#12: There Goes My Everything by Engelbert Humperdinck
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “There Goes My Everything”
Lyrics: “There Goes My Everything”
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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#30: Run Home Girl by Sad Cafe
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CIHI
Peak Month: February 1979
Peak Position in Fredericton: #12
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube: “Run Home Girl”
Lyrics: “Run Home Girl”
Sad Café formed in 1976 in Manchester, UK. Lead singer Paul Young was born in greater Manchester in 1947. When he was just 16-years-old, Paul Young joined The Toggery Five. They opened concerts for Freddie and the Dreamers, and the Hollies. The Toggery Five were offered a song titled “I’m Alive” and had it recorded. But the Hollies quickly recorded the song and got it released two weeks before The Toggery Five. “I’m Alive” became a number-one hit for the Hollies and The Toggery Five missed out on a hit record. Later Paul Young formed Gyro in the mid-70s. Sad Café emerged as am amalgamation with a progressive rock band called Mandalaband. From Mandalaband came Vic Emerson on keyboards, Ashley Mulford on guitar, Tony Cresswell on drums, and John Stimpson on bass guitar. Another member of Sad Café was guitar player Ian Wilson. The band took their name from the Southern Gothic novel by Carson McCullers titled The Ballad of the Sad Café.
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#3: Thank You Girl by the Beatles
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: June 1964
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #35
YouTube: “Thank You Girl”
Lyrics: “Thank You Girl”
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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#5: Sky Pilot by Eric Burdon and the Animals
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: June 1968
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Sky Pilot”
Lyrics: “Sky Pilot”
Eric Victor Burdon was born in 1941 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. He was born into a working class family. Due to the river pollution and humidity in Newcastle he suffered asthma attacks daily. During primary school, Burdon writes in his memoir, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, he was “stuck at the rear of the classroom of around 40 to 50 kids and received constant harassment from kids and teachers alike”. He goes on to say his primary school was “jammed between a slaughterhouse and a shipyard on the banks of the Tyne. Some teachers were sadistic…and sexual molestation and regular corporal punishment with a leather strap was the order of the day.” In his song “When I Was Young”, he states he met his first love at 13, who was very experienced while he was not. He also says he smoked his first cigarette at 10 years old and would skip school with his friends to drink.
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#25: My Dad by Davy Jones
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June-July 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “My Dad”
Lyrics: “My Dad”
David Thomas Jones was born in suburban Manchester, UK, in 1945. Jones began acting in his childhood. In 1959, his Aunt Jessie answered an ad in the Manchester Evening News calling for “school boys to audition for a radio play” with the BBC She helped David, at 13, get the lead role in There is a Happy Land. He was on an episode of Coronation Street in March 1961, when he was 15 years of age. He also had a guest appearance in the BBC police TV show Z-Cars. He considered pursuing becoming a jockey riding on horses. However, he was encouraged to pursue acting. He appeared on stage as Little Michael in Peter Pan, and then as the Artful Dodger in Oliver! in the early 60’s in the West End of London. In 1964 he was in a Broadway production of Oliver! and nominated for a Tony Award at the age of 18. On February 9, 1964, Jones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on one of the episodes where the Beatles also were guests.
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#9: So Far Away by Dire Straits
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: February 1986
Peak Position in Edmonton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ Playlist
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube: “So Far Away”
Lyrics: “So Far Away”
Dire Straits is a band that formed in 1977 comprised of Mark and David Knopfler, John Illsley and Pick Withers. Mark Freuder Knopfler was born in 1949 in Glasgow, Scotland. His Jewish-Hungarian father fled Hungary in 1939 before the outbreak of World War II. He learned to play guitar when he was a child and appeared on a local TV station in 1965 as part of a duo. Mark was influenced by Django Reinhardt, Hank Marvin of The Shadows, B.B. King, Chet Atkins and others. He studied journalism and kept his hand in music playing in the Duolian String Pickers and the Café Racers. Younger brother, David, was born in 1952. He was playing guitar, drum and piano by age eleven. At the age of 14 David Knopfler was playing in folk clubs. He went into social work and was living in London in the mid-70’s and sharing a flat with a promising guitarist named John Illsley. John Edward Illsley was born in Leister, England, in 1949. By the 1970’s Illsley was involved with a timber firm, studying sociology and opening a record shop. David Knopfler was impressed with Illsley’s talent and introduced him to Mark. Mark, David and John began jamming together, and Mark invited Illsley to join his band the Café Racers.
