Peak Month: December 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Static”

Dana and Dexter Smith were brothers who grew up Brentwood, California. Then they attended University High School, often called “Uni.” The school was opened in 1924 as Warren G. Harding High School, after the 29th President of the United States Warren G. Harding. But the name was changed in 1929 as a consequence of the Teapot Dome bribery scandal which unfolded from 1924 into 1930, tarnishing Harding’s name. The school was renamed University High School. Dana was the oldest and Dexter the youngest. They were signed up with Imperial Records who also had Ricky Nelson and Fats Domino among their lineup or recording artists. Imperial seems to have given little promotion to the brothers when they released their one single on the label, “Static”.

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#828: Summertime Guy by Eddie Rambeau

Peak Month: August 1962
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position Music Vendor ~ #127
YouTube.com link: “Summertime Guy”
Lyrics: “Summertime Guy

“Eddie Rambeau was born Edward Cletus Fluri, in 1943. His birthplace was Hazelton, Pennsylvania. He is an singer, songwriter, actor and author. Rambeau sang at record hops in Hazelton where he impressed deejays with his talent. One of the deejays, Jim Ward, set up an audition for Rambeau at Swan Records. He was signed to the label and released his first single, “Skin Divin’”, under his new name, Eddie Rambeau, on graduation day in June 1961. The song made the Top 20 in several radio markets in Idaho and Massachusetts.

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#830: Wait For Me by The Playmates

Peak Month: October 1960
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
“YouTube.com: “Wait For Me”
Lyrics: “Wait For Me”

The Nitwits were a vocal group that began performing in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1952. They were a trio consisting of Chic Hetti (born Carl Cicchetti) on piano and lead vocals, drummer and vocalist Donny Conn (born Donald Clapps), and Morey Carr (born Morey Cohen) on vocals and bass. All three were born in the Waterbury area. Each had attended the University of Connecticut in the early 50’s and decided to form a comedy group that also sang songs. They toured lounges in the USA and Canada. Their routine and material resembled another vocal group from the mid-50’s into the early 60’s named the Four Preps. Over five years of touring, the Nitwits shifted their focus from comedy skits with songs to being primarily a  vocal group with comedic banter between tunes. In the spring of 1957, the Nitwits got a contract with Roulette Records, becoming the labels first vocal group. They changed their name from the Nitwits to the Playmates. In the middle of the calypso craze, they released an album titled Playmates Visit the West Indies. In 1958 they had a #4 novelty hit called “Beep, Beep”. The group appeared on the Milton Berle Show in December. The single was their third Top 30 record. Since the song mentioned the Nash Rambler in the lyrics, it created a bump in sales for that model. “Beep Beep” sold a million records and got The Playmates many invitations to tour around the USA and Canada. From 1958 to 1962 they charted ten songs on the Billboard Hot 100.

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#1443: Tall Men by Johnny Cash

Peak Month: November 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Tall Men”
Lyrics: “Tall Men”

John R. “Johnny” Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, in 1932. At the age of five he started working with his sharecropping parents and siblings in the cotton fields. During his childhood his family home was flooded twice. He began singing and playing guitar by the age of 12. He moved to Detroit in his late teens for work. He was drafted and served in the U.S. Air Force as a Morse Code Intercept Operator for Soviet Army transmissions at a base in Germany from 1950 to 1954. When he was discharged from the military he and his new wife, Liberto, moved to Memphis. Cash worked as an appliance salesman while trying to get a break in the music industry. Cash got to audition with Sun Records in 1954. He had his first charting single on the Billboard Country charts in 1955 titled “Cry! Cry! Cry!” Subsequently single releases, “So Doggone Lonesome” and “I Walk The Line” climbed to #4 and #1 on the Country charts. The latter hit also was his first debut on the Billboard pop charts where it made it to #17 in 1956.
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#831: A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke

Peak Month: February 1965
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube.com “A Change Is Gonna Come”
Lyrics: “A Change Is Gonna Come”

Samuel Cook was born in 1931 Clarksdale, Mississippi. His father was a Baptist pastor. After the family moved to Chicago, Cook joined a children’s choir called The Singing Children at the age of nine. At the age of 17 Cook joined an established gospel group formed in 1926 called the Soul Stirrers. He also added an “e” to his surname, becoming Sam Cooke. He honed his vocal abilities further and was signed to Los Angeles based Keen Records in 1957. It was there he recorded his biggest hit, “You Send Me.” It climbed to #1 in November 1957. Cooke got national exposure on the Guy Mitchell Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.

