#602: The Unknown Soldier by The Doors
Peak Month: May 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube.com: “The Unknown Soldier”
Lyrics: “The Unknown Soldier”
The Doors were a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles featuring Jim Morrison on vocals, Robbie Kreiger on guitar, Ray Manzarek on keyboards and drummer John Densmore. In 1965 Morrison and Manzarek were UCLA film students. They met each other for the first time on Venice Beach. Morrison had graduated and was living a vagabond life, sleeping on the beach, taking drugs and writing poetry. Morrison told Manzarek, “I was taking notes at a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll concert going on in my head.” Then he sang “Moonlight Drive” to Manzarek. Discovering their addition interest in music, the two decided to form a band. Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne (FL) in 1943. He was the oldest child and his father was a U.S. Naval officer. Morrison suggested the name of the band. It came from the novel by Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. Huxley’s novel, in turn, drew inspiration from poet William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” In that poem Blake writes: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The Doors signed a record contract with Columbia Records in the winter of 1965-66.
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#603: But You Know I Love You by The First Edition
Peak Month: February 1969
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “But You Know I Love You”
Lyrics: “But You Know I Love You”
Kenneth Ray Rogers was born in Houston, Texas, in 1938. Rogers has both Irish and American Indian ancestry. In 1956 he formed a doo-wop group called The Scholars. He began his recording career with a teen ballad “That Crazy Feeling” in 1957. The single climbed to #2 in Houston in February 1958 and appeared on the bottom of the CHUM Hit Parade in Toronto. By 1960 Rogers gained a reputation as a bass player and joined The Bobby Doyle Three, a jazz trio. The third member was Don Russell. At the time Rogers was a student at the University of Texas. In 1962 the trio released an album titled In A Most Unusual Way. They disbanded in 1965. Rogers released a single as a solo artist in early 1966 which was a flop. He joined The New Christy Minstrels in July 1966 as on vocals and double bass. Feeling stuck in the folk groove, he left the group and formed The First Edition. The other members of The First Edition also exited The New Christy Minstrels with Rogers. They were Mike Settle, Terry Williams and Thelma Camacho.
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#604: Love Becomes Electric by Strange Advance
Peak Month: April 1988
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Love Becomes Electric”
Lyrics: “Love Becomes Electric”
From 1974 to 1977 Drew Arnott and Darryl Kromm played in a Vancouver band called Stan. The band split up and the pair parted ways. But they reunited in the late ’70’s and in 1979 were playing gigs around Vancouver in a band named Remote Control. The bass player for Remote Control was Paul Iverson. The three met up in 1980 and formed a band named Metropolis. But they changed their name to Strange Advance when they learned another band in Germany had the name Metropolis. Strange Advance was formally launched in Vancouver in 1982. Arnott played keyboards, percussion and usually backing vocals. Kromm played guitar and was the lead vocalist. While touring with Bryan Adams, Kromm gave him a demo tape of the tunes he and Arnott were working on. Adams liked what he heard and passed it on to producer Bruce Fairbairn. Along with Iverson, Arnott and Kromm went to the recording studio and made an album titled Worlds Away. It was produced by Bruce Fairbairn, a producer of Loverboy, Bryan Adams and Prism albums. The sound of Strange Advance was a fusion of progressive rock and new wave. Their debut single from the album, “She Controls Me”, became a regional hit, but not in Vancouver. The single climbed to #3 in Ottawa and the Top 20 in Montreal, Regina and Halifax. The album won Strange Advance a Juno nomination for “Most Promising Group of The Year” in 1983.
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#605: Lemon Tree by Peter, Paul and Mary
Peak Month: May 1962
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #35
YouTube.com: “Lemon Tree”
Lyrics: “Lemon Tree”
Peter Yarrow was born in Manhattan in 1938 to Ukranian Jewish immigrants. His mother and father arrived in 1922, and his father Bernard Yaroshevitz anglicized his name in 1925 in order to get into Columbia University. During World War II Bernard Yarrow was recruited to work for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the forerunner to the CIA. Peter’s parents divorced in 1943. After World War II, Bernard Yarrow worked in the lawfirm Sullivan and Cromwell, where Alan Dulles and John Foster Dulles had been employed. In 1952 Bernard Yarrow became a senior vice-president of the CIA-funded Radio Free Europe. Yarrow was a bright student and attended Cornell University where he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology in 1959. Yarrow’s classmate, Richard Fariña, went on to be a folk singer and wrote numerous protest songs. Yarrow performed in public at Cornell in 1958-59 while attending Professor Harold Thompson’s popular American Folk Literature course. On June 25, 1960, Peter Yarrow performed at the second Newport Folk Festival.
