#1166: Show Me The Way by the West End Girls
Peak Month: April 1992
Peak Position #20
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Show Me The Way”
Camille Henderson was born in Vancouver, BC, in 1970. From the age of ten she was a working actor in film, stage and TV. At the age of fifteen she starred in the Canadian film directed by Sandy Wilson titled My American Cousin. She played the role of Shirley, a preteen girl. Her father, Bill Henderson, was a member of the Vancouver Sixties band The Collectors. He continued with most of his bandmates as they morphed into Chilliwack in 1970.
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#1159: How Many Rivers To Cross by Luba
Peak Month: July 1986
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Youtube: “How Many Rivers To Cross”
Lyrics: “How Many Rivers To Cross”
Lubomyra Kowalchyk was born in 1958 in Montreal, Quebec. During her teens she travelled across Canada performing traditional Ukrainian folk songs at weddings and festivals. Growing up she studied piano, guitar, flute and voice. She was a fine-arts student when she formed a band called Zorya in 1973, releasing an album. In 1977 she released her second album titled. Lubomyra. In 1978 she formed a band named Luba with herself as the lead vocalist. Then, when her father died in 1979, she wrote what would become her signature song, “Everytime I See Your Picture”, as a tribute to him. The first studio album for the band Luba, Chain Reaction, was released in 1980. A Luba (EP) was released in 1982 containing “Every time I See Your Picture”. The song climbed to #1 in Ottawa, #3 in Halifax, #6 in Montreal and #11 in Kitchener (ON). She performed in front of 12,000 rock fans at the Montreal Forum in January 1983. She was the opening act at that concert for the headliner Chris de Burgh.
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#1220: Giving Away A Miracle by Luba
Peak Month: December 1989
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Youtube: “Giving Away A Miracle”
Lyrics: “Giving Away A Miracle”
Lubomyra Kowalchyk was born in 1958 in Montreal, Quebec. During her teens she travelled across Canada performing traditional Ukrainian folk songs at weddings and festivals. Growing up she studied piano, guitar, flute and voice. She was a fine-arts student when she formed a band called Zorya in 1973, releasing an album. In 1977 she released her second album titled. Lubomyra. In 1978 she formed a band named Luba with herself as the lead vocalist. Then, when her father died in 1979, she wrote what would become her signature song, “Everytime I See Your Picture”, as a tribute to him. The first studio album for the band Luba, Chain Reaction, was released in 1980. A Luba (EP) was released in 1982 containing “Every time I See Your Picture”. The song climbed to #1 in Ottawa, #3 in Halifax, #6 in Montreal and #11 in Kitchener (ON). She performed in front of 12,000 rock fans at the Montreal Forum in January 1983. She was the opening act at that concert for the headliner Chris de Burgh.
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#1314: It Doesn’t Matter by Coleman Wilde
Peak Month: July 1989
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Youtube: “It Doesn’t Matter”
Lyrics: “It Doesn’t Matter”
Coleman Wilde was the name of a duo comprised of Ralph Cole guitarist formerly with Lighthouse, and composer Doug Wilde. Doug Wilde was born into a musical family and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. His father, Bob Wilde played jazz bass and piano, his brother Jim Wilde became a choir director/composer and multi instrumentalist. At Humber College he studied arranging with the legendary Ron Collier, and was awarded the Duke Ellington Memorial Scholarship. He later studied film scoring and advanced arranging with Rayburn Wright and Manny Albam at the Eastman School of Music, earned a master’s degree in composition from York University.
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#1378: Good Times With Bad Boys by Boy Krazy
Peak Month: July 1993
6 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #59
YouTube: “Good Times With Bad Boys”
Lyrics: “Good Times With Bad Boys”
Johnna Lee Cummings was born in November 1971 in Philadelphia. She moved to New York City in 1989 at the age of 17. She became a dancer and a singer in the music scene in Manhattan from 1989 onward. Cummings became the lead singer of a girl group called Boy Krazy after she successfully auditioned in 1991. Boy Krazy was put together through auditions of hundreds of young women by a management company in New York. In addition to Cummings, Boy Krazy featured female singers Kimberly Blake, Josselyne Jones, Renée Veneziale, and Ruth Ann Roberts (born Ruthann DeBona in Glen Rock, NJ, in 1976). Roberts was a former Miss Junior America and was 15 when she successfully auditioned for the band. She had already been doing a lot of auditioning for commercials on TV.
