#451: Confusion by Electric Light Orchestra
Peak Month: January 1980
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Confusion”
Lyrics: “Confusion”
Jeffrey Lynne was born in suburban Birmingham, England in 1947. His dad bought him a guitar when he turned twelve. In 1966 he formed a band that by 1968 called themselves the Idle Race. He left for another band by the end of the 60s named The Move. The latter development was a catalyst for working on a musical project combining rock with orchestration. Beverley “Bev” Bevan was born in Birmingham, UK, in 1944. He learned to play drums and in 1956 he joined a rock band named Denny Laine & the Diplomats. In 1965 he moved on to join Carl Wayne & the Vikings, and in 1966 The Move. Bevan went through the transition from the Move to Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne. By the end of 1970 the Electric Light Orchestra was born.
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#401: This Flight Tonight by Nazareth
Peak Month: October 1974
10 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #117
YouTube: “This Flight Tonight”
Lyrics: “This Flight Tonight”
William “Dan” McCafferty was born in 1946 in Dunfermline, near Fife, Scotland. His musical influences include Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Otis Redding. He learned to play the bagpipes and the talkbox in his teens, as well as becoming a singer. He formed a band in 1961 called the Shadettes. By 1963 McCafferty was performing professionally full time before audiences. Manuel “Manny” Charlton was born in 1941 in La Línea de la Concepción on the Bay of Gibraltar in Spain. In his youth he learned to play guitar. Charlton was in the Mark 5 and the Red Hawks before joining the Shadettes. Pete Agnew was born in Dunfermline in 1946. He learned to play rhythm guitar and bass guitar in his youth. Agnew joined the Shadettes in 1961. Darrell Antony Sweet was born in 1947 in the South Coast of England in Bournemouth. He was a piper in his youth and also learned to play drums.
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#402: It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World by James Brown
Peak Month: June 1966
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #1
1 week Wax to Watch
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #8
YouTube: “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”
Lyrics: “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”
James Joseph Brown Jr. was born in a shack in the piney woods of South Carolina, outside the small town of Barnwell, 45 miles southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The year was 1933, and Brown never knew his parents. From the age of four he was raised in a whorehouse in Augusta. As America entered World War II in December 1941, young James entertained troops at Camp Gordon doing buck dances (similar to clogging) on a bridge near his aunts brothel. He quit school in grade six, and won a talent contest in 1944 at the Lenox Theatre in Augusta. By age 13 he had a sidewalk group named the Cremona Trio, who made pennies for songs. He also took up boxing. But in 1949 he was sent to jail for three years for armed robbery. In June 1952, after being paroled Brown joined the gospel group the Ever-Ready Gospel Singers.
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#403: Even Better Than The Real Thing by U2
Peak Month: September 1992
14 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Even Better Than The Real Thing”
Lyrics: “Even Better Than The Real Thing”
U2 is a band formed in Dublin, Ireland, in September 1976. Its members include lead vocalist and rhythm guitar player Bono, lead guitar and keyboard player the Edge, synthesizer and guitar player Adam Clayton, and drummer and percussionist Larry Mullen Jr. The band formed when its members were all teenagers. The band had several name changes before they settled on U2 in 1978. By 1980 they had been awarded a contract with Island Records and released their debut album Boy. With the release of their second album in 1981, October, and the lead Top Ten single in Ireland called “Fire”, the band were emerging as a force.
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#404: Her Town Too by James Taylor and J.D. Souther
Peak Month: May 1981
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Her Town Too”
Lyrics: “Her Town Too”
James Vernon Taylor was born in Boston in 1948. From the age of three, he lived with his family in North Carolina. Taylor would say later “Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people.” During his childhood he took cello lessons, and picked up guitar at the age of 12. James Taylor got to know people in the folk music scene on Martha’s Vineyard, where his family had a vacation home. In 1963 he was playing coffeehouses on the island as part of a duo named Jamie & Kootch. But in 1961 he was enrolled in a boarding school in Milton, Massachusetts. The pressures of the school were too much for the very sensitive James, even though he was doing well academically. Back in North Carolina he became depressed and by 1965 was sleeping for 20 hours a day.
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#405: I Think I Love You Too Much by Jeff Healey Band
Peak Month: July 1990
13 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “I Think I Love You Too Much”
Lyrics: “I Think I Love You Too Much”
Norman Jeffrey Healey was born in 1966 in Toronto. He was adopted and at age one lost his eyesight due to a rare cancer of the eyes. At age three he began to play guitar with the instrument on his lap, and attend a school for the blind. At age nine Healey appeared on a children’s show on TV Ontario. In 1980 he began hosting a jazz segment for the CBC after attending an open house for the broadcaster where vibraphonist Peter Appleyard convinced the people at the radio program Fresh Air to put the then-14-year-old Healey on the air after discussing jazz with him. Young Jeff showcased his extensive collection of 78RPM records – about 10,000 at the time- and musical knowledge. By age 15 Jeff Healey formed a band called Blue Direction. On July 27, 1985, Jeff was invited to join Albert Collins and Stevie Ray Vaughan on stage at Albert’s Hall, an iconic blues club in Toronto. Then in September 1985, Jeff first met drummer Tom Stephen. The pair decided to form a band, and later got introduced to bass player Joe Rockman at legendary Toronto blues club, Grossman’s Tavern. The trio of musicians became the Jeff Healey Band.
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#407: Slow Down by the Beatles
Peak Month: September 1964
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Slow Down”
Lyrics: “Slow 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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#408: Woman In Chains by Tears for Fears
Peak Month: March 1990
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube: “Woman In Chains”
Lyrics: “Woman In Chains”
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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#409: Tamoure by Bill Justis
Peak Month: May 1963
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #101
YouTube: “Tamoure”
William Everett “Bill” Justis Jr. was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1926. He was a pioneer rock n’ roll musician, composer, and musical arranger, best known for his 1957 Grammy Hall of Fame song, “Raunchy”. Justis grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and studied music at Tulane University in New Orleans. Fine-tuning his trumpet and saxophone skills, he was featured in concert with local jazz and dance bands. In 1954, Justis went back to Memphis and hired by Sam Philips at Sun Records. While in the employ of Sun Records, Bill Justis made his own recordings. In addition he was a musical arranger Sun recordings by Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash.
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#410: Ramona by Stampeders
Peak Month: February 1975
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Ramona”
Lyrics: “Ramona”
The Stampeders are a rock trio from Calgary named after that city’s football team, The Calgary Stampeders. Although, it could be argued that the yearly Calgary Stampede was also an inspiration for their name. During the band’s most successful chart run from 1968 to 1976, it was made up of guitarist Rich Dodson, bass player Ronnie King (born Cornelius Van Sprang) and drummer Kim Berly (born Kim Meyer). All three provided vocals. Originally, the band was a group of five formed in 1964 called The Rebounds. The Rebounds had five members: Rich Dodson, Len Roemer, Brendan Lyttle, Kim Berly, and Race Holiday. They renamed themselves The Stampeders in 1965 and Len Roemer was replaced with Ronnie King and Van Louis, making them a band of six for a few years. But after a temporary move to Toronto in 1966 the band was down to three members, Dodson, King and Berly by 1968. Between 1967 and 1976 The Stampeders charted 15 singles into the Canadian RPM Top 40.
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