#994: Build A Tower by Brahman
Peak Month: October 1971
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Brahman was a band from Vancouver that formed in 1971 and disbanded in 1972. They played at local clubs like Gassy Jacks Place in Vancouver’s historic Gastown. Robbie King, on organ, founded the band and went on to play keyboards with another Vancouver band called Chilliwack. David Lanz played piano, Duris Maxwell played drums, Paul Blaney played bass, Ed Patterson played guitar, Victor Stewart was the groups vocalist and Ian McKay performed as a mime when Brahman played in concert. Local Vancouver music critic/DJ, Richard Skelly, remembers Victor Stewart had “a big voice that sort of predated Eddie Vedder.”
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#995: Walkin’ Back To Happiness by Helen Shapiro
Peak Month: December 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #100
CFUN Twin Pick November 25, 1961
YouTube.com: “Walkin’ Back To Happiness”
Lyrics: “Walkin’ Back To Happiness”
In 1946 Helen Kate Shapiro was born in East End, London. She is the granddaughter of Russian Jewish immigrants and her parents, who were piece-workers in the garment industry, attended Lea Bridge Road Synagogue. Although too poor to own a record player, Shapiro’s parents encouraged music in their home. Helen had to borrow a neighbor’s record player to hear her first hit single. Shapiro played banjolele as a child and sang occasionally with her brother, Ron, in his youth club skiffle group. Helen had a deep timbre to her voice, atypical in a girl who was still a child. Her elementary school friends gave her the nickname “Foghorn.” When she turned ten years old, Helen Shapiro became a member of Susie and the Hula Hoops, with her cousin, 60’s pop singer, Susan Singer. Shapiro also participated in a school band which included Marc Bolan (then using his real name of Mark Feld, and later founder of glam rock group T. Rex) as guitarist.
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#996: A Question Of Temperature by The Balloon Farm
Peak Month: April 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube.com: “A Question Of Temperature”
Lyrics: “A Question Of Temperature”
Before The Balloon Farm formed, Don Henny and Ed Schnug first played together in a band called Adam, which made one single for the Mala label entitled “Eve” in 1966. Adam’s gimmick was that all four members of the group adopted the first name of Adam: Adam Taylor, Adam Dawson, Adam Schnug and Adam London. After the band named Adam disbanded, Henny and Schnug were joined by Mike Appel and Jay Saks and adopted the name The Balloon Farm. They took the name from a New York City nightclub.
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#997: Cry Myself To Sleep by Del Shannon
Peak Month: July 1962
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #99
YouTube.com: “Cry Myself To Sleep”
Lyrics: Cry Myself To Sleep”
Charles Weedon Westover was born on December 30, 1934, in Coopersville, Michigan. He was known professionally as Del Shannon. He learned ukulele and guitar and listened to country music. He was drafted into the Army in 1954, and while in Germany played guitar in a band called The Cool Flames. When his service ended, he returned to Battle Creek, Michigan. There he worked as a carpet salesman and as a truck driver in a furniture factory. He found part-time work as a rhythm guitarist in singer Doug DeMott’s group called Moonlight Ramblers, working at the Hi-Lo Club. They renamed themselves Big Little Show Band, and Westover took on the stage name of Charlie Johnson. Ann Arbor deejay Ollie McLaughlin heard the band. In July 1960, Charlie Johnson signed to become a recording artist and composer on the Bigtop label. His name was changed once again, this time to Del Shannon. It was a combination of Shannon Kavanagh (a wannabe wrestler who patronized the Hi-Lo Club) with Del, derived from the Cadillac Coupe de Ville, which Westover’s carpet store boss drove.
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#998: Hootenanny by The Glencoves
Peak Month: July 1963
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #38
YouTube.com: “Hootenanny”
Lyrics: “Hootenanny”
The Glencoves were a folk group formed in 1961 in Mineola, Long Island, New York. Their membership consisted of lead vocalist and banjo player Don Connors, backing vocalist and guitar player Bill Byrne, backing vocalist John Cadley and backing vocalist and guitar player Brian Bolger. John Cadley began playing guitar at the age of 13 after hearing a recording of the Kingston Trio in 1959. Of the Glencoves, John Cadley is the one member who has remained in the music business over the decades.
