#34: I’m A Drifter by Bobby Goldsboro
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: June 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube: “I’m A Drifter”
Lyrics: “I’m A Drifter”
Bobby Goldsboro was born in Mariana, Florida, in the Florida Panhandle in 1941. Shortly after his birth his family moved 35 miles north to Dothan, Alabama, where he was raised. Goldsboro learned is musical skills as he grew, by the age of twenty-one, Goldsboro became a guitarist for Roy Orbison. From 1962 to 1964 Goldsboro toured with Orbison, including the tour where The Beatles appeared as the opening act on the UK tour with Orbison as headliner. He roomed with Roy Orbison and they became close friends. In 1962, Goldsboro released his first of four singles on Laurie Records. Only one of these, “Molly,” made the Billboard Hot 100, and only marginally.
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#33: I’m a Tiger by Lulu
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: February 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “I’m A Tiger”
Lyrics: “I’m A Tiger”
Born in 1948 as Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, Lulu is a singer and actress from Scotland. In a 2015 interview with the Telegraph in the UK, she said “I’ve been one of the luckiest people but I’ve been thrown from pillar to post, emotionally. I’ve dealt with demons, sadness … anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. I wasn’t happy. I don’t want people to really see me, I don’t want you to see my pain, I don’t want to have to tell you about the angst and craziness going on in my head. And I was trained to do that, as a very young girl. I’ve always tried not to be vulnerable. I’m fine, that’s what I always say. I’m fine. Let me tell you what my brother says FINE means? F—ing Incapable of Normal Expression!” She told reported Neil McCormick that her emotional roller coaster ride stems from her childhood.
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#32: Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want To See You Cry) by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: May 1968
Peak Position in Fredericton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #53
YouTube: “Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want to See You Cry)”
Lyrics: “Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want to See You Cry)”
Sidney Thomas “Tommy” Boyce was born in 1939 in Charlottesville, Virgina. He was one half of the pop duo with Bobby Hart. The two wrote numbers of songs for other recording artists including The Monkees, Jay and The Americans and Little Anthony and The Imperials. Boyce was separately pursuing a career as a singer. After being rejected numerous times, Boyce took his father’s suggestion to write a song called “Be My Guest” for rock and roll star Fats Domino. He waited six hours at Domino’s hotel room to present him with the demo, and got Domino to promise to listen to the song. In 1959 the song hit #8 in the US and #11 in the UK, becoming Domino’s biggest hit there in several years, and sold over a million copies.
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#29: Listen To the Band by The Monkees
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: July 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #63
YouTube: “Listen To the Band”
Lyrics: “Listen To the Band”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won a talent contest at San Antonio College. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He became the “hoot master” at a regular hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. In 1963 Nesmith released a 45 of a song he wrote called “Wanderin’”. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in 1967.
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#28: Run Sally Run by the Cuff Links
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: March 1970
Peak Position in Fredericton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #76
YouTube: “Run Sally Run”
Lyrics: “Run Sally Run”
The Cuff Links were a creation of Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss who wrote and produced the group’s material. They hired musicians to sing and play, and controlled the Cuff Links name. Ron Dante, the lead singer of The Archies, was the lead singer on the Cuff Links debut single “Tracy”. He provided multi-tracks of Dante’s voice to record “Tracy”. The single shot to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1969. When a band was assembled to tour with the hit single, Ron Dante decided not to tour with the Cuff Links. The band that was assembled to tour was comprised of Pat Rizzo (saxophone), Rich Dimino (keyboards), Bob Gill (trumpet/flugelhorn/flute), Dave Lavender (guitar), Andrew “Junior” Denno (bass), Joe Cord (vocals) and Danny Valentine (drums).
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#27: Goin’ Away by the Fireballs
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: May 1968
Peak Position in Fredericton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #79
YouTube: “Goin’ Away”
Lyrics: “Goin’ Away”
The Fireballs were formed in Raton, New Mexico, in 1957 and got their start as an instrumental group featuring the distinctive lead guitar of George Tomsco. Born in 1940 in Raton (NM), Tomsco learned to play guitar. Another founding member, Stan Lark, was also born in 1940 in Raton (NM). In liner notes of one of their albums, it states “Stan Lark plays electric bass… is as tall as a house and eats like a horse.” They recorded at Norman Petty’s studio in Clovis, New Mexico. According to group founders Tomsco and Lark, they took their name after their standing ovation performance of Jerry Lee Lewis‘s “Great Balls of Fire”, at the Raton High School PTA talent contest in New Mexico, U.S. They reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959 with the singles “Torquay” (#39), and “Bulldog” (#24). “Torquay” climbed to #6 in Calgary (AB). “Vaquero (Cowboy)” peaked at #7 in Calgary in 1960. “Quite a Party” peaked at #27 on the Hot 100 and #29 in the UK Singles chart in August 1961. There were lineup changes in the early 1960s when the Fireballs added Doug Roberts on drums, plus Petty Studio singer Jimmy Gilmer (born September 15, 1940, in Chicago and raised in Amarillo, Texas) to the group.
