#2: Awaiting On You All by George Harrison
City: Lethbridge, AB
Radio Station: CHEC
Peak Month: January 1971
Peak Position in Lethbridge ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Awaiting On You All”
Lyrics: “Awaiting On You All”
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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#1: Let’s Spend The Night Together by Rolling Stones
City: Kitchener, ON
Radio Station: CHYM
Peak Month: February 1967
Peak Position in Kitchener ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55
YouTube: “Let’s Spend The Night Together”
Lyrics: “Let’s Spend The Night Together”
Michael Philip Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent, England, in 1943, some 18 miles east of London. Though his father and grandfather were both teachers by profession, and he was encouraged to be a teacher, the boy had different aspirations. “I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just liked to sing. Some kids sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio–the BBC or Radio Luxembourg –or watching them on TV and in the movies.” In 1950 Mick Jagger met Keith Richards while attending primary school. They became good friends until the summer of 1954 when the Jagger family moved to the village of Wilmington, a mile south of Dartford. The pair bumped into each other at a train station in 1961 and resumed their friendship.
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#3: Wild Thing by Fancy
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: September 1974
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Wild Thing”
Lyrics: “Wild Thing”
Fancy was a band made up of studio musicians produced by Mike Hurst. They were fronted by Penthouse pet Helen Caunt (October 1971) to add sex appeal to the band. The musicians included Ray Fenwick (born in Greater London in 1946), Fenwick was with the blues band the Syndicats in 1964. In 1965, he joined the Dutch band Tee-Set (who had a 1970 international hit with “Ma Belle Amie”). From 1967 to 1969, Fenwick was with the Spencer Davis Group. He played in the Chess Records studio for Bo Diddley from 1972 onward. Another bandmate was Michael “Mo” Foster, who was born in Wolverhampton, England, in 1944. He learned the recorder at the age of nine. He formed a skiffle band in 1959 named The Tradewinds. From 1961 to 1964 he played dances with a band called the Baskervilles. The third musician was Les Binks, born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, in 1951.
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#6: Juliet by the Four Pennies
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKWS
Peak Month: August 1964
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Juliet”
Lyrics: “Juliet”
The Four Pennies were a beat group from England that formed in November 1963. The members consisted of Lionel Morton (born Lionel Walmsley in 1942), Fritz Fryer (born David Roderic Carnie Fryer in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1944), Mike Wilshaw (born in 1945 in Stoke-on-Trent), and Alan Buck. (born in 1943 in Briefield, Lancashire). Morton sang as a choirboy at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Prior to the Four Pennies, Fryer and Wilshaw had been part of a popular local singing duo named The Fables, which launched in 1961. Alan Buck had been a drummer doing a few gigs with Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, and a few jazz bands. The group’s name was chosen as a more commercial alternative to The Lionel Morton Four. They decided to switch to the Four Pennies after a meeting above a Blackburn music shop which was on Penny Street. The group was discovered by Marie Reidy who owned Reidys Home of Music.
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#10: You Can Cry If You Want To by the Troggs
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: September 1968
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “You Can Cry If You Want To”
Lyrics: “You Can Cry If You Want To”
The Troggs formed in 1964 and decades later were dubbed by music critics as the “first British punk band.” Never strangers to controversy, many of their records were considered by radio programmers and social conservatives as too suggestive for the masses, and they consequently banned them. The band’s first big hit was “Wild Thing” which is rated by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the Top 500 songs in the rock ‘n roll era. While they racked up their biggest string of Top Ten singles between 1966 and 1968, the band consisted of co-founders Reg Presley and Ronnie Bond, as well as Pete Staples and Chris Britton.
