#31: Happiness Street (Corner Sunshine Square) by Tony Bennett

City: Halifax, NS
Radio Station: CJCH
Peak Month: October 1956
Peak Position in Halifax ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #38
YouTube: “Happiness Street (Corner Sunshine Square)”
Lyrics: “Happiness Street (Corner Sunshine Square)”

Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born in New York City in 1926. His parents were grocer John Benedetto and seamstress Anna (nee Suraci), and he was the first member of his family to be born in a hospital. Both parents had come from the Calabria region in southern Italy. With a father who was ailing and unable to work, Anthony and his brother and sister grew up with their parents in poverty. Anthony had an uncle in vaudeville who inspired him as a young child to consider entertaining as a career. By age 10 Anthony was already singing, and performed at the opening of the Triborough Bridge, standing next to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who patted him on the head. He began singing for money at age 13, performing as a singing waiter in several Italian restaurants around Queens. Though he had an aptitude to study painting and music, he dropped out at age 16 to help support his family. He worked as a copy boy and runner for the Associated Press in Manhattan and in several other low-skilled, low-paying jobs. Anthony mostly set his sights on a professional singing career, returning to performing as a singing waiter, playing and winning amateur nights all around the city, and enjoying a successful engagement at a nightclub in Paramus, New Jersey.

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#1: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight by James Taylor

City: Fort St. John, BC
Radio Station: CKNL
Peak Month: February 1973
Peak Position in Fort St. John ~ #2
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #21
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”
Lyrics: “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”

James Vernon Taylor was born in Boston in 1948. From the age of three, he lived with his family in North Carolina. Taylor would say later “Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people.” During his childhood he took cello lessons, and picked up guitar at the age of 12. James Taylor got to know people in the folk music scene on Martha’s Vineyard, where his family had a vacation home. In 1963 he was playing coffeehouses on the island as part of a duo named Jamie & Kootch. But in 1961 he was enrolled in a boarding school in Milton, Massachusetts. The pressures of the school were too much for the very sensitive James, even though he was doing well academically. Back in North Carolina he became depressed and by 1965 was sleeping for 20 hours a day.

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#44: Sweet Impossible You by Brenda Lee

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: October 1963
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #7
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #45
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #70
Peak Position on the UK Singles chart ~ #28
YouTube: “Sweet Impossible You”
Lyrics: “Sweet Impossible You”

Brenda Mae Tarpley was born in 1944 in Atlanta, Georgia. Her parents were poor. During her childhood, young Brenda shared a sagging iron bed with her brother and sister in a series of three-room houses. They had no running water. Here parents went from job to job. After the stock market crash in 1929, Brenda’s mother would recall “you could hardly buy a job.” The region was devastated by an infestation of the boll weevil. Brenda started singing solos each Sunday at the Baptist church where her family attended. In her 2002 autobiography, she wrote “I grew up so poor, and it saddens me to see the poverty that is still there. A lot of my family have never done any better. Some of them are just exactly where they were when I was a kid. And in a way, there is still something inside of me that is a part of that, the part that doesn’t expect much. Little things make them happy, and that’s the same with me.”

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#2: Artificial Flowers by Bobby Darin

City: Sudbury, ON
Radio Station: CKSO
Peak Month: November 1960
Peak Position in Sudbury ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “Artificial Flowers”
Lyrics: “Artificial Flowers”

Walden Robert Cassotto was born in the Bronx in May, 1936. His mother, born in November 1917, was pregnant with him when she was only sixteen, giving birth to him when she was seventeen. In the 1930’s, being a pregnant teenager was very improper. So she gave birth and was introduced to her son as his older “sister.” In order for the deceit to be pulled off, young Robert was raised by his grandmother, Polly, who he understood was his mother. And he understood that his “mother” had given birth at a later stage in life. His “mother” was a showgirl in her earlier days and so not the “grandmother type.” So the ruse was successful. It was not until 1968, when he was 32 years of age, that he discovered that his older sister, Giovannina Cassotto, was actually his mother. In his childhood, Robert learned to play piano, drums and guitar. According to his biographies, Walden Robert Cassotto suffered from rheumatic fever as a child. Bobby’s real sister, Vivienne, said years later, “my earliest memory of Bobby as a child was about his rheumatic fever. We couldn’t walk on the floor because just walking across the floor would put him in agony. I remember Bobby crying and screaming and my father having to pick him up and carry him to the bathroom, he was in so much pain. I remember being told all my life, “Bobby’s sickly. You have to be careful, and you have to protect him.” Between the ages of eight and thirteen, Bobby had four illnesses with rheumatic fever. Each one damaging his heart muscle more severely than the previous illness.

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#54: Everyday I Have To Cry Some by Steve Alaimo

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: March 1963
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #8
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #32
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #46
YouTube: “Everyday I Have To Cry”
Lyrics: “Everyday I Have To Cry”

Stephen “Steve” Alaimo was born in 1939 in Omaha, Nebraska. He entered the music business during his time as a pre-med student at the University of Miami. He joined his cousin’s instrumental rock band the Redcoats. Alaimo became the guitarist, and shortly took the role of lead singer. The Redcoats played at a sock hop held by local disc jockey Bob Green and record label owner Henry Stone. Subsequently, the Redcoats were signed to a record contract with Stone’s Marlin Records. In 1959, “I Want You To Love Me” became a regional hit for the band. That year Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars came to Miami. They needed a band to back up headliners, so the Redcoats got the nod. As well, Steve Alaimo and the Redcoats climbed to number-one on WINZ in Miami with “She’s My Baby” in August 1959. In the winter of 1959-60, the band released “You Can Fall In Love”, credited to Steve Alaimo and the Redcoats on Dade Records. It charted in Miami. In September 1960, Steve Alaimo and the Redcoats charted the rockabilly tune “Blue Fire” into the Top 20 in Bakersfield (CA), and the Top 30 in Portland (OR).

