#3: Pretty World by Sergio Mendes

City: Belleville, ON
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: June 1969
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #5
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Pretty World”
Lyrics: “Pretty World”

Sérgio Santos Mendes was born in 1941 in Niterói, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. He attended the local conservatory intending to become a classical pianist. However, his interest in jazz grew, and he started playing in nightclubs in the late 1950s. This was while bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was emerging. Mendes played with his mentor, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and with many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil. In 1961, Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded the album Dance Modern. In the early Sixties, Mendes toured Europe and the United States. He recorded albums with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Hancock. Mendes also played at the Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the U.S. in 1964 and cut two albums under the group name Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’65. The first, Brasil ’65, is a Portuguese-language album. The second release, The Great Arrival, is an instrumental album. A cover of the Mamas’ and The Papas’ “Monday Monday” later became a minor hit single in 1967. In 1966, it was suggested to Mendes that he add two women who could sing both in English and in Portuguese. The revised lineup was dubbed Brasil ’66.
Continue reading →

#1: I’m A Midnight Mover by Wilson Pickett

City: Belleville, Ontario
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #27
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
YouTube.com: “I’m A Midnight Mover”
Lyrics: “I’m A Midnight Mover”

Wilson Pickett was born in Prattville, Alabama, in 1941. He was the fourth of 11 children. He referred to his mother as “the baddest woman in my book.” Pickett told historian Gerri Hirshey, “I get scared of her now. She used to hit me with anything, skillets, stove wood … [one time I ran away and] cried for a week. Stayed in the woods, me and my little dog.” His grandfather also beat him when Wilson was found with a copy of Louis Jordan’s “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens”. Pickett eventually left Prattville at the age of 14 to live with his father in Detroit in 1955. He joined a gospel group called the Violinaires. But his interest in music shifted to R&B.

Continue reading →

#2: This Wheel’s On Fire by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity

City: Belleville, Ontario
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #106
YouTube.com: “This Wheel’s On Fire”
Lyrics: “This Wheel’s On Fire”

Julie Driscoll was born in 1947 in London. She became a professional musician in her teens, singing in nightclubs with her dad’s band. She recorded her first single on Columbia Records, titled “Take Me By The Hand”, when she was fifteen. Hearing that maker-shaker Giorgio Gomelsky was looking for a ‘girl’ singer to record, she approached him at his club in Richmond, The Crawdaddy. While waiting for a suitable song for her, Gomelsky and organist Brian Auger started putting together a soul revue that would be called Steampacket. Julie was chosen as one of the frontline singers. In 1965, at the age of seventeen, she joined fellow vocalists Long John Baldry and Rod Stewart, Auger, bassist Rick Brown and drummer Mickey Waller. Julie Driscoll & the Brian Auger Trinity emerged out of Steampacket around 1966, when Baldry and Stewart left to pursue solo careers. The new group continued the revue format to considerable live success performing.
Continue reading →