#394: So Far Away by Carole King

Peak Month: October 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “So Far Away”
Lyrics: “So Far Away”

Carole King was born Carol Joan Klein in 1942 in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn. Her parents were Jewish. From the age of three, her mother taught her how to play piano. At age four her parents discovered she had perfect pitch, and was able to sing each note on target. Of her piano lessons King later said in an interview, “My mother never forced me to practice. She didn’t have to. I wanted so much to master the popular songs that poured out of the radio.” In 1957 Carole Klein formed a group called the Co-sines, and changed her surname from Klein to King. At the time she dated Neil Sedaka. She and fellow student Paul Simon recorded demo records for $25 a disc.

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#396: Jump Over by Freddy Cannon

Peak Month: June 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Jump Over”
Lyrics: “Jump Over”

Frederick Anthony Picariello, Jr. was born in 1940 in the Boston suburb of Revere. His dad was a truck driver and also played trumpet  and sang several bands. Young Picariello Jr. began to play guitar in his teens. On guitar at the age of 15 he accompanied the nearby Roxbury, Massachusetts, R&B doo-wop group the G-Clefs on their hit single “Ka-Ding-Dong”. The song climbed to #17 on the Cashbox Top 100 Pop Singles chart in September ’56. After he graduated from Lynn Vocational High School, Freddy was a member of a doo-wop group called the Sandrifts. They had a local hit titled “Cha Cha Doo”. Next Picariello Jr. formed a group called Freddy Karmon & The Hurricanes.

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#649: Can’t Truss It by Public Enemy

Peak Month: January 1992
Peak Position #8
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube: “Can’t Truss It”
Lyrics: “Can’t Truss It”

Carlton Douglas Ridenhour was born in 1960 in the New York City borough of Queens. After the 1977 New York City blackout, he started to put pen to paper. From 1981-84 he attended Adelphi University on Long Island and studied graphic design. While he was there, Ridenhour co-hosted hip hop radio show called the Super Spectrum Mix Hour. On the show he went by the name of Chuck D, which was run on Saturday nights at Long Island rock radio station WLIR. William Jonathan Drayton Jr.was born in 1959 in the small town of Roosevelt, Nassau County, on Long Island. Drayton Jr. taught himself to play the piano from the age of five. In addition he sang in a youth choir at his church. As well, he learned to play drums and guitar during his childhood. In his late teens Drayton Jr. served time in prison once for robbery, and another time for burglary.

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#396: There’ll Be Peace In The Valley by Elvis Presley

Peak Month: March-April 1957
7 weeks on Red Robinson’s Teen Canteen Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “(There’ll Be) Peace In The Valley”
Lyrics: “(There’ll Be) Peace In The Valley”

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, on January 8, 1935. His twin brother, Jessie Garon Presley, was stillborn. When he was eleven years old his parents bought him a guitar at the Tupelo Hardware Store. As a result Elvis grew up as an only child. He and his parents, Vernon and Gladys, moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948. The young Presley graduated from high school in 1953. That year he stopped by the Memphis Recording Service to record two songs, including “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin”. Elvis’ musical influences were the pop and country music of the time, the gospel music he heard in church and at the all-night gospel sings he frequently attended, and the black R&B he absorbed on historic Beale Street as a Memphis teenager. In 1954, Elvis began his singing career recording “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” at Sun Records in Memphis.

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#397: Stay With Me Tonight by Jeffrey Osborne

Peak Month: February 1984
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “Stay With Me Tonight”
Lyrics: “Stay With Me Tonight”

Jeffrey Linton Osborne was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1948. He was the youngest of twelve children. His dad was Clarence “Legs” Osborne who was a trumpeter with Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. When he was 13-years-old, Jeffrey’s dad died in 1961. At the age of fifteen, in 1963, young Jeffrey was a drummer with the O’Jays for two weeks (when the group’s drummer took ill). In 1970 Osborne joined the group L.T.D. (standing for Love, Togetherness, and Devotion). In 1977 they had a Top Ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts with “(Every Time I Turn Around) Back in Love Again”. Two other singles, “Love Ballad” (1976) and “Holding On (When Love Is Gone)” (1978), also topped the R&B chart. Jeffrey Osborne sang lead vocals on all three of the groups’ number-one R&B singles.

