#116: The Next Time by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: September 1963
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #99
YouTube.com: “The Next Time”
Lyrics: “The Next Time”
Cliff Richard was born Harry Roger Webb on October 14, 1940, in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1940 Lucknow was part of the British Raj, as India was not yet an independent country. Webb’s father worked on as a catering manager for the Indian Railways. His mother raised Harry and his three sisters. In 1948, when India had become independent, the Webb family took a boat to Essex, England, and began a new chapter. At the age of 16 Harry Webb was given a guitar by his father. Harry then formed a vocal group called the Quintones. Webb was interested in skiffle music, a type of jug band music, popularized by “The King of Skiffle,” Scottish singer Lonnie Donegan who had an international hit in 1955 called “Rock Island Line”.
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#120: Son Of A Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield
Peak Month: January 1969
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #10
YouTube.com: “Son Of A Preacher Man”
Lyrics: “Son Of A Preacher Man”
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born in West Hampstead in north London, in 1939. Along with her oldest brother, Dion, she recorded her first tape of a song they sang while still children. Her dad was an unhappy accountant who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but never became one. While Mary’s mother, according to the Karen Bartlett autobiography, Dusty: An Intimate Portrait, “was continuously drunk and sat all day in cinemas.”As she grew up, Mary went to school at a Roman Catholic Convent. At the age of 18 she became a member of a female group named the Lana Sisters. The group sang backup to pop singer Al Saxton who had several Top 30 hits in the late 50’s in the UK, including a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Only Sixteen” and “You’re The Top Cha.” While Saxton enjoyed his moments of fame, Mary teamed up with her brother, Dion, and a friend of theirs named Tim Field. By the end of 1959 she had taken the stage name of Dusty Springfield. The trio, now known as The Springfields, got a record deal with Philips Records in 1961.
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#127: Fields Of Gold by Sting
Peak Month: August 1993
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
Year-End Peak – 1993 – on Billboard ~#87
YouTube.com: “Fields Of Gold”
Lyrics: “Fields Of Gold”
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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#129: Blow Away by George Harrison
Peak Month: June 1979
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube.com: “Blow Away”
Lyrics: “Blow Away”
George Harrison was born in Liverpool in 1943. Harrison remembers cycling past a home in his neighborhood that was playing “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley. The encounter with the song got him hooked on rock ‘n roll. He subsequently was influenced by Little Richard and Buddy Holly. Harrison’s father bought him his first guitar in 1956 when Harrison was 13 years old. After Paul McCartney joined John Lennon’s group, the Quarymen, McCartney suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. They changed their name to the Silver Beatles and then the Beatles in the spring of 1960. They group headed to Hamburg, Germany, on August 17, 1960, for a three-and-a-half month stint. In early 1961 the Beatles returned for more engagements in Germany. On June 22, 1961, Bert Kaempfert produced “My Bonnie”, “Ain’t She Sweet” and eight other songs. Later in 1961, “My Bonnie” climbed to #4 on the Hamburg pop charts and #32 on the German pop charts.
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#130: Don’t Stand So Close To Me by the Police
Peak Month: December 1980
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #10
Peak 1981 Year-End Position on Billboard ~ #71
YouTube.com: “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”
Lyrics: “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”
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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#135: Looking For Clues by Robert Palmer
Peak Month: January 1981
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
2 weeks Playlist
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #105
YouTube.com: “Looking For Clues”
Lyrics: “Looking For Clues”
Robert Allen Palmer was born in the market town of Batley, in West Yorkshire, about 9 miles southwest of Leeds, England. Palmer’s father was a British naval intelligence officer stationed in Malta. Growing up Palmer heard jazz, blues and soul music on American Forces Radio. At the age of 15, Robert Palmer joined a band called the Mandrakes. At the age of 20 he was invited to be a backing vocalist for a single by The Alan Bown Set in 1969 titled “Gypsy Girl”. In 1970 he joined a 12-piece-jazz fusion group named Dada that included Elkie Brooks. In 1971 Palmer, Brooks and her husband guitarist Peter Gage, formed a band called Vinegar Joe. Dada once opened for Jimi Hendrix, and Vinegar Joe once opened a concert for The Who. After they disbanded in 1974, Brooks went on to have a number of Top Ten hits on the UK singles chart including “Pearl’s a Singer”, “Sunshine After the Rain”, and “No More the Fool”.
