#938: Candy Man by Roy Orbison
Peak Month: September 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com: “Candy Man”
Lyrics: “Candy Man”
Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas in 1936. When he turned six his dad gave him a guitar. Both his dad, Orbie Lee, and uncle Charlie Orbison, taught him how to play. Though his family moved to Forth Worth for work at a munitions factory, Roy was sent to live with his grandmother due to a polio outbreak in 1944. That year he wrote his first song “A Vow of Love”. The next year he won a contest on Vernon radio station KVWC and was offered his own radio show on Saturdays. After the war his family reunited and moved to Wink, Texas, where Roy formed his first band, in 1949, called The Wink Westerners.
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#939: Margie by Fats Domino
Peak Month: June 1959
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube.com: “Margie”
Lyrics: “Margie”
In 1928 Antoine “Fats” Domino was born in New Orleans. Both of his parents spoke Creole, a unique twist on the French language in Louisiana. Fats had seven siblings and he was the youngest of the bunch. Harrison Verrett, a brother-in-law, taught young Fats to play piano while he was a child. Domino took to the ivories with a passion and was playing to audiences in honky tonks by the age of ten. In his teens he worked at many jobs helping to cover the families household expenses. These ranged from a position with the Crescent City Bed Factory to delivering ice from an ice truck. While these day jobs helped him make a living, by the age of fourteen he quit public school and was practicing the keyboards to develop his own unique style. After getting married in 1947, he gained a reputation as a formidable talent with his live performances at the Hideaway Club in New Orleans. This got him on the radar of bandleader, Dave Bartholomew, who helped secure a deal with Imperial Records for Domino in 1949.
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#940: You Ain’t Going Nowhere by The Byrds
Peak Month: June 1968
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #74
1 week Hitbound ~ CKLG May 11, 1968
YouTube.com: “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”
Lyrics: “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”
Around 1963 a folk trio that named itself the Jet Set, consisted of Roger McGuinn on vocals and lead guitar, Gene Clark on vocals tambour and rhythm guitar and David Crosby on vocals and rhythm guitar. In 1964 the trio released a single that was a commercial failure and credited to The Beefeaters. They added bass (and mandolin) player Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke and became The Byrds. They offered up a fusion of folk-rock and became an instant hit with two #1 hits in Vancouver and the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965: “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn”. The former was written by Bob Dylan and the latter by Pete Seeger. A single between their #1 hits was another Dylan tune titled “All I Really Want To Do“. The Byrds were perennial favorites in Vancouver who consistently had better chart runs in Vancouver than back in their home country of America. Aside from their two #1 hits, they failed to chart other songs into the Billboard Hot 100. But in Vancouver they charted ten songs into the Top Ten.
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#620: Goody Goody by Frankie Lymon
Frankie Lymon:
Peak Month: August 1957
7 weeks on Vancouver’s Red Robinson chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “Goody Goody”
Lyrics: “Goody Goody”
In 1942 Franklin Joseph “Frankie” Lymon was born in New York City. Frankie and his brothers grew up in a musical home in Harlem. Their mother, Jeanette, was a domestic maid. Their dad, Howard Lymon Sr., had a job as a truck driver and was a member of a gospel group called the Harlemaires. Frankie and his brothers, Howard and Lewis, all attended the Harlemaires rehearsals and concerts from an early age. From the age of ten Frankie worked at a grocery store to help the family pay the rent. He also had a sideline hustling prostitutes. When Frankie’s voice developed into a beautiful boy soprano lead singer he joined a group called The Teenagers, originally named the Earth Angels and then the Premiers. The doo-wop groups original lineup consisted of three African Americans: Frankie Lymon, Jimmy Merchant and Sherman Garnes, and two Puerto Ricans: Herman Santiago and Joe Negroni.
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#942: Take Time Out by Carl Dobkins Jr.
Peak Month: February 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Carl Dobkins Jr. was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in January 1941. He was raised in a musical family. At the age of nine Carls’ mom and dad bought him a ukulele with a plastic Arthur Godfrey attachment that played chords by pushing buttons. He soon took off the attachment and learned over fifty hillbilly songs as a child. At the age of sixteen, young Carl made a demo of two songs he wrote with his backup group, The Seniors. In Cincinnati Gil Sheppard was a popular deejay. Friends in Carls’ neighborhood introduced him to Gil Sheppard. The deejay was taken with young Dobkins Jr. and his musical ability and the demo he had recorded. Sheppard offered to become his his manager. Carl Dobkins Jr. was promoted as “The Teenage Rage.” As a result of the buzz that happened as a result of his singing at dance parties and record hops, Carl was signed up with Fraternity Records in Cincinnati. His only release with Fraternity was his 1958 single “Take Hold of My Hand” b/w “That’s Why I’m Asking”.
