City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: June 1963
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “After The Heartache”
Lyrics: N/A
Doug Lycett was born in Orono, Ontario. He headed a country-rockabilly band named Doug Lycett and the Kingston Monarchs. At this time of writing, little can be found online about the singer-songwriter.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: January 1963
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #38
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube: “Mary Ann Regrets”
Lyrics: “Mary Ann Regrets”
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was born in 1909 in Hunt City, Illinois. As a youngster, one day Ives was singing in the garden with his mother, and his uncle overheard them. He invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers’ reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad “Barbara Allen” and impressed both his uncle and the audience. He went to college from 1927 to 1929, but decided he was wasting his time. In 1930, he began traveling across the USA as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. He was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing “Foggy Dew” (an English folk song), which the authorities decided was a bawdy song. Around 1931, he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: February 1973
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “J’ Entends Frapper”
Lyrics: “J’ Entends Frapper”
Montreal’s Michel Pagliaro was born in 1948. He picked up guitar when he was eleven years old. At the age of 15 he was in a band les Stringmen. They morphed into les Bluebirds and finally les Merseys. Pagliaro got a break at the age of 18 when he was asked to join the Quebec band les Chanceliers. He was lead vocalist for the group which had a succession of singles and a self-titled album in the mid-60s. Their catalogue included “La generation d’aujourd’hui” (Today’s Generation), “Toi jeune fille”, a French version of “White Christmas”, and “Le p’tit popy” (The Little Poppy). In 1968, at the age of twenty, Pagliaro released some singles as a solo artist. His “Comme d’habitude” became a #1 hit in Quebec. Some of the lyrics in French “Tu the deshabillera come d’habitude” meant in English “you’ll take your clothes off as usual.” Nonetheless, the tune was adapted by Canadian pop singer Paul Anka and became the classic “My Way” popularized by Frank Sinatra. It was followed with another number one hit for Pagliaro in French Canada in 1968 called “Avec la Tete, Avec la Coeur”.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: May 1973
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Daisy A Day”
Lyrics: “Daisy A Day”
Justin Roderick Strunk Jr. was born in 1936 in Jamestown, New York. He graduated in 1959 with a B.A. in history from the Virginia Military Institute. He worked in Maine as a salesman for True Temper skis and also for the U.S. Ski Team. Strunk learned to play the banjo from childhood. He played his banjo at military bases across Europe. Jud Strunk’s big break came when Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, former NBC president, saw him perform in Sun Valley, Idaho. His son, Rory Strunk, relates, “He (Weaver) tracked him down on a ski lift and signed him to a contract and suddenly he was locked into the entertainment world.” Doors opened and Strunk appeared on Hee Haw, The Mere Griffin Show, and The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. He appeared with Jim Neighbors, Burt Bacharach, Vikki Carr and Petula Clark, among others. In 1969, Strunk wrote a song titled “Ski Bum” that was featured in the sport documentary The Last of the Ski Bums.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: September 1974
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Wild Thing”
Lyrics: “Wild Thing”
Fancy was a band made up of studio musicians produced by Mike Hurst. They were fronted by Penthouse pet Helen Caunt (October 1971) to add sex appeal to the band. The musicians included Ray Fenwick (born in Greater London in 1946), Fenwick was with the blues band the Syndicats in 1964. In 1965, he joined the Dutch band Tee-Set (who had a 1970 international hit with “Ma Belle Amie”). From 1967 to 1969, Fenwick was with the Spencer Davis Group. He played in the Chess Records studio for Bo Diddley from 1972 onward. Another bandmate was Michael “Mo” Foster, who was born in Wolverhampton, England, in 1944. He learned the recorder at the age of nine. He formed a skiffle band in 1959 named The Tradewinds. From 1961 to 1964 he played dances with a band called the Baskervilles. The third musician was Les Binks, born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, in 1951.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: September 1963
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #36
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
YouTube: “Make The World Go Away”
Lyrics: “Make The World Go Away”
Rosemary Victoria Yuro was born in Chicago to an Italian-American family in 1941. The family surname had been changed from Aurro to Yuro after they arrived in America. She moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was nine in 1952. Rosemary sang in her parents’ Italian restaurant and, despite their opposition, in local nightclubs before catching the eye and ear of talent scout Sonny Knight. She was signed to Liberty Records in 1959. She became professionally known as Timi Yuro. Her debut single in 1961, a cover of the 1954 Roy Hamilton tune “Hurt”, climbed to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Her album Hurt!!!!!!! reached #51 on the Billboard Pop Album chart. Later that year, she had a minor hit with a cover of the 1936 tune “Smile”, from the Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: May 1970
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Cecilia”
Lyrics: “Cecilia”
Sweet Henry was the name of a British studio musician, who had some pop recordings in the early 1970’s. Little is known about Sweet Henry, or even the studio musician’s name. An online search generates links to an English grammarian named Henry Sweet (1845-1912) who published works on Old English, Old Norse, phonetics and grammar. But Henry Sweet was deceased for several decades before studio musician credited as Sweet Henry was recording in the early 1970s.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #35
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube: “Casino Royale”
Herb Alpert was born in 1935 in Los Angeles. His parents were Jewish immigrants, from the Ukraine and Romania. He started to play the trumpet at the age of eight. After he graduated from high school, he joined the United States Army and played trumpet. In 1956 he was one of the drummers at Mt. Sinai in the film The Ten Commandments. In 1957 he became a songwriter for Keen Records. He teamed up with Lou Adler in 1958 and released a single titled “The Trial” credited to Herb B. Lou and the Legal Eagles. The recording was of the “break-in” genre, like Buchanan & Goodman’s “Flying Saucer” from 1956. The single had break-in’s from “Tears On My Pillow” by Little Anthony & The Imperials, “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin, “To Know Him Is To Love Him” by the Teddy Bears, “Little Star” by The Elegants, “Volare” by Domenico Modugno and others. “The Trial” made the Top Ten in Cincinnati, Ohio.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: August 1964
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Juliet”
Lyrics: “Juliet”
The Four Pennies were a beat group from England that formed in November 1963. The members consisted of Lionel Morton (born Lionel Walmsley in 1942), Fritz Fryer (born David Roderic Carnie Fryer in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1944), Mike Wilshaw (born in 1945 in Stoke-on-Trent), and Alan Buck. (born in 1943 in Briefield, Lancashire). Morton sang as a choirboy at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Prior to the Four Pennies, Fryer and Wilshaw had been part of a popular local singing duo named The Fables, which launched in 1961. Alan Buck had been a drummer doing a few gigs with Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, and a few jazz bands. The group’s name was chosen as a more commercial alternative to The Lionel Morton Four. They decided to switch to the Four Pennies after a meeting above a Blackburn music shop which was on Penny Street. The group was discovered by Marie Reidy who owned Reidys Home of Music.
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: December 1972
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Come And Join Us”
The Dublin Corporation was a group originally named the Pacific Showband and they formed in 1962. This was after several members of the Earl Gill Orchestra left to form their own show band. The Earl Gill Orchestra was a classic orchestra with lots of brass band sound. The members included Sonny Knowles, who had started his career in 1952 as a member of the Johnny Butler Dance band, playing sax and clarinet, and ended up with Earl’s band. Sean Fagan was the lead vocalist of the Pacific Showband. But as with all the Irish showbands, most of the members sang as well with different singers handling different genres with the band. Although Sonny Knowles was mainly the sax player, he also sang and was soon shared equal billing and recording chores with Sean Fagan.
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