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#26: Real True Lovin’ by Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: May 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #119
YouTube: “Real True Lovin’”
Sidney Liebowitz was born in 1935 to Jewish parents in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. His father, Max, was a cantor at the Brooklyn synagogue Beth Sholom Tomchei Harav, and his mother, Helen, was a homemaker. During high school, Lawrence skipped school to spend time at the Brill Building in the hopes of being employed as a singer. In 1952 at the age of 16, Lawrence signed a contract with King Records after winning a talent contest on Arthur Godfrey’s CBS TV show. That year he had a #21 hit single credited to Steve Lawrence on the Billboard pop chart titled “Poinciana”. The next year, talk show host Steve Allen hired Lawrence to be one of the singers on Allen’s local New York City late night show on WNBC-TV, with vocalists Eydie Gormé and Andy Williams. The show was chosen by NBC to be seen on the national network, becoming The Tonight Show, and Lawrence, Gormé, and Williams stayed until the program’s end in 1957. Lawrence credited the exposure and experience he gained on Allen’s show for launching his career “I think Steve Allen was the biggest thing that happened to me. Every night I was called upon to do something different. In its own way, it was better than vaudeville.”
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#24: Games That Grown Up Children Play by Browning Bryant
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: July 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Games That Grown Up Children Play”
Lyrics: “Games That Grown Up Children Play”
Known professionally as Browning Bryant (born in 1957), he was the only child of Maud and Ray Bryant, and a long-time resident of Pickens, South Carolina. He was given a guitar at age three, took lessons at age seven, and soon began performing. He attained success singing folk-pop that was uncharacteristically mature and introspective for a pre-teen heartthrob. With a young voice compared to Wayne Newton, Browning Bryant’s career is highlighted in a meteoric rise starting around the age of ten. In 1967, he sang at the Easley Football Jamboree and was invited on a Charlotte, North Carolina, TV show. He appeared six times on The Arthur Godfrey Show on CBS. That led to a talent agency visit in New York. In 1968 , at the age of eleven, he was signed to Dot Records. His first single release was in 1969 at the age of twelve.
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#18: Mister Nico by Four Jacks and a Jill
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Fredericton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube: “Mister Nico”
Lyrics: “Mister Nico”
Clive Harding was born in South Africa in 1944. At the age of eighteen he met Graham Woods in October 1962. Woods was in a band called The Atoms. Harding agreed to join the band if he could be the leader. The band changed their name to the Nevadas just before Graham Woods died from injuries sustained in a car crash in January 1963. Till Hannemann and Tony Hughes were among the new members of the ever-changing lineup in the Nevadas. The band changed their name again to the Zombies (different from the Zombies in the UK who had a hit called “She’s Not There”). The South African Zombies wore Beatles haircuts. At a concert in Cape Town the Zombies met Glenys Lynne Mynott who was a solo recording artist. She soon became a member of the Zombies, and shortly they changed their name to Glenys & the Zombies.
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#21: You Were On My Mind by Crispian St. Peters
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube: “You Were On My Mind”
Lyrics: “You Were On My Mind”
Robin Peter Smith was born in 1939 in Swanley, in Kent, UK, adjacent the the boundary of Greater London. At the age of fifteen, he learned the guitar and left school in 1954 to become an assistant cinema projectionist and also worked in a paper mill. In 1956, he gave his first live performance, as a member of The Hard Travellers. Through the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as undertaking National Service, he was a member of The Country Gentlemen, Beat Formula Three, and Peter & The Wolves. While a member of Beat Formula Three in 1963, he was heard by David Nicholson, an EMI Record publicist who became his manager. Nicholson suggested he use a stage name, initially “Crispin Blacke” and subsequently Crispian St. Peters.
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