#40: Tell All the People by The Doors
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: July 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #10
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #57
YouTube: “Tell All the People”
Lyrics: “Tell All the People”
The Doors were a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles featuring Jim Morrison on vocals, Robbie Kreiger on guitar, Ray Manzarek on keyboards and drummer John Densmore. In 1965 Morrison and Manzarek were UCLA film students. They met each other for the first time on Venice Beach. Morrison had graduated and was living a vagabond life, sleeping on the beach, taking drugs and writing poetry. Morrison told Manzarek, “I was taking notes at a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll concert going on in my head.” Then he sang “Moonlight Drive” to Manzarek. Discovering their addition interest in music, the two decided to form a band. Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne (FL) in 1943. He was the oldest child and his father was a U.S. Naval officer. Morrison suggested the name of the band. It came from the novel by Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. Huxley’s novel, in turn, drew inspiration from poet William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” In that poem Blake writes: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The Doors signed a record contract with Columbia Records in the winter of 1965-66.
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#47: La Vie En Rose by Grace Jones
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFGO
Peak Month: April 1978
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #109
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Dutch Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #13
YouTube: “La Vie En Rose”
Lyrics: “La Vie En Rose”
Grace Jones was born in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, Jamaica, in 1948. Her father was an agricultural worker. When her moved to the United States, her father became a Pentecostal minister. Jones remained with her sisters and brothers in Jamaica and was raised by a grandmother and her second husband. The relationship was physically abusive. Grace Jones moved with her siblings to be with her parents when she was 13 years old. She broke away from her Pentecostal upbringing and became immersed in the Sixties’ counterculture. In her late teens she made a living as a go-go dancer, took LSD and lived in a hippie commune. At the age of 18, she moved to Manhattan and became a Wilhelmina model. She was subsequently hired to walk the runway in modeling shows with Yves St. Laurent, Claude Montana, and Kenzo Takada.
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#52: If You Go Away by Terry Jacks
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFGO
Peak Month: July 1974
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68
YouTube: “If You Go Away”
Lyrics: “If You Go Away”
Terrence Ross Jacks was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1944. During his career as a recording artist he became a household name and recognized as a singer, songwriter, record producer and environmentalist. His family moved to Vancouver in 1961 and he formed a band named The Chessmen along with local guitarist, Guy Sobell. The Chessmen had four singles that made the Top 20 in Vancouver, two which were double-sided hits. These included three Top Ten hits: “Love Didn’t Die”, “The Way You Fell” and “What’s Causing This Sensation”. In 1966 Terry Jacks met Susan Pesklevits on a local CBC music show called Let’s Go.
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#57: Walk Right Back by Anne Murray
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFGO
Peak Month: April 1978
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #18
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #103
YouTube: “Walk Right Back”
Lyrics: “Walk Right Back”
In 1945 Morna Anne Murray was born in Springhill, Nova Scotia, a coal-mining town. Her father was a doctor and her mother was a registered nurse. Growing up she took piano lessons for six years and began taking vocal lessons at age fifteen in 1960. Anne loved music. It was the age of rock ‘n’ roll, and growing up she sang along with all her favourites – Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin and Connie Francis. However, Anne was also inspired by a wide variety of musical styles, including the classics, country, gospel, folk, and crooners such as Patti Page, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney. She loved them all. In 1962 she gave one of her first public performances singing “Ave Maria” at her high school graduation. She went on to be part of the CBC variety show Singalong Jubilee in 1967.
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#39: First Hymn from Grand Terrace by Mark Lindsay
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #81
YouTube: “First Hymn From Grand Terrace”
Lyrics: “First Hymn From Grand Terrace”
Mark Lindsay was born in Eugene, Oregon, in 1942. In 1958 Lindsay was working at a bakery. While picking up hamburger buns at the bakery cafe where Lindsay worked, 20-year-old Paul Revere Dick began a conversation and found they shared a fondness for music. At the time Revere owned several restaurants in Caldwell, Idaho. Lindsay . Within a year the two formed Paul Revere and the Raiders and released their first instrumental hit in 1960. In the group’s song, “The Legend of Paul Revere”, they sang about how they got their start.
In a little town in Idaho way back in sixty one,
a man was frying burgers, gee – it seemed like lots of fun.
But to his friend the bun boy, he confessed it’s misery,
I think I’d like to start a group, so come along with me.
The song was using poetic license as they group started in ’58 not ’61. But “fun” rhyming with “one” had more appeal then writing “way back in fifty-eight, a man was frying burgers, gee, it seemed to be real great.”
