#593: In The Misty Moonlight by Jerry Wallace
Peak Month: July 1964
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “In The Misty Moonlight”
Lyrics: “In The Misty Moonlight”
Jerry Wallace was born in 1928 in Guilford, Missouri. He loved to sing and on June 1, 1952, he was one of the performers at the eighth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. Among the other performers was Roy Brown, who by that time had charted over a dozen Top Ten hits on the Billboard R&B chart. Child star Toni Harper, who recorded with Oscar Peterson, Harry James and Dizzy Gillespie in the ’50’s. And Louis Jordan who had 54 Top Ten hits on the Billboard R&B chart, eighteen of which climbed to #1, including “Caldonia”. Also, jump blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon was there to sing his 1949 #1 hit “Ain’t Nobody’s Business”, which stayed on the chart for 34 weeks. (It was first popularized in 1922 by Bessie Smith and also Alberta Hunter). Wallace’s presence made the bill inter-racial that night.
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#594: Soul Dance by Tommy Leonetti
Peak Month: February 1964
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #105
YouTube.com: “Soul Dance”
Nicola Tomaso Lionetti was born in 1929 in North Bergen, New Jersey. He had a talent for singing and changed his name. He sang with the Charlie Spivak jazz band and the Tony Pastor jazz Band. In the early fifties, Arthur Godfrey remarked on his television show that, when told they had booked Tommy Leonetti, he thought that it was a trio called “Tommy, Lee, and Eddy.” Leonetti had a minor hit in 1954 on the Billboard Pop chart titled “I Cried”, which peaked at #30. His biggest hit in the USA was in 1956 with “Free”, which peaked at #23 on the Billboard chart. He was a singer with the 1957‐58 cast of Your Hit Parade. He had several appearances on The Steve Allen Show in the 1958-59 season.
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#595: Everyday by Bobby Lee
Peak Month: May 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Everyday”
Lyrics: “Everyday”
Robert L. “Bobby Lee” Viehmeyer, Jr. was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1941. Between the ages 4 to 10, Robert was plagued with illnesses. He recorded under the name of Bobby Lee on the Decca record label. Perhaps the choice to bill his name this way was that is sounded like the name of teen pop star Bobby Vee. And Lee’s studio recordings resembled Bobby Vee’s “Devil Or Angel” and numerous Buddy Holly recordings. Bobby Lee’s first single release with Decca was “Sugar Love” in 1961, penned by country star Webb Pierce. In this case he sounded a bit like Elvis Presley. Lee recorded several rock ‘n’ roll hits, including a song by Webb Pierce titled “Just Beginning”, in the spring of ’61. The B-side was an old Buddy Holly song titled “Everyday”. This was the side of the disc that DJ’s in Vancouver played on the radio starting in May ’61.
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#596: It’s A Cryin’ Shame by Gayle McCormick
Peak Month: December 1971
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube.com: “It’s A Cryin’ Shame”
Lyrics: “It’s A Cryin’ Shame”
Gayle McCormick was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1948. She joined choir in high school and sang high soprano with the Suburb Choir, a 150-voice unit that performed annually with the St. Louis Symphony. By the mid-60s she sang in a band billed as Steve Cummings and The Klassmen, and sang covers of songs by Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Tina Turner. In 1967 her band released a single titled “Without You” which peaked at #14 in St. Louis. The following year McCormick released a solo titled “Mr. Loveman” which peaked at #21 in St. Louis. Then in 1969 she joined a band called Smith which subsequently got noticed by Del Shannon. He got Smith signed to Dunhill Records. Smith had a #5 hit with “Baby It’s You” on the Billboard Hot 100. The song had previously been a hit for both The Shirelles and The Beatles.
