#71: One Tin Soldier by the Original Caste
Peak Month: December 1969/August 1973
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #34
YouTube.com: “One Tin Soldier”
Lyrics: “One Tin Soldier”
The Original Caste were a band from Calgary, Alberta, that formed in 1966. The band’s leader was Bruce Innes. He was born in Calgary (AB) in 1943. He was playing professionally at the age of eleven, supported by his musical father who had lots of connections in the city. At the University of Montana, in Missoula (MT), Innes sang with the Big Sky Singers. After college, he accompanied civil rights activist, blues and folk singer Josh White on a tour that ended in New York City. Josh White had a promising career and had toured with Eleanor Roosevelt to Europe in 1950. But he returned home from the tour to be interrogated as a suspected communist, having made it on a “Red” list of subversives during the McCarthy hysteria. White was blacklisted and his career suffered. But by 1963-64, a new wind was blowing across America, and Bruce Innes was grateful to be able to accompany Josh White on guitar. They toured all the way to New York City.
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#58: Tears Are Not Enough by Northern Lights
Peak Month: April-May 1985
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Tears Are Not Enough”
Lyrics: “Tears Are Not Enough”
Northern Lights is the name given to the ensemble of Canadian pop music performers who recorded a charity single in 1985 to raise funds in response to the famine in Ethiopia. The single, “Tears Are Not Enough”, featured solo vocals by Gordon Lightfoot, Burton Cummings, Anne Murray, Joni Mitchell, Dan Hill, Neil Young, Bryan Adams, Corey Hart, Bruce Cockburn, lead singer with Rush – Geddy Lee, and lead singer with Loverboy – Mike Reno. In addition, the following recording artists appeared singing on the recording in duos or trios: Mike Reno and Liberty Silver; Carroll Baker with Ronnie Hawkins and Murray McLauchlan; Francophone singers Véronique Béliveau, Robert Charlebois and Claude Dubois; Alfie Zappacosta and Lisa Dal Bello; Carol Pope and Paul Hyde, Salome Bey with Platinum Blonde lead singer Mark Holmes and the Parachute Clubs’ Lorraine Segato.
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#59: The Voice by the Moody Blues
Peak Month: September 1981
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube.com: “The Voice”
Lyrics: “The Voice”
Born in 1941 in wartime England, Ray Thomas picked up harmonica at the age of nine. He was in the Birmingham Youth Choir and in October 1958 he joined a skiffle group called The Saints and Sinners. The band split up in June 1959. The Saints and Sinners helped Ray discover how well his vocals were received by audiences. Next, he formed El Riot and the Rebels, featuring Ray Thomas as El Riot dressed in a green satin Mexican toreador outfit. The band won a number of competitions in the Birmingham area. It was here that Ray became known for making an entrance onstage by sliding to center stage on his knees. On one occasion Thomas sent a row of potted tulips flying into the audience. El Riot and the Rebels appeared several times on a local variety show called Lunchbox. They made their debut on Lunchbox on November 14, 1962, and played “Guitar Tango” and “I Remember You”. Mike Pinder joined El Riot and the Rebels on keyboards. On April 15, 1963, El Riot and the Rebels performed at The Riverside Dancing Club in Tenbury Wells as the opening act for The Beatles. Pinder went off to serve in the British Army. When he returned, Thomas and Pinder left El Riot and the Rebels and formed a new band called the Krew Kats.
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#60: Paralyzed/When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again by Elvis Presley
A-side: “Paralyzed”
Peak Month: November 1956
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #59
YouTube.com: “Paralyzed”
Lyrics: “Paralyzed”
B-side: “When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again”
Peak Month: November 1956
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube.com: “When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again”
Lyrics: “When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again”
Elvis Aaron Presley was born on in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, on January 8, 1935. His twin brother, Jessie Garon Presley, was stillborn. When he was eleven years old his parents bought him a guitar at the Tupelo Hardware Store. As a result Elvis grew up as an only child. He and his parents, Vernon and Gladys, moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948. The young Presley graduated from high school in 1953. That year he stopped by the Memphis Recording Service to record two songs, including “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin”. Elvis’ musical influences were the pop and country music of the time, the gospel music he heard in church and at the all-night gospel sings he frequently attended, and the black R&B he absorbed on historic Beale Street as a Memphis teenager. In 1954, Elvis began his singing career recording “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” at Sun Records in Memphis.
