeles. His parents were Jewish immigrants, from the Ukraine and Romania. He started to play the trumpet at the age of eight. After he graduated from high school, he joined the United States Army and played trumpet. In 1956 he was one of the drummers at Mt. Sinai in the film The Ten Commandments. In 1957 he became a songwriter for Keen Records. He teamed up with Lou Adler in 1958 and released a single titled “The Trial” credited to Herb B. Lou and the Legal Eagles. The recording was of the “break-in” genre, like Buchanan & Goodman’s “Flying Saucer” from 1956. The single had break-in’s from “Tears On My Pillow” by Little Anthony & The Imperials, “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin, “To Know Him Is To Love Him” by the Teddy Bears, “Little Star” by The Elegants, “Volare” by Domenico Modugno and others. “The Trial” made the Top Ten in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Continue reading →

#1285: My World Fell Down by Sagittarius

Peak Month: July 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #70
YouTube.com: “My World Fell Down”
Lyrics: “My World Fell Down”

Gary Usher was born in Massachusetts in 1938 and grew up in the community of Grafton. After graduating from high school in 1957, Usher headed to California and was a musician in a few local rock ‘n roll bands. As it happened, Gary Usher’s uncle was a neighbor of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys over in Hawthorne, a suburb of Los Angeles. Usher and Wilson ended up co-writing a number of songs for The Beach Boys including “409” and “In My Room”. The latter was a Top 30 hit in America in December 1963. Gary Usher also produced records in the mid-60’s for The Byrds, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, The Hondells and others. After considerable success as a producer, he eventually became a staff producer for Columbia Records. It was at this position that, during 1967, he produced Chad & Jeremy. They had played him several songs, which he felt lacked any commercial potential.

Continue reading →

#17: Bobby’s Birthday by Kensington Market

City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: December 1967
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Bobby’s Birthday”
(If the link above states “sign in” to watch private video, if you
try to sign in, Youtube states something went wrong. Instead,
just enter “Bobby’s Birthday, Kensington Market” in the Youtube
search, and several options will appear so you can listen to it.)

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.

Continue reading →

#6: Bowling Green by the Everly Brothers

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #35
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube: “Bowling Green”
Lyrics: “Bowling Green”

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.

Continue reading →

#31: Kitty Doyle by Dino, Desi & Billy

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: September 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Kitty Doyle”
Lyrics: N/A

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV is the son of Des Arnaz and Lucille Ball. His birth in 1953 was one of the most publicized in television history. His parents were the stars of the television sitcom I Love Lucy, and Ball’s pregnancy was part of the storyline, which was considered daring then. The same day Lucy gave birth to Desi Jr., the fictional Lucy Ricardo gave birth to “Little Ricky.” As a testament to how interested the American public was in Lucy’s TV baby, Arnaz appeared on the cover on the very first issue of TV Guide with a title that read: “Lucy’s $50,000,000 baby.” The reason he was given this title was because revenue from certain tie-in commitments were expected to top that mark. In 1964 Desi became the drummer for the pop trio Dino, Desi and Billy. “Dino” was Dean Paul Martin, the son of pop singer Dean Martin “Billy” was Billy Hinsche, brother-in-law of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

Continue reading →

#33: Rovin’ Heart by The Lords

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: May 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Rovin’ Heart”
Lyrics: N/A

The Lords were a band formed in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1966. The members were Barry Allen, Lorne Peet and Mel Degen. Barry Allen Rasmussen was born in 1945 in Edmonton, Alberta. His family was musical, and he learned guitar and sang from an early age. Barry wrote for the Canadianbands.com website decades later of himself: “While attending Victoria High School, he was a member of the curling club, and had aspirations of becoming a chartered accountant. But by the time he’d graduated, he was looking at a musical future, and spent the next couple of years in a number of makeshift groups, honing his chops and emulating his British invasion idols.” He joined Wes Dakus and the Rebels in 1965. They band went to New Mexico and recorded with Norman Petty, producer of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Roy Orbison, Buddy Knox and others. Petty was taken with Barry Allen’s vocal abilities and suggested Allen make some solo records. The outcome were the single releases in early 1965, “Easy Come Easy Go”, and “It’s Alright With Me Now”. The first single climbed to #6 in Edmonton in January 1965, and made the Top 30 in Regina (SK) and Calgary (AB). The followup single climbed to #9 in Edmonton in July 1965.

Continue reading →

#40: To Love Somebody by the Bee Gees

City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube: “To Love Somebody”
Lyrics: “To Love Somebody”

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.

Continue reading →

#57: If You’re Thinking What I’m Thinking by Dino, Desi & Billy

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #128
YouTube: “If You’re Thinkin’ What I’m Thinkin‘”
Lyrics: N/A

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV is the son of Des Arnaz and Lucille Ball. His birth in 1953 was one of the most publicized in television history. His parents were the stars of the television sitcom I Love Lucy, and Ball’s pregnancy was part of the storyline, which was considered daring then. The same day Lucy gave birth to Desi Jr., the fictional Lucy Ricardo gave birth to “Little Ricky.” As a testament to how interested the American public was in Lucy’s TV baby, Arnaz appeared on the cover on the very first issue of TV Guide with a title that read: “Lucy’s $50,000,000 baby.” The reason he was given this title was because revenue from certain tie-in commitments were expected to top that mark. In 1964 Desi became the drummer for the pop trio Dino, Desi and Billy. “Dino” was Dean Paul Martin, the son of pop singer Dean Martin “Billy” was Billy Hinsche, brother-in-law of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

Continue reading →

#52: Two In The Afternoon by Dino, Desi & Billy

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #99
YouTube: “Two In The Afternoon”
Lyrics: “Two In The Afternoon”

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV is the son of Des Arnaz and Lucille Ball. His birth in 1953 was one of the most publicized in television history. His parents were the stars of the television sitcom I Love Lucy, and Ball’s pregnancy was part of the storyline, which was considered daring then. The same day Lucy gave birth to Desi Jr., the fictional Lucy Ricardo gave birth to “Little Ricky.” As a testament to how interested the American public was in Lucy’s TV baby, Arnaz appeared on the cover on the very first issue of TV Guide with a title that read: “Lucy’s $50,000,000 baby.” The reason he was given this title was because revenue from certain tie-in commitments were expected to top that mark. In 1964 Desi became the drummer for the pop trio Dino, Desi and Billy. “Dino” was Dean Paul Martin, the son of pop singer Dean Martin “Billy” was Billy Hinsche, brother-in-law of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

Continue reading →

#36: A Day In The Life by the Beatles

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “A Day In The Life”
Lyrics: “A Day In The Life”

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.

Continue reading →

#34: Theme For A New Love by Davy Jones

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #51
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Theme For A New Love”
Lyrics: “Theme For A New Love”

David Thomas Jones was born in suburban Manchester, UK, in 1945. Jones began acting in his childhood. In 1959, his Aunt Jessie answered an ad in the Manchester Evening News calling for “school boys to audition for a radio play” with the BBC She helped David, at 13, get the lead role in There is a Happy Land. He was on an episode of Coronation Street  in March 1961, when he was 15 years of age. He also had a guest appearance in the BBC police TV show Z-Cars. He considered pursuing becoming a jockey riding on horses. However, he was encouraged to pursue acting. He appeared on stage as Little Michael in Peter Pan, and then as the Artful Dodger in Oliver! in the early 60’s in the West End of London. In 1964 he was in a Broadway production of Oliver! and nominated for a Tony Award at the age of 18. On February 9, 1964, Jones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on one of the episodes where the Beatles also were guests.

Continue reading →

#1: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

City: Grande Prairie, AB
Radio Station: CFGP
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in Grande Prairie #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”
Lyrics: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”

Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. was born in 1939 in Washington D.C. His father was a Pentecostal church minister who never held down a job for more than three years in a row. Marvin’s childhood consisted of “brutal whippings”, since Gay Sr. would strike him for any shortcoming, including putting his hairbrush in the wrong place or coming home from school a minute late. Marvin later stated, “It wasn’t simply that my father beat me, though that was bad enough. By the time I was twelve, there wasn’t an inch on my body that hadn’t been bruised and beaten by him.” He also said that “living with Father was like living with a king, an all-cruel, changeable, cruel and all-powerful king”. He later recalled, “if it wasn’t for Mother, who was always there to console me and praise me for my singing, I think I would have been one of those child suicides you read about in the papers.”

Continue reading →

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: November 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Morning Town”

For Keeps were a band from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. They consisted of Colin Wedgewood, Doug Melville-Ness, Mickey Ellis and Lorence Hud . This sixties garage rock band recorded “Morning Town” in 1967. Lorence Hud was born Lorenc Hudnik in 1947. Hud studied music at the University of Saskatchewan. Doug Melville-Ness was born in 1947.

Continue reading →

#43: I Can’t Stop by the Osmond Brothers

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “I Can’t Stop”
Lyrics: “I Can’t Stop”

The Osmond Brothers’ career began in 1958 when Alan, Wayne, Merrill, and Jay began singing barbershop music for local audiences in and around Ogden, as well as during their weekly Latter-Day-Saints church services. In their made-for-TV movie Inside the Osmonds, they explain that they originally performed to earn money to help buy hearing aids for Virl and Tom and to finance their future church missions. Despite their young ages (ranging from nine to three years old), within a few years the boys’ talent and stage presence were strong enough that their father took them to compete in an amateur barbershop singing competition in California. On the same trip they visited Disneyland, and the Osmond Brothers ended up singing with the Dapper Dans on Main Street. Disney hired the Osmonds to perform in the park in the summer of 1959. They also performed minor roles in the television series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, starring actor Kurt Russell. The family also appeared on a segment of Disneyland After Dark, which first aired in April 1962.

Continue reading →

#7: Even The Bad Times Are Good by the Tremeloes

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: October 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton #1
Position on CFNB for the year 1967 ~ #17
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Even The Bad Times Are Good”
Lyrics: “Even The Bad Times Are Good”

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 (born Richard Westwood), was added to the band in 1960.

Continue reading →

#12: There Goes My Everything by Engelbert Humperdinck

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “There Goes My Everything”
Lyrics: “There Goes My Everything”

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.

Continue reading →

#14: It’s A Happening World by the Tokens

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #69
YouTube: “It’s A Happening World”
Lyrics: “It’s A Happening World”

In 1955 a doo-wop group called The Linc-Tones formed in Brooklyn, New York. Neil Sedaka was a founding member of the group but left in 1957. They renamed themselves in 1957 as The Tokens. That year they appeared on TV for the first time on The Ted Steele Dance Time. In 1959 the Tokens recorded “Picture In My Wallet” under the name of Darrell & The Oxfords, which became a Top Ten hit in San Bernardino. They had a #15 charting hit in the USA in 1959 titled “Tonight I Fell in Love”. The Tokens are known best for their number one 1961 hit, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” The song was originally a Zulu folk song called “M’bube” and Anglicized to “Wimoweh”. The Tokens consisted of Jay Siegel, Hank Medress and brothers Mitch and Phil Margo. True rock pioneers, they were among the first to successfully use the falsetto lead voice, a sound that influenced groups such as the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys. The group had their first Top 20 hit in the USA billed as The Tokens with “Tonight I Fell In Love”, in 1961. The song peaked at #27 in Vancouver.

Continue reading →

#36: Don’t Blame The Children by Sammy Davis Jr.