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#832: My Own Way To Rock by Burton Cummings

Peak Month: October 1977
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #74
YouTube.com: “My Own Way To Rock”
Lyrics: “My Own Way To Rock”

Burton Cummings was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He replaced Chad Allan as lead singer for The Guess Who in 1966. Together with band-mate, Randy Bachman, he wrote These Eyes, Laughing and American Woman. The later was the groups only international #1 record. During Cummings tenure with The Guess Who they would chart 20 singles in the Top 20 in Vancouver. Of these, nine singles were double-sided hits.

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#834: Summer Wine by Nancy Sinatra

Peak Month: January 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #49
YouTube.com link: “Summer Wine”
Lyrics: “Summer Wine”

Nancy Sinatra is the daughter of crooner Frank Sinatra and was born in New Jersey in 1940. When she was 5 years old he recorded a song about her titled “Nancy, With the Laughing Face”. At the age of twenty she began her career appearing on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. This was a television special on the occasion of Elvis Presley’s discharge from the U.S. Army after being drafted to into the services in 1958. Nancy was sent by her father to meet Elvis at the airport in front of a pack of photographers. In 1960, she also got married to singer and actor, Tommy Sands.
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#835: Stay Awhile by Dusty Springfield

Peak Month: June 1964
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #38
YouTube.com link: “Stay Awhile”
Lyrics: “Stay Awhile”

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born in West Hampstead in north London, in 1939. Along with her oldest brother, Dion, she recorded her first tape of a song they sang while still children. Her dad was an unhappy accountant who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but never became one. While Mary’s mother, according to the Karen Bartlett autobiography, Dusty: An Intimate Portrait, “was continuously drunk and sat all day in cinemas.”As she grew up, Mary went to school at a Roman Catholic Convent. At the age of 18 she became a member of a female group named the Lana Sisters. The group sang backup to pop singer Al Saxton who had several Top 30 hits in the late 50’s in the UK, including a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Only Sixteen” and “You’re The Top Cha”. While Saxton enjoyed his moments of fame, Mary teamed up with her brother, Dion, and a friend of theirs named Tim Field. By the end of 1959 she had taken the stage name of Dusty Springfield. The trio, now known as The Springfields, got a record deal with Philips Records in 1961.

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#836: The Warmth of the Sun by The Beach Boys

Peak Month: January 1965
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “The Warmth Of The Sun”
Lyrics: “The Warmth Of The Sun”

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.

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#1393: Night To Remember by Prism

Peak Month: February 1980
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Night To Remember”
Lyrics: “Night To Remember”

In 1967 a new rock group appeared on the Vancouver scene called the Seeds of Time. They had several local hits including “My Home Town” and “Crying The Blues”. There were a number of lineup changes, but the bands personnel included drummer Rocket Norton, guitarist Lindsay Mitchell, and bassist Al Harlow. These three reunited after the Seeds of Time disbanded in 1974. After a brief stint as an R&B band called Sunshyne, they became Prism under Lindsay Mitchell’s initiative. In the band were new singer Ron Tabak, bassist Tom Lavin, keyboard player John Hall and drummer Rodney Higgs. Higgs was actually a pseudonym for Jim Vallance, the future songwriting partner of Bryan Adams.  The band released a self-titled album in 1977 that included two local singles “Take Me To The Kaptin” and “It’s Over”. Anther single, “Spaceship Superstar”, made the Top Ten in Ottawa, Hamilton and London (ON) in the winter of 1977-78.

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