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#136: Money by the Flying Lizards
Peak Month: February 1980
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube.com: “Money”
Lyrics: “Money”
David Cunningham was born in Armagh, Northern Ireland, in 1954. From 1973 to 1977, Cunningham attended the Maidstone College of Art in Kent, England. Deborah Evans-Stickland was born in the 1950s and went to art school. She joined the Flying Lizards in 1976. David Toop was born in 1949 in suburban London. He studied at the Hornsby College of Art. He became involved with the London Musicians Collective. In 1975 he recorded New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments. Steve Beresford was born in 1950 in Shropshire, England. Beresford joined the Portsmouth Sinfonia in the 70s. While the Flying Lizards were a recording act, Beresford and Toop were also part of a band called Alterations. Michael Upton was born in 1938 in Birmingham, England, and studied at the Birmingham College of Art in the mid-50s. Vivien Goldman was born in 1952 in London. She began her career as a journalist for Cassettes and Cartridges in the early 70s. Next, she was hired as a PR officer for Atlantic Records, and subsequently for Island Records, where she worked with Bob Marley. She was a writer and editor for London-based Sounds magazine in the late 1970s, at the time she joined the Flying Lizards. Julian Marshall British singer, songwriter, and keyboard player, who was one half of the duo Marshall Hain.
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#140: Bad Boy by Marty Wilde
Peak Month: March 1960
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube: “Bad Boy”
Lyrics: “Bad Boy”
Reginald Leonard Smith was born in 1939 in Greater London. He was performing under the name Reg Patterson at London’s Condor Club in 1957, when he was spotted by impresario Larry Parnes. Parnes gave his protégés stage names like Billy Fury, Duffy Power and Dickie Pride, hence the change to Wilde. The ‘Marty’ came from the 1955 Academy Award winning Best Picture, Marty. Wilde gave an audition of the Jimmy Rodgers hit “Honeycomb”, and got a record contract on the spot. Both “Honeycomb” and Wilde’s cover of “Oh-Oh I’m Falling In Love Again” got airplay in the UK, but didn’t crack the pop chart.
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#142: Act Naturally by the Beatles
Peak Month: September-October 1965
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #47
YouTube: “Act Naturally”
Lyrics: “Act Naturally”
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. He attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and met fellow classmates George Harrison on a school bus. When Paul was 14 his mom died from a blockage in one of her blood vessels. In his early teens McCartney learned to play trumpet, guitar and piano. He was left-handed and restrung the strings to make it work. In 1957, Paul met John Lennon and in October he was invited to join John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, which Lennon had founded in 1956. After Paul joined the group his suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. Other original members of the Quarrymen, Len Garry, Rod Davis, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Pete Shotton left the band when their set changed from skiffle to rock ‘n roll. John Duff Lowe, a friend of Paul’s from the Liverpool Institute, who had joined the Quarrymen in early 1958 left the band at the end of school. This left Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as remaining trio. On July 15, 1958, John Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident.
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#143: Conquistador by Procol Harum
Peak Month: July 1972
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube: “Conquistador”
Lyrics: “Conquistador”
Procol Harum named themselves after a male blue Burmese cat, which had been bred by Eleonore Vogt-Chapman and belonged to her friend Liz Coombes. Band manager Guy Stevens suggested the group name themselves after its name, to which the group immediately accepted. However, the cat’s pedigree name was in fact Procol Harun, the Procol being the breeder’s prefix. But the name was taken down over the telephone, causing a misspelling with the final letter an “m” instead of the correct “n.”
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