#24: Lucky Lips by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: August 1963
Peak Position #1
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube.com: “Lucky Lips”
Lyrics: “Lucky Lips”
Cliff Richard was born Harry Roger Webb on October 14, 1940, in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1940 Lucknow was part of the British Raj, as India was not yet an independent country. Webb’s father worked on as a catering manager for the Indian Railways. His mother raised Harry and his three sisters. In 1948, when India had become independent, the Webb family took a boat to Essex, England, and began a new chapter. At the age of 16 Harry Webb was given a guitar by his father. Harry then formed a vocal group called the Quintones. Webb was interested in skiffle music, a type of jug band music, popularized by “The King of Skiffle,” Scottish singer Lonnie Donegan who had an international hit in 1955 called “Rock Island Line”.
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#25: Honky Tonk Man by Johnny Horton
Peak Month: April 1957 & March 1962
April 1957: 9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #3
March 1962: 9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #96
YouTube.com: “Honky Tonk Man”
Lyrics: “Honky Tonk Man”
John LeGale Horton was born on April 30, 1925, in Los Angeles, born to migrant fruit pickers. He spent most of his life growing up in East Texas when the family wasn’t back in California picking fruit. A great athlete, twenty-six colleges offered him basketball scholarships after his graduation from high school. Horton chose to study geology for a while in Seattle. Then in 1948 he went north to Alaska to pan for gold. While there he began to write songs. Back in the lower forty-eight, Horton was a winner at a talent contest in Henderson, Texas. This prompted him to move back to California and seek a career in music. He was a guest on Cliffie Stone’s Hometown Jamboree on KXLA-TV in Pasadena. This spawned The Singing Fisherman, Horton’s own half-hour show. He got married to a girl he met in Hollywood named Donna Cook. In high demand to perform on the Louisiana Hayride, they relocated to Shreveport, Louisiana. Touring was hard on the newlyweds and Horton got divorced.
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#26: Eyes Of A Stranger by the Payola$
Peak Month: July 1982
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Eyes Of A Stranger”
Lyrics: “Eyes Of A Stranger”
In 1978 a band was formed in Vancouver by Paul Hyde and Bob Rock called the Payola$. Hyde was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1955, and came to Vancouver in his teens. Bob Rock was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1954, and moved to Victoria, British Columbia, with his family in his later childhood. Rock learned to play guitar. Meeting in the Victoria suburb of Langford, the band settled on a name recalling the American music industry scandal investigated by the US Congress starting in 1959 called Payola. This was an illegal act where record companies paid deejays and radio stations a bribe for playing a single the record company wanted to get promoted. While it was legal for a record company to receive money in exchange for playing it on the radio, such a transaction had to be disclosed and not counted as regular airplay. While the Payola scandal did not spread into the Canadian radio market, as local legendary Vancouver Deejay Red Robinson attests in Robin Brunet’s book Red Robinson: The Last Deejay, Payola still had a bad name in the industry in America into the 80s. Consequently, although the Payola$ sold well in Canada, they met with stiff resistance south of the border.
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#27: Video Killed The Radio Star by the Buggles
Peak Month: January 1980
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube.com: “Video Killed The Radio Star”
Lyrics: “Video Killed The Radio Star”
Trevor Charles Horn was born in the outskirts of the city of Sunderland, in the town of Hetton-le-Hole, in the county of Tyne and Wear in northeast England. At age eight he learned to play the double bass. Subsequently, he learned to play guitar and sight-read and play the recorder. At times he played in his fathers’ band the Joe Clarke Big Band. At the age of 14 Trevor was in a band called the Outer Limits, named after the 1963 sci-fi television show The Outer Limits. After public school, he got work in a rubber factory, and later as a progress chaser in a plastic bag factory. In the latter job he was fired after three months. He soon got work in a band that played at a Top Rank Ballroom. He also performed songs he’d composed on guitar on BBC Radio Leicester. When he was twenty-one, Trevor Horn moved to London and playing in a band hired to re-record top 20 songs for BBC radio to fit the needle time restrictions at the time. Next, Horn got work for a year with Ray McVay’s big band. This included performances at the world ballroom dancing championship and the television show Come Dancing. As well, he was hired as a session musician for rock groups and to record advertising jingles.
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#28: There Will Never Be Another Tonight by Bryan Adams
Peak Month: February 1992
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube.com: “There Will Never Be Another Tonight”
Lyrics: “There Will Never Be Another Tonight”
Born in Kingston, Ontario, in November 1959, Bryan Adams parents immigrated from the UK in the 1950s. His dad, Captain Conrad J. Adams, was a diplomat in the Canadian foreign service. While growing up his family was posted to Portugal, Austria and Israel. By the age of 15 Adams was playing with the band Sweeney Todd as a frontman. By the time he turned 17, Bryan Adams had landed work as a background vocalist for the CBC. His first salary came from working for Robbie King, a keyboard musician with Motown. During his senior years in high school he began playing music with his guitarist, Keith Scott.
