#4: Harvest Moon by Neil Young
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: February 1993
Peak Position in London ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on UK Singles Chart ~ #36
Peak Position Canadian RPM chart ~ #5
YouTube: “Harvest Moon”
Lyrics: “Harvest Moon”
Neil Young was born in Toronto in 1945. His family moved to Omemee, Ontario, and he contracted polio in 1951, two years before the polio vaccine was introduced. He learned guitar and dropped out of high school. He played in the Winnipeg based band called The Squires, who toured parts of Manitoba and northern Ontario. They played instrumental covers of Cliff Richard’s backup band, The Shadows. Young moved to California in 1966 where he was a founding member of the Buffalo Springfield. In 1968 he released his self-titled debut studio album. And in 1969 he became the fourth member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
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#127: Fields Of Gold by Sting
Peak Month: August 1993
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
Year-End Peak – 1993 – on Billboard ~#87
YouTube.com: “Fields Of Gold”
Lyrics: “Fields Of Gold”
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was born in Wallsend on Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, England, in 1951. His mother was a hairdresser and his father was a milkman and engineer. When he was ten-years-old, young Sumner got introduced to Spanish guitar, when a family friend left it at the Sumner residence. After high school he was variously a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer. He went to college and from 1974-76 was a public school teacher. Sumner performed jazz in the evening, weekends and during breaks from college and teaching, playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname, “Sting,” due to his habit of wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought Sumner looked like a bee which prompted the name “Sting.” According to Sting, in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, “they thought I looked like a wasp, and they’d joke. They called me Sting. They thought it was hilarious…That became my name.”
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#146: Love Can Move Mountains by Celine Dion
Peak Month: January 1993
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Survey
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube: “Love Can Move Mountains”
Lyrics: “Love Can Move Mountains”
Céline Marie Claudette Dion was born in the Montreal suburb of Charlemagne, Quebec, in 1968. She developed a talent for singing in early childhood. At the age of 13 she recorded an album which included a song she wrote titled “Ce n’était qu’un rêve” (“Nothing But a Dream”). The song climbed into the Top Ten in Quebec. She competed in Tokyo, Japan, at the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and won awards for Top Performer and Best Song. In 1983 she recorded the single “D’amour ou d’amitié” (“Of Love or Friendship”) which became a number one hit in Quebec and peaked at #5 on the national pop chart in France. In early 1984 in Germany, Dion also released a German-language version of “D’amour ou d’amitié” titled “Was bedeute ich dir”. In 1988 she won the Eurovision contest in Dublin for her rendition of “Ne partez pas sans moi” (“Don’t Leave Without Me”). The song was composed by Atilla Şereftuğ, a Swiss citizen, and Dion was entered as a Swiss Eurovision contestant. That same year she gave 75 concerts as part of her Incognito tournée in the province of Quebec to support her latest French-language album.
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#153: Are You Gonna Go My Way by Lenny Kravitz
Peak Month: May 1993
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Are You Gonna Go My Way”
Lyrics: “Are You Gonna Go My Way”
Leonard Albert Kravitz was born in 1964 in New York City. His mother was African-American and Bahamian, and a Christian. His father was descended from Russia Jews. Kravitz began banging on pots and pans in the kitchen, playing them as drums at the age of three. He decided that he wanted to be a musician at the age of five. He began playing the drums and soon added guitar. Kravitz’ father was a jazz promotor, and Duke Ellington played Happy Birthday for Lenny on his fifth birthday. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1974 when his mother, Roxie Roker, got cast as Helen Willis in the TV sitcom The Jeffersons.
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#229: Sleeping Satellite by Tasmin Archer
Peak Month: June 1993
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Playlist
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Sleeping Satellite”
Lyrics: “Sleeping Satellite”
Tasmin Archer was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1963. After she graduated from school, she worked as a sewing machine operator. Subsequently, she learned to type and became a clerk at Leeds Magistrates’ Court. Into the 80s she joined a band called Dignity. Later, she was part of a group called The Archers. In 1990 she signed a record contract with EMI.
