#540: Come As You Are by Nirvana
Peak Month: April 1992
11 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Come As You Are”
Lyrics: “Come As You Are”
Kurt Donald Cobain was born in 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington. By age two he was singing and at age four started playing piano. His parents divorced when he was nine. Before the end of grade nine Cobain dropped out of school and lived homeless for several years. His uncle gave him a guitar for his 14th birthday. In 1985 Cobain fronted a punk band from Aberdeen named Fecal Matter. One of his friends in the punk scene was Krist Novoselic, who listened to a demo by Fecal Matter. Novoselic convinced Cobain to join with him in a band they called the Sellouts, a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band. The band was short-lived as Cobain wrote new material and they subsequently formed a band they called Nirvana. But before they settled on this name, the band was variously called Skid Row and Ted Ed Fred.
Continue reading →
#447: Time Out Of Mind by Steely Dan
Peak Month: June 1981
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube: “Time Out Of My Mind”
Lyrics: “Time Out Of My Mind”
Donald Jay Fagen was born into a Jewish household in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1948. The first record he bought was “Reelin’ and Rockin'” by Chuck Berry in 1958. In 1959, when he was eleven years old, a cousin of Donald Fagen suggested he explore jazz music. So he attended the Newport Jazz Festival. Fagen recalled later “I lost interest in rock ‘n’ roll and started developing an anti-social personality.” By 1960, after he’d turned twelve, Fagen began frequenting the Village Vanguard jazz club. He was able to see Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk, and Miles Davis. He learned to play the piano, and he played baritone horn in the high school marching band. Fagen also drew inspiration from the Boswell Sisters, Henry Mancini, Ray Charles, Sly and the Family Stone and a variety of Motown recording acts.
Continue reading →
#465: Don’t Take Away My Heaven by Aaron Neville
Peak Month: June 1993
13 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #56
YouTube: “Don’t Take Away My Heaven”
Lyrics: “Don’t Take Away My Heaven”
Aaron Joseph Neville was born in New Orleans in 1941. When he was fifteen he made his first visit to a recording studio and was a backing vocalist. When he was sixteen he went to a tattoo parlor and got a facial tattoo of a cross. At seventeen, his dream to be a singer was derailed when he was arrested for joy-riding. He also was doing drugs and drinking heavily. When he was nineteen in 1960, Aaron Neville recorded “Over You”, a song penned by Alan Toussaint. The single made the Top 50 on the CFUN chart in Vancouver (BC), but stalled at #111 below the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA. This was the first of five singles on the Minit record label between 1960 and 1962. Neville returned to the Top 40 on CFUN in early 1962 with “How Many Times”, putting his quivering vibrato on display. His career continued under the radar for the next four years until he had a huge Top Ten hit in the winter of 1966-67. In January 1967 Aaron Neville reached number-one on the CKLG Boss 4o with “Tell It Like It Is” in its third week on the chart. The single also topped the charts in Chatham (ON) and Montreal, #2 in Windsor (ON) and Belleville (ON), #4 in Hamilton (ON) and #5 in Regina (SK).
Continue reading →
#1092: Can’t Do A Thing (To Stop Me) by Chris Isaak
Peak Month: May 1993
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #105
YouTube: “Can’t Do A Thing”
Lyrics: “Can’t Do A Thing”
Christopher Joseph Isaak was born in 1956 in Stockton, California. He graduated from high school in 1974 and while in university was in an exchange program to Japan. After 1981 he formed a rockabilly band called Silvertone. Then in 1985 he got a record deal with Warner Bros. Records and released his debut album Silvertone. Two of the tracks from the album appeared in the neo-noir film Blue Velvet. Isaak released a self-titled second album in 1986 which garnered more attention and positive reviews. The track “Blue Hotel” was a hit in France. In 1988 Isaak recorded “Suspicion Of Love” which was included in the film Married to the Mob. In 1989 Isaak appeared in the video for the Elton John song “Sacrifice”.
Continue reading →
#443: Can’t Seem To Make You Mine by the Seeds
Peak Month: April 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
1 week Hit bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #41
YouTube: “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”
Lyrics: “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”
The Seeds were a garage rock band based in Los Angeles that formed in 1965. They coined the phrase, “Flower Power,” and are regarded as pioneering a sound that would later evolve into 70’s punk rock. The band’s leader, Sky “Sunlight” Saxon, was born in Salt Lake City in 1937. His birth name was Richard Elvern Marsh. Saxon began his career performing doo-wop pop tunes in the early 1960s under the name Little Richie Marsh. In 1962 he changed his name to Sky Saxon and formed the Electra-Fires. Subsequently, he became frontman for Sky Saxon & the Soul Rockers.