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#29: Boulevard by Jackson Browne
Peak Month: September 1980
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “Boulevard”
Lyrics: “Boulevard”
Clyde Jackson Browne was born in 1948 in Heidelberg, Germany. His father was on assignment writing for Stars and Stripes magazine for the United States military. At the age of three, Jackson Browne moved with his family to Los Angeles. As he grew up he developed an interest in music and was singing and playing guitar in folk clubs, including The Troubadour Club in West Hollywood. In 1966, Browne joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Before he turned 18, Browne moved to Greenwich Village and was a staff writer for Electra Records. He was a musician on several albums and began to write songs that were covered by Joan Baez, the Eagles, the Byrds, Linda Ronstadt and others. In 1971 his self-titled debut album included the top ten hit “Doctor My Eyes”. Another track, “Rock Me On The Water”, peaked at #48 in 1972 and was covered by Linda Ronstadt. As well, Jackson Browne co-wrote “Take It Easy”, a #12 hit for the Eagles in 1972. On March 15, 1972, Jackson Browne gave his first concert in Vancouver at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
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#30: Six Months In A Leaky Boat by Split Enz
Peak Month: June 1982
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #104
YouTube.com: “Six Months In A Leaky Boat”
Lyrics: “Six Months In A Leaky Boat”
Split Enz is a folk-rock band that formed in 1972. For the first several years they spelled their name The Split Ends. They released their first single in New Zealand and Australia in 1973. The co-founders of the band were Tim Finn and Phil Judd. Finn was the lead vocalist and played acoustic and electric guitar and piano. Phil Judd also played guitar and added vocals. Judd eventually left the band in 1978. In the late 70’s and early 1980’s, Split Enz’ membership consisted of Tim Finn, his younger brother Neil Finn on vocals and guitar, bass player Nigel Griggs, drummer Malcolm Green, keyboard player Eddie Rayner and percussionist Noel Crombie. During the 1970’s, they had two singles in the Top 50 in New Zealand which made the Top 20 in Australia.
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#31: Pinball Wizard by Elton John
Peak Month: May 1975
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Pinball Wizard”
Lyrics: “Pinball Wizard”
Reginald Kenneth Dwight was born in 1947. When he was three years old he astounded his family when he was able to play The Skater’s Waltz by Émile Waldteufel by ear at the piano. When he was eleven years old he won a scholarship as a Junior Exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Music. Between the ages of 11 and 15 he attended the Academy on Saturday mornings. In 1962, by the age of 15, he was performing with his group, The Corvettes, at the Northwood Hills Hotel (now the Northwood Hills Public House) in a northern borough of London. While he was playing with a band called Bluesology in the mid-60s he adopted the stage name Elton John. His stage name, which became his legal name in 1967, was taken from Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean, and their lead singer, Long John Baldry.
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#32: Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil
Peak Month: May 1988
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube.com: “Beds Are Burning”
Lyrics: “Beds Are Burning”
Peter Garrett was born in suburban Sydney, Australia, in 1953. He learned to play harmonica and sing. In 1972 Garrett met drummer Robert Hirst in Sydney. Hirst was also born in suburban Sydney in 1955. In the early 1970s, while still in school, Rob Hirst played in a Beatles cover band named Schwampy Moose. His bandmates were keyboard and guitar player Jim Moginie, and bass guitar player Andrew “Bear” James. Moginie was born in 1956 in Kalamuda, Western Australia.The band changed their name in 1972 to Farm. In 1976 they were joined by Peter Garrett and changed their name to Midnight Oil. The following year the added Sydney born Martin Rotsey on guitar.
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#33: Superman’s Song by the Crash Test Dummies
Peak Month: September 1991
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #56
YouTube.com: “Superman Song”
Lyrics: “Superman Song”
Bradley Kenneth Roberts was born in 1964 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He studied music at the University of Winnipeg. While studying at university and working as a bartender at The Spectrum Cabaret, Roberts began writing his own songs. By 1989, Roberts began performing with his brother Dan in a house band for the Blue Note Cafe in Winnipeg under the moniker Bad Brad Roberts and the St. James Rhythm Pigs. Brad Roberts had a distinctive bass-baritone voice, and played guitar. Dan Roberts was born in Winnipeg in 1967. He joined his brother’s band in 1989, playing bass guitar. Ellen Reid was born in Selkirk, Manitoba, in 1966. At an early age she studied piano. She joined the Brad Roberts band, playing piano and backing vocals in local taverns. Benjamin “Son of Dave” Darvill was born in Winnipeg in 1967. He learned to play mandolin, guitar and harmonica, joining the band in 1989.
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