#1407: My Coloring Book by Barbra Streisand

Peak Month: February 1963
7 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “My Coloring Book”
Lyrics: “My Coloring Book”

Barbara Joan Streisand was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. A year after she was born her 34-year-old father died of complications from an epileptic seizure, and a morphine injection given to address the situation. She had an older brother named Sheldon who was born in 1935. Barbara started her schooling at a Jewish Orthodox Jeshiva. Her mother remarried to Louis Kind in 1949, and with that marriage Barbara gained a half-sister named Roslyn. When she was nine years of age, she auditioned with MGM Records, though this didn’t result in a record deal. While attending Erasmus Hall High School she got to know a member of a choral club named Neil Diamond.  When she was 14, Streisand saw the Broadway play The Diary Of Anne Frank. After seeing the play she knew she wanted to pursue acting. In the summer of 1957, Barbara Streisand got small acting parts in Picnic and Desk Set at the Playhouse in Malden Bridge, New York, a small town southeast of Albany. In 1958 she appeared in a play called Driftwood, opposite a new actress named Joan Rivers.

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#1413: If You Want This Love by Sonny Knight

Peak Month: October 1964
6 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
YouTube: “If You Want This Love”
Lyrics: “If You Want This Love”

Joseph Coleman Smith was born in 1934, in the western Chicago suburb of Maywood. His family moved to Los Angeles in the early 1950’s. In 1953 Joseph Smith signed with Aladdin Records and recorded a novelty tune he wrote titled “But Officer”. The song was a humorous response to police stopping young African-Americans back in the early 50’s. Do things ever change? Joseph C. Smith chose to record “But Officer” under the pseudonym Sonny Knight. Aladdin was interested in him after he penned “Vicious, Vicious Vodka”. The tune was one Amos Milburn went on to record in 1954. Sonny Knight went on to record a few records on the Specialty label in 1955.

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#1167: Town Without Pity by the Wildroot Orchestra

Peak Month: January 1982
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Town Without Pity”
Lyrics: “Town Without Pity”

Around 1971 a band called Wildroot formed in Vancouver (BC). An article by Canadianbands.com identifies Howie Vickers was the lead vocalist, Frank Allison was on guitar, Ian Berry was on keyboards and saxophone, Charles Faulkner was on bass guitar and Jim McGillveray was on drums. who formed in the 70s. Charles Faulkner was previously a member of Mother Tucker’s Yellow Duck, a psychedelic rock band from Vancouver (1967-71). Jim McGillveray is credited with being one of the last members of the Painted Ship, a Vancouver (BC) band that folded in 1968. McGillveray, Ian Berry and Frank Allison were all previously members of Vancouver’s New Breed, a band that formed in 1966.

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#1389: Are You Ready For Love by Patsy Gallant

Peak Month: February 1977
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Are You Ready For Love”
Lyrics: “Are You Ready For Love”

Patricia Gallant was born in 1948 in Cambellton, New Brunswick. Her family was Acadian, and she was one of ten children. From the age of five she was the youngest of four sisters performing as the Gallant Sisters. Her mother coaxed four of the sisters for the group, hoping to earn some funds for the cash-strapped household. By 1956, when the family moved to Moncton, NB, the Gallant Sisters began appearing on TV. This led to appearances in nightclubs when they moved to Montreal in 1958. In 1967 she recorded her first single in French for the Quebec and New Brunswick Francophone market. She continued to release songs over the following five years in French, and then issued English versions. Gallant was featured in numerous TV commercials. And she was a regular on both the French-language TV variety program Discothèque and an English variety show called Music Hop.

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#1148: Easy Money by Valdy

Peak Month: December 1980
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Easy Money”

Paul Valdemar Horsdal was born in Ottawa in 1945. Valdy was a member of the London Town Criers during the 1960s and subsequently joined Montreal band The Prodigal Sons. Prior to beginning his solo career, he was based in Victoria. There he  worked with various artists, including Canadian country music singer Blake Emmons. Emmons was the host of CTV show Funny Farm (Canada’s answer to the CBS TV show Hee Haw).

