#645: Silhouettes by The Nylons

Peak Month: January 1983
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Silhouettes”
Lyrics: “Silhouettes”

The Nylons are an a cappella group that formed in 1978, based in Toronto. The original members were all gay men: Dennis Simpson, Paul Cooper, Claude Morrison and Marc Connors. They released their self-titled album in 1982. There were some lineup changes after 1979 when Dennis Simpson left. By the time the Nylons released their first album, Arnold Robinson was the newcomer joining the other original group members.

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#646: All I See Is You by Dusty Springfield

Peak Month: October 1966
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com link: “All I See Is You”
Lyrics: “All I See Is You”

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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#750: You’re Not The Same Girl by Blue Northern

Peak Month: August 1981
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “You’re Not The Same Girl”

Blue Northern was a Vancouver band that got their start in 1977. The founding members were Garry Comeau on guitar and fiddle, Lee Roy Stephens on bass, steel and rhythm guitar player Jimmy Wilson and Brady Gustafson on drums. As they developed their sound the band wanted to broaden their audience appeal. It happened that one of the audience members who enjoyed Blue Northern in concert was Billy Cowsill.

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#1367: I Put A Spell On You by Alan Price Set

Peak Month: August 1966
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #80
YouTube.com “I Put A Spell On You”

Alan Price was born in northeastern England in 1942 in the village of Fatfield. By the age of seven he started to teach himself to play piano. He added the organ, guitar and bass to his repertoire by his mid-teens. The skiffle craze that swept England in the ’50’s captured Alan Price. Rock ‘n roll became his musical focus and Jerry Lee Lewis, with his piano antics, was Alan Price’s hero. He formed a band named the Black Diamonds. By the end of the decade Price added jazz and rhythm and blues to his instrumental showcase. He got a reputation as a young musical genius in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. In 1961 Alan formed the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo. By 1962 the lineup consisted of Eric Burdon providing lead vocals, Chas Chandler on bass, Alan Price (keyboards), John Steel on drums and Hilton Valentine on guitar. They played at the Downbeat Club on Carliol Square, with its audiences populated with beatniks and Bohemians. From that launching pad they got gigs at Club A-Go-Go. Both clubs were owned by the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo’s manager, Mike Jeffrey.

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#647: I’ll Cry Instead by The Beatles

Peak Month: August 1964
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com link: “I’ll Cry Instead”
Lyrics: “I’ll Cry Instead”

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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#648: Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show by Neil Diamond

Peak Month: May 1969
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #4
Hit Bound 1 week
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube.com link: “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show”
Lyrics: “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show”

Neil Leslie Diamond was born in Brooklyn in 1941. His parents were Russian and Polish immigrants and both Jewish. His dad was a dry-goods merchant. When he was in high school he met Barbra Streisand in a Freshman Chorus and Choral Club. Years later they would become friends. When he was sixteen Diamond was sent to a Jewish summer camp called Surprise Lake Camp in upstate New York. While there he heard folk singer, Pete Seeger, perform in concert. That year Diamond got a guitar and, influenced by Pete Seeger, began to write poems and song lyrics. While he was in his Senior year in high school, Sunbeam Music Publishing gave Neil Diamond an initial four month contract composing songs for $50 a week (US $413 in 2017 dollars). and he dropped out of college to accept it.

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#650: It Tears Me Up by Percy Sledge

Peak Month: November 1966
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com link: “It Tears Me Up”
Lyrics: “It Tears Me Up”

Percy Tyrone Sledge was born in 1941 in northwestern Alabama. His dad died while he was still an infant. From a young age he picked cotton and chopped cotton. He was raised on music in the church and also loved country music. Growing up Percy dreamed about playing baseball. But his classmates thought he’d be a singer. Percy Sledge worked as a hospital orderly and later at a chemical plant. He sang on weekends with a band called the Esquire Combos. The band traveled across Alabama and Mississippi. With his untended hair cut and gap-toothed smile, Sledge was not a typical recording artist, as record companies were increasingly scouting for attractive performers to showcase on TV, even though most households still had black and white televisions in 1966.

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Peak Month: September-October 1988
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com “Out Of Touch”

Innocent 3 was comprised of Kelly Brock on lead vocals and Karen Campbell on backing vocals. Kelly Susan Brock was born in 1967. Brock was the lead vocalist for the Vancouver cowboy-punk band Lost Durangos with Greg Potter (guitar, vocals) Paul de Boursier (drums), Matt Rickson (bass, vocals) and Buck Cherry (guitar, vocals). They released an album in 1986 titled Evil Town. Karen Campbell born in Owen Sound in 1970. She was a child actor on TV commercials. At the age of ten she was featured in a commercial for Swiss Chalet. For ten years she was known as the ‘milk girl’ on Canadian dairy ads promoting milk consumption. She appeared in her first film, The Newcomers, when she was eleven. When she was seventeen she was photographed for Vogue Magazine in Monte Carlo. Subsequently, she was featured in Harper’s Bazaar and Elle.

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#651: The Touchables by Dickie Goodman

Peak Month: March 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX’s chart
Peak Position #3 on CFUN
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #60
YouTube.com link: “The Touchables”
Lyrics: “The Touchables”

Richard Dorian Goodman was born in Brooklyn in 1934. His father, Saul, a Russian Jew immigrated to the USA. Saul’s brother Herman already lived in America. It was Herman who told Saul to tell the folks at Ellis Island that your surname is Goodman. No one in Dickie Goodman’s household ever learned what his father’s surname was back in Russia. The family lived in Long Island in the town of Hewlett. On July 8, 1947, the press reported that U.S. Army personnel had recovered a “flying disc” in the Roswell Army Air Field near Roswell, New Mexico. There were reports of people interviewed who had handled the debris from the flying disc. And some people said they saw aliens. Dickie Goodman was 13 and the story made a strong impression on him. In 1955 Dickie Goodman was studying for a Law degree and writing songs on the side at Hanson’s Drug Store at 51st Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. He got acquainted with another struggling artist named Bobby Darin who ended up living in the Dickie Goodman’s parents home for a spell. In early ’56, Goodman had a song he wrote titled “Why Should We Break Up”. It was recorded by the Sonnets, a doo wop R&B group from Harlem.

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#652: Have A Drink On Me by Lonnie Donegan

Peak Month: August 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #72
YouTube.com link: “Have A Drink On Me”
Lyrics: “Have A Drink On Me”

Anthony James Donegan was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1931. His dad was a violinist in the Glasgow-based Scottish National Orchestra. Donegan became a fan of swing jazz and country music as he grew. When he was fourteen he got his first guitar. In the late forties “Tony” Donegan had learned how to play the banjo. Bandleader Chris Barber heard Donegan and had him audition for his Trad Jazz band. Tony Donegan played with the Trad Jazz band for a few years until he was called up for National Service that included three months of military training. While in the National Service in Southampton, England, Donegan played drum in Ken Grinyer’s Wolverines Jazz Band. In 1952 he began the Tony Donegan Jazzband. On June 28, 1952, Donegan’s band opened a concert for Lonnie Johnson at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Johnson was an American jazz and blues singer and pioneer of jazz guitar and jazz violin. Tony Donegan decided to bill himself as Lonnie Donegan in tribute to Lonnie Johnson.

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