#23: Time And The River by Nat “King” Cole
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: February 1960
Peak Position in Hull ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #44
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “Time And The River”
Lyrics: “Time And The River”
Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in 1919 in Montgomery, Alabama. His family headed by his Baptist minister father, moved to Chicago in 1923. Cole learned to play the organ from his mother, Perlina Coles, the church organist. Coles first performance was the Billy Jones chart-topping 1923 hit, “Yes! We Have No Bananas”, at the age of four. Cole began formal piano lessons at 12, learning jazz, gospel, and classical music. As a youth, Cole joined the news delivery boys’ “Bud Billiken Club” band for an African-American newspaper called The Chicago Defender. At the age of 15, Nat Cole left school to follow a path in music. In 1936, with his bassist brother Eddie, Nat Cole became part of a sextet named Eddie Cole’s Swingsters. Cole was married in 1937 and moved to Los Angeles. He formed a band called the King Cole Swingsters. They were named after the British nursery rhyme Old King Cole (was a merry old soul…). ” The name next was changed to the King Cole Trio in anticipation of making radio transcriptions, and recording for small record labels.
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#12: Happy Anniversary by the Four Lads
City: Hull, PQ
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: January 1960
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #36
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #77
YouTube: “Happy Anniversary”
Lyrics: “Happy Anniversary”
The Four Lads are a Canadian male quartet from Toronto, Ontario. They were originally made up of Corrado “Connie” Codarini, James F. “Jimmy” Arnold, John Bernard “Bernie” Toorish and Frank Busseri. They met as members of St. Michael’s Choir School. Originally, they named themselves the Otnorots (made up mostly of spelling the place name Toronto backwards. They changed their name to the Four Dukes. But after they found out a group in Detroit had the same name, then they settled on the Four Lads. They got a break when Mitch Miller noticed them when they were recruited by talent scouts to go to New York. Mitchell had them sing back-up on Johnny Ray’s 1951 smash hit, “Cry”, and his big follow up, “The Little White Cloud that Cried”.
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#24: Talk To Me by Frank Sinatra
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: February 1960
Peak Position in Hull ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #32
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #38
YouTube: “Talk To Me”
Lyrics: “Talk To Me”
Francis Albert Sinatra was born in 1915 in Hoboken, NJ. Sinatra spent much time at his parents’ tavern in Hoboken, working on his homework and occasionally singing for spare change. After leaving school before graduating, Sinatra began performing in local Hoboken social clubs and sang for free on radio stations such as WAAT in Jersey City. In New York, Sinatra found jobs singing for his supper or for cigarettes. He got his first break in 1935 when his mother persuaded a local singing group called the 3 Flashes to let him join. Baritone Fred Tamburro stated that “Frank hung around us like we were gods or something”, admitting that they only took him on board because he owned a car and could chauffeur the group around. Sinatra soon learned they were auditioning for the Major Bowes Amateur Hour show, and “begged” the group to let him in on the act. With Sinatra, the group became known as the Hoboken Four, and passed an audition from Edward Bowes to appear on the show. They each earned $12.50, and ended up attracting 40,000 votes to win first prize—a six-month contract to perform on stage and radio across the U.S. Sinatra quickly became the group’s lead singer, and, much to the jealousy of his fellow group members, garnered most of the attention from girls.
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#25: I’m Sorry I Made You Cry by Connie Francis
City: Hull, PQ
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: July 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #29
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube: “I’m Sorry I Made You Cry”
Lyrics: “I’m Sorry I Made You Cry”
Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero was born on December 12, 1938. Francis was born in the Italian Down Neck neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. She spent her firsts years as an infant and toddler in Brooklyn before the family moved back to New Jersey during her childhood. From the age of three, George Franconero recognized his daughter’s promising talent and insisted she start taking accordion lessons. However, her musical ingenuity wasn’t advanced by playing the accordion. An impoverished roofer, her father convinced Concetta to appear on stage at the age of four at the Olympic Amusement Park in Irvington, New Jersey. She played her accordion and then sang Anchors Aweigh in English and O Solo Mio in Italian. When she was ten years old she won third place The Ted Mack Amateur Hour radio for singing St. Louis Blues at the Mosque Theatre in Newark. Growing up in an Italian-Jewish neighborhood, Francis became fluent in Yiddish, which would lead her to later record songs in Yiddish and Hebrew.
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#26: Mama Guitar by Julius La Rosa
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: June 1957
Peak Position in Hull ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube: “Mama Guitar”
Lyrics: “Mama Guitar”
Julius La Rosa was born in Brooklyn in 1930 and raised in an Italian-American Roman Catholic milieu. Out of high school he joined the U.S. Navy and became a radioman. According to a 1991 New York Times article, La Rosa sang in the Navy Choir, at officers clubs and bars to pay for drinks. La Rosa was in the Navy when Arthur Godfrey heard him sing. Godfrey had been encouraged to listen to La Rosa by a buddy of La Rosa’s named George “Bud” Andrews, who happened to be the seaman mechanic on Godfrey’s personal airplane. Godfrey soon invited Julius La Rosa to appear on his CBS TV show. After his discharge, Julius La Rosa became a star on the Arthur Godfrey and his Friends from 1951 to 1953, recording several hits including “Eh, Cumpari”, which shot to #2 on the Billboard pop charts.
