#4: Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix
City: Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, PQ
Radio Station: CHRS
Peak Month: August 1970
Peak Position Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu ~ #10
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #65
YouTube: “Purple Haze”
Lyrics: “Purple Haze”
In 1942 Johnny Allen Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington. His grandparents, Nora and Ross Hendrix immigrated from America to Vancouver in 1911. There they raised Jimi’s father, James Allen Hendrix, who moved to Seattle in 1941 where he met Lucille Jeter, Jimi’s mother. In 1946, Johnny Allen Hendrix’s name was changed to James “Jimmy” Marshall Hendrix. As a child when he was asked to sweep the floor with a broom, his parents and grandparents would find him in his room strumming the broom like he was playing a guitar. He was given a guitar when he was 15 years old. Despite a limited mainstream exposure of four years while billed as Jimi Hendrix, he is widely considered one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.
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#2: I Only Have Eyes For You by the Flamingos
City: Saint John, NB
Radio Station: CFBC
Peak Month: July 1959
Peak Position Saint John ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #21
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “I Only Have Eyes For You”
Lyrics: “I Only Have Eyes For You”
The Flamingos were an R&B doo-wop group that formed in Chicago in 1953. John E. Carter was one of the founding members of the group that was first named The Swallows. In 1952, Jacob “Jake” Carey and Ezekiel “Zeke” Carey were looking to form a group in Chicago. They happened to meet with their cousins Paul Wilson and Johnny Carter at the Hebrew Israelite congregation. By 1953 the group came together and after a few lineup changes Sollie McElroy was added. They became popular at house parties and some small clubs. They appeared at a local Chicago talent show named Martin’s Corner. Winning the talent show, they became part of the regular billing for awhile. The Flamingos’ first single was with Chance Records titled “If I Can’t Have You”, was a moderate local success, as was the follow-up “That’s My Desire”. But it was Johnny Carter’s composition of “Golden Teardrops”, with its complex vocal harmonies and Carter’s soaring falsetto, that cemented their reputation as a top regional act of the day.
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#47: We Live For Love by Pat Benatar
City: Regina, SK
Radio Station: CKCK
Peak Month: June 1980
Peak Position in Regina ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube: “We Live For Love”
Lyrics: “We Live For Love”
Patricia Mae Andrzejewski was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1953. She was raised near the city of Babylon, Long Island. Her dad was a sheet-metal worker and her mom was a beautician. At the age of eight she began to take voice lessons. After high school, she spent a year to study health education, but dropped out to marry high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar, who was drafted into the United States Army. She was 19. While her husband was stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia, she worked as a bank teller near Richmond (VA). She quit her job and formed the Pat Benatar Band. Dennis Benatar was discharged from the Army and the couple moved to New York in May 1975 so Benatar could pursue a singing career. She performed at an amateur night at the Catch a Rising Star comedy club in Manhattan. Later in 1975, Pat Benatar got a part in Harry Chapin’s rock musical The Zinger showing at a theatre in Huntington Station, Long Island.
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#1: Non Dimenticar (Don’t Forget) by Nat King Cole
City: Saint John, NB
Radio Station: CFBC
Peak Month: November 1958
Peak Position in Saint John ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #26
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube: “Non Dimenticar (Don’t Forget)”
Lyrics: “Non Dimenticar (Don’t Forget)”
Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in 1919 in Montgomery, Alabama. His family headed by his Baptist minister father, moved to Chicago in 1923. Cole learned to play the organ from his mother, Perlina Coles, the church organist. Coles first performance was the Billy Jones chart-topping 1923 hit, “Yes! We Have No Bananas”, at the age of four. Cole began formal piano lessons at 12, learning jazz, gospel, and classical music. As a youth, Cole joined the news delivery boys’ “Bud Billiken Club” band for an African-American newspaper called The Chicago Defender. At the age of 15, Nat Cole left school to follow a path in music. In 1936, with his bassist brother Eddie, Nat Cole became part of a sextet named Eddie Cole’s Swingsters. Cole was married in 1937 and moved to Los Angeles. He formed a band called the King Cole Swingsters. They were named after the British nursery rhyme Old King Cole (was a merry old soul…). ” The name next was changed to the King Cole Trio in anticipation of making radio transcriptions, and recording for small record labels.
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#1: Makin’ Love by Floyd Robinson
City: Red Deer, AB
Radio Station: CKRD
Peak Month: October 1959
Peak Position in Red Deer ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
Peak Position on Norwegian Singles chart ~ #7
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #9
YouTube: “Makin’ Love”
Lyrics: “Makin’ Love”
Floyd Robinson was born in 1932 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry at the age of 17. In 1954, he released a hillbilly song he wrote titled “G-I-R-L, Girls”. It contained the lyric “We can penetrate the ocean, we can fly around the world. But there just ain’t no answer for G-I-R-L girls.” This was followed later that year with “Love, Love, Love”. He wrote “Little Space Girl” (uncredited according to Wikipedia) which was a Top 20 for his cousin Jesse Lee Turner in early 1959. Robinson recorded “The Man In The Moon Is A Lady” but it got little notice. Both “Little Space Girl” and “The Man In The Moon Is A Lady” used the Chipmunk-like high-pitched squeaky vocals found in “The Chipmunk Song”. Robinson’s followup was “Makin’ Love”.