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#999: Little Honda by The Beach Boys
Peak Month: October 1964
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #65
YouTube.com: “Little Honda”
Lyrics: “Little Honda”
Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, in 1942. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin’s book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, he relates that when Brian Wilson first heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” it had a huge emotional impact on him. As a youngster, Wilson learned to play a toy accordion and sang in children’s choirs. In his teens he started a group with his cousin, Mike Love and his brother, Carl. His named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was so impressed with the performance that he let the group know. Jardine would later be enlisted, along with Dennis Wilson to form the Pendletones in 1961. The first song Brian Wilson wrote would become “Surfer Girl”. A demo of the tune was made in February 1962 and would go on to be a Top Ten hit when it was released a year later in 1963. However, their first recording was a doo-wop-surf tune called “Surfin’” in October 1961. It was released in November ’61 on the Candix Enterprises Inc. label. The surprise for the group was that the record label had changed the group’s name from the Pendletones to the Beach Boys. Consequently, as each time the record was played by a DJ in America, radio listeners were being introduced to the Beach Boys. The name Pendletones was now history.
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#1000: The Young Ones by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: March 1962
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “The Young Ones”
Lyrics: “The Young Ones”
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.”
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#1001: Call Up The Man by The Shadracks
Peak Month: October 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Call Up The Man”
The Shadracks were a Kelowna, British Columbia based group who formed in 1962. Initially their membership consisted guitarist Craig McCaw, lead vocalist Rick Mussalem, backing vocalist and bassist Bob verge, bass player Glen Chilow and drummer Warren Dunaway. In the following years Chilow and Dunaway left the band and were replaced by drummer Claudette Scritnik and guitar player Clive Spiller. The Shadracks song, “Call Up the Man”, peaked at #7 in Vancouver in the fall of 1966. They were compared to Australia’s Easybeats due to their up-tempo sound and harmonies. One of the places where The Shadracks performed in Kelowna was The Aquatic, the headquarters of the Kelowna Regatta.
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#1002: The Last Leaf/Shy Girl by The Cascades
Peak Month: May 1963
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart (The Last Leaf)
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart (Shy Girl)
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #60/#91
YouTube.com: “The Last Leaf”
Lyrics: “The Last Leaf”
YouTube.com: “Shy Girl”
Lyrics: “Shy Girl”
The origins of The Cascades, a smooth pop harmony group, were born in 1960 aboard the U.S.S. Jason AR-8. When the ship wasn’t overseas in Sasebo, Japan, it docked in San Diego. The group initially consisted of singer and lead guitarist Lenny Green, singer and drummer Dave Wilson, bass player Dave Stevens and rhythm guitarist Art Eastlink. On and off ship they were known to other servicemen and local San Diegans’ as The Silver Strands. Fellow friend and serviceman on the U.S.S. Jason, John Gummoe, was a huge fan and started to serve as the group’s manager. Gummoe booked the group for five gigs a week. He also performed duets with Dave Wilson as part of the Silver Strands’ concerts. The group left the U.S. Navy and became billed as The Thundernotes. They released an instrumental surf single in the fall of 1961. “Pay Day” got airplay on the local San Diego radio station KDEO. Lenny Green left the group and John Gummoe officially joined the band as lead vocalist.
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#1003: Real Wild Child by Iggy Pop
Peak Month: March-April 1987
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Real Wild Child”
Lyrics: “Real Wild Child”
James Newell Osterberg, Jr. was born in 1947 in Muskegon, Michigan. His family lived in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, 18 miles west of Detroit. During high school he played the drum in numerous high school bands. One of the bands he played for from Ann Arbor, Michigan, were called the Iguanas. Young James Newell Osterberg Jr. derived his stage name from the Iguanas and became Iggy Pop. He moved to Chicago and was influenced by the Los Angeles based Doors, the Tacoma, Washington, based Sonics and the Lincoln Park, Michigan, based MC5. As he shaped his sound he formed The Psychedelic Stooges. Looking back on his formative years, Iggy Pop remarked in an interview with David Fricke of Rolling Stone Magazine in 2007, “Once I hit junior high in Ann Arbor, I began going to school with the son of the president of Ford Motor Company, with kids of wealth and distinction. But I had a wealth that beat them all. I had the tremendous investment my parents made in me. I got a lot of care. They helped me explore anything I was interested in. This culminated in their evacuation from the master bedroom in the trailer, because that was the only room big enough for my drum kit. They gave me their bedroom.”
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