#1098: Kiss And Run by Tommy Roe

Peak Month: August 1963
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Kiss And Run”

In Atlanta, Georgia, Thomas David “Tommy” Roe was born in 1942. At the age of 17, while he was still in high school, Roe was part of a trio with Bob West and Mike Clark called The Satins. Roe wrote a song called “Caveman” in 1959, backed with “I Got A Girl”  and the trio was billed as Tommy Roe and The Satins released their first single on Judd Records. When he finished high school Tommy got work a soldering wires at a General Electric plant. In 1960 the single was re-issued on the Trumpet label. This time “I Got A Girl” climbed into the #10 spot on WAKE 1340 AM in Atlanta. The trio released a song in 1960 called “Sheila”, complete with Buddy Holly-esque vocal effects. But it failed to chart. Two years later Roe signed a contract with ABC-Paramount Records. Though he was just twenty years old, Roe found himself on the top of the national charts in America and Australia in October 1962 with a new version of “Sheila”. When “Sheila” became a hit, ABC-Paramount Records asked Tommy Roe to go on tour to promote the hit. Roe was hesitant to leave his steady paycheck at GE until ABC-Paramount changed his mind when they advanced him $5,000.

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Peak Month: February 1958
3 weeks on Teen Canteen chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Cash Box Magazine #58 | Music Vendor Magazine #77
YouTube.com: “Young Dove’s Calling”

The Couplings were a four-part harmony doo-wop group possibly from Ohio. They released only two songs on one 45 RPM single in early 1958. The B-side was “I Can See” which showed off their bass singer. The A-side was “Young Dove’s Calling”. That song was featured on a February 20, 1958, episode of American Bandstand where the group performed. Soon after “Young Dove’s Calling” spent two weeks on the Cash Box magazine singles chart, peaking at #58. It also made it onto a third national music industry magazine called Music Vendor where it peaked at #77. However, the single failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. In North America the song got onto Cash Box and Music Vendor chart lists based on the Top 40 chart performances on a number of local radio markets where it made the Top 40. The Couplings charted “Young Dove’s Calling” as high as #23 in Albany, NY, #16 in Detroit, #19 in Houston, #37 in Toronto and #22 in Buffalo. Its best chart performance was in Vancouver where it made it into the Top Ten peaking at #7.

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#1099: Too Many Rules by Connie Francis

Peak Month: July 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #72
YouTube.com: “Too Many Rules”
Lyrics: “Too Many Rules”

Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero was born on December 12, 1938. Francis was born in the Italian Down Neck neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. She spent her firsts years as an infant and toddler in Brooklyn before the family moved back to New Jersey during her childhood. From the age of three, George Franconero recognized his daughter’s promising talent and insisted she start taking accordion lessons. However, her musical ingenuity wasn’t advanced by playing the accordion. An impoverished roofer, her father convinced Concetta to appear on stage at the age of four at the Olympic Amusement Park in Irvington, New Jersey. She played her accordion and then sang Anchors Aweigh in English and O Solo Mio in Italian. When she was ten years old she won third place The Ted Mack Amateur Hour radio for singing St. Louis Blues at the Mosque Theatre in Newark. Growing up in an Italian-Jewish neighborhood, Francis became fluent in Yiddish, which would lead her to later record songs in Yiddish and Hebrew.

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#1155: With Your Love by Jack Scott

Peak Month: January 1958
3 weeks on Teen Canteen chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube.com: “With Your Love”
Lyrics: “With Your Love”

Giovanni Dominico Scafone Jr. was born in 1936 in Windsor, Ontario, and spent some of his years growing up in the Detroit suburb of Hazel Park, Michigan. In 1954 he formed a band called the Southern Drifters. In 1957 he got a record deal with ABC-Paramount. He scored four Top Ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and two more in the Top 30 in the USA. In Vancouver Jack Scott was a teen idol with his good looks and classic rock ‘n roll. He enjoyed eight Top Ten hits on the Vancouver charts including “What In The World’s Come Over You” and his most successful hit in town, “Goodbye Baby” that peaked at #2 and spent 17 weeks on the CKWX charts in 1958. At the time, Scott had more US singles in the Billboard Hot 100 (19), in a shorter period of time (41 months), than any other recording artist – with the exception of The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino and Connie Francis. Scott charted twenty songs on the local record surveys in Vancouver between July 1958 and November 1962.