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: February 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #41
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Don’t Blame The Children”
Lyrics: “Don’t Blame The Children”

Samuel “Sammy” George Davis Jr. was born in 1925. At age three, Davis began his career in Vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio. The trio toured nationally, and Davis Jr.’s film career began in 1933. His first film was Rufus Jones for President whose plot concerned an African-American’s run for the presidency in the USA. The candidate is a 7-year-old child named Rufus, played by Sammy Davis Jr. He was drafted into the United States Army at the age of 18 in 1944. After military service, Davis returned to the trio. In 1949, he released his first single titled “Bebop the Beguine”. The next year he released a cover of the 1934 Jimmy Durante hit record “Inka Dinka Doo”. Sammy Davis Jr. became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro’s in West Hollywood after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1953, Davis was offered his own television show on ABC, Three for the Road—with the Will Mastin Trio. However, the network couldn’t get a sponsor, so they dropped the show. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities. That year he covered Rosemary Clooney’s “Hey There”, with his version reaching #16 on the Billboard pop singles chart. In 1955, he appeared as a guest in the TV show What’s My Line? That same year he had a #9 hit on the Billboard Pop chart with “Something’s Gotta Give”, which reached #11 in the UK. That year he saw “Love Me Or Leave Me” reach #12 in the USA and #8 in the UK. While another hit singles in 1955, “That Old Black Magic”, climbed to #13 in the USA.

Continue reading →

#22: Tiny Bubbles by Don Ho

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: March 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #7 | #95 song of the year on CFNB
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #57
YouTube: “Tiny Bubbles”
Lyrics: “Tiny Bubbles”

Donald Tai Loy Ho was born in 1930 in Honolulu. He is a descendant of ethnic Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and German heritage. He attended Springfield College in Massachusetts on a football scholarship in 1950. But he but returned home to earn a Bachelor’s degree in sociology at University of Hawaii in 1953. In 1954, Ho entered the United States Air Force doing his primary training at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi and spent time flying C-97s with the Military Air Transport Service. Transferred to Travis Air Force Base, California, he went to the local city of Concord and bought an electronic keyboard from a music store, and recalls, “That’s when it all started.” Ho traveled from state to state with his young family until he was called home to help his mother with the family bar business called Honey’s in Kaneohe, O’ahu.

Continue reading →

#23: Happy by Blades Of Grass

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: September 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #87
YouTube: “Happy”
Lyrics: “Happy”

Formed in 1967, the Blades Of Grass lineup consisted of Bruce Ames on rhythm guitar and vocals, David Gordon on drums and organ, Frank DiChiara on bass guitar and vocals), and Marc Black on lead guitar and vocals. They were each born around 1950. Marc Black remembers being five-years-old when he got introduced to a ragtime tune titled “The Crazy Otto Melody”. The following year he heard Elvis Presley. In 1964, Black formed The Toasters. By 1966, he was in a band who named themselves the Furnace Men to allude to the basement of a store in Maplewood, New Jersey, where the band typically practiced. They performed at high school dances, and dances at the Jewish temple in town. Marc Black recalls, “By the time we were seniors, we would just rent a hall and lots of kids would show up.” Becoming a popular attraction in their hometown, the Furnace Men – Ames, Gordon, DiChiara and Black – received interest in managing partners Frank Latagona and Walter Gollander. The managers promised to find the Furnace Men a recording contract. In the spring of 1967, a contract was signed with Jubilee Records.

Continue reading →

#33: The Girl I Knew Somewhere by the Monkees

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube: “The Girl I Knew Somewhere”
Lyrics: “The Girl I Knew Somewhere”

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.

Continue reading →

#25: My Dad by Davy Jones

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June-July 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “My Dad”
Lyrics: “My Dad”

David Thomas Jones was born in suburban Manchester, UK, in 1945. Jones began acting in his childhood. In 1959, his Aunt Jessie answered an ad in the Manchester Evening News calling for “school boys to audition for a radio play” with the BBC She helped David, at 13, get the lead role in There is a Happy Land. He was on an episode of Coronation Street  in March 1961, when he was 15 years of age. He also had a guest appearance in the BBC police TV show Z-Cars. He considered pursuing becoming a jockey riding on horses. However, he was encouraged to pursue acting. He appeared on stage as Little Michael in Peter Pan, and then as the Artful Dodger in Oliver! in the early 60’s in the West End of London. In 1964 he was in a Broadway production of Oliver! and nominated for a Tony Award at the age of 18. On February 9, 1964, Jones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on one of the episodes where the Beatles also were guests.

Continue reading →

#10: Armful Of Teddy Bears by Barry Allen

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: January 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ Playlist
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Armful Of Teddy Bears”
Lyrics: N/A

Barry Allen Rasmussen was born in 1945 in Edmonton, Alberta. His family was musical, and he learned guitar and sang from an early age. Barry wrote for the Canadianbands.com website decades later of himself: “While attending Victoria High School, he was a member of the curling club, and had aspirations of becoming a chartered accountant. But by the time he’d graduated, he was looking at a musical future, and spent the next couple of years in a number of makeshift groups, honing his chops and emulating his British invasion idols.” He joined Wes Dakus and the Rebels in 1965. They band went to New Mexico and recorded with Norman Petty, producer of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Roy Orbison, Buddy Knox and others. Petty was taken with Barry Allen’s vocal abilities and suggested Allen make some solo records. The outcome were the single releases in early 1965, “Easy Come Easy Go”, and “It’s Alright With Me Now”. The first single climbed to #6 in Edmonton in January 1965, and made the Top 30 in Regina (SK) and Calgary (AB). The followup single climbed to #9 in Edmonton in July 1965.

Continue reading →

#13: Diamonds And Gold by Willie And The Walkers

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: May 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Diamonds And Gold”
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.

Continue reading →

#20: Friday On My Mind by the Easybeats

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube: “Friday On My Mind”
Lyrics: “Friday On My Mind”

Stephen “Stevie” Carlton Wright was born in Leeds, England, in 1947. When he was nine-years-old his family moved to Melbourne, Australia. He moved to Sydney and joined a local band called The Outlaws. By 1964 Stevie had formed Chris Langdon & the Langdells. While he was with this band he met Johannes Hendrikus Jacob van den Berg. Johannes was born in the Netherlands in 1946. When he turned 13 he taught himself to play guitar in his family’s tenement home. He played guitar in a band called The Starfighters, based in The Hague. When he was seventeen his family moved to Australia in 1963. The following year, going by the anglicized name of Harry Vanda, he became the lead guitar player for a Sydney band called The Easybeats. A co-founder of the band was George Young. Also an immigrant to Australia, in his case from Glasgow, Scotland, George Redburn Young was born in 1947. He was a rhythm guitarist. After one of the coldest winters in Scotland on record in 1962, the Young family saw a Television ad from the Australian government promising travel assistance for families seeking a new start with a life in Australia.

Continue reading →

#21: Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil by Jefferson Airplane

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: October 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #42
YouTube: “Ballad Of You, Me And Pooneil”
Lyrics: “Ballad Of You, Me And Pooneil”

Paul Kantner was born in San Francisco in 1941. His mother died when he was eight, and his father sent him to see the circus instead of allowing him to attend the funeral. Kantner was sent to a Catholic Military boarding school. In the face of his strict upbringing, Paul Kantner became interested in Pete Seeger, folk and protest songs. At the University of Santa Clara he met Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. Born in 1940, Jorma Kaukonen was from Washington D.C. and had Finnish and Russian Jewish roots. His family lived in Pakistan for awhile before they returned to Washington D.C. where Jorma formed a band called the Triumphs. From 1962 he was a solo act in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1964, he recorded a solo album with Janis Joplin playing acoustic guitar on “The Typewriter Tapes”, given that name due to his spouse typing on the typewriter in the background.

Continue reading →

#22: Morningtown Ride by the Seekers

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: April 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver: #27
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100: #44
YouTube: “Morningtown Ride”
Lyrics: “Morningtown Ride”

The Seekers were a group from Australia. Formed in Melbourne in 1962, it was founded by Athol Guy. He was born in a small city southwest of Melbourne in 1940. In 1958 he formed a group called the Ramblers. He attended Melbourne Boys High School and became friends with schoolmates Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley. Keith Potter was born in 1941 in Columbo, Ceylon. His family moved to Australia while he was a child. In the late 50s, Potger led a rock ‘n roll group named the Trinamics. Bruce Woodley was born in 1942 in Melbourne. He and Athol Guy formed the Escorts in the early 60s. By 1962, the Escorts morphed into the Seekers. There were several lineup changes before they got the right fit. Athol Guy played double-bass guitar. Keith Potger played twelve-string guitar. Bruce Woodley played guitar. While Judith Durham became the female lead vocalist. Born Judith Mavis Cock in 1943 in suburban Melbourne, she had a knack for music. In her late teens she began to have some professional engagements playing piano. She had classical vocal training as a soprano, and performed blues, gospel and jazz pieces. Starting in 1961, at the age of 18, Judith Cock took her mother’s maiden name, Durham, as a surname for her stage name: Judith Durham.

Continue reading →

#38: You Only Live Twice by Nancy Sinatra

City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #44
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube: “You Only Live Twice”
Lyrics: “You Only Live Twice”

Nancy Sinatra is the daughter of crooner Frank Sinatra and was born in New Jersey in 1940. When she was 5 years old he recorded a song about her titled “Nancy, With the Laughing Face”. At the age of twenty she began her career appearing on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. This was a television special on the occasion of Elvis Presley’s discharge from the U.S. Army after being drafted to into the services in 1958. Nancy was sent by her father to meet Elvis at the airport in front of a pack of photographers. In 1960, she also got married to singer and actor, Tommy Sands.

Continue reading →

#1: Don’t Let The Rain Fall Down On Me by the Critters

City: Cranbrook, BC
Radio Station: CKEK
Peak Month: September 1967
Peak Position in Cranbrook ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube: “Don’t Let The Rain Fall Down On Me”
Lyrics: “Don’t Let The Rain Fall Down On Me”

In 1964 there was a group in Plainfield, New Jersey called the Vibratones. The lineup was comprised of Jimmy Ryan on lead guitar, Ken Gorka on bass guitar, Jack Decker on drums, Chris Darway on keyboards, and Bob Podstawski on saxophone. One night a local singer-songwriter named Don Ciccone came by to hear the group. His dad owned Bill Williams Auto Sales, and the Ciccone family lived in a 56-room mansion in Plainfield. Don Ciccone learned to play both guitar and bass guitar. The Vibratones were impressed with Ciccone being both a musician and a singer-songwriter. They asked him to join their group. Ciccone suggested they change their name to the Critters, a riff off of the British Invasion band the Animals who had a number-one hit with “House Of The Rising Sun”.

Continue reading →

#2: She May Call You Up Tonight by the Left Banke

City: Cranbrook, BC
Radio Station: CKEK
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Cranbrook ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #120
YouTube: “She May Call You Up Tonight”
Lyrics: “She May Call You Up Tonight”

Carmelo Esteban “Steve” Martin Caro was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1948. His birth name was Carmelo Esteban Steve Martin. His father was a Spanish Consul General to the state of New York, but died just six months after taking up his new position. Steve Martin added “Caro” to his surname in the 1980s to avoid confusion with the popular comedian and actor, Steve Martin. Michael David Lookofsky was born in 1949 in Brooklyn, New York. He later took the surname of Brown. The Guardian writes “15-year-old Brown worked as a part time engineer at his father Harry Lookofsky’s recording studio in New York. In photos he looked mournful and out of time, with King Charles spaniel hair. He looked as if he would have felt at home in a Victorian drawing room, but the studio was where he met George Cameron, Tom Finn and singer Steve Martin (not the comedian). They became fast friends, forming the Left Banke in 1965.” Carlemo Esteban Steve Martin had met Tom Finn in front of the City Squire Hotel, in New York, after a Rolling Stones concert in May 1965. Finn told Martin about a mid-town recording studio which needed singers for session play. Before Michael Brown met up with his future bandmates, he had written one song for Reparata and the Delrons, as well as playing piano on some of their recording. Tom Finn had previously been in a group called the Magic Plants.

