#13: Six Days On The Road by Dave Dudley
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CFAC
Peak Month: July 1963
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
Peak Position on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart ~ #2
YouTube: “Six Days On The Road”
Lyrics: “Six Days On The Road”
David Darwin Pedruska was born in 1928 in the hamlet of Spencer, Wisconsin. His grandparents came to the USA from East Prussia. At the age of 11, he was given a guitar by his grandfather and learned to play the chords. He had a short career as a semi-professional baseball player for a semi-pro team in Texas. After he suffered an arm injury, he was no longer able to play baseball. He then decided to pursue a career in country music. In 1955, he released his first single titled “Cry Baby Cry”. He was one of the earliest artists to record for the National Recording Corporation, with “Where’s There’s A Will” in 1959. Dudley was injured once again in 1960, this time in a car accident, setting back his career in music. By 1960, Dudley had released five singles and failed to crack the national country charts. He signed with Vee Jay Records and first appeared on the Country charts in 1961 with “Maybe I Do”. He later moved to Golden Wing Records.
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#15: A Hundred Pounds Of Clay by Craig Douglas
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CFAC
Peak Month: June 1961
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “A Hundred Pounds Of Clay”
Lyrics: “A Hundred Pounds Of Clay”
Terrence Perkins was born in the Isle of Wight in 1941. He helped out on his parents farm. In his mid-teens Terry became a milkman and got a reputation as the singing milkman. He got invited to a cinema to sing, and was asked what song he was singing while delivering milk. In 1957 he won a talent contest on the Isle of Wight singing the Pat Boone hit, “Love Letters In The Sand”. He came to attention of Decca Records manager Bunny Lewis and signed with the label in 1958. He was given the stage name Craig Douglas. It seemed there were already a number of Terry’s in the recording business and released his first single that year. Among his first single releases was a cover of the Jimmie Rodgers hit “Are You Sincere?” In early 1959, he covered the Fleetwoods’ “Come Softly To Me”. Later that year his cover of the Dion & the Belmont tune “A Teenager In Love”, landed Douglas in the #13 spot on the UK Singles chart. But it was his cover of the Sam Cooke song “Only Sixteen” that found him on top of the UK pop charts for four weeks in September 1959. In 1959, Douglas was voted ‘Best New Singer’ in 1959 in the British music magazine, New Music Express (NME).
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#16: My Little Red Book by Gainsborough Gallery
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: April 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “My Little Red Book” – Standells version
YouTube: “My Little Red Book” – Manfred Mann version
Lyrics: “My Little Red Book”
At first there was a guitarist and lead singer named Mel Degan and bass guitarist Dennis Paul who were based in Edmonton. They formed a band called The Skeptics. In 1964 they relocated in Calgary and were joined with vocalist Jae Mack, guitarist Peter Marley and drummer Ray McAndrew. They got a reputation on the local scene playing at coffee shops and halls. By 1966 they were billing themselves as The Gainsborough Gallery. This was in honour of the Calgary art museum of the same name (and where they also received fan mail). Tim McHugh joined the band on keyboards.
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#17: Do It Again by the Beach Boys
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: September 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “Do It Again”
Lyrics: “Do It Again”
Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, in 1942. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin’s book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, he relates that when Brian Wilson first heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” it had a huge emotional impact on him. As a youngster, Wilson learned to play a toy accordion and sang in children’s choirs. In his teens he started a group with his cousin, Mike Love and his brother, Carl. Mike was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and Carl was born in 1946 in Hawthorne, California. Brian Wilson named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance in the fall of 1960 at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Their set included some songs by Dion and the Belmonts. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was born in Hawthorne in 1942. He was so impressed with the performance that he let the group know. Jardine would later be enlisted, along with Dennis Wilson to form the Pendletones in 1961. Dennis was born in Inglewood in 1944.
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#19: Whenever You Need Somebody by Rick Astley
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CFCN
Peak Month: April 1988
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Whenever You Need Somebody”
Lyrics: “Whenever You Need Somebody”
Richard Paul Astley was born in 1966 in Newton-le-Willows, a market town in Merseyside, England. He began to sing in a church choir at the age of ten. After graduating from school, he formed a band called FBI who played covers of the Beatles and the Shadows. Astley was the band’s drummer, but became the lead vocalist. He was noticed by producer Pete Waterman, and signed to a record contract. His first release was in 1987 titled “When You Gonna”, with Lisa Fabien. It made the Top 20 in Belgium and the Netherlands. Astley released his first solo single later that year titled “Never Gonna Give You Up”. It topped the pop charts in 16 nations around the world from Australia to Zimbabwe.
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#44: When I’m Sixty-Four by the Beatles
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “When I’m Sixty-Four”
Lyrics: “When I’m Sixty-Four”
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. He attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and met fellow classmates George Harrison on a school bus. When Paul was 14 his mom died from a blockage in one of her blood vessels. In his early teens McCartney learned to play trumpet, guitar and piano. He was left-handed and restrung the strings to make it work. In 1957, Paul met John Lennon and in October he was invited to join John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, which Lennon had founded in 1956. After Paul joined the group his suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. Other original members of the Quarrymen, Len Garry, Rod Davis, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Pete Shotton left the band when their set changed from skiffle to rock ‘n roll. John Duff Lowe, a friend of Paul’s from the Liverpool Institute, who had joined the Quarrymen in early 1958 left the band at the end of school. This left Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as remaining trio. On July 15, 1958, John Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident.
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#45: Oh Yeah by Yello
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CFCN
Peak Month: October 1987
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Singles ~ #49
YouTube.com: “Oh Yeah”
Lyrics: “Oh Yeah”
Yello is a Swiss electronic music band formed in Zurich in 1979. Boris Blank was born in Bern, Switzerland, in 1952. Before he joined Yello he was a truck driver. As a child he was very interested in music, but had no formal training. He never learned to read musical notation but always was interested in producing new sounds and samples. Blank began experimenting with tape loops and echo effects as a teenager. He recorded water sounds from a bucket of water and played sounds on a homemade bamboo flute. It was in this period he met Carlos Perón, who was born in Zurich in 1952. The third member to join the band was Deiter Meier. Born in 1945 in Zurich, Meier studied law in university, but never completed his degree. He went into banking and became a professional gambler. Blank and Perón approached Meier when they realized they needed a singer, as Blank’s vocals were better suited to backing vocals. The band’s name, Yello, was chosen as a neologism based on a comment made by Meier, “a yelled Hello”
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#47: Lovely Rita by the Beatles
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Lovely Rita”
Lyrics: “Lovely Rita”
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. He attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and met fellow classmates George Harrison on a school bus. When Paul was 14 his mom died from a blockage in one of her blood vessels. In his early teens McCartney learned to play trumpet, guitar and piano. He was left-handed and restrung the strings to make it work. In 1957, Paul met John Lennon and in October he was invited to join John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, which Lennon had founded in 1956. After Paul joined the group his suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. Other original members of the Quarrymen, Len Garry, Rod Davis, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Pete Shotton left the band when their set changed from skiffle to rock ‘n roll. John Duff Lowe, a friend of Paul’s from the Liverpool Institute, who had joined the Quarrymen in early 1958 left the band at the end of school. This left Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as remaining trio. On July 15, 1958, John Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident.
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