#230: Fabulous by Steve Lawrence
City: Toronto, ON
Radio Station: CHUM
Peak Month: May 1957
Peak Position in Toronto: #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube: “Fabulous”
Lyrics: “Fabulous”
Sidney Liebowitz was born in 1935 to Jewish parents in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. His father, Max, was a cantor at the Brooklyn synagogue Beth Sholom Tomchei Harav, and his mother, Helen, was a homemaker. During high school, Lawrence skipped school to spend time at the Brill Building in the hopes of being employed as a singer. In 1952 at the age of 16, Lawrence signed a contract with King Records after winning a talent contest on Arthur Godfrey’s CBS TV show. That year he had a #21 hit single credited to Steve Lawrence on the Billboard pop chart titled “Poinciana”. The next year, talk show host Steve Allen hired Lawrence to be one of the singers on Allen’s local New York City late night show on WNBC-TV, with vocalists Eydie Gormé and Andy Williams. The show was chosen by NBC to be seen on the national network, becoming The Tonight Show, and Lawrence, Gormé, and Williams stayed until the program’s end in 1957. Lawrence credited the exposure and experience he gained on Allen’s show for launching his career “I think Steve Allen was the biggest thing that happened to me. Every night I was called upon to do something different. In its own way, it was better than vaudeville.”
Continue reading →
#16: Making Every Minute Count by Spanky and Our Gang
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJBK
Peak Month: September 1967
Peak Position in London ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #30
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “Making Every Minute Count”
Lyrics: “Making Every Minute Count”
Spanky and Our Gang was a sunshine pop group led by Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane. She was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1942. In 1959, she arrived in Chicago and began to perform in jazz clubs with Lil Hardin Armstrong (Louis Armstrong’s second wife), Earl Hines, and Little Brother Montgomery. She soon got involved with the burgeoning folk crowd and formed a trio with Roger McGuinn (future frontman of The Byrds) and Guy Guilbert called the Old Town Trio. The trio played in local Chicago area bars and coffee houses for a summer. In 1962, she joined the New Wine Singers. Fellow singer Arnie Lanza nicknamed her Spanky because of the similarity of her last name, McFarlane, to the last name of child actor George McFarland who played Spanky in the Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals) comedies about poor neighborhood children and their adventures. The nickname stuck.
Continue reading →
#118: Jesse by Roberta Flack
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CHOM
Peak Month: November 1973
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “Jesse”
Lyrics: “Jesse”
Roberta Flack was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, in 1937. Her family moved to Arlington, Virginia, when she was five. Growing up in a large, musical family, she often accompanied the choir of Lomax African Methodist-Episcopal Zion Church by playing hymns and spirituals on piano. She also attended a Baptist in her neighborhood to listen to contemporary gospel music including songs performed by Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke. When Flack was nine, she began to play the piano. Into her teens, she excelled at classical piano, finishing second in a statewide competition for Black 13-year-old students. In connection with the competition, she won a full music scholarship to Howard University.
Continue reading →
#18: While The Record Goes Around by the Playmates
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “While The Record Goes Around”
Lyrics: “While The Record Goes Around”
The Nitwits were a vocal group that began performing in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1952. They were a trio consisting of Chic Hetti (born Carl Cicchetti) on piano and lead vocals, drummer and vocalist Donny Conn (born Donald Clapps), and Morey Carr (born Morey Cohen) on vocals and bass. All three were born in the Waterbury area. Each had attended the University of Connecticut in the early 50’s and decided to form a comedy group that also sang songs. They toured lounges in the USA and Canada. Their routine and material resembled another vocal group from the mid-50’s into the early 60’s named the Four Preps. Over five years of touring, the Nitwits shifted their focus from comedy skits with songs to being primarily a vocal group with comedic banter between tunes. In the spring of 1957, the Nitwits got a contract with Roulette Records, becoming the labels first vocal group. They changed their name from the Nitwits to the Playmates. In the middle of the calypso craze, they released an album titled Playmates Visit the West Indies. That year “Darling It’s Wonderful” peaked at #12 in Toronto.
Continue reading →
#19: A House, A Car And A Wedding Ring by Dale Hawkins
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: November 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #46
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #88
YouTube: “A House, A Car, And A Wedding Ring”
Lyrics: “A House, A Car, And A Wedding Ring”
Delmar Allen “Dale” Hawkins was born in Goldmine Plantation, Louisiana, in 1936. Fellow rockabilly singer, Ronnie Hawkins, was his cousin. His family was poor and he picked cotton with Black-Americans to get by. He left home when he was fifteen and joined the United States Navy. After he left the Navy in 1953, he got a job in Shreveport (LA) working for Stanley Lewis at Stan’s Record Shop. He began recording in 1956 and released “See You Soon Baboon”, which opened with a Tarzan call. In 1957, Hawkins was playing at Shreveport clubs. His music was influenced by the new rock and roll style of Elvis Presley and the guitar sounds of Scotty Moore. Still, Hawkins blended that sound with the uniquely heavy blues sound of black Louisiana artists for his recording of his swamp-rock classic, “Susie Q”. He took five months to write the song before August 1954. In early 1957, Hawkins recorded the song late one night at KWKH-AM in Shreveport. The recording was sold to Chess Records which released it as a single in May ’57. “Susie Q” peaked at #7 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart. It reached #27 on the Billboard pop chart in July ’57. In Canada, “Susie Q” reached #6 in Toronto and #10 in Winnipeg.
