#1083: Right Before Your Eyes by Ian Thomas Band
Peak Month: March 1977
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Right Before Your Eyes”
Lyrics: “Right Before Your Eyes”
In 1950, Ian Thomas was born in Hamilton, Ontario. Once he began to play piano at the age of six Thomas fell in love with the world of music. He later learned the guitar. By 1969 he was in a folk group called Tranquility Base which began to tour across Canada. They had a #3 hit in Hamilton in 1970 called “If You’re Looking”. This led to an album, but further success eluded them. Thomas became a producer at the CBC. By 1973 he got his own record deal with GRT Records and released “Painted Ladies”. The song climbed to #9 in Vancouver and #34 on the Billboard Hot 100. His self-titled album went Gold. Thomas won the 1974 Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist and toured with April Wine. He got exposure on a number of TV variety shows in Canada which included both his musical and comedic talents.Continue reading →
#1366: Monday Morning Choo Choo by The Stampeders
Peak Month: March 1972
7 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Record World ~ #107
YouTube.com: “Monday Morning Choo Choo”
Lyrics: “Monday Morning Choo Choo”
The Stampeders are a rock trio from Calgary named after that city’s football team, The Calgary Stampeders. Although, it could be argued that the yearly Calgary Stampede was also an inspiration for their name. During the band’s most successful chart run from 1968 to 1976, it was made up of guitarist Rich Dodson, bass player Ronnie King (born Cornelius Van Sprang) and drummer Kim Berly (born Kim Meyer). All three provided vocals. Originally, the band was a group of five formed in 1964 called The Rebounds. The Rebounds had five members: Rich Dodson, Len Roemer, Brendan Lyttle, Kim Berly, and Race Holiday. They renamed themselves The Stampeders in 1965 and Len Roemer was replaced with Ronnie King and Van Louis, making them a band of six for a few years. But after a temporary move to Toronto in 1966 the band was down to three members, Dodson, King and Berly by 1968. Between 1967 and 1976 The Stampeders charted 15 singles into the Canadian RPM Top 40.
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#1397: Bound To Fly by 3’s A Crowd
Peak Month: October 1966
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Bound To Fly”
On the Canadian West Coast there was a lot of experimenting with musical styles. Folk, pop and psychedelic rock were merging into a West Coast sound. In 1964, local comedian Brent Titcomb (born 1n Vancouver in 1940) also had vocal skills he was putting to use in small coffee houses. Another comedian with musical talents, Donna Warner (born Edmonton in 1946), was also interested in starting a music group. That August they began to write songs and became a trio when a coffee house audience member and guitarist, Trevor Veitch, became their third member. As part of the hipster scene at the time, the group took on an avant-garde name that was not indicative of who they were. Billed as the Bill Schwartz Quartet, their ironic name caused audience members to wonder what happened to the fourth person in the group, assuming their must be a fourth bandmate since they were billed as a quartet. More puzzling, there was no one named Bill Schwartz in the group. The oddity of their name grew tired fast and they next went by the name to 3’s A Crowd as early as the spring of 1965. In June ’65 the group was on the cover of the TV Times magazine in Vancouver.
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#1394: I Don’t Wanna Forget You by Denise McCann
Peak Month: July 1977
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #18
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “I Don’t Wanna Forget You”
Denise McCann was born in 1948 in Iowa. Albert Hews McCann Sr., her grandfather, was a cornet player and singer in Shreveport, Louisiana. The McCann Family Orchestra included various children of McCann Sr. and one of his brothers who played with touring vaudeville acts between 1910 and 1930. Denise’s family moved to Castro Valley, California, while she was in her youth. During the Summer of Love, Denise moved up to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood where she became a hippie. She got a job with the Magic Mountain Festival on Mount Tamalpais and also at the Monterey Pop Festival. At the festival she became friends with Jimi Hendrix. McCann appears in the D.A. Pennebaker documentary Monterey Pop!
