#409: Tamoure by Bill Justis
Peak Month: May 1963
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #101
YouTube: “Tamoure”
William Everett “Bill” Justis Jr. was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1926. He was a pioneer rock n’ roll musician, composer, and musical arranger, best known for his 1957 Grammy Hall of Fame song, “Raunchy”. Justis grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and studied music at Tulane University in New Orleans. Fine-tuning his trumpet and saxophone skills, he was featured in concert with local jazz and dance bands. In 1954, Justis went back to Memphis and hired by Sam Philips at Sun Records. While in the employ of Sun Records, Bill Justis made his own recordings. In addition he was a musical arranger Sun recordings by Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash.
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#410: Ramona by Stampeders
Peak Month: February 1975
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Ramona”
Lyrics: “Ramona”
The Stampeders are a rock trio from Calgary named after that city’s football team, The Calgary Stampeders. Although, it could be argued that the yearly Calgary Stampede was also an inspiration for their name. During the band’s most successful chart run from 1968 to 1976, it was made up of guitarist Rich Dodson, bass player Ronnie King (born Cornelius Van Sprang) and drummer Kim Berly (born Kim Meyer). All three provided vocals. Originally, the band was a group of five formed in 1964 called The Rebounds. The Rebounds had five members: Rich Dodson, Len Roemer, Brendan Lyttle, Kim Berly, and Race Holiday. They renamed themselves The Stampeders in 1965 and Len Roemer was replaced with Ronnie King and Van Louis, making them a band of six for a few years. But after a temporary move to Toronto in 1966 the band was down to three members, Dodson, King and Berly by 1968. Between 1967 and 1976 The Stampeders charted 15 singles into the Canadian RPM Top 40.
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#920: The Friends Of Mr. Cairo by Jon and Vangelis
Peak Month: December 1981
10 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “The Friends Of Mr. Cairo”
Lyrics: “The Friends Of Mr. Cairo”
Jon and Vangelis was the name for a musical collaboration between the lead singer of Yes, Jon Anderson, and Greek multi-instrumentalist Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou – known professionally as Vangelis. John Roy Anderson was born in Lancashire, England, in 1944. At age 15 he left school and got work as a lorry driver and then a milkman to help make money for the family. His brother Tony, was part of a band called The Warriors, and John was asked to join on vocals. He was with the Warriors from 1962 to 1968. Anderson released two solo singles with little commercial success in 1968. That year he also met bass guitarist Chris Squires, guitar player Peter Banks, drummer Bill Bruford and reconnected with keyboard player Tony Kaye. The five musicians formed a band they called Yes. The band released a self-titled debut album in 1969. In 1970 John Anderson dropped the “h” from his first name, becoming Jon Anderson. From 1969 to 1978 Yes released nine studio albums. Their 1973 Top 20 hit, “Roundabout” was the zenith of their early fame.
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#411: Sausalito Summernight by Diesel
Peak Month: October 1981
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Sausalito Summernight”
Lyrics: “Sausalito Summernight”
Wilhelmus Frederikus “Pim” Koopman was born in the North Holland town of Hilversum in 1953. In 1972 he co-founded a progressive rock band called Kayak. They had a number of Top 30 hits in the Netherlands, with “Ruthless Queen” peaking in the nation at #6 in 1979. Koopman left Kayak in 1976 due to health problems and interpersonal conflicts with the band’s manager. Next, Koopman began to focus on being a producer of other recording acts records. These included the Dutch singing duo Maywood (comprised of sisters Aaltje (“Alie”) and Doetje (“Edith”) de Vries; pop singer José Hoebee; multi-instrumentalist Valensia; and Dutch classical-pop crossover singer Petra Berger. In 1978 Pim Koopman founded Nederpop band Diesel.
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#412: Hot Love by T. Rex
Peak Month: May 1971
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #72
YouTube: “Hot Love”
Lyrics: “Hot Love”
Marc Bolan was born Mark Feld in 1947 – in Stoke Newington, a town in the borough of Hackney, in northeast London. His father, Simeon Feld, was an Ashkenazi Jew whose roots went back to Russia and Poland. His mom’s heritage was English. In September 1956, when he turned nine, Mark Feld was given a guitar and started a skiffle band. By around November of 1958 Feld played guitar in a trio called “Susie and the Hula Hoops”, inspired by a fad that began in July ’58 when 100 million plastic hoops were sold worldwide by mid-December ’58. Their singer was a 12-year-old girl named Helen Shapiro, who at the age of 14 had her first Top Ten hit in the UK in February 1961 with “Don’t Treat Me Like A Child” – followed by others including “Walking Back To Happiness” and “Tell Him What He Said“. In 1962 Mark Feld was interviewed by Town magazine and featured in a number of photos – along with several of his friends – about the new mod scene.