Continue reading →

#10: Laborer by 49th Parallel

City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Laborer”
Lyrics: “Laborer”

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.

Continue reading →

#4: Soul Time by Shirley Ellis

City: Belleville, ON
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: May 1967
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #67
YouTube: “Soul Time”
Lyrics: “Soul Time”

Shirley Marie O’Garra was born in The Bronx in 1929. In 1954, the doo-wop group The Chords recorded two of Shirley’s compositions “Pretty Wild” and LV – LV”. In the early 1960’s, Shirley Ellis was the lead singer of the Metronomes. In 1961, she released “Love Can Make You Know” credited to Shirley Elliston. And in 1962 under the name Shirlee May, she released “Lonely Birthday”. In 1963, Ellis had the first of a series of novelty R&B crossover hits. “The Nitty Gritty” climbed to #4 in the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. In January 1964, the single peaked at #7 on CFUN in Vancouver. It was stuck behind four Beatles songs and one by Cliff Richard which were higher up the FUNTASTIC FIFTY.
Continue reading →

#40: When I’m Sixty-Four by the Beatles

City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “When I’m Sixty-Four”
Lyrics: “When I’m Sixty-Four”

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.

Continue reading →

#49: Lovely Rita by the Beatles

City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Lovely Rita”
Lyrics: “Lovely Rita”

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.

Continue reading →

#1: Next To Nowhere by M.G. and the Escorts

City: Bathurst, NB
Radio Station: CKBC
Peak Month: December 1967
Peak Position in Bathurst ~ #2
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Next To Nowhere”

Pointe Claire, Quebec, was the town M.G. and The Escorts formed in 1965.  Glen Stephen played bass, Mike Gautier was on rhythm guitar, Graham Powers was the lead vocalist, Glenn Grecco played lead guitar, and Bill Bryans was on drums. Billy Bryans was born in Pointe Claire, Quebec, in 1947. In an interview with garagehangover.com, Glen Stephen spoke about the lead up to the formation of M.G. and The Escorts. “I played in a couple of groups prior to M.G. and the Escorts. The first band was in high school in a group called the Crescents which focused on Buddy Holly songs. I later joined a group with Glenn Grecco and Billy Bryans in a group called the Strangers and the focus of the music was Cliff Richard and the Shadows. The Stratocaster was purchased in New York City in 1961 and it was coral red. I played rhythm guitar and we used a Danelectro reverb for the lead guitar. Glenn Grecco could imitate the Shadows guitar sound to the letter. We also played the Chet Akins style of finger picking as there were several people in the Pointe Claire area that played that style. I don’t remember the details of how the group formed into M.G. and the Escorts. Part of the group The Strangers joined with another part of a group with Graham Powers and Mike Gauthier.”
Continue reading →

#2: Flying On The Ground Is Wrong by the Guess Who

City: Bathurst, NB
Radio Station: CKBC
Peak Month: December 1967
Peak Position in Bathurst ~ #7
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Flying On the Ground Is Wrong”
Lyrics: “Flying On the Ground Is Wrong”

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.

Continue reading →

#1459: Are You Lonely For Me by Freddie Scott

Peak Month: March 1967
Peak Position #10
19 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube.com: “Are You Lonely For Me”
Lyrics: “Are You Lonely For Me”

Freddie Scott was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1933. He sand in his grandmother’s gospel group, Sally Jones & the Gospel Keyes. He toured with them across England at the age of 12. After high school, Scott studied medicine, but began singing again with the Swanee Quintet Juniors and gave up his medical career. In 1956, he recorded as a secular singer with the J&S label in New York City, releasing his first solo single “Running Home”. Scott also wrote the top 10 R&B hit “I’ll Be Spinning” for the label’s duo Johnnie & Joe. As well, his song “Baby I’m Sorry” was recorded by Ricky Nelson for his 1957 debut album Ricky. Freddie Scott was conscripted for the U.S. Military. He continued to record for small labels with little success. After leaving the military, he turned to songwriting, joining the Aldon Music publishing company set up by Al Nevins and Don Kirshner in the Brill Building. It was there that Freddie Scott recorded many of his own demos and worked as a record producer with Erma Franklin, whose song “Piece Of My Heart” was later covered by Big Brother & the Holding Company. Scott also continued to release his own records, including “Baby, You’re a Long Time Dead” for New York based Joy Records in 1961. The B-side “Lost The Right”, charted in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Continue reading →

#96: His Girl by the Guess Who?

Peak Month: August 1967
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “His Girl”
Lyrics: “His Girl”

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.

Continue reading →

#147: Baby You’re A Rich Man by the Beatles

Peak Month: August 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #34
YouTube: “Baby You’re A Rich Man”
Lyrics: “Baby You’re A Rich Man”

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.

Continue reading →

#176: Love Of The Common People by Wayne Newton

Peak Month: December 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #106
YouTube: “Love Of The Common People”
Lyrics: “Love Of The Common People”

Carson Wayne Newton was born in 1942 in Norfolk, Virginia. When he was four years old his parents took him to see the Grand Ole Opry. He began to learn guitar, steel guitar and piano from the age of six. At the age of six he was featured on a local radio show each morning on his way to elementary school. At the age of six, young Wayne also performed in front of the USO and for President Harry Truman. With his brother, Jerry, they performed at country fairs and clubs as the Rascals in Rhythm. They had several guest spots with the Grand Ole Opry roadshows and on ABC-TV’s Ozark Jubilee. They also gave a performance for President Eisenhower. From 1958 to 1962 the brothers performed six days a week on the Lew King Rangers Show. In 1961, Wayne Newton & The Newton Brothers cover of the Johnnie Ray hit from 1951, “The Little White Cloud That Cried”, charted in at least five states. Further success awaited them with their first of twelve guest appearances on The Jackie Gleason Show on September 29, 1962.

Continue reading →

#214: Sunny Goodge Street by Tom Northcott

Peak Month: August 1967
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #123
YouTube: “Sunny Goodge Street”
Lyrics: “Sunny Goodge Street”

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.

Continue reading →

#221: Ups And Downs by Paul Revere And The Raiders

Peak Month: March 1967
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1 ~ CKLG
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube: “Ups And Downs”
Lyrics: “Ups And Downs”

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.

Continue reading →

#250: I Am The Walrus by the Beatles

Peak Month: December 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Preview
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #56
YouTube: “I Am The Walrus”
Lyrics: “I Am TheWalrus”

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.

Continue reading →

#269: Itchycoo Park by the Small Faces

Peak Month: November 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube: “Itchycoo Park”
Lyrics: “Itchycoo Park”

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″.

Continue reading →

#284: Round Round by Jonathan King

Peak Month: May 1967
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Round Round”
Lyrics: “Round Round”

Born in 1944 in the West End of London as Kenneth George King, and was sent to pre-prep school from the age of three. When he was 8-years-old King went to boarding school. When he was nine, his father died of a heart attack. He became fascinated with live theatre and bought his first 78 RPM in 1956 which was Guy Mitchell’s “Singing The Blues”. He became enthralled with pop music as he listened to Buddy Holly, Adam Faith and others. King recalled later “Since ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore’ swept me off my feet, I had become a raving pop addict, desperate for a fix every few seconds. I kept thick notebooks packed with copies of the weekly charts, adverts for new products, pages of predictions of future hits, reviews and comments about current artistes. Looking at them now, there was no way I could ever have avoided a future in the music industry.”

Continue reading →

#292: Here Comes My Baby by the Tremeloes

Peak Month: May 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #13
YouTube: “Here Comes My Baby”
Lyrics: “Here Comes My Baby”

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 (born Richard Westwood), was added to the band in 1960.

Continue reading →

#293: Next Plane To London by Rose Garden

Peak Month: November 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube: “Next Plane To London”
Lyrics: “Next Plane To London”

In 1964, a couple of students at a local Los Angeles high school discovered their mutual interest in making music. All born around 1949-1950, John Noreen and Jim Groshong both played guitar. Bill Fleming played bass guitar and Bruce Bowdin was a drummer. They decided to form a band and named themselves the Blokes. A ‘bloke’ is British slang for ‘an ordinary guy, man.’ Noreen, Groshong and the others chose their name after a British slang word, hoping to get in on the musical craze surrounding the British Invasion in ’64.

Continue reading →

#296: Live by the Merry-Go-Round

Peak Month: May 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #63
YouTube: “Live”
Lyrics: “Live”

Joel Larson was born in San Francisco in 1947 and learned to play drums at the age of 12.  During high school he played in a number of bands who performed in clubs. When he was 18 years old, Larson joined a San Mateo band called The Bedouins who won a 1965 Battle of the Bands event in that city. The Bedouins were invited to  audition at the San Francisco Whisky A Go Go. The nightclub owner, Elmer Valentine, had asked Dunhill Record owner, Lou Adler, to attend the audition. Adler was impressed and soon The Bedouins were renamed The Grass Roots and given a new folk rock sound. While with The Grass Roots, Larson’s band were the studio musicians playing back-up to Barry McGuire’s #1 hit “Eve Of Destruction”. In 1966 The Grass Roots had a Top 30 hit in the USA called “Where Were You When I Needed You”, which only got play listed below the Top 40 in Vancouver for the last week of May 1966.

Continue reading →

#337: I Could Be So Good To You by Don and the Goodtimes

Peak Month: May 1967
11 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #56
YouTube: “I Could Be So Good To You”
Lyrics: “I Could Be So Good To You”

Ron “Buzz” Overman was born in 1946 and was in a rock band from Walla Walla titled the Gems starting in 1960. In 1964 he joined a garage band in Walla Walla named Hawk and the Randelas. His Don And The Goodtimes bandmates knew Overman as a huge fan of Star Trek, as well as corn on the cob and watermelon. Joey Newman was born in 1947 in Seattle, and became a guitarist with Don And The Goodtimes. His guitar playing was credited on their 1967 studio album, So Good, with contributing to a “get-up-and-go quality” to the bands’ music. Before he was with the band he was known as a good pool player and winner of numbers of go-cart racing trophies. L’il Don Gallucci was born in 1947 in Portland, Oregon, and was a child prodigy. He was a member of the Kingsmen and was playing organ and keyboards on their 1963 hit “Louie Louie”. While he was with the Don And The Goodtimes, Gallucci was the bands’ musical arranger, known to lift weights “to keep muscles on his slender frame,” and in 1967 was expected to “set an Olympic Record for dating.”

Continue reading →

#340: Green Green Grass Of Home by Tom Jones

Peak Month: January 1967
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Green Green Grass Of Home”
Lyrics: “Green Green Grass Of Home”

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.

