#14: Break Away From That Boy by the Newbeats
City: Regina, SK
Radio Station: CJME
Peak Month: February 1965
Peak Position in Regina ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube: “Break Away (from That Boy)”
Lyrics: “Break Away (from That Boy)”
The Newbeats were a vocal trio formed in 1964 with the lead vocalist Larry Henley. As children, brothers Dean Mathis (born in 1939 in Hahira, Georgia) and Mark Mathis (born in 1942 in Hahira, Georgia), were taught to play guitar by their mother. They subsequently learned to play piano, bass guitar, and drums. They both played in a band at Bremen High School, in Bremen, Georgia. After finishing their public education, they decided on a career in the music industry. At the age of 17, Dean Mathis joined Paul Howard’s Western swing band in 1956 as pianist. Next, Dean joined Dale Hawkins’ band, where brother Mark soon joined as a bass player. They stayed with Dale Hawkins’ band for two years, including on the 1957 Top 30 hit single “Susie Q”.
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#10: Baby Can I Hold You by Tracy Chapman
City: Burnaby, BC
Radio Station: CFML
Peak Month: January 1989
Peak Position in Burnaby ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #48
YouTube: “Baby Can I Hold You”
Lyrics: “Baby Can I Hold You”
Tracy Chapman was born in 1964 in Cleveland, Ohio. Her mother gave her a ukulele to play at the age of three. Her parents were divorced when she was four. Chapman began playing guitar and writing songs at age eight. She says that she may have been first inspired to play the guitar by the television show Hee Haw. Growing up she experienced frequent bullying and racially motivated assaults. She attended Tufts University. Chapman recorded demos of songs at the Tufts University radio station, WMFO, for copyright purposes while she was a student at Tufts, in exchange for the station’s right to play her songs. In 1987, she signed a contract with Elektra Records.
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#2: Linda Lu by Ray Sharpe
City: Saint Jerome, PQ
Radio Station: CKJL
Peak Month: October 1959
Peak Position Saint Jerome ~ #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #27
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #46
YouTube: “Linda Lu”
Lyrics: “Linda Lu”
Ray Sharpe was born in 1938 in Fort Worth (TX). He learned guitar, influenced by Chuck Berry recordings. In 1956, he formed his own trio named Ray Sharpe and the Blues Whalers, with piano player Raydell Reese and drummer Cornelius Bell. They became popular playing rock and roll in Fort Worth clubs. Early in 1958, Artie Glenn (the writer of “Crying in the Chapel” which became a number-one R&B hit for the Orioles in 1953) gave Ray the opportunity to record two demos, both self-penned songs. Glenn sent copies of the demo to various people, including Lee Hazlewood and Lester Sill. They invited Sharpe to come to Phoenix for a session on April 2, 1958. His recording career started when Lee Hazelwood produced his single, “That’s the Way I Feel” / “Oh, My Baby’s Gone” on the Hamilton label. Both Duane Eddy and legendary session musician and rhythm guitarist Al Casey were in the studio with Ray Sharpe for his debut recording.
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#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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