#60: Russians by Sting
City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: March 1986
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #8
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #22
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on French Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #7
Peak Position on Dutch Singles chart ~ #7
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #11
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #11
Peak Position in UK Singles chart ~ #12
Peak Position on Swiss Singles chart ~ #13
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #16
YouTube: “Russians”
Lyrics: “Russians”
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was born in Wallsend on Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, England, in 1951. His mother was a hairdresser and his father was a milkman and engineer. When he was ten-years-old, young Sumner got introduced to Spanish guitar, when a family friend left it at the Sumner residence. After high school he was variously a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer. He went to college and from 1974-76 was a public school teacher. Sumner performed jazz in the evening, weekends and during breaks from college and teaching, playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname, “Sting,” due to his habit of wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought Sumner looked like a bee which prompted the name “Sting.” According to Sting, in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, “they thought I looked like a wasp, and they’d joke. They called me Sting. They thought it was hilarious…That became my name.”
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#23: Pretty Flamingo by Manfred Mann
City: Regina, SK
Radio Station: CJME
Peak Month: August 1966
Peak Position in Regina ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Rhodesian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Norwegian Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #6
YouTube: “Pretty Flamingo”
Lyrics: “Pretty Flamingo”
Manfred Sepse Lubowitz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1940. Raised in a Jewish family, Manfred studied music at the University of the Witwatersrand, and formed a rock ‘n roll band called The Vikings in 1959. Lubowitz was against the South African system of Apartheid, first introduced in 1948, and becoming entrenched and expanded under the leadership of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. So Manfred Lubowitz moved to Britain. He began to write for Jazz News under the pseudonym, Manfred Manne. In time he shortened his adopted surname to Mann. In 1962 he met Mike Hugg at a holiday camp at Clacton-on-Sea. (Mike Hugg was born in Hampshire, England, in 1940, and had studied jazz growing up). They decided to start a band and named it the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers. They added Paul Jones and Tom McGuiness to the band, the latter who was with Eric Clapton’s band The Roosters.
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#26: Tenderness by General Public
City: Regina, SK
Radio Station: CJME
Peak Month: January-February 1985
Peak Position in Regina ~ #3
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube: “Tenderness”
Lyrics: “Tenderness”
General Public was a new wave band formed in 1983 in Birmingham, UK. It was co-founded by Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger. Wakeling was born in Birmingham in 1956. He learned how to play guitar and formed a second-wave ska band in Birmingham in 1978 called The Beat. They successfully covered Smokey Robinson & The Miracles 1970 hit “Tears of A Clown” which reached #6 on the UK singles chart in 1979. In 1980, “Hands Off…She’s Mine” topped the pop chart in Ireland. This was followed by “Mirror In the Bathroom” which was a Top Ten hit in both Ireland and the UK. In 1983, The Beat covered Andy Williams 1963 hit “Can’t Get Used To Losing You”. It became a Top Ten hit in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK.
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#8: I Don’t Need No Doctor by Humble Pie
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJOE
Peak Month: December 1971
Peak Position in London ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
YouTube: “I Don’t Need No Doctor”
Lyrics: “I Don’t Need No Doctor”
Humble Pie was a band formed in Moreton, Essex, England, in 1969. The co-founders of the band were Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott. Frampton was born in 1950 in Beckenham, Kent. By the age of 12, Frampton played in a band called the Little Ravens. Both he and David Bowie, who was three years older, were pupils at BromleyTechnical School, where Frampton’s father was Bowie’s art teacher. The Little Ravens played on the same bill at school as Bowie’s band, George and the Dragons. Peter and David would spend lunch breaks together, playing Buddy Holly songs. At the age of 14, Peter was playing with a band called the Trubeats followed by a band called the Preachers, who later became Moon’s Train, produced and managed by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones. Frampton became a successful child singer, and in 1966 he became a member of the Herd. He was the lead guitarist and singer, scoring several British pop hits. Frampton was named “The Face of 1968” by teen magazine Rave.
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#32: Gimme Some Lovin’ by Traffic
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJOE
Peak Month: December 1971
Peak Position in London ~ #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68
YouTube: “Gimme Some Lovin’”
Lyrics: “Gimme Some Lovin’”
Stephen Lawrence Winwood was born in 1948 in suburban Birmingham, UK. Winwood began playing piano from the age of four, being raised in a musical family. He joined a boys choir and added drums and guitar to his repertoire. At age 14 he joined The Spencer Davis Group in 1963, with his older brother Muff. Both Stevie and Muff were playing at the Golden Eagle club as the Muff Woody Jazz Band, when Spencer Davis heard them and immediately approached them about forming a new band, the Spencer Davis Group.
