#15: The Curtains Falling by Vicky Leandros
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: April 1968
Peak Position in Fredericton ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “The Curtains Falling”
Vasiliki Papathanasiou (Greek: Βασιλική Παπαθανασίου) was born in Greece in 1949. She took Vicky Leandros as her stage name. She is a Greek singer living in Germany. Leandros is the daughter of singer, musician and composer Leandros Papathanasiou (also known as Leo Leandros as well as Mario Panas). In 1965, she released a single titled “Messer, Gabel, Schere, Licht” which climbed to #16 in West Germany. In 1967 she achieved worldwide fame after gaining fourth place for the country of Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “L’amour est bleu”, which became a worldwide hit. It reached the Top 20 in Austria and Japan. Her album, L’amour est bleu, was a number-one selling album in 1967 in the French-language market in Quebec. As was the album Le temps des fleurs the following year again in Quebec.
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#65: Autobahn by Kraftwerk
City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: May 1975
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Autobahn”
Lyrics: “Autobahn”
Kraftwerk is a band from Dusseldorf, Germany, formed in 1969. Ralf Hütter was born in 1946 in Krefeld, West Germany. He co-founded the band with Florian Schneider-Esleben. Schneider was born in 1947 in Öhningen, West Germany. In 1967 he was in the band Pissoff. Wolfgang Flür was born in Frankfurt, West Germany, in 1947. He was in a band called The Spirits of Sound in the mid-to-late 69s. He joined Kraftwerk in 1973. Klaus Röder was born in Stuttgart, West Germany, in 1948. He studied violin and piano, then began a study of sound engineering in 1968, later switching to part-time studies in composition and guitar at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. He joined Kraftwerk in 1974. Kraftwerk was part of the emerging krautrock “cosmic music” scene in the early 1970s. This music was comprised of avant-garde, psychedelia, minimalistic rhythms, and electronic music.
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#40: Marble Breaks And Iron Bends by Drafi Deutscher
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: May 1966
Peak Position in Edmonton ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #31
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #80
YouTube: “Marble Breaks And Iron Bends”
Lyrics: “Marble Breaks And Iron Bends”
Drafi Deutscher was born in 1946 in Charlottenburg, in the western zone of Berlin, West Germany. In his youth he began to sing and write songs. At the age of 17 he got his first record deal. And between 1964 and 1966, Deutscher had a string of hits in West Germany. These include a number-one hit in June 1964 titled “Shake Hands”, and a #7 hit on the West German pop chart titled “Keep Smiling”. In 1965 Deutcher returned to the Top Ten in West Germany with a #3 hit titled “Cinderella Baby”. And for three weeks he had a number-one hit in June and July 1965 with the German-language song titled “Heute male ich dein Bild, Cindy-Lou”.
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#1: Major Tom by Peter Schilling
Peak Month: November 1983
Peak Position #1
19 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube.com: “Major Tom”
Lyrics: “Major Tom”
Pierre Michael Schilling was born in 1956 in Stuttgart, West Germany. As a teen, Schilling couldn’t decide on whether to be a soccer player or a singer. But at the age of twenty, in 1976, Schilling released his first single in West Germany titled “Träume sind mehr als nur Illusionen”. A second single was released in West Germany in 1979 titled “Gib her das Ding/Frei sein ist schön”. A third single in 1980 was released as well in West Germany titled “Heut ist was los auf der Autobahn”. A fifth German language release was in late 1982 titled “Major Tom (völlig losgelöst)”. The German-language version climbed to #1 in West Germany on January 31, 1983. It remained in the number-one spot for eight weeks through March 21st. The German-language version by Schilling also topped the pop charts in both Austria and Switzerland in February 1983.
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#314: Rasputin by Boney M
Peak Month: April 1979
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Rasputin”
Lyrics: “Rasputin”
Franz Reuther was born in 1941 in Kirn, Germany, in the Rheinland-Pfalz region bordering France. After graduating from school, he began to work as a cook. But in 1967 he released a single credited to Frank Farian. In 1974 he wrote a song titled “Baby Do You Wanna Bump”. In 1975 the single was released under the pseudonym Boney M. He got Marcia Barrett and Liz Mitchell to sing vocals for the debut Boney M. album. Barrett was born in Saint Catherine Parish in Jamaica in 1948. She moved to England in 1963 with her parents. In the late 60s, Barrett moved to West Germany and sang with Czechoslovakian singer Karel Gott who was known as “the Golden Voice of Prague.” Gott had three Top Ten albums in Germany between 1968 and 1971. Barrett also toured with the band of German singer Rex Gildo. After signing with a West German record label in 1971, Marcia Barrett toured with her German-language covers of “Son Of A Preacher Man” and “Oh Happy Day”.
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#702: Afrikaan Beat by Bert Kaempfert
Peak Month: February 1962
8 weeks on CKWX’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #42
YouTube.com:”Afrikaan Beat”
In 1923, Berthold Heinrich Kaempfert was born in a village suburb of Hamburg, Germany, called Barmbeck. He learned piano, clarinet, accordion and saxophone during his childhood and youth. He had years of private music lessons at Wilhelm Witt’s private music school in Wilhelmsburg. He later studied at Die Musikschule HAMBURG (Hamburg School of Music). Kaempfert’s career began when his mother used a $285 insurance payment to buy a piano. Prior to the outbreak of World War II, while still 15 years of age, Kaempfert was hired to play with Hans Busch and his Orchestra. He was the youngest member of the band. But once Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Kaempfert, along with all able-bodied young men, were drafted into the German military. Kaempfert became a bandsman in the German Navy, initially playing on the Island of Salt on the Wadden Sea. In 1945, Kaempfert formed a band comprised of prisoners-of-war in Denmark. After the war ended, Kaempfert moved back to Hamburg. He was employed at the Esplanade Hotel and his performances were broadcast at the nearby British Forces Network. In 1959 Bert Kaempfert arranged and produced Die Gitarre und das Meer (The guitar and the sea) for Austrian Freddy Quinn. Quinn had recorded a German-language version of Dean Martin’s big hit in 1955, “Memories Are Made of This.” In 1959 Bert Kaempfert arranged and produced Die Gitarre und das Meer was a big seller in Germany in 1959.
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#1010: Da Da Da by Trio
Peak Month: November 1982
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Da Da Da”
Lyrics: “Da Da Da”
Stephan Remmler was born in Witten, Germany, in 1946. Gert Kralle Krawinkel was born in 1947 in Wilhelmshaven. In the late 1960’s the pair were part of a band called Just Us (a.k.a. MacBeats). They played a two-week engagement in the famous Star Club in Hamburg. Just Us split up in 1969 and Remmler and Kralle went separate ways. Kralle formed his own band Cravinkel, which released two albums in the early 70’s. Stephan Remmler recorded two singles under the pseudonym, Rex Carter. In each case they met with commercial failure. During these years Peter Behrens played the drums in a psychedelic rock band called Silberbart and also released one album in 1971. The three guys knew each other. Behrens was the illegitimate son of an American GI, and was put up for adoption by his biological mother. He was adopted by the Behrens family, where he grew up in northern Germany.
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