Continue reading →
#1446: My Coloring Book by Barbra Streisand
Peak Month: February 1963
7 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “My Coloring Book”
Lyrics: “My Coloring Book”
Barbara Joan Streisand was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. A year after she was born her 34-year-old father died of complications from an epileptic seizure, and a morphine injection given to address the situation. She had an older brother named Sheldon who was born in 1935. Barbara started her schooling at a Jewish Orthodox Jeshiva. Her mother remarried to Louis Kind in 1949, and with that marriage Barbara gained a half-sister named Roslyn. When she was nine years of age, she auditioned with MGM Records, though this didn’t result in a record deal. While attending Erasmus Hall High School she got to know a member of a choral club named Neil Diamond. When she was 14, Streisand saw the Broadway play The Diary Of Anne Frank. After seeing the play she knew she wanted to pursue acting. In the summer of 1957, Barbara Streisand got small acting parts in Picnic and Desk Set at the Playhouse in Malden Bridge, New York, a small town southeast of Albany. In 1958 she appeared in a play called Driftwood, opposite a new actress named Joan Rivers.
Continue reading →
#1453: If You Want This Love by Sonny Knight
Peak Month: October 1964
6 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
YouTube: “If You Want This Love”
Lyrics: “If You Want This Love”
Joseph Coleman Smith was born in 1934, in the western Chicago suburb of Maywood. His family moved to Los Angeles in the early 1950’s. In 1953 Joseph Smith signed with Aladdin Records and recorded a novelty tune he wrote titled “But Officer”. The song was a humorous response to police stopping young African-Americans back in the early 50’s. Do things ever change? Joseph C. Smith chose to record “But Officer” under the pseudonym Sonny Knight. Aladdin was interested in him after he penned “Vicious, Vicious Vodka”. The tune was one Amos Milburn went on to record in 1954. Sonny Knight went on to record a few records on the Specialty label in 1955.
Continue reading →
#913: Bring Me Some Water by Melissa Etheridge
Peak Month: November 1988
11 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Bring Me Some Water”
Lyrics: “Bring Me Some Water”
Melissa Lou Etheridge was born in 1961 in Leavenworth, Kansas. While in high school she was a member of several country bands. She moved to Boston after high school and while in college she performed at clubs in the area. She moved to Los Angeles and caught the attention of Island Records in 1986. In 1988 she made her first appearance on the Vancouver (BC) pop chart with “Bring Me Some Water”. It was from her self-titled debut album.
Continue reading →
#733: No Mistakes by Patty Smyth
Peak Month: February 1993
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #33
YouTube: “No Mistakes”
Lyrics: “No Mistakes”
Patricia Smyth was born in 1957 in New York City. In 1981 she became the lead vocalist for the rock band Scandal. In 1982 the band had a minor hit on the Billboard Hot 100 titled “Goodbye To You”. In 1984 Scandal had a Top Ten hit with “The Warrior”. Unfortunately, tensions within the band led to its break-up by 1985. Subsequently, she gave birth to her first child. Meanwhile, Smyth contributed vocals on four tracks from Don Henley’s 1984 album Building The Perfect Beast. In 1987 she released her first solo album Never Enough. The title track climbed to #4 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock music chart and #61 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1989 Don Henley invited Patty Smyth back to the recording studio and she contributed vocals to one of the tracks on The End of the Innocence.
Continue reading →
#445: Happy by The Sunshine Company
Peak Month: September 1967
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
1 Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube: “Happy”
Lyrics: “Happy”
In Ritchie Unterberger’s liner notes for The Best of The Sunshine Company, he writes that “Guitarist/keyboardist Maury Manseau, guitarist Larry Sims, singer Mary Nance, and drummer Merel Brigante met as students hanging around the same cafeteria table at Los Angeles Harbor Junior College, where Maury and Many sang in the choir. Manseau had sung in a folk duo with John Bettis (who later co-wrote Carpenters songs with Richard Carpenter) that often opened for Hoyt Axton. The future Sunshine Company members moved in a circle of acoustic-oriented singer-songwriters based a little south of L.A., in Orange County and beach towns like Huntington Beach. Jackson Browne, Tim Buckley, Steve Noonan, Pamella Polland, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Steve Gillette, all of whom went on to be recording artists with widely varying degrees of success, were some of their friends in this fertile SoCal scene.”
Continue reading →
