#21: Getting Dizzy by the Elegants
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Getting Dizzy”
Lyrics: N/A
The Elegants were a doo-wop group that was started in 1958 by Vito Picone, Arthur Venosa, Frank Tardogno, Carman Romano and James Moschello in South Beach, Staten Island, New York. They started out performing under the boardwalk by their homes. Back in 1955 in Staten Island,Vito Picone was 15-years old and his friend Carman Romano played the trombone in their high school. But in the mid-50s they wanted form a vocal group. They recruited reunited high school bandmate Ronnie Jones, who played trombone. The fourth member of their group was and girl trumpet player Pat “Cordel” Croccitto. They named themselves The Crescents. The foursome sang for the fun of it and performed at local church functions and dances.
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#22: You’re So Square by Uranus
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJBK
Peak Month: April 1980
Peak Position in London ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “You’re So Square”
Lyrics: “You’re So Square”
Uranus was a rock ‘n roll band from London, Ontario. They formed in 1977. The band consisted of drummer Dexter Clayton Beaugregard. On keyboards and guitar was Frank Risdale. On bass guitar and rhythm guitar was Jerry Fletcher. While Jack Whiteside was also on guitar. The four bandmates took turns with vocals, and all were born in the London area. In 1978, the band released a 45 EP with four tracks: “’53 Buick / Handcuffs / Tommy Get Your Gun / I’m Wonderful”. It got some local airplay.
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#23: Dream World by the Four Coins
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: August 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Dream World”
Lyrics: N/A
The Four Coins were a vocal harmony group formed in 1952 in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, by George Mantalis. He was born in 1934. The other members of the quartet, all Greek-American, were James Gregorakis, (born in 1934) and brothers George and Jack Mahramas. Jack Mahramas, born in 1940 in Canonsburg, was the youngest member of the quartet. The Mahramas brothers assumed the stage names George and Jack James. Mantalis and Gregorakis were cousins of the Maharamas brothers, and all were living within a few houses of each other on the same block in East Canonsburg (PA). Before they became a quartet, three of its members were horn players with Stanley “Bobby” Vinton and His Band of Tomorrow Orchestra in 1951-52. At the time Vinton was just 16-years-old, and also a Canonsburg native. The future pop star rose to fame with his number-one 1962 hit “Roses Are Red”.
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#24: Cap And Gown by Marty Robbins
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: July 1959
Peak Position in London ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #57
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube: “Cap and Gown”
Lyrics: “Cap and Gown”
Martin “Marty” David Robinson was born Glendale (AZ) in 1925. His parents divorced when he was 12. He quit school and got work as an amateur boxer, dug ditches, drove trucks, delivered ice, and served as a mechanics assistant. At 17, Robbins left home to serve in the United States Navy as an landing tank craft coxswain during WWII. He was stationed in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. To pass the time during the war, he learned to play the guitar, got introduced to Hawaiian music and began songwriting. After his discharge from the military in 1947, Robbins got married. The next year he started to play at local venues in Phoenix. In the early 1950s Marty moved on to host his own show on KYYL (Mesa, AZ) and then his own television show Western Caravan on KPHO-TV in Phoenix. His show got on the radar of Columbia Records after Little Jimmy Dickens made a guest appearance on Western Caravan.
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#25: Real Wild Child by Ivan
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68
YouTube: “Real Wild Child”
Lyrics: “Real Wild Child”
Jerry “Ivan” Allison was born in 1939 in Hillsboro, Texas. He learned to play drums in his youth. In the mid-50s, Allison met Buddy Holly and the pair created a duo. Holly played guitar and sang, while Allison played the drums. Allison went to a recording studio in Nashville in 1956 for Buddy Holly’s first recording session. However, two single releases on the Decca label for Holly were commercial flops. Allison and Holly met Joe Mauldin in 1957 and they formed a trio they named The Crickets. The three were capable of writing, playing, producing and recording their own records. They were also skilled at over-dubbing in the studio years before it became a standard feature of studio recording. “That’ll Be The Day” climbed to #1 in the spring of 1957 establishing The Crickets as a part of the vanguard of rock ‘n roll at a time that many music critics predicted its demise and regarded it as a “music fad.” While The Crickets were not acknowledged on the record label credits for “Peggy Sue”, many DJ’s knew that Buddy Holly’s band was playing on the record.
