#2: The Day The Rains Came by Raymond Lefevre
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “The Day The Rains Came”
Raymond Lefèvre was born in 1929 in Calais, France. He was accepted at the Paris Conservatory when he was 17 years old. During the early 1950s he played the piano for the Frank Pourcel Orchestra. In 1953 Lefèvre played the piano at the Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. He started his musical career in 1956 on the Barclay label and recorded his debut album that year. In the 1950s he worked on the French television program Musicorama. and Palmarés des Chansons (1965, 1966, 1967) On these TV programs, he accompanied French recording artists Dalida, Claude François, Richard Anthony, and others, with his own orchestra.
Continue reading →
#1: I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do by ABBA
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJBK
Peak Month: May 1976
Peak Position in London ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
Peak Position on Australia Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Belgium Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on South Africa Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Swiss Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Norway Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Dutch Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Austria Singles chart ~ #4
YouTube: “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do”
Lyrics: “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do”
ABBA is a pop band from Sweden. Agneta Fältskog was born in 1950 in the lakeside city of Jönköping in southern Sweden. Fältskog wrote her first song at the age of six, which she named “Två små troll” (“Two Small Trolls”). In 1958, she began taking piano lessons, and also sang in a local church choir. In early 1960, Fältskog formed a musical trio, the Cambers. At age 15 she left school to pursue a career in music. She considers Connie Francis, Lesley Gore, Aretha Franklin and Marianne Faithfull as her prime influences on her musical style. Fältskog worked on reception for a car firm while performing with the Bernt Enghardt band. In 1967 she wrote “Jag var så kär” (“I Was So in Love”), after a dating relationship ended. The single topped the Swedish pop charts in early 1968. That year she met Björn Ulvaeus, a member of the Hootenanny Singers. Ulvaeus was born in the western coast city of Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1945. In the early Sixties, Ulvaeus joined the Hootenanny Singers. They had a #5 hit in Sweden in 1964 with “Gabrielle”, based on the Russian folksong “May Here Always Be Sunshine”. The folk group had many Top Ten hits in Sweden into the early 70s, including a cover of “Green, Green Grass of Home” (“En sång en gång för längese’n”).
Continue reading →
#3: Wonderful To Be Young by Cliff Richard
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: December 1962
Peak Position in London ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #21
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Wonderful To Be Young”
Lyrics: “Wonderful To Be Young”
Cliff Richard was born Harry Roger Webb on October 14, 1940, in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1940 Lucknow was part of the British Raj, as India was not yet an independent country. Webb’s father worked on as a catering manager for the Indian Railways. His mother raised Harry and his three sisters. In 1948, when India had become independent, the Webb family took a boat to Essex, England, and began a new chapter. At the age of 16 Harry Webb was given a guitar by his father. Harry then formed a vocal group called the Quintones. Webb was interested in skiffle music, a type of jug band music, popularized by “The King of Skiffle,” Scottish singer Lonnie Donegan who had an international hit in 1955 called “Rock Island Line”.
Continue reading →
#4: Harvest Moon by Neil Young
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: February 1993
Peak Position in London ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on UK Singles Chart ~ #36
Peak Position Canadian RPM chart ~ #5
YouTube: “Harvest Moon”
Lyrics: “Harvest Moon”
Neil Young was born in Toronto in 1945. His family moved to Omemee, Ontario, and he contracted polio in 1951, two years before the polio vaccine was introduced. He learned guitar and dropped out of high school. He played in the Winnipeg based band called The Squires, who toured parts of Manitoba and northern Ontario. They played instrumental covers of Cliff Richard’s backup band, The Shadows. Young moved to California in 1966 where he was a founding member of the Buffalo Springfield. In 1968 he released his self-titled debut studio album. And in 1969 he became the fourth member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Continue reading →
#11: Sing ‘Em Some Blues by Sanford Clark
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Sing ‘Em Some Blues”
Lyrics: N/A
Sanford Clark was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1935. In his early childhood his family moved to Phoenix. Sanford got his first guitar when he was 12 years old. He played around Phoenix until 1953, then he was enlisted at the age of 18 into the U.S. Air Force for four years. He then moved to Johnston Island in the Pacific where he played music when he was off-duty. The Air Force assigned back home in Phoenix where returned to playing clubs again. Local guitar player, Al Casey, had been a friend of Sanford Clark’s since school days told local disc jockey Lee Hazlewood to go listen to Sanford. Hazlewood was impressed with Sanford’s voice. He was looking for somebody to record a song he had just written. About a week later he took Sanford into Floyd Ramsey’s studio with Al Casey and recorded “The Fool”. Hazlewood gave his wife, Naomi Ford, the songwriting credit for “The Fool.”