Continue reading →

#355: Blues Theme by the Arrows

Peak Month: March 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Blues Theme”

Davie Allan is a guitarist best known for his work on soundtracks to various teen and biker movies in the 1960s. Allan’s backing band is almost always the Arrows (i.e., Davie Allan & the Arrows), although the Arrows have never been a stable lineup. In the late sixties, Davie Allan & The Arrows carved their niche in the musical history books with an array of classic instrumentals and two dozen motion picture soundtracks. The most notable of the movies was Roger Corman’s cult classic The Wild Angels featuring Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra. The Arrows also were featured in Devil’s Angels, The Glory Stompers (Dennis Hopper) and Born Losers (the film that introduced the character Billy Jack). Some of the other 60’s “B” films were Riot On Sunset Strip, Thunder Alley, The Angry Breed, Mary Jane, Teenage Rebellion, Hellcats, Mondo Hollywood, The Wild Racers, Wild in The Streets, The Golden Breed, Skaterdater and The Hard Ride. The LA Reader described the bands’ sound as “perhaps the closest thing you’ll ever hear to a combination of Link Wray, Dick Dale and Henry Mancini…”

Continue reading →

#538: Sit Down I Think I Love You by the Mojo Men

Peak Month: February 1967
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2 ~ CKLG
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube.com: “Sit Down I Think I Love You” ~ Mojo Men baroque rock cover
YouTube.com: “Sit Down I Think I Love You” ~ Buffalo Springfield original rock version
Lyrics: “Sit Down I Think I Love You”

Singer and bass guitarist Jim Alaimo was born James Charles Alamio in 1938. Jim was in a Coral Gables, Florida, band called the Redcoats with his cousin Steve Alaimo. They released a single in 1958 titled “Home By Eleven” on a label called Dade Records, which is also the name of the county that Coral Gables was located. In 1959 they released a doo-wop single titled “I Want You To Love Me”. Subsequent singles in ’59-’60 were rockabilly-infused “She’s My Baby”, a doo-wop tune “You Can Fall In Love”, and teen ballad “Love Letters”. Steve Alaimo went on to have a solo career and had a Top 30 hit in 1963 titled “Everyday I Have To Cry”.

Continue reading →

#388: Good Times by Eric Burdon And The Animals

Peak Month: August 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Good Times”
Lyrics: “Good Times”

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.

Continue reading →

#415: No Milk Today by Herman’s Hermits

Peak Month: April 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #35
YouTube.com: “No Milk Today”
Lyrics: “No Milk Today”

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.

Continue reading →

#418: The Flower Children by Marcia Strassman

Peak Month: July 1967
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #103
YouTube: “The Flower Children”
Lyrics: “The Flower Children”

Marcia Ann Strassman was born in New York City in 1948. She replaced Liza Minelli in the Off-Broadway musical reprise of Best Foot Forward in 1963, after Minelli left to rehearse for Carnival! In their September 11, 1963, issue Variety described Strassman as “a winning comedienne.” At the age of 15, Strassman appeared in three episodes of The Patty Duke Show in 1964 in the role of Adeline. In the summer of ’64, Strassman worked with Shelley Winters and Robert Walker in a Westport (CT) production of Days of the Dancing, described by Variety as a story of “beatniks wasting their lives in at a beach bar in Venice, Cal.” When she turned 18 in 1966, Marcia Strassman moved to Los Angeles in search of new opportunities. One of the first things she did was get a recording contract with Uni Records.

Continue reading →

#441: Hole In My Shoe by Traffic

Peak Month: October 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
1 week Hit bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Hole In My Shoe”
Lyrics: “Hole In My Shoe”

Stephen Lawrence Winwood was born in 1948 in suburban Birmingham, UK. Winwood began playing piano from the age of four, being raised in a musical family. He joined a boys choir and added drums and guitar to his repertoire. At age 14 he joined The Spencer Davis Group in 1963, with his older brother Muff. In 1965 the band had a number-one hit in the UK with “Keep On Running”. The single climbed into the Top Ten in Vancouver (BC) in 1966. A follow up single, “Somebody Help Me”, also topped the UK Singles chart in 1966, and was covered by Vancouver band the Shockers in 1967. Spencer Davis Group had two more notable hits in both the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, finally making the Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten with “Gimme Some Lovin'” (#7) and “I’m A Man” (#10) in 1967. “Gimme Some Lovin'” climbed to #1 in Vancouver, while “I’m A Man” peaked at #12. In each case, Stevie Winwood was the lead vocalist.

Continue reading →

#443: Can’t Seem To Make You Mine by the Seeds

Peak Month: April 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
1 week Hit bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #41
YouTube: “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”
Lyrics: “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”

The Seeds were a garage rock band based in Los Angeles that formed in 1965. They coined the phrase, “Flower Power,” and are regarded as pioneering a sound that would later evolve into 70’s punk rock. The band’s leader, Sky “Sunlight” Saxon, was born in Salt Lake City in 1937. His birth name was Richard Elvern Marsh. Saxon began his career performing doo-wop pop tunes in the early 1960s under the name Little Richie Marsh. In 1962 he changed his name to Sky Saxon and formed the Electra-Fires. Subsequently, he became frontman for Sky Saxon & the Soul Rockers.

Continue reading →

#445: Happy by The Sunshine Company

Peak Month: September 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
1 Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube: “Happy”
Lyrics: “Happy”

In Ritchie Unterberger’s liner notes for The Best of The Sunshine Company, he writes that “Guitarist/keyboardist Maury Manseau, guitarist Larry Sims, singer Mary Nance, and drummer Merel Brigante met as students hanging around the same cafeteria table at Los Angeles Harbor Junior College, where Maury and Many sang in the choir. Manseau had sung in a folk duo with John Bettis (who later co-wrote Carpenters songs with Richard Carpenter) that often opened for Hoyt Axton. The future Sunshine Company members moved in a circle of acoustic-oriented singer-songwriters based a little south of L.A., in Orange County and beach towns like Huntington Beach. Jackson Browne, Tim Buckley, Steve Noonan, Pamella Polland, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Steve Gillette, all of whom went on to be recording artists with widely varying degrees of success, were some of their friends in this fertile SoCal scene.”

Continue reading →

#485: I Feel Free by Cream

Peak Month: March 1967
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #116
YouTube.com: “I Feel Free”
Lyrics: “I Feel Free”

Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker was born in 1939 in South London. He excellent at British football in his teens. At age fifteen he began to play drums and took lessons from iconic British jazz drummer Phil Seaman. In 1962 Baker joined Blues Incorporated along with Jack Bruce and others who played at the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. In 1963, Baker was one of the founding members of a jazz/rhythm & blues band, called The Graham Bond Organisation, spelled the British way. Jack Bruce also joined the band. The band appeared in the 1965 UK film Gonks Go Beat, which also featured Lulu and the Nashville Teens.

Continue reading →

#560: Six O’Clock by the Lovin’ Spoonful

Peak Month: May 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
YouTube.com: “Six O’Clock”
Lyrics: “Six O’Clock”

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.

Continue reading →

#494: She’s Looking Good by Rodger Collins

Peak Month: April 1967
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “She’s Looking Good”
Lyrics: “She’s Looking Good”

Rogers Collins Jr. was born in Santa Anna, Texas, in 1940. His family moved to California and while still in high school won a talent contest in Oakland, which included doing an Elvis impersonation. He was mentored by early rock era R&B singer Brook Benton, who encouraged Collins to sing his own material. Rodger studied drama in San Francisco at the Actor’s Laboratory. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles and hoped to become a star in either film or television. But instead he ended up washing Rock Hudson’s silver Chrysler Imperial. and by 1963 got a contract as a recording artist. His first release in 1963 was a jazz-infused, blues-tinged single titled “The World Can’t Do Me No Harm”. It resembled a late 50s sound of Ray Charles. His B-side, “Working Girl”, was a Collins composition copying the sound of Chuck Berry. And in 1964 released “Give The Kids A Chance”. These two singles were both commercial flops.

Continue reading →

#498: Sunshine Girl by The Parade

Peak Month: May 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
2 weeks Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “Sunshine Girl”
Lyrics: “Sunshine Girl”

Jerry Riopelle was born in Detroit in 1941, and raised in Tampa, Florida. He moved to Los Angeles after he graduated from high school. And he played drums for the Hollywood Argyles. He became a staff writer for Screen Gems. He was subsequently hired by Phil Spector as both a staff writer and producer. A number of the songs he wrote, and others he produced, made the Billboard Hot 100. He wrote songs that were recorded by Herb Alpert, the American Breed, Joan Baez, Brewer & Shipley, Rita Coolidge, Kenny Loggins, Meat Loaf, Leon Russell, Shango, John Travolta and the We Five. Riopelle also composed songs for both film and television. He produced a record titled “Home Of The Brave” for Bonnie & The Treasures in 1965 which peaked at #77 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was also recorded by Jody Miller whose version was a Top Ten hit in Vancouver (BC). In 1966 he also produced a Top 40 hit for April Stevens and Nino Tempo titled “All Strung Out”.

Continue reading →

#501: Happy Jack by The Who

Peak Month: April 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
YouTube.com: “Happy Jack”
Lyrics: “Happy Jack”

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, between 1965 and 1982, the Who only charted one single – “I Can See For Miles” –  into the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100. 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.

Continue reading →

#517: I Can See For Miles by The Who

Peak Month: October 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #9
YouTube.com link: “I Can See For Miles”
Lyrics: “I Can See For Miles”

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.

Continue reading →

#555: She’s Still A Mystery by the Lovin’ Spoonful

Peak Month: November 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube.com link: “She’s Still A Mystery”
Lyrics: “She’s Still A Mystery”

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.

Continue reading →

#1305: No Good To Cry by The Wildweeds

Peak Month: June 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #88
YouTube.com: “No Good To Cry”
Lyrics: “No Good To Cry”

Alan Gordon Anderson was born in 1947. In his teens he learned to play guitar. By 1966 he formed a band in the Hartford (CT) area called The Weeds. Anderson was the frontman. He was joined by drummer Andy Lepak, keyboard player Ray Zeiner, bass player Bob Dudek and Martin “Skip” Yakaitis on percussion. Andy Lepak’s dad, Alex Lepak Sr., became the band’s manager. Lepak Sr. was a musician and music teacher in his own right. The band changed their name to the Wildweeds and got a record deal with Cadet after recording some songs at Syncron Sound Studios.

Continue reading →

#615: (I Wanna) Testify by The Parliaments

Peak Month: August 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “(I Wanna) Testify”
Lyrics: “(I Wanna) Testify”

George Edward Clinton was born in Kanapolis, North Carolina, in 1941. At the age of 14 he formed a doo-wop group in the winter of 1955, in Plainfield, New Jersey. They called themselves The Parliaments. The group originated as a barbershop quintet in the back room of a barber shop on West 3rd Street. Shortly after formation, they quickly fashioned their sound after the newly popular Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers whose “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” was a breakout hit on the R&B and Pop charts in February 1956. Other founding members were Ray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon and Grady Thomas.

Continue reading →

#619: There Is A Mountain by Donovan

Peak Month: September 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2 CFUN
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube.com: “There Is A Mountain”
Lyrics: “There Is A Mountain”

Donovan Phillips Leitch was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1946. As a child he contracted polio and was left with a limp. At the age of 14 he began to play the guitar and when he was 16 years old he set his artistic vision to bring poetry to popular culture. He began busking and learned traditional folk and blues guitar. Music critics began branding him as mimicking Bob Dylan’s folk style. Like Dylan, Donovan wore a leather jacket, the fisherman’s cap, had a harmonica cradle and a song with “Wind” in the title. Dylan wrote “Blowing In The Wind” and Donovan had a hit in 1965 titled “Catch The Wind”.  Donovan was nicknamed by music critics in the UK as the “British Dylan.”