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#606: The Last To Know by Celine Dion
Peak Month: May 1991
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “The Last To Know”
Lyrics: “The Last To Know”
Céline Marie Claudette Dion was born in the Montreal suburb of Charlemagne, Quebec, in 1968. She developed a talent for singing in early childhood. At the age of 13 she recorded an album which included a song she wrote titled “Ce n’était qu’un rêve” (“Nothing But a Dream”). The song climbed into the Top Ten in Quebec. She competed in Tokyo, Japan, at the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and won awards for Top Performer and Best Song. In 1983 she recorded the single “D’amour ou d’amitié” (“Of Love or Friendship”) which became a number one hit in Quebec and peaked at #5 on the national pop chart in France. In early 1984 in Germany, Dion also released a German-language version of “D’amour ou d’amitié” titled “Was bedeute ich dir”. In 1988 she won the Eurovision contest in Dublin for her rendition of “Ne partez pas sans moi” (“Don’t Leave Without Me”). The song was composed by Atilla Şereftuğ, a Swiss citizen, and Dion was entered as a Swiss Eurovision contestant. That same year she gave 75 concerts as part of her Incognito tournée in the province of Quebec to support her latest French-language album.
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#607: Lonesome Mary by Chilliwack
Peak Month: November 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4 on CKVN
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Lonesome Mary”
Lyrics: “Lonesome Mary”
Bill Henderson was born in Vancouver in 1944. He learned guitar and became the guitarist for the Panarama Trio that performed at the Panarama Roof dance club on the 15th Floor of the Hotel Vancouver. He formed the psychedelic pop-rock Vancouver band, The Collectors, in 1966.
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#609: A Man Without Love by Engelbert Humperdinck
Peak Month: July 1968
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “A Man Without Love”
Lyrics: “A Man Without Love”
Arnold George Dorsey was born in 1936 in city of Madras (now Chennai) during the British Raj. His father was a British Army officer and the family returned to England in 1946. It was only in 1954 he first sang in public at a pub contest. He was conscripted into the British Army in 1955 and after being discharged he recorded his first record. Billed as George Dorsey, his debut single was Decca Records was “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”. He worked in nightclubs until 1961 when he suffered from tuberculosis. In 1965 his former roommate, Gordon Mills, had become the manager of Tom Jones. Mills suggested Dorsey change his name to Engelbert Humperdinck, after a 19th Century German composer.
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#610: Still Got This Thing by Alannah Myles
Peak Month: January 1990
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Still Got This Thing”
Lyrics: “Still Got This Thing”
Alannah Byles was born in Toronto in 1958. She rode horses in the Royal Winter Fair by the age of twelve. At age nine she began to play musical instruments and write songs. She performed some songs at a Kiwanis Music Festival in Toronto when she was twelve. Later, in her teens, she formed a band and began to perform in concert by her late teens. At the age of 19, she changed her surname from Byles to Myles. In 1984, she made a guest appearance in the Canadian TV show, “The Kids of Degrassi Street.” Her role was a single mom who wanted to become a singer. In 1989, Alannah Myles released her self-titled debut album with the single, “Black Velvet,” a power ballad that became an international hit. For that performance she would win a Grammy Award in 1991 for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Another single, “Love Is,” was a prior single release in Canada, but was released after “Black Velvet” in America.
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#612: The Great Snowman by Bob Luman
Peak Month: April 1961
8 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox Singles chart ~ #100
YouTube.com: “The Great Snowman”
Lyrics: “The Great Snowman”
Bob Luman was born in Blackjack, Texas, in 1937. Before 1955 the only hits Bob Luman had were on the baseball field. He was an outstanding baseball player for his school team in Kilgore, Texas. He also fronted a band that performed the country hits. But after seeing Elvis Presley perform in Kilgore in May 1955, Luman was resolved that his hits going forward would be “Rockabilly hits.”
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#613: Gloria by Them
Peak Month: June 1965
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
C-FUN Twin Pick Hit May 15, 1965
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #93
YouTube.com: “Gloria”
Lyrics: “Gloria”
Sir George Ivan “Van” Morrison, was born in Belfast on August 31, 1945. He is a singer, songwriter and musician. He has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1996 he was given the Order of the British Empire for his service to music enriching the lives of people in the UK (and beyond). Since 1996 his formal title has been Sir “Van” Morrison, OBE. In 2016 he was knighted for his musical achievements and his services to tourism and charitable causes in Northern Ireland.
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