#5: The Girl With The Golden Braids by Perry Como
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: July-August 1957
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #22
Peak Position on Billboard Pop Singles ~ #13
YouTube: “The Girl With The Golden Braids”
Lyrics: “The Girl With The Golden Braids”
Pierino Ronald “Perry” Como was born in Canonsburg, PA, in 1912. He was one of 13 children of parents who emigrated from Italy. He learned to play the organ from a young age. Como took on other jobs to pay for music lessons, and learned to play many different instruments, but never had a voice lesson. He showed more musical talent in his teenaged years as a trombone player in the town’s brass band, playing guitar, singing at weddings, and as an organist at church. Como was a member of the Canonsburg Italian Band along with bandleader Stan Vinton, father of singer Bobby Vinton and often a customer at Como’s barber shop. Como started helping his family at age 10, working before and after school in Steve Fragapane’s barber shop for 50¢ a week. By age 13, he had graduated to having his own chair in the Fragapane barber shop, although he stood on a box to tend to his customers. As Pierno Como had a good singing voice, he was asked to sing at weddings, especially in the local Greek community. In time he became known as the “wedding barber” even in the Pittsburgh area and across Ohio.
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#6: Misty by Johnny Mathis
City: Hull, PQ
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: January 1960
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #25
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #12
YouTube: “Misty”
Lyrics: “Misty”
Johnny Mathis was born in Gilmer (TX) in 1935. His family moved to San Francisco when he was 5-years-old. His father was a vaudeville singer and piano player. Mathis began learning songs and routines from his father. Mathis’ first song was “My Blue Heaven”. He started singing and dancing for visitors at home, at school, and at church functions. When Mathis was 13, voice teacher Connie Cox accepted him as her student in exchange for housework. Mathis studied with Cox for six years, learning vocal scales and exercises, voice production, classical and operatic singing. In 1955, Mathis got a job singing weekends at Ann Dee’s 440 Club in San Francisco.
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#36: Where’s The Boy I Never Met by Jane Morgan
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: November 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Where’s The Boy I Never Met”
Lyrics: N/A
Florence Catherine Currier was born in 1924 in the suburbs of Boston. Her family moved to Florida when she was four-years-old. When she was five, Florence started taking voice lessons as well as piano. In the summertime, she was a child actor in theater productions at the Kennebunkport Playhouse in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Playhouse was founded by her brother. At the age of 17, in the summer of 1941, she was listed as the Treasurer of the Kennebunkport Playhouse. During her years at school, she competed in singing competitions with other students across Florida and the Southeast. Upon graduating from high school in Daytona Beach, she was accepted into the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan. She had plans to become an opera singer, and studied opera at the school.
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#7: I Ain’t Down Yet by Dinah Shore
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: March 1961
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #103
YouTube: “I Ain’t Down Yet”
Lyrics: “I Ain’t Down Yet”
Frances Rose Shore was born 1916 in the small town of Winchester, Tennessee. Her parents were Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers. At 18 months of age, she was stricken with polio. She developed a limp and a deformed foot. She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in sociology. In 1938 she appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, and made her radio debut on WSM in Nashville. She moved to New York City and auditioned to appear on radio. One of the popular songs of the era was “Dinah”, first recorded by Ethel Waters in 1925, and Louis Armstrong in 1930. Shore sang “Dinah” for WNEW DJ Martin Block. When he could not remember her name, he called her the “Dinah girl”, and soon after the name stuck, becoming her stage name. Dinah Shore eventually was hired as a vocalist at radio station WNEW, where she sang with Frank Sinatra. She recorded and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra, and signed a record contract with RCA Victor in 1940.