Continue reading →

#1461: These Are The Words by The Unforscene

Peak Month: May 1967
3 weeks on the C-FUN-TASTIC FIFTY
Peak Position: #46
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “These Are The Words”

Terry Robotham lived in the Vancouver area. As he tells it online, “I was writing songs since i was 13 and a friend called Dan Yard was in a band called The Mods that i was giving songs to, so they could perform originals. They went down to LA to shop some demo tapes and the result was that there was interest in the songs more than in the band. So the singer, Dan Yard and myself… ended up with the contract, originally with Momentum Records that was a small independent label owned by Don Perry. Don later did quite well in movie soundtrack production. We released a few songs under that label then he handed us over to a friend of his called Mike Curb, who had started Sidewalk Records.”
Continue reading →

#1463: Man In The Street by Gillian Russell

Peak Month: January 1967
7 weeks on the C-FUN-TASTIC FIFTY
Peak Position: #26
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Man In The Street”

Gillian, Brian and John Russell were siblings who grew up in Vancouver and later Penticton, British Columbia. Their parents were musical. Gillian recalls, “We grew up in a very musical family. Our father played the piano, our mother had a lovely soprano voice.” In 1961, while they were in high school, they formed The Russell Trio. All three sang and the brothers both played guitar. They performed at Penticton High School and Teen Town. CFUN 1410-AM had a house band in the mid-’60’s named the CFUN Classics. The lead guitar player on the CFUN Classics was Brian Russell. His sister, Gillian, was a featured singer on the local Vancouver CBC late afternoon variety show Let’s Go. On the show’s debut on July 17, 1964, Gillian Russell sang a Doris Day hit from 1958 titled “Everybody Loves A Lover”.
Continue reading →

Peak Month: March 1967
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Ship Of Dreams”

In 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967 the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team won the Stanley Cup in the National Hockey League (NHL). One of their star players was Eddie Shack. He joined the Maple Leafs in 1961 as a left-winger. He scored the winning goal in the deciding game for Toronto in 1963 against the Detroit Red Wings. In the seven seasons Shack played for the Maple Leafs, his best was in the 1965-66 season where he scored 26 goals. This inspired a band named Douglas Rankine and the Secrets to record “Clear The Track, Here Comes Shack”. The song was a novelty record about Eddie Shacks playing hockey. The song became a #1 hit on CHUM-AM in Toronto for two weeks starting February 28, 1966. Douglas Rankine and the Secrets kept being asked to play the novelty tune. In order to get a chance to play different material the band decided to change their name to The Quiet Jungle.

Continue reading →

#1467: Got To Get You Into My Life by Stitch In Tyme

Peak Month: January 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #2
6 weeks on Vancouver’s C-FUNTASTIC FIFTY chart
Peak Position #28
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Got To Get You Into My Life”
Lyrics: “Got To Get You Into My Life”

Bruce Wheaton was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, in 1946. He formed a band at his Amherst high school  in 1962. His band was named The Continentals, and his first song performed on stage was the Chuck Berry tune “Rock ‘n Roll Music”. Wheaton joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and was stationed at Camp Borden, west of Barrie, Ontario. In 1964, while with the RCAF Bruce Wheaton formed a band called The Vibrasonics. Wheaton played lead guitar and was the lead vocalist. The following year Wheaton was transferred to a Canadian Forces detachment in Downsview, a suburb of Toronto. It was there he formed his third band named Chester & The Unknowns. The band appeared on a local Toronto CTV station variety show called A Go Go ’66 during the 1965-66 season. Wheaton later joined a band called the Purple Hearts in 1966. But, by the end of the year he was invited by two of his former Continental bandmates, bass player Donnie Morris and drummer Pinky Dauvin, to join The Stitch in Tyme.

Continue reading →

#1471: Somebody Help Me by The Shockers

Peak Month: July 1967
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Somebody Help Me” at minute 5:24
Lyrics: “Somebody Help Me”

The Shockers were a local Vancouver band that started in 1965. They all attended Gladstone Secondary High School in Vancouver’s east side. It was located north of Kingsway, east of Victoria Drive, south of Trout Lake Park and west of Nanaimo Street. Fellow Grade 11 students, David Jonsson recalls, “Only one of us (Mike Wilson) could actually play an instrument (guitar). Keith Foreman had a good voice and a sufficient strut of ego and so became the vocalist. I was deemed, “a good dancer” which meant I should become the drummer. Sounded like a great idea to me. Roy Kessler started on rhythm guitar and eventually switched to bass, at which he really excelled. Jean Laloge was our first bass player. He changed his name to Carter (his mom’s maiden name) many years later and moved to England where he became Elton John’s road manager for a number of years. Graham Kinnear was our original organist and was replaced by a real live Englishman who showed up at our school in Grade 12. Ed Coppard played both guitar and keys at first but eventually stuck with organ and piano. Most were born around 1948.

Continue reading →

Peak Month: March 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Canada”
Lyrics: “Canada”

Robert Stead Gimby was born in Cabri, Saskatchewan, in 1918. After a fire burned down his father’s hardware store, the family moved to Chilliwack, British Columbia. While in Chilliwack he learned to play the trumpet and joined the Town Band, which was a hit at local dances. In 1941, he became a member of Canadian band leader Mart Kenny’s touring orchestra. The Winnipeg Free Press referred to Gimby as “The Wizard of the Trumpet.” Gimby also was a member of Mart Kenney’s Western Gentlemen which was based in Vancouver and toured western Canada. In 1944 Bobby Gimby moved to Toronto where he formed his own band. Simpsons was the sponsor of his band and he became very popular at teen dances in “Hogtown.” He made some recordings and in 1945 became a member of the Happy Gang, a popular CBC radio show with over two million listeners daily. During its run, the population of Canada between 1937 and 1959 increased from 11 million to 15 million.

Continue reading →

#1472: Audience Reflections by The Painted Ship

Peak Month: May 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Audience Reflections (From Polyanna’s Dreamworld)”

In 1965 a local Vancouver band emerged calling themselves The Wee Beasties. Co-founder, William “Bill” Hay told It’s Psychedelic Baby Mag in 2011 about how the band began. “I met Rob Rowden at the University of British Columbia. I was writing a lot of poetry, mostly bad, at the time. Rob was playing in a commercial R&B band. We became friends over the period of a few months and I told him that I was thinking of starting a band. We talked about it. I warned him that it would be unlike anything that he’d done previously.” Bill Hay got the name The Wee Beasties from 17th century scientist, Van Leeuwenhoek, who looked through a microscope at one drop of water and found it teeming with microscopic life. Leeuwenhoek called the microscopic life – microbes – the “wee beasties.” However, the band changed their name before they began performing. The new name was The Painted Ship.

Continue reading →

#1475: I Can Only Give You Everything by The Haunted

Peak Month: January 1967
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “I Can Only Give You Everything”
Lyrics: “I Can Only Give You Everything”

Jurgen Heinz Peter was born in 1942 in Glabonz, Bohemia, in what is now part of the Czech Republic. When his family moved from war-torn Czechoslovakia to Montreal, one of his new friends in high school was Glen Holmes. Years later, Holmes recalled, “We did sensible (?) things like riding on his Ariel Motorcycle in mid winter and in his ’59 blue Ford Thunderbird convertible sometimes with the top down (in winter more sensible stuff). Somewhere in late 1962/early 1963 Jurgen and I decided that we wanted to form a band so we did.” Peter played guitar and Holmes played bass. In 1963 Jurgen Peter stood in for a local Montreal band named the Blue J’s. In 1963 Peter and Holme, formed The Haunted. Bob Burgess was the lead singer and Al Birmingham played lead guitar. But within the first year Glen Holmes left the band.
Continue reading →

#628: Darling Be Home Soon by The Lovin’ Spoonful

Peak Month: February 1967
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube.com: “Darling Be Home Soon”
Lyrics: “Darling Be Home Soon”

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.

Continue reading →

#630: I’ll Never Fall In Love Again by Tom Jones

Peak Month: October 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #49
YouTube.com: “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”
Lyrics: “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”

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.

Continue reading →

#638: Full Measure by the Lovin’ Spoonful

Peak Month: January 1967
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #87
YouTube.com: “Full Measure”
Lyrics: “Full Measure”

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.

Continue reading →

#639: Niki Hoeky by P.J. Proby

Peak Month: February 1967
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
YouTube.com: “Niki Hoeky”
Lyrics: “Niki Hokey”

James Marcus Smith was born in 1938 in Houston, Texas. His mother left his father when he was ten. His dad threatened to shoot her with a gun, but was overcome by other relatives. James’ mother took custody of the boy and he was sent to military schools from the age of ten until he graduated. After high school graduation, Smith moved to Hollywood and was billed as Jet Powers. He also recorded a few songs under his given name. But, in 1961 Sharon Sheeley, the composer of Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool” and girlfriend of Eddie Cochran, suggested Smith bill himself as P.J. Proby. The name came from one of her former boyfriends. Proby had a minor hit in the fall of 1961 with Liberty Records titled “Try To Forget Her”. The single cracked the Top 50 on CFUN in Vancouver in October. He continued to record with little success while he recorded demos for Elvis Presley, Bobby Vee and Johnny Burnette. For awhile he worked as a driver for Paul Newman. Proby flew to London, UK, and through Sharon Sheeley’s connections, met Jackie DeShannon and British TV producer Jack Good. Good got P.J. Proby to appear on a Beatles TV special on May 6, 1964, called Around The Beatles.
Continue reading →

#917: I Had A Dream by Paul Revere and the Raiders

Peak Month: September 1967
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on CFUN ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube.com:”I Had A Dream”
Lyrics: “I Had A Dream”

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.

Continue reading →

#1282: Out Of Left Field by Percy Sledge

Peak Month: April 1967
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55
YouTube.com “Out Of Left Field”
Lyrics: “Out Of Left Field”

Percy Tyrone Sledge was born in 1941 in northwestern Alabama. His dad died while he was still an infant. From a young age he picked cotton and chopped cotton. He was raised on music in the church and also loved country music. Growing up Percy dreamed about playing baseball. But his classmates thought he’d be a singer. Percy Sledge worked as a hospital orderly and later at a chemical plant. He sang on weekends with a band called the Esquire Combos. The band traveled across Alabama and Mississippi. With his untended hair cut and gap-toothed smile, Sledge was not a typical recording artist, as record companies were increasingly scouting for attractive performers to showcase on TV, even though most households still had black and white televisions in 1966.

Continue reading →

#1473: Fisherwoman by The Collectors

Peak Months: September 1967
4 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #15
5 weeks on the CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Fisherwoman”

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.

Continue reading →

#1462: Hard To Cry ~ Northwest Company

Peak Months: July & August 1967
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL-CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Hard To Cry”

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 a teenager in 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.”
Continue reading →

#669: The Return Of The Red Baron by The Royal Guardsmen

Peak Month: March 1967
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube.com: “Return Of The Red Baron”
Lyrics: “Return Of The Red Baron”

The Posmen were a band from Ocala, Florida. They were all students at Lake Weir High School. With the British Invasion, they decided to change their name to the Royal Guardsmen, giving themselves a British sounding name. When their debut single, “Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron,” became a hit single late in 1966, they began touring. The band consisted of Billy Taylor on organ, Tom Richards and Barry Winslow on guitar, drummer John Burdett, bass player Bill Balough and singer Chris Nunley. Their first single, “Baby, Let’s Wait,” climbed to #11 in Sarasota, Florida in the fall of 1966. They recorded “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” which became a #2 hit in the US and a #1 hit in Vancouver. Initially, the Royal Guardsmen got into legal trouble with their records about Snoopy since they hadn’t got permission from Peanuts cartoonist, Charles Schultz, to use Snoopy and the Red Baron in their songs.

