#916: I’m The Lonely One by Cliff Richard and The Shadows
Peak Month: May 1964
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #92
CFUN Twin Pick Hit of the Week ~ April 4, 1964
YouTube.com: “I’m The Lonely One”
Lyrics: “I’m The Lonely One”
Cliff Richard was born Harry Roger Webb on October 14, 1940, in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1940 Lucknow was part of the British Raj, as India was not yet an independent country. Webb’s father worked on as a catering manager for the Indian Railways. His mother raised Harry and his three sisters. In 1948, when India had become independent, the Webb family took a boat to Essex, England, and began a new chapter. At the age of 16 Harry Webb was given a guitar by his father. Harry then formed a vocal group called the Quintones. Webb was interested in skiffle music, a type of jug band music, popularized by “The King of Skiffle,” Scottish singer Lonnie Donegan who had an international hit in 1955 called “Rock Island Line.”
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#918: Only You Know And I Know by Delaney & Bonnie
Peak Month: October 1971
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
(7 weeks on CKLG for best chart run point total)
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #42
YouTube.com: “Only You Know And I Know”
Lyrics: “Only You Know And I Know”
Delaney Bramlett was born in Pontotoc, Mississippi, in 1939. He picked cotton in his youth and learned to play guitar. He left Pontoloc for the Navy as soon as he graduated from school. After three years in the U.S. Navy he returned to civilian life and moved to Los Angeles in 1959. He became a session musician in the City of Angels and by 1965 was a member of the band, the Shindogs. They were the house band for the musical variety show Shindig!, on ABC. The Show also featured Leon Russell and Glen Campbell. Bramlett was a songwriter and his tunes were being recorded through the 60’s by Mel Torme, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Knox, Nancy Wilson, Nancy Sinatra, Mama Cass, Blue Cheer, King Curtis, Lulu and others. He appeared on the same stage in concert with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Gram Parsons, Billy Preston, John Lennon, Rita Coolidge and more.
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#919: Here’s To You by Hamilton Camp
Peak Month: June 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #76
1 week Hitbound CKLG, April 20, 1968
YouTube.com: “Here’s To You”
Lyrics: “Here’s To You”
Bob Camp was born in London, England, in 1934. His family moved to the United States during World War II. At the age of twelve he got his first part in a motion picture called Bedlam, a B-horror movie starring Boris Karloff. Camp got cast as a shoeshine boy in Outrage in 1950, the second film out of Hollywood concerning a plot about rape. He played in the film noire classic from 1950, Dark City, and in another horror film, The Son of Dr. Jekyll. Over a career in film from 1946 to the mid-2000’s, he played in sixty movies. Some of the actors played alongside over his with include Errol Flynn, Robert Preston, Charlton Heston, Jack Webb, Olivia de Havilland, Richard Burton,Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner, William Holden, Fredric March, Shelley Winters, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Tommy Sands, Pat Boone, Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Jim Backus, Ryan O’Neal, Tatum O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Billy Crystal, Joan Rivers, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Christopher Plummer, Art Carney, Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Julie Andrews, Larry Hagman, Stockyard Channing, David Carradine, Demi Moore, Nick Nolte, Ed Harris, Tim Robbins, Clint Eastwood, Madeline Kahn, Mickey Rooney, Forest Whitaker, Al Pacino, Madonna, Catherine O’Hara and others.
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#921: Swiss Maid by Del Shannon
Peak Month: September 1962
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #64
CFUN Twin Pick August 4, 1962
YouTube.com: “Swiss Maid”
Lyrics: “Swiss Maid”
Charles Weedon Westover was born on December 30, 1934. He was known professionally as Del Shannon. Westover was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He learned ukulele and guitar and listened to country music. He was drafted into the Army in 1954, and while in Germany played guitar in a band called The Cool Flames. When his service ended, he returned to Battle Creek, Michigan. There he worked as a carpet salesman and as a truck driver in a furniture factory. He found part-time work as a rhythm guitarist in singer Doug DeMott’s group called Moonlight Ramblers, working at the Hi-Lo Club. Ann Arbor deejay Ollie McLaughlin heard the band. In July 1960, Westover signed to become a recording artist and composer on the Bigtop label. Westover changed his name to Del Shannon. It was a combination of Shannon Kavanagh (a wannabe wrestler who patronized the Hi-Lo Club) with Del, derived from the Cadillac Coupe de Ville, which Westover’s carpet store boss drove.
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#922: 1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero by Bobby Russell
Peak Month: November 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
1 week Hitbound on CKLG
YouTube.com: “1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero”
Lyrics: “1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero”
Robert L. Russell was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1941. As he grew up Nashville was becoming a city known for country and pop music. In 1958, when he was 17-years-old, Bobby Russell recorded “The Raven”, backed with “She’s Gonna Be Sorry”. It was a rockabilly number backed with his group, The Impollos. It was not a hit. But his second release, “Dum Diddle”, another rockabilly number, made the Top 30 in Des Moines, Iowa, in the spring of 1959. He kept on releasing solo records and in 1966 his single, “Friends And Mirrors”, got airplay in several states across the USA and Australia. It also made the Top 40 in Edmonton (AB) and Montreal.
