#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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#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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#475: California Girl by Chilliwack

Peak Month: December 1976
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “California Girl”
Lyrics: “California Girl”

Bill Henderson was born in Vancouver in 1944. He learned guitar and became the guitarist for the Panarama Trio that performed at the Panarama Roof dance club on the 15th Floor of the Hotel Vancouver. He formed the psychedelic pop-rock Vancouver band, The Collectors, in 1966.

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#482: Deep Enough For Me by Ocean

Peak Month: July 1971
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
YouTube.com: “Deep Enough For Me”
Lyrics: “Deep Enough For Me”

Dave Tamblyn and Greg Brown were high school friends in London, Ontario. Dave played guitar and Greg played keyboards. They played gigs on the weekends with a variety of bands. In time they added singer Janice Morgan and became Leather and Lace. From London, they relocated to Toronto and performed in the hipster scene in trendy Yorkville. They added to their number bass player Jeff Jones and drummer Chuck Slater. In 1970 Yorkville Records was able to get Capitol Records to be the distributor for Ocean. Their debut single, “Put Your Hand In The Hand” went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 in Vancouver. The song had been recorded as a track by Anne Murray on one of her albums a few years prior. Ocean quickly went from playing gigs at high schools and night clubs in Toronto to doing concerts across North America and Europe, as well as starring on the A list of pop music TV shows.

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#488: Fly Across The Sea by Edward Bear

Peak Month: January 1972
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Fly Across The Sea”
Lyrics: “Fly Across The Sea”

In the mid-60’s Larry Evoy and Paul Weldon were jamming in basements and experimenting with blues rock tunes. In 1966 bass player Craig Hemmings and drummer Dave Brown formed a band with Evoy and Weldon. They got guitarist Danny Marks to join them after he answered an ad. (Marks left the band in 1970 and was replaced by Roger Ellis). After a year they settled on the name The Edward Bear Revue. They got the name from A.A. Milne’s children’s book, Winnie The Pooh, whose central character has the proper name of Edward Bear. In time the band shortened their name to Edward Bear. The band originally was a blues and rock band and opened in 1968 for a Toronto concert with Led Zeppelin as the headliner.

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#713: Rock And Roll Song by Valdy

Peak Month: September 1972
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Rock And Roll Song”
Lyrics: “Rock And Roll Song”

Paul Valdemar Horsdal was born in Ottawa in 1945. Valdy was a member of the London Town Criers during the 1960s and subsequently joined Montreal band The Prodigal Sons. Prior to beginning his solo career, he was based in Victoria. There he  worked with various artists, including Canadian country music singer Blake Emmons. Emmons was the host of CTV show Funny Farm (Canada’s answer to the CBS TV show Hee Haw).

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Peak Month: August 1974
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Shang-A-Lang”
Lyrics: “Shang-A-Lang”

Tinker’s Moon was a band from Montreal. Discogs.com comments that they were a session band from Montreal in the 1960s and 70s. Who they played for as session musicians isn’t detailed, at least from my internet search. There was an article about them on jam.canoe website. But an article search only resulted in an Error 404 message. By 1974 this band of session musicians decided to cut a few recordings, and they were apparently performing – presumably in the Montreal area. This included in their set some Top Ten hits on the UK charts that weren’t making it across the Atlantic.

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#499: Talking In Your Sleep by Gordon Lightfoot

Peak Month: July 1971
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #64
YouTube.com: “Talking In Your Sleep”
Lyrics: “Talking In Your Sleep”

Gordon Meridith Lightfoot Jr. was born in Orillia, Ontario, on November 17, 1938. His parents, Jessica and Gordon Lightfoot Sr., ran a dry cleaning business. His mother noticed young Gordon had some musical talent and the boy soprano first performed in grade four at his elementary school. He sang the Irish lullaby “Too Ra Loo Rah Loo Rah” at a parents’ day. As a member of the St. Paul’s United Church choir in Orillia, Lightfoot gained skill and needed confidence in his vocal abilities under the choir director, Ray Williams. Lightfoot went on to perform at Toronto’s Massey Hall at the age of twelve when he won a competition for boys who were still boy sopranos. During his teen years Gordon Lightfoot learned to play piano, drums and guitar.

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#514: What’s Causing This Sensation by the Chessmen

Peak Month: May 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “What’s Causing This Sensation”

In 1959 Guy Sobell became a member of a Vancouver band called The Ken Clark Trio. They drew inspiration from The Shadows, The Beatles and Sweden’s instrumental group the Spotnicks. For the first few years the trio subsisted by playing at frat parties at the University of British Columbia. In 1962 Sobell decided to form a new band. Among the musicians responding to an ad was Terry Jacks, who was 17 years old and studying architecture and a member of a band called The Sand Dwellers. Jacks band had released a single called “Build Your Castle Higher”. Written along with bandmade John Crowe, it was Jacks’ first recording. It was covered by Jerry Cole and His Spacemen as a track on their debut album, Outer Limits. The track was retitled “Midnight Surfer” and Jerry Cole went on to be part of Phil Spector’s group of now legendary session musicians called the Wrecking Crew who played on over 40 #1 hits in the USA. Prior to His Spacemen band, Jerry Cole was a member of the instrumental group The Champs who had a #1 hit in 1958 called “Tequila”. I don’t know if The Sand Dwellers got any royalties from Jerry Cole and His Spacemen.

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#525: Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, by Alan Schick

Peak Month: May 1974
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy”

Alan Schick was born around 1949. He was a one-hit-wonder on the Vancouver (BC) pop charts in the summer of 1974. In 1969 Alan Schick replaced Joey Gregorash in the Manitoba band, the Mongrels. They were managed by Lorne Saifer – who presently manages Burton Cummings. Schick wrote both sides of a 1969 single release: “Do You Know Your Mother?” and “Heartaches”. Alan Schick also penned the bands’ next single release in 1970, “Ivy In Her Eyes”. Saifer got the group a contract w/RCA and later took the group to Chicago to record an album produced by Randy Bachman. The results were less than spectacular; the album was never released and the Mongrels were done.

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