Continue reading →

#672: The Love I Saw In You Was Just A Mirage by Smokey Robinson And The Miracles

Peak Month: March 1967
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “The Love I Saw In You Was Just A Mirage”
Lyrics: “The Love I Saw In You Was Just A Mirage”

William “Smokey” Robinson Jr. was born in Detroit in 1940. An uncle gave him the nickname “Smokey Joe” when he was a child. From the age of five he became acquainted with Aretha Franklin, who lived a few doors from his home in the Belmont neighborhood. In 1955 he formed a doo-wop group named the Five Chimes and renamed them the Matadors in 1957. Later that year they changed their name again to the Miracles. The other members of the Miracles were Robert Edward “Bobby” Rogers, who was born in 1940 in Detroit in the same hospital as Robinson. Bobby Rogers joined the Five Chimes in 1956. Born in 1942, Claudette Annette Rogers was from New Orleans and joined the Miracles in 1957. Ronald Anthony “Ronnie” White co-founded the Five Chimes with Smokey Robinson. Warren Thomas “Pete” Moore was born in Detroit in 1938 and was an original member of the Five Chimes.  Moore and Robinson met at a musical event in public school in Detroit. Marv Tarplin was born in Atlanta in 1941. He became the Miracles guitarist in 1959 after the group had a dismal reception at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in 1959. With a guitarist backing the five singers, they were headed for stardom.
Continue reading →

#674: Frustration by The Painted Ship

Peak Month: January 1967
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Frustration”
Lyrics: “Frustration”

In 1965 a local Vancouver band emerged calling themselves The Wee Beasties. Co-founder, William “Bill” Hay told It’s Psychedelic Baby Mag in 2011 about how the band began. “I met Rob Rowden at the University of British Columbia. I was writing a lot of poetry, mostly bad, at the time. Rob was playing in a commercial R&B band. We became friends over the period of a few months and I told him that I was thinking of starting a band. We talked about it ;I warned him that it would be unlike anything that he’d done previously.” Bill Hay got the name The Wee Beasties from 17th century scientist, Van Leeuwenhoek, who looked through a microscope at one drop of water and found it teeming with microscopic life. Leeuwenhoek called the microscopic life – microbes – the “wee beasties.” However, the band changed their name before they began performing. The new name was The Painted Ship. Bill Hay was a poet and liked Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner”. In Coleridge’s poem was the line from the twenty-eighth verse “… as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.” Bill Hay was drawn to it. The “Ship,” as they were called for short, were comprised of Robert “Rob” Rowden on guitar, William “Bill” Hay on vocals, Barry Rowden on drums and Ken Wain on keyboards.

Continue reading →

#688: Yellow Balloon by The Yellow Balloon

Peak Month: May 1967
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com: “Yellow Balloon”
Lyrics: “Yellow Balloon”

Don Louis Agrati was born in 1944 in San Diego. His dad, Lou Anthony Agrati, was a sausage maker. His mother was talent agent. By the age of three Don was playing drums. Young Don became a child actor by the age of ten and took the show name Don Grady. When he was 13 Grady became one of the Mouseketeers on the Mickey Mouse Club in 1957. He got the role on the TV show due to being able to play the accordion, clarinet, drums, saxophone, trumpet, guitar and piano. In addition, he was able to sing and dance. For his audition he played five instruments while singing “Cry,” a hit for Johnnie Ray in 1951. In December 1957 Grady appeared in an episode of The Restless Gun. In 1958 and 1959 Don Grady appeared in selected episodes of the first two seasons of The Rifleman. In 1958, Don Grady also appeared in the western TV series Buckskin. He also appeared on several occasions in both Have Gun – Will Travel and Wagon Train. In 1960 Don appeared in three films: Cash McCall, Ma Barker’s Killer Brood and The Crowded Sky. Grady became an actor in the TV series My Three Sons. The TV series ran from 1960 to 1971 and Grady played the part of Robbie Douglas for all twelve years.

Continue reading →

#699: Peace Of Mind/Do Unto Others by Paul Revere & The Raiders

Peak Month: December 1967
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #4
1 Week Hit Bound
“Peace Of Mind”
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube.com:”Peace Of Mind”
Lyrics: “Peace Of Mind”

Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #102
YouTube.com: “Do Unto Others”
Lyrics: “Do Unto Others”

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.
Continue reading →

#1303: Come On Down (From The Top of That Hill) by Jackie De Shannon

Peak Month:  February 1967
8 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #121
YouTube.com:”Come On Down (From The Top of That Hill)

Sharon Lee Myers was born in Hazel, Kentucky, in 1941, a town on the Tennessee and western Kentucky border. When she was only two years old she received her first vocal training. By 1947, she was appearing on a local radio station as a child country and western singer. And by 1952, Sharon Lee Myers was hosting her own radio show. In 1954, with the family farm posing mounting challenges, the family moved to her mother’s home town of Aurora, Illinois, a seven hour drive north of Hazel. A year later, when she was in 8th grade, the family moved to nearby Batavia, Illinois. Her dad became a barber and young Sharon got instant recognition in the local paper. A headline in on May 5, 1955, in the Batavia Herald read “Sharon Lee Myers, Only 13, Is Talented Batavia Vocalist.” The paper enthused, “Though only 13, the youngster can boast almost 11 years of voice training and experience and in the past she has toured most of the south making personal appearances. Also she has sung on radio with a rhythm band for 2 years and has appeared on television 3 times.”
Continue reading →

#1216: Sound Of Love by The Five Americans

Peak Month:  July 1967
5 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #7
1 Week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube.com: “Sound Of Love”
Lyrics: “Sound Of Love”

The Five Americans were originally a group called The Mutineers. They consisted of guitarist Mike Rabon, keyboard player Jim Durrill, guitar and harmonica player Norman Ezell, bass player Jim Grant and drummer Johnny Coble. From Durant, Oklahoma, they graduated as students from the local Southeastern State College and moved to Dallas, Texas. Coble was replaced by Jimmy Wright. Once in Texas their style shifted from mostly instrumental versions of tunes by Duane Eddy to a garage band sound. They recorded “I See The Light” in 1965 and it became a Top 30 hit in the USA the following year. It featured the Vox Continental electric organ and shouting out lyrics such as “you tried to fool me, but I got wise, now I won’t listen to none of your lies…. From now on baby, I’m gonna beware. I’ll be sorry baby, but I don’t care…”

Continue reading →

#861: Look What You’ve Done by The Pozo Seco Singers

Peak Month:  January 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #6
1 Week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube.com:”Look What You’ve Done”
Lyrics: “Look What You’ve Done”

In 1964, baritone singer Don Williams and tenor Lofton Kline were a Corpus Christi singing duo that went by the name of The Strangers Two. They heard 17-year-old Ray High School student, Susan Taylor, performing solo at the Del Mar Hootenannies. Lofton recalls, “Don was married and had a little one to support, and was working at Pittsburgh Plate Glass.  I was going to Del Mar College in Corpus.  The college had a hootenanny scheduled and Don and I were asked to entertain.” After they met Susan Taylor, as Lofton tells it, ““We asked her to come over and practice with us the following week.  She did…and the rest is ‘history.’” Susan’s alto voice blended perfectly with Don’s baritone and Lofton’s tenor.
Continue reading →

Peak Month: January 1967
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Never To Leave”

The Two Bits are rumored to have been the American band The Cascades, who had a big hit in 1963 with “Rhythm of the Rain”. The origins of The Cascades, a smooth pop harmony group, were born in 1960 aboard the U.S.S. Jason AR-8. When the ship wasn’t overseas in Sasebo, Japan, it docked in San Diego. The group initially consisted of singer and lead guitarist Lenny Green, singer and drummer Dave Wilson, bass player Dave Stevens and rhythm guitarist Art Eastlink. On and off ship they were known to other servicemen and local San Diegans’ as The Silver Strands. Fellow friend and serviceman on the U.S.S. Jason, John Gummoe, was a huge fan and started to serve as the group’s manager. Gummoe booked the group for five gigs a week. He also performed duets with Dave Wilson as part of the Silver Strands’ concerts. The group left the U.S. Navy and became billed as The Thundernotes. They released an instrumental surf single in the fall of 1961. “Pay Day” got airplay on the local San Diego radio station KDEO. Lenny Green left the group and John Gummoe officially joined the band as lead vocalist.

Continue reading →

#731: Zip Code by The Five Americans

Peak Month: August 1967
6 weeks on CKLGs Vancouver Chart
Peak Position: #4
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube.com: “Zip Code”
Lyrics: “Zip Code”

The Five Americans were originally a group called The Mutineers. They consisted of guitarist Mike Rabon, keyboard player Jim Durrill, guitar and harmonica player Norman Ezell, bass player Jim Grant and drummer Johnny Coble. From Durant, Oklahoma, they graduated as students from the local Southeastern State College and moved to Dallas, Texas. Coble was replaced by Jimmy Wright. Once in Texas their style shifted from mostly instrumental versions of tunes by Duane Eddy to a garage band sound. They recorded “I See The Light” in 1965 and it became a Top 30 hit in the USA the following year. It featured the Vox Continental electric organ and shouting out lyrics such as “you tried to fool me, but I got wise, now I won’t listen to none of your lies…. From now on baby, I’m gonna beware. I’ll be sorry baby, but I don’t care…”
Continue reading →

#802: My Back Pages by The Byrds

Peak Month: April 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
1 week Hitbound: March 18, 1967
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube.com: “My Back Pages”
Lyrics: “My Back Pages”

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.

Continue reading →

#834: Summer Wine by Nancy Sinatra

Peak Month: January 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #49
YouTube.com link: “Summer Wine”
Lyrics: “Summer Wine”

Nancy Sinatra is the daughter of crooner Frank Sinatra and was born in New Jersey in 1940. When she was 5 years old he recorded a song about her titled “Nancy, With the Laughing Face”. At the age of twenty she began her career appearing on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. This was a television special on the occasion of Elvis Presley’s discharge from the U.S. Army after being drafted to into the services in 1958. Nancy was sent by her father to meet Elvis at the airport in front of a pack of photographers. In 1960, she also got married to singer and actor, Tommy Sands.
Continue reading →

#852: Pictures of Lily by The Who

Peak Month: August 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
1 week Hitbound
YouTube.com Link: “Pictures Of Lily”
Lyrics: “Pictures Of Lily”

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, “I Can See For Miles,” into the Billboard Hot 100. 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.
Continue reading →

#868: Snoopy’s Christmas by The Royal Guardsmen

Peak Month: December 1967
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Snoopy’s Christmas”
Lyrics: “Snoopy’s Christmas”

The Posmen were a band from Ocala, Florida. They were all students at Lake Weir High School. With the British Invasion, they decided to change their name to the Royal Guardsmen, giving themselves a British sounding name. When their debut single, “Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron,” became a hit single late in 1966, they began touring. The band consisted of Billy Taylor on organ, Tom Richards and Barry Winslow on guitar, drummer John Burdett, bass player Bill Balough and singer Chris Nunley. Their first single, “Baby, Let’s Wait”, climbed to #11 in Sarasota, Florida in the fall of 1966. They recorded “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” which became a #2 hit in the US and a #1 hit in Vancouver. This got Vancouver hooked on the Royal Guardsmen sending their follow-up single, “The Return of the Red Baron”, to #2 while it only peaked at #15 in the USA. Initially, the Royal Guardsmen got into legal trouble with their records about Snoopy since they hadn’t got permission from Peanuts cartoonist, Charles Schultz, to use Snoopy and the Red Baron in their songs.

