#239: Mama Let Him Play by Doucette
Peak Month: June 1978
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Mama Let Him Play”
Lyrics: “Mama Let Him Play”
In 1952 Jerry Doucette was born in Montreal into a musical family. At the age of four his family moved to Hamilton, Ontario. At the age of six got his first guitar. When he was eight he began to take guitar lessons. When he was eleven he joined a band called the Reefers. When he turned 16 he moved to Toronto and was a member of a number of bands including Brutus. He moved to Vancouver in 1972 and played with the Alexis Radlin Band. Soon after he joined the Seeds of Time who were searching for a guitarist. In 1974 they changed their name to the Rocket Norton Band. Doucette remained with this band until he decided to go solo in 1977, after Mushroom Records expressed support for such a move.
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#240: This Is Your Song by Don Goodwin
Peak Month: March 1974
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #86
YouTube: “This Is Your Song”
Lyrics: “This Is Your Song”
Don Goodwin was born in California and raised in Aspen, Colorado. In the spring of 1974 Goodwin was mentioned in the press as being 18-years-old. So, it’s likely he was born in 1955 (or early 1956). A December 15, 1973, New On The Charts feature in Billboard reported this about the young recording artist. “Goodwin is a much-traveled 18-year-old who now lives in Aspen, Colorado, after moving 28 times with his family. His career is helmed by Paul Anka who saw Goodwin auditioning at a Las Vegas hotel. Silver Blue president Joel Diamond signed Goodwin after visiting Vegas and hearing “This Is Your Song” produced by Anka as a Goodwin demo. The single broke out in WIXY-AM, Cleveland, CKLW-AM Detroit, and KJRB-AM, Spokane. Written and co-produced by Anka, “(This Is) Your Song” surrounds Goodwin’s distinctively light voice with a clever ballad arrangement building from a plucked bass figure.”
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#241: Torture by Kris Jensen
Peak Month: October 1962
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “Torture”
Lyrics: “Torture”
In 1942, Peter Jensen was born in New Haven, Connecticut. From a young age, Pete was a big fan of the singing cowboys, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. When Pete was sixteen years old, he met Denise Norwood. She was a songwriter who penned “The Garden Of Eden.” This was a hit for Joe Valino. Between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, Jensen collaborated with Denise Norwood. He recorded numbers of her songs at her home studio. In 1959, Colpix Records released Jensen’s recording of “Bonnie Baby”. The tune made the local charts on WHIL Boston. Jensen variously recorded for Leader, Kapp, Hickory and finally White Whale. Jensen could not only sing, but also play the guitar and bass guitar. Though he would release at least sixteen singles between 1959 and 1966, he is remembered in America as a one-hit wonder. But not in Vancouver where he charted three songs on the local pop charts.
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#242: Little Arrows by Leapy Lee
Peak Month: November 1968
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
2 weeks Hit Bound
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube: “Little Arrows”
Lyrics: “Little Arrows”
Graham Pulleyblank was born in Eastborne, East Sussex, England, in 1939. He began to sing in his teens and in the early 1960s took the stage name Leapy Lee. This was due to his first being nicknamed Leapy at school as “I was always a leaper.”At the age of 22 he released a single titled “It’s All Happening”. However, the song was a commercial failure. Four years later he released a cover of the Elvis Presley tune “King Of The Whole Wide World.”
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#243: More Than A Woman by the Bee Gees
Peak Month: May 1978
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart ~ LP cut
YouTube: “More Than A Woman”
Lyrics: “More Than A Woman”
Barry Alan Crompton Gibb was born in 1946 on the Isle of Man. Maurice Ernest Gibb and Robin Hugh Gibb were twins born on December 22, 1949, also on the Isle of Man. In 1955 Barry, who had learned to play guitar, convinced his younger twin brothers to form a skiffle band as vocalists, that he named The Rattlesnakes. Barry also got his young neighbors, Paul Frost (drums) and Kenny Horrocks (bass) to join. The Rattlesnakes played songs by Tommy Steele, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Paul Anka, Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. In 1958, during a performance the Gibb brothers sang as a trio for the first time, performing the Chordettes Top Ten hit “Lollipop”. But The Rattlesnakes had to disband in the summer of ’58 when Gibbs parents announced that the family was moving to Australia.