Continue reading →
#21: Getting Dizzy by the Elegants
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Getting Dizzy”
Lyrics: N/A
The Elegants were a doo-wop group that was started in 1958 by Vito Picone, Arthur Venosa, Frank Tardogno, Carman Romano and James Moschello in South Beach, Staten Island, New York. They started out performing under the boardwalk by their homes. Back in 1955 in Staten Island,Vito Picone was 15-years old and his friend Carman Romano played the trombone in their high school. But in the mid-50s they wanted form a vocal group. They recruited reunited high school bandmate Ronnie Jones, who played trombone. The fourth member of their group was and girl trumpet player Pat “Cordel” Croccitto. They named themselves The Crescents. The foursome sang for the fun of it and performed at local church functions and dances.
Continue reading →
#23: Dream World by the Four Coins
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: August 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Dream World”
Lyrics: N/A
The Four Coins were a vocal harmony group formed in 1952 in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, by George Mantalis. He was born in 1934. The other members of the quartet, all Greek-American, were James Gregorakis, (born in 1934) and brothers George and Jack Mahramas. Jack Mahramas, born in 1940 in Canonsburg, was the youngest member of the quartet. The Mahramas brothers assumed the stage names George and Jack James. Mantalis and Gregorakis were cousins of the Maharamas brothers, and all were living within a few houses of each other on the same block in East Canonsburg (PA). Before they became a quartet, three of its members were horn players with Stanley “Bobby” Vinton and His Band of Tomorrow Orchestra in 1951-52. At the time Vinton was just 16-years-old, and also a Canonsburg native. The future pop star rose to fame with his number-one 1962 hit “Roses Are Red”.
Continue reading →
#24: Cap And Gown by Marty Robbins
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: July 1959
Peak Position in London ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #57
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube: “Cap and Gown”
Lyrics: “Cap and Gown”
Martin “Marty” David Robinson was born Glendale (AZ) in 1925. His parents divorced when he was 12. He quit school and got work as an amateur boxer, dug ditches, drove trucks, delivered ice, and served as a mechanics assistant. At 17, Robbins left home to serve in the United States Navy as an landing tank craft coxswain during WWII. He was stationed in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. To pass the time during the war, he learned to play the guitar, got introduced to Hawaiian music and began songwriting. After his discharge from the military in 1947, Robbins got married. The next year he started to play at local venues in Phoenix. In the early 1950s Marty moved on to host his own show on KYYL (Mesa, AZ) and then his own television show Western Caravan on KPHO-TV in Phoenix. His show got on the radar of Columbia Records after Little Jimmy Dickens made a guest appearance on Western Caravan.
Continue reading →
#25: Real Wild Child by Ivan
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68
YouTube: “Real Wild Child”
Lyrics: “Real Wild Child”
Jerry “Ivan” Allison was born in 1939 in Hillsboro, Texas. He learned to play drums in his youth. In the mid-50s, Allison met Buddy Holly and the pair created a duo. Holly played guitar and sang, while Allison played the drums. Allison went to a recording studio in Nashville in 1956 for Buddy Holly’s first recording session. However, two single releases on the Decca label for Holly were commercial flops. Allison and Holly met Joe Mauldin in 1957 and they formed a trio they named The Crickets. The three were capable of writing, playing, producing and recording their own records. They were also skilled at over-dubbing in the studio years before it became a standard feature of studio recording. “That’ll Be The Day” climbed to #1 in the spring of 1957 establishing The Crickets as a part of the vanguard of rock ‘n roll at a time that many music critics predicted its demise and regarded it as a “music fad.” While The Crickets were not acknowledged on the record label credits for “Peggy Sue”, many DJ’s knew that Buddy Holly’s band was playing on the record.
Continue reading →
#5: Half Heaven-Half Heartache by Gene Pitney
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: January 1963
Peak Position in London ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
YouTube: “Half Heaven-Half Heartache”
Lyrics: “Half Heaven-Half Heartache”
Gene Pitney was born in 1940 in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a songwriter who became a pop singer, something rare at the time. Some of the songs he wrote for other recording artists include “Rubber Ball” for Bobby Vee, “He’s A Rebel” for The Crystals and “Hello Mary Lou” for Ricky Nelson. Pitney was more popular in Vancouver than in his native America. Over his career he charted 14 songs into the Top Ten in Vancouver, while he only charted four songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Curiously, only two of these songs overlap: “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Vallance” and “I’m Gonna Be Strong”. Surprisingly “Only Love Can Break A Heart”, which peaked at #2 in the USA, stalled at #14 in Vancouver, and “It Hurts To Be In Love” stalled at #11 in Vancouver while it peaked at #7 south of the border.
Continue reading →
