#890: I’m Gonna Love You Too by Terry Jacks

Peak Month: January 1973
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #116
YouTube.com: “I’m Gonna Love You Too”
Lyrics: “I’m Gonna Love You Too”

Terrence Ross Jacks was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1944. During his career as a recording artist he became a household name and recognized as a singer, songwriter, record producer and environmentalist. His family moved to Vancouver in 1961 and he formed a band named The Chessmen along with local guitarist, Guy Sobell. The Chessmen had four singles that made the Top 20 in Vancouver, two which were double-sided hits. These included the Top Ten hits “Love Didn’t Die,” “The Way You Fell” and “What’s Causing This Sensation”. Jacks met Susan Pesklevits on a local CBC music show called Let’s Go in 1966.

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Peak Month: December 1977
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “What Would Mama Say”

Heather Gauthier and her sister Mary Lou Gauthier, and Judi Richards were backing vocalists. In the mid-70’s they had been singing backup for various local groups in Montreal in recording studios. However, it wasn’t lucrative enough. In 1975 they decided to become their own performing act. By 1976 their line-up was composed of Heather Gauthier, Judi Richards and Lorri Zimmerman. Their first single on Magique Records, off the Toulouse album, was the French hit “It Always Happens This Way (C’est toujours à recommencer).” It only contained two lines in English but managed to chart outside of Quebec. In April 1977 it reached #39 on RPM Top Singles Chart, #29 in Toronto, #8 in Vancouver and #6 in Ottawa. Toulouse were the first bilingual disco recording act who comfortably sang in English and French. With the cross-over potential of their debut single, Toulouse re-released the album in 1977 with all the vocals re-recorded in English for the American market.

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#893: (There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me by Sandie Shaw

Peak Month: December 1964
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #52
YouTube.com: “(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me”
Lyrics: “(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me”

Sandra Ann Goodrich was born in 1947 in Dagenham, a suburb in East London. In 1964 the British press called her the “original Brit Girl.” They were referring to her chiseled cheekbones, independent girl about town aura and otherworldliness as she performed on stages barefoot. In 1963, at the age of 16, Sandie Shaw was working as a fashion model for a photography company pitching photos to magazines. She was also singing on stages at night hoping to get a break. Shaw was “discovered” by singer, Adam Faith at a concert in which they both performed. Worked as a photographic fashion model to fill in time. At 17, she began her career as an international singing and recording star. Her first single, “As Long as You’re Happy Baby”, didn’t make the UK charts when it was released in July, 1964. However, Pye Records was confident she would soon be a make it big.

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Peak Month: May 1977
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “It Always Happens This Way (C’est toujours à recommencer)”
Lyrics: “It Always Happens This Way (C’est toujours à recommencer)”

Heather Gauthier and her sister Mary Lou Gauthier, and Judi Richards were backing vocalists. In the mid-70’s they had been singing backup for various local groups in Montreal in recording studios. However, it wasn’t lucrative enough. In 1975 they decided to become their own performing act. By 1976 their line-up was composed of Heather Gauthier, Judi Richards and Lorri Zimmerman. Their first single on Magique Records, off the Toulouse album, was the French hit “It Always Happens This Way (C’est toujours à recommencer)”. It only contained two lines in English but managed to chart outside of Quebec. In April 1977 it reached #39 on RPM Top Singles Chart, #29 in Toronto, #8 in Vancouver and #6 in Ottawa. Toulouse were the first bilingual disco recording act who comfortably sang in English and French.
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#895: Your Own Back Yard by Dion

Peak Month: July 1970
8 weeks on CKVN chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #75
YouTube.com: “Your Own Back Yard”
Lyrics: “Your Own Back Yard”

Dion Francis DiMucci was born in the Bronx, NY, in 1939. His parents named him Dion in honor of the French Canadian Dionne quintuplents who captured the interest of millions around the world after the five infants were born in May 1934. Dion’s dad, Pasquale DiMucci, was a vaudeville performer and Dion accompanied him to see his dad on stage. As a child he was given an $8 dollar guitar by his uncle while he lived on 183rd Street. Dion’s childhood was set in the midst of conflict between his parents. In an interview with New York Magazine in 2007, Dion remembers “…There was a lot of unresolved conflict in my house… My pop, Pasquale, couldn’t make the $36-a-month rent on our apartment at 183rd and Crotona Avenue.” He was a dreamer, a failed vaudevillian, and sometimes Catskills puppeteer. He’d talk big and lift weights he’d made from oilcans, while Frances, Mrs. DiMucci, took two buses and the subway downtown to work in the garment district on a sewing machine. “When they’d start yelling, I’d go out on the stoop with my $8 Gibson and try to resolve things that way.”

