#339: And The Heavens Cried by Ronnie Savoy
Peak Month: November 1960
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #84
YouTube: “And The Heavens Cried”
Lyrics: “And The Heavens Cried”
Ronnie Savoy was born in Detroit in 1941 (or 1939), and his birth name was Eugene Ronald Hamilton. Savoy told website Soul Source in 2016: “Our parents came to Detroit in the 1920s to get away from the South. My mother came from quite a comfortable background but my father had it more difficult – he had hustled on the streets since an early age, after his mother died, when he was only thirteen. He played guitar and wrote songs – his dream was to make it as a songwriter and a singer. He would play his guitar to us coming up, usually the blues. My older brother Bobby started to pick up on the blues chords, ’cause, being the eldest, he was the first to get a guitar, but we found that music too miserable and sad.’ Although the seed was sown, no pressure was applied. ‘My parents didn’t push us into music, even though we all began to show promise at quite an early age. My father worked at Ford and advised us not to work in a factory. It was a very happy home environment. There were nine of us all together – three boys and six girls. Bobby was the spearhead. He encouraged and led us. He was the first to start writing his own songs and singing them and that inspired Kent and me. I guess the turning point for us was when we heard Billy Ward and the Dominoes. They were our greatest inspiration. Seeing them in concert in Detroit made me want to become an entertainer. I spoke to Marv Johnson years later about this and he confirmed that he’d had the same experience!”
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#340: One Minute To One by Ricky Nelson
Peak Month: October 1959
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “One Minute To One”
Lyrics: “One Minute To One”
In 1940 Eric Hilliard Nelson was born. On February 20, 1949, while still eight years old, he took the stage name of Ricky Nelson when appearing on the radio program, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. A child actor, Ricky was also a musician and singer-songwriter. who starred alongside his family in the long-running television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952–66), as well as co-starring alongside John Wayne and Dean Martin in the western Rio Bravo (1959). He placed 53 songs on the Billboard singles charts between 1957 and 1973.
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#340: Green Green Grass Of Home by Tom Jones
Peak Month: January 1967
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Green Green Grass Of Home”
Lyrics: “Green Green Grass Of Home”
Thomas John Woodward was born in Wales in 1940. His father was a coal miner. Young Tom began singing at an early age and was in a children’s choir. At age 12 he had tuberculosis. While convalescing he spent more time developing an interest in music and listening to records. In 1963 he was the lead singer for the Welsh band Tommy Scott and the Senators. They had a record made with Tornados producer Joe Meek. In 1964 Jones was heard by a manager in the music industry based in London. Jones was brought to London and renamed Tom Jones. This was a strategy to get his attention after the successful musical Tom Jones won four Academy Awards in 1963, including Best Director and Best Picture.
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#341: Sometimes A Fantasy by Billy Joel
Peak Month: December 1980
Peak Position: #3
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100: #36
YouTube: “Sometimes A Fantasy”
Lyrics: “Sometimes A Fantasy”
William Martin Joel was born in 1949 in The Bronx. His father, Helmut “Howard” Joel, was born in Nuremberg, Germany, and sold his textile business at a fraction of its value to be able to move to Switzerland. From there his father traveled to Cuba and was able to enter the United States from the Caribbean. Billy Joel’s mother, Rosalind Nyman, was born in Brooklyn, also to Jewish parents. Young William was coerced by his mother to take piano lessons at the age of four. He kept taking piano lessons until he was sixteen. His parents divorced when he was eight, and in his later years in high school Billy Joel played at a piano bar to make some extra income to support his single mother, his sister and himself. Though his parents were Jewish, Billy Joel did not identify as Jewish and began to attend a Roman Catholic parish at age eleven.
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#342: Action by Sweet
Peak Month: March 1976
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “Action”
Lyrics: “Action”
Brian Francis Connolly was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1945. He was left in the hospital where he was born by his mother who was teenager and a waitress. He was a foster child and by the age of 12 was living in London and attending school. In his mid-teens, Connolly joined the Merchant Navy. In 1966 Connolly replaced singer Ian Gillan (later of Deep Purple fame) in a band called Wainwright’s Gentlemen, which included drummer Mick Tucker. Born in 1947 in London, Michael Thomas Tucker first developed an interest in drawing art as a boy. By fourteen he had changed his interest to the drums, influenced by Sandy Nelson, Buddy Rich, and Gene Krupa. Tucker’s father offered him a drum kit but only if he would take drumming seriously. Hubert Tucker encouraged his son, even getting him his first gig, sitting in for Brian Bennett of Cliff Richard’s backing band the Shadows at a local workingman’s club.
