#423: Banned In The USA by 2 Live Crew
Peak Month: September 1990
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “Banned In The USA”
Lyrics: “Banned In The USA”
David Hobbs was born in Santa Ana, California, in 1963. After high school he joined the United States Air Force. In 1984, while he was stationed in Riverside, California, he met two other Airmen, and Christopher Wong Won and Yuri Vielot. Christopher Wong Won was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1964. His family moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1976. The trio became rap group named 2 Live Crew, and released their first single “The Revelation”. Hobbs was known as Mr. Mixx. Wong Won as Fresh Kid Ice and Vielot as Amazing Vee. When their rap single became a regional hit in Florida a DJ in the Sunshine State named Luke Skywalker invited the trio to move to Florida. Mr. Mixx and Fresh Kid Ice relocated to Florida, while Yuri Vielot stayed behind in California.
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#425: Smooth As Silk by MCJ & Cool G
Peak Month: March 1991
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Smooth As Silk”
MCJ & Cool G were James McQuaid (MCJ), originally part of the Halifax hip hop group New Beginning, and Richard Gray (Cool G). MCJ was the rapper and Cool G mostly sang the choruses. Their sound included new jack swing which was popular at the time. New jack swing originated with Janet Jackon’s 1986 Control album, featuring her hits “What Have You Done For Me Lately”, “When I Think Of You”, “Nasty” and the title track. Other examples of new jack swing are Club Nouveau’s cover of “Lean On Me”, Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up”, “I Like The Way (The Kissing Game)” by Hi Five, “I’m Your Baby Tonight” by Whitney Houston, “My Prerogative” by Bobby Brown, and “I Wanna Sex You Up” by Color Me Badd.
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#426: Shy Away by Jerry Fuller
Peak Month: April-May 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube: “Shy Away”
Lyrics: “Shy Away”
In 1938 Jerry Fuller was born in Fort Worth, Texas. His father was a carpenter who had a voice like Bing Crosby, while his mom sang like Patti Page. As a musical family, at the age of eleven, Jerry and his brother Bill became were billed as The Fuller Brothers. His mother arranged for them to appear at school, churches, talent contests, minstrel shows and jamborees. Out of high school, Fuller wrote a rockabilly tune called “I Found A New Love” and got it recorded Lin records in 1958.
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#427: Badge by Cream
Peak Month: May 1969
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #60
YouTube: “Badge”
Lyrics: “Badge”
Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker was born in 1939 in South London. He excellent at British football in his teens. At age fifteen he began to play drums and took lessons from iconic British jazz drummer Phil Seaman. In 1962 Baker joined Blues Incorporated along with Jack Bruce and others who played at the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. In 1963, Baker was one of the founding members of a jazz/rhythm & blues band, called The Graham Bond Organisation, spelled the British way. Jack Bruce also joined the band. The band appeared in the 1965 UK film Gonks Go Beat, which also featured Lulu and the Nashville Teens.
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#428: Daytime Night-time by Keith Hampshire
Peak Month: January 1973
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “Daytime Night-Time”
Lyrics: “Daytime, Night-Time”
Keith Hampshire was born in London in 1945. At the age of four he got tap dancing lessons and His family moved to Canada when he was six-years-old. They visited Toronto, took a train west and moved to Calgary. It was in Calgary that Keith Hampshire took singing lessons, founded a number of high-school bands, including the Intruders, Keith and The Bristols, and the Variations. Each band got gigs at other schools and clubs around town. The Variations opened for Roy Orbison one summer in the early 60s at the Calgary Stampede. Out of high school Keith Hampshire got a position at CFCN radio and TV as a cameraman. He ended up programming and announcing, playing Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Animals and the Searchers at the beginning of the British Invasion. At the age of 21 Hampshire moved back to the UK and got work from July 1966 to August 1967 as a DJ for a pirate radio station called Radio Caroline South. He moved back to Canada in September 1967 and got a job as a DJ with CKFH in Toronto. He got married in 1969.
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#429: Ooby Dooby by Roy Orbison
Peak Month: January 1957
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55
YouTube.com: “Ooby Dooby”
Lyrics: “Ooby Dooby”
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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#430: Forget Me Not by Eden Kane
Peak Month: April 1962
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
Twin Pick ~ March 9, 1962
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Forget Me Not”
Lyrics: “Forget Me Not”
Richard Graham Sarstedt was born in 1942 in New Delhi, India. His parent ran a tea plantation and after his father died when Richard was 12-years-old, the family moved to the UK. He excelled in cricket and delivered milk and newspapers to make extra money for his family. He soon learned to play skiffle music after being turned on to rock music by exposure to Bill Haley and His Comets in 1955 at a live concert in Croydon, England. Sarstedt formed a skiffle band named the Fabulous 5, which included his younger brother Peter and Clive.
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#431: Language Of Love by John D Loudermilk
Peak Month: November 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Language Of Love”
Lyrics: “Language Of Love”
John D. Loudermilk was born in Durham, North Carolina, in 1934. Although he had a middle initial, D, the “D” wasn’t short for any middle name. His father was an illiterate carpenter, John D Loudermilk Sr. When John D. Jr. was, seven his dad gave him a ukulele made from a cigar box. Young John D Jr. learned to play guitar in his youth and began to write poems and songs. His poetry was inspired after he began to read the works of Kahlil Gibran. In his late teens, in the early 50’s, John D Jr. wrote a poem titled “A Rose And A Baby Ruth.” It concerned a teenage couple who have a quarrel and the boy gives his girlfriend a rose and a Baby Ruth candy bar to make up. Loudermilk put notes to the poem and played the sung version on a local TV station. This caught the attention of country singer, George Hamilton IV. The song was published in 1956 and became a Top Ten hit on both the Country and Pop charts on Billboard Magazine. The following year, Loudermilk penned “Sittin’ In The Balcony” for Eddie Cochran. Once that became a hit, Loudermilk’s songwriting career was launched. He co-wrote “Waterloo,” a #1 country hit and #4 pop hit in 1959 for country singer, Stonewall Jackson.
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#432: You’re So Good To Me by the Beach Boys
Peak Month: May 1966
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “You’re So Good To Me”
Lyrics: “You’re So Good To Me”
Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, in 1942. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin’s book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, he relates that when Brian Wilson first heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” it had a huge emotional impact on him. As a youngster, Wilson learned to play a toy accordion and sang in children’s choirs. In his teens he started a group with his cousin, Mike Love and his brother, Carl. Mike was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and Carl was born in 1946 in Hawthorne, California. Brian Wilson named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance in the fall of 1960 at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Their set included some songs by Dion and the Belmonts. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was born in Hawthorne in 1942. He was so impressed with the performance that he let the group know. Jardine would later be enlisted, along with Dennis Wilson to form the Pendletones in 1961. Dennis was born in Inglewood in 1944.
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#434: The Moment That It Takes by Trooper
Peak Month: February 1979
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #122
YouTube: “The Moment That It Takes”
Lyrics: “The Moment It Takes”
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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