#821: 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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#904: Patti Ann by Johnny Crawford
Peak Month: January 1962
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #5
1 week Twin Pick Hit of the Week
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #43
YouTube.com: “Patti Ann”
Lyrics: “Patti Ann”
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. Crawford was asked in 1982 about how he got picked for the show. He recalled, “I went on the audition and I did a tapdance routine with my brother, and we also did a fencing routine. Then they asked if we had anything else we could do. My grandmother told me to tell them that I imitated ’50s singer Johnny Ray. I stepped forward and did my imitation of him singing “Cry” and that was what got me into the Mouseketeers.” 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.
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#874: Cindy’s Gonna Cry by Johnny Crawford
Peak Month: September 1963
7 weeks on the C-FUN-TASTIC FIFTY
Peak Position: #3
Twin Pick Hit of the Week ~ August 24, 1963
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #72
YouTube.com link: “Cindy’s Gonna Cry”
Lyrics: “Cindy’s Gonna Cry”
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. Crawford was asked in 1982 about how he got picked for the show. He recalled, “I went on the audition and I did a tapdance routine with my brother, and we also did a fencing routine. Then they asked if we had anything else we could do. My grandmother told me to tell them that I imitated ’50s singer Johnny Ray. I stepped forward and did my imitation of him singing “Cry” and that was what got me into the Mouseketeers.” 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.
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#851: 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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#840: The Happy Song by Otis Redding
Peak Month: June 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position: #5
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com link: “The Happy Song”
Lyrics: “The Happy Song (Dum Dum)”
Otis Ray Redding Jr. was born in Dawson, Georgia, in 1941. At the age of two he moved to Macon, Georgia. His dad was a sharecropper and subsequently worked at the Air Force base at Macon. In his childhood he sang at a local African-American church choir and learned to play the guitar and piano. While he was a teenager, Otis performed gospel songs on Sundays on a local radio station, WIBB, earning $6 for each appearance. When his father got tuberculosis in 1956, Otis quit school to earn extra cash for his family. He worked as a well digger and a gas station hop. In 1958 he won a $5 prize at a teenage talent contest fifteen weeks in a row. In 1958 he joined Pat T. Cake and the Mighty Panthers and toured the chitlin circuit in the Deep South. Soon afterward, he joined the Upsetters to replace Little Richard who had given up rock ‘n roll for religion.
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#870: Situation Critical by Platinum Blonde
Peak Month: November 1985
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Situation Critical”
Lyrics: “Situation Critical”
Mark Holmes was born in the UK and lived in Manchester until the family moved to Toronto. He met several other musicians and formed a punk band that played covers to The Police and other new wave bands. After a lineup change, Holmes was playing guitar and the lead vocalist, Chris Steffler was the drummer and Sergio Galli was a second guitarist. The trio became Platinum Blonde. They got a record deal with CBS in 1983. Their debut album, Standing In The Dark, earned them two Video Of The Year nominations at the 1984 Juno Awards. But it was their second album, Alien Shores, which included “Crying Over You,” a #1 single on the Canadian RPM charts in 1985, and in Vancouver.
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#880: I Had A Dream by Paul Revere and the Raiders
Peak Month: September 1967
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on CFUN ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube.com:”I Had A Dream”
Lyrics: “I Had A Dream”
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. These included “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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#824: Look What You’ve Done by The Pozo Seco Singers
Peak Month: January 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #6
1 Week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube.com:”Look What You’ve Done”
Lyrics: “Look What You’ve Done”
In 1964, baritone singer Don Williams and tenor Lofton Kline were a Corpus Christi singing duo that went by the name of The Strangers Two. They heard 17-year-old Ray High School student, Susan Taylor, performing solo at the Del Mar Hootenannies. Lofton recalls, “Don was married and had a little one to support, and was working at Pittsburgh Plate Glass. I was going to Del Mar College in Corpus. The college had a hootenanny scheduled and Don and I were asked to entertain.” After they met Susan Taylor, as Lofton tells it, ““We asked her to come over and practice with us the following week. She did…and the rest is ‘history.’” Susan’s alto voice blended perfectly with Don’s baritone and Lofton’s tenor.
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#878: C’mon by Poco
Peak Month: May 1971
8 weeks on CKVN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #69
YouTube.com: “C’mon”
Lyrics: “C’mon”
Paul Richard “Richie” Furay was born in 1944 in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He is a singer, songwriter, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member. Furay is best known for forming the band Buffalo Springfield and later forming the band Poco. Prior to forming Buffalo Springfield, Furay was a member of the nine member group called the Au Go Go Singers who performed at New York City’s Cafe Au Go Go. In 1967, one of the production engineers for the album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was Jim Messina. He was the producer for the bands final album in 1968, Last Time Around. Messina was born in Maywood, California, in Los Angeles County, in 1947. While still 16 years of age in 1964, Messina recorded his first record credited to Jim Messina And His Jesters, primarily a surf guitar album.
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#830: Kiss Him Goodbye by The Nylons
Peak Month: July 1987
10 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Kiss Him Goodbye”
Lyrics: “Kiss Him Goodbye”
The Nylons are an a cappella group that formed in 1978, based in Toronto. The original members were all gay men: Dennis Simpson, Paul Cooper, Claude Morrison and Marc Connors. They released their self-titled album in 1982. There were some lineup changes after 1979 when Dennis Simpson left. By the time the Nylons released their first album, Arnold Robinson was the newcomer joining the other original group members. In 1986, the group appeared on the Canadian children’s TV show Sharon, Lois & Bram’s Elephant Show. The show was hosted by a trio of the entertainers and singers known as Sharon, Lois & Bram. The Nylons appeared in an episode of the TV show, Treasure Island, and sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. The next year they released their fourth album, Happy Together.
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