#5: Hard Sun by Indio
City: Burnaby, BC
Radio Station: CFML
Peak Month: September 1989
Peak Position in Burnaby ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Hard Sun”
Lyrics: “Hard Sun”
Gordon Peterson was born in 1962 and grew up in Dundas, Ontario. He worked on his grandfather’s tobacco farm in Ontario from the age of fifteen. The name Indio came to him while recording the second half of the album Big Harvest in California with Larry Klein. One afternoon, he drove down to Mexico and the last town before he crossed the border was named Indio. At that point Peterson decided he didn’t want to use his own name on the album and decided to use Indio. Big Harvest took two months to record. It involved several high-profile artists including Hamiltonian guitar player, Bill Dillon, and Peter Gabriel’s guitarist, David Rhodes. Larry Klein played bass. New York singer Brenda Russell sang background vocals, as did Joni Mitchell. Other collaborators included Indian violinist L. Subramaniam. Big Harvest appeared on the RPM 100 Chart in 1989.