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#597: Wired For Sound by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: November 1981
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube.com: “Wired For Sound”
Lyrics: “Wired For Sound”
Cliff Richard was born Harry Roger Webb on October 14, 1940, in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1940 Lucknow was part of the British Raj, as India was not yet an independent country. Webb’s father worked on as a catering manager for the Indian Railways. His mother raised Harry and his three sisters. In 1948, when India had become independent, the Webb family took a boat to Essex, England, and began a new chapter. At the age of 16 Harry Webb was given a guitar by his father. Harry then formed a vocal group called the Quintones. Webb was interested in skiffle music, a type of jug band music, popularized by “The King of Skiffle,” Scottish singer Lonnie Donegan who had an international hit in 1955 called “Rock Island Line”.
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#598: Bye Bye Love by Webb Pierce
Peak Month: June 1957
5 weeks on Vancouver’s Red Robinson Teen Canteen chart on CKWX
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
YouTube.com: “Bye Bye Love”
Lyrics: “Bye Bye Love”
Michael Webb Pierce was born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1921. By the time he was 15 Pierce had learned to play guitar and had a weekly 15-minute show on KMLB-AM in Monroe. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1942. After the war ended he and his wife, Betty Jane Lewis, moved to Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1947 they appeared regularly on KTBS-AM on their morning show Webb Pierce with Betty Jane, the Singing Sweetheart. Webb Pierce worked as a manager of a men’s furnishing section of a Sears Roebuck department store. In 1949 the couple signed with 4-Star Records in California. Webb was successful, but Betty Jane was not. Their changing musical fortunes led to divorce in 1950.
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#599: Witchcraft by Elvis Presley
Peak Month: November 1963
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube.com: “Witchcraft”
“Witchcraft” lyrics
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”, song #1248 on this Countdown. 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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#600: Twist My Arm by Tragically Hip
Peak Month: August 1991
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Twist My Arm”
Lyrics: “Twist My Arm”
In the early 1980’s bass player Gord Sinclair and guitar player Rob Baker were students at Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute in Kingston, Ontario. They had performed at the collegiate’s Variety Show in a band they called The Rodents. In 1984 Baker and Sinclair were in their early twenties. The Tragically Hip formed in 1984 in Kingston, Ontario when the duo added drummer Johnny Fay and lead singer Gordon Downie. Their name came from a skit in the movie Elephant Parts, directed by former Monkee’s guitarist Michael Nesmith. The Tragically Hip added Paul Langois, a guitar player, to their line-up in 1986. When they performed at the Horeshoe Tavern in Toronto in the mid-80’s, they were sign to a recording contract with MCA after the company president, Bruce Dickinson, saw the band at the tavern. A self-titled EP (Extended Play) was released in 1987 with a couple of singles that got some airplay. The group was launched.
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#532: Poor Little Fool by Frank Mills
Peak Month: June 1972
11 weeks on CKVN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
1 week Preview
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #106
YouTube.com: “Poor Little Fool”
Lyrics: “Poor Little Fool”
YouTube: “Poor Little Fool” (Ricky Nelson version)
In 1942, Frank Mills was born into a musical household in Montreal, and grew up in Verdun, Quebec. His older sister and mother both played the piano. Young Frank learned to play piano by ear. He also learned to play trombone in high school and played in a school band. His parents both died of cancer by the time Frank was seventeen. Initially, he entered McGill University in pre-med. However, his marks weren’t good enough to continue. When he scored 98% on a Music Department entrance exam, his direction was certain.
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#589: I Will Play A Rhapsody by Burton Cummings
Peak Month: December 1978
15 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “I Will Play A Rhapsody”
Lyrics: “I Will Play A Rhapsody”
Burton Cummings is the former lead singer and keyboardist for the Winnipeg, Manitoba, based rock ‘n roll band The Guess Who. He was with the band from 1965 to 1975. Cummings sang, wrote or co-wrote many hit songs. These include “American Woman”, “Clap For The Wolfman”, “Hand Me Down World”, “Laughing”, “No Time”, “Share The Land”, “Star Baby” and “These Eyes”. His solo career includes many hit singles, including “I’m Scared”, “My Own Way To Rock” and “Fine State Of Affairs”. His first solo hit single was “Stand Tall” in 1976, which was his biggest hit as a solo recording artist.
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