#1: Boys Do Fall In Love by Robin Gibb
City: Yellowknife, NWT
Radio Station: CJJD
Peak Month: September 1984
Peak Position in Yellowknife ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #7
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #10
YouTube: “Boys Do Fall In Love”
Lyrics: “Boys Do Fall In Love”
Robin Hugh Gibb was born with his twin brother, Maurice Gibb, on December 22, 1949, on the Isle of Man. He was one of the three brothers who became the Bee Gees. Living in England, the brothers initially formed a band called the Rattlesnakes. The boys, with their older brother Barry and their parents, moved to Australia in 1959. Barry, Robin and Maurice began to perform locally and build up a reputation in their new hometown in Australia. The Gibbs brothers started to perform to raise spare change and spending money. They were introduced to Brisbane radio presenter jockey Bill Gates by dirt track racing promoter and driver Bill Goode, who had hired the brothers to entertain the crowd at the Redcliffe Speedway in 1960. The crowd at the speedway would throw money onto the track for the boys, who generally performed during the breaks. Gates changed their name from the Rattlesnakes to the BGs (Barry Gibbs initials).
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#10: Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJAD
Peak Month: July 1963
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #27
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #27
YouTube: “Ring Of Fire”
Lyrics: “Ring Of Fire”
John R. “Johnny” Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, in 1932. At the age of five he started working with his sharecropping parents and siblings in the cotton fields. During his childhood his family home was flooded twice. He began singing and playing guitar by the age of 12. He moved to Detroit in his late teens for work. He was drafted and served in the U.S. Air Force as a Morse Code Intercept Operator for Soviet Army transmissions at a base in Germany from 1950 to 1954. When he was discharged from the military he and his new wife, Liberto, moved to Memphis. Cash worked as an appliance salesman while trying to get a break in the music industry. Cash got to audition with Sun Records in 1954. He had his first charting single on the Billboard Country charts in 1955 titled “Cry! Cry! Cry!” Subsequently single releases, “So Doggone Lonesome” and “I Walk The Line” climbed to #4 and #1 on the Country charts. The latter hit also was his first debut on the Billboard pop charts where it made it to #17 in 1956.
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#17: Dance Little Lady Dance by Tina Charles
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: December 1977
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #6
YouTube: “Dance Little Lady Dance”
Lyrics: “Dance Little Lady Dance”
Tina Charles was born Tina Hoskins in London, England, in 1954. By the age of 14, in 1969, she was working as a session singer. When Hoskins was taken to CBS Records, that year she released her first non-album single titled “Nothing in the World” with a then obscure piano player in the studio named Reginald Dwight (who was soon took the stage name Elton John). During the early 1970s, she supplied vocals for the Top of the Pops album series of cover versions of contemporary hits. In 1971, she made appearances in the first series of The Two Ronnies, the BBC1 sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, performing “River Deep – Mountain High”, “Ruby Tuesday” and other pop hits. Starting in the 70s, Tina Charles provided vocals and spoken word on a variety of TV commercials. These include Crosse & Blackwell, Vauxhall, Interflora and others.
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#18: It’s Raining Men by the Weather Girls
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: March 1983
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #46
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Ireland Single chart ~ #5
Peak Position on Norway Singles chart ~ #8
YouTube: “It’s Raining Men”
Lyrics: “It’s Raining Men”
The Weather Girls are a singing duo formed by Martha Walsh and Izora Armstead in San Francisco in 1976. Walsh was born in San Francisco in 1953, and sang in a school choir in high school. After graduation she joined the gospel group NOW (News Of the World). She also worked as a secretary at a hospital. In 1976, she auditioned to be a backing singer for Sylvester. He was impressed with her vocals and asked if she had another friend who could join her on stage. Walsh invited Izora Rhodes to join her and the pair were named Two Tons o’ Fun, as they were both big girls.