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#58: Torero by Renato Carosone
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CKOY
Peak Month: July 1958
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #29
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
YouTube: “Torero”
Lyrics: “Torero”
Renato Carosone was born in Naples in the Kingdom of Italy in 1920. At 14, he wrote “Triki-trak”, his first composition for piano, and in 1935, he was hired by an opera dei pupi puppet theater to play music to the battles of Count Roland and Renaud. Subsequently, he worked at E.A. Mario’s publishing house teaching new songs to singers. He studied piano and composition at the Naples Conservatory under Alberto Curci, and obtained his diploma in 1937, when he was just 17. A few months later he signed a contract with comedian Aldo Russo to perform as a band leader in Italian East Africa. The troup landed in Massawa, Eritrea, to work in a restaurant-theatre frequented by Italian workers. He remained after a short stay with Aldo Russo, and met a woman and got married.
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#64: Love Over And Over by Kate and Anna McGarrigle
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: July 1982
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Love Over And Over”
Lyrics: “Love Over And Over”
Anna McGarrigle was born in Montreal in 1944, with her sister Kate born there two years later. In the 1960s, in Montreal, while Kate was studying chemical engineering at McGill University and Anna art at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, they began performing in public and writing their own songs. From 1963 to 1967 they teamed up with Jack Nissenson and Peter Weldon to form the folk group Mountain City Four. Their songs have been covered by a variety of artists including Linda Rondstadt, Emmylou Harris, Judy Collins, and others. These covers led to the McGarrigles getting their first recording contract in 1974. They released their debut album Kate & Anna McGarrigle in 1976. It charted into the Top 30 on the pop album chart that year in Sweden. A track from the album, “Complainte pour Ste. Catherine” charted in the UK.
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#63: Chantal by Goddo
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: December 1979
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Chantal”
Lyrics: “Chantal”
Greg Godovitz was born in 1951 in Toronto. He began playing guitar in 1964 with a band named The Pretty Ones. He began his professional music career in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the bassist for the Canadian rock band Fludd. Founded by Ed and Brian Pilling, Fludd gained popularity with hits such as “Turned 21“, “Get Up, Get Out & Move On“, and “Cousin Mary“. Following his departure from Fludd, Godovitz was briefly involved in the Toronto rock band Sherman and Peabody. Greg Godovitz founded the hard rock trio Goddo. The original lineup included Godovitz on bass and lead vocals, Gino Scarpelli on guitar, and Marty Morin on drums, with Doug Inglis later replacing Morin. In 1975, the band released a cover of the Kinsmen’s 1963 hit “Louie Louie”. The band’s self-titled debut album was released in 1977 with the lead single “Under My Hat”.
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#38: Doggone Right by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Doggone Right”
Lyrics: “Doggone Right”
William “Smokey” Robinson Jr. was born in Detroit in 1940. An uncle gave him the nickname “Smokey Joe” when he was a child. From the age of five he became acquainted with Aretha Franklin, who lived a few doors from his home in the Belmont neighborhood. In 1955 he formed a doo-wop group named the Five Chimes and renamed them the Matadors in 1957. Later that year they changed their name again to the Miracles. The other members of the Miracles were Robert Edward “Bobby” Rogers, who was born in 1940 in Detroit in the same hospital as Robinson. Bobby Rogers joined the Five Chimes in 1956. Born in 1942, Claudette Annette Rogers was from New Orleans and joined the Miracles in 1957. Ronald Anthony “Ronnie” White co-founded the Five Chimes with Smokey Robinson. Warren Thomas “Pete” Moore was born in Detroit in 1938 and was an original member of the Five Chimes. Moore and Robinson met at a musical event in public school in Detroit. Marv Tarplin was born in Atlanta in 1941. He became the Miracles guitarist in 1959 after the group had a dismal reception at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in 1959. With a guitarist backing the five singers, they were headed for stardom.
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#66: My Mistake (Was To Love You) by Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFGO
Peak Month: August 1974
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube: “My Mistake (Was To Love You)”
Lyrics: “My Mistake (Was To Love You)”
Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. was born in 1939 in Washington D.C. His father was a Pentecostal church minister who never held down a job for more than three years in a row. Marvin’s childhood consisted of “brutal whippings”, since Gay Sr. would strike him for any shortcoming, including putting his hairbrush in the wrong place or coming home from school a minute late. Marvin later stated, “It wasn’t simply that my father beat me, though that was bad enough. By the time I was twelve, there wasn’t an inch on my body that hadn’t been bruised and beaten by him.” He also said that “living with Father was like living with a king, an all-cruel, changeable, cruel and all-powerful king”. He later recalled, “if it wasn’t for Mother, who was always there to console me and praise me for my singing, I think I would have been one of those child suicides you read about in the papers.”
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