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#230: That’s What Love Can Do by Boy Krazy
Peak Month: March 1993
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
YouTube: “That’s What Love Can Do”
Lyrics: “That’s What Love Can Do”
Johnna Lee Cummings was born in November 1971 in Philadelphia. She moved to New York City in 1989 at the age of 17. She became a dancer and a singer in the music scene in Manhattan from 1989 onward. Cummings became the lead singer of a girl group called Boy Krazy after she successfully auditioned in 1991. Boy Krazy was put together through auditions of hundreds of young women by a management company in New York. In addition to Cummings, Boy Krazy featured female singers Kimberly Blake, Josselyne Jones, Renée Veneziale, and Ruth Ann Roberts (born Ruthann DeBona in Glen Rock, NJ, in 1976). Roberts was a former Miss Junior America and was 15 when she successfully auditioned for the band. She had already been doing a lot of auditioning for commercials on TV.
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#246: Break It Down Again by Tears For Fears
Peak Month: July 1993
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Break It Down Again”
Lyrics: “Break It Down Again”
Raoul Jaime Orzabal de la Quintana was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1961. His parents legally changed his first name to Roland Orzabal within a few weeks of his birth. His father had a nervous breakdown early in Roland’s childhood. Later, his father ran an entertainment business, with his mother a dancer in the troupe. Orzabal met Curt Smith when they were in their teens, and both living in Smith’s birthplace of Bath, England. Smith learned to play guitar in his teens. In 1979 Orzabal and Smith became part of a new wave band called Neon. They released a couple of records and were session musicians for recordings by new wave band Naked Eyes. Smith and Orzabal were also part of a new wave band called Graduate who had a Top Ten hit in Spain in 1980 titled “Elvis Should Play Ska”. A grueling tour of Germany temporarily caused the duo to question the viability of a life as pop stars.
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#1240: Almost Unreal by Roxette
Peak Month: July 1993
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #94
YouTube: “Almost Unreal”
Lyrics: “Almost Unreal”
Roxette was a duo composed of Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle. Gun-Marie Fredriksson was born in 1958 in a small town in the southern tip of Sweden. When she was seven-years-old, her 20-year-old sister died in a traffic fatality. She remembers the support she got to pursue music from a young age from attending a church. Fredriksson recalls she had been performing “ever since I was little and me and my sister Tina went to Sunday school. We had a wonderful pastor in Östra Ljungby. I’ve got really bright, lovely memories of that place, even when my big sister died. I loved all the songs. It was such a source of freedom for me… for both of us.” At age 17, she enrolled in a music school, and was subsequently cast in a musical that toured across Sweden.
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#301: If I Had $1000000 by the Barenaked Ladies
Peak Month: February 1993
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “If I Had $1000000”
Lyrics: “If I Had $10000000”
Lloyd Edward Elwyn “Ed” Robertson was born in Scarborough, Ontario, in 1970. He began to play guitar when he was in grade five. Steven Jay Page was also born in Scarborough in 1970. He took piano lessons for ten years and was a member of the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir. Page and Robertson crossed paths in elementary school. But they didn’t become friends until 1988 when they found themselves co-counsellors at a summer Scarborough Schools Music Camp. Later that year there was a charity and Robertson asked Page to join him in a performance. The duo named themselves the Barenaked Ladies.
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#313: No Ordinary Love by Sade
Peak Month: February 1993
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “No Ordinary Love”
Lyrics: “No Ordinary Love”
Helen Folasade Adu was born in 1959 in the city of Ibadan on southwestern Nigeria. At the age of four her parents separated, and she moved with her mother and brother to Essex, England. Growing up, she remembers three albums being played in her home in Essex: Dinah Washington’s Greatest Hits, Sinatra and Basie, and the soundtrack to Oliver. In the late 1970s she gained modest recognition as a fashion designer and part-time model, prior to joining the band Pride in the early 1980s. In 1988 she told Interview Magazine, “I don’t like fashion, but I do like clothes.” Adding, that she regards the fashion industry as more “cutthroat than the music business.” In 1982 Sade Adu formed her band, Sade, with bass guitarist Paul Denman; saxophonist, keyboard and guitar player Stuart Matthewman; keyboard player Andrew Hale; And drummer Paul Cooke.
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#318: Regret by New Order
Peak Month: June-July 1993
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Regret”
Lyrics: “Regret”
Bernard Sumner was born in 1956 in Salford, Lancashire, England. In his youth he learned to play guitar, keyboards, synthesizer and melodica. After graduation from public school, he got work with Stop Frame as a television animator cartoonist. After Sumner and his childhood friend Peter Hook saw the Sex Pistols at a concert in Manchester, they decided to form the post-punk band Joy Division. Born Peter Woodhead in 1956 in Salford, he took his stepfather’s surname, Hook, after his mother remarried. Peter Hook learned to play bass guitar, guitar, melodica, electronic drums and synthesizer. Stephen Paul David Morris was born in 1957 in the market town of Macclesfield, 16 miles south of Manchester. He learned to play the drum from a young age. Over the years he added percussion, keyboards and synthesizer to his resume.
