Peak Month: February 1968
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube: “I Can Take Or Leave Your Loving”
Lyrics: “I Can Take Or Leave Your Loving”

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.

Continue reading →

#473: Tuesday Afternoon by the Moody Blues

Peak Month: August 1968
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
YouTube: “Tuesday Afternoon”
Lyrics: “Tuesday Afternoon”

Born in 1941 in wartime England, Ray Thomas picked up harmonica at the age of nine. He was in the Birmingham Youth Choir and in October 1958 he joined a skiffle group called The Saints and Sinners. The band split up in June 1959. The Saints and Sinners helped Ray discover how well his vocals were received by audiences. Next, he formed El Riot and the Rebels, featuring Ray Thomas as El Riot dressed in a green satin Mexican toreador outfit. The band won a number of competitions in the Birmingham area. It was here that Ray became known for making an entrance onstage by sliding to center stage on his knees. On one occasion Thomas sent a row of potted tulips flying into the audience. El Riot and the Rebels appeared several times on a local variety show called Lunchbox. They made their debut on Lunchbox on November 14, 1962, and played “Guitar Tango” and “I Remember You”. Mike Pinder joined El Riot and the Rebels on keyboards. On April 15, 1963, El Riot and the Rebels performed at The Riverside Dancing Club in Tenbury Wells as the opening act for The Beatles. Pinder went off to serve in the British Army. When he returned, Thomas and Pinder left El Riot and the Rebels and formed a new band called the Krew Kats.

Continue reading →

#476: Constantly/True True Lovin’ by Cliff Richard

Peak Month: July 1964
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Constantly“/”True True Lovin’”
Lyrics: “Constantly”
Lyrics: “True True Lovin’”

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 →

#481: Love Really Hurts Without You by Billy Ocean

Peak Month: May 1976
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube: “Love Really Hurts Without You”
Lyrics: “Love Really Hurts Without You”

Leslie Sebastian Charles was born in Trinidad in 1950. Trinidad and Tobago was a British colony at the time, and his family moved to Britain in 1960 during the colonial period. Once Les became a teenager, he started to sing in clubs on Saville Road in London. He recorded some ballads in the Pye Records studio in the mid-60s. However, the label decided not to release them. In 1969 he joined a band called The Shades of Midnight, and in 1971 his first single was released titled “Nashville Rain”. The single was credited to Les Charles. From 1972 to 1974 Charles was the frontman for Scorched Earth, a group that backed other artists at studio recordings. Scorched Earth released a couple of singles in the UK in 1974. During these years he was variously going by the stage name of Joshua, Big Ben – a humorous choice for a man who was 5’8″ – and Sam Spade.

Continue reading →

#485: I Feel Free by Cream

Peak Month: March 1967
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #116
YouTube.com: “I Feel Free”
Lyrics: “I Feel Free”

Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker was born in 1939 in South London. He excellent at British football in his teens. At age fifteen he began to play drums and took lessons from iconic British jazz drummer Phil Seaman. In 1962 Baker joined Blues Incorporated along with Jack Bruce and others who played at the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. In 1963, Baker was one of the founding members of a jazz/rhythm & blues band, called The Graham Bond Organisation, spelled the British way. Jack Bruce also joined the band. The band appeared in the 1965 UK film Gonks Go Beat, which also featured Lulu and the Nashville Teens.

Continue reading →

#486: I’m The One by Gerry and the Pacemakers

Peak Month: May 1964
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #82
YouTube.com: “I’m The One”
Lyrics: “I’m The One”

In September 1942, Gerry Marsden was born in Liverpool, UK. His interest in music began at an early age. During World War II Marsden recalls standing on top of an air raid shelter singing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe”. Passers by applauded. Gerry and Fred Marsden’s father was a railway clerk who entertained the neighbours by playing the ukulele. With the vogue for skiffle music in the mid-’50s, he took the skin off one of his instruments, put it over a tin of Quality Street and said to Freddie, “There’s your first snare drum, son.” Gerry sang in a church choir by the age of twelve. In 1957 the brothers appeared in the show Dublin To Dingle at the Pavilion Theatre in Lodge Lane. Studies meant little to either of them. Freddie left school and worked for a candle-maker earning £4 a week, and Gerry’s job was as a delivery boy for the railways. Their parents did not mind and encouraged their musical ambitions. Marsden formed the group in the late ’50s, calling themselves, The Mars-Bars, a nod to the Mars Bar candy bar and the first syllable of Marsden’s surname. The band consisted of Marsden as frontman and guitarist, Fred Marsden on drums, Les Chadwick on bass, and Arthur Mack on piano. The latter left in ’61 to be replaced by Les McGuire (who also played saxophone).

Continue reading →

#487: Play The Game by Queen

Peak Month: August 1980
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #42
YouTube.com: “Play The Game”
Lyrics: “Play The Game”

Farrokh Bulsara was born in 1946 in Zanzibar. He was raised by his Parsi parents who came to Africa from India. His family moved to India in 1954 when he was eight, where he attended British-style boarding schools near Bombay. He moved back to Zanzibar in 1963, but his family fled to England in 1964 after the Zanzibar Revolution and the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar by indigenous Africans. Bulsara was born a British subject, as Zanzibar was a British protectorate until 1963. After studying graphic art and design, Farrokh was part of several bands in the London area. In 1970 he hooked up with several members from a band called Smile, Brian May and Roger Taylor. Farrokh Bulsara named their new band Queen. He also legally changed his name to Freddie Mercury.

Continue reading →

#492: Twist And Shout by The Beatles

Peak Month: September 1986
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
YouTube.com: “Twist And Shout”
Lyrics: “Twist And Shout”

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.

Continue reading →

#493: Wedding Bells by Godley & Crème

Peak Month: April 1982
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Wedding Bells”
Lyrics: “Wedding Bells”

Godley & Creme were a rock duo comprised of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. Kevin Michael Godley was born in 1945 in a suburb of Manchester, England. Raised in a Jewish family, he formed a group named Group 17, along with four other members of the Jewish Lads Brigade. Godley studied Art and Design at Stoke On Trent College of Art from 1966-68. In the late ’60s, Kevin Godley met Lol Creme at a wedding. Laurence Neil “Lol” Creme was born in 1947 in the same suburb of Prestwich as Kevin Godley. Creme was also raised in a Jewish family. The pair co-founded a band in 1970 named Hotlegs, who had a #2 hit in the UK titled “Neanderthal Man”. The band split in 1970 and morphed into 10cc.

Continue reading →

#496: Rebel Yell by Billy Idol

Peak Month: March 1984
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #46
YouTube.com: “Rebel Yell”
Lyrics: “Rebel Yell”

William Michael Albert Broad was born in 1955 in Middlesex, England. His father was a typewriter salesman and his mother was a nurse. When he was a four-year-old, his family moved to New York City, taking a transatlantic voyage on the S.S America. He arrived with a banjo given to him by his maternal grandparents. When he was seven his family moved back to England. As William had acquired an American accent, his classmates teased him and called him “a yank.” William Broad, after all, had learned to say elevator and not lift, cops instead of bobbies, and man instead of mate. This began his identification as an outsider. From his early years in America, William Broad got turned on to the music of Little Richard, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. He also liked a 1955 single by the Cadillacs titled “Speedoo”. He was inspired by the music of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, David Bowie and others. He taught himself how to play guitar and joined a band in his teens. Continue reading →