#553: From The Beginning by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Peak Month: November 1972
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube.com: “From The Beginning”
Lyrics: “From The Beginning”
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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#561: I’m A Man by the Yardbirds
Peak Month: November 1965
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2 on CFUN
CFUN Twin Pick Hit ~ October 16, 1965
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
YouTube.com: “I’m A Man”
Lyrics: “I’m A Man”
The Yardbirds are an English rock band that had a string of hits in the mid-1960s, including “For Your Love,” “Shapes Of Things” and “Heart Full Of Soul.” The group is notable for having started the careers of three of rock’s most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. During their brief five years, from 1963 to 1968, they set the pace for a lot of the innovations to come in rock ‘n roll into the 1970’s. The Yardbirds experimental explorations also provided the crucial link between British R&B, Psychedelic Rock, and Heavy Metal, while pioneering the use of innovations like fuzz tone, feedback and distortion. With this fusion, and harmonica riffs, they inspired the musical styles of contemporary American bands like The Count Five who had a #1 hit in Vancouver in 1966 called “Psychotic Reaction.” When Jimmy Page left The Yardbirds to form the New Yardbirds, that band was quickly renamed Led Zeppelin.
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#579: With A Girl Like You by The Troggs
Peak Month: August 1966
8 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
YouTube.com: “With A Girl Like You”
Lyrics: “With A Girl Like You”
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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#584: I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone by The Monkees
Peak Month: December 1966
5 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #2o
YouTube.com: “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone”
Lyrics: “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won a talent contest at San Antonio College. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He became the “hoot master” at a regular hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. In 1963 Nesmith released a 45 of a song he wrote called “Wanderin'”. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in 1967.
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#597: Wired For Sound by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: November 1981
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube.com: “Wired For Sound”
Lyrics: “Wired For Sound”
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”.
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#601: Apeman by The Kinks
Peak Month: January 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube.com: “Apeman”
Lyrics: “Apeman”
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in 1963 in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies and Pete Quaife. Known as a British Invasion band in North America, the Kinks were one of the most significant and influential bands of the era. The Kinks first came to prominence in 1964 with their third single, “You Really Got Me” written by Ray Davies. It became an international hit peaking at #1 in the UK, #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver on CKLG. Extremely influential on the American garage rock scene, You Really Got Me has been described as “a blueprint song in the hard rock and heavy metal arsenal. In 1965 the Kinks toured internationally headlining with other groups including Manfred Mann, The Honeycombs and The Yardbirds.
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#609: A Man Without Love by Engelbert Humperdinck
Peak Month: July 1968
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “A Man Without Love”
Lyrics: “A Man Without Love”
Arnold George Dorsey was born in 1936 in city of Madras (now Chennai) during the British Raj. His father was a British Army officer and the family returned to England in 1946. It was only in 1954 he first sang in public at a pub contest. He was conscripted into the British Army in 1955 and after being discharged he recorded his first record. Billed as George Dorsey, his debut single was Decca Records was “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”. He worked in nightclubs until 1961 when he suffered from tuberculosis. In 1965 his former roommate, Gordon Mills, had become the manager of Tom Jones. Mills suggested Dorsey change his name to Engelbert Humperdinck, after a 19th Century German composer.
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#1272: Tell Me When by The Applejacks
Peak Month: May 1964
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #135
YouTube.com: “Tell Me When”
Lyrics: “Tell Me When”
Martin Thomas Baggott and Philip Peter Cash were both born in Birmingham, UK in 1947. Donald Peter Gould, also born in 1947, was born in Solihull, just 8 miles away. And Gerald Ernest “Gerry” Freeman was born in Solihull in 1943. They were all members of a the same Boy Scout troop. In 1961 Baggot, Cash and Freeman formed a skiffle band named the Crestas at the end of the skiffle craze in the UK. Baggot played lead guitar, Cash played rhythm guitar and Freeman played drums. They added Megan Davies, from Sheffield, on bass in early 1961. Davies recalls “My first guitar was as low as one can go i.e. a plastic, four string ‘Skiffle’ guitar from Woollies which I received on my 11th birthday. It came with a gadget which could be hooked over the neck and covered the first four frets, it was held on with a heavy duty elastic band. The device sported four buttons, which when depressed would hold down the individual notes of a complete chord.”
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#613: Gloria by Them
Peak Month: June 1965
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
C-FUN Twin Pick Hit May 15, 1965
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #93
YouTube.com: “Gloria”
Lyrics: “Gloria”
Sir George Ivan “Van” Morrison, was born in Belfast on August 31, 1945. He is a singer, songwriter and musician. He has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1996 he was given the Order of the British Empire for his service to music enriching the lives of people in the UK (and beyond). Since 1996 his formal title has been Sir “Van” Morrison, OBE. In 2016 he was knighted for his musical achievements and his services to tourism and charitable causes in Northern Ireland.
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#617: Broken English by Marianne Faithfull
Peak Month: April 1980
11 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #125
YouTube.com: “Broken English”
Lyrics: “Broken English”
Marianne Faithfull’s story has been well documented, not least in her insightful 1994 autobiography Faithfull. She was born in December, 1946, in Hampstead, a borough of Greater London. In 1964 she began appearing at coffeehouses in London as one of the acts on stage. She showed up at a launch party for the Rolling Stones. At the event she met Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones manager who was always on the lookout for new talent. Faithfull’s career as the crown princess of swinging London was launched with “As Tears Go By”. The song climbed to #9 in the UK and into the Top 30 in the USA and in Vancouver. At the time she was 16 years old. Her 1964 hit single was the first song ever written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Two folk albums, two pop albums and a singles collection followed. Marianne Faithfull also embarked on a parallel career as an actress, both on film in Girl On A Motorcycle (1968) and on stage in Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1967) and Hamlet (1969) By the end of the Sixties personal problems halted Marianne’s career and her drug addiction took over.
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