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#244: Treat Me Nice by Elvis Presley
Peak Month: September 1957
7 weeks on Vancouver’s Red Robinson Teen Canteen Survey
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube: “Treat Me Nice”
Lyrics: “Treat Me Nice”
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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#245: Woodstock by Matthews’ Southern Comfort
Peak Month: March 1971
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
YouTube: “Woodstock”
Lyrics: “Woodstock”
Ian Matthews MacDonald was born in 1946 in Barton-upon-Humber, England. He quit school at age 16 and worked as an apprentice sign-writer for a local painting and decorating firm. Excited by the pop music explosion in Britain in the early 60s, he was part of several bands in Lincolnshire. MacDonald moved to London in 1965, and got work at Ravel’s shoe shop on Carnaby Street. In 1966, he formed a surf-rock trio named The Pyramid. He changed his name to Ian Matthews (his mother’s maiden name) to avoid confusion with Ian MacDonald of King Crimson. In late 1967, Matthews was invited to join the folk-rock band Fairport Convention before they recorded their debut self-titled album, Fairport Convention. A second album, What We Did on Our Holidays, was released in January 1969. But early during the recording of a third album, Unhalfbricking, a rupture was caused when Matthews had not been invited to attend a recording session. Subsequently, he left Fairport Convention, contributing vocals to only “Percy’s Song”. Pursuing his own career, Ian Matthews formed Matthews Southern Comfort.
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#246: Break It Down Again by Tears For Fears
Peak Month: July 1993
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Break It Down Again”
Lyrics: “Break It Down Again”
Raoul Jaime Orzabal de la Quintana was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1961. His parents legally changed his first name to Roland Orzabal within a few weeks of his birth. His father had a nervous breakdown early in Roland’s childhood. Later, his father ran an entertainment business, with his mother a dancer in the troupe. Orzabal met Curt Smith when they were in their teens, and both living in Smith’s birthplace of Bath, England. Smith learned to play guitar in his teens. In 1979 Orzabal and Smith became part of a new wave band called Neon. They released a couple of records and were session musicians for recordings by new wave band Naked Eyes. Smith and Orzabal were also part of a new wave band called Graduate who had a Top Ten hit in Spain in 1980 titled “Elvis Should Play Ska”. A grueling tour of Germany temporarily caused the duo to question the viability of a life as pop stars.
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#247: Spotlight by Madonna
Peak Month: February 1988
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Spotlight”
Lyrics: “Spotlight”
Madonna Louise Ciccone was born in Bay City, Michigan, in 1958. Raised in the Pontiac, Michigan, Madonna’s mother died of cancer in 1963. While she was attending a Catholic middle school Madonna, as reported in Madonna: An Intimate Biography, would perform cartwheels and handstands in the hallways between classes, dangle by her knees from the monkey bars during recess, and pull up her skirt during class—all so that the boys could see her underwear. Madonna later told Vanity Fair that she saw herself in her youth as a “lonely girl who was searching for something. I wasn’t rebellious in a certain way. I cared about being good at something. I didn’t shave my underarms and I didn’t wear make-up like normal girls do.” After high school, she got a dance scholarship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
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#248: Love Her Madly by the Doors
Peak Month: May 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #2
1 week Preview
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
Year-End Top 100 on Billboard ~ #94
YouTube: “Love Her Madly”
Lyrics: “Love Her Madly”
The Doors were a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles featuring Jim Morrison on vocals, Robbie Kreiger on guitar, Ray Manzarek on keyboards and drummer John Densmore. In 1965 Morrison and Manzarek were UCLA film students. They met each other for the first time on Venice Beach. Morrison had graduated and was living a vagabond life, sleeping on the beach, taking drugs and writing poetry. Morrison told Manzarek, “I was taking notes at a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll concert going on in my head.” Then he sang “Moonlight Drive” to Manzarek. Discovering their addition interest in music, the two decided to form a band. Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne (FL) in 1943. He was the oldest child and his father was a U.S. Naval officer. Morrison suggested the name of the band. It came from the novel by Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. Huxley’s novel, in turn, drew inspiration from poet William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” In that poem Blake writes: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The Doors signed a record contract with Columbia Records in the winter of 1965-66.
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