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#1403: Homosapien by Pete Shelley

Peak Month: July 1982
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Homosapien”
Lyrics: “Homosapien”

Peter Campbell McNeish was born in 1955, in the town of Leigh, ten miles west of Manchester. His parents were working class, with his mother a mill worker and father working in a coal mine. In 1974 he met Howard Trafford while attending Bolton College, ten miles northwest of Manchester. In 1975 they went to London to see the Sex Pistols. The following year they formed a punk rock band they called the Buzzcocks. McNeish adopted the stage name Pete Shelley, with his “surname” taken from his favorite poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Trafford took the stage name Howard Devoto. Shelley and Devoto co-wrote the Buzzcocks first single “Orgasm Addict”, released in 1977. After the band’s first EP, Howard Devoto left the Buzzcocks. The Buzzcocks fused their hard-driving punk sound with some pop sensibilities. This got them on the UK Singles chart as they climbed into the Top 40 in 1978 with “What Do I Get?” and “Love You More”.

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#1290: Only You by the Flying Pickets

Peak Month: June 1984
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Only You”
Lyrics: “Only You”

Brian Hibbard was born in the County of Monmouth in southwestern Wales in 1946. He got employment as a chimney sweep, a steel worker, a barman and a teacher before becoming an actor. In 1972-74 he supported the the UK miner’s strike. He joined John McGrath’s 7:84 Theatre Company. The theatre group’s name was chosen based on an article McGrath recalled from 1966 in the Economist which reported that 7% of the people in the UK owned 84% of the country’s wealth. 7:84 was a leftwing Scottish “political” theatre or agitprop company. In 1981 they performed a production called One Big Blow about a group of miners in a colliery brass band.
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#1149: Piltdown Rides Again by Piltdown Men

Peak Month: December 1960
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX’s chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Piltdown Rides Again”

Ed Cobb of the Four Preps co-founded the Piltdown Men with Lincoln Mayorga, who was an arranger with the Four Preps. Mayorga played on piano, Tommy Tedesco on six-string bass guitar, Bob Bain on guitar, Scott Gordon on saxophone, Alan Brenmanen on drums, and several other session musicians. The band released instrumentals. Edward “Ed” Cobb was born in 1938. In the Fall of 1954 Hollywood High School held an audition for their annual talent show. Thirty-five girls auditioned, but no boys. The next day the school bulletin pleaded for “any guys out there who can do anything.” Four boys in the school choir formed a quartet overnight and stepped into the crinoline void as The Four Preps. They included bass singer Ed Cobb. The Four Preps won the talent show hands down, after singing covers of songs by The Crew Cuts and The Four Lads. Signed with Capitol Records in 1956, the Four Preps connected with the record buying public in 1958 with two Top Ten hits: “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)” and “Big Man”.

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#1133: Communication Breakdown by Roy Orbison

Peak Month: December 1966
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #60
YouTube.com: “Communication Breakdown”

Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas in 1936. When he turned six his dad gave him a guitar. Both his dad, Orbie Lee, and uncle Charlie Orbison, taught him how to play. Though his family moved to Forth Worth for work at a munitions factory, Roy was sent to live with his grandmother due to a polio outbreak in 1944. That year he wrote his first song “A Vow of Love”. The next year he won a contest on Vernon radio station KVWC and was offered his own radio show on Saturdays. After the war his family reunited and moved to Wink, Texas, where Roy formed his first band, in 1949, called The Wink Westerners.

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Peak Month: September 1975
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Train”

In 1971 a 50s cover band based in Toronto was formed named the Greaseball Boogie Band. Eat your heart out American Graffiti. The band released an album in 1973 of covers of early rock era classics. It included “Don’t Be Cruel” by Elvis Presley, “High-School Confidential” by Jerry Lee Lewis, “Slipin’ And A-Slidin’” by Little Richard, “Rockin’ Pnneumonia” by Huey “Piano” Smith, “Blueberry Hill” by Fats Domino, “Searchin’” by the Coasters, “Honky Tonk” by Bill Doggett, “Sea Cruise” by Frankie Ford, and others. The band members included bass guitar player Gene Trach, vocalist Duncan White, keyboard player Ray Harrison, drummer Tommy “Short Ass” Frew, saxophonist Wayne “Pig Boy” Mills, and John “Animal” Bride.

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