#521: Blue Moon Of Kentucky by Elvis Presley
Peak Month: September 1956
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CJOR Red Robinson chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Blue Moon Of Kentucky”
Lyrics: “Blue Moon Of Kentucky”
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 on July 19.
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#522: Rock-A-Hula Baby by Elvis Presley
Peak Month: January 1962
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
YouTube.com link: “Rock-A-Hula Baby”
Lyrics: “Rock-A-Hula Baby”
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 #1196 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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#523: Mouldy Old Dough by Lieutenant Pigeon
Peak Month: December 1972
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Mouldy Old Dough”
Both Rob Woodward and Nigel Fletcher had played in bands in the early 1960s, they’d even been writing songs together since 1963. But it would be much later in the decade before they would eventually join forces and launch ‘Stavely Makepeace’. In the mid sixties Nigel fulfilled an ambition and joined the merchant navy, where he stayed for almost three years. In the summer of 1967 he left his last ship and moved to London where he stayed until early 1969. Meanwhile Rob worked in various office jobs and continued to play in bands on a semi-pro basis. By 1966 however he was working full time in the music business, traveling the country with his one man cabaret act. At the close of 1968, Rob traveled to visit Fletcher in London with an idea. He suggested they collaborate writing songs, produce records and build a sound recording studio.
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#525: Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, by Alan Schick
Peak Month: May 1974
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy”
Alan Schick was born around 1949. He was a one-hit-wonder on the Vancouver (BC) pop charts in the summer of 1974. In 1969 Alan Schick replaced Joey Gregorash in the Manitoba band, the Mongrels. They were managed by Lorne Saifer – who presently manages Burton Cummings. Schick wrote both sides of a 1969 single release: “Do You Know Your Mother?” and “Heartaches”. Alan Schick also penned the bands’ next single release in 1970, “Ivy In Her Eyes”. Saifer got the group a contract w/RCA and later took the group to Chicago to record an album produced by Randy Bachman. The results were less than spectacular; the album was never released and the Mongrels were done.
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#526: Melting Pot by Booker T. & the M.G.’s
Peak Month: July 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube.com link: “Melting Pot”
Booker T. & the M.G.’s is a band founded in Memphis in the summer of 1962. That summer 17-year-old keyboardist Booker T. Jones, 20-year-old guitarist Steve Cropper, and two seasoned players, bassist Lewie Steinberg and drummer Al Jackson Jr. were in the Memphis studio to back the former Sun Records recording aritst Billy Lee Riley. During downtime, the four started playing around with a bluesy organ riff. The president of Stax Records, Jim Stewart, was in the control booth. He liked what he heard, and he recorded it. Cropper remembered a twelve-bar blues riff that Jones had come up with weeks earlier on a Hammond M3 organ. Before too long a second track was recorded. Stewart wanted to release the single with the first track, “Behave Yourself”, as the A-side and the second track as the B-side. And so “Green Onions” was released as the B-side. However, Cropper and radio DJs argued that “Green Onions” was the better A-side. Soon, Stax re-released Booker T. & the M.G.’s’ “Green Onions” as the A-side.
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#527: The Hucklebuck by Chubby Checker
Peak Month: December 1960
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube.com: “The Hucklebuck”
Lyrics: “The Hucklebuck”
Ernest Evans was born in 1941 in Spring Gulley, South Carolina. He grew up in South Philadelphia. As a child, his mother took him to a show performed by child piano prodigy Sugar Child Robinson. Also at the performance was the country singer Ernest Tubb. Ernest was so inspired, that he decided to become an entertainer when he grew up. At the age of eleven he formed a street corner doo-wop group. He took up piano and while attending South Philadelphia High School, one of his friends was Fabian Forte. After school he worked at Fresh Farm Poultry on 9th Street at the Produce Market. His boss decided to give a nickname to his portly employee and called him “Chubby.”
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#528: I’m Scared by Burton Cummings
Peak Month: April 1977
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #61
YouTube.com: “I’m Scared”
Lyrics: “I’m Scared”
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 “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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#530: Down By The River by Joey Gregorash
Peak Month: October 1971
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Down By The River”
Lyrics: “Down By The River”
Joey Gregorash was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His dad played the violin and young Joey took an interest in learning the instrument. In February 1964 Gregorash saw the Beatles perform on the The Ed Sullivan Show and was turned onto rock ‘n roll. He learned how to play the drums and formed a band called The Mongrels in 1965 with childhood friend John Nykon. Later Gregorash went solo and won a 1972 Juno Award in 1972 for Outstanding Performance-Male for his hit single “Down By the River”. For over a decade Gregorash pursued other interests until in 1987 his single, “Together (The New Wedding Song),” became a hit in Canada.
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#531: From New York To L.A. by Patsy Gallant
Peak Month: October 1976
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “From New York To L.A.”
Lyrics: “From New York To L.A.”
Patricia Gallant was born in 1948 in Cambellton, New Brunswick. Her family was Acadian, and she was one of ten children. From the age of five she was the youngest of four sisters performing as the Gallant Sisters. Her mother coaxed four of the sisters for the group, hoping to earn some funds for the cash-strapped household. By 1956, when the family moved to Moncton, NB, the Gallant Sisters began appearing on TV. This led to appearances in nightclubs when they moved to Montreal in 1958. In 1967 she recorded her first single in French for the Quebec and New Brunswick Francophone market. She continued to release songs over the following five years in French, and then issued English versions. Gallant was featured in numerous TV commercials. And she was a regular on both the French-language TV variety program Discothèque and an English variety show called Music Hop.
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#533: Oh Joan by the Beau-Marks
Peak Month: February 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Oh Joan”
Originally named the Del Tones when they formed in Montreal in 1958, the groups’ first single, called “Moonlight Party”, climbed to #1 in Montreal in May 1959. However, there were other bands with the same name. The Deltones had a single on Vee-Jay Records that was a minor hit in Chicago. That group had a minor hit in Philadelphia on another label in 1960 called “Strollin’ the Blues”. There was also a band from Australia called the Delltones. To avoid confusion, the Del Tones from Montreal changed their name to the Beau-Marks in 1959 in response to a political controversy. Their new name was a pun on the Bomarc, the worlds first supersonic long-range, anti-aircraft missile, developed by Boeing. The development of the Bomarc missile was accompanied by problems with its propulsion system. In 1958 the Conservative Government, led by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, was faced with two strategies for Canadian air defense. One was to produce the Avro Arrow, a very fast missile at a cost of over 12 Million per aircraft. It was created by the Canadian company, Avro Canada. The other option was to purchase Bomarc missles made by Boeing in Seattle, Washington, for 2 Million. The later missiles would be tipped with nuclear warheads. However, the Conservatives opted eventually not to have nuclear tipped missiles in Canada. With the cancellation of the Avro Arrow, the company lost over 14,000 jobs.
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