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#11: Cold Turkey by the Plastic Ono Band
City: Kingston, ON
Radio Station: CKLC
Peak Month: January 1970
Peak Position in Kingston ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “Cold Turkey”
Lyrics: “Cold Turkey”
The Plastic Ono Band was formed in 1969 by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. On March 20, 1969, Lennon and Ono married, and subsequently hosted their first “Bed-in for Peace” event in at the Amsterdam Hilton (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). During their second bed-in in late May into June 1969 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. On June 1, they invited a number of guests to be part of the Plastic Ono Band to record “Give Peace A Chance” in their hotel room. The guest list included Petula Clark and Timothy Leary (backing vocals), Tommy Smothers (on guitar), André Perry (percussion, production), and on handclaps: US black civil rights advocate Dick Gregory, Quebec separatist Jacques Larue-Langlois, Toronto Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, New York DJ Murray the K, British journalist Derek Taylor, and poet Allen Ginsburg. John Lennon and Yoko Ono provided lead vocals, as he played guitar and she played the tambourine.
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#1: After The Goldrush by Prelude
City: Kelowna, BC
Radio Station: CKOV
Peak Month: December 1974
Peak Position in Kelowna ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube: “After The Goldrush”
Lyrics: “After The Goldrush”
Prelude are an English-based vocal harmony group, who in their most famous line-up consisted of singer and guitarist Brian Hume, his wife Irene Hume – on vocals, and guitarist and singer Ian Vardy. Vardy and Brian Hume had covered Simon & Garfunkel’s song “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine” in 1967, billed as The Carnival. They formed Trilogy in their native Gateshead in northeast England in 1970, adding Irene Hume. They changed their name soon after to Prelude. They backed Ralph McTell on his recording of “Streets Of London”, which was released as a single in the UK in 1974. Prelude released a non-charting single titled “Edge of the Sea” in 1972. The following year Prelude signed with the Dawn Record label. They went to the recording studio to work on their debut album, How Long is Forever? One of the tracks was “After The Goldrush”.
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#2: Come See Me by the Pretty Things
City: Kelowna, BC
Radio Station: CKOV
Peak Month: August 1966
Peak Position in Kelowna ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Come See Me”
Lyrics: “Come See Me”
The Pretty Things were a band formed in London, England, in 1963. The name was inspired by a song from 1955 by Bo Diddley. Prior to its formation, a band called Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys was formed in 1962. It consisted of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and guitarist Dick Taylor. They hooked up with Brian Jones, Ian Stewart and Bill Wyman to become the Rolling Stones. Taylor left the band five months later to pursue studies at the Central School of Art and Design in London. A friend from college, vocalist Phil May, convinced Taylor to start a new band. Phil May (nee Kattner), born in 1944, was raised by an aunt whose surname was May. He took her name in his teens. They recruited Brian Pendleton on rhythm guitar, John Stax on bass guitar, and Pete Kitely on drums. Pendleton was born in 1944, and was working as a trainee to become an insurance clerk before responding to an ad placed in Melody Maker by Taylor and May. Stax was born in 1944 with the birth name John Edward Lee Fullagar. He adopted the name “Stax” because of his fondness for the music produced by Stax Records. Several more drummers tried to prove a good fit until the band settled on the drummer for Carter-Lewis and the Southerners’ Viv Prince.
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#9: Dancin’ Shoes by Nigel Olsson
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: March 1979
Peak Position in Fredericton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
YouTube: “Dancin’ Shoes”
Lyrics: “Dancin’ Shoes”
Nigel Olsson was born in Cheshire, England, in 1949. He began his musical career playing the guitar in small bands, and took up the drums at a gig where the drummer did not show up at the last minute. His first appearance on a record album was in the band Plastic Penny, which released Two Sides of a Penny in 1968. Olsson was spotlighted on one song on that album, “I Want You,” performing both lead vocals and a drum solo. In 1969 he played drums on the flower power pop single “Mr. Boyd” by Argosy, a one-off group which also included Reginald Dwight (later known as Elton John), and future Supertramp band member Roger Hodgson. Olsson also had a brief stint with the English hard rock band Uriah Heep, playing drums on two songs on their 1970 debut album, Very ‘easy… Very ‘umble.
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#34: Sunshine Girl by Herman’s Hermits
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: April 1968
Peak Position #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube: “Sunshine Girl”
Lyrics: “Sunshine Girl”
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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