#313: No Ordinary Love by Sade
Peak Month: February 1993
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “No Ordinary Love”
Lyrics: “No Ordinary Love”
Helen Folasade Adu was born in 1959 in the city of Ibadan on southwestern Nigeria. At the age of four her parents separated, and she moved with her mother and brother to Essex, England. Growing up, she remembers three albums being played in her home in Essex: Dinah Washington’s Greatest Hits, Sinatra and Basie, and the soundtrack to Oliver. In the late 1970s she gained modest recognition as a fashion designer and part-time model, prior to joining the band Pride in the early 1980s. In 1988 she told Interview Magazine, “I don’t like fashion, but I do like clothes.” Adding, that she regards the fashion industry as more “cutthroat than the music business.” In 1982 Sade Adu formed her band, Sade, with bass guitarist Paul Denman; saxophonist, keyboard and guitar player Stuart Matthewman; keyboard player Andrew Hale; And drummer Paul Cooke.
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#315: Making Plans For Nigel by XTC
Peak Month: March 1980
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Making Plans For Nigel”
Lyrics: “Making Plans For Nigel”
Colin Ivor Moulding was born in 1955 in Swindon, England. Moulding is self-taught as a bass player; he was learning rock riffs at the age of 15. Terry Peter Chambers was born in 1955 in Swindon. At age 14 he bought a drum kit and learned to play drums. Andrew John Partridge was born in Malta in 1953. He grew up in Swindon and wrote his first song at the age of 15. In 1970 he formed a band called Stiff Beach, which by 1972 was a four-piece band renamed Star Park. Colin Moulding and Terry Chambers both joined Star Park in 1972. The band opened for Thin Lizzy in 1973. Subsequently, the renamed their band the Helium Kidz. The UK pop music magazine, New Musical Express, wrote an article about them. Swindon, in Wiltshire, England, was known for several other notable musicians including Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, Gilbert O’Sullivan (“Alone Again Naturally”), late 90s UK pop singles chart topper Billie Piper (“Because We Want To”, “Girlfriend”), and Josh Kumra who provided vocals on the #1 UK single, “Don’t Go” with Wretch 32 in 2011.
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#318: Regret by New Order
Peak Month: June-July 1993
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Regret”
Lyrics: “Regret”
Bernard Sumner was born in 1956 in Salford, Lancashire, England. In his youth he learned to play guitar, keyboards, synthesizer and melodica. After graduation from public school, he got work with Stop Frame as a television animator cartoonist. After Sumner and his childhood friend Peter Hook saw the Sex Pistols at a concert in Manchester, they decided to form the post-punk band Joy Division. Born Peter Woodhead in 1956 in Salford, he took his stepfather’s surname, Hook, after his mother remarried. Peter Hook learned to play bass guitar, guitar, melodica, electronic drums and synthesizer. Stephen Paul David Morris was born in 1957 in the market town of Macclesfield, 16 miles south of Manchester. He learned to play the drum from a young age. Over the years he added percussion, keyboards and synthesizer to his resume.
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#319: Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Peak Month: April 1971
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #48
YouTube: “Lucky Man”
Lyrics: “Lucky Man”
Keith Emerson was born in 1944 in Todmorden, in West Yorkshire, England. His pregnant mom had been evacuated from London during the war. As a two-year-old, Keith’s father taught him his first song on an Italian Scandali accordion. The song was “Now Is The Hour” by Bing Crosby. His father also played the piano, and by the age of seven it was agreed that Keith should take piano lessons, and not just plunk out tunes with one finger. In his teens, Emerson was bought a guitar for Christmas. He also learned to play the harmonica. He joined the Worthing Youth Swing Orchestra, playing jazz standards and new hits by Chris Barber, Dave Brubeck and Acker Bilk. In 1962, Keith Emerson founded a breakaway band from the Swing Orchestra called the Keith Emerson Trio. But, as a career as a musician was viewed as a pipe dream, Keith’s parents were delighted when he got a proper job out of high school at a local branch of the Lloyds Bank.
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#327: Shame Shame by the Magic Lanterns
Peak Month: January 1969
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
YouTube: “Shame Shame”
Lyrics: “Shame Shame”
James Robert Bilsbury was born in 1942 in Liverpool, England. Around 1957 he joined the the Ray Johnson Skiffle Group. He was subsequently a member of the Nightboppers, the Beat Boys, and then the Hammers. In 1962 Bilsbury, as lead vocalist and on lead guitar, formed the Sabres with guitar player Peter Shoesmith, bass guitarist Ian Moncur, and drummer Allan Wilson. By 1964 the band changed their name to the Magic Lanterns. In 1966 they released a single titled “Excuse Me Baby”. The song was influenced by British Dance Hall nostalgia. It peaked at #44 on the UK singles chart. In 1967 they released their debut album Lit Up – With the Magic Lanterns.
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#330: If I Ever Lose My Faith In You by Sting
Peak Month: April 1993
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube: “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You”
Lyrics: “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You”
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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#333: Man On The Corner by Genesis
Peak Month: April 1982
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #41
YouTube: “Man On The Corner”
Lyrics: “Man On The Corner”
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.
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#338: Invisible by Alison Moyet
Peak Month: April 1985
13 weeks on CFMI’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “Invisible”
Lyrics: “Invisible”
Geneviève Alison Jane Moyet was born in 1961 in Billericay, Essex, England. After leaving school at 16, she worked as a shop assistant and trained as a piano tuner. She was involved in a number of punk rock, pub rock and blues bands in the South East Essex area during the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the Vandals, the Screamin’ Ab Dabs, the Vicars and the Little Roosters. At the age of 21, Moyet’s mainstream pop career began in 1982 with the formation of the synth-pop duo Yazoo with former Depeche Mode member Vince Clarke.
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#340: Green Green Grass Of Home by Tom Jones
Peak Month: January 1967
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Green Green Grass Of Home”
Lyrics: “Green Green Grass Of Home”
Thomas John Woodward was born in Wales in 1940. His father was a coal miner. Young Tom began singing at an early age and was in a children’s choir. At age 12 he had tuberculosis. While convalescing he spent more time developing an interest in music and listening to records. In 1963 he was the lead singer for the Welsh band Tommy Scott and the Senators. They had a record made with Tornados producer Joe Meek. In 1964 Jones was heard by a manager in the music industry based in London. Jones was brought to London and renamed Tom Jones. This was a strategy to get his attention after the successful musical Tom Jones won four Academy Awards in 1963, including Best Director and Best Picture.
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#342: Action by Sweet
Peak Month: March 1976
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “Action”
Lyrics: “Action”
Brian Francis Connolly was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1945. He was left in the hospital where he was born by his mother who was teenager and a waitress. He was a foster child and by the age of 12 was living in London and attending school. In his mid-teens, Connolly joined the Merchant Navy. In 1966 Connolly replaced singer Ian Gillan (later of Deep Purple fame) in a band called Wainwright’s Gentlemen, which included drummer Mick Tucker. Born in 1947 in London, Michael Thomas Tucker first developed an interest in drawing art as a boy. By fourteen he had changed his interest to the drums, influenced by Sandy Nelson, Buddy Rich, and Gene Krupa. Tucker’s father offered him a drum kit but only if he would take drumming seriously. Hubert Tucker encouraged his son, even getting him his first gig, sitting in for Brian Bennett of Cliff Richard’s backing band the Shadows at a local workingman’s club.
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