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#1448: There’s Something I Like About That by Chilliwack
Peak Month: June 1974
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “There’s Something I Like About That”
Lyrics: There’s Something I Like About That”
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 with Howie Vickers. After several local hits like “Fisherwoman” and “Lydia Purple” the band disbanded by 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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#1455: Dancer by Ken Tobias
Peak Month: July 1977
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #18
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Dancer”
In 1945 Ken Tobias was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. His family’s home was filled with music and young Ken was featured in a number of tap dancing performances. Though he dreamed of becoming a draftsman, out of high school he and his brother Tony formed the folk group The Ramblers. By the mid-60s Tobias lived in Halifax and was a staple in the roster of performers on CBC TV’s afternoon show, Music Hop. This led to his appearing several years later on Singalong Jubilee with other Canadian music stars Anne Murray, Gene MacLellan.Continue reading →
#1460: Tricia Tell Your Daddy by Andy Kim
Peak Month: May 1969
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #110
YouTube.com link: “Tricia Tell Your Daddy”
Lyrics: “Tricia Tell Your Daddy”
Andy Kim’s father came from Lebanon to Pennsylvania and finally settled in Montreal, where Kim was born in December 1946. Around the age of 15 Andrew Youakimm became fascinated with the music business in New York City. He’d travel from Montreal to the Big Apple by bus or train and try to figure out how to break into the music industry. He bought copies of Billboard Magazine, Cashbox Magazine and other trade papers to see which record companies had hits on the pop charts. Kim recalls in an interview with Entertainment Week, September 21, 1974, “I figured those were the companies I would go to. I went to the A and R department of Paramount Records. I told the receptionist I had a meeting that afternoon but I just came by that morning to see the A and R man. She asked if I had a demo and I said yes. She sent me down a corridor to this man and I said ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what a demo is.’ He asked if I wrote songs or played an instrument. (I said) no. He said what the business involved and I should not trick my way into places.”
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#1449: Cryin’ The Blues by The Seeds of Time
Peak Month: August 1971
6 weeks on CKVN chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Cryin’ The Blues”
The Seeds of Time were a garage rock band formed in 1965 in Vancouver by a number of high school buddies. Co-founder, Gary Wanstall, was nicknamed “Rock.” At the time Norton Motorcyles made a motorcycle model named the Rocket. The newly formed band agreed that extending his nickname from Rock to Rocket, and adding Norton as the surname had a good ring to it. Norton played drums while Frank Brnjak and Bob Kripps played guitar, there was John Hall on organ and Steve Walley on bass. It was Bob Kripps who suggested the band’s name, after several underwhelming ideas had been run up the flagpole. Kripps had been reading a science fiction book by John Wyndham called the Seeds of Time. He proposed the book title be the name of the band and everyone agreed. The band got financing help from the very entrepreneurial Steve Grossman. Grossman was a DJ on CKLG and began his stint on the station under the moniker of Stevie Wonder in the fall of 1966 while he was still in Grade 12 at Kitsilano High School. Those 45 RPM singles and albums were recorded between 1969 and 1971, with Grossman’s help.
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#1365: Oh My Lady by The Stampeders
Peak Month: March 1973
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #115
YouTube.com: “Oh My Lady”
Lyrics: “Oh My Lady”
The Stampeders are a rock trio from Calgary named after that city’s football team, The Calgary Stampeders. Although, it could be argued that the yearly Calgary Stampede was also an inspiration for their name. During the band’s most successful chart run from 1968 to 1976, it was made up of guitarist Rich Dodson, bass player Ronnie King (born Cornelius Van Sprang) and drummer Kim Berly (born Kim Meyer). All three provided vocals. Originally, the band was a group of five formed in 1964 called The Rebounds. The Rebounds had five members: Rich Dodson, Len Roemer, Brendan Lyttle, Kim Berly, and Race Holiday. They renamed themselves The Stampeders in 1965 and Len Roemer was replaced with Ronnie King and Van Louis, making them a band of six for a few years. But after a temporary move to Toronto in 1966 the band was down to three members, Dodson, King and Berly by 1968. Between 1967 and 1976 The Stampeders charted 15 singles into the Canadian RPM Top 40.
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#1442: Lovely Little Lady/Little Miss Twist by The Beau-Marks
Peak Month: January 1962
7 weeks on CKWX chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Lovely Little Lady”
YouTube.com link: “Little Miss Twist”
Originally named the Del Tones when they formed in Montreal in 1958, the groups’ first single, called “Moonlight Party”, climbed to #1 in Montreal in May 1959. However, there were other bands with the same name. The Deltones had a single on Vee-Jay Records that was a minor hit in Chicago. That group had a minor hit in Philadelphia on another label in 1960 called “Strollin’ the Blues”. There was also a band from Australia called the Delltones. To avoid confusion, the Del Tones from Montreal changed their name to the Beau-Marks in 1959 in response to a political controversy. Their new name was a pun on the Bomarc, the worlds first supersonic long-range, anti-aircraft missile, developed by Boeing. The development of the Bomarc missile was accompanied by problems with its propulsion system. In 1958 the Conservative Government, led by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, was faced with two strategies for Canadian air defense. One was to produce the Avro Arrow, a very fast missile at a cost of over 12 Million per aircraft. It was created by the Canadian company, Avro Canada. The other option was to purchase Bomarc missles made by Boeing in Seattle, Washington, for 2 Million. The later missiles would be tipped with nuclear warheads. However, the Conservatives opted eventually not to have nuclear tipped missiles in Canada. With the cancellation of the Avro Arrow, the company lost over 14,000 jobs.
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