Too Bad by Doug and the Slugs

#10: Too Bad by Doug and the Slugs

Peak Month: March-April-May 1980
Peak Position #2
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Plus 3 weeks Playlist
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Too Bad
Lyrics: “Too Bad

Doug Bennett was born in Toronto in 1951. He worked as a graphic designer after his schooling and at the age of 22 moved to Vancouver in 1973. He got a job as a cartoonist and editor for the weekly alternative paper the Georgia Strait. He also played with a number of bands. By 1977 Bennett was in search of some new outlets for his creativity and was introduced to guitarist John Burton. Burton had been in a group called The Ugly Slugs. Bennett and Burton began performing locally and added bassist Dennis Henderson, drummer Ted Laturnus and and Drew Neville on keyboards. They became Doug and The Slugs.

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Fortune Teller/Johnny Take Your Time by Bobby Curtola

#11: Fortune Teller/Johnny Take Your Time by Bobby Curtola

A-side: “Fortune Teller”
Peak Month: March 1962
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #41
YouTube.com: “Fortune Teller
Lyrics: “Fortune Teller

B-side: “Johnny Take Your Time”
Peak Month: May 1962
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Johnny Take Your Time

Bobby Curtola was born in Port Arthur, Ontario, in 1943. (The town would become amalgamated into the city of Thunder Bay in 1970). His cousin Susan Andrusco remembers “Bobby would always be singing at our family gatherings. The family loved him. And he loved being the centre of attention. He would sing Oh My Papa, and my grandpa would cry.” Oh My Papa was a number-one hit for Eddie Fisher in January 1954, when Bobby Curtola was still ten-years-old. In the fall of 1959, sixteen-year-old high school student Bobby Curtola went from pumping gas at his father’s garage in Thunder Bay, Ontario, to the life of a teen idol. Within a year he went from playing in his basement band, Bobby and the Bobcats, to recording his first hit single in 1960, “Hand In Hand With You”, which charted in June ’60 in Ontario, but not in Vancouver.

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Not Like Kissing You by the West End Girls

#13: Not Like Kissing You by the West End Girls

Peak Month: May-June 1991
Peak Position #1
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Not Like Kissing You

Camille Henderson was born in Vancouver, BC, in 1970. From the age of ten she was a working actor in film, stage and TV. At the age of fifteen she starred in the Canadian film directed by Sandy Wilson titled My American Cousin. She played the role of Shirley, a preteen girl. Her father, Bill Henderson, was a member of the Vancouver Sixties band The Collectors. He continued with most of his bandmates as they morphed into Chilliwack in 1970.

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Turn Me Loose by Loverboy

#19: Turn Me Loose by Loverboy

Peak Month: February-March 1981
Peak Position #1 ~ CFUN
21 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
2 weeks Playlist
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #35
YouTube.com: “Turn Me Loose
Lyrics: “Turn Me Loose

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. The group made its live debut opening for Kiss at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver on November 19, 1979.

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Cuts Like A Knife by Bryan Adams

#20: Cuts Like A Knife by Bryan Adams

Peak Month: May and July 1983
Peak Position #2
22 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube.com: “Cuts Like A Knife
Lyrics: “Cuts Like A Knife

Born in Kingston, Ontario, in November 1959, Bryan Adams parents immigrated from the UK in the 1950s. His dad, Captain Conrad J. Adams, was a diplomat in the Canadian foreign service. While growing up his family was posted to Portugal, Austria and Israel. By the age of 15 Adams was playing with the band Sweeney Todd as a frontman.  By the time he turned 17, Bryan Adams had landed work as a background vocalist for the CBC. His first salary came from working for Robbie King, a keyboard musician with Motown. During his senior years in high school he began playing music with his guitarist, Keith Scott.

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Crying Over You by Platinum Blonde

#22: Crying Over You by Platinum Blonde

Peak Month: September 1985
Peak Position #1
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Crying Over You
Lyrics: “Crying Over You

Mark Holmes was born in the UK and lived in Manchester until the family moved to Toronto. He met several other musicians and formed a punk band that played covers to The Police and other new wave bands. After a lineup change, Holmes was playing guitar and the lead vocalist, Chris Steffler was the drummer and Sergio Galli was a second guitarist. Steffler grew up in Wasaga Beach, Ontario, where his parents owned a 12-acre trailer park and campground called Jell-E-Bean Park. He started playing drums in 1972 and also became handy — learning everything from carpentry to plumbing — from his dad and uncle. At the same time he was playing drums in local bands, one being called Sledge. After high school, he worked at the shipyards in Collingwood and then in 1978 he moved to Toronto and started playing in bands. Sergio Galli had been in a band called Mace in 1979. The trio became Platinum Blonde. They got a record deal with CBS in 1983. Their debut album, Standing In The Dark, earned them two Video Of The Year nominations at the 1984 Juno Awards.

