#37: Memory by Menage
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: October 1983
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Memory”
Lyrics: “Memory”
Menage was a disco project by Warren Schatz and Eric Matthew focused on disco adaptations of Broadway show tunes. Schatz was born in Brooklyn in 1945. He recorded an album in 1971. He went on to variously write, arrange or produce songs for Frankie Valli, Evelyn “Champagne” King, Vicki Sue Robinson, Donny Osmond, Dolly Parton and others. His most notable effort was with Vicki Sue Robinson’s “Top Ten Hit Turn The Beat Around” in 1976. He also was the executive producer for Evelyn “Champagne” King’s Top Ten 1977 hit “Shame”.
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#4: Mexican Hat Rock by the Applejacks
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: November 1958
Peak Position in Guelph ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube: “Mexican Hat Rock”
The Applejacks is a group formed by Dave Appell in 1954. Born in 1922 in Philadelphia, Appell began working as an arranger for United States Navy big bands while he was a sailor in the navy. He also worked as an arranger for African-American swing band leader Jimmie Lunceford. He also was an arranger for dance band leaders Earl Hines and Benny Carter. He formed the Dave Appell Four in 1953 and released a version of the 1928 Guy Lombardo fox trot hit “Coquette”. The Applejacks released their debut single in 1954 titled “Sweet Patootie Pie”. The other members of the band became studio musicians at Cameo-Parkway Records in Philadelphia. They were keyboardist and pianist Demetrios Pappas, Frank Day (born Francesco Cocchi), George Young (born in Philadelphia in 1937), percussionist Hector Rosado, bass player Steve Buskrone, and drummer, percussionist Vic Stevens. While the Applejacks were performing and recording singles, Frank Day was concurrently in a local Philadelphia band named Billy Duke and his Dukes who released ten singles between 1955 and 1957. In 1956, Dave Appell and the Applejacks appeared in the Alan Freed rock flim Don’t Knock the Rock.
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#94: High Energy by Evelyn Thomas
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: September 1984
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #85
Peak Position on Spain Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on the Danish Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Dutch Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Swiss Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Austrian Singles chart ~ #5
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #5
YouTube: “High Energy”
Lyrics: “High Energy”
Evelyn Thomas was born in Chicago in 1953. She was “discovered” by UK producer Ian Levine who brought her to the UK and took her to the recording studio. In 1976, Thomas released her debut single “Weak Spot” which reached #26 in the UK pop singles chart. A followup single, “Doomsday”, missed the Top 40 in the UK. Her 1978 debut album is titled I Wanna Make It on My Own. Four more singles were released in the late ’70s. Her second album, Have a Little Faith in Me, was released in 1979.
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#3: Unwind by Ray Stevens
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: June 1968
Peak Position in Guelph: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #52
YouTube: “Unwind”
Lyrics: “Unwind”
Harold Ray Ragsdale was born in January 1939, in Clarkdale, Georgia. In high school he formed a group called The Barons. When he was 18, he was signed to Capitol Records on their Prep label. His debut single was “Five More Steps”. The single charted briefly on CKWX in Vancouver in February 1958. In the summer of 1960, Stevens “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon” climbed to #22 in Vancouver. While in 1961, Stevens released a single about unscrupulous pharmaceutical products pitched to cure whatever ails you. “Jeremiah Peabody’s Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills” reached #8 in Vancouver, and also charted in the Top 50 in Winnipeg and Montreal. For several decades, Ray Stevens’ song was the longest song title to make the Billboard Hot 100.