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#413: Lovey Dovey by Buddy Knox
Peak Month: December 1960
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Lovey Dovey”
Lyrics: “Lovey Dovey”
Buddy Wayne Knox was born in 1933, in Happy, Texas, a small farm town in the Texas Panhandle a half hour south of Amarillo. During his youth he learned to play the guitar. He was the first artist of the rock era to write and perform his own number one hit song, “Party Doll“. The song earned Knox a gold record in 1957 and was certified a million seller. Knox was one of the innovators of the southwestern style of rockabilly that became known as “Tex-Mex” music.
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#529: Stealin’ The Night by J.C. Stone
Peak Month: March 1981
Peak Position #7
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Stealin’ The Night”
J.C. Stone was a Vancouver recording artist in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974 he released “Carrie’s Gone”, which peaked at #9 in Vancouver (BC), and cracked the Top 30 in Windsor (ON), Charlottesville (WV) and Kelowna (BC). In 1976 he released a single “Don’t Shoot Me”/”Woman In Spring” which flopped commercially. In 1980 J.C. Stone released his only album, Stealin’ The Night.
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#414: She’s A Star (In Her Own Right) by Nick Gilder
Peak Month: October 1976
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “She’s A Star”
In 1951 Nick Gilder was born in London, England. In his childhood he moved to Canada and grew up in Vancouver. In the summer of 1973, when he was 22 years old, vocalist Gilder and fellow former high school classmate and guitarist, Jim McCulloch, founded a band called Rasputin. John Booth on drums, Bud Marr on bass and Dan Gaudin on keyboards rounded our the band. Shortly afterward they took the name Sweeney Todd. Their name was inspired by the 1846-47 Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance credited to James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest. The main antagonist of the story is Sweeney Todd, “the Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. Todd is a barber who murders his customers and turns their bodies over to Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime, who bakes their flesh into meat pies and sells them at her pie shop. A Sweeney Todd stage play by Stephen Sondheim appeared on Broadway in 1979.
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#415: No Milk Today by Herman’s Hermits
Peak Month: April 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #35
YouTube.com: “No Milk Today”
Lyrics: “No Milk Today”
Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone was born in a suburb of Manchester, England, in 1947. Keith Hopwood was born in 1946, in the same suburb of Davyhulme. Karl Anthony Green was born in 1947, also in Davyhulme. Derek “Lek” Leckenby was born in Leeds in 1943. Jan Barry Whitwam was born in 1946 in Manchester. Both Leckenby and Whitwam were members of a band called the Wailers who played covers by Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and other early rock recording artists. Peter Noone originally was in an amateur band called the Cyclones. He moved on to the Heartbeats in 1961, a Buddy Holly cover band. Just after he turned 14, Noone debuted on Coronation Street, playing the role of Stanley Fairclough starting in December 1961. In the fall of 1962 Herman’s Hermits was formed. Peter Noone was the lead vocalist. Karl Green played bass guitar. Keith Hopwood played rhythm guitar. “Lek” Leckenby played lead guitar and Barry Whitwam played drums.
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#416: China Doll by Bobby Swanson
Peak Month: November 1960
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “China Doll”
Bobby Swanson was born in Denver, Colorado, in January, 1943. He attended South High School. When he was just 15, in the summer of 1958, Bobby Swanson traveled with his parents to Memphis. The Swansons went to Sun Records and Bobby auditioned for Sam Philips. Bobby remembers “I kept thinking this is the same microphone that Elvis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash recorded into!” Philips told Bobby to come back to Memphis when he was 18-years-old. Subsequently, Bobby’s dad was doing a job as an electrician at the home of Officer Carol MacTavish. The officer told Bobby’s father that she’d written a song titled “Rockin’ Little Eskimo”, and was trying to get it recorded by someone. Bobby’s father suggested his son. Subsequently, Bobby Swanson recorded a demo backed with a song he wrote titled “Ballad Of Angel”. It was sent to Igloo Records in Anchorage, Alaska.
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