#6: Day By Day by Godspell
City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CFQC
Peak Month: June 1972
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #18
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #13
YouTube: “Day By Day”
Lyrics: “Day By Day”
Godspell is the name of an Off-Broadway musical created in 1970, that began its run in 1971. The show features eight non-Biblical characters, who sing and act out the parables: Gilmer (silly, a great storyteller); Robin (a tomboy); Herb (goofy and entertaining); Jeffrey (happy and excited); Joanne (eager and enthusiastic); Lamar (clumsy and unintentionally funny); Peggy (shy and loyal); and Sonia (dramatic with a put-on sensuality). In the original script, licensed through Theatre Maximus, the “Christ” character and the “John” and “Judas” role are assigned the names of the original performers, Stephen and David. All ten actors are on stage throughout the entirety of the production. The score was based loosely on themes in the Gospel of Matthew.
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#21: Jackson by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood
City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #2
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Jackson”
Lyrics: “Jackson”
Nancy Sinatra is the daughter of crooner Frank Sinatra and was born in New Jersey in 1940. When she was 5 years old he recorded a song about her titled “Nancy, With the Laughing Face”. At the age of twenty she began her career appearing on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. This was a television special on the occasion of Elvis Presley’s discharge from the U.S. Army after being drafted to into the services in 1958. Nancy was sent by her father to meet Elvis at the airport in front of a pack of photographers. In 1960, she also got married to singer and actor, Tommy Sands.
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#48: Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl by the Barbarians
City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: August 1965
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #2
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55
YouTube: “Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl”
Lyrics: “Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl”
The Barbarians were a band from Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The drummer was Victor “Moulty” Moulton, born in Provincetown (MA) in 1945. Jerry Causi was the lead vocalist and had recently left the United States Coast Guard. Guitarist Ron Enos (born 1943) joined in 1964, but left the band before they found their fifteen minutes of fame. He was replaced by Geoffrey “Jeff” Morris in 1965. Guitar player Bruce Benson (born in 1946 in Provincetown) was the third original continuing member of the Barbarians. In the summer of 1964, Bruce Benson had a job at Howard Johnson’s tin Provincetown. Benson recalls, “I helped man the soda fountain, all the 3D burgers and ice cream you could eat.” Victor Moulton worked in the kitchen washing dishes. Benson and Moulton became friends and go to Victor’s Restaurant down Bradford Street from Howard Johnson’s.
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#25: Down Home by Rick Nelson
City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: October-November 1963
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #3
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #126
YouTube: “Down Home”
Lyrics: N/A
In 1940 Eric Hilliard Nelson was born. On February 20, 1949, while still eight years old, he took the stage name of Ricky Nelson when appearing on the radio program, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. A child actor, Ricky was also a musician and singer-songwriter. who starred alongside his family in the long-running television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952–66), as well as co-starring alongside John Wayne and Dean Martin in the western Rio Bravo (1959). He placed 53 songs on the Billboard singles charts between 1957 and 1973.
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#16: Hot Rod Hearts by Robbie Dupree
City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: September 1980
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Hot Rod Hearts”
Lyrics: “Hot Rod Hearts”
Robert Dupuis was born in 1946 in Brooklyn, New York. In 1980, he released his debut self-titled album Robbie Dupree. He took the name Robbie Dupree as his stage name. The debut single from the album was titled “Steal Away”. It reached #6 in the USA and #14 on the RPM Top 100 Singles chart in Canada. Dupree is regarded as a one-hit-wonder. “Steal Away” was ranked #64 by American cable TV network VH1 on their 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80s list. However, Robbie Dupree actually released more than one Top 40 hit single. His followup was titled “Hot Rod Hearts”.
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#18: Beach Party by Frankie Avalon
City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: January 1964
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #2
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Beach Party”
Lyrics: N/A
Francis Thomas Avallone was born in Philadelphia in 1940. When he was 12-years-old, he appeared in a Christmas episode on The Jackie Gleason Show, playing trumpet in a Honeymooners sketch. RCA signed Frankie Avalon to the label and in 1954 released the trumpet solo he performed in the December 1952 Honeymooners sketch. “Trumpet Sorrento” climbed to #42 on the Cashbox Best Selling Singles chart in March 1954. Avalon also appeared on The Perry Como Show where he played trumpet. With Bobby Rydell, Avalon was in a doo-wop group called Rocco and the Saints. They were backing vocalists for his debut single in 1957, “Cupid”, written by Peter DeAngelis. He appeared in the 1957 rock and roll film Jamboree and performed “Teacher’s Pet” (also written by DeAngelis, and different from “Teacher’s Pet” recorded by Doris Day in 1958). In the film Jamboree, Frankie Avalon got to meet other pop stars in the cast including Fats Domino, Connie Francis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Bowen, Buddy Knox, Charlie Gracie, and jazz singer Joe Williams.
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#1: Macho Man by Village People
City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: October 1978
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Macho Man”
Lyrics: “Macho Man”
The Village People were formed in 1977 in San Francisco. French composer Jacques Morali had written some dance tunes. Around that time singer Victor Willis gave Morali a demo tape. Jacques Morali liked the demo and invited Willis to record four songs for an album credited to the Village People. The group name referenced New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, at the time known for having a substantial gay population. Morali got the inspiration for creating an assembly of American male archetypes based on the gay men of ‘The Village’ who frequently dressed in various fantasy attire. The Village People debut single release was “San Francisco (You’ve Got Me)”. It topped the Billboard Dance Club songs chart in for seven weeks from September 3rd to October 15th, 1977. Other cuts from the Village People album, “In Hollywood” and “Fire Island”, shared the top spot on the Dance Club chart. At the time, the Village People only consisted of singer Victor Willis.
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#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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