#45: Roxy Roller by Sweeney Todd
Peak Month: April 1976
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #90
YouTube.com: “Roxy Roller”
Lyrics: “Roxy Roller”
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 stage play of the same name by Stephen Sondheim.
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#49: Roll On Down The Highway by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Peak Month: March 1975
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube.com: “Roll On Down The Highway”
Lyrics: “Roll On Down The Highway”
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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#64: One Tin Soldier by the Original Caste
Peak Month: December 1969/August 1973
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #34
YouTube.com: “One Tin Soldier”
Lyrics: “One Tin Soldier”
The Original Caste were a band from Calgary, Alberta, that formed in 1966. The band’s leader was Bruce Innes. He was born in Calgary (AB) in 1943. He was playing professionally at the age of eleven, supported by his musical father who had lots of connections in the city. At the University of Montana, in Missoula (MT), Innes sang with the Big Sky Singers. After college, he accompanied civil rights activist, blues and folk singer Josh White on a tour that ended in New York City. Josh White had a promising career and had toured with Eleanor Roosevelt to Europe in 1950. But he returned home from the tour to be interrogated as a suspected communist, having made it on a “Red” list of subversives during the McCarthy hysteria. White was blacklisted and his career suffered. But by 1963-64, a new wind was blowing across America, and Bruce Innes was grateful to be able to accompany Josh White on guitar. They toured all the way to New York City.
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#51: Tears Are Not Enough by Northern Lights
Peak Month: April-May 1985
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Tears Are Not Enough”
Lyrics: “Tears Are Not Enough”
Northern Lights is the name given to the ensemble of Canadian pop music performers who recorded a charity single in 1985 to raise funds in response to the famine in Ethiopia. The single, “Tears Are Not Enough”, featured solo vocals by Gordon Lightfoot, Burton Cummings, Anne Murray, Joni Mitchell, Dan Hill, Neil Young, Bryan Adams, Corey Hart, Bruce Cockburn, lead singer with Rush – Geddy Lee, and lead singer with Loverboy – Mike Reno. In addition, the following recording artists appeared singing on the recording in duos or trios: Mike Reno and Liberty Silver; Carroll Baker with Ronnie Hawkins and Murray McLauchlan; Francophone singers Véronique Béliveau, Robert Charlebois and Claude Dubois; Alfie Zappacosta and Lisa Dal Bello; Carol Pope and Paul Hyde, Salome Bey with Platinum Blonde lead singer Mark Holmes and the Parachute Clubs’ Lorraine Segato.
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#58: 3 Dressed Up As A 9 by Trooper
Peak Month: November-December 1979
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “3 Dressed Up As A 9”
Lyrics: “3 Dressed Up As A 9”
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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#70: Under My Thumb by Streetheart
Peak Month: January 1980
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #2 ~ CKLG
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Under My Thumb”
Lyrics: “Under My Thumb”
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 Sheilds 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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#77: Black Cars by Gino Vannelli
Peak Month: June 1985
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #42
YouTube.com: “Black Cars”
Lyrics: “Black Cars”
Gino Vannelli was born in Montreal in 1952. During his childhood he was exposed to jazz music and cabaret. His father was a cabaret singer and his mother had a good ear for music. Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Ed Thigpen were among the drummers that inspired young Gino. At the age of eleven, Gino was one of a group of elementary school-age drummers trying to audition for a Montreal band named The Cobras. He arrived home from school later than usual to announce he had been picked to be the new drummer for the band after impressing them with his rendition of “Wipeout”. In 1964, five years prior to the Jackson 5’s debut hit “I Want You Back” on Motown, Gino Vannelli happened to join a band in Montreal called the Jacksonville Five. And that Montreal band happened to tailor itself to Motown-sound-alike tunes when The Supremes, The Miracles, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder and Mary Wells were all topping the charts. By 1966, Gino Vannelli became the lead singer of the Jacksonville Five when he replaced the current lead singer who couldn’t hit the high notes on Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual”. He was fourteen.
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#84: Here Comes The Night by Nick Gilder
Peak Month: December 1978
18 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Survey
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube.com: “Here Comes The Night”
Lyrics: “Here Comes The Night”
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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#86: His Girl by the Guess Who?
Peak Month: August 1967
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “His Girl”
Lyrics: “His Girl”
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 Al & The Silvertones with Chad Allan in 1960.
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#87: Gonna Find Me A Bluebird by Joyce Hahn
Peak Month: August 1957
24 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #84
YouTube.com: “Gonna Find Me A Bluebird”
Lyrics: “Gonna Find Me A Bluebird”
Joyce Hahn was born in 1929 in Eatonia, Saskatchewan. As a child, Hahn performed from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s with The Harmony Kids, a family troupe formed by her father, Harvey. The Harmony Kids also included her brothers Bob and Lloyd and sister Kay. headed eastward across Canada from frontier Saskatchewan to the bright lights of Broadway during the Great Depression. Their resourceful father Harvey had schooled them all in music and had built a customized trailer to transport the family across the country making pass-the-hat appearances along the way at clubs, barns and radio stations, where a youthful but enterprising Robert Hahn would often offer to write them a station ID for a small fee. The Harmony Kids ended up in New York, where they appeared on the popular radio network show, We the People. As their popularity grew, the war interceded and they headed back to Canada.
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