#614: The Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp by O.C. Smith
Peak Month: March 1968
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube.com: “Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp”
“Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp” lyrics
Ocie Lee Smith was born in Mansfield, Louisiana, in 1932. Mansfield was the site of a battle in 1864 where Confederate troops turned away Union troops from their conquest of the state capitol of Shreveport. Smith’s parents divorced in his and he decided to move to Los Angeles. According to his biography, Little Green Apples, Smith didn’t want to become a farmer like his father. After finishing his senior year in college he came back home. Within days he climbed on his mule, headed toward the freight train passing by, tied the mule to a nearby tree, hopped aboard a train and left Leesville, Louisiana, where the family then resided. According to Ocie “if nobody has gone down to untie that mule, he is still standing there, tied to that tree.” He joined the U.S. Air Force in July 1951 and was stationed in Europe and several bases in the USA. While stationed in Alaska for fifteen months Smith won first prize in a talent contest.
Continue reading →
#615: (I Wanna) Testify by The Parliaments
Peak Month: August 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “(I Wanna) Testify”
Lyrics: “(I Wanna) Testify”
George Edward Clinton was born in Kanapolis, North Carolina, in 1941. At the age of 14 he formed a doo-wop group in the winter of 1955, in Plainfield, New Jersey. They called themselves The Parliaments. The group originated as a barbershop quintet in the back room of a barber shop on West 3rd Street. Shortly after formation, they quickly fashioned their sound after the newly popular Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers whose “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” was a breakout hit on the R&B and Pop charts in February 1956. Other founding members were Ray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon and Grady Thomas.
Continue reading →
#617: Broken English by Marianne Faithfull
Peak Month: April 1980
11 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #125
YouTube.com: “Broken English”
Lyrics: “Broken English”
Marianne Faithfull’s story has been well documented, not least in her insightful 1994 autobiography Faithfull. She was born in December, 1946, in Hampstead, a borough of Greater London. In 1964 she began appearing at coffeehouses in London as one of the acts on stage. She showed up at a launch party for the Rolling Stones. At the event she met Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones manager who was always on the lookout for new talent. Faithfull’s career as the crown princess of swinging London was launched with “As Tears Go By”. The song climbed to #9 in the UK and into the Top 30 in the USA and in Vancouver. At the time she was 16 years old. Her 1964 hit single was the first song ever written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Two folk albums, two pop albums and a singles collection followed. Marianne Faithfull also embarked on a parallel career as an actress, both on film in Girl On A Motorcycle (1968) and on stage in Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1967) and Hamlet (1969) By the end of the Sixties personal problems halted Marianne’s career and her drug addiction took over.
Continue reading →
#618: Louisiana Man by Bobbie Gentry
Peak Month: May 1968
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #100
YouTube.com: “Louisiana Man”
Lyrics: “Louisiana Man”
In August 2017, Rolling Stone magazine celebrated the 50 year anniversary of Bobbie Gentry climbing into the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Writer Tara Murtha described the scenario. “In July of 1967, Capitol Records released “Ode to Billie Joe,” a spooky wisp of a song by an unknown artist named Bobbie Gentry. Industry wisdom said “Ode” was too dark, too long, too different to get played on the radio. It was a smash hit. With no special promotion, the song unexpectedly climbed up the charts past the Doors, Aretha Franklin and the Beatles, ultimately knocking “All You Need is Love” out of the Number One spot. By August, the mysterious tale of Billie Joe McAllister jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge was ubiquitous, the inescapable sound of the darkening days of the so-called Summer of Love.”
Continue reading →
#619: There Is A Mountain by Donovan
Peak Month: September 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2 CFUN
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube.com: “There Is A Mountain”
Lyrics: “There Is A Mountain”
Donovan Phillips Leitch was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1946. As a child he contracted polio and was left with a limp. At the age of 14 he began to play the guitar and when he was 16 years old he set his artistic vision to bring poetry to popular culture. He began busking and learned traditional folk and blues guitar. Music critics began branding him as mimicking Bob Dylan’s folk style. Like Dylan, Donovan wore a leather jacket, the fisherman’s cap, had a harmonica cradle and a song with “Wind” in the title. Dylan wrote “Blowing In The Wind” and Donovan had a hit in 1965 titled “Catch The Wind”. Donovan was nicknamed by music critics in the UK as the “British Dylan.”
Continue reading →
#622: The Joker Went Wild by Brian Hyland
Peak Month: August 1966
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “The Joker Went Wild”
Lyrics: “The Joker Went Wild”
Brian Hyland was born in 1943 in Queens, New York. In his childhood Hyland learned to play the guitar and the clarinet. In 1958, while he was still 14 years-old, he formed a group named the Delfis. Though they tried to get a record contract they were never signed. In 1959 Brian Hyland got a record deal with Kapp and released “Rosemary“. The single had limited success, though it spent six weeks on the pop chart in Vancouver reaching #14 in May 1960. Hyland released his next single at the age of sixteen. His debut release became a #1 hit in 1960 titled “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”. “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” had backing vocals by Peggy Powers who did a duet with Andy Williams in 1957 titled “I Like Your Kind Of Love”. And Trudy Packer provided the the spoken lyrics (i.e. “two, three, four, tell the people what she wore.”)
