#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.
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#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).
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#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.
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#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.
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#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.
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#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 →
#501: Happy Jack by The Who
Peak Month: April 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
YouTube.com: “Happy Jack”
Lyrics: “Happy Jack”
The Who are an English band who emerged in 1964 with singer Roger Daltry, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. The band enjoyed popular singles, such as “I Can See For Miles”, “Pinball Wizard” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. In Vancouver the band had eleven Top Ten hits, while in the UK they charted fourteen singles into the Top Ten. But in America, between 1965 and 1982, the Who only charted one single – “I Can See For Miles” – into the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100. The band were innovators of new genres in rock n’ roll with their rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia. The Who early on were known for outlandish antics on stage. At the Railway Hotel in Wealdstone, England, in June, 1964, Peter Townshend destroyed his guitar on stage and smashed it into other instruments. The Who stand alongside The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as among the most influential rock bands from Britain. They had their first Top Ten single in the UK and in Vancouver in 1965 titled “I Can’t Explain”, which peaked at #8 in the UK and #2 in Vancouver.
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#502: Sweet Mary by Argent
Peak Month: May 1971
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #102
YouTube.com: “Sweet Mary”
Lyrics: “Sweet Mary”
Rodney Terrance “Rod” Argent was born in St. Albans, about 32 kilometers northwest of London. He sang in a children’s choir at St. Alban’s Cathedral. He was trained in classical music. But when he heard Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Big Mama Thornton, his musical tastes changed. In 1961 he wanted to form a rock band and wrote a song called “She’s Not There”. The band got a record contract with Decca and named themselves the Zombies. “She’s Not There” became a #1 hit in Vancouver in October 1964, and a #2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in December ’64. The song was the Zombies only Top 40 hit in the UK, peaking at #12. Their next release in Canada was “You’d Better Leave Me Be” (“Leave Me Be” in the UK and Australia). The song peaked at #21 in Vancouver (BC) and #1 in Saint John, New Brunswick. The Zombies had more success with their next release, “Tell Her No”. It peaked at #4 in Montreal, #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA, and #10 in Vancouver (BC). But the song failed to crack the Top 40 on the weekly UK charts, stalling at #42.
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#503: Question by The Moody Blues
Peak Month: June 1970
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #21
YouTube.com: “Question”
Lyrics: “Question”
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.
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#506: You’re My World by Cilla Black
Peak Month: July 1964
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #26
YouTube.com: “You’re My World”
Lyrics: “You’re My World”
Pricilla Maria Veronica White was born in 1943 in Liverpool. Once out of high school she got work as a cloakroom attendant at the Cavern Club, a jazz club where The Beatles also performed. As a staff member of the club, she ended up doing some spontaneous performances on stage. The Beatles heard her perform and were dazzled by her voice. Soon she was booked under the billing, “Swinging Cilla,” at the Casanova Club. She guest starred with several local bands including Merseybeat Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. An article in the local music paper, Mersey Beat, featured Cilla. Written by the paper’s publisher, Bill Harry, he identified her in the article mistakenly as Cilla Black, not by her actual surname Cilla White. But the word-on-the-street from the article had people talking about this new local Merseybeat performer, Cilla Black. So Cilla White decided to take on Cilla Black as her stage name.
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