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#55: Big Wide World by Teddy Randazzo

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: March 1963
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #10
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “Big Wide World”
Lyrics: “Big Wide World”

Teddy Randazzo was born in 1935 in Brooklyn (NY). He learned to play accordion, and around 1953 joined the Three Chuckles. The group was named after a candy bar. Randazzo became the lead singer and the group had a #20 hit with “Runaround” in 1954. The group had two more minor hits the following years. This brought Teddy Randazzo to the attention of rock ‘n roll DJ Alan Freed. He was cast in the teen flick Rock! Rock! Rock! in 1956. Other recording artists in the movie were Connie Francis, Chuck Berry, The Moonglows, The Flamingos, The Johnny Burnette Trio, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and LaVern Baker. Later that year he appeared in The Girl Can’t Help It, starring Jayne Mansfield. The movie featured songs performed by Ray Anthony, Julie London, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, The Platters, Gene Vincent, the Treniers, and Nino Tempo.

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#22: Find Your Way Back by Jefferson Starship

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: June 1981
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #3
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
YouTube: “Find Your Way Back”
Lyrics: “Find Your Way Back”

Jefferson Starship morphed from the Jefferson Airplane in 1974. By 1981, the lineup in the band consisted of lead vocalist and piano player Grace Slick; Keyboard and bass guitarist David Freiberg; Paul Kantner on banjo, harmonica, rhythm guitar and synthesizers; Craig Chaquico on guitar; Pete Sears on keyboards and guitar; Mickey Thomas on lead and backing vocals; and Ansley Dunbar on drums and percussion. Paul Kantner was born in San Francisco in 1941. His mother died when he was eight, and his father sent him to see the circus instead of allowing him to attend the funeral. Kantner was sent to a Catholic Military boarding school. In the face of his strict upbringing, Paul Kantner became interested in Pete Seeger, folk and protest songs. He was one of the co-founders of Jefferson Airplane in 1965.

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#3: My Heart’s Symphony by Gary Lewis and the Playboys

City: St. John’s, NL
Radio Station: VOCM
Peak Month: April 1966
Peak Position in St. John’s ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #13
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #36
YouTube: “My Heart’s Symphony”
Lyrics: “My Heart’s Symphony”

Gary Lewis & the Playboys were a band formed in 1964 as Gary & the Playboys. The “Playboys” was dreamed up given Gary Lewis thought the tardiness of his bandmates cast them as less than serious musicians, and in a word – playboys. They auditioned for a job at Disneyland without telling Disney employees about Lewis’ celebrity father, Jerry Lewis. They were hired on the spot, audiences at Disneyland quickly accepted them, and the Playboys were soon playing to a full house every night. The orchestra bandleader Les Brown, who had known Jerry Lewis for years, told record producer Snuff Garrett that the younger Lewis was playing at Disneyland. After listening to the band, Garrett thought using Gary’s famous name might sell more records. He convinced the group to add “Lewis” into their name. So they became Gary Lewis & the Playboys.

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#3: Everybody’s Out Of Town by B.J. Thomas

City: Bathurst, NB
Radio Station: CKBC
Peak Month: April 1970
Peak Position in Bathurst ~ #5
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #18
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #26
YouTube: “Everybody’s Out Of Town”
Lyrics: “Everybody’s Out Of Town”

Billy Joe Thomas was born in Hugo, Oklahoma, in 1942. His family eventually moved to Houston, Texas. When he was in his teens playing baseball, Billy Joe Thomas took the name of BJ. This was because there were too many boys on the baseball team with the name of Billy Joe. During his teens he sang in a church choir. In 1958, BJ Thomas heard “To Be Loved” by Jackie Wilson. He credits the song as being a catalyst for his love of singing. In the late 50’s, in grade eleven, his Junior year, BJ Thomas became lead singer for a local band named The Triumphs. He got to know Roy Head and the Traits. The Traits and The Triumphs participated in several Battle of the Bands events in the early 60’s. In 1966, BJ Thomas got a record contract with Scepter Records.

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#6: Petticoat White (Summer Sky Blue) ~ Bobby Vinton

City: St. John’s, NL
Radio Station: VOCM
Peak Month: September 1966
Peak Position in St. John’s ~ #3
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #81
YouTube: “Petticoat White (Summer Sky Blue)”
Lyrics: “Petticoat White (Summer Sky Blue)”

Stanley Robert Vinton was born in 1935 in Canonsberg, Pennsylvania. His father was a bandleader, and the Polish surname was originally Vintula, and anglicized to Vinton. He was given a weekly 25-cent allowance as an incentive to learn the clarinet (about $4.25 in 2024 dollars). By the age of sixteen, Bobby Vinton had his own band in Pittsburgh. He got a degree in university in music composition, and learned to also play saxophone, piano, drums, trumpet and oboe. In the fall of 1959, Bobby Vinton wrote a song titled “First Impression” which became a Top 40 hit in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Syracuse (NY) and Flint (MI). In early 1960, Vinton had a Top 20 hit in Syracuse (NY) with “A Freshman And A Sophomore”. He served in the United States Army for two years and got a record deal late in 1960 on the Epic label.

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