#138: Contact by Platinum Blonde
Peak Month: November 1987
13 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Contact”
Lyrics: “Contact”
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. 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. But it was their second album, Alien Shores, which included “Crying Over You”, a #1 single on the Canadian RPM charts in 1985, and in Vancouver.
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#147: The Blamers by Les Vogt
Peak Month: August 1960
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
1 week Future ‘FUN Favorites
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “The Blamers”
Les Vogt was the lead singer for the premier local rock n’ roll band in Vancouver called The Prowlers. As described in his bio, he writes “I was a tall, shy kid that became interested in music at the age of 13 when my older brother (Ed) took me to a few “live” concerts… Louis Armstrong and Wilf Carter were the most memorable. After seeing a Wilf Carter concert in 1951, I took my older brother’s hand-me-down guitar and learned to play and yodel in the confines of my bedroom.” At the time, Vogt was a Grade Eight student at John Oliver High School. By 1953, Vogt became part of the Fraserview Drifters, along with his friend Larry Tillyer (guitar), Laurie Bader (drums), Eric Olsen (accordion) and for awhile Wayne Dinwoodie (fiddle). As country music was the only alternate to the big band sound, the Fraserview Drifters played covers of Eddy Arnold, Hank Thompson, Marty Robbins, Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine and others. By 1954, the set shifted to covers of “Sh-Boom” by the Crew Cuts, “Three Coins In The Fountain” by the Four Lads, and other pop tunes. By 1956, a guitar player from Nova Scotia, Fred Bennett, had moved to Vancouver. And he joined the band.
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#150: Everything In My Heart by Corey Hart
Peak Month: December 1985
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube.com: “Everything In My Heart”
Lyrics: “Everything In My Heart”
Corey Hart was born in 1962 in Montreal, Quebec. He is best known for his international Top Ten hits “Sunglasses at Night” (#7 Billboard Hot 100) and “Never Surrender” (#3 Billboard Hot 100). Hart is known as one of Canada’s most successful singer-songwriters. He’s sold over 16 million records worldwide. On the Billboard Hot 100 Hart scored 9 consecutive Top 40 Hits. Back in Canada he succeeded in charting 30 top 40 singles (including 11 Top 10 singles during his career). Hart is a Grammy Nominated, ASCAP & multiple Juno and ADISQ award winner. He has also written and produced several songs for fellow Quebec recording star Celine Dion.
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#152: Share The Land/Bus Rider by the Guess Who
A-side: “Share The Land”
Peak Month: November 1970
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #10
YouTube.com: “Share The Land”
Lyrics: “Share The Land”
B-side: “Bus Rider”
Peak Month: November 1970
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Bus Rider”
Lyrics: “Bus Rider”
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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#153: Round Round We Go by Trooper
Peak Month: November 1978
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Round Round We Go”
Lyrics: “Round Round We Go”
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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#154: Oh What A Feeling by Crowbar
Peak Month: April 1971
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #1 ~ CKLG
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Oh What A Feeling”
Lyrics: “Oh What A Feeling”
Crowbar’s roots go back to the beginning of Roly Greenway’s career. In 1942 Roly Greenway was born in Guelph, Ontario. By the time he was sixteen in 1958, he had learned to play bass guitar. That year he joined a Guelph-based band called The Centurys. In 1962 he was a member of Joe Pino & The Starlites, then The Ascots in 1963. While he was in the Ascots, Greenway met guitarist Rhéal Lanthier. Born in 1939 in the foothills of the Laurentians in scenic Buckingham, Quebec, Rhéal Lanthier was nicknamed “The Frenchman.” In 1964-65, Greenway and Lanthier played the Las Vegas lounge circuit for a couple of years, backing stars like Liberace and Zsa Zsa Gabor. They came back to Canada in 1966, and Greenway joined Bobby Curtola‘s touring band.
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#165: Indian Giver by Bobby Curtola
Peak Month: June-July 1963
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Indian Giver”
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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#167: Beyond The Clouds by the Poppy Family
Peak Month: November 1968
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Beyond The Clouds”
Lyrics: “Beyond The Clouds”
Susan Pesklevits was born in 1948 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. When she was seven years old she was a featured singer on a local radio station. At the age of eight her family moved to the Fraser Valley town of Haney, British Columbia. When she was 13 years old she had her own radio show. In a December 1966 issue of the Caribou newspaper, the Quesnel Observer noted that Susan Pesklevits had auditioned for Music Hop in the summer of 1963 when she was only 15 years old. She had her first public performance at the Fall Fair in Haney when she was just 14 years old. It was noted she liked to ride horseback, ride motorcycles and attend the dramatic shows. Asked about what she could tell the folks in Quesnel about trends in Vancouver, Pesklevits had this to report, “the latest things in Vancouver are the hipster mini-skirts, bright colored suit slacks, and the tailored look. The newest sound is the “Acid Sound,” derived from L.S.D…. it is “pshodelic” which means it has a lot of fuzz tones and feed back. As an example, she gave “Frustration” recorded by the Painted Ship” a local band from Vancouver. Pesklevits added that on the West Coast “the latest dance is the Philly Dog. It mainly consists of two rows, one of girls and one of boys. The idea is to take steps, move in unison, while doing jerking motions and using a lot of hand movement.”
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#169: No Regrets by Tom Cochrane
Peak Month: February 1992
18 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “No Regrets”
Lyrics: “No Regrets”
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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#171: Everybody Knows Matilda by Duke Baxter
Peak Month: September 1969
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
2 weeks Hit Bound
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #52
YouTube.com: “Everybody Knows Matilda”
Lyrics: “Everybody Knows Matilda”
Who was Duke Baxter? According to Rate Your Music, he was born in the UK, and moved to Canada in his early childhood. West Coast Fog writer, Erik Bluhm writes that Duke Baxter was a “Canadian, he was in L.A. by ’66 and working with the Rob Roys on their great “Do You Girl?” 45 for Accent… He’s also the guy behind a group called Revelation.” Bluhm contacted Duke Baxter (born James Blake), who remembers Revelation being a tight, inventive group. “We played some concerts at the Hollywood Palladium with the Seeds and the Grateful Dead; UC Irvine with Canned Heat and the Buffalo Springfield (January 26, 1967 at Campus Hall)… The band got signed with MGM Records and worked with the very successful TV theme producer Mike Post who was a protégé of Jimmy Bowen of the Dean Martin hit fame.”
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