#1349: Never Change My Mind by John Acosta and James Russell
Peak Month: April 1991
Peak Position #18
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Never Change My Mind”
Lyrics: “Never Change My Mind”
Juan Carlos was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, around 1969. The Carlos family moved to Canada and settled in Toronto. In 1983, while in grade nine, he met another classmate named James Russell. The pair soon discovered a mutual passion for music. Russell had been a member of the Toronto Youth Symphony. The two decided to form a singing duo and won a talent contest at their high school while still in grade nine. They would perform live again while still in high school. Meanwhile, Juan Carlos was going by John Acosta as a stage name when the duo performed live.
Continue reading →
#387: The Rainmaker by Tom Northcott
Peak Month: November 1969
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “The Rainmaker”
Lyrics: “The Rainmaker”
Tom Northcott is a Vancouver folk-rock singer with hits on the local pop charts from the mid-60s into the early 70s. He became known to a Canadian audience by his regular appearances on CBC Television’s Let’s Go music program in 1964-68. He was nominated as best male vocalist for a Juno Award in 1971. Later he co-founded Mushroom Studios in Vancouver and produced records. His hits are played regularly on Canadian oldies music stations.
Continue reading →
#388: Good Times by Eric Burdon And The Animals
Peak Month: August 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Good Times”
Lyrics: “Good Times”
Eric Victor Burdon was born in 1941 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. He was born into a working class family. Due to the river pollution and humidity in Newcastle he suffered asthma attacks daily. During primary school, Burdon writes in his memoir, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, he was “stuck at the rear of the classroom of around 40 to 50 kids and received constant harassment from kids and teachers alike”. He goes on to say his primary school was “jammed between a slaughterhouse and a shipyard on the banks of the Tyne. Some teachers were sadistic…and sexual molestation and regular corporal punishment with a leather strap was the order of the day.” In his song “When I Was Young”, he states he met his first love at 13, who was very experienced while he was not. He also says he smoked his first cigarette at 10 years old and would skip school with his friends to drink.
Continue reading →
#390: Diamond Sun by Glass Tiger
Peak Month: August 1988
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Diamond Sun”
Lyrics: “Diamond Sun”
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.
Continue reading →
#1269: Sinful Wishes by Kon Kan
Peak Month: May 1993
Peak Position #19
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Sinful Wishes”
Barry Harris was born in Toronto. In 1988 he envisioned a one-off project involving a synth-pop version of Lynn Anderson’s 1971 hit “Rose Garden”. Harris got Kevin Wynne to be a vocalist for the single. This was due to Wynne’s ability to mimic the vocal drone found in singles by New Order (i.e. “Blue Monday”). The duo got their name – Kon Kan – from the phrase “Can Con” which is short for Canadian Content which is the name of a rule that enforces Canadian radio stations to at least play 30% music from Canadian musicians. “I Beg Your Pardon” peaked at #3 in New York City, #7 in Hamilton (ON) and Columbia (SC), #9 in Chicago, #10 in San Francisco, and #15 in Vancouver (BC). Internationally, “I Beg Your Pardon” peaked at #5 in the UK, #7 in New Zealand, and #8 in Germany. On March 18, 1990, at the Juno Awards, Kon Kan won an award for Best Dance Recording.
Continue reading →
#391: I’m The Man by Joe Jackson
Peak Month: January 1980
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
2 weeks Playlist
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “I’m The Man”
Lyrics: “I’m The Man”
Joe Jackson was born David Ian Jackson in 1954 in Burton upon Trent, England. In his teens he learned to play violin and piano. In 1970 when he was 16-years-old, Jackson was playing piano in bars and pubs. Out of high school he attended London’s Royal Academy of Music. In the early 70s he formed a British band called Edward Bear (different from the Canadian band from Ontario), which soon changed its name to Arms and Legs. David Ian Jackson started getting the nickname “Joe” because some people thought he looked like the Charlie Brown character Snoopy in his “Joe Cool” persona.
Continue reading →
#395: Gypsy Woman/String Along by Rick Nelson
Peak Month: June 1963
5 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Gypsy Woman Peak Position ~ #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Gypsy Woman”
Lyrics: “Gypsy Woman”
Peak Month: June 1963
6 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
String Along Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “String Along”
Lyrics: “String Along”
In 1940 Eric Hilliard Nelson was born. On February 20, 1949, while still eight years old, he took the stage name of Ricky Nelson when appearing on the radio program, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. A child actor, Ricky was also a musician and singer-songwriter. who starred alongside his family in the long-running television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952–66), as well as co-starring alongside John Wayne and Dean Martin in the western Rio Bravo (1959). He placed 53 songs on the Billboard singles charts between 1957 and 1973.
Continue reading →
#392: Games Without Frontiers by Peter Gabriel
Peak Month: September 1980
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #48
YouTube: “Games Without Frontiers”
Lyrics: “Games Without Frontiers”
Peter Brian Gabriel was born in 1950 in Surrey, UK. He learned to play piano and drums in his childhood. In 1965, at the age of 15, Gabriel became part of a trio rock band called Garden Wall. The bandmates were all from the Charterhouse School, a public school in Surrey housed in a Carthusian monastery. In 1967 Garden Wall merged with two members of another band from the same school to form Genesis. The new band sought fellow school alumnus, pop singer Jonathan King, to be their producer. King got Genesis a record deal with Decca Records. But the band’s first album, Genesis to Revelation, was stocked in the ‘Religious’ record section of most stores given the title. Consequently, it sold only in the hundreds of copies.
Continue reading →
#874: Carrie’s Gone by J.C. Stone
Peak Month: November 1974
Peak Position #9
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Carrie’s Gone”
J.C. Stone was a Vancouver recording artist in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974 he released a single titled “Carrie’s Gone”.
Continue reading →
#393: You Y’Look Good by Joani Taylor
Peak Month: March 1977
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “You Y’Look Good”
Joani Taylor is a local Vancouver treasure. She told a music critic “I was born in Vancouver. My dad was a singer and my brother is a singer and a drummer and I’ve been singing everything from jazz to funk to R&B – I even teach a little hip-hop and country – so I’m just all over the map. But my love has always been with jazz and I think that’s because of the depth of emotion I use when I sing and it allows me to really express myself in the fullest way.” In an interview with Vancouverjazz.com in August 2008, Taylor told Cory Weeds “The home I grew up in was so full of music that I was very surprised when I was at a friends home and I couldn’t see a piano anywhere. I thought everyone was like our family. My parents would have parties with a house full of musicians and singers. My brother Jim and I figured out pretty fast that we could get to stay up late if we sang. We’ve talked about why we grew up to be musicians and I believe we all have talent, it’s just what we’re exposed to and in our case our father being a very good singer and doing occasional gigs, it was all in his eyes. When he sang, when he listened to music it was his deep passion for it that was so intriguing to me and he loved it when we sang. I have been on stage since I was 3 years old. I have a recording from a performance when I was four. I always knew I would be a singer, always.”
Continue reading →