Continue reading →
#623: (He’s A) Big Man by Kathy Kirby
Peak Month: February 1963
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “(He’s A) Big Man”
Lyrics: “(He’s A) Big Man”
Kathleen O’Rourke was born in suburban London, UK, in 1938. She was raised by her single mom after her father left the family when she was very young. Her singing talent became apparent early on and she took singing lessons with a view to becoming an opera star. She was discovered by British bandleader Bert Ambrose in 1954 when she was still 16. He was one of the highest-paid musicians in Britain. He performed every Saturday night on BBC radio, recorded countless singles, and was renowned for having an unerring ear for a hit. Bert Ambrose made Kathy Kirby a featured singer in his band from 1956 to 1959. Ambrose went on to become her manager and her lover until his death in 1971 at the age of 74. Because of her looks Kathy Kirby was referred to as the ‘British Monroe.’
Continue reading →
#624: Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy by Pagliaro
Peak Month: December 1971
11 weeks on CKVN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy”
Lyrics: “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy”
Montreal’s Michel Pagliaro was born in 1948. He picked up guitar when he was eleven years old. At the age of 15 he was in a band les Stringmen. They morphed into les Bluebirds and finally les Merseys. Pagliaro got a break at the age of 18 when he was asked to join the Quebec band les Chanceliers. He was lead vocalist for the group which had a succession of singles and a self-titled album in the mid-60s. Their catalogue included “La generation d’aujourd’hui” (Today’s Generation), “Toi jeune fille”, a French version of “White Christmas”, and “Le p’tit popy” (The Little Poppy). In 1968, at the age of twenty, Pagliaro released some singles as a solo artist. His “Comme d’habitude” became a #1 hit in Quebec. Some of the lyrics in French “Tu the deshabillera come d’habitude” meant in English “you’ll take your clothes off as usual.” Nonetheless, the tune was adapted by Canadian pop singer Paul Anka and became the classic “My Way” popularized by Frank Sinatra. It was followed with another number one hit for Pagliaro in French Canada in 1968 called “Avec la Tete, Avec la Coeur”.
Continue reading →
#625: Daydreams/So Goes The Story by Johnny Crawford
Peak Month: July 1961 ~ “Daydreams”
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #70
YouTube.com: “Daydreams”
Lyrics: “Daydreams”
Peak Month: July 1961 ~ “So Goes The Story”
5 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “So Goes The Story”
John Ernest Crawford was born in 1946 in Los Angeles. He got into acting as a child star and by the age of nine was one of the Mouseketeers in the first season caste of the The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955. Though he was cut from the show in 1956 after Disney cut the caste from 24 to 12, Crawford continued to get acting roles. Between 1956 and 1958 he appeared in episodes of The Lone Ranger, The Loretta Young Show, Sheriff of Cochise, Wagon Train, Crossroads, Whirlybirds, Mr. Adams and Eve and Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater. The latter featured an episode that became a syndicated TV show called The Rifleman. Johnny Crawford played Mark McCain, son of Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors). In 1959 Crawford was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role in The Rifleman. The show ran from 1958 to 1963.
Continue reading →
#626: What Can The Matter Be by the Poppy Family
Peak Month: April 1969
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “What Can The Matter Be”
Lyrics: “What Can The Matter Be”
Susan Pesklevits was born in 1948 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. When she was seven years old she was a featured singer on a local radio station. At the age of eight her family moved to the Fraser Valley town of Haney, British Columbia. When she was 13 years old she had her own radio show. In a December 1966 issue of the Caribou newspaper, the Quesnel Observer noted that Susan Pesklevits had auditioned for Music Hop in the summer of 1963 when she was only 15 years old. She had her first public performance at the Fall Fair in Haney when she was just 14 years old. It was noted she liked to ride horseback, ride motorcycles and attend the dramatic shows. Asked about what she could tell the folks in Quesnel about trends in Vancouver, Pesklevits had this to report, “the latest things in Vancouver are the hipster mini-skirts, bright colored suit slacks, and the tailored look. The newest sound is the “Acid Sound,” derived from L.S.D…. it is “pshodelic” which means it has a lot of fuzz tones and feed back. As an example, she gave “Frustration” recorded by the Painted Ship” a local band from Vancouver. Pesklevits added that on the West Coast “the latest dance is the Philly Dog. It mainly consists of two rows, one of girls and one of boys. The idea is to take steps, move in unison, while doing jerking motions and using a lot of hand movement.”
Continue reading →
