#1189: Jingle Bell Rock by Chubby Checker and Bobby Rydell

Peak Month: December 1961
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #21
YouTube.com: “Jingle Bell Rock”
Lyrics: “Jingle Bell Rock”

Ernest Evans was born in 1941 in Spring Gulley, South Carolina. He grew up in South Philadelphia. As a child, his mother took him to a show performed by child piano prodigy Sugar Child Robinson. Also at the performance was the country singer Ernest Tubb. Ernest was so inspired, that he decided to become an entertainer when he grew up. At the age of eleven he formed a street corner doo-wop group. He took up piano and while attending South Philadelphia High School, one of his friends was Fabian Forte. After school he worked at Fresh Farm Poultry on 9th Street at the Produce Market. His boss decided to give a nickname to his portly employee and called him “Chubby.”

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#1239: Just Young by Andy Rose/Paul Anka

Peak Month: October 1958
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #5 ~ Red Robinson’s Teen Canteen
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #69 (Andy Rose)/ #80 (Paul Anka)
YouTube: “Just Young” Andy Rose
YouTube: “Just Young” Paul Anka
Lyrics: “Just Young”

Andy Rose was born Andrew Gattuso in Brooklyn, New York. His mother was an Italian immigrant from Sicily. Andy Rose has only one child a daughter. Andy had two brothers, Roger and Sal, and one sister. In 1958, Rose was signed with Aamco Records, a tiny New York label owned by Carl LeBow at 204 West 49^th Street in Manhattan. It was formed on May 19, 1958. It was more of an album outlet during their existence focusing on Carribbean and Calypso music. In fact they only issued four singles, all in 1958, two of which were by Rose. The first release was “Just Young”.

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#1248: Jimmy Love by Cathy Carroll

Peak Month: June 1961
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
& DISCovery of the week
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox singles chart ~ #79
YouTube.com: “Jimmy Love”
Lyrics: “Jimmy Love”

Wikipedia says Cathy Carroll was born Carolyn Stern in 1939. However, both Billboard Magazine and Radio Television Daily wrote in 1963 that Carroll was 17 years old at the time. Doing the math, that puts Carolyn Stern’s birth around 1946. Cathy Carroll seemed from the start to be aiming for an award for drama queen among girl singers in the early rock ‘n roll era.  In the previous decade Johnnie Ray would tear at his hair and fall on the floor sobbing before his fans as he sang his 1951 million selling hits “Cry”and “The Little White Cloud That Cried”. From his histrionic performances Ray earned the nicknames the “Nabob of Sob” and “Mr. Emotion.” Cathy Carroll would later record “Cry” as well, perhaps as a nod to her musical soulmate.

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#1303: True Love by Richard Chamberlain

Peak Month: July 1963
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube.com: “True Love”
Lyrics: “True Love”

George Richard Chamberlain was born in 1934 in Beverly Hills, California. After high school graduation in 1952, he studied acting at a college in Pomona. But, he was drafted in December 1952, and sent to fight in the Korean War. He rose to the rank of sergeant. In 1959, Richard Chamberlain appeared in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The following year, he made a guest appearance in the crime-drama series Rescue 8, about the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Other guest appearances in TV shows in the early ’60s include Gunsmoke, the crime series Bourbon Street Beat, Thriller hosted by Boris Karloff, The Deputy starring Henry Fonda, and another western titled Whispering Smith. In 1960, Chamberlain starred opposite Richard Falk in The Secret of the Purple Reef. In 1961, Chamberlain starred with Charles Bronson, Slim Pickens, and Duane Eddy in the western A Thunder of Drums. 

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#1151: If I Didn’t Have A Dime (To Play The Jukebox) by Gene Pitney

Peak Month: September 1962
Peak Position #11
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #58
YouTube.com: “If I Didn’t Have A Dime (To Play The Jukebox)”
Lyrics: “If I Didn’t Have A Dime (To Play The Jukebox)”

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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#1318: Peace Of Mind by Count Five

Peak Month: December 1966
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #125
YouTube.com: “Peace Of Mind”
Lyrics: “Peace Of Mind”

