#1180: Fading Away by Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers
Peak Month: May 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Fading Away”
Lyrics: “Fading Away”
Born in 1934, Robert Edward Taylor was born and grew up in Washington D.C. From the age of three he began to sing. Taylor told the South China Morning Post in a 2011 interview that he could sing Gregorian chant and still knew it by heart in 2011. His mother was friends with Billie Holiday. The musical connection led the young Bobby Taylor to meet Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Miles Davis, among others, while he was a boy. He graduated from high school at the age of 14. The Ku Klux Klan had weekly meetings on the steps of the Capitol buildings in D.C. This frightened young Bobby Taylor and he enlisted to join the U.S. Army in the Korean War where he thought he’d be safer. Taylor was signed up to be a cook in the Korean War. However, he was assigned to an all-black unit that fought in the war. His commanding officer had told Bobby Taylor, “They’re not going to be able to see you.” At the age of 17 Taylor was discharged by the end of 1951. He relocated to New York City in the early 50s and sang in street corner doo-wop groups. Among the singers he sang with included future members of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers and Little Anthony and the Imperials.
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#1181: Let the Song Last Forever by Dan Hill
Peak Month: July 1978
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
YouTube.com: “Let The Song Last Forever”
Lyrics: “Let The Song Last Forever”
Daniel Grafton Hill IV was born in 1954 in Toronto. He father, Daniel Hill, was a social scientist. Hill’s parents moved to Canada before he was born to live in a less racially charged setting where their interracial marriage would not be met with intolerance. Hill would later write about his parents exit from the USA in his song “McCarthy’s Day.” While young Dan was in his teens he learned the guitar and started to compose songs. When he was just 18 years old he got a songwriting contract with RCA Records. In 1975 Hill released his first album, but it would be his third album, Longer Fuse, that got the attention of deejays and record buyers. His #1 hit single from the album, “Sometimes When We Touch“, was co-written with Barry Mann, of Manhattan’s Brill Building’s songwriting fame. With the song came multiple Junos Awards: Composer, Male Vocalist, and Single of the Year. Hill also was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1978 for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, losing out to Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana“.
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#1188: Hitchhiker by Bobby Curtola
Peak Month: January 1962
10 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Hitchhiker”
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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#1193: Daylight Katy by Gordon Lightfoot
Peak Month: July 1978
7 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Daylight Katy”
Lyrics: “Daylight Katy”
Gordon Lightfoot 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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#1195: What Would I Do Without You by Skylark
Peak Month: September 1972
9 weeks on CKVN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “What Would I Do Without You”
Lyrics: “What Would I Do Without You”
If it hadn’t been for the wooden stage presence of David Foster in Ronnie Hawkin’s band, Skylark might have never come into being. After a concert, Hawkins pulled Foster aside and said ‘Son, you play like Beethoven, but looked like a cadaver on stage, so I’m gonna have to fire your ass.’ Foster, and his wife, BJ Cook, who was a vocalist in Hawkins’ band, moved back to the West Coast. While searching for the next thing, they reconnected with former Hawkin’s bandmate, bassist Steven Pugsley. Cook next got in touch with former bandmates from her previous group, Soul Brothers. Of these, vocalist Donny Gerrard became a core member. Duris Maxwell (ex Little Daddy and the Bachelors, The Chessmen, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers) was added on drums. Later, Carl Graves was chosen as a third singer and percussionist.
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#1196: Gimmie Love by April Wine
Peak Month: July 1976
8 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Gimmie Love”
Lyrics: “Gimmie Love”
April Wine is a Canadian rock band that has released 34 singles, 16 studio albums and 9 live albums. They formed in Waverly, Nova Scotia, in 1969. The founding members were brothers David Henman (guitar) and Ritchie Henman (drums) and Myles Goodwyn (lead vocals, guitar). The Henman brothers cousin Jim Henman was also part of the band, but was replaced by bass player Jim Clench in 1971, a year after the band moved to Montreal. They had a Top Ten hit nationally in Canada in 1972 with “You Could Have Been A Lady”,
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#1202: Sunrise to Sunset by Five Man Electrical Band
Peak Month: September 1969
8 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~did not chart
YouTube.com: “Sunrise to Sunset”
The Five Man Electrical Band was a Canadian mainstream rock band from Ottawa. They had an international hit in 1970 called “Signs”. Their other hits did well in Canada, including “Absolutely Right” and “I’m A Stranger Here”. Prior to 1969 the band was known as the Staccatos.Continue reading →
#1203: It’s Over by Prism
Peak Month: May 1978
8 weeks on CFUN
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ no US chart
YouTube.com: “It’s Over”
Lyrics: “It’s Over”
In 1967 a new rock group appeared on the Vancouver scene called the Seeds of Time. They had several local hits including “My Home Town” and “Crying The Blues”. There were a number of lineup changes, but the bands personnel included drummer Rocket Norton, guitarist Lindsay Mitchell, and bassist Al Harlow. These three reunited after the Seeds of Time disbanded in 1974. After a brief stint as an R&B band called Sunshyne, they became Prism under Lindsay Mitchell’s initiative. In the band were new singer Ron Tabak, bassist Tom Lavin (ex of Denise McCann), keyboardist John Hall, and drummer Rodney Higgs. Higgs was actually a pseudonym for Jim Vallance, the future songwriting partner of Bryan Adams. The band released a self-titled album in 1977 that included two local singles “Take Me To The Kaptin” and “It’s Over”.
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#1204: Drop the Needle by Maestro Fresh Wes
Peak Month: June 1990
3 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~did not chart
YouTube.com: “Drop The Needle”
Lyrics: “Drop The Needle”
Wes Williams was born in Toronto in 1968. In the mid-80s he attended Carleton University in Ottawa and studied Political Science and Law. Deciding to focus on music, Maestro Fresh Wes released the first Canadian hip-hop single to break into the Top 40 in Canada and the USA with “Let Your Backbone Slide”. Williams’ first show in Ottawa affirmed his decision to pursue music full time. About 2,000 people showed up to watch him open for Public Enemy at Astralite, a now-defunct club on St. Laurent Boulevard. For a hip-hop show, it was a huge crowd by Ottawa standards in the late 80s.
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#1402: It’s True by The Eternal Triangle
Peak Month: September 1966
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “It’s True”
Born in Vancouver in 1943, when he was in his teens Tom Northcott was gaining a reputation while making his rounds through the Vancouver coffeehouse circuit in the early ’60s. In particular, he frequented the Kitsilano area, the focal point of the hippie counterculture north of San Francisco. In 1965, Northcott took over from Ronnie Jordan as the frontman for the Vancouver Playboys, already an established BC band that wore identical suits. They were considered one of BC’s top emerging bands, mixing a Beatles look with music stylings of The Ventures. Northcott established one of Vancouver’s first labels, Syndrome Records, which LA execs at Warner were impressed enough with to offer him distribution. While the Playboys toured the country that summer and fall, the label served home to their first single, “Cry Tomorrow”.
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