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#343: Make Believe by Wind
Peak Month: October 1969
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Make Believe”
Lyrics: “Make Believe”
Michael Anthony “Tony” Orlando Cassavitis was born in 1944 in New York City. In 1959 Orlando formed a doo-wop group called The Five Gents when he was 15-years-old. The Five Gents recorded some demo tapes. In the following months music publisher and producer Don Kirshner hired Orlando to write songs in an office across from New York’s Brill Building. In 1959 Tony Orlando recorded a doo-wop single titled “Ding Dong” on the Milo label. In 1961 he recorded “Halfway To Paradise” which climbed to #13 in Vancouver (BC) and #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. His next single, “Bless You”, peaked at #11 in Vancouver in September ’61, and #15 on the Billboard Hot 100. He had a minor hit titled “Talkin’ About You” which made the Top 50 in Vancouver in January 1962, and cracked the Top 30 with “Chills” in the summer of ’62, and “Shirley” in early 1963.
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#344: I Live For The Sun by the Sunrays
Peak Month: September 1965
11 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “I Live For The Sun”
Lyrics: “I Live For The Sun”
Eddy Medora was born in Los Angeles in 1945. He writes about the backstory to the Sunrays. “We were called the Renegades. We were a garage band rehearsing in my parents home in Pacific Palisades. We were in 7th and 8th grade. I saw a band perform called the Riptides – they had a local hit called Machine Gun….After I saw the response from the crowd, I knew I wanted to start a band. We played all over West L.A. There were five of us – Marty, Darrol, Mike, Ricky, and myself. We were doing pretty well when Mike moved away. Darrol also left. In the first year of high school, I met Steve and Vince. These guys did not have a band. They were both good musicians. They asked if they could join our band. We auditioned them. After we heard them play, I knew they had all of our votes.”
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#345: Don’t Turn Me Away by 10cc
Peak Month: April 1982
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Don’t Turn Me Away”
Lyrics: “Don’t Turn Me Away”
Kevin Michael Godley was born in 1945 in a suburb of Manchester, England. Raised in a Jewish family, he formed a group named Group 17, along with four other members of the Jewish Lads Brigade. Godley studied Art and Design at Stoke On Trent College of Art from 1966-68. In the late ’60s, Kevin Godley met Lol Creme at a wedding. Laurence Neil “Lol” Creme was born in 1947 in the same suburb of Prestwich as Kevin Godley. Creme was also raised in a Jewish family. The pair co-founded a band in 1970 named Hotlegs, which included Graham Gouldman. Hotlegs had a #2 hit in the UK titled “Neanderthal Man”. The band split in 1970 and morphed into 10cc.
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#346: This Beat Goes On/Switching To Glide by the Kings
Peak Month: January 1981
12 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #43
YouTube: “This Beat Goes On/Switching To Glide”
Lyrics: “This Beat Goes On”
Lyrics: “Switching To Glide”
The Kings were a band from Vancouver, British Columbia, and Oakville, Ontario. consisting of bass guitarist and lead vocalist David Diamond, guitarist Mister Zero, keyboard player Sonny Keyes, and drummer Max Styles. In 1977 keyboardist Sonny Keyes met John Picard in Vancouver. Picard then recruited fellow Oakville Trafalgar High School students, Max Styles and David Diamond, and the band was established.
It took three years before they got a record contract, but they kept playing small venues and getting a word-of-mouth buzz.
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#348: Sinking Like A Sunset by Tom Cochrane
Peak Month: June 1992
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Sinking Like A Sunset”
Lyrics: “Sinking Like A Sunset”
Tom Cochrane was born in Lynn Lake, Manitoba, in 1953. When he was eleven he got his first guitar. In his late teens and early twenties, he performed in coffee houses across Canada in the early 70’s. His debut album, Hang On To Your Resistance, was released in 1974. Then Tom Cochrane made his way to Los Angeles. In 1975, Cochrane got work composing theme music for the movie My Pleasure Is My Business. This was a film about Xavier Hollander, the call girl and adult film star who authored her own memoir, The Happy Hooker, in 1971. Unable to get subsequent work in Hollywood, Cochrane returned to Canada for drive a taxi and work on a cruise line. At a concert at the El Mocambo for Red Rider in 1978, Tom Cochrane met the band. Soon after Cochrane was invited to join Red Rider.
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