#4: Strange Way by Firefall

City: Smithers, BC
Radio Station: CFBV
Peak Month: January 1979
Peak Position in Smithers ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Strange Way”
Lyrics: “Strange Way”

Firefall was a soft rock band from Boulder, Colorado. They were founded by Rick Roberts and formed in 1974. Roberts was born in 1949 in Clearwater, Florida. He was a member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, and on their self-titled 1971 album and 1972 album Last of the Red Hot Burritos. Roberts dissolved the Flying Burrito Brothers in 1973. Concurrently, Roberts released two solo albums in 1972 and 1973. He got the name for the band from the Yosemite Firefall, a summertime event in which burning embers were pushed from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park to the valley 3,000 feet below. Roberts co-founder was Jock Bartley, who was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1950. His family moved to Colorado Springs in 1959. Later, he began guitar lessons there (notably with jazz legend Johnny Smith), and later became deeply involved in the music scene when he moved to Boulder. When the pair met in 1973, Bartley was in a band with Gram Parsons called Fallen Angels.
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