#1420: A Shot In The Dark by Henry Mancini
Peak Month: August 1964
Peak Position #17
19 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #97
YouTube.com: “A Shot In The Dark”
Enrico Nicola Mancini was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, in 1924. Both his parents were Italian immigrants to the USA. At age eight Enrico learned to play the piccolo. He later studied at the Juilliard School of Music. When he turned 18 he enlisted in the United States Army he met Glenn Miller at basic training. Owing to a recommendation by Miller, Mancini was first assigned to the 28th Air Force Band before being reassigned overseas to the 1306th Engineers Brigade in France. In 1945, he helped liberate the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria. In 1946, he became a pianist and arranger for the newly re-formed Glenn Miller Orchestra, led by ‘Everyman’ Tex Beneke. (Glenn Miller was declared missing in action after his plane disappeared over the English Channel in December 1944). In 1952, Henry Mancini joined Universal Studios’ Universal-International music department. In 1952 he scored music for The Raiders, and in 1953 for The Glenn Miller Story. ‘
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#1419: Are You Lonely For Me by Freddie Scott
Peak Month: March 1967
Peak Position #10
19 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube.com: “Are You Lonely For Me”
Lyrics: “Are You Lonely For Me”
Freddie Scott was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1933. He sand in his grandmother’s gospel group, Sally Jones & the Gospel Keyes. He toured with them across England at the age of 12. After high school, Scott studied medicine, but began singing again with the Swanee Quintet Juniors and gave up his medical career. In 1956, he recorded as a secular singer with the J&S label in New York City, releasing his first solo single “Running Home”. Scott also wrote the top 10 R&B hit “I’ll Be Spinning” for the label’s duo Johnnie & Joe. As well, his song “Baby I’m Sorry” was recorded by Ricky Nelson for his 1957 debut album Ricky. Freddie Scott was conscripted for the U.S. Military. He continued to record for small labels with little success. After leaving the military, he turned to songwriting, joining the Aldon Music publishing company set up by Al Nevins and Don Kirshner in the Brill Building. It was there that Freddie Scott recorded many of his own demos and worked as a record producer with Erma Franklin, whose song “Piece Of My Heart” was later covered by Big Brother & the Holding Company. Scott also continued to release his own records, including “Baby, You’re a Long Time Dead” for New York based Joy Records in 1961. The B-side “Lost The Right”, charted in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
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#1418: The Magic Touch by the Bobby Fuller Four
Peak Month: July 1966
Peak Position #19
19 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “The Magic Touch”
Lyrics: “The Magic Touch”
Robert Gaston Fuller was born in 1942 in Baytown, Texas, a suburb of Houston. In his early childhood his family moved to Salt Lake City, and in 1956 to El Paso. While Fuller was a 13-year-old Elvis Presley was shaking the foundations of the pop music world. Bobby Fuller was memorized by what was unfolding. In 1958, he formed a four-man combo in the style of fellow Texan Buddy Holly. Other members were Bobby’s brother Randy (Randell) Fuller on bass and rhythm guitar, Jim Reese on guitar, Dalton Powell on piano, and Dewayne Quirico on drums. Randy Fuller was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1944. Jim Reese was born in Amarillo, Texas, on December 7, 1941. DeWayne Quirco was born in 1942 in El Paso, and Dalton Powell was born in El Paso in 1942. Powell and Quirco were drummers at different points in the life of the band. In 1961 the Bobby Fuller Four released their first single titled “You’re In Love”. In 1962, “Gently My Love” cracked the Top 30 on KELP-AM in El Paso. From November 1963 to March 1964, the Bobby Fuller Four single “Saturday Night” was a Top 30 hit in Sydney, Australia. In the spring of 1965, the Bobby Fuller Four had a Top Ten hit in Las Vegas with “She’s My Girl”. Another release, “Let Her Dance”, stalled at #133 bubbling beneath the Billboard Hot 100.
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#1417: Turn Around by Dick and Dee Dee
Peak Month: November 1963
Peak Position #7
19 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube.com: “Turn Around”
Lyrics: “Turn Around”
Mary Sperling was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, around 1942. At the age of 16 she began songwriting. She teamed up with Dick St. John who she met at junior high. The pair lost track of each other until DeeDee’s first year at college when they both started working at See’s Candies in Los Angeles. On their lunch breaks they discovered a mutual love of song writing and ended up collaborating on a song called, “I Want Someone.” The flip side, “The Mountain’s High”, became their first gold record, storming up the charts in summer of 1961. The song spent two weeks at the #2 position on the Billboard Hot 100. “The Mountain’s High” reached #1 in Vancouver and #37 on the UK Singles Chart. Dick and DeeDee played in the Los Angeles area for six months, backed by the new, upcoming surf band, The Beach Boys.
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#1281: How Many Tears by Bobby Vee
Peak Month: May 1961
6 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #9
C-FUN Twin Pick Hit April 29, 1961
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #63
YouTube.com: “How Many Tears”
Lyrics: “How Many Tears”
Bobby Vee was born in Fargo, North Dakota as Robert Thomas Velline. He was part of a highschool band that was asked to step in and perform for the concert that was to be headlined by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Each had died in a small plane crash the day before. And the concert was held in Moorhead, Minnesota, across the Red River from Fargo. Fifteen year old Vee and his band were a hit and he got a contract with Liberty Records. It was his fourth single release, “Devil or Angel”, that catapulted him into the Top Ten and teen idol stardom. The single topped the pop charts in Vancouver on September 10, 1960.
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#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 49th 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: “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: “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: “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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