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#1402: Truganini by Midnight Oil
Peak Month: June 1993
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Truganini”
Lyrics: “Truganini”
Peter Robert Garrett was born in 1953 in Sydney, Australia. He studied politics at the Australian National University, and later law at the University of New South Wales. According to the bands’ website, it was in 1975 that Garrett was asked to join a Sydney-based rock band called The Oils. In 1972 drummer and singer Rob Hirst, bass guitar player Andrew “Bear” James, and guitar player, keyboard player and vocalist Jim Moginie, began playing music together at school. Their band played mostly Beatles covers. Robert George Hirst was born in Camden, New South Wales, in 1955. James Moginie was born in 1956 in Kalamuda, Western Australia. In 1976 guitar player Martin Rotsey joined the band around the time they officially became Midnight Oil. Martin Rotsey was born in Sydney in the mid-50s.
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#1173: Lost In Your Eyes by Jeff Healey Band
Peak Month: May 1993
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
YouTube: “Lost In Your Eyes”
Lyrics: “Lost In Your Eyes”
Norman Jeffrey Healey was born in 1966 in Toronto. He was adopted and at age one lost his eyesight due to a rare cancer of the eyes. At age three he began to play guitar with the instrument on his lap, and attend a school for the blind. At age nine Healey appeared on a children’s show on TV Ontario. In 1980 he began hosting a jazz segment for the CBC after attending an open house for the broadcaster where vibraphonist Peter Appleyard convinced the people at the radio program Fresh Air to put the then-14-year-old Healey on the air after discussing jazz with him. Young Jeff showcased his extensive collection of 78RPM records – about 10,000 at the time- and musical knowledge. By age 15 Jeff Healey formed a band called Blue Direction.
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#330: If I Ever Lose My Faith In You by Sting
Peak Month: April 1993
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube: “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You”
Lyrics: “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You”
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was born in Wallsend on Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, England, in 1951. His mother was a hairdresser and his father was a milkman and engineer. When he was ten-years-old, young Sumner got introduced to Spanish guitar, when a family friend left it at the Sumner residence. After high school he was variously a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer. He went to college and from 1974-76 was a public school teacher. Sumner performed jazz in the evening, weekends and during breaks from college and teaching, playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname, “Sting,” due to his habit of wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought Sumner looked like a bee which prompted the name “Sting.” According to Sting, in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, “they thought I looked like a wasp, and they’d joke. They called me Sting. They thought it was hilarious…That became my name.”
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#1378: Good Times With Bad Boys by Boy Krazy
Peak Month: July 1993
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #59
YouTube: “Good Times With Bad Boys”
Lyrics: “Good Times With Bad Boys”
Johnna Lee Cummings was born in November 1971 in Philadelphia. She moved to New York City in 1989 at the age of 17. She became a dancer and a singer in the music scene in Manhattan from 1989 onward. Cummings became the lead singer of a girl group called Boy Krazy after she successfully auditioned in 1991. Boy Krazy was put together through auditions of hundreds of young women by a management company in New York. In addition to Cummings, Boy Krazy featured female singers Kimberly Blake, Josselyne Jones, Renée Veneziale, and Ruth Ann Roberts (born Ruthann DeBona in Glen Rock, NJ, in 1976). Roberts was a former Miss Junior America and was 15 when she successfully auditioned for the band. She had already been doing a lot of auditioning for commercials on TV.
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#681: Thing Of Beauty by Hothouse Flowers
Peak Month: July 1993
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Thing Of Beauty”
Lyrics: “Thing Of Beauty”
Liam Ó Maonlaí was born in 1964 in County Dublin, Ireland. He grew up in suburban Dublin and in his teens he won an award for playing the bodhrán, an Irish drum. In 1979 he formed a punk rock band called The Complex, which he left in 1981. Fiachna Ó Braonáin was born in Dublin in 1965. Other original bandmates included drummer Jerry Fehily (born in Cork, Ireland, in 1966), saxophonist Leo Barnes (born in 1956), and bass guitarist Peter O’Toole (born in 1965 in Dublin). Fehily only began learning the drum at the age of 17. O’Toole left school when he was sixteen and got jobs delivering bread, making fiddles and working as a lumberjack. “We’d been in the same band before,” O’Toole says of O’Maonlai, “but we’d never actually met. It was that sort of band — there were loads of people.” O’Maonlai, Ó Braonáin, Fehily, Barnes and O’Toole made up the core of Hothouse Flowers when they formed in 1985.