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#944: Chattanooga Choo Choo by Floyd Cramer
Peak Month: February 1962
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
CKWX Top of the Hot Prospects ~ January 13, 1962
YouTube.com: “Chattanooga Choo Choo”
Lyrics: “Chattanooga Choo Choo”
In 1933 Floyd Cramer was born outside of Shreveport, Louisiana. He grew up in Huttig, Arkansas. At the age of five he taught himself to play piano after his parents bought him the keyboard. Before he started grade school, young Floyd was performing in front of audiences in public. After high school he moved back to Shreveport and got a gig with KWKH radio and the Louisiana Hayride. Country stars like Webb Pierce and Red Sovine would appear on the show. Cramer on piano, and guitar players, Faron Young and Jimmy Day, were a trio that backed up ‘Hayride performers. In the early 50’s Cramer toured with Hank Williams and next with Elvis Presley. Cramer released his first single record in 1953.
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#945: Animal Heart by Glass Tiger
Peak Month: May 1991
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Animal Heart”
Lyrics: “Animal Heart”
Discovered in the summer of 1984 when a band from Newmarket, Ontario called Tokyo spent two evenings performing before capacity crowds at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens opening for Boy George and Culture Club. Their dynamic original sound captured the moment, and the race to sign them was on. Tokyo, which had become a major force in suburban high schools and the Ontario club circuit, officially became Glass Tiger early the following year when a record deal was finally signed with Capitol Records. The band consisted of Alan Frew on vocals and guitar, Sam Reid on keyboards, Al Connelly on guitar, Wayne Parker on bass and Michael Hanson on drums.
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#946: Brain Washed by David Clayton-Thomas & The Bossmen
Peak Month: August 1966
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
1 week ~ Wax To Watch on CKLG June 19, 1966
YouTube.com: “Brain Washed”
Lyrics: “Brain Washed”
David Henry Thomsett was born in 1941 Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, UK. His dad, Fred, was a Canadian soldier who served in World War II. His mom, Freda, played piano at a hospital in London to cheer up ill and wounded soldiers. His parents met in London at the hospital where his mom was playing the piano. After the war ended the family moved to Willowdale, Ontario, in suburban Toronto. As a child, Clayton-Thomas writes in his autobiography about his relationship with his father and describes him as “A big rough man, six feet tall, 200 pounds, with a vicious temper hardened by the horrors of war, he was the complete opposite of my gentle grandfather with his funny songs and his puppet shows, and he terrified me. This enraged Fred…. The army had taught Fred that discipline was the answer to everything. He’d toughen the youngster up. And the beatings began.” And so David Henry Thomsett began to run away from home at an early age. At the age of fifteen David left home after his father stormed into the home of a girl he was dating while he was having dinner and his father pulled him out into their front yard and beat David to a pulp. David left home and never returned. He was now a street kid living through a Toronto winter. After a series of arrests for vagrancy and probation violations he was sent to the Guelph Reformatry when he was sixteen.
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#948: Take A Chance With Me by Roxy Music
Peak Month: September 1982
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Take A Chance With Me”
Lyrics: “Take A Chance With Me”
In 1945, Bryan Ferry was born in Washington, near Durham, England. His dad worked on a farm and took care of pit ponies. After he got his undergraduate degree, he took courses in fine art at Newcastle University in the mid’60’s. While he was studying, he was part of a student band named the City Blues. With his fine arts degree he started to teach pottery at a girl’s school in London. Concurrently, Ferry founded a band called Banshees. After that he formed a band that included Graham Simpson named the Gas Board. In 1968 he took up residence in London. Ferry was fired from his teaching post for hosting sessions with the ceramics students where they listened to records. Ferry moved on and assembled a band with bass player, Graham Simpson, saxophone and oboe player, Andy MacKay, synthesizer player, Brian Eno, guitarist, Phil Manzanera, and Paul Thompson on drums and percussion being the musicians who endured in the midst of a few minor lineup changes in the early years. He called the band Roxy Music.
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#983: Goody Goody by Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald:
Peak Month: September 1957
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Goody Goody”
Lyrics: “Goody Goody”
Ella Fitzgerald first came to national attention with her #1 hit in 1938, “A Tisket, A Tasket.” Before Billboard Magazine began in the 1940’s the song was listed at #1 on the Record Buying Guide and the weekly radio broadcasts of Your Hit Parade, a radio a radio institution on NBC, started in 1935, that billed itself as “an accurate, authentic tabulation of America’s taste in popular music.” She was born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1917. Ella’s mother Temperance “Tempie” Fitzgerald and a second lover, Joseph Da Silva, moved to Yonkers, New York, in 1920. Joe dug ditches and was a part-time chauffeur, while Tempie worked at a laundromat. At age 15 both her mother and Joe died in quick succession, her mom from complications arising from an automobile accident and Joe from a heart attack. In 1934, Ella won a draw to complete in an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Originally planning a dance routine, a troupe that performed ahead of her were so spectacular she spontaneously decided to sing instead. Her performance brought the crowd to its feet and she did an encore.
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