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#8: A Certain Smile by Johnny Mathis
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #14
YouTube: “A Certain Smile”
Lyrics: “A Certain Smile”
Johnny Mathis was born in Gilmer (TX) in 1935. His family moved to San Francisco when he was 5-years-old. His father was a vaudeville singer and piano player. Mathis began learning songs and routines from his father. Mathis’ first song was “My Blue Heaven”. He started singing and dancing for visitors at home, at school, and at church functions. When Mathis was 13, voice teacher Connie Cox accepted him as her student in exchange for housework. Mathis studied with Cox for six years, learning vocal scales and exercises, voice production, classical and operatic singing. In 1955, Mathis got a job singing weekends at Ann Dee’s 440 Club in San Francisco.
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#9: Very Much In Love by Johnny Mathis
City: Hull, PQ
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: June-July 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #88
YouTube: “Very Much In Love”
Lyrics: “Very Much In Love”
Johnny Mathis was born in Gilmer (TX) in 1935. His family moved to San Francisco when he was 5-years-old. His father was a vaudeville singer and piano player. Mathis began learning songs and routines from his father. Mathis’ first song was “My Blue Heaven”. He started singing and dancing for visitors at home, at school, and at church functions. When Mathis was 13, voice teacher Connie Cox accepted him as her student in exchange for housework. Mathis studied with Cox for six years, learning vocal scales and exercises, voice production, classical and operatic singing. In 1955, Mathis got a job singing weekends at Ann Dee’s 440 Club in San Francisco.
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#37: My Man by Peggy Lee
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: March 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #81
YouTube: “My Man”
Lyrics: “My Man”
Norma Deloris Egstrom was born in 1920 in Jamestown, North Dakota. Her family later moved to Wimbledon (ND). In Wimbledon, Lee was the female singer for a six-piece college dance band with leader Lyle “Doc” Haines. She traveled to various locations with Haines’ quintet on Fridays after school and on weekends. Lee first sang professionally over KVOC radio in Valley City, North Dakota, in 1936. She later had her own 15-minute Saturday radio show sponsored by a local restaurant that paid her salary in food. Both during and after her high-school years, Lee sang for small sums on local radio stations. In October 1937, radio personality Ken Kennedy, of WDAY in Fargo, (the most widely heard station in North Dakota), auditioned her and put her on the air that day, but not before he changed her name to Peggy Lee.
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#10: I Don’t Care Only Love Me by Steve Lawrence
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: June 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #55
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “(I Don’t Care) Only Love Me”
Lyrics: “(I Don’t Care) Only Love Me”
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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#11: I’ve Got Bells On My Heart by Jane Morgan
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: June 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #21
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “I’ve Got Bells On My Heart”
Lyrics: “I’ve Got Bells On My Heart”
Florence Catherine Currier was born in 1924 in the suburbs of Boston. Her family moved to Florida when she was four-years-old. When she was five, Florence started taking voice lessons as well as piano. In the summertime, she was a child actor in theater productions at the Kennebunkport Playhouse in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Playhouse was founded by her brother. At the age of 17, in the summer of 1941, she was listed as the Treasurer of the Kennebunkport Playhouse. During her years at school, she competed in singing competitions with other students across Florida and the Southeast. Upon graduating from high school in Daytona Beach, she was accepted into the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan. She had plans to become an opera singer, and studied opera at the school.
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#13: Pillow Talk by Doris Day
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: December 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Pillow Talk”
Lyrics: “Pillow Talk”
Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff was born in 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. For most of her life, Day stated that she was born in 1924, but on the occasion of her 95th birthday, the Associated Press found her birth certificate that showed a 1922 date of birth. She was part of a dance duo into the mid-30s, but an October 1937 car accident with a freight train resulted in her having a broken leg. As she recovered, she found herself singing along with variety songs on the radio. She took singing lessons. During the eight months when she was receiving singing lessons, Day secured her first professional jobs as a vocalist on the WLW-Cincinnati radio program Carlin’s Carnival and in a local restaurant, Charlie Yee’s Shanghai Inn. During her radio performances, she first caught the attention of Barney Rapp who was seeking a female vocalist and asked her to audition for the job. According to Rapp, he had auditioned about 200 other singers.
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