#893: (There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me by Sandie Shaw
Peak Month: December 1964
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #52
YouTube.com: “(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me”
Lyrics: “(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me”
Sandra Ann Goodrich was born in 1947 in Dagenham, a suburb in East London. In 1964 the British press called her the “original Brit Girl.” They were referring to her chiseled cheekbones, independent girl about town aura and otherworldliness as she performed on stages barefoot. In 1963, at the age of 16, Sandie Shaw was working as a fashion model for a photography company pitching photos to magazines. She was also singing on stages at night hoping to get a break. Shaw was “discovered” by singer, Adam Faith at a concert in which they both performed. Worked as a photographic fashion model to fill in time. At 17, she began her career as an international singing and recording star. Her first single, “As Long as You’re Happy Baby”, didn’t make the UK charts when it was released in July, 1964. However, Pye Records was confident she would soon be a make it big.
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#910: Just Another Guy/The Minute You’re Gone by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: May 1965
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #10 ~ Just Another Guy
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11 ~ The Minute You’re Gone
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Just Another Guy”
Lyrics: “Just Another Guy”
YouTube.com: “The Minute You’re Gone”
Lyrics: “The Minute You’re Gone”
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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#924: What’s It Gonna Be by Dusty Springfield
Peak Month: January 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #49
YouTube.com: “What’s It Gonna Be”
Lyrics: “What’s It Gonna Be”
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born in West Hampstead in north London, in 1939. Along with her oldest brother, Dion, she recorded her first tape of a song they sang while still children. Her dad was an unhappy accountant who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but never became one. While Mary’s mother, according to the Karen Bartlett autobiography, Dusty: An Intimate Portrait, “was continuously drunk and sat all day in cinemas.”As she grew up, Mary went to school at a Roman Catholic Convent. At the age of 18 she became a member of a female group named the Lana Sisters. The group sang backup to pop singer Al Saxton who had several Top 30 hits in the late 50’s in the UK, including a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Only Sixteen” and “You’re The Top Cha”. While Saxton enjoyed his moments of fame, Mary teamed up with her brother, Dion, and a friend of theirs named Tim Field. By the end of 1959 she had taken the stage name of Dusty Springfield. The trio, now known as The Springfields, got a record deal with Philips Records in 1961.
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#948: Take A Chance With Me by Roxy Music
Peak Month: September 1982
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Take A Chance With Me”
Lyrics: “Take A Chance With Me”
In 1945, Bryan Ferry was born in Washington, near Durham, England. His dad worked on a farm and took care of pit ponies. After he got his undergraduate degree, he took courses in fine art at Newcastle University in the mid’60’s. While he was studying, he was part of a student band named the City Blues. With his fine arts degree he started to teach pottery at a girl’s school in London. Concurrently, Ferry founded a band called Banshees. After that he formed a band that included Graham Simpson named the Gas Board. In 1968 he took up residence in London. Ferry was fired from his teaching post for hosting sessions with the ceramics students where they listened to records. Ferry moved on and assembled a band with bass player, Graham Simpson, saxophone and oboe player, Andy MacKay, synthesizer player, Brian Eno, guitarist, Phil Manzanera, and Paul Thompson on drums and percussion being the musicians who endured in the midst of a few minor lineup changes in the early years. He called the band Roxy Music.
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#954: Gimmie Shelter by The Rolling Stones
Peak Month: July 1970
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Gimmie Shelter”
Lyrics: “Gimmie Shelter”
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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#749: Bend It by Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick And Tich
Peak Month: December 1966
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Bend It”
Lyrics: “Bend It”
In the late 1950’s there were a number of bands playing in Salisbury, England. Trevor “Dozy” Davies was in a band called the Beatnicks. He cross paths with Ian “Tich” Amey who was playing in a band called Eddy and the Strollers. Dozy got Tich to join the Beatnicks. Looking for new members for the Beatnicks, a bandmate with the Coasters and also the Big Boppers, named David “Dave Dee” Harman, was added to the Beatnicks. Then Tich suggested to his buddy from school days, John “Beaky” Dymond, to also leave the Big Boppers and join the Beatnicks. Soon the band was named Ronnie Blonde and the Beatnicks. But when Ronnie didn’t appear for a gig, Dave Dee did the lead vocals. The performance went so well that Dave Dee became the lead vocalist. Meanwhile, Dozy met a bloke named Michael “Mick” Wilson while riding on a bus. Mick joined the band who soon changed their name to Dave Dee & the Bostons. By the end of 1961 most of the bandmates, who were painters and auto-mechanics by trade, quit their jobs to become musicians. Continue reading →
#958: Ringo’s Theme by George Martin Orchestra
Peak Month: September 1964
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #53
YouTube.com: “Ringo’s Theme”
Sir George Henry Martin CBE was born in Wiltshire, England, in 1926. When he was six years old he developed an affinity for the piano when his parents bought one. He briefly took piano lessons and went on to be self-taught. In World War II George Martin worked as a surveyor and then as a clerk in the War Office. He joined the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy in 1943 and was stationed in England for the duration of the war. In 1947 Martin went on to study oboe and piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1950 Martin got a position working for Parlophone Records. At the time it was a company with a roster of comedy and novelty recordings. In 1955 he became the head of Parlophone while they had success with records by the Goons, Dudley Moore, Rolf Harris, Alan Bennett, Peter Sellers and others.
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#967: Ten Little Indians by The Yardbirds
Peak Month: November 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Hitbound on CKLG
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #96
YouTube.com: “Ten Little Indians”
Lyrics: “Ten Little Indians”
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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#976: I’m A Boy by The Who
Peak Month: February 1967
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Record World ~ #149
YouTube.com: “I’m A Boy”
Lyrics: “I’m A Boy”
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 they only charted one single, “I Can See For Miles”, into 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 Rollings 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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#978: Angelsea by Cat Stevens
Peak Month: December 1972
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #6 ~ LP cut
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Angelsea”
Lyrics: “Angelsea”
Steven Demetre Georgiou was born in 1948 in the West End of London, UK. His father was a Greek Cypriot and his mother was Swedish and they ran a restaurant. Young Steven learned the piano as a child and added mastery of guitar by the age of fifteen. After public school, in 1965 he studied for a year at Hammersmith School of Art, hoping to become a cartoonist. Concurrently, he began to perform in public billed as Steve Adams. That year he got a publishing contract and wrote “The First Cut Is The Deepest”. Georgiou hunched his name might not catch on with record buyers, so he decided on the stage name of Cat Stevens. A girlfriend had told him he had eyes like a cat, plus he thought the general public could relate to cats. In 1966, at the age of 18, Cat Stevens had a #2 single on the UK Singles chart titled “Matthew And Son”. This was followed by a song concerning workplace violence called “I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun” which also made the Top Ten in the UK. In 1967 a song he wrote, “Here Comes My Baby”, became an international hit for The Tremeloes.
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