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#923: Freedom by Jimi Hendrix
Peak Month: April 1971
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #59
YouTube.com: “Freedom”
Lyrics: “Freedom”
In 1942 Johnny Allen Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington. His grandparents, Nora and Ross Hendrix immigrated from America to Vancouver in 1911. There they raised Jimi’s father, James Allen Hendrix, who moved to Seattle in 1941 where he met Lucille Jeter, Jimi’s mother. In 1946, Johnny Allen Hendrix’s name was changed to James “Jimmy” Marshall Hendrix. As a child when he was asked to sweep the floor with a broom, his parents and grandparents would find him in his room strumming the broom like he was playing a guitar. He was given a guitar when he was 15 years old. Despite a limited mainstream exposure of four years while billed as Jimi Hendrix, he is widely considered one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.
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#924: What’s It Gonna Be by Dusty Springfield
Peak Month: January 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #49
YouTube.com: “What’s It Gonna Be”
Lyrics: “What’s It Gonna Be”
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born in West Hampstead in north London, in 1939. Along with her oldest brother, Dion, she recorded her first tape of a song they sang while still children. Her dad was an unhappy accountant who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but never became one. While Mary’s mother, according to the Karen Bartlett autobiography, Dusty: An Intimate Portrait, “was continuously drunk and sat all day in cinemas.”As she grew up, Mary went to school at a Roman Catholic Convent. At the age of 18 she became a member of a female group named the Lana Sisters. The group sang backup to pop singer Al Saxton who had several Top 30 hits in the late 50’s in the UK, including a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Only Sixteen” and “You’re The Top Cha”. While Saxton enjoyed his moments of fame, Mary teamed up with her brother, Dion, and a friend of theirs named Tim Field. By the end of 1959 she had taken the stage name of Dusty Springfield. The trio, now known as The Springfields, got a record deal with Philips Records in 1961.
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#925: Chinatown Calculation by Doug & The Slugs
Peak Month: November 1980
5 weeks on CKLG Top 20
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
3 weeks Hitbound on CKLG
YouTube.com: “Chinatown Calculation”
Lyrics: “Chinatown Calculation”
Doug Bennett was born in Toronto in 1951. He worked as a graphic designer after his schooling and at the age of 22 moved to Vancouver in 1973. He got a job as a cartoonist and editor for the weekly alternative paper the Georgia Strait. He also played with a number of bands. By 1977 Bennett was in search of some new outlets for his creativity and was introduced to guitarist John Burton. Burton had been in a group called The Ugly Slugs. Bennett and Burton began performing locally and added bassist Dennis Henderson, drummer Ted Laturnus and and Drew Neville on keyboards. They became Doug and The Slugs.
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#926: Flip Flop And Fly by Downchild Blues Band
Peak Month: March 1974
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Flip Flop And Fly”
Lyrics: “Flip Flop And Fly”
The Downchild Blues Band was formed in Toronto in 1969 and continues to perform today. It was co-founded by two brothers, Donnie “Mr. Downchild” Walsh and Richard “Hock” Walsh. The band’s international fame is partially due to three of its songs, the originals “I’ve Got Everything I Need (Almost)” and “Shot Gun Blues”, and its adaptation of “Flip, Flop and Fly”, all from their 1973 album, Straight Up, being featured on the first Blues Brothers album, Briefcase Full of Blues, from 1978. “Flip, Flop And Fly” has been Downchild’s biggest hit single, and became the signature song of Hock Walsh. The band’s musical style is described as being “a spirited, if fundamental, brand of jump-band and Chicago-style blues.” The bands’ name came from the Sonny Boy Williamson II song, “Mr. Downchild”.
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#927: Secret Information by Chilliwack
Peak Month: March 1983
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #110
YouTube.com: “Secret Information”
Lyrics: “Secret Information”
Bill Henderson was born in Vancouver in 1944. He learned guitar and became the guitarist for the Panarama Trio that performed at the Panarama Roof dance club on the 15th Floor of the Hotel Vancouver. He formed the psychedelic pop-rock Vancouver band, The Collectors, in 1966. After a half dozen local hits including “Fisherwoman” and “Lydia Purple” the Collectors name was ditched in 1970. Henderson (vocals, guitar), Claire Lawrence (saxophone, keyboards), Ross Turney (drums) and Glenn Miller (bass) were all Collectors bandmates. After Howie Vickers left The Collectors, they changed their name to Chilliwack. The name was a Salish First Nations name that means “going back up” and is the name of a city in the Fraser Valley in British Columbia.
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