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#1067: Tell Me What You Dream by Restless Heart
Peak Month: May 1993
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #43
YouTube: “Tell Me What You Dream”
Lyrics: “Tell Me What You Dream”
Restless Heart was a country band from the USA that formed in 1984. There were several lineup changes and by 1992 they were comprised of John Dittrich on drums, lead and background vocals; Paul Gregg on bass guitar, lead and background vocals, Dave Innis on piano, keyboards, rhythm guitar, lead and background vocals, and Greg Jennings on lead guitar and background vocals. All four were part of the original lineup. Dittrich was born in 1951 in Syracuse, New York; Gregg was born in 1954 in Altus, Oklahoma; Innis was born in 1959 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma; and Jennings was born in 1954 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1983 Dave Innis wrote “Dare Me” which was recorded by the Pointer Sisters in 1984, and peaked at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985.
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#1269: Sinful Wishes by Kon Kan
Peak Month: May 1993
Peak Position #19
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Sinful Wishes”
Barry Harris was born in Toronto. In 1988 he envisioned a one-off project involving a synth-pop version of Lynn Anderson’s 1971 hit “Rose Garden”. Harris got Kevin Wynne to be a vocalist for the single. This was due to Wynne’s ability to mimic the vocal drone found in singles by New Order (i.e. “Blue Monday”). The duo got their name – Kon Kan – from the phrase “Can Con” which is short for Canadian Content which is the name of a rule that enforces Canadian radio stations to at least play 30% music from Canadian musicians. “I Beg Your Pardon” peaked at #3 in New York City, #7 in Hamilton (ON) and Columbia (SC), #9 in Chicago, #10 in San Francisco, and #15 in Vancouver (BC). Internationally, “I Beg Your Pardon” peaked at #5 in the UK, #7 in New Zealand, and #8 in Germany. On March 18, 1990, at the Juno Awards, Kon Kan won an award for Best Dance Recording.
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#465: Don’t Take Away My Heaven by Aaron Neville
Peak Month: June 1993
13 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #56
YouTube: “Don’t Take Away My Heaven”
Lyrics: “Don’t Take Away My Heaven”
Aaron Joseph Neville was born in New Orleans in 1941. When he was fifteen he made his first visit to a recording studio and was a backing vocalist. When he was sixteen he went to a tattoo parlor and got a facial tattoo of a cross. At seventeen, his dream to be a singer was derailed when he was arrested for joy-riding. He also was doing drugs and drinking heavily. When he was nineteen in 1960, Aaron Neville recorded “Over You”, a song penned by Alan Toussaint. The single made the Top 50 on the CFUN chart in Vancouver (BC), but stalled at #111 below the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA. This was the first of five singles on the Minit record label between 1960 and 1962. Neville returned to the Top 40 on CFUN in early 1962 with “How Many Times”, putting his quivering vibrato on display. His career continued under the radar for the next four years until he had a huge Top Ten hit in the winter of 1966-67. In January 1967 Aaron Neville reached number-one on the CKLG Boss 4o with “Tell It Like It Is” in its third week on the chart. The single also topped the charts in Chatham (ON) and Montreal, #2 in Windsor (ON) and Belleville (ON), #4 in Hamilton (ON) and #5 in Regina (SK).
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#1092: Can’t Do A Thing (To Stop Me) by Chris Isaak
Peak Month: May 1993
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #105
YouTube: “Can’t Do A Thing”
Lyrics: “Can’t Do A Thing”
Christopher Joseph Isaak was born in 1956 in Stockton, California. He graduated from high school in 1974 and while in university was in an exchange program to Japan. After 1981 he formed a rockabilly band called Silvertone. Then in 1985 he got a record deal with Warner Bros. Records and released his debut album Silvertone. Two of the tracks from the album appeared in the neo-noir film Blue Velvet. Isaak released a self-titled second album in 1986 which garnered more attention and positive reviews. The track “Blue Hotel” was a hit in France. In 1988 Isaak recorded “Suspicion Of Love” which was included in the film Married to the Mob. In 1989 Isaak appeared in the video for the Elton John song “Sacrifice”.
