#736: Hang On To Your Life/Do You Miss Me Darlin’ by The Guess Who

Peak Month: February 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #43/did not chart
YouTube.com: “Hang On To Your Life”
Lyrics: “Hang On To Your Life”
YouTube.com: “Do You Miss Me Darlin‘”
Lyrics: “Do You Miss Me Darlin'”

Randolph Charles Bachman was born in 1943 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When he was just three years old he entered the King of the Saddle singing contest on CKY radio, Manitoba’s first radio station that began in 1923. Bachman won the contest. When he turned five years he began to study the violin through the Royal Toronto Conservatory. Though he couldn’t read music, he was able to play anything once he heard it. He dropped out of high school and subsequently a business administration program in college. He co-founded a Winnipeg band called Al & The Silvertones with Chad Allan in 1960.

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#737: Please Don’t Talk To The Lifeguard by Diane Ray

Peak Month: August 1963
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube.com: “Please Don’t Talk To The Lifeguard”
Lyrics: “Please Don’t Talk To The Lifeguard”

Carol Diane Ray was born in Gastonia, North Carolina, in 1945. In 1963 Diane Ray graduated from Gastonia High School. Earlier that year she entered a talent contest on a local AM radio station, WAYS, in Charlotte, NC. She had been singing with a band called the Continentals. In the September 7, 1963, Billboard Magazine reported that Mercury Records A & R director (Artists and Repetoire), Shelby Singleton, was on the panel of judges for the WAYS-AM radio contest in Charlotte. Diane Ray won the talent contest and she was signed to Mercury Records. While she went to Nashville to do some more recording, her first single, “Please Don’t Talk to the Lifeguard”, appeared on the Billboard Hot 100.

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#738: A Teenager Feels It Too by Denny Reed

Peak Month: August-September 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #94
YouTube.com: “A Teenager Feels It Too”
Lyrics: “A Teenager Feels It Too”

Denny Reed was from Cahokia, Illinois, ten minutes east of St. Louis, Missouri. It is home to the St. Louis International Airport. Reed attended Cahokia High School. When he was sixteen years of age, among his favorite singers were Johnny Mathis and Bing Crosby. He listened to their records over and over again so he could sing just like them. Eventually, Denny Reed was able to sing higher than Mathis and lower than Crosby. In time he developed a four octave range. When he recorded “A Teenager Feels It Too”, Reed had only sung in public on two occasions. Denny says, “I recorded ‘Teenager’ in Phoenix, Arizona at Ramsey’s Audio Recorders. It was a tiny little studio, and the echo chamber was a 1000-gallon propane tank. They put a microphone inside and wired it into the control booth. Duane Eddy was also with Sill and Hazlewood.” Sill and Hazelwood re-issued “A Teenager Feels It Too” on their Trey label distributed by Atlantic Records.

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#739: Save It by Shari Ulrich

Peak Month: January 1982
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Save It”

Shari Ulrich was born in 1951 in San Raphael, a half an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Bay Area California. Born into a musical family, Ulrich started playing the violin at the age of four. She first appeared on stage with her two older siblings at the San Francisco Free Theatre. After the Kent State shooting of four unarmed university students by Ohio State National Guard on May 4, 1970, Shari Ulrich moved to Vancouver, Canada. The Kent State students had been protesting the Vietnam War. It was in Vancouver, at the age of 18, she became part of the coffeehouse circuit playing her folk inspired set at what was Vancouver’s new vegetarian restaurant, The Naam, which opened in 1968. In 1973, Ulrich became part of the folk trio Pied Pumpkin, along with Rick Scott and Joe Mock. On the two albums Pied Pumpkin released the next few years she was featured playing guitar, violin, mandolin, flute, saxophone and vocals. In 1976 she toured with another British Columbian folk star, Valdy, with his group The Hometown Band.

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Peak Month: June 1980
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
3 weeks Hitbound on CKLG
YouTube.com link: “Nyet Nyet Soviet (Soviet Jewellery)”
Lyrics: Nyet Nyet Soviet (Soviet Jewellery)”

Gabor Hegedus was born in Hungary in 1948. His childhood was spent in the context of the repressive Hungarian Communist regime as a satellite of Stalin’s USSR. The Hungarian Communist Party had received only 17% of the vote in November 1945 and 17% of the vote in national elections in August 1947. Hungarian Communist part leader, Mátyás Rákosi, forced the Social Democrats to merge with the Communists. Next, all the other political parties were declared illegal and many politicians were charged with “conspiracy against the Republic.” This included Rákosi’s main rival in the Hungarian Communist Party, László Rajk, the Minister of the Interior of Hungary who had established the State Protection Authority. László was executed after a show trial in May 1949. Under the regime as many as 1.5 million Hungarians were imprisoned at some point between 1949 and 1956, out of a population of 9.5 million. The highly unpopular Rákosi was removed from office in the July 1956, after a speech by Nikita Khrushchev on February 25, 1956, had begun a process of destalinization. Khrushchev had denounced the cult of personality that Joseph Stalin had established and Rákosi had emulated. Reforms and revolution were sparked in the fall of 1956 and László Rajk was cleared of all charges on October 6, 1956. On October 19, 1956, the new reformist Hungarian Communist Party leader, Imre Nagy, won concessions for a reduction of Soviet troops in Hungary. Students and others pushed for even more reforms and on November 4th Soviet tanks entered Budapest. The Hungarian Revolution ended on November 11, 1956. Gabor Hegedus and his parents fled to England. In a 1980 interview with Paul McGrath of the Globe and Mail, BB Gabor recalled that his family escaped Hungary just “one step ahead of the Russian tanks.”

