#38: Love Has Remembered Me by April Wine

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: November 1985
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #5
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Love Has Remembered Me”
Lyrics: “Love Has Remembered Me”

April Wine is a Canadian rock band that has released 34 singles, 16 studio albums and 9 live albums. They formed in Waverly, Nova Scotia, in 1969. The founding members were brothers David Henman (guitar) and Ritchie Henman (drums) and Myles Goodwyn (lead vocals, guitar). The Henman brothers cousin Jim Henman was also part of the band, but was replaced by bass player Jim Clench in 1971, a year after the band moved to Montreal and released their self-titled debut album. Miles Francis Goodwin was born in Woodstock, New Brunswick, in 1948. James Patrick Clench was born in Montreal in 1949. The Henman brothers were born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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#39: Young Thing, Wild Dreams (Rock Me) ~ Red Rider

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: July 1984
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #7
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ Getting Airplay
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube: “Young Thing, Wild Dreams (Rock Me)”
Lyrics: “Young Thing, Wild Dreams (Rock Me)”

Tom Cochrane was born in Lynn Lake, Manitoba, in 1953. When he was eleven he got his first guitar. In his late teens and early twenties, he performed in coffee houses across Canada in the early 70’s. His debut album, Hang On To Your Resistance, was released in 1974. Then Tom Cochrane made his way to Los Angeles. In 1975, Cochrane got work composing theme music for the movie My Pleasure Is My Business. This was a film about Xavier Hollander, the call girl and adult film star who authored her own memoir, The Happy Hooker, in 1971. Unable to get subsequent work in Hollywood, Cochrane returned to Canada for drive a taxi and work on a cruise line. At a concert at the El Mocambo for Red Rider in 1978, Tom Cochrane met the band. Soon after Cochrane was invited to join Red Rider.

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City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: July 1986
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #5
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Standin’ In Line”
Lyrics: “Standin’ In Line”

In 1981 five musicians in Charlottetown formed a band they named Haywire. They were keyboard player David Rashed, vocalist and steel pan drummer Paul MacAusland, guitarist Marvin Birt, drummer Scott Roberts and bass player Ronnie Switzer. In 1984 they entered the Homegrown Vol. 1 contest on Halifax, Nova Scotia, FM station Q104. The next year Haywire won the Labatt’s Battle of the Bands in Saint John, New Brunswick. Winning $10,000 first prize, they used their prize money to record a 5-song EP. It sold over 5,000 copies across in the Maritimes. In 1986 Music Express Magazine named Haywire ‘Canada’s Best Group’. The accolades won Haywire a five-album contract with Attic Records. By this time Sean Kilbride had become the band’s drummer.

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#42: Queen of the Broken Hearts by Loverboy

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: October 1983
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #34
YouTube: “Queen of the Broken Hearts”
Lyrics: “Queen of the Broken Hearts”

Loverboy is a band formed in 1979. It has been stated by Mike Reno that their name was chosen due to a dream by Paul Dean. He had come up with the name after spending the previous night with some of the bandmates, including Reno and their girlfriends, before going to the movies. The girlfriends were browsing through fashion magazines, where the guys in the band saw a Cover Girl advertisement. Cover Girl became Cover Boy, and then became Loverboy in Dean’s dream later that night. After being told by Dean about the dream the next morning, Reno agreed to try it out and it stuck.

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City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: March 1964
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #7
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Citizen Freak: “Mountain Of Ice/School Days”

Barry Ennis was born in 1942 in Eston, Saskatchewan. He was the lead singer of Barry Ennis and the Keymen in the mid-sixties. The band formed in 1963 when Ennis was 21-years-old. In 1964, he released the single “Mountain Of Ice” with the B-side “School Days”.

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#53: Deep Cuts The Knife by Helix

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: August 1985
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #12
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Deep Cuts The Knife”
Lyrics: “Deep Cuts The Knife”

Helix was a heavy metal band formed in Kitchener, Ontario, in 1974. The classic lineup for the band included Brent Doerner and Paul Hackman on guitar, Daryl Gray on bass guitar, Greg “Fritz” Hinz on drums, and Brian Vollmer the lead singer. Vollmer was born in 1955 in Listowel, Ontario. Hackman was born in 1953 in St. Thomas, Ontario. He played in two local bands, Whitehorse and Purple Wedge, and joined Helix in 1976 when there was a lineup change. The band was formed to enter a Battle of the Bands in Kitchener in 1974. At first they were named the Helix Field Band, and later shortened to Helix. A helix is a shape like a cylindrical coil spring, or the thread of a machine screw. Helix released their debut album, Breaking Loose, in 1979. The band released In 1984, they released their fourth studio album titled Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge. A track from the album, “Rock You”, reached the Top 30 on the Canadian RPM Top 100 Singles chart in 1984.  Continue reading →

