#904: Christmas Time by Bryan Adams
Peak Month: December 1985-January 1986
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Christmas Time”
Lyrics: “Christmas Time”
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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#908: Lydia Purple by The Collectors
Peak Month: July 1968
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
1 week Hitbound on CKLG
YouTube.com: “Lydia Purple”
Lyrics: “Lydia Purple”
The Vancouver rock band The Collectors, was formerly named The Classics who were a Vancouver group led by Howie Vickers in the mid-60s. The Classics were part of the regular line-up on Let’s Go, a show on CBC TV. Though the Classics released several singles the group needed room to grow and reformed as The Collectors. They would become one of the most innovative of Vancouver’s recording acts through the rest 60s. In the spring of 1967, Vickers was asked to put together a house band at the Torch Cabaret in Vancouver. Along with Claire Lawrence on horns, they recruited guitarist Terry Frewer, drummer Ross Turney and Brian Newcombe on bass. Within a couple of months, fellow Classics member Glenn Miller replaced Newcombe on bass and Bill Henderson, a student at UBC, replaced Frewer on guitars. With Vickers now handling vocals, their sound changed from doing covers of R&B tunes to psychedelic rock. This led them to gigs along the Canadian and US west coast. Their strongest fan base in America was in California. There audiences welcomed their complex arrangements mixed with harmonies and extended solos and musical ad-libs.
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#925: Chinatown Calculation by Doug & The Slugs
Peak Month: November 1980
5 weeks on CKLG Top 20
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
3 weeks Hitbound on CKLG
YouTube.com: “Chinatown Calculation”
Lyrics: “Chinatown Calculation”
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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#926: Flip Flop And Fly by Downchild Blues Band
Peak Month: March 1974
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Flip Flop And Fly”
Lyrics: “Flip Flop And Fly”
The Downchild Blues Band was formed in Toronto in 1969 and continues to perform today. It was co-founded by two brothers, Donnie “Mr. Downchild” Walsh and Richard “Hock” Walsh. The band’s international fame is partially due to three of its songs, the originals “I’ve Got Everything I Need (Almost)” and “Shot Gun Blues”, and its adaptation of “Flip, Flop and Fly”, all from their 1973 album, Straight Up, being featured on the first Blues Brothers album, Briefcase Full of Blues, from 1978. “Flip, Flop And Fly” has been Downchild’s biggest hit single, and became the signature song of Hock Walsh. The band’s musical style is described as being “a spirited, if fundamental, brand of jump-band and Chicago-style blues.” The bands’ name came from the Sonny Boy Williamson II song, “Mr. Downchild”.
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#927: Secret Information by Chilliwack
Peak Month: March 1983
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #110
YouTube.com: “Secret Information”
Lyrics: “Secret Information”
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. After a half dozen local hits including “Fisherwoman” and “Lydia Purple” the Collectors name was ditched in 1970. Henderson (vocals, guitar), Claire Lawrence (saxophone, keyboards), Ross Turney (drums) and Glenn Miller (bass) were all Collectors bandmates. After Howie Vickers left The Collectors, they changed their name to Chilliwack. The name was a Salish First Nations name that means “going back up” and is the name of a city in the Fraser Valley in British Columbia.
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#928: I Don’t Believe In Miracles by C.B. Victoria
Peak Month: October 1976
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “I Don’t Believe In Miracles”
Music critic, Richard Skelly, recalls that C.B. Victoria now goes by the name of Edwin Coppard. On YouTube.com conversation threads someone named Brian Everett Robinson states, “I knew this guy a bit…a vocal teacher and a kinda harmless eccentric dude.” In another post on the YouTube.com thread, C Wade recalls he “took vocal lessons from him. Great guy…. Lived in North Vancouver (and now) in near Victoria, BC.” So the stage name,”C.B. Victoria,” was a sort of word play, turning Victoria, British Columbia, or Victoria B.C., backwards.
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#929: Don’t You Sweetheart Me by Bobby Curtola
Peak Month: July 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
CFUN Twin Pick ~ June 10, 1961
YouTube.com: “Don’t You Sweetheart Me”
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 Ontario, but not in Vancouver. After performing on the Bob Hope Show in 1960, the charismatic teenager, with his handsome boy-next-door looks was quickly finding himself within a whirlwind called “Curtolamania.”
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#930: Me And Bobby McGee by Gordon Lightfoot
Peak Month: August 1970
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #6 on CKVN
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Me And Bobby McGee”
Lyrics: “Me And Bobby McGee”
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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#931: I Wonder What You’re Doin’ by The Foreman Young Band
Peak Month: December 1977
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
The Foreman Young Band was a band from Vancouver. They played venues like Rohan’s Rockpile and, according to local music critic, Richard Skelly, Gary Taylor’s Show Lounge near the Georgia Hotel in downtown Vancouver. The band was fronted by Al Foreman on keyboards, harmonica and backing vocals, who was backed by bass player Laurence Knight, Mike Young on guitar and vocals, lead guitar player Steve Cross and drummers Bill MacBeth and Freddie Gallant.
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#934: The Farmer’s Song by Murray McLauchlan
Peak Month: June 1973
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “The Farmer’s Song”
Lyrics: “The Farmer’s Song”
Murray Edward McLauchlan was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, in 1948. is a Canadian singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and harmonica player. He immigrated to Canada with his family when he was five years old. Near the end of high school he picked up the guitar and began to write songs. When he turned seventeen he started to appear at coffeehouses in Toronto’s Yorkville neighborhood. Out of high school he took classes in Fine Arts at Central Tech prior to choosing to give his full attention to music. One thing led to another and he found himself at The Philadelphia Folk Festival, sharing the stage with Jim Croce and John Prine. When McLaughlan appeared at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto, according to his bio on True North Records, “he gave up half of his concert time so Joni Mitchell could play.” Opportunities kept opening up and he played at venues like The Riverboat in Toronto, The Bitter End in New York, The Main Point in Philadelphia and the Earl of Old Town in Chicago. He spent some time living in New York City to advance his career, but there were few breaks.
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