#23: After The Heartache by Doug Lycett

City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: June 1963
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “After The Heartache”
Lyrics: N/A

Doug Lycett was born in Orono, Ontario. He headed a country-rockabilly band named Doug Lycett and the Kingston Monarchs. At this time of writing, little can be found online about the singer-songwriter.

In 1963, Doug Lycett released a single titled “After The Heartache”.

“After The Heartache” is a song written by Doug Lycett. The song is about a guy who lost his “love in the summertime.” The reason for his loss is that another guy “took her away from me.” The lure of the other guy was apparently too strong for her to resist. All through the fall and winter he keeps company with his heartache over the loss. Now, he is determined “to find somebody to take the place of you.” In order to move on with his life, he’s put away the letters she wrote to him, and a photograph he has kept of her. He’s resolved to “put away the memories” that he had of her: “I gotta get over you.” Now, he plans to smile whenever a young woman passes by, and “wink” if they smile back too.

“After The Heartache” peaked at #6 in Kingston (ON). It ranked at #36 on the Top Sixty of 1963 on CKWS radio in Kingston.

Lycett next released in the fall of ’63 a single titled “Going Home”, also on Arc Records. The single was a country-tinged rock song. It made the Top 15 on the CKWS pop chart. In 1964, Lycett switched labels to Hawk Records. With the new label, Doug Lycett and the Kingston Monarchs released a single titled “What Does A Boy Do?”. The owner and producer of Hawk Records was Ronnie Hawkins, who had a number of rockabilly hits including “Mary Lou” and “Forty Days”.

In 1967, Doug Lycett and the Kingston Monarchs released on the Columbia label “Build A Scaffold Way Up High”. It was a Top 20 hit on the Richmond Hill country station CFGM.

If anyone knows what happened to Doug Lycett since the late sixties, send me a comment beneath this post.

April 5, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
“Doug Lycett and the Kingston Monarchs,” discogs.com.

Top Sixty of 1963 from CKWS 960-AM Kingston (ON) (December 1963)