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#1184: Sunny by Neil Sedaka
Peak Month: August 1964
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
CFUN Twin Pick Hit of the Week ~ June 20, 1964
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #86
YouTube: “Sunny”
Lyrics: “Sunny”
In 1939 Neil Sedaka was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Brighton Beach beside Coney Island. His paternal grandparents immigrated to America from Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, in 1910. His fathers side of the family there were Sephardi Jews and his mother’s side Ashkenazi Jews from Russian and Polish background. Sedaka is a cousin of the late singer Eydie Gorme. When Neil was eight years old he listened to a show on the radio called The Make-Believe Ballroom that opened his world to appreciation for music. Within a year Neil had began learning classical piano at the age of nine at the Julliard School of Music. His progress was impressive and Arthur Rubinstein voted Neil as one of the best New York High School pianists after he turned 16 years old.
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#1229: Don’t Break My Heart by Kasim Sulton
Peak Month: April 1982
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Don’t Break My Heart”
Lyrics: “Don’t Break My Heart”
Kasim Anthony Sulton was born in Staten Island, New York, in 1955. He graduated from high school in Staten Island and in 1974 was in the band Cherry Vanilla. In 1976 he played bass guitar on the progressive rock album L for Steve Hillage. In 1977 Sulton contributed backing vocals and bass guitar on Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell. The album featured the hit singles “Paradise By The Dash Board Light” and “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad”. As well in 1977, Sulton joined the band Utopia and played bass guitar and sang vocals. In 1978 Kasim Sulton was a featured musician on the Todd Rundgren album Back To The Bars. And in 1979 Sulton was a studio musician for the Rick Derringer album Guitars And Women. While in 1980 Sulton was in the studio for Shaun Cassidy’s Wasp album. He also was with Utopia for their 1980 album Adventures In Utopia, and their 1982 album Swing to the Right. Continue reading →
#1132: Human Race by Red Rider
Peak Month: April-May 1983
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Human Race”
Lyrics: “Human Race”
Tom Cochrane was born in Lynn Lake, Manitoba, in 1953. When he was eleven he got his first guitar. In his late teens and early twenties, he performed in coffee houses across Canada in the early 70’s. His debut album, Hang On To Your Resistance, was released in 1974. Then Tom Cochrane made his way to Los Angeles. In 1975, Cochrane got work composing theme music for the movie My Pleasure Is My Business. This was a film about Xavier Hollander, the call girl and adult film star who authored her own memoir, The Happy Hooker, in 1971. Unable to get subsequent work in Hollywood, Cochrane returned to Canada for drive a taxi and work on a cruise line. At a concert at the El Mocambo for Red Rider in 1978, Tom Cochrane met the band. Soon after Cochrane was invited to join Red Rider.
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#1349: Never Change My Mind by John Acosta and James Russell
Peak Month: April 1991
Peak Position #18
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Never Change My Mind”
Lyrics: “Never Change My Mind”
Juan Carlos was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, around 1969. The Carlos family moved to Canada and settled in Toronto. In 1983, while in grade nine, he met another classmate named James Russell. The pair soon discovered a mutual passion for music. Russell had been a member of the Toronto Youth Symphony. The two decided to form a singing duo and won a talent contest at their high school while still in grade nine. They would perform live again while still in high school. Meanwhile, Juan Carlos was going by John Acosta as a stage name when the duo performed live.
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#1269: Sinful Wishes by Kon Kan
Peak Month: May 1993
Peak Position #19
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Sinful Wishes”
Barry Harris was born in Toronto. In 1988 he envisioned a one-off project involving a synth-pop version of Lynn Anderson’s 1971 hit “Rose Garden”. Harris got Kevin Wynne to be a vocalist for the single. This was due to Wynne’s ability to mimic the vocal drone found in singles by New Order (i.e. “Blue Monday”). The duo got their name – Kon Kan – from the phrase “Can Con” which is short for Canadian Content which is the name of a rule that enforces Canadian radio stations to at least play 30% music from Canadian musicians. “I Beg Your Pardon” peaked at #3 in New York City, #7 in Hamilton (ON) and Columbia (SC), #9 in Chicago, #10 in San Francisco, and #15 in Vancouver (BC). Internationally, “I Beg Your Pardon” peaked at #5 in the UK, #7 in New Zealand, and #8 in Germany. On March 18, 1990, at the Juno Awards, Kon Kan won an award for Best Dance Recording.
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