#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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#1325: I Will by Rock & Hyde
Peak Month: July 1987
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “I Will”
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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#1195: Love Monkey #9 by Bootsauce
Peak Month: May 1992
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Love Monkey #9”
Lyrics: “Love Monkey #9”
Sonny Greenwich Jr. was born on January 1, 1962, in Toronto. In his childhood his family moved to the south shore of Montreal and went to high school in the suburb of Longueuil. He got his first guitar on the occasion of his sixteenth birthday and formed a band that became named Dogstar. At a Montreal area Christmas party in 1988, Greenwich met singer Drew Ling (born Drew Thorpe) and guitarist Perry Johnson (who was later billed as Pere Fume). They instantly hit it off and found they shared musical interests. Soon they were playing with each other and formed a band.
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#1300: Keep On Movin’ by Finesse & Showbiz
Peak Month: November 1992
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Keep On Movin’”
Finesse & Showbiz were a pioneering west coast Canadian rap group formed in Nanaimo, B.C. They later relocated to Vancouver. In January 1991, the group submitted a cassette demo, “Where You At,” to local Top 40 station LG73. This resulted in heavy airplay and hitting #3 on the station’s nightly chart (different from the weekly CKLG Top 40. In 1992, Finesse & Showbiz was the first Vancouver rap group to release full length album with national and international distribution.
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#1225: Friends Forever by Candi & The Backbeat
Peak Month: July 1991
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Friends Forever”
In the mid-80s, Candita Pennella fronted an Italian wedding band in Toronto named Sensation. Her nickname was Candi. The band consisted of bass player Nino Milazzo, drummer Paul Russo, keyboard player Rich Imbrogno and singer Candita Pennella. The band decided to change their name to Candi. They recorded an album in 1988 titled Candi. They released a single titled “Dancing Under A Latin Moon,” which made the Top 30 across Canada on the RPM singles chart and #68 on the Billboard Hot 100. Several follow up singles made the pop charts in Canada. Among these, “Missing You” and “Love Makes No Promises” made the Top 30 on the CKLG charts in Vancouver in early 1989.
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#1241: Touch The Hand by Bryan Adams
Peak Month: June 1992
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Touch The Hand”
Lyrics: “Touch The Hand”
Born in Kingston, Ontario, in November 1959, Bryan Adams parents immigrated from the UK in the 1950s. His dad, Captain Conrad J. Adams, was a diplomat in the Canadian foreign service. While growing up his family was posted to Portugal, Austria and Israel. By the age of 15 Adams was playing with the band Sweeney Todd as a frontman. By the time he turned 17, Bryan Adams had landed work as a background vocalist for the CBC. His first salary came from working for Robbie King, a keyboard musician with Motown. During his senior years in high school he began playing music with his guitarist, Keith Scott.
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#1190: Time Of The Day by Gino Vannelli
Peak Month: December 1990
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Time Of The Day”
Lyrics: “Time Of The Day”
Gino Vannelli was born in Montreal in 1952. During his childhood he was exposed to jazz music and cabaret. His father was a cabaret singer and his mother had a good ear for music. Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Ed Thigpen were among the drummers that inspired young Gino. At the age of eleven, Gino was one of a group of elementary school-age drummers trying to audition for a Montreal band named The Cobras. He arrived home from school later than usual to announce he had been picked to be the new drummer for the band after impressing them with his rendition of “Wipeout”.
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#1214: Chocolate Cake by Crowded House
Peak Month: August 1991
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Chocolate Cake”
Lyrics: “Chocolate Cake”
Neil Mullane Finn was born in 1958 in Te Awamutu on the North Island of New Zealand. His brother Brian Timothy Finn was born in the same New Zealand town in 1952. Neil began playing guitar when he was eight-years-old, and decided to be a professional musician at age 12. Tim Finn learned to play guitar, drums and piano. In 1972, when Tim was 20 and Neil was 14, the Finn brothers co-founded the rock band Split Enz. Over time the band shifted their sound to New Wave and Art Rock. With Split Enz they enjoyed international hits that included “One Step Ahead“, “I Got You”, and “Six Months In A Leaky Boat”.
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#1168: Sandra by Idle Eyes
Peak Month: October 1986
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Sandra”
Lyrics: “Sandra”
Tad Campbell was born in Vancouver (BC). After high school he found himself in Australia moonlighting for a band called the Daydream Islanders between shifts while working for a luxury liner that cruised around parts of the continent. In 1980 he replied to an ad looking for a guitarist, and ended up with the band playing for months at a resort in the Whitsunday Islands. A chambermaid at a hotel Campbell knew, Donna McConville, became the bands’ lead singer. Though they had other Australian musicians in the line-up, when Campbell and McConville decided to move to Vancouver, the other bandmates chose not to follow. Back in Vancouver the pair got a new lineup and called themselves Idle Eyes. But the lineup kept changing. Tad Campbell recalls that “their first tour was cancelled when the drummer backed out the day they were supposed to leave.” Part of the problem was that Idle Eyes was made up almost entirely of bandmates from New Zealand and Australia who had visa issues. Eventually, Donna McConville returned to Australia and became a backing singer for John Farnham.
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#1202: Almost Unreal by Roxette
Peak Month: July 1993
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #94
YouTube.com: “Almost Unreal”
Lyrics: “Almost Unreal”
Roxette was a duo composed of Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle. Gun-Marie Fredriksson was born in 1958 in a small town in the southern tip of Sweden. When she was seven-years-old, her 20-year-old sister died in a traffic fatality. She remembers the support she got to pursue music from a young age from attending a church. Fredriksson recalls she had been performing “ever since I was little and me and my sister Tina went to Sunday school. We had a wonderful pastor in Östra Ljungby. I’ve got really bright, lovely memories of that place, even when my big sister died. I loved all the songs. It was such a source of freedom for me… for both of us.” At age 17, she enrolled in a music school, and was subsequently cast in a musical that toured across Sweden.
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