#1119: Love Hurts by Roy Orbison
Peak Month: June 1961
7 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Love Hurts”
Lyrics: “Love Hurts”
Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas in 1936. When he turned six his dad gave him a guitar. Both his dad, Orbie Lee, and uncle Charlie Orbison, taught him how to play. Though his family moved to Forth Worth for work at a munitions factory, Roy was sent to live with his grandmother due to a polio outbreak in 1944. That year he wrote his first song “A Vow of Love”. The next year he won a contest on Vernon radio station KVWC and was offered his own radio show on Saturdays. After the war his family reunited and moved to Wink, Texas, where Roy formed his first band, in 1949, called The Wink Westerners.
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#1120: 100 or Two by Springfield Rifle
Peak Month: May 1967
9 weeks on CKLG
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “100 Or Two”
Seattle’s Springfield Rifle was a band that formed in 1966 that evolved out of a group called The Dynamics. They comprised of musicians who played saxophone, trombone, trumpet, guitar, bass, keyboard and drums, and variously had between five and seven band members. These included Jeff Afdem (saxophone), Dennis Ashbrook (saxophone), Mark Bishop (organ), Sam Wisner (drums), Dave Talbot (bass), Mark Whitman (vocals, guitar), Larry Duff (trumpet, trombone) and Dean Quackenbush (trumpet). There were lineup changes later. Other band members included Harry Wilson on guitar, Terry Afdem on keyboards, Denny Brabant on drums, Ron Hendee on trumpet and Marty Tuttle on drums. Joe Cavender, who also played drums for awhile with Springfield Rifle, was a former member of The Demons from Spokane, Washington.
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#1121: Can You Give It All To Me by Myles & Lenny
Peak Month: March 1975
7 weeks on CKLG
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Can You Give It All To Me”
Lyrics: “Can You Give It All To Me”
Lenny Solomon was born in Toronto in 1952. He was musically influenced by his dad, Stanley Solomon, who played violin in the Toronto Symphony. Lenny Solomon learned to play violin while he was still a child. Myles Cohen was born in Montreal and taught himself guitar in his youth. Myles & Lenny formed after the two met in high school in Toronto in the late 60s. In 1969 they attended a songwriters conference held at the Mariposa Folk Festival that year on Centre Island, part of the Toronto Islands. During the festival they made their debut appearance on stage. The festival was a catalyst for gigs at Toronto area coffee houses and short tours to Western Canada.
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#1122: Sugar Candy by Georgia Gibbs
Peak Month: June 1957
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Sugar Candy”
Georgia Gibbs was a traditional pop singer who sang with the Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and other big bands in the 40s. She went on to have numerous hits prior to the arrival of Elvis Presley in 1956, who with other rock n’ rollers swept many traditional pop singers like Georgia Gibbs off the pop charts. Gibbs was born in 1919 as Frieda Lipschitz in a Russian-Jewish immigrant home in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father died shortly after she was born and as an infant lived in an orphanage until she was seven years old. Before she left the orphanage her musical talents were in bloom and she got lead roles each year in the orphanage’s variety show. Back at home when her mother got work as a midwife, young Frieda was often left on her own for weeks at a time with only a Philco radio for company.
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#1123: Is The Night Too Cold For Dancing by Randy Bachman
Peak Month: July 1978
9 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Is The Night Too Cold For Dancing’?”
Randolph Charles Bachman was born in 1943 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When he was just three years old he entered the King of the Saddle singing contest on CKY radio, Manitoba’s first radio station that began in 1923. Bachman won the contest. When he turned five years he began to study the violin through the Royal Toronto Conservatory. Though he couldn’t read music, he was able to play anything once he heard it. He dropped out of high school and subsequently a business administration program in college. He co-founded a Winnipeg band called The Silvertones with Chad Allan in 1960. In 1962 the band became Chad Allan and the Expressions, and was renamed The Guess Who in 1965 with their first big hit, “Shakin’ All Over“.