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#43: That Sunday, That Summer by Nat King Cole
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJAD
Peak Month: October-November 1963
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
YouTube: “That Sunday, That Summer”
Lyrics: “That Sunday, That Summer”
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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#48: My Male Curiosity by Kid Creole and the Coconuts
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: November 1984
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #110
YouTube: “My Male Curiosity”
Lyrics: “My Male Curiosity”
Thomas August Darnell Browder was born in 1950 in The Bronx (NY). Darnell began his musical career in a band named The In-Laws with his half-brother, Stony Browder Jr., in 1965. The band disbanded so Darnell could pursue a career as an English teacher. He taught at Alverta B. Gray Schultz Middle School in Hempstead (NY). He later claimed that he established a musical career because he was a “frustrated actor.” In 1974, again with Stony Browder, he formed Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, becoming its lyricist and bass player. The band combined swing and Latin music with disco rhythms. They had their biggest hit in 1976 with “Cherchez La Femme”. The single topped the Billboard Disco Action Top 30 chart, and peaked at #2 in Belgium and the Netherlands. Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band’s self-titled debut release was a Top 40-charting album. It was certified gold and was nominated for a Grammy.
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#71: Fakin’ It by Simon and Garfunkel
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJMS
Peak Month: September 1967
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
YouTube: “Fakin’ It”
Lyrics: “Fakin’ It”
Paul Frederic Simon was born in 1941 in Newark, New Jersey, to Hungarian-Jewish parents. His dad was a bandleader who went by the name Lou Sims. When he was eleven years old he met Art Garfunkel and were both part of a sixth grade drama production of Alice In Wonderland. Arthur Ira Garfunkel was born in 1941 in New York City. He is of Moldovian-Jewish decent. By 1954 Paul and Art were singing at school dances. In 1957, in their mid-teens, they recorded the song “Hey, Schoolgirl” under the name “Tom & Jerry”, a name that was given to them by their label Big Records. The single reached No. 49 on the pop charts.
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#83: Shaddup You Face by Joe Dolce
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: March 1981
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #53
Peak Position on pop charts in Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa,
Switzerland, the UK and West Germany ~ #1
YouTube: “Shaddup You Face”
Lyrics: “Shaddup You Face”
Joe Dolce was born in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947. He acted in a number of plays out of high school, and was in a band called Headstone Circus with singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards (who had a #4 hit in 1972 titled “Sunshine”). In the late 70s he moved to Melbourne, Australia. In 1978 and his first single there was “Boat People”—a protest song about the poor treatment of Vietnamese refugees. It was translated into Vietnamese, and donated to the fledgling Vietnamese community starting to form in Melbourne. His one-man show, Joe Dolce Music Theatre, was performed in cabarets and pubs.
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#20: The River is Wide by the Grass Roots
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: June 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #36
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “The River is Wide”
Lyrics: “The River is Wide”
The Grass Roots were a band from Los Angeles. They were a band project by Los Angeles songwriter and producer duo P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri. Sloan and Barri had written several songs in an attempt by their record company, Dunhill Records, to cash in on the folk rock movement. One of these songs was “Where Were You When I Needed You”, which was recorded by Sloan and Barri. Sloan provided the lead vocals and played guitar, Larry Knetchel played keyboards, Joe Osborn played the bass and Bones Howe was on drums. The song was released under “The Grass Roots” name and sent, as a demo, to several radio stations of the San Francisco Bay area.
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#84: Twelve Thirty by the Mamas and the Papas
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJMS
Peak Month: October 1967
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #14
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #16
YouTube: “Twelve Thirty”
Lyrics: “Twelve Thirty”
John Edmund Andrew Phillips was born in Paris Island, South Carolina, in 1935. His father was a military officer and John was sent to Linton Hall Military School from age seven to eleven. He hated the school and its corporal punishment. In his autobiography, Phillips recalls he also thought it was creepy that “nuns used to watch us take showers.” In high school he assembled several doo-wop groups. After he dropped out of a Naval Academy in 1953, John Phillips studied at a men’s college until 1959. In 1958 he formed a doo-wop group named the Abstracts, fashioned after the Four Preps and other popular groups of the era. The Abstracts changed their name in 1959 to the Smoothies. Another member of the group was Philip Blondheim III, who later changed his name to Scott McKenzie. The Smoothies played at night clubs in New York City with chorus girls and comedians.
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