#1329: Only You by the Flying Pickets
Peak Month: June 1984
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Only You”
Lyrics: “Only You”
Brian Hibbard was born in the County of Monmouth in southwestern Wales in 1946. He got employment as a chimney sweep, a steel worker, a barman and a teacher before becoming an actor. In 1972-74 he supported the the UK miner’s strike. He joined John McGrath’s 7:84 Theatre Company. The theatre group’s name was chosen based on an article McGrath recalled from 1966 in the Economist which reported that 7% of the people in the UK owned 84% of the country’s wealth. 7:84 was a leftwing Scottish “political” theatre or agitprop company. In 1981 they performed a production called One Big Blow about a group of miners in a colliery brass band.
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#460: Daytime Night-time by Keith Hampshire
Peak Month: January 1973
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “Daytime Night-Time”
Lyrics: “Daytime, Night-Time”
Keith Hampshire was born in London in 1945. At the age of four he got tap dancing lessons and His family moved to Canada when he was six-years-old. They visited Toronto, took a train west and moved to Calgary. It was in Calgary that Keith Hampshire took singing lessons, founded a number of high-school bands, including the Intruders, Keith and The Bristols, and the Variations. Each band got gigs at other schools and clubs around town. The Variations opened for Roy Orbison one summer in the early 60s at the Calgary Stampede. Out of high school Keith Hampshire got a position at CFCN radio and TV as a cameraman. He ended up programming and announcing, playing Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Animals and the Searchers at the beginning of the British Invasion. At the age of 21 Hampshire moved back to the UK and got work from July 1966 to August 1967 as a DJ for a pirate radio station called Radio Caroline South. He moved back to Canada in September 1967 and got a job as a DJ with CKFH in Toronto. He got married in 1969.
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#461: Ooby Dooby by Roy Orbison
Peak Month: January 1957
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55
YouTube.com: “Ooby Dooby”
Lyrics: “Ooby Dooby”
Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas in 1936. When he turned six his dad gave him a guitar. Both his dad, Orbie Lee, and uncle Charlie Orbison, taught him how to play. Though his family moved to Forth Worth for work at a munitions factory, Roy was sent to live with his grandmother due to a polio outbreak in 1944. That year he wrote his first song “A Vow of Love”. The next year he won a contest on Vernon radio station KVWC and was offered his own radio show on Saturdays. After the war his family reunited and moved to Wink, Texas, where Roy formed his first band, in 1949, called The Wink Westerners.
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#462: Forget Me Not by Eden Kane
Peak Month: April 1962
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
Twin Pick ~ March 9, 1962
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Forget Me Not”
Lyrics: “Forget Me Not”
Richard Graham Sarstedt was born in 1942 in New Delhi, India. His parent ran a tea plantation and after his father died when Richard was 12-years-old, the family moved to the UK. He excelled in cricket and delivered milk and newspapers to make extra money for his family. He soon learned to play skiffle music after being turned on to rock music by exposure to Bill Haley and His Comets in 1955 at a live concert in Croydon, England. Sarstedt formed a skiffle band named the Fabulous 5, which included his younger brother Peter and Clive.
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#463: Language Of Love by John D Loudermilk
Peak Month: November 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Language Of Love”
Lyrics: “Language Of Love”
John D. Loudermilk was born in Durham, North Carolina, in 1934. Although he had a middle initial, D, the “D” wasn’t short for any middle name. His father was an illiterate carpenter, John D Loudermilk Sr. When John D. Jr. was, seven his dad gave him a ukulele made from a cigar box. Young John D Jr. learned to play guitar in his youth and began to write poems and songs. His poetry was inspired after he began to read the works of Kahlil Gibran. In his late teens, in the early 50’s, John D Jr. wrote a poem titled “A Rose And A Baby Ruth.” It concerned a teenage couple who have a quarrel and the boy gives his girlfriend a rose and a Baby Ruth candy bar to make up. Loudermilk put notes to the poem and played the sung version on a local TV station. This caught the attention of country singer, George Hamilton IV. The song was published in 1956 and became a Top Ten hit on both the Country and Pop charts on Billboard Magazine. The following year, Loudermilk penned “Sittin’ In The Balcony” for Eddie Cochran. Once that became a hit, Loudermilk’s songwriting career was launched. He co-wrote “Waterloo,” a #1 country hit and #4 pop hit in 1959 for country singer, Stonewall Jackson.
