#288: Harper Valley PTA by Ricky Page
Peak Month: September 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Harper Valley PTA”
Lyrics: “Harper Valley PTA”
Ricky Page was born June Evelyn Kuykendall in 1929, in Lindsay, Oklahoma. She was one of five children. She recalled in an interview in 2005 that she began singing from the age of two. She remembers singing along to the radio, as her family couldn’t afford a record player. They also had hoe downs. She moved to Fresno, California, and worked at a Jewish Deli. It was there that she met George Motola, an LA producer of R&B singer Jessie Belvin, The Shields and other acts. Motola left her a five dollar tip for serving him a milkshake. They were subsequently married and she began to write songs credited to Riki Page. In 1957 Page was the only singer for a recording act billed as The Georgettes. When the Georgettes appeared in concert, several other women would be hired to perform though they were never at the recording studio. The Georgettes were named after George Motola who cowrote a rockabilly song “Love Like A Fool”. It made airplay in San Francisco and Los Angeles in November 1957. And in early 1958 charted to #15 in Buffalo, as well as Top 30 in Phoenix and Houston, and the Top 40 in Toronto.
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#289: Going Up The Country by Canned Heat
Peak Month: January 1969
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube.com: “Going Up The Country”
Lyrics: “Going Up The Country”
Robert Ernest Hite was born in 1943 in Torrence, California. He took an interest in blues, rhythm & blues and rock ‘n roll by the early 50s. His record collection of 78 RPMs grew to over 15,000, which he liked to sing along with. Plump into his twenties, Hite was nicknamed “The Bear.” Alan Christie Wilson was also born in 1943, in Arlington, Massachusetts. He was part of a high school jazz ensemble and played trombone. But in 1959, at the age of sixteen, Wilson turned his attention to the blues after he heard The Best of Muddy Waters album. Inspired by Little Walter (“My Babe”), Wilson began to play the harmonica. In 1964, blues legend Mississippi John Hurt performed at Cafe Yana in Cambridge (MA). Alan Wilson was invited to come on stage and accompany Hurt. At the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, Alan Wilson was able to interact with bluesman Skip James. It was from James he learned high-pitched blues singing which he later employed while singing “On The Road Again” and “Going Up The Country”.
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#290: Teacher Teacher by Rockpile
Peak Month: February 1981
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube.com “Teacher Teacher”
“Teacher Teacher” lyrics
Dave Edmunds was born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1944. At the age of twelve, he heard a 45 RPM recording of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”. From that moment Dave Edmunds began to play the guitar, learning songs by Bo Diddley, Carl Perkins, Duane Eddy and others inspired the youngster. He formed a few bands in the late 50s and early 60s that gave him experience playing before audiences. One of the bandmates from his teen years was a drummer named Tommy Riley. By 1968, they formed a trio with John Williams named Love Sculpture. The trio had a #5 hit in the UK titled the “Sabre Dance”. This was a cover of Aram Khachaturian’s 1942 ballet Gayane. It was popularized in 1948 by Woody Herman who had a #3 hit in America. In 1970, Edmunds released a solo recording of the 1955 R&B classic, “I Hear You Knocking”, by Smiley Lewis. In the winter of 1970-71, the song climbed to #1 in the UK, #4 in the USA and #2 in Vancouver.
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#291: I Still Believe In Tomorrow by John and Anne Ryder
Peak Month: December 1969
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #70
YouTube.com: “I Still Believe In Tomorrow”
Lyrics: “I Still Believe In Tomorrow”
John & Anne Ryder were singers who grew up in Sheffield, England. While they both had separate careers, they dated, got married and became a husband-and-wife singing duo. There is almost nothing about them online. Searches for any interviews they may have given to the press, or bios are off the radar. However, more is known about the songwriters of their one notable hit. And thanks to some liner notes from their only album, there is something to report about this obscure singing duo from England.