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#26: Don’t Want No Reds by the Monks
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJBK
Peak Month: June 1981
Peak Position in London ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Don’t Want No Reds”
Lyrics: N/A
The Monks is a band that formed in 1979. Richard Hudson was born in the Borough of London (in North London) in 1948. He learned to play guitar and sang. In 1967, he became the drummer for the psychedelic rock/soul/blues band Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera. Another member of the band was John Ford, who was born in the Borough of London (West London) in 1948. Ford learned to play ukulele from the age of 9, and soon added guitar to his repertoire. In 1964, Ford formed a band at age 16 named Jaymes Fenda and the Vulcans. The Vulcans released two singles that Ford wrote. In 1966, Ford joined the Soul/R&B band the Five Proud Walkers, who opened for blues and boogie-woogie pianist Champion Jack Dupree.
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#5: Half Heaven-Half Heartache by Gene Pitney
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: January 1963
Peak Position in London ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
YouTube: “Half Heaven-Half Heartache”
Lyrics: “Half Heaven-Half Heartache”
Gene Pitney was born in 1940 in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a songwriter who became a pop singer, something rare at the time. Some of the songs he wrote for other recording artists include “Rubber Ball” for Bobby Vee, “He’s A Rebel” for The Crystals and “Hello Mary Lou” for Ricky Nelson. Pitney was more popular in Vancouver than in his native America. Over his career he charted 14 songs into the Top Ten in Vancouver, while he only charted four songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Curiously, only two of these songs overlap: “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Vallance” and “I’m Gonna Be Strong”. Surprisingly “Only Love Can Break A Heart”, which peaked at #2 in the USA, stalled at #14 in Vancouver, and “It Hurts To Be In Love” stalled at #11 in Vancouver while it peaked at #7 south of the border.
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#30: Stampede/You Gotta Be A Music Man by Danny Valentino
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: January 1960
Peak Position in London ~ #10
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Stampede”
Lyrics: N/A
YouTube: “(You Gotta Be A) Music Man”
Lyrics: N/A
Vincent Pacimeo was born in 1941 in Flushing, New York. He was interviewed on the This Is My Story website by and Dik de Heer in 2016. Pacimeo first sang in public when he was five-years-old. Then his career as a musician was launched when he was nine-years-old and appeared “on the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour television show playing the drums.” His musical influences were Al Jolson and WWII big bands (like Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman etc.). As he got better at drumming, Vince was invited to “play with older and seasoned musicians. By that time he was tap dancing and singing Broadway and movie musical songs.” Vince was inspired by the great singer and dancer, Gene Kelly. In the early 50s, singer and tap dancer Gene Kelly starred in numbers of musicals, including An American In Paris (1951), Singing In The Rain (1952), and Brigadoon (1954). Vince had a dream that he could be a great singer and dancer like Gene Kelly. In his mid-teens, Vince was captivated by jazz music. And he began to focus more on his vocal skills than his drumming.
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#31: The Lone Teen Ranger by Jerry Landis
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: February 1963
Peak Position in London ~ #12
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #97
YouTube: “The Lone Teen Ranger”
Lyrics: “The Lone Teen Ranger”
Paul Frederic Simon was born in 1941 in Newark, New Jersey, to Hungarian-Jewish parents. His dad was a bandleader who went by the name Lou Sims. When he was eleven years old he met Art Garfunkel and were both part of a sixth grade drama production of Alice In Wonderland. By 1954 Paul and Art were singing at school dances. In 1957, in their mid-teens, they recorded the song “Hey, Schoolgirl” under the name “Tom & Jerry”, a name that was given to them by their label Big Records. The single reached No. 49 on the pop charts.
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#32: It’s Alright by Crack Of Dawn
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJBK
Peak Month: July 1976
Peak Position in London ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “It’s Alright”
Crack of Dawn were an R&B/funk outfit who were quite popular in the live dance clubs. The band was formed in Kingston, Jamaica, consisting entirely of Jamaican musicians. The Crack of Dawn relocated from Jamaica to Toronto, Ontario in the mid-70’s. In 1974 the band attracted interest from Columbia Records of Canada’s head of A&R Bob Gallo. They were signed to the label in January 1975. They were the first Canadian black band to ever sign with a major label.
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