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#70: Ain’t Love A Bitch by Rod Stewart
Peak Month: June 1979
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube.com: “Ain’t Love A Bitch”
Lyrics: “Ain’t Love A Bitch”
Roderick David Stewart was born in London, England, in 1945. In 1956 he got introduced to rock ‘n roll when he saw Bill Haley and His Comets in concert, and heard Little Richard’s “The Girl Can’t Help It”. He was given a guitar by his dad in 1959, and he learned to play the Kingston Trio’s “A Worried Man”. He quit school at age 15 and worked as a newspaper boy. He auditioned with Joe Meek in 1961, but didn’t get a record deal. By 1963 he was part of an R&B band called The Dimensions. In 1965 he teamed up with Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger to form a blues band called Steampacket. This lasted another year. Eventually, Stewart became part of the Jeff Beck Group in 1967. When that band broke up in the fall of ’68, Rod Stewart got invited to join the reformed Small Faces, who were now just called Faces.
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#69: Mona Lisa by Carl Mann
Peak Month: August 1959
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com: “Mona Lisa”
Lyrics: “Mona Lisa”
Carl Richard Mann was born in 1942 in Huntingdon, Tennessee. He was referred to as “The Last Son of Sun”, as he was one of the final artists introduced by Sam Phillips of Sun Records. A child musical prodigy, he learned to play the guitar by age eight, sang in church, and by the age of eleven also began to perform country songs for local talent shows in nearby Jackson, Tennessee. In 1957 at the age of 15, Mann released his first single on Jaxon Records, “Gonna Rock and Roll Tonight” b/w “Rockin’ Love”. After he released several more singles on Jaxon, Carl Perkins drummer – W.S. Holland – became the manager for Carl Mann.
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#60: Desiderata by Les Crane
Peak Month: November-December 1971
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #8
YouTube.com: “Desiderata”
Lyrics: “Desiderata”
Les Crane was born in New York City in 1933 as Lesley Stein, and was raised in a Jewish household. He was a talk show host on KONO (San Antonio, TX) in 1958, and moved to WPEN in Philadelphia. In 1961, Crane hosted a talk show on KGO in San Francisco. Years later, American Top 40 show host Casey Kasem credited Les Crane as one of several radio show hosts who solidified the Top 40 pop song format. Previously, AM stations had Top 50 (like CFUN) or Top 60 (like CKWX) or even for awhile the Top 99 (WIBG – 990 AM – in Philadelphia). In 1964 ABC offered Crane a chance to host a show on the east coast. Based in New York City on WABC, The New Les Crane Show went head-to-head with Johnny Carson.
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#61: Don’t Let Me Down by the Beatles
Peak Month: May 1969
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #35
YouTube.com: “Don’t Let Me Down”
Lyrics: “Don’t Let Me Down”
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. He attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and met fellow classmates George Harrison on a school bus. When Paul was 14 his mom died from a blockage in one of her blood vessels. In his early teens McCartney learned to play trumpet, guitar and piano. He was left-handed and restrung the strings to make it work. In 1957, Paul met John Lennon and in October he was invited to join John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, which Lennon had founded in 1956. After Paul joined the group his suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. Other original members of the Quarrymen, Len Garry, Rod Davis, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Pete Shotton left the band when their set changed from skiffle to rock ‘n roll. John Duff Lowe, a friend of Paul’s from the Liverpool Institute, who had joined the Quarrymen in early 1958 left the band at the end of school. This left Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as remaining trio. On July 15, 1958, John Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident.
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#62: In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins
Peak Month: August 1981
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “In The Air Tonight”
Lyrics: “In The Air Tonight”
Philip “Phil” Collins was born in 1951 in Middlesex, England. From the age of five he began to play drums. He never learned to read and write conventional musical notation, and instead used a system he devised himself. He later regretted this, saying: “I never really came to grips with the music. I should have stuck with it. I’ve always felt that if I could hum it, I could play it. For me, that was good enough, but that attitude is bad. He formed a band at the age of 14, and was an extra in the Beatles film A Hard Days Night. Collins played one of the screaming teenagers in the audience for a concert at a TV station. In 1967 Collins played a lead role as one of Farmer Grant’s children in the film Calamity the Cow. Also in 1967, he acted in a scene in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where children storm a castle, but the scene was cut to shorten the film.
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#68: The Last Farewell by Roger Whittaker
Peak Month: May-June 1975
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “The Last Farewell”
Lyrics: “The Last Farewell”
Roger Henry Brough Whittaker was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1936. Upon completing his high school education, he was called up for national service and spent two years in the Kenya Regiment fighting the Mau Mau in the Aberdalre Forest. In 1956 he was demobilised and decided on a career in medicine. He enrolled at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. However, he left his studies in medicine behind after a year and a half, and joined the civil service education department as a teacher. He moved to Wales in 1959, and while a student at university, he gained attention as a local singer. In 1962, he got a recording contract with Fontana Records. His first single was “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. In the summer of 1962, Whittaker performed in Portrush, Northern Ireland. He achieved a breakthrough when he was signed to appear on an Ulster TV show called This and That. His second single was a cover version of “Steel Men”, released in June 1962. On his Fontana releases he was billed as Rog Whittaker.
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