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#7: With Pen In Hand by Billy Vera
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Guelph ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #43
YouTube: “With Pen In Hand”
Lyrics: “With Pen In Hand”
William Patrick McCord was born in Riverside, California, in 1944. He grew up in New York State. His father was radio announcer Bill McCord. His mother, singer Ann Ryan, was a member of The Ray Charles Singers backing Perry Como on his TV show and his hit records. In 1962, at the age of 18, Bill jr. was a member of the Resolutions. He also recorded fronting Billy Vera and the Contrasts. In 1967, he wrote a song about interracial love titled “Storybook Children”. He also sang a duet with Judy Clay, a black singer. The single made the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart in 1967. He released several more duets with Clay and they appeared several times in concert at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem (New York City). Though the topic of interracial dating had been the subject of previous songs like “Society’s Child” (Janis Ian in 1966), Vera and Clay pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in the age of movies like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
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#21: Closer Together by The Box
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: June 1987
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #22
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Closer Together”
Lyrics: “Closer Together”
The Box was formed in 1981 by former Men Without Hats keyboard player Jean-Marc Pisapia. He was born in 1957 in Montreal and learned to play piano at the age of four. He studied architecture at the University of Montreal. After a summer tour with Men Without Hats in 1981, Jean-Marc formed Checkpoint Charlie, inviting guitarist Guy Florent and bass guitarist Jean-Pierre Brie to join him. In 1983, the band added Jean-Marc’s brother, Guy Pisapia, on keyboards. This enabled Jean-Marc to give his attention primarily to lead vocals. At this time the band changed their name to The Box. In 1984 The Box released a self-titled album with a debut single titled “Walk Away”.
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#2: The Day The Rains Came by Raymond Lefevre
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “The Day The Rains Came”
Raymond Lefèvre was born in 1929 in Calais, France. He was accepted at the Paris Conservatory when he was 17 years old. During the early 1950s he played the piano for the Frank Pourcel Orchestra. In 1953 Lefèvre played the piano at the Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. He started his musical career in 1956 on the Barclay label and recorded his debut album that year. In the 1950s he worked on the French television program Musicorama. and Palmarés des Chansons (1965, 1966, 1967) On these TV programs, he accompanied French recording artists Dalida, Claude François, Richard Anthony, and others, with his own orchestra.
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#23: Gold by Spandau Ballet
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: January 1984
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Dutch Singles Top 100 ~ #3
Peak Position on Ireland Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Spain Singles chart ~ #4
YouTube: “Gold”
Lyrics: “Gold”
Spandau Ballet were an English new wave band formed in London, England, in 1979. Gary Kemp, on lead guitar, was the principal songwriter for the band. He was born in London in 1959. From the age of eleven, he appeared in several British children’s films. He performed on guitar for the children’s television show You Must Be Joking! in 1975. The following year he formed a band called Roots. The band subsequently changed its name to The Cut, The Makers and then Gentry. At this point, Gary’s brother Martin Kemp was in the band. Kemp was born in 1961 in London. He was also a child actor, in his case from the age of 7. He quit school at age 16 and worked as an apprentice at a print factory. He joined Gentry after learning to play bass guitar in three months.
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#6: Soul Limbo by Booker T & the MGs
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Guelph ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube: “Soul Limbo”
Booker T. & the M.G.’s is a band founded in Memphis in the summer of 1962. That summer 17-year-old keyboardist Booker T. Jones, 20-year-old guitarist Steve Cropper, and two seasoned players, bassist Lewie Steinberg and drummer Al Jackson Jr. were in the Memphis studio to back the former Sun Records recording aritst Billy Lee Riley. During downtime, the four started playing around with a bluesy organ riff. The president of Stax Records, Jim Stewart, was in the control booth. He liked what he heard, and he recorded it. Cropper remembered a twelve-bar blues riff that Jones had come up with weeks earlier on a Hammond M3 organ. Before too long a second track was recorded. Stewart wanted to release the single with the first track, “Behave Yourself”, as the A-side and the second track as the B-side. And so “Green Onions” was released as the B-side. However, Cropper and radio DJs argued that “Green Onions” was the better A-side. Soon, Stax re-released Booker T. & the M.G.’s’ “Green Onions” as the A-side.
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#42: Moonlight Party by the Del Tones
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJAD
Peak Month: May 1959
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Moonlight Party”
Lyrics: N/A
The Del Tones were comprised of lead vocalist and guitarist Raymond “Ray” Hutchinson, bass and guitar player Michel “Mike” Robitaille, pianist Joseph “Joey” Frechette and drummer Gilles Tailleur. Born in Montreal, in 1940, as a child, Ray Hutchinson had tuberculosis for twelve years. He got better and at the age of seventeen was writing and performing “Moonlight Party,” that became the Del Tones first hit. Two of the bandmates, guitarist and vocalist Ray Hutchinson, and bass player Mike Robitaille, were polio victims. They met at a school for handicapped children in Montreal.
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