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#398: Surfer Joe by the Surfaris

Peak Month: August 1963
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Surfer Joe” (Dot Records recording)
YouTube: “Surfer Joe” (DFS Records original 3:40 minute recording)
Lyrics: “Surfer Joe”

Ronald Lee Wilson was born in 1944 in Los Angeles. At the age of 17 he was a drummer in a high school band in Covina, California, called the Charter Oak Lancers. Bob Berryhill was born in 1947 in Glendora, California. When he was eight years old his parents bought an acoustic guitar which his Dad played. Bob got interested in guitars, and when he was 13 his parents took the family to Hawaii. It was there he saw a performer play a ukulele. When Berryhill returned home he went with his Dad to a music store and asked the staff to show him a ukulele. They told him they didn’t have any, but suggested he buy a guitar. Bob Berryhill soon began to play guitar and in eighth grade was entered in a talent contest. It was at the talent show that Berryhill heard the duo Pat Connolly and Jim Fuller. In fact, they borrowed Berryhill’s music equipment.

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#818: Roll Me Away by Dwayne Ford

Peak Month: September 1980
11 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Roll Me Away”

Dwayne Ford was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1949. Ford learned the piano from the age of five. He was a professional musician by the time he turned sixteen. Ford joined the Nomads while in Alberta. Ford moved to Toronto in 1970 and was hired on by Ronnie Hawkins, as part of the Ronnie Hawkins’ Rock And Roll Revival And Travelling Medicine Show. By late 1971 Ford, and two other members of Hawkins’ band – Terry Danko and Jim Atkinson – were feeling ready for a new challenge. The three musicians left Hawkins band and formed Atkinson, Danko and Ford. Two other members of Hawkins band, guitarist Hugh Brockie and Brian Hilton also joined up with the new trio which changed its name to Bearfoot.

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Peak Month: August 1963
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Surfin’ Doll”

According to a comment on a YouTube.com thread by someone claiming to be her grandchild, Kathy Brandon was born in California. Kathy Brandon wrote or cowrote her songs. She was signed to Crystalette Records in 1962 while she was still in high school. Crystalette was a label started in 1956 and a subsidiary of Dot Records. Crystalette had few notable chart successes with its stable of recording artists. The exception was a million-seller in 1959 called “Pink Shoelaces” by Dodie Stevens. That single peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #6 in Vancouver (BC) on CKWX. Kathy Brandon’s first single release was in 1962 titled “Boy Of My Dreams”. The single was a commercial flop. In 1962 CFUN in Vancouver happened to spin “Shy Guy” by the Crystalettes on Crystalette Records. The single made it to #2 in October of that year. Possibly, the folks at Crystalette Records had a good promotional pitch with the DJ’s at CFUN.

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#401: This Flight Tonight by Nazareth

Peak Month: October 1974
10 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #117
YouTube: “This Flight Tonight”
Lyrics: “This Flight Tonight”

William “Dan” McCafferty was born in 1946 in Dunfermline, near Fife, Scotland. His musical influences include Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Otis Redding. He learned to play the bagpipes and the talkbox in his teens, as well as becoming a singer. He formed a band in 1961 called the Shadettes. By 1963 McCafferty was performing professionally full time before audiences. Manuel “Manny” Charlton was born in 1941 in La Línea de la Concepción on the Bay of Gibraltar in Spain. In his youth he learned to play guitar. Charlton was in the Mark 5 and the Red Hawks before joining the Shadettes. Pete Agnew was born in Dunfermline in 1946. He learned to play rhythm guitar and bass guitar in his youth. Agnew joined the Shadettes in 1961. Darrell Antony Sweet was born in 1947 in the South Coast of England in Bournemouth. He was a piper in his youth and also learned to play drums.

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#402: It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World by James Brown

Peak Month: June 1966
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #1
1 week Wax to Watch
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #8
YouTube: “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”
Lyrics: “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”

James Joseph Brown Jr. was born in a shack in the piney woods of South Carolina, outside the small town of Barnwell, 45 miles southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The year was 1933, and Brown never knew his parents. From the age of four he was raised in a whorehouse in Augusta. As America entered World War II in December 1941, young James entertained troops at Camp Gordon doing buck dances (similar to clogging) on a bridge near his aunts brothel. He quit school in grade six, and won a talent contest in 1944 at the Lenox Theatre in Augusta. By age 13 he had a sidewalk group named the Cremona Trio, who made pennies for songs. He also took up boxing. But in 1949 he was sent to jail for three years for armed robbery. In June 1952, after being paroled Brown joined the gospel group the Ever-Ready Gospel Singers.

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