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#292: Here Comes My Baby by the Tremeloes
Peak Month: May 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #13
YouTube: “Here Comes My Baby”
Lyrics: “Here Comes My Baby”
In 1956 at Park Modern Secondary School in Barking, Essex, two school mates, Brian Poole and Alan Blakley, started a band. On family holidays together, they’d tell their parents about their dreams of being on TV. They learned a couple of tunes by Buddy Holly and Everly Brothers, got two acoustic Hofner guitars, and asked their saxophone and bass playing school mate, Alan Howard to join them. Once they started performing at local parties, they met drummer Dave Munden, who soon joined them. Soon Alan Blakley, Dave Munden and Brian Poole found that they could harmonise any song they wanted to and developed a style of their own, with all of them singing and playing and Alan Howard on bass guitar. At this time they did not have a name but soon opted for Tremilos after the sound on the new amplifiers which they could not yet afford. In time, the lead guitarist from Joe & The Teems, Ricky West (born Richard Westwood), was added to the band in 1960.
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#293: Next Plane To London by Rose Garden
Peak Month: November 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube: “Next Plane To London”
Lyrics: “Next Plane To London”
In 1964, a couple of students at a local Los Angeles high school discovered their mutual interest in making music. All born around 1949-1950, John Noreen and Jim Groshong both played guitar. Bill Fleming played bass guitar and Bruce Bowdin was a drummer. They decided to form a band and named themselves the Blokes. A ‘bloke’ is British slang for ‘an ordinary guy, man.’ Noreen, Groshong and the others chose their name after a British slang word, hoping to get in on the musical craze surrounding the British Invasion in ’64.
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#294: I’m Still Searching by Glass Tiger
Peak Month: May-June 1988
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “I’m Still Searching”
Lyrics: “I’m Still Searching”
Discovered in the summer of 1984 when a band from Newmarket, Ontario called Tokyo spent two evenings performing before capacity crowds at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens opening for Boy George and Culture Club. Their dynamic original sound captured the moment, and the race to sign them was on. Tokyo, which had become a major force in suburban high schools and the Ontario club circuit, officially became Glass Tiger early the following year when a record deal was finally signed with Capitol Records. The band consisted of Alan Frew on vocals and guitar, Sam Reid on keyboards, Al Connelly on guitar, Wayne Parker on bass and Michael Hanson on drums.
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#295: I Missed Again by Phil Collins
Peak Month: May 1981
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube: “I Missed Again”
Lyrics: “I Missed Again”
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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#296: Live by the Merry-Go-Round
Peak Month: May 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #63
YouTube: “Live”
Lyrics: “Live”
Joel Larson was born in San Francisco in 1947 and learned to play drums at the age of 12. During high school he played in a number of bands who performed in clubs. When he was 18 years old, Larson joined a San Mateo band called The Bedouins who won a 1965 Battle of the Bands event in that city. The Bedouins were invited to audition at the San Francisco Whisky A Go Go. The nightclub owner, Elmer Valentine, had asked Dunhill Record owner, Lou Adler, to attend the audition. Adler was impressed and soon The Bedouins were renamed The Grass Roots and given a new folk rock sound. While with The Grass Roots, Larson’s band were the studio musicians playing back-up to Barry McGuire’s #1 hit “Eve Of Destruction”. In 1966 The Grass Roots had a Top 30 hit in the USA called “Where Were You When I Needed You”, which only got play listed below the Top 40 in Vancouver for the last week of May 1966.
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#297: Saturday Morning Confusion by Bobby Russell
Peak Month: September 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Saturday Morning Confusion”
Lyrics: “Saturday Morning Confusion”
Robert L. Russell was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1941. As he grew up Nashville was becoming a city known for country and pop music. In 1958, when he was 17-years-old, Bobby Russell recorded “The Raven”, backed with “She’s Gonna Be Sorry”. It was a rockabilly number backed with his group, The Impollos. It was not a hit. But his second release, “Dum Diddle”, another rockabilly number, made the Top 30 in Des Moines, Iowa, in the spring of 1959. In 1964 Russell recorded a cover of the 1956 R&B hit “Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry. However, it got little notice from DJs. Russell kept on releasing solo records and in 1966 his single, “Friends And Mirrors”, got airplay in several states across the USA and Australia. It also made the Top 40 in Edmonton (AB) and Montreal.
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