#98: X-Ray Eyes by Jim Foster

City: Regina, SK
Radio Station: CJME
Peak Month: April 1986
Peak Position in Regina ~ #13
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #27
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “X-Ray Eyes”
Lyrics: “X-Ray Eyes”

James Edwin Foster was born in Victoria, Canada, in 1950. His family moved to Edmonton and then Calgary. There he met Vern Willis around 1970 and they played in a few bands and learned the ropes of performing in concert. Willis moved on to New York City while Jim Foster formed a quartet named Fosterchild where they were a regular band at Calgary’s the Scotch and Sirloin. The band went to Edmonton and recorded a demo of a song  Jim Foster wrote called “Let Me Down Easy.” On the strength of that demo the band got a record deal with CBS Records. However, CBS was unimpressed with the other three musicians in Fosterchild and got session musicians to work on the single release. Consequently, Jim Foster had a new record out to the general public but no intact Fosterchild band. It was 1976 and Vern Wills had come back to Calgary since his US visa had expired. Jim Foster recalls, “So I called Vern who was living in Edmonton. He said he’d just heard me on the radio. I said ” You wanna join forces?” and that was it. He’d always been one of my faves. Then we had to find more players and get an album together.”

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#230: Golden Girl by The Rabble

City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJMS
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Golden Girl”
Lyrics: “Golden Girl”

Formed in 1965, The Rabble were a psychedelic/garage act that hailed, originally from Pointe-Claire, Quebec on Montreal’s west island. They consisted of Tim Charbonneau on bass guitar, Mike Harris on guitar, Rick Metcalfe on guitar, and John Pimm on vocals. McMahon had previously been with The Mighty Avengers who released a cover of the Rolling Stone’s “Blue Turns To Grey” in 1965, and also a cover of the Tymes’ number-one hit from 1963 titled “So Much In Love”. The Rabble’s first single was the Mike Harris written “I’m Alaboundy Bam” released in 1966. With no substantial support from RCA, and a failing debut single, the band recorded their next single, “Golden Girl”, in December 1966 which saw release in the summer of 1967 on Trans-World Records. Late addition, Walter “Wally” O’Reilly, was on drums for both the single and the album after Brian Robillard (formerly of The Haunted) quit The Rabble to form his own band. Though Brian Robillard was in the recording studio for “Golden Girl” and other tracks on the band’s debut album, he was not in the photo with the other five bandmates for the album photoshoot.

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#57: My Boyfriend Got A Beatle Haircut by Donna Lynn

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: March 1964
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #83
YouTube: “My Boyfriend Got A Beatle Haircut”
Lyrics:

Camille Donna Albano was born in 1950. In April 1964, The Pittsburgh Press in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had an article about the 14-year-old pop singer Donna Lynn. The paper wrote of “The short dark-haired Maureen O’Hara in Christine, and Anna Marie Alberghetti in Carnival. She has played Helen Keller as a child, in a summer stock production of The Miracle Worker. In Pittsburgh today to promote her new release, “Java Jones,” backed by “The Things that I Feel,” Donna expressed a strong desire to continue her professional career. She hopes to eventually end up back on Broadway or in the movies.” The article described Donna Lynn as “a 14-year-old who belts out rock ‘n roll for Capitol records,” and who “also knows her way around.” A subtitled in the article exclaimed “DONNA LYNN: Broadway her goal.” The Pittsburgh Press contrasted “Lynn, the recording artist” with “Camille Albano, the girl from around the corner.” Reflecting on her anonymity as a girl from around the corner, Donna Lynn told reporter Barbara Holsopple, “…there is a little jealousy. I guess that’s the price you have to pay for being a public figure.”

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#10: Draggin’ You Down by Streetheart

City: Regina, SK
Radio Station: CJME
Peak Month: June 1980
Peak Position in Regina ~ #3
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Draggin’ You Down”
Lyrics: N/A

Kenny Shields was from Nokomis, Saskatchewan in 1947. When he was six years old he won an amateur talent contest. Once he graduated from high school he pursued music and in 1967 formed a band in Saskatoon named Witness Inc. The band had several Top Ten hits in local radio markets in the Canadian Prairies and in Ontario. These include “I’ll Forget Her Tomorrow”, “Jezebel” and “Harlem Lady”. In 1969 Shields had a near fatal car accident and had to undergo therapy and rehab for a number of years. This meant he had to quit the band. In 1975 Shields was back with Witness Inc. and by that time he was the only original member in the band. But the pseudo-psychedlic sound that Witness Inc. was known for was no longer in vogue. The band changed its name to Streetheart and with it got a newer rock ‘n roll sound. Bass player Ken “Spider” Sinnaeve and keyboard player, Daryl Gutheil, made the transition from Witness Inc. As Streetheart, they were joined by Paul Dean and Matt Frenette who both moved on to form Loverboy.

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