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#1124: Boom Boom Baby by Crash Craddock
Peak Month: December 1959
7 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Boom Boom Baby”
Lyrics: “Boom Boom Baby”
In 1939, Billy “Crash” Craddock was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was the youngest of thirteen children. The Craddock’s were a clan that were tight, knit with the threads of love of family and music. Craddock’s dad played harmonica, spoons, wash board and buck danced. His whole family mother harmonized as they sang old gospel song and folk tunes. Craddock would listen to Little Jimmy Dickens, Faron Young and others on the radio. It would only take him a time or two to learn the lyrics and tune by heart. One brother paid little Billy Craddock a nickel for each song he could sing word-perfect. He learned to play guitar when he was just six. When he was eleven, Craddock entered a talent contest on a local TV station. He was voted the winner for fifteen weeks in a row. Craddock got his nickname, “Crash,” from playing football in high school. Inspired by Elvis Presley, Crash Craddock formed a rockabilly band with one of his brothers called The Four Rebels. And he got a record deal with Sky Castle Records in Greensboro and released a single titled “Smacky-Mouth” in 1957.
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#1125: We Gotta All Get Together by Paul Revere And The Raiders
Peak Month: October 1969
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube.com: “We Gotta All Get Together”
Lyrics: “We Gotta All Get Together”
A band called The Downbeats formed in Boise, Idaho, in 1958. Paul Revere Dick started the band originally as an instrumental group. They had their first chart single in Vancouver in 1960, an instrumental riff on the piano tune, Chopsticks, called “Beatnik Sticks“. They changed their name to Paul Revere And The Raiders in 1960. Between 1960 and 1976 they released 41 singles. They charted five songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA beginning in 1966. These included “Kicks” and “Hungry” (1966), “Him Or Me? What’s It Gonna Be” (1967) and their cover of Don Fardon’s 1968 single “Indian Reservation”, which peaked at #1 for the band in 1971. They were even more popular in Vancouver where they charted over fifteen songs into the Top Ten on the local charts here on the West Coast.
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#1127: We Love You by Rolling Stones
Peak Month: September 1967
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube.com: “We Love You”
Lyrics: “We Love You”
Michael Philip Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent, England, in 1943, some 18 miles east of London. Though his father and grandfather were both teachers by profession, and he was encouraged to be a teacher, the boy had different aspirations. “I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just liked to sing. Some kids sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio–the BBC or Radio Luxembourg –or watching them on TV and in the movies.” In 1950 Mick Jagger met Keith Richards while attending primary school. They became good friends until the summer of 1954 when the Jagger family moved to the village of Wilmington, a mile south of Dartford. The pair bumped into each other at a train station in 1961 and resumed their friendship.
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#1129: Oh Pretty Lady by Trooper
Peak Month: March 1978
8 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Oh Pretty Lady”
Lyrics: “Oh Pretty Lady”
In 1967 Ra McGuire and Brian Smith played in a Vancouver band named Winter’s Green. The band recorded two songs, “Are You a Monkey” and “Jump in the River Blues”, on the Rumble Records Label. “Are You A Monkey” later appeared on a rock collection: 1983’s “The History of Vancouver Rock and Roll, Vol. 3.” In the early seventies Winter’s Green changed their name to Applejack and added drummer Tommy Stewart and bassist Harry Kalensky to their lineup. Applejack became a very popular band in the Vancouver area, and began touring extensively in British Columbia. The band played a few original tunes such as “Raise A Little Hell” and “Oh, Pretty Lady”, as well as Top 40 songs by artists such as Neil Young, and Chicago.
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#1130: Reflections of Charles Brown by Rupert’s People
Peak Month: November 1967
7 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Reflections Of Charles Brown”
Lyrics: “Reflections Of Charles Brown”
Rupert’s People sprang into confusing existence in 1967 although the seed was actually sown in 1964 when Rod Lynton (bass, acoustic and electric guitar) teamed up with Steve Brendall (drummer) to form The Extraverts. The reputation of Brit Sixties never-were’s, Rupert’s People, rests on two things: the stunning 1967 single “Reflections Of Charles Brown”, a “Whiter Shade of Pale” sound-alike, and it’s B-side, “Hold On,” a scorching slice of guitar-driven frenzy. Rupert’s People only released three singles in 1967-68. Prior to becoming Rupert’s People they were billed as The Sweet Feeling and issued one single under that name in 1966. So that’s eight tracks in total. Rupert’s People are now considered in Britain to be real Sixties stuff, “mods-gone-freaky, with touches of the Small Faces and Hendrix.”
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