#807: Louisiana by Mike Kennedy
Peak Month: April 1972
7 weeks on CKVN chart
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Louisiana”
Lyrics: “Louisiana”
Michael Volker Kogel was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1944. His father acted in cabaret and hardly spent anytime with the family. His mother struggled and ended up taking her life when she was 65. Kogel grew up with his grandmother who was a Jehovah’s Witness. In the late 50s, Kogel was an apprentice to become a brewmaster. He got captivated with rock ‘n roll played at the American military base in Cologne. He started singing songs by Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Pat Boone, and Ricky Nelson, in local clubs. In 1962, he released a pop single in West Germany titled “Ein Mädchen Nach Maß”. It was credited to ‘Michael.’ In 1964 he was fronting a beat band named Mike and the Firebirds. They had a single in West Germany titled “Der Knüller Mausi Müller”. A second release was a cover of the Zombies’ “She’s Not There” titled “Lass Sie Gehn”. Sometime in 1965, Michael Kogel became the lead singer for Mike Rat and the Runaways. They released a cover of the Major Lance tune “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um”. Next up, Kogel became the lead singer for Los Bravos. The band had an international Top Ten hit in 1966 titled “Black Is Black”.
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#891: Puppet On A String by Elvis Presley
Peak Month: December 1965
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Puppet On A String”
Lyrics: “Puppet On A String”
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.
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#881: Something In The Air by Thunderclap Newman
Peak Month: October 1969
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
2 weeks Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Something In The Air”
Lyrics: “Something In The Air”
John David Percy “Speedy” Keen was born in West London, England, in 1945. In his late teens he played with The Krewsaders, and 1964-65 with The Second Thoughts. He was with a band called the Eccentrics and his song “City Of Lights” was recorded by Oscar in 1966. In 1967, his song “Armenia City In The Sky” was recorded by The Who for their album The Who Sell Out. This is the only song recorded for an album by The Who not written by any of the bandmates. It happened that Keen shared a flat with and worked as a driver for The Who’s guitarist and keyboard player Pete Townshend. Who bassist John Entwistle joked that people thought “Armenia City In The Sky” was “I’m an Ear Sitting in the Sky”.
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#851: Blue Christmas by Elvis Presley
Peak Month: December 1957
4 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX Red Robinson Teen Canteen chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #33 (2021)
YouTube: “Blue Christmas”
Lyrics: “Blue Christmas”
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.
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#874: Carrie’s Gone by J.C. Stone
Peak Month: November 1974
Peak Position #9
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Carrie’s Gone”
J.C. Stone was a Vancouver recording artist in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974 he released a single titled “Carrie’s Gone”.
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#818: Roll Me Away by Dwayne Ford
Peak Month: September 1980
11 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Roll Me Away”
Dwayne Ford was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1949. Ford learned the piano from the age of five. He was a professional musician by the time he turned sixteen. Ford joined the Nomads while in Alberta. Ford moved to Toronto in 1970 and was hired on by Ronnie Hawkins, as part of the Ronnie Hawkins’ Rock And Roll Revival And Travelling Medicine Show. By late 1971 Ford, and two other members of Hawkins’ band – Terry Danko and Jim Atkinson – were feeling ready for a new challenge. The three musicians left Hawkins band and formed Atkinson, Danko and Ford. Two other members of Hawkins band, guitarist Hugh Brockie and Brian Hilton also joined up with the new trio which changed its name to Bearfoot.
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#875: I’m Free by the Soup Dragons
Peak Month: April 1991
10 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #79
YouTube: “I’m Free” ~ Soup Dragons
YouTube: “I’m Free” ~ Rolling Stones
Lyrics: “I’m Free”
In 1982 Sean Dickson, Jim McCullough and Sushil K. Dade were bandmates in the Scottish indie-pop group BMX Bandits. Though they continued to perform with the band, the trio decided to form the Soup Dragons in 1985. They were an alternative rock band from Bellshill, Scotland. The Soup Dragons released Hang Ten in 1986. Two singles from the album, “Whole Wide World” and “Hang Ten” climbed to #2 on the UK Indie singles chart. a second studio album, This Is Our Art, in 1988. From the album came “Can’t Take No More”, which climbed to number-one on the UK Indie singles chart. Another single from the album, “Soft As Your Face”, had a more accessible sound for the UK Pop singles chart. Both of these single releases cracked the Top 70 on the pop chart. A third single, “The Majestic Head”, became the sixth single to peak in the Top 5 on the UK Indie chart. Up to this point the band had an indie rock sound.
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#860: Steam by Peter Gabriel
Peak Month: February 1993
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
1 week Preview
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Steam”
Lyrics: “Steam”
Peter Brian Gabriel was born in 1950 in Surrey, UK. He learned to play piano and drums in his childhood. In 1965, at the age of 15, Gabriel became part of a trio rock band called Garden Wall. The bandmates were all from the Charterhouse School, a public school in Surrey housed in a Carthusian monastery. In 1967 Garden Wall merged with two members of another band from the same school to form Genesis. The new band sought fellow school alumnus, pop singer Jonathan King, to be their producer. King got Genesis a record deal with Decca Records. But the band’s first album, Genesis to Revelation, was stocked in the ‘Religious’ record section of most stores given the title. Consequently, it sold only in the hundreds of copies.
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#810: Tijuana Taxi by Tijuana Brass
Peak Month: February 1966
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #38
YouTube.com: “Tijuana Taxi”
Herb Alpert was born in 1935 in Los Angeles. His parents were Jewish immigrants, from the Ukraine and Romania. He started to play the trumpet at the age of eight. After he graduated from high school, he joined the United States Army and played trumpet. In 1956 he was one of the drummers at Mt. Sinai in the film The Ten Commandments. In 1957 he became a songwriter for Keen Records. He teamed up with Lou Adler in 1958 and released a single titled “The Trial” credited to Herb B. Lou and the Legal Eagles. The recording was of the “break-in” genre, like Buchanan & Goodman’s “Flying Saucer” from 1956. The single had break-in’s from “Tears On My Pillow” by Little Anthony & The Imperials, “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin, “To Know Him Is To Love Him” by the Teddy Bears, “Little Star” by The Elegants, “Volare” by Domenico Modugno and others. “The Trial” made the Top Ten in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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#888: Another One Rides The Bus by Weird Al Yankovic
Peak Month: June 1981
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position: #9
1 Play List
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #104
YouTube.com link: “Another One Rides The Bus”
Lyrics: “Another One Rides The Bus”
Alfred Matthew Yankovic was born in 1959 in suburban Los Angeles. His paternal grandparents were Yugoslavian. At the age of five, a door-to-door salesman came to the Yankovic home and offered to teach either guitar or accordion lessons to young Alfred. His parents chose the accordion. Growing up, Alfred was influenced by comedians Stan Freberg, Allan Sherman, Shel Silverstein and Frank Zappa. He was also a fan of Monty Python, Mad magazine and the Dr. Dimento radio show. During high school Al was a part-time accordion teacher. In 1975, he graduated at the age of 16 and gave the class valedictorian.
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