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#1427: Hurry Up And Tell Me by Paul Anka

Peak Month: October 1963
6 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Hurry Up And Tell Me”

Paul Anka was born in Ottawa, Canada, in 1941. His father was Syrian-American and his mother was Canadian-Lebanese. While growing up in Ottawa he was part of a vocal trio at Fisher Park High School called the Bobby Soxers. In the fall of 1956, Anka signed with the RPM label and released his first single, “Blau-Wile-Deveest-Fontaine”. It made the Top Ten in Smith Falls (ON). He had a #1 hit in 1957 titled “Diana”, and performed in concert at the Georgia Auditorium in Vancouver on October 23, 1957. Others on stage were Buddy Holly and The Crickets, Buddy Knox, Eddie Cochran, and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.

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#1100: Little Lover by Joel Hill & The Strangers

Peak Month: November 1960
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Little Lover”

Joel Scott Hill played a mean electric guitar. A native of Naples, in eastern Texas, he moved to the Linda Vista district of San Diego, California, when he was eight. He picked up his first guitar a few years later and had a band by 1956 while still in high school. His cousin, Jeanette Hicks, had been working steadily as a country singer, recording for Okeh Records and performing throughout the south where she scored one hit, “Yearning“, a duet with George Jones on the Starday label in 1957. On a summer visit back home, Joel headed to Shreveport, 90 miles east of Naples. He had sharpened his six-string expertise well enough that Jeanette put him to work playing lead guitar during one of her appearances on the syndicated radio and TV show The Louisiana Hayride. It was an exciting professional debut for the teenager. Johnny Cash and Johnny Horton were also featured performers that night.

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#1101: Boots or Hearts by the Tragically Hip

Peak Month: April 1990
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Boots Or Hearts”
Lyrics: “Boots Or Hearts”

In the early 1980’s bass player Gord Sinclair and guitar player Rob Baker were students at Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute in Kingston, Ontario. They had performed at the collegiate’s Variety Show in a band they called The Rodents. In 1984 Baker and Sinclair were in their early twenties. The Tragically Hip formed in 1984 in Kingston, Ontario when the duo added drummer Johnny Fay and lead singer Gordon Downie. Their name came from a skit in the movie Elephant Parts, directed by former Monkee’s guitarist Michael Nesmith. The Tragically Hip added Paul Langois, a guitar player, to their line-up in 1986. When they performed at the Horeshoe Tavern in Toronto in the mid-80’s, they were sign to a recording contract with MCA after the company president, Bruce Dickinson, saw the band at the tavern. A self-titled EP (Extended Play) was released in 1987 with a couple of singles that got some airplay. The group was launched.

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#1104: You’re A Very Lovely Woman by the Merry-Go-Round

Peak Month: October 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #94
YouTube.com: “You’re A Very Lovely Woman”
Lyrics: “You’re A Very Lovely Woman”

In early 1967 a pop band called The Merry-Go-Round were formed in Los Angeles. It featured singer-songwriter Emitt Rhodes, drummer Joel Larson, lead guitarist Gary Kato and Bill Rinehart on bass. The band released just one album in the spring of ’67 called The Merry-Go-Round. Their debut release was a single called “Live“. It charted well in a number of radio markets in California including San Bernardino (#3), Oxnard (#2), Indio (#3), San Diego (#5), Los Angeles (#3), Redding (#2), Fresno (#3), Modesto (#3) and San Francisco (#6). The song also went Top Ten in radio markets in Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Massachusetts and Arizona. Though their debut single didn’t crack the Top 30 in Seattle, it climbed to #1 in Vancouver in may of ’67.   The Merry-Go-Round performed at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival in 1967 on both days of the music festival. They closed the show on Saturday June 10 and were the second to the show closer on Sunday June 11. This music festival was a template for another festival later that month, the Monterey Pop Festival.

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#1105: Come Back to Me My Love by Mark Dinning

Peak Month: September 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Come Back To Me My Love”
Lyrics: “Come Back To Me My Love”

In 1933 Max Edward Dinning was born in the town of Manchester, Oklahoma, a hamlet of about 275 people some 70 miles southwest of Wichita, Kansas. After he became the youngest of nine children in the Dinning family, they moved to a farm near Nashville, Tennessee. His family was musical and three of his older sisters became country music trio billed as the Dinning Sisters. They performed from the early 40’s through the 1950’s. In 1950 Mark Dinning learned to play the electric guitar and pursued a career recording and performing country music on stage. He sang songs like “Streets of Laredo” which got him a recording contract in 1957. Wesley Rose, an MGM producer, got Dinning a regional hit in Tennessee in January 1959 called “The Black Eyed Gypsy” which peaked at #3 in Memphis.
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#1106: Animal Crackers (In Cellophane Boxes) by Gene Pitney

Peak Month: April 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #106
YouTube.com: “Animal Crackers”
Lyrics: “Animal Crackers”

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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