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#741: Rockin’ Rollin’ Ocean by Hank Snow

Peak Month: April 1960
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #87
YouTube.com: “Rockin’ Rollin’ Ocean”
Lyrics: “Rockin’ Rollin’ Ocean”

Clarence Eugene “Hank” Snow was born in the small community of Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, on May 9, 1914. He was the fifth of six children, the two eldest died in infancy. His nickname growing up in his family was Jack. At age 12 he weighed only 80 pounds and was frail. It was at this time that his mother ordered a Hawaiian steel guitar advertised in a magazine along with free lessons and several 78rpm gramophone records.

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#742: How Do You Do It by Gerry And The Pacemakers

Peak Month: May-June 1963
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart in 1963
YouTube.com: “How Do You Do It?”
Lyrics: “How Do You Do It?”

In September 1942, Gerry Marsden was born in Liverpool, UK. His interest in music began at an early age. During World War II Marsden recalls standing on top of an air raid shelter singing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe”. Passers by applauded. Gerry and Fred Marsden’s father was a railway clerk who entertained the neighbours by playing the ukulele. With the vogue for skiffle music in the mid-’50s, he took the skin off one of his instruments, put it over a tin of Quality Street and said to Freddie, “There’s your first snare drum, son.” Gerry sang in a church choir by the age of twelve. In 1957 the brothers appeared in the show Dublin To Dingle at the Pavilion Theatre in Lodge Lane. Studies meant little to either of them. Freddie left school and worked for a candle-maker earning £4 a week, and Gerry’s job was as a delivery boy for the railways. Their parents did not mind and encouraged their musical ambitions. Marsden formed the group in the late ’50s, calling themselves, The Mars-Bars, a nod to the Mars Bar candy bar and the first syllable of Marsden’s surname. The band consisted of Marsden as frontman and guitarist, Fred Marsden on drums, Les Chadwick on bass, and Arthur Mack on piano. The latter left in ’61 to be replaced by Les McGuire (who also played saxophone). After they formed The Mars-Bars, the Mars Company objected and the band was renamed Gerry and the Pacemakers. They were featured on a beat show with Gene Vincent at Liverpool Stadium in 1960. Along with the Beatles, the group now known as Gerry and the Pacemakers, toured clubs in Liverpool and in Hamburg, Germany.

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#743: Hark, Is That A Cannon I Hear by Bobby Vee

Peak Month: February 1962
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Hark, Is That A Cannon I Hear”

Bobby Vee was born in Fargo, North Dakota with the birth name Robert Thomas Velline. He was part of a highschool band that was asked to step in and perform for the concert that was to be headlined by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Each had died in a small plane crash the day before. And the concert was held in Moorhead, Minnesota, across the Red River from Fargo. Fifteen year old Vee and his band were a hit and he got a contract with Liberty Records. It was his fourth single release, “Devil or Angel”, that catapulted him into the Top Ten and teen idol stardom. The single peaked at number-one in Vancouver on the C-FUN-TASTIC 50 on September 10, 1960. Other hits followed including “Rubber Ball” which peaked at #3 in Vancouver in December 1960. The B-side of “Rubber Ball”, a cover of the Buddy Holly tune “Everyday”, peaked at #7 on the CKWX Fabulous Forty in January 1961. “Take Good Care of My Baby” (#1), “Run to Him” (#2) “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (#3) and “Come Back When You Grow Up Girl” (#3).
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#744: In My Baby’s Eyes by Bobby Vee

Peak Month: May 1962
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “In My Baby’s Eyes”
Lyrics: “In My Baby’s Eyes”

Robert Thomas Velline was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He was part of a highschool band that was asked to step in and perform for the concert on February 4, 1959, in Moorhead, Minnesota. The concert, across the Red River from Fargo, North Dakota, was to have featured Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. However, the three died in a small plane crash the day before when the plane crashed into a cornfield near Mason City, Iowa. Fifteen year old Vee and his band, The Shadows, were a hit and he got a contract with Liberty Records. In August 1959, their debut single, “Suzie Baby”, made the Top Ten in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and the Top 20 in Des Moines, Iowa, and Boston, It was his fourth single release, “Devil or Angel”, that catapulted him into the Top Ten and teen idol stardom. It climbed to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 in Vancouver. Other hits followed including “Rubber Ball” (#2),” Take Good Care of My Baby” (#1), “Run to Him” (#2) “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (#3) and “Come Back When You Grow Up Girl” (#3).
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#745: Donna Means Heartbreak by Gene Pitney

Peak Month: July 1963
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
CFUN Twin Pick June 30, 1963
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Donna Means Heartbreak”
Lyrics: “Donna Means Heartbreak”

Gene Pitney was born in 1940 in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a songwriter who became a pop singer, something rare at the time. Some of the songs he wrote for other recording artists include “Rubber Ball” for Bobby Vee, “He’s A Rebel” for The Crystals and “Hello Mary Lou” for Ricky Nelson. Pitney was more popular in Vancouver than in his native America. Over his career he charted 14 songs into the Top Ten in Vancouver, while he only charted four songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Curiously, only two of these songs overlap: “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Vallance” and “I’m Gonna Be Strong”. Surprisingly “Only Love Can Break A Heart”, which peaked at #2 in the USA, stalled at #14 in Vancouver, and “It Hurts To Be In Love” stalled at #11 in Vancouver while it peaked at #7 south of the border.

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