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#464: You’re So Good To Me by the Beach Boys
Peak Month: May 1966
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “You’re So Good To Me”
Lyrics: “You’re So Good To Me”
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. Mike was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and Carl was born in 1946 in Hawthorne, California. Brian Wilson named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance in the fall of 1960 at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Their set included some songs by Dion and the Belmonts. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was born in Hawthorne in 1942. He 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. Dennis was born in Inglewood in 1944.
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#466: The Moment That It Takes by Trooper
Peak Month: February 1979
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #122
YouTube: “The Moment That It Takes”
Lyrics: “The Moment It Takes”
In 1967 Ra McGuire and Brian Smith played in a Vancouver band named Winter’s Green. The band recorded two songs, “Are You a Monkey” and “Jump in the River Blues” on the Rumble Records Label. “Are You A Monkey” later appeared on a rock collection: 1983’s “The History of Vancouver Rock and Roll, Vol. 3.” In the early seventies Winter’s Green changed their name to Applejack and added drummer Tommy Stewart and bassist Harry Kalensky to their lineup. Applejack became a very popular band in the Vancouver area, and began touring extensively in British Columbia. The band played a few original tunes such as “Raise A Little Hell”, and “Oh, Pretty Lady”, as well as Top 40 songs by artists such as Neil Young, and Chicago.
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#467: Brandy by Scott English
Peak Month: April 1972
10 weeks on CKVN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
YouTube: “Brandy”
Lyrics: “Brandy”
Scott English was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937. He released his first single when he was 17 years old in 1960 called “4,000 Miles Away”. It didn’t crack the Billboard Hot 100. In the winter of 1963 he had a regional hit that reached the Top Five in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Columbus (OH) and Springfield (MA). It was called “High on a Hill”. In 1966, The Animals recorded English’s song “Help Me Girl”. It became a national Top 30 hit. The following year English wrote “Bend Me, Shape Me”, a #5 hit for the American Breed in the USA. It was covered by the Amen Corner and peaked at #3 in Britain.
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#468: Ashes To Ashes by David Bowie
Peak Month: January 1981
7 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #101
YouTube: “Ashes To Ashes”
Lyrics: “Ashes To Ashes”
David Robert Jones was born in 1947 in Brixton, a suburb in the southern part of London, UK. From an early age he demonstrated talent as a singer and especially through dance and movement. When he was nine years old his father brought home some 45’s by Elvis Presley, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, Fats Domino and others. When David Jones heard Little Richard sing “Tutti Frutti” he later said in an interview that he “heard God.” Growing up, David learned to play the recorder, ukulele, piano and baritone saxophone. In 1962, at the age of 15 he formed a band named the Konrads. In 1964 he formed a band named David Jones and the King Bees. They appeared on the variety show Ready Steady Go! to sing their debut single, “Liza Jane”. Jones briefly moved on to join the Mannish Boys before being the front man for Davy Jones and The Lower Third. They released a single in 1965 titled “You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving”. Due to the growing popularity of another English recording artist named Davy Jones (who went on to become lead singer for The Monkees), David Robert Jones decided to change his professional name to David Bowie. He chose his surname after a 19th Century American pioneer named James Bowie who invented the Bowie knife.
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#469: I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party by The Beatles
Peak Month: February 1965
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube: “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party”
Lyrics: “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party”
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. He attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and met fellow classmates George Harrison on a school bus. When Paul was 14 his mom died from a blockage in one of her blood vessels. In his early teens McCartney learned to play trumpet, guitar and piano. He was left-handed and restrung the strings to make it work. In 1957, Paul met John Lennon and in October he was invited to join John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, which Lennon had founded in 1956. After Paul joined the group his suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. Other original members of the Quarrymen, Len Garry, Rod Davis, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Pete Shotton left the band when their set changed from skiffle to rock ‘n roll. John Duff Lowe, a friend of Paul’s from the Liverpool Institute, who had joined the Quarrymen in early 1958 left the band at the end of school. This left Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as remaining trio. On July 15, 1958, John Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident.
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