#14: Come To Me by France Joli
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: December 1979
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #30
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Come To Me”
Lyrics: “Come To Me”
France Joly was born in 1963 in suburban Montreal. Her father was a hardware merchant and her mother was a teacher. As early as age four, she was performing for relatives lip-syncing to Barbra Streisand records while handling a skipping rope like a microphone. She appeared on a local Montreal TV variety show by age six. At age 11, she left the public school system and was home schooled by her mother. Her mother wanted her daughter to concentrate on her performing career appearing regularly in television commercials and talent shows. A mutual acquaintance suggested France meet up with musician Tony Green who she approached backstage after he had given a concert. She invited Green to be her record producer. Green did not take the 13-year-old girl seriously. Green recalled: “To get rid of her I [told] her to keep in touch.” According to one source, France Joly eventually visited Green’s home to sing for him. It is also reported that Green first heard her sing from the audience of an “end of school year show” in which she performed in the fall of 1978. Both accounts concur that Green first heard Joli singing along with a Streisand recording of “Evergreen”.