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#3: Get Down by Curtis Mayfield
City: Red Deer, AB
Radio Station: CKRD
Peak Month: December 1971
Peak Position in Red Deer ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #69
YouTube: “Get Down”
Lyrics: “Get Down”
Curtis Mayfield was born in Chicago in 1942. Mayfield received his first guitar when he was ten, later recalling that he loved his guitar so much he used to sleep with it. At the age of 14 in 1956, he joined his high school friend Jerry Butler’s group The Roosters with brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks. He wrote and composed songs for this group who would become The Impressions two years later. Mayfield was with the Impressions when they backed Jerry Butler on the Top Ten hit in 1958 titled “For Your Precious Love”. At the age of 17 in 1960, Mayfield co-wrote “He Will Break Your Heart”. The song became a number-one R&B hit for Jerry Butler, and a #7 crossover pop hit on the Billboard Hot 100 which also reached #5 in Montreal.
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#38: Still by the Sunrays
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: May 1966
Peak Position in London ~ #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #42
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #93
YouTube: “Still”
Lyrics: “Still”
Eddy Medora was born in Los Angeles in 1945. He writes about the backstory to the Sunrays. “We were called the Renegades. We were a garage band rehearsing in my parents home in Pacific Palisades. We were in 7th and 8th grade. I saw a band perform called the Riptides – they had a local hit called Machine Gun….After I saw the response from the crowd, I knew I wanted to start a band. We played all over West L.A. There were five of us – Marty, Darrol, Mike, Ricky, and myself. We were doing pretty well when Mike moved away. Darrol also left. In the first year of high school, I met Steve and Vince. These guys did not have a band. They were both good musicians. They asked if they could join our band. We auditioned them. After we heard them play, I knew they had all of our votes.”
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#3: You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester
City: Quebec City (Levis), PQ
Radio Station: CFLS
Peak Month: April 1979
Peak Position in Quebec City ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
Peak Position on Israeli Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Swiss Singles chart ~ #6
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #7
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #8
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #11
YouTube: “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”
Lyrics: “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”
Sylvester James Jr. was born in 1947 in Los Angeles. His father had numerous affairs and left Sylvester’s mother and children when he was a young child. He began singing at the age of three, and sang the Al Jolson 1922 hit, “My Buddy”, at a neighborhood child’s funeral a few years later. Biographer, Joshua Gamson in his book The fabulous Sylvester: the legend, the music, the seventies in San Francisco, describes a view of Sylvester as a boy. The women at his church described him as “feminine” and as “pretty as he could be, just like his mother. He wasn’t rough like the other boys. He was prim and proper. We were always hugging on him and kissing on him, because he was so cute.” Family members also described him as “his own kind of boy — ‘born funny'” — preferring the company of girls and women like his grandmother to that of other boys. “He stayed inside a lot, reading encyclopedias, listening to music, and playing his grandmother’s piano.” When Sylvester would turn down the boys’ invitations to play with them, they would say things like, “He act like a girl!” or “He’s going to be a girl.” But his mother would defend him, including his joy at dressing up in her and his grandmother’s clothes, saying that he was not a girl, just a different kind of boy, and a valued part of their family.
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#21: Caught Up In The Rapture by Anita Baker
City: Burnaby, BC
Radio Station: CFML
Peak Month: January-February 1987
Peak Position in Burnaby ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #48
YouTube: “Caught Up In The Rapture”
Lyrics: “Caught Up In The Rapture”
Anita Baker was born in 1958 in Toledo, Ohio. She was raised by foster parents. By the age of sixteen she was singing in R&B nightclubs in Detroit. Baker joined Chapter 8 in 1975 and the group toured until they got a record deal in 1979. Chapter 8’s first album, Chapter 8, was released that year and featured the singles “Ready For Your Love”, a duet between Baker and bandmate Gerald Lyles, which cracked the Top 40 on the R&B charts. Chapter 8 was dropped by the label who were convinced that Baker, as the group’s lead singer, did not have “star potential.” Anita Baker returned to Detroit, working as a waitress and a receptionist until, in 1982, Otis Smith, a former associate of Ariola Records, convinced Baker to start a solo career under his Beverly Glen label.
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#11: The Windmills Of Your Mind by Dusty Springfield
City: Pointe Claire, PQ
Radio Station: CFOX
Peak Month: July 1969
Peak Position in Pointe Claire ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
Peak Position on Philippine Singles chart ~ #34
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #40
YouTube: “The Windmills Of Your Mind”
Lyrics: “The Windmills Of Your Mind”
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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