The Count Five were a band formed in San Jose, California, in 1964. The band consisted of five members. John “Sean” Byrne was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1947. He was a lead vocalist who played rhythm guitar. Byrne also wrote most of the original songs by the band. Craig “Butch” Atkinson was born in Springfield, Missouri, in 1947, and was the bands’ drummer. In 1948, Brooklyn, New York, native Kenn Ellner was born. He became the other lead vocalist  for the Count Five and also played tambourine and harmonica. Born in 1948 in Indianapolis, Indiana, Roy Cheney played bass guitar. In sixth grade, Roy asked his parents to buy him a guitar. His mom picked up an acoustic special at Sears Roebuck in downtown San Jose. The fifth bandmate was John “Mouse” Michalski, who was born in Cleveland in 1949 and played lead guitar. In 1964 Cheney and Michalski were classmates at Pioneer High School in San Jose. They formed a band called The Citations. But as the British Invasion dominated pop music in 1964, the band changed their name to The Squires.

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#1321: Take The Blindness by Joey Gregorash

Peak Month: December 1972
Peak Position #16
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Take The Blindness”

Joey Gregorash was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His dad played the violin and young Joey took an interest in learning the instrument. In February 1964 Gregorash saw the Beatles perform on the The Ed Sullivan Show and was turned onto rock ‘n roll. He learned how to play the drums and formed a band called The Mongrels in 1965 with childhood friend John Nykon. Later Gregorash went solo and won a 1972 Juno Award in 1972 for Outstanding Performance-Male for his hit single “Down By the River”. For over a decade Gregorash pursued other interests until in 1987 his single, “Together (The New Wedding Song),” became a hit in Canada.

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#1371: Don’t Go by Hothouse Flowers

Peak Month: December 1988
Peak Position #19
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
1 week playlist
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Don’t Go”
Lyrics: “Don’t Go”

Liam Ó Maonlaí was born in 1964 in County Dublin, Ireland. He grew up in suburban Dublin and in his teens he won an award for playing the bodhrán, an Irish drum. In 1979 he formed a punk rock band called The Complex, which he left in 1981. Fiachna Ó Braonáin was born in Dublin in 1965. Other original bandmates included drummer Jerry Fehily (born in Cork, Ireland, in 1966), saxophonist Leo Barnes (born in 1956), and bass guitarist Peter O’Toole (born in 1965 in Dublin). Fehily only began learning the drum at the age of 17. O’Toole left school when he was sixteen and got jobs delivering bread, making fiddles and working as a lumberjack. “We’d been in the same band before,” O’Toole says of O’Maonlai, “but we’d never actually met. It was that sort of band — there were loads of people.” O’Maonlai, Ó Braonáin, Fehily, Barnes and O’Toole made up the core of Hothouse Flowers when they formed in 1985.

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Peak Month: April 1987
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart

Paul Hyde was born in 1955 in Yorkshire, England. He me Bob Rock, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1954, later when Rock was high school in Langford, British Columbia. Hyde introduced Rock to the new musical genre of punk rock, popular in England. They formed a garage band and Bob Rock got a job at Vancouver’s Little Mountain Sound Studios as a recording engineer. This enabled The Payola$ to record, in the late 70s, punk rock songs “Money for Hype” and “China Boys” on independent labels. They solds singles at their performances and through local record shops. This led to a contract with A&M Records.

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#1296: Two Girls In One by Pursuit Of Happiness

Peak Month: July 1990
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Two Girls In One”
Lyrics: “Two Girls In One”

Murray Kevin “Moe” Berg was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1959. He watched his father play in country bands while he grew up, and spent his time admiring guitarists like Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck and Johnny Winter. From his late teens, Berg was in the Edmonton bands Troc ’59, The News, Modern Minds and Facecrime. The Pursuit of Happiness were launched in 1985 when he and Troc ’59 drummer Dave Gilby moved to Toronto. They soon met bassist Saskatoon native Johnny Sinclair and formed the band, adding Winnipeg-born sisters Tamara and Natasha Amabile as backing vocalists. Their debut single, “I’m an Adult Now”, quickly became a Top 30 hit across Canada in 1986, sparked by a low-budget video (made by Berg’s director friend Nelu Ghiran) which made it onto the Canadian music video channel MuchMusic. In the spring of 1987, “I’m An Adult Now” peaked at #14 on CKOC in Hamilton, Ontario.

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