Continue reading →
#6: No One Knows by Dion and the Belmonts
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #29
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube: “No One Knows”
Lyrics: “No One Knows”
Dion Francis DiMucci was born in the Bronx, NY, in 1939. His parents named him Dion in honor of the French Canadian Dionne quintuplents who captured the interest of millions around the world after the five infants were born in May 1934. Dion’s dad, Pasquale DiMucci, was a vaudeville performer and Dion accompanied him to see his dad on stage. As a child he was given an $8 dollar guitar by his uncle while he lived on 183rd Street. Dion’s childhood was set in the midst of conflict between his parents. In an interview with New York Magazine in 2007, Dion remembers “…There was a lot of unresolved conflict in my house… My pop, Pasquale, couldn’t make the $36-a-month rent on our apartment at 183rd and Crotona Avenue.” He was a dreamer, a failed vaudevillian, and sometimes Catskills puppeteer. He’d talk big and lift weights he’d made from oilcans, while Frances, Mrs. DiMucci, took two buses and the subway downtown to work in the garment district on a sewing machine. “When they’d start yelling, I’d go out on the stoop with my $8 Gibson and try to resolve things that way.”
Continue reading →
#14: Need You by Donnie Owens
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: November 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #26
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Need You”
Lyrics: “Need You”
Donald Lee Owens was born October 30, 1932, in Chester, Pennsylvania. Out of high school Owens went into the U.S. Air Force where he served as Airman First Class. He was a veteran of the Korean War. Taking the stage name, Donnie Owens, for five years Donnie Owens and the 4 Jacks played at a Harry’s Capri Lounge in Phoenix, Arizona. Owens recorded three 45’s on the Guyden Records label. Each featured Duane Eddy on guitar. Owens was a pop singer and guitarist. He played guitar for Duane Eddy’s backing band, the Rebels. In that capacity, Donnie Owens was one of the guitarists heard on “Because They’re Young” and other hits by Duane Eddy. Though he was American, Donnie Owens only had one hit record in the USA. On October 6, 1958 Owens made his Billboard Hot 100 debut with “Need You”.
Continue reading →
#9: Mean Mean Man by Wanda Jackson
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Mean Mean Man”
Lyrics: “Mean Mean Man”
Wanda Lavonne Jackson was born in 1937 in Maud, Oklahoma. According to Wolf Kurt in his essay, “You Can’t Catch Me: Rockabilly Bursts Through The Door,” Jackson’s dad was a musician. In search of a better life, he relocated the family to Bakersfield, California, in the 1940’s. While in Bakersfield, her dad purchased Wanda a guitar and taught her to play. Tom Jackson also took his daughter to live concerts by Spade Cooley, Tex Williams and Bob Wills, which opened her eyes and ears to the exciting world of country and western music. It was when she was eleven years old that her family returned to Oklahoma in the fall of 1948. In 1954, while she was still sixteen years old, Wanda Jackson started to sing professionally in Oklahoma City. While in high school, Jackson had been discovered by country music recording artist, Hank Thompson, who heard Wanda singing KLPR-AM in Oklahoma City. Thompson asked Wanda to sing with his band, the Brazos Valley Boys. This led to her recording several songs with Capitol Records. Among those was a duet with the Brazos Valley Boys bandleader, Billy Gray titled “You Can’t Have My Love”. The song climbed to #8 on the Billboard country chart.
Continue reading →
#10: Tom Sawyer by Rush
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJBK
Peak Month: June 1981
Peak Position in London ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube: “Tom Sawyer”
Lyrics: “Tom Sawyer”
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in Toronto in 1968. The classic lineup was comprised of Geddy Lee (vocals, bass guitar, keyboards), Alex Lifeson (guitar) and Neil Peart (drums, percussion). After Lee joined, the band went through a few line-up changes before arriving at its classic power trio line-up with the addition of drummer Neil Peart in July 1974.
Aleksandar Živojinović was born in Fernie, British Columbia, in 1953. His parents were Serbian immigrants from Yugoslavia. His stage surname, Lifeson, is a rough translation of the Serbian to English (which can literally be translated ‘son of life”). Lifeson was in a band in 1968 named The Projection. Geddy Lee joined the band. Geddy Lee Weinrib was born in North York, Ontario, in 1953. His parents were Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland.
Continue reading →
#7: Love Is All We Need by Tommy Edwards
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: November 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Love Is All We Need”
Lyrics: “Love Is All We Need”
Tommy Edwards was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1922. In 1939, when he turned 17 years of age, The Tommy Edwards Show began a one-year run on WRNL 910-AM in Richmond, Virginia. Edwards sang popular songs, played piano and was often joined by his talented siblings: Nathan on trumpet and Harriet on vocals. In 1943, at age 21, Tommy Edwards moved to New York. He was a regular at Small’s Paradise, an integrated nightclub in Harlem. He made connections and sometimes performed with the bands at the club. In addition, he write and recorded demos of his songs to try to stir up the interest of music publishers. He wrote “That Chick’s Too Young to Fry“, which became a hit record for Louis Jordan in 1946.
Continue reading →