Continue reading →

#872: She Knows by Bobby Darin

Peak Month: September 1967
7 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #105
YouTube.com: “She Knows”
Lyrics: “She Knows”

Walden Robert Cassotto was born in the Bronx in May, 1936. His mother, born in November 1917, was pregnant with him when she was only sixteen, giving birth to him when she was seventeen. In the 1930’s, being a pregnant teenager was very improper. So she gave birth and was introduced to her son as his older “sister.” In order for the deceit to be pulled off, young Robert was raised by his grandmother, Polly, who he understood was his mother. And he understood that his “mother” had given birth at a later stage in life. His “mother” was a showgirl in her earlier days and so not the “grandmother type.” So the ruse was successful. It was not until 1968, when he was 32 years of age, that he discovered that his older sister, Giovannina Cassotto, was actually his mother. In his childhood, Robert learned to play piano, drums and guitar. According to his biographies, Walden Robert Cassotto suffered from rheumatic fever as a child. Bobby’s real sister, Vivienne, said years later, “my earliest memory of Bobby as a child was about his rheumatic fever. We couldn’t walk on the floor because just walking across the floor would put him in agony. I remember Bobby crying and screaming and my father having to pick him up and carry him to the bathroom, he was in so much pain. I remember being told all my life, “Bobby’s sickly. You have to be careful, and you have to protect him.” Between the ages of eight and thirteen, Bobby had four illnesses with rheumatic fever. Each one damaging his heart muscle more severely than the previous illness.
Continue reading →

#897: Looking At A Baby by The Collectors

Peak Month: March 1967
8 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Looking At A Baby”

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.

Continue reading →

#967: Ten Little Indians by The Yardbirds

Peak Month: November 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hitbound on CKLG
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #96
YouTube.com: “Ten Little Indians”
Lyrics: “Ten Little Indians”

The Yardbirds are an English rock band that had a string of hits in the mid-1960s, including “For Your Love,” “Shapes Of Things” and “Heart Full Of Soul.” The group is notable for having started the careers of three of rock’s most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. During their brief five years, from 1963 to 1968, they set the pace for a lot of the innovations to come in rock ‘n roll into the 1970’s. The Yardbirds experimental explorations also provided the crucial link between British R&B, Psychedelic Rock, and Heavy Metal, while pioneering the use of innovations like fuzz tone, feedback and distortion. With this fusion, and harmonica riffs, they inspired the musical styles of contemporary American bands like The Count Five who had a #1 hit in Vancouver in 1966 called “Psychotic Reaction.” When Jimmy Page left The Yardbirds to form the New Yardbirds, that band was quickly renamed Led Zeppelin.

Continue reading →

#971: Who Do You Love by The Woolies

Peak Month: April 1967
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #95
YouTube.com: “Who Do You Love”
“Who Do You Love” lyrics by Bo Diddley
“Who Do You Love” original version by Bo Diddley

In 1943 Bob Baldori was born in Pennsylvania. His father, John Baldori, played the trumpet while his mother, Lucille, had sung in a big band John Baldori was a trumpeter in. After the war the family relocated to Dearborn, Michigan. John Baldori worked at Ford Motors, a side job at Detroit Tiger’s games and playing at jazz clubs in Detroit. At the age of three, Bob Baldori was introduced to the player piano at his grandfather’s home. By the age of five he started to learn piano. Bob’s youngest brother, Jeff (born 1951), also took piano lessons. Bob was influenced by Oscar Peterson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and Duke Ellington.

Continue reading →

#976: I’m A Boy by The Who

Peak Month: February 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Record World ~ #149
YouTube.com: “I’m A Boy”
Lyrics: “I’m A Boy”

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, “I Can See For Miles”, into the Billboard Hot 100. 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 Rollings 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.

Continue reading →

#1005: Pay You Back With Interest by The Hollies

Peak Month: June 1967
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
#1 Hitbound on CKLG ~ May 20, 1967
YouTube.com: “Pay You Back With Interest”
Lyrics: “Pay You Back With Interest”

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.
Continue reading →

#1017: Hello Hello by The Sopwith Camel

Peak Month: January 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #26
Lyrics: “Hello Hello”

The Sopwith Camel was a psychedelic rock band involved with the San Francisco hippie scene of the late 1960’s. The Sopwith Camel is remembered for being the second San Francisco band to get a recording contract with a national record label. They were the first San Francisco band from the psychedelic rock scene to have a Top 40 hit. In 1965, vocalist and lyricist, twenty-one-year-old Peter Kraemer, had conjured the name The Sopwith Camel for a band he wanted to form. Kraemer’s name was based on The Sopwith Camel, a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company and became one of the most iconic fighter aircraft of the First World War.

Continue reading →

#1027: Hotel Indiscreet by Sagittarius

Peak Month: October 1967
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #70
YouTube.com: “Hotel Indiscreet”
Lyrics: “Hotel Indiscreet”

Gary Usher was born in Massachusetts in 1938 and grew up in the community of Grafton. After graduating from high school in 1957, Usher headed to California and was a musician in a few local rock ‘n roll bands. As it happened, Gary Usher’s uncle was a neighbor of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys over in Hawthorne, a suburb of Los Angeles. Usher and Wilson ended up co-writing a number of songs for The Beach Boys including “409” and “In My Room”. The latter was a Top 30 hit in America in December 1963. Gary Usher also produced records in the mid-60’s for The Byrds, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, The Hondells and others. After considerable success as a producer, he eventually became a staff producer for Columbia Records. It was at this position that, during 1967, he produced Chad & Jeremy. They had played him several songs, which he felt lacked any commercial potential.

Continue reading →

#1366: Give It To Me by The Troggs

Peak Month: March 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Record World ~ #128
YouTube.com: “Give It To Me”
Lyrics: “Give It To Me”

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.

Continue reading →

#1053: There Is Love by Jim Valley

Peak Month: June 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “There Is Love”

Jim Valley was born in 1943 in Tacoma, Washington, and grew up in Seattle in a musical family. In the third grade, he won an art scholarship to the Frye Art Museum for young gifted students. In fourth grade Valley took up the trumpet and had dreamed about being as great as the 1940’s big band leader, Harry James. Jim Valley was in grade seven when rock ‘n roll recordings started to appear on the Top Forty. Jim listened to Bill Haley & the Comets, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and others. Valley mastered a dance called The Bop and with his dance partner won several dance contests. When he was in grade nine attending Jane Addams Jr. High School in Seattle, Jim learned to play the piano. He wrote a Doo-Wop type song for one of the people in his junior choir at the school, Cassie Kenyon. He named the song Cassandra. A next door neighbor, Curt Pearson, heard the song and suggested Valley start up a band and make a recording of Casandra. Pearson knew a lad named Greg Thompson who’d just been given drum set for his birthday. Pearson also put Jim Valley in touch with a friend of his who played the saxophone and a guy who had a guitar but couldn’t play it. The band was called Vince Valley and his Chain Gang. Since there was no one who knew how to play the electric guitar, Jim Valley bought one with money from his summer job in his dad’s laundry. Soon after he became the band’s guitarist.

Continue reading →

#1059: What’s That Got To Do With Me by Jim & Jean

Peak Month: April 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “What’s That Got To Do With Me”

Jim & Jean were a folk duo composed of Jim Glover, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, born in 1942, and New Yorker, Jean Ray, who was born in  1941. This folk duo appeared in folk clubs, TV shows and folk festivals between 1961 to 1969. They got married in 1963, and were listed as Jim and Jean Glover on the liner notes of their albums. Glover was a student at Ohio State University. While he was there he met Phil Ochs, in the fall of 1959. It was Glover who acquainted Ochs to folk music, Left-wing politics, and showed him how to become a guitar player. For a brief time Glover and Ochs became a folk duo on the campus and billed themselves as The Singing Socialists. The name resonated with the duo as Jim Glover came from a multi-generational family connected to the Communist Party USA. Glover’s father was a longtime friend of Gus Hall, the leader and chairmen of the CPUSA who ran for president in the US federal elections of 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984. Phil Ochs was very supportive of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and had high hopes for its nation under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The Singing Socialists didn’t last as an act. Glover left Ohio State University to pursue folk music in Greenwich Village in Manhattan in 1961.

Continue reading →

#1361: Mr. Farmer by The Seeds

Peak Month: February 1967
7 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #86
YouTube.com: “Mr. Farmer”
Lyrics: “Mr. Farmer”

The Seeds were a garage rock band based in Los Angeles that formed in 1965. They coined the phrase, “Flower Power,” and are regarded as pioneering a sound that would later evolve into 70’s punk rock. The band’s leader, Sky Saxon, was born in Salt Lake City. The Seeds were formed in 1965 and the band became a regular act at the LA club, Bido Lito. Keyboardist player, Daryl Hooper, was among the first to make use of the keyboard bass, a signature of the Seeds’ “sound.” Jan Savage and Jeremy Levine were the bands guitar players and on drums was Rick Andridge. Sky Saxon was on lead vocals and bass. However, on the Seeds recordings, Saxon did not play bass. Session musician, Harvey Sharpe, was usually given credit as personnel for bass in the recording studio.

Continue reading →

#1104: You’re A Very Lovely Woman by the Merry-Go-Round

Peak Month: October 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #94
YouTube.com: “You’re A Very Lovely Woman”
Lyrics: “You’re A Very Lovely Woman”

In early 1967 a pop band called The Merry-Go-Round were formed in Los Angeles. It featured singer-songwriter Emitt Rhodes, drummer Joel Larson, lead guitarist Gary Kato and Bill Rinehart on bass. The band released just one album in the spring of ’67 called The Merry-Go-Round. Their debut release was a single called “Live“. It charted well in a number of radio markets in California including San Bernardino (#3), Oxnard (#2), Indio (#3), San Diego (#5), Los Angeles (#3), Redding (#2), Fresno (#3), Modesto (#3) and San Francisco (#6). The song also went Top Ten in radio markets in Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Massachusetts and Arizona. Though their debut single didn’t crack the Top 30 in Seattle, it climbed to #1 in Vancouver in may of ’67.   The Merry-Go-Round performed at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival in 1967 on both days of the music festival. They closed the show on Saturday June 10 and were the second to the show closer on Sunday June 11. This music festival was a template for another festival later that month, the Monterey Pop Festival.

Continue reading →

#1106: Animal Crackers (In Cellophane Boxes) by Gene Pitney

Peak Month: April 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #106
YouTube.com: “Animal Crackers”
Lyrics: “Animal Crackers”

Gene Pitney was born in 1940 in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a songwriter who became a pop singer, something rare at the time. Some of the songs he wrote for other recording artists include “Rubber Ball” for Bobby Vee, “He’s A Rebel” for The Crystals and “Hello Mary Lou” for Ricky Nelson. Pitney was more popular in Vancouver than in his native America. Over his career he charted 14 songs into the Top Ten in Vancouver, while he only charted four songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Curiously, only two of these songs overlap: “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Vallance” and “I’m Gonna Be Strong”. Surprisingly “Only Love Can Break A Heart”, which peaked at #2 in the USA, stalled at #14 in Vancouver, and “It Hurts To Be In Love” stalled at #11 in Vancouver while it peaked at #7 south of the border.
Continue reading →

#1112: Walkin’ Proud by Pete Klint Quintet

Peak Month: October 1967
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Walkin’ Proud”

The Pete Klint Quintet, formed in 1965 and was managed by Tom Jolas of Mason City, Iowa. The original line up for the quintet included: Pete Klint on guitar, bass player Jamie Wornsom, drummer Bill “Mo” Morisky, keyboard player John Peterson and backing guitarist Mike Hesselink. Under the leadership of the dynamic Larry “Pete” Klint, these Iowa recording stars established themselves as one of the top concert attractions throughout the entire Central U.S.A. In 1965 the band members were all 17 years old. The group was named as Lake Okoboji’s Roof Garden Balfroom’s “Band Of The Year” in 1967. At that time, this was one of the most prestigious awards that a group could acquire. In addition, they received several national citations from the National Ballrooms Operators Association (NBOA) for their professionalism. If you were a top Iowa or Midwest ballroom, from the Roof Garden, to the Danceland, to the Laramar, to Matters Ballroom, the Pete Klint Quintet rocked them all. The quintet’s leader, Larry Klindt, used the stage name Pete Klint.