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#575: Sugar Baby Love by the Rubettes
Peak Month: September-October 1974
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Sugar Baby Love”
Lyrics: “Sugar Baby Love”
In 1973, Wayne Bickerton, then head of A&R at Polydor Records, wrote four songs in an “American 50’s type” sound with co-writer Tony Waddington. A group of session musicians and singers were gathered in a London studio and recorded a demo of these tracks. Three of the session musicians were then asked to form the beginnings of a band, and with that John Richardson, Alan Williams and Pete Arnesen were the start of The Rubettes. John got some musician friends to round out the group, with Mick Clarke, Bill Hurd and Tony Thorpe making the original group of six.
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#27: Crossroads by Cream
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: March 1969
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Crossroads”
Lyrics: “Crossroads”
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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#56: Misunderstanding by Genesis
Peak Month: July 1980
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Misunderstanding”
Lyrics: “Misunderstanding”
Genesis formed in Surrey, UK, in 1967. The bands name was suggested by their producer, Jonathan King, of “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” fame on the pop charts in 1965. King had earlier suggested the band go by the name of Gabriel’s Angels. Though the band initially adopted that name, they soon changed their name to From Genesis to Revelation. Soon, they shortened their name to Genesis. It was a band name that led to many possibilities, including a riff off of their name on their first album, Genesis to Revelation. The band consisted of keyboard player Tony Banks, bass and guitar player Mike Rutherford, guitarist Anthony Philips, drummer Chris Stewart, and Peter Gabriel as lead vocalist. Stewart was fired from the band in 1968 and replaced by John Silver. The band’s debut album was From Genesis to Revelation, in 1969. Silver was replaced by John Mayhew on drums. In 1970, Genesis released Trepass, after which both Mathew and Guitarist Anthony Philips left the band. In 1971, Philips was replaced on guitar by Steve Hackett and the band released their third studio album Nursery Cryme. The fourth studio album, Foxtrot, featured new bandmate Phil Collins on drums. The band released Genesis Live in 1973 with Gabriel, Banks, Rutherford, Hackett, and Collins in the lineup. It climbed to #9 on the UK Pop Album chart.
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#1: Love Like A Man by Ten Years After
City: Chilliwack, BC
Radio Station: CHWK
Peak Month: July 1970
Peak Position in Chilliwack ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube: “Love Like A Man”
Lyrics: “Love Like A Man”
In 1960 a band formed in the Nottingham and Mansfield region called Ivan Jay and the Jaycats. They changed their name to the Jaybirds in 1962, and later to Ivan Jay and the Jaymen. Ivan Jay sang lead vocals from late 1960 to 1961. Original members included Alvin Lee and Leo Lyons. Alvin Lee (born Graham Anthony Barnes) was born in Nottingham in 1944. He began playing guitar at the age of 13. He was one of the co-founders of Ivan Jay and the Jaycats. Leo Lyons was born in 1943 in Mansfield, England. At the age of 16, he joined Ivan Jay and the Jaycats in 1960. The Jaybirds played in Hamburg, West Germany, at the Star Club for over a year. Lyons and Lee were were joined by Ric Lee in August 1965. Ric Lee was born in 1945 in Mansfield, England. Before joining Ivan and the Jaymen in 1965, Lee had been a drummer for Ricky Storm and The Mansfields. In 1966, Chick Churchill joined the band on keyboards, piano and synthesizer. Churchill was born in 1946 in the coal mining town of Ilkeston, in Derbyshire in the East Midlands of England. Churchill began playing the piano at the age of six and studied classical music until he was fifteen. He became interested in blues and rock music, and joined his first band Sons of Adam in Nottingham.
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