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#1032: Money Can’t Buy It by Annie Lennox
Peak Month: May 1993
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Money Can’t Buy It”
Lyrics: “Money Can’t Buy It”
Ann Lennox was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1954. Lennox recalls, “When I was very young, we had a salmon pink Dansette record player. Someone gave me birthday money and the first record I think I bought was Mary Poppins followed by Procul Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale“. Both records are magical and transporting. I used to visit my grandparents in the countryside and would always go into the recesses of a cupboard to pull out a box full of old 78 rpm records which I’d play over and over again, especially the Vilja song from The Merry Widow, which I was obsessed with. My dad blew my mind when I was six years old because he built his own Gramophone. He had the albums for every Rodgers & Hammerstein musical and he switched his homebuilt record player on and you heard this crackling sound and then ‘Boom!’ I remember walking to school singing “I Enjoy Being A Girl”. To buy a vinyl album, you had to record player and you have to have speakers, and this is a great thing because that means people are going to listen to your music not on a cell phone, but they’re going to listen to it out of a sound system, which is what we all did when we were growing up. The important thing about vinyl releases is that people buy them and actually put them on the turntable and listen to a side, because we chose the tracks to be played in a particular order, and that was really important.”
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#860: Steam by Peter Gabriel
Peak Month: February 1993
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
1 week Preview
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Steam”
Lyrics: “Steam”
Peter Brian Gabriel was born in 1950 in Surrey, UK. He learned to play piano and drums in his childhood. In 1965, at the age of 15, Gabriel became part of a trio rock band called Garden Wall. The bandmates were all from the Charterhouse School, a public school in Surrey housed in a Carthusian monastery. In 1967 Garden Wall merged with two members of another band from the same school to form Genesis. The new band sought fellow school alumnus, pop singer Jonathan King, to be their producer. King got Genesis a record deal with Decca Records. But the band’s first album, Genesis to Revelation, was stocked in the ‘Religious’ record section of most stores given the title. Consequently, it sold only in the hundreds of copies.
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#733: No Mistakes by Patty Smyth
Peak Month: February 1993
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #33
YouTube: “No Mistakes”
Lyrics: “No Mistakes”
Patricia Smyth was born in 1957 in New York City. In 1981 she became the lead vocalist for the rock band Scandal. In 1982 the band had a minor hit on the Billboard Hot 100 titled “Goodbye To You”. In 1984 Scandal had a Top Ten hit with “The Warrior”. Unfortunately, tensions within the band led to its break-up by 1985. Subsequently, she gave birth to her first child. Meanwhile, Smyth contributed vocals on four tracks from Don Henley’s 1984 album Building The Perfect Beast. In 1987 she released her first solo album Never Enough. The title track climbed to #4 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock music chart and #61 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1989 Don Henley invited Patty Smyth back to the recording studio and she contributed vocals to one of the tracks on The End of the Innocence.
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#1004: Courage by The Tragically Hip
Peak Month: May 1993
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Courage”
Lyrics: “Courage”
In the early 1980’s bass player Gord Sinclair and guitar player Rob Baker were students at Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute in Kingston, Ontario. They had performed at the collegiate’s Variety Show in a band they called The Rodents. In 1984 Baker and Sinclair were in their early twenties. The Tragically Hip formed in 1984 in Kingston, Ontario when the duo added drummer Johnny Fay and lead singer Gordon Downie. Their name came from a skit in the movie Elephant Parts, directed by former Monkee’s guitarist Michael Nesmith. The Tragically Hip added Paul Langois, a guitar player, to their line-up in 1986. When they performed at the Horeshoe Tavern in Toronto in the mid-80’s, they were sign to a recording contract with MCA after the company president, Bruce Dickinson, saw the band at the tavern. A self-titled EP (Extended Play) was released in 1987 with a couple of singles that got some airplay. The group was launched.
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#1264: Brian Wilson by Barenaked Ladies
Peak Month: March 1993
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68 (in 1998)
YouTube.com: “Brian Wilson”
Lyrics: “Brian Wilson”
Lloyd Edward Elwyn “Ed” Robertson was born in Scarborough, Ontario, in 1970. He began to play guitar when he was in grade five. Steven Jay Page was also born in Scarborough in 1970. He took piano lessons for ten years and was a member of the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir. Page and Robertson crossed paths in elementary school. But they didn’t become friends until 1988 when they found themselves co-counsellors at a summer Scarborough Schools Music Camp. Later that year there was a charity and Robertson asked Page to join him in a performance. The duo named themselves the Barenaked Ladies.
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