Continue reading →

#1113: The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix

Peak Month: August 1967
5 weeks on CKLG chart
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “The Wind Cries Mary”
Lyrics: “The Wind Cries Mary”

In 1942 Johnny Allen Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington. His grandparents, Nora and Ross Hendrix immigrated from America to Vancouver in 1911. There they raised Jimi’s father, James Allen Hendrix, who moved to Seattle in 1941 where he met Lucille Jeter, Jimi’s mother. In 1946, Johnny Allen Hendrix’s name was changed to James “Jimmy” Marshall Hendrix. As a child when he was asked to sweep the floor with a broom, his parents and grandparents would find him in his room strumming the broom like he was playing a guitar. He was given a guitar when he was 15 years old. Despite a limited mainstream exposure of four years while billed as Jimi Hendrix, he is widely considered one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.

Continue reading →

#1117: Tell Someone You Love Them by Dino, Desi and Billy

Peak Month: September 1968
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #92
YouTube.com: “Tell Someone You Love Them”
Lyrics: “Tell Someone You Love Them”

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV is the son of Des Arnaz and Lucille Ball. His birth in 1953 was one of the most publicized in television history. His parents were the stars of the television sitcom I Love Lucy, and Ball’s pregnancy was part of the storyline, which was considered daring then. The same day Lucy gave birth to Desi Jr., the fictional Lucy Ricardo gave birth to “Little Ricky.” As a testament to how interested the American public was in Lucy’s TV baby, Arnaz appeared on the cover on the very first issue of TV Guide with a title that read: “Lucy’s $50,000,000 baby.” The reason he was given this title was because revenue from certain tie-in commitments were expected to top that mark. In 1964 Desi became the drummer for the pop trio Dino, Desi and Billy. “Dino” was Dean Paul Martin, the son of pop singer Dean Martin “Billy” was Billy Hinsche, brother-in-law of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

Continue reading →

#1423: This Time Long Ago by The Guess Who?

Peak Month: July 1967
8 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “This Time Long Ago”

Allan Kowbel was born in Winnipeg in 1943. By the age of fifteen, in 1958, he was singer and guitarist who went by the stage name of Chad Allan. He formed a group that year named The Rave Ons, as a tribute to Buddy Holly. By 1960 the band was known as Allan and the Silvertones. Another name change took place in 1962 when they billed themselves as Chad Allan and the Reflections. At this time their lineup, in addition to Allan, consisted of consisted of keyboard player Bob Ashley, guitarist Randy Bachman, bass player Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson. Bachman, Kale and Peterson all provided backing vocals. The group chose the name, The Reflections, to resemble the popular backing band for Cliff Richard called The Shadows. Another name change took place in 1965. A pop group from America, called The Reflections, had a top ten hit called “Just Like Romeo & Juliet.” Their popularity became problematic for Chad Allan and The Reflections. Now they billed themselves as Chad Allan & the Expressions.”

Continue reading →

#1120: 100 or Two by Springfield Rifle

Peak Month: May 1967
9 weeks on CKLG
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “100 Or Two”

Seattle’s Springfield Rifle was a band that formed in 1966 that evolved out of a group called The Dynamics. They comprised of musicians who played saxophone, trombone, trumpet, guitar, bass, keyboard and drums, and variously had between five and seven band members. These included Jeff Afdem (saxophone), Dennis Ashbrook (saxophone), Mark Bishop (organ), Sam Wisner (drums), Dave Talbot (bass), Mark Whitman (vocals, guitar), Larry Duff (trumpet, trombone) and Dean Quackenbush (trumpet). There were lineup changes later. Other band members included Harry Wilson on guitar, Terry Afdem on keyboards, Denny Brabant on drums, Ron Hendee on trumpet and Marty Tuttle on drums. Joe Cavender, who also played drums for awhile with Springfield Rifle, was a former member of The Demons from Spokane, Washington.

Continue reading →

#1127: We Love You by Rolling Stones

Peak Month: September 1967
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube.com: “We Love You”
Lyrics: “We Love You”

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.

Continue reading →

#1130: Reflections of Charles Brown by Rupert’s People

Peak Month: November 1967
7 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Reflections Of Charles Brown”
Lyrics: “Reflections Of Charles Brown”

Rupert’s People sprang into confusing existence in 1967 although the seed was actually sown in 1964 when Rod Lynton (bass, acoustic and electric guitar) teamed up with Steve Brendall (drummer) to form The Extraverts. The reputation of Brit Sixties never-were’s, Rupert’s People, rests on two things: the stunning 1967 single “Reflections Of Charles Brown”, a “Whiter Shade of Pale” sound-alike, and it’s B-side, “Hold On,” a scorching slice of guitar-driven frenzy. Rupert’s People only released three singles in 1967-68. Prior to becoming Rupert’s People they were billed as The Sweet Feeling and issued one single under that name in 1966. So that’s eight tracks in total. Rupert’s People are now considered in Britain to be real Sixties stuff, “mods-gone-freaky, with touches of the Small Faces and Hendrix.”

Continue reading →

#1141: Love Me by Bobby Hebb

Peak Month: January 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #84
YouTube.com: “Love Me”
Lyrics: “Love Me”

Robert Von Hebb was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1938. His parents, William and Ovalla Hebb, were both blind musicians. When “Bobby” was just three years old he performed on stage in The Jerry Jackson Revue of 1942, which took place in 1941. Hebb’s older brother Harold “Hal” introduced him to the audience at the Bijou Theatre. Over the next three years before he entered elementary school, and through his school years, Bobby Hebb and his brother “Hal” appeared at various Nashville nightclubs. These included The Hollywood Palm, Eva Thompson Jones Dance Studio and The Paradise Club. Their appearances were backed by William Hebb on trombone and guitar, and Olivia Hebb on both piano and guitar. The brothers sang “Lady B. Good”, “Let’s Do the Boogie Woogie” and other songs spanning the R&B and jazz genre in the 40s.

Continue reading →

#1172: Do It To ‘Em by B.T.B. – 4

Peak Month: June 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
6 additional weeks on the CFUN All-Canadian Top Ten
YouTube.com: “Do It To ‘Em”

Toronto singer Tommy Graham joined his first band in 1958 and managed to work his way through the Toronto club scene with Kay Taylor And The Regents at the legendary Club Bluenote. Following this, he took one year away from the business, traveled to Los Angeles to hone his musical skills and developed contacts there. Returning to Canada he, and some others, formed the group Big Town Boys. The group gained prominence as backing musicians for vocalist Shirley Matthews on Tamarac Records. The band broke out on its own with after being signed to RCA/Victor under the name Tommy Graham & The Big Town Boys for one single called “Put You Down” in 1965. The tune climbed to number 40 on CHUM radio in Toronto.

Continue reading →

#1183: Smashed Blocked by John’s Children

Peak Month: January 1967
8 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #102
YouTube.com: “Smashed Blocked”
Lyrics: “Smashed Blocked”

Chris Townson was born in 1947 and spent his childhood in foster care homes. The Independent reported in an obituary for Townson in 2007, that “in 1958, he was sent by London County Council to Stoatley Rough School in Haslemere, Surrey, and spent two years there.” Around 1960, Townson met Andy Ellison at a mixed Boarding School near Box Hill, Surrey.  Ellison recalls, “this was an outward bound school, that means, only lessons in the morning, and then expedition training in the afternoons and other strange activities to enhance one’s… self. Here it was that we both learnt how to be even naughtier than we already were, and it was also here one night, in our sparse dormitory, that we wrote our first song… on a banjo… titled, “Hey Little Anaconda, Won’t You Play With Me”! After their Boarding School years, Chris and Andy reconnected in Letherhead, 45 minutes southwest of London. Chris was jamming with a band that met in the basement of his art teacher’s home. Geoff McClelland was played guitar and Chris learned to play drums since they didn’t need another guitar player.

Continue reading →

#1214: I Dig Girls by J.J. Jackson

Peak Month: February 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #83
YouTube.com: “I Dig Girls”
Lyrics: “I Dig Girls”

In 1941, J.J. Jackson was born in the Bronx, New York. In 1957 he had his first song recorded by Billy Williams called “The Lord Will Understand (And Say Well Done)” as one of three tracks on an Extended Play supporting Williams hit single “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter“. Jackson wrote songs recorded by the Flamingos, the Shangri-las – the B-side to “Remember (Walking In The Sand)”, Barbara Lewis and Eddie Floyd,  In 1966, Jackson wrote a hit single in the UK for the British group in the Pretty Things called “Come See Me“.

Continue reading →

#1221: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine by Country Joe & The Fish

Peak Month: August 1967
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube.com: “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine”
Lyrics: “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine”

In 1942 Joseph Allan McDonald was born in Washington, D. C. He was raised in the Los Angeles, California, suburb of El Monte. His parents, Florence and Worden, were members of the United States Communist Party and began to have difficulties with the authorities during the McCarthy years. In his home Joe was raised as what was termed at the time as a “red diaper baby.” The El Monte Legion Stadium was on the circuit for music groups of the era and Joe went to hear most of them. In the fall of 1965, Country Joe and the Fish was the creative fusion of a political device, necessity and entertainment.
Continue reading →

#1287: Listen to Me by One Way Street

Peak Month: February 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Listen To Me”

One Way Street was a band from Vancouver. According to All Music.com’s Stansted Monchifet, “they billed themselves as folk-rockers.” Yet, their only single release, on the local Vantown label, was the recording was “Listen To Me” b/w “Tears In My Eyes”. The song draws its influences more from Los Angeles’ The Seeds, than the Mojo Men’s “Sit Down I Think I Love You”. Both songs were currently on the CFUN chart while the One Way Street climbed their way into the Top 20. One Way Street featured to smooth, urgent, vocals of Rick Wanzel, guitarist Doug Fairbairn, bass player Greg Johnstone, keyboard player Bob Hirtle and percussionist Jim Warren. Monchifet writes that “the band cut their single at the Vancouver Sound Recording Studio in under an hour.” “Listen To Me” spent nine weeks on the CFUN chart and peaked at #16 in February 1967.
Continue reading →

#1294: Bluebird by Buffalo Springfield

Peak Month: August 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart/5 weeks on CKLG
Peak Position #9 on CKLG
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 #58
YouTube.com: “Bluebird”
Lyrics: “Bluebird”

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.

Continue reading →

#1409: Go Go Round by Gordon Lightfoot

Peak Month March 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart & 4 more weeks on the All Canadian Top Ten
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Go Go Round”
Lyrics: “Go Go Round”

Gordon Lightfoot 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.

Continue reading →