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Let Your Backbone Slide by Maestro Fresh Wes

#26: Let Your Backbone Slide by Maestro Fresh Wes

Peak Month: March 1990
Peak Position #1
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube.com: “Let Your Backbone Slide
Lyrics: “Let Your Backbone Slide

Wesley Williams was born in 1968 in Toronto. He grew up in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough. His parents were Guyanese immigrants. From the moment he entered public school, young Wes Williams was very conscious of how exotic he was as the only black child in his classroom. This was, after all, the 1970s. At the age of six, a little girl who was a next door neighbor asked him, “Wes, when are you going to turn white?” Wes Williams was curious about the question. He noticed he was growing taller. So, considering his skin might change, he  asked his dad the question. Williams remembers, “My dad just said, ‘I’m still waiting, boy!'” When he was twelve years old, young Wes Williams heard “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang in 1979. From that day forward Williams had a sense of purpose and vision for himself. Even though there was no such thing at that time as a black rapper in Canada.

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Eyes Of A Stranger by the Payola$

#31: Eyes Of A Stranger by the Payola$

Peak Month: July 1982
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Eyes Of A Stranger
Lyrics: “Eyes Of A Stranger

In 1978 a band was formed in Vancouver by Paul Hyde and Bob Rock called the Payola$. Hyde was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1955, and came to Vancouver in his teens. Bob Rock was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1954, and moved to Victoria, British Columbia, with his family in his later childhood. Rock learned to play guitar. Meeting in the Victoria suburb of Langford, the band settled on a name recalling the American music industry scandal investigated by the US Congress starting in 1959 called Payola. This was an illegal act where record companies paid deejays and radio stations a bribe for playing a single the record company wanted to get promoted. While it was legal for a record company to receive money in exchange for playing it on the radio, such a transaction had to be disclosed and not counted as regular airplay. While the Payola scandal did not spread into the Canadian radio market, as local legendary Vancouver Deejay Red Robinson attests in Robin Brunet’s book Red Robinson: The Last Deejay, Payola still had a bad name in the industry in America into the 80s. Consequently, although the Payola$ sold well in Canada, they met with stiff resistance south of the border.

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There Will Never Be Another Tonight by Bryan Adams

#33: There Will Never Be Another Tonight by Bryan Adams

Peak Month: February 1992
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube.com: “There Will Never Be Another Tonight
Lyrics: “There Will Never Be Another Tonight

Born in Kingston, Ontario, in November 1959, Bryan Adams parents immigrated from the UK in the 1950s. His dad, Captain Conrad J. Adams, was a diplomat in the Canadian foreign service. While growing up his family was posted to Portugal, Austria and Israel. By the age of 15 Adams was playing with the band Sweeney Todd as a frontman.  By the time he turned 17, Bryan Adams had landed work as a background vocalist for the CBC. His first salary came from working for Robbie King, a keyboard musician with Motown. During his senior years in high school he began playing music with his guitarist, Keith Scott.

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Hey You by Bachman Turner Overdrive

#311: Hey You by Bachman Turner Overdrive

Peak Month:  June 1975
12 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #21
YouTube.com: “Hey You
Lyrics: “Hey You

Randolph Charles Bachman was born in 1943 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When he was just three years old he entered the King of the Saddle singing contest on CKY radio, Manitoba’s first radio station that began in 1923. Bachman won the contest. When he turned five years he began to study the violin through the Royal Toronto Conservatory. Though he couldn’t read music, he was able to play anything once he heard it. He dropped out of high school and subsequently a business administration program in college. He co-founded a Winnipeg band called The Silvertones with Chad Allan in 1960. In 1962 the band became Chad Allan and the Expressions, and was renamed The Guess Who? in 1965 with their first big hit, “Shakin’ All Over”. The Guess Who dropped the question mark in their title a few years later.

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