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#20: Your Move by Yes
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJOE
Peak Month: December 1971
Peak Position in London ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube: “Your Move”
Lyrics: “Your Move”
Yes is a band formed in the UK in 1968. The founding members comprised of Jon Anderson on lead and backing vocals, and percussion. He was born in Lancashire, England, in 1944. Chris Squire was born in London, England, and born in 1948. He was on bass guitar, backing and lead vocals. Bill Bruford was born in Kent, England, in 1949, and played on drums and percussion. On organ, piano and keyboards was Tony Kaye, born in 1946, from Leicester, England. A few other members who started with the band soon left. The band released the self-titled Yes album in 1969. It received positive reviews and was followed by Time and a Word in 1970. After the album, Peter Banks left the band and was replaced by guitarist Steve Howe, who was born in London in 1947.
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#1277: Till The End of The Day by The Kinks
Peak Month: May 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube: “Till the End of the Day”
Lyrics: “Till the End of the Day”
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in 1963 in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray Davies and Dave Davies, Mick Avory, and Pete Quaife. Ray Davies was born in 1944 in London. He received a Spanish guitar for his 13th birthday. At the age of 18 he was a member of the Dave Hunt Rhythm & Blues Band, and also fronted the Ray Davies Quartet. Davies then joined the Hamilton King Band until June 1963. Dave Davies was born in London in 1947. He learned to play skiffle music, and later electric guitar. Peter Quaife was born in 1943 in Devon. He learned bass guitar in his teens and formed the Ravens with Ray and Dave Davies in 1963. Continue reading →
#9: I’m Into Something Good by Herman’s Hermits
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: November 1964
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #13
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart #5
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #7
YouTube: “I’m Into Something Good”
Lyrics: “I’m Into Something Good”
Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone was born in a suburb of Manchester, England, in 1947. Keith Hopwood was born in 1946, in the same suburb of Davyhulme. Karl Anthony Green was born in 1947, also in Davyhulme. Derek “Lek” Leckenby was born in Leeds in 1943. Jan Barry Whitwam was born in 1946 in Manchester. Both Leckenby and Whitwam were members of a band called the Wailers who played covers by Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and other early rock recording artists. Peter Noone originally was in an amateur band called the Cyclones. He moved on to the Heartbeats in 1961, a Buddy Holly cover band. Just after he turned 14, Noone debuted on Coronation Street, playing the role of Stanley Fairclough starting in December 1961. In the fall of 1962 Herman’s Hermits was formed. Peter Noone was the lead vocalist. Karl Green played bass guitar. Keith Hopwood played rhythm guitar. “Lek” Leckenby played lead guitar and Barry Whitwam played drums.
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#12: I Love To Love by Tina Charles
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: July 1976
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on French Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Norwegian Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #5
YouTube: “I Love To Love”
Lyrics: “I Love To Love”
Tina Charles was born Tina Hoskins in London, England, in 1954. By the age of 14, in 1969, she was working as a session singer. When Hoskins was taken to CBS Records, that year she released her first non-album single titled “Nothing in the World” with a then obscure piano player in the studio named Reginald Dwight (who was soon took the stage name Elton John). During the early 1970s, she supplied vocals for the Top of the Pops album series of cover versions of contemporary hits. In 1971, she made appearances in the first series of The Two Ronnies, the BBC1 sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, performing “River Deep – Mountain High”, “Ruby Tuesday” and other pop hits. Starting in the 70s, Tina Charles provided vocals and spoken word on a variety of TV commercials. These include Crosse & Blackwell, Vauxhall, Interflora and others.
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#26: Don’t Go Out Into The Rain (You’re Going To Melt) by Herman’s Hermits
City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
YouTube: “Don’t Go Out Into the Rain”
Lyrics: “Don’t Go Out Into the Rain”
Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone was born in a suburb of Manchester, England, in 1947. Keith Hopwood was born in 1946, in the same suburb of Davyhulme. Karl Anthony Green was born in 1947, also in Davyhulme. Derek “Lek” Leckenby was born in Leeds in 1943. Jan Barry Whitwam was born in 1946 in Manchester. Both Leckenby and Whitwam were members of a band called the Wailers who played covers by Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and other early rock recording artists. Peter Noone originally was in an amateur band called the Cyclones. He moved on to the Heartbeats in 1961, a Buddy Holly cover band. Just after he turned 14, Noone debuted on Coronation Street, playing the role of Stanley Fairclough starting in December 1961. In the fall of 1962 Herman’s Hermits was formed. Peter Noone was the lead vocalist. Karl Green played bass guitar. Keith Hopwood played rhythm guitar. “Lek” Leckenby played lead guitar and Barry Whitwam played drums.
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