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#27: Why Oh Why by Kathy Linden
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: August 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~did not chart
YouTube: “Why Oh Why”
Lyrics: N/A
Kathy Linden was born in 1938 in Moorestown, New Jersey, south of Philadelphia. Linden’s talents appeared early. Her first public appearance was as a tap and ballet dancer when she was five years old. Since then, she acted in school plays and musicals, appeared in public pageants, played piano and violin in several local symphony orchestras, and with an all-girl string quintet called the Singing Strings. She attended the University of New Hampshire Summer Youth Music School in 1954, was a soprano soloist with the All State Chorus in 1955, and studied at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. As featured vocal soloist with the Singing Strings, she appeared in many well-known spots in Philadelphia and around New Jersey. She also sang with several local bands. At 19, she was discovered by record producer, bandleader, and trumpeter Joe Leahy when she auditioned for him. He was so intrigued with her sound that he recorded her and her first release was “It’s Just My Luck to Be Fifteen.” The single made the Top 5 in Buffalo.
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#28: Things I Didn’t Say by Al Alberts
City: Hull, PQ
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: December 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~did not chart
YouTube: “Things I Didn’t Say”
Lyrics: N/A
Al Albertini was born in Chester (PA) in 1922. In his childhood, young al appeared on a radio show from Philadelphia called The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour. Horn and Hardart’s slogan was “Less work for mother dear whose gentle hands, lead us so kindly through little folk lands. We’ll give her happiness, each kindness, each caress repaid with thoughtfulness. Less work for mother dear.” After high school graduation in 1940, he was drafted into the United States Navy after the nation entered WWII in December 1941. While he was in the navy, Albertini met Dave Mahoney, and the pair discovered a mutual interest in singing and music. After WWII, they added Rosario “Sod” Vaccaro and Lou Silvestri to become a foursome. By the late 40s they were billed as The Four Aces. They released their first single, “Baby, wha hoppen”, in 1949. When they recorded “(It’s No) Sin” in 1951, they couldn’t get a record company to record the song. So Al Albertini started Victoria Records and made a recording. The single soared to #4 on the Billboard pop chart, and spent 22 weeks on the survey. On the Cashbox Best Selling Singles chart, the song spent nine non-consecutive weeks at number-one, between November 3, 1951, and January 5, 1952. The song was also number-one for seven weeks on Your Hit Parade.
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#29: Mocking Bird by the Four Lads
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: December 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #40
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~#32
YouTube: “Mocking Bird”
Lyrics: “Mocking Bird”
The Four Lads are a Canadian male quartet from Toronto, Ontario. They were originally made up of Corrado “Connie” Codarini, James F. “Jimmy” Arnold, John Bernard “Bernie” Toorish and Frank Busseri. They met as members of St. Michael’s Choir School. Originally, they named themselves the Otnorots (made up mostly of spelling the place name Toronto backwards. They changed their name to the Four Dukes. But after they found out a group in Detroit had the same name, then they settled on the Four Lads. They got a break when Mitch Miller noticed them when they were recruited by talent scouts to go to New York. Mitchell had them sing back-up on Johnny Ray’s 1951 smash hit, “Cry”, and his big follow up, “The Little White Cloud that Cried”.
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#30: Clementine by Bobby Darin
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: May 1960
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~#21
YouTube: “Clementine”
Lyrics: “Clementine”
Walden Robert Cassotto was born in the Bronx in May, 1936. His mother, born in November 1917, was pregnant with him when she was only sixteen, giving birth to him when she was seventeen. In the 1930’s, being a pregnant teenager was very improper. So she gave birth and was introduced to her son as his older “sister.” In order for the deceit to be pulled off, young Robert was raised by his grandmother, Polly, who he understood was his mother. And he understood that his “mother” had given birth at a later stage in life. His “mother” was a showgirl in her earlier days and so not the “grandmother type.” So the ruse was successful. It was not until 1968, when he was 32 years of age, that he discovered that his older sister, Giovannina Cassotto, was actually his mother. In his childhood, Robert learned to play piano, drums and guitar. According to his biographies, Walden Robert Cassotto suffered from rheumatic fever as a child. Bobby’s real sister, Vivienne, said years later, “my earliest memory of Bobby as a child was about his rheumatic fever. We couldn’t walk on the floor because just walking across the floor would put him in agony. I remember Bobby crying and screaming and my father having to pick him up and carry him to the bathroom, he was in so much pain. I remember being told all my life, “Bobby’s sickly. You have to be careful, and you have to protect him.” Between the ages of eight and thirteen, Bobby had four illnesses with rheumatic fever. Each one damaging his heart muscle more severely than the previous illness.
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#18: With The Wind and the Rain in Your Hair by Pat Boone
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: March 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #21
YouTube: “With The Wind and the Rain in Your Hair”
Lyrics: “With The Wind and the Rain in Your Hair”
Pat Boone was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on June 1, 1934. He was the son of Margaret Virginia (Pritchard) and Archie Altman Boone. The Boone family moved to Nashville from Florida when Boone was two years old. In a 2007 interview on The 700 Club, Boone claimed that he is the great-great-great-great grandson of the American pioneer Daniel Boone. Boone is a singer, composer, actor, writer, television personality, motivational speaker, and spokesman. He won a talent contest on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. He became a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He has sold over 45 million records, charted 38 Top 40 hits between 1955 and 1962. Boone has also appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films. He still holds the Billboard record for spending 220 consecutive weeks on the charts with one or more songs each week.
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