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#896: The Rebel – Johnny Yuma by Johnny Cash

Peak Month: May 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #108
YouTube.com: “The Rebel – Johnny Yuma”
Lyrics: “The Rebel – Johnny Yuma”

John R. “Johnny” Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, in 1932. At the age of five he started working with his sharecropping parents and siblings in the cotton fields. During his childhood his family home was flooded twice. He began singing and playing guitar by the age of 12. He moved to Detroit in his late teens for work. He was drafted and served in the U.S. Air Force as a Morse Code Intercept Operator for Soviet Army transmissions at a base in Germany from 1950 to 1954. When he was discharged from the military he and his new wife, Liberto, moved to Memphis. Cash worked as an appliance salesman while trying to get a break in the music industry. Cash got to audition with Sun Records in 1954. He had his first charting single on the Billboard Country charts in 1955 titled “Cry! Cry! Cry!” Subsequently single releases, “So Doggone Lonesome” and “I Walk The Line” climbed to #4 and #1 on the Country charts. The latter hit also was his first debut on the Billboard pop charts where it made it to #17 in 1956.

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#897: Looking At A Baby by The Collectors

Peak Month: March 1967
8 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Looking At A Baby”

The Vancouver rock band The Collectors, was formerly named The Classics who were a Vancouver group led by Howie Vickers in the mid-60s. The Classics were part of the regular line-up on Let’s Go, a show on CBC TV. Though the Classics released several singles the group needed room to grow and reformed as The Collectors. They would become one of the most innovative of Vancouver’s recording acts through the rest 60s. In the spring of 1967, Vickers was asked to put together a house band at the Torch Cabaret in Vancouver. Along with Claire Lawrence on horns, they recruited guitarist Terry Frewer, drummer Ross Turney and Brian Newcombe on bass. Within a couple of months, fellow Classics member Glenn Miller replaced Newcombe on bass and Bill Henderson, a student at UBC, replaced Frewer on guitars. With Vickers now handling vocals, their sound changed from doing covers of R&B tunes to psychedelic rock. This led them to gigs along the Canadian and US west coast. Their strongest fan base in America was in California. There audiences welcomed their complex arrangements mixed with harmonies and extended solos and musical ad-libs.

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#898: New Orleans by Stampeders

Peak Month: October 1975
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “New Orleans”
Lyrics: “New Orleans”

The Stampeders are a rock trio from Calgary named after that city’s football team, The Calgary Stampeders. Although, it could be argued that the yearly Calgary Stampede was also an inspiration for their name. During the band’s most successful chart run from 1968 to 1976, it was made up of guitarist Rich Dodson, bass player Ronnie King (born Cornelius Van Sprang) and drummer Kim Berly (born Kim Meyer). All three provided vocals. Originally, the band was a group of five formed in 1964 called The Rebounds. The Rebounds had five members: Rich Dodson, Len Roemer, Brendan Lyttle, Kim Berly, and Race Holiday. They renamed themselves The Stampeders in 1965 and Len Roemer was replaced with Ronnie King and Van Louis, making them a band of six for a few years. But after a temporary move to Toronto in 1966 the band was down to three members, Dodson, King and Berly by 1968. Between 1967 and 1976 The Stampeders charted 15 singles into the Canadian RPM Top 40.Continue reading →

#899: Great Airplane Strike by Paul Revere and The Raiders

Peak Month: October 1966
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
1 week Hitbound ~ CKLG September 24, 1966
YouTube.com: “Great Airplane Strike”
Lyrics: Great Airplane Strike”

A band called The Downbeats formed in Boise, Idaho, in 1958. Paul Revere Dick started the band originally as an instrumental group. They had their first chart single in Vancouver in 1960. It was an instrumental riff on the piano tune, Chopsticks, which they titled “Beatnik Sticks. They changed their name to Paul Revere And The Raiders in 1960. Between 1960 and 1976 they released 41 singles. They charted five songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA beginning in 1966 with songs like “Kicks” and “Hungry” (1966), “Him Or Me – What’s It Gonna Be?” (1967); And their cover of Don Fardon’s 1968 single “Indian Reservation” which peaked at #1 for the band in 1971. They were even more popular in Vancouver where they charted over fifteen songs into the Top Ten on the local charts here on the West Coast.
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#900: Can’t Make No Sense by Blue Northern

Peak Month: October 1980
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Can’t Make No Sense”

Blue Northern was a Vancouver band that got their start in 1977. The founding members were Garry Comeau on guitar and fiddle, Lee Roy Stephens on bass, steel and rhythm guitar player Jimmy Wilson and Brady Gustafson on drums. As they developed their sound the band wanted to broaden their audience appeal. It happened that one of the audience members who enjoyed Blue Northern in concert was Billy Cowsill. William “Bill” Joseph Cowsill, Jr., was born in the USA in 1948 and had moved to Vancouver in 1977. He had been the lead singer of The Cowsills, a family pop singing group from Newport, Rhode Island. The Cowsills had several hits between 1967 and 1969, including “The Rain, The Park & Other Things” and “Hair.” The Cowsills appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dick Cavett Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. They also were the spokespersons for the American Dairy Association. Billy Cowsill got used to appearing in two hundred concerts a year for several years. His addition to Blue Northern gave them a talking point for MCs who introduced them when performing in the late 70s and early 80s. Cowsill also brought his considerable experience in the music industry.
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