#80: It’s Raining Again by Supertramp
Peak Month: December 1982
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube.com: “It’s Raining Again”
Lyrics: “It’s Raining Again”
Richard “Rick” Davies was born in 1944 in Swindon, England. By the age of eight, it was clear his only real interest in school was music. At the age of 12 he became a snare drummer with the British Railways Staff Association Brass and Silver Jubilee Band. Davies recalls, “As a kid, I used to hear the drums marching along the street in England, in my home town, when there was some kind of parade, and it was the most fantastic sound to me. Then, eventually, I got some drums and I took lessons. I was serious about it… I figured if I could do that – I mean a real drummer, read music and play with big bands, rock bands, classical, Latin, and know what I was going to do – I would be in demand and my life was set… Eventually, I started fiddling with the keyboards, and that seemed to go over better than my drumming, for some reason. So you’ve gotta go with what people react to.”
Continue reading →
#82: Cruel To Be Kind by Nick Lowe
Peak Month: November 1979
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
YouTube.com: “Cruel To Be Kind”
Lyrics: “Cruel To Be Kind”
Nicholas Drain Lowe was born in 1949 in Surrey, UK. He formed a band in 1968 named Kippington Lodge. The band was renamed Brinsley Schwartz and veered into a fusion of country and blues-rock. In 1974, Lowe wrote “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding”. The song was recorded by Elvis Costello in 1979. In 1976, Dave Edmunds co-founded a band named Rockpile with Nick Lowe, drummer Terry Williams and guitar player Billy Bremner. But, immediately, Rockpile ran into recording problems since Lowe and Edmunds were signed to different recording labels. Nonetheless, Rockpile went on tour in the UK in 1976. As well, in 1976 Lowe recorded “So It Goes”. The single was voted the fifth-best single of the year according to the New Musical Express critics poll. That year, Lowe produced a single by The Damned titled “New Rose”, along with the album Damned Damned Damned. In 1977, Nick Lowe produced Elvis Costello’s first album, My Aim Is True. In 1978, Lowe produced Elvis Costello’s second album, This Year’s Model, with the outstanding track “Pump It Up”. In 1978, Lowe had a Top Ten hit single in the UK titled “I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass”. A third album by Elvis Costello, Armed Forces, was also produced by Nick Lowe. And in 1979, Lowe’s song, “Milk And Alcohol”, was a Top Ten hit in the UK for Dr. Feelgood.
Continue reading →
#85: I Wanna Be A Cowboy by Boys Don’t Cry
Peak Month: June 1986
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
YouTube.com: “I Wanna Be A Cowboy”
Lyrics: “I Wanna Be A Cowboy”
Boys Don’t Cry was a band formed in 1983 in the UK. It was the brainchild of lead vocalist/keyboardist Nick Richards, who had just purchased Maison Rouge Recording Studios in London. An early version of the group (featuring Richards, guitarist Richard Taee and drummer Steve Creese, augmented by session musicians) released their debut EP Don’t Talk to Strangers on independent UK label Legacy Records in Britain in 1983. By the mid-1980s, the band’s line-up had stabilised around principal members Richards and keyboardist Brian Chatton (one of the session players on the debut EP), along with Jeff Seopardi on drums, Nico Ramsden on guitar, and Mark Smith on bass. Chatton had previously had a brief stint on keyboards with 1970s progressive band Jackson Heights, contributing heavily to their Ragamuffin’s Fool album.
Continue reading →
#88: You Spin Me Round by Dead Or Alive
Peak Month: August 1985
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube.com: “You Spin Me Round”
Lyrics: “You Spin Me Round”
Born in 1959 in Merseyside, UK, Peter Jozzeppi Burns dropped out of school when he was 14-years-old. He was raped by a man who took him for a drive, who he was acquainted with. Burns later recalled that he was not upset by the experience, although he knew that people would expect him to be. Burns got a job at Probe Record store in Liverpool. In 1977, he joined the Mystery Girls. In 1979 he formed Nightmares in Wax. But a change in musical direction, and lineup led to naming the band Dead or Alive in 1980.
Continue reading →
#90: All My Love by Led Zeppelin
Peak Month: October 1979
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
2 weeks Playlist
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ LP cut ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “All My Love”
Lyrics: “All My Love”
Robert Anthony Plant was born in 1948 in West Bromwich, six miles northwest of Birmingham, England. He became the lead singer of Led Zeppelin, along with bandmates Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. At an early age Robert Plant was interested in being a pop singer. He said in an interview in 1994 on the Denton Show in Australia, “When I was a kid I used to hide behind the curtains at home at Christmas and I used to try and be Elvis. There was a certain ambience between the curtains and the French windows, there was a certain sound there for a ten-year-old. That was all the ambience I got at ten years old … And I always wanted to be … a bit similar to that.”
Continue reading →
#90: Dreaming by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: November 1980
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Dreamin’”
Lyrics: “Dreamin’”
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”.
Continue reading →
#102: No Reply At All by Genesis
Peak Month: November 1981
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
YouTube.com: “No Reply At All”
Lyrics: “No Reply At All”
Genesis formed in Surrey, UK, in 1967. The bands name was suggested by their producer, Jonathan King, of “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” fame on the pop charts in 1965. King had earlier suggested the band go by the name of Gabriel’s Angels. Though the band initially adopted that name, they soon changed their name to From Genesis to Revelation. Soon, they shortened their name to Genesis. It was a band name that led to many possibilities, including a riff off of their name on their first album, Genesis to Revelation. The band consisted of keyboard player Tony Banks, bass and guitar player Mike Rutherford, guitarist Anthony Philips, drummer Chris Stewart, and Peter Gabriel as lead vocalist. Stewart was fired from the band in 1968 and replaced by John Silver. The band’s debut album was From Genesis to Revelation, in 1969. Silver was replaced by John Mayhew on drums. In 1970, Genesis released Trepass, after which both Mathew and Guitarist Anthony Philips left the band. In 1971, Philips was replaced on guitar by Steve Hackett and the band released their third studio album Nursery Cryme. The fourth studio album, Foxtrot, featured new bandmate Phil Collins on drums. The band released Genesis Live in 1973 with Gabriel, Banks, Rutherford, Hackett, and Collins in the lineup. It climbed to #9 on the UK Pop Album chart.
Continue reading →
#105: A Little In Love by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: March 1981
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
3 weeks Preview
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube.com: “A Little In Love”
Lyrics: “A Little In Love”
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”.
Continue reading →
#107: Message In A Bottle by the Police
Peak Month: January 1980
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #74
YouTube.com: “Message In A Bottle”
Lyrics: “Message In A Bottle”
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.”
Continue reading →
#109: Bad Case Of Loving You by Robert Palmer
Peak Month: October 1979
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube.com: “Bad Case Of Loving You”
Lyrics: “Bad Case Of Loving You”
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”.
Continue reading →
