#448: Rock House by Buddy Knox & the Rhythm Orchids
Peak Month: July 1957
6 weeks on CKWX’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Rock House”
Lyrics: “Rock House”
Buddy Wayne Knox was born in 1933 Happy, Texas, a small farm town in the Texas Panhandle a half hour south of Amarillo. During his youth he learned to play the guitar. He was the first artist of the rock era to write and perform his own number one hit song, “Party Doll”. The song earned Knox a gold record in 1957 and was certified a million seller. Knox was one of the innovators of the southwestern style of rockabilly that became known as “Tex-Mex” music.
Continue reading →
#449: Love Has Finally Come My Way by Faron Young
Peak Month: September 1961
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Love Has Finally Come My Way”
Lyrics: “Love Has Finally Come My Way”
Faron Young was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1932. He learned to sing at a young age. In 1948 he was enthralled by Hank Williams’ performance on the Louisiana Hayride where Williams gave nine encores. In 1951 he was discovered by Webb Pierce who took Faron Young to the Louisiana Hayride. He signed with Capitol Records in 1952 and released “Goin’ Steady”. Though the single climbed into the Top Ten country charts in the USA in the spring of 1953, Faron Young’s music career was derailed when he was drafted into the United States Army. Another record he cut before he was drafted, “I Can’t Wait (For The Sun To Go Down)”, also made the Top Ten on the country charts later that year.
Continue reading →
#450: The Universal Soldier by Glen Campbell
Peak Month: September-October 1965
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube: “The Universal Soldier”
Lyrics: “The Universal Soldier”
Glen Travis Campbell was born in 1936 in the village of Billstown, Arkansas. His dad was a sharecropper. He moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and at the age of 18 joined his uncle’s band, Dick Bills and the Sandia Mountain Boys. Campbell also had guest spots on a local KOB children’s TV show, K Circle B Time. In 1958, Campbell formed the Western Wranglers. In 1960 he moved to LA and joined The Champs of “Tequila” fame. Campbell also became a session musician in a group that would become known as The Wrecking Crew. During this time Glen Campbell played on recordings for Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and others. He recorded his first single in 1961 titled “Turn Around Look At Me.”
Continue reading →
#454: Opus 17 by the Four Seasons
Peak Month: June 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #13
YouTube: “Opus 17”
Lyrics: “Opus 17”
Pianist Bob Gaudio was born in The Bronx in 1942. At 14 years of age he co-founded The Royals. Gaudio had been playing piano since he turned eight in 1950. Gaudio was born in November 1942 in Bergenfield, New Jersey. The Royals opened for a local New Jersey doo-wop group named The Three Friends who had a hit in New York and Baltimore in the winter of 1956-57 titled “Blanche”. After the Fort Lee concert, The Three Friends invited The Royals to come to New York to be the session musicians for their upcoming recording date in the Brill Building at 1650 Broadway. It was there The Royals met The Three Friends manager, Leo Rogers. On the strength of their musical skills, Rogers invited The Royals to be session musicians for numerous recording artists in the building. They were also given a chance to record a song.
Continue reading →
#455: Banned In The USA by 2 Live Crew
Peak Month: September 1990
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “Banned In The USA”
Lyrics: “Banned In The USA”
David Hobbs was born in Santa Ana, California, in 1963. After high school he joined the United States Air Force. In 1984, while he was stationed in Riverside, California, he met two other Airmen, and Christopher Wong Won and Yuri Vielot. Christopher Wong Won was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1964. His family moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1976. The trio became rap group named 2 Live Crew, and released their first single “The Revelation”. Hobbs was known as Mr. Mixx. Wong Won as Fresh Kid Ice and Vielot as Amazing Vee. When their rap single became a regional hit in Florida a DJ in the Sunshine State named Luke Skywalker invited the trio to move to Florida. Mr. Mixx and Fresh Kid Ice relocated to Florida, while Yuri Vielot stayed behind in California.
Continue reading →
#461: Ooby Dooby by Roy Orbison
Peak Month: January 1957
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55
YouTube.com: “Ooby Dooby”
Lyrics: “Ooby Dooby”
Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas in 1936. When he turned six his dad gave him a guitar. Both his dad, Orbie Lee, and uncle Charlie Orbison, taught him how to play. Though his family moved to Forth Worth for work at a munitions factory, Roy was sent to live with his grandmother due to a polio outbreak in 1944. That year he wrote his first song “A Vow of Love”. The next year he won a contest on Vernon radio station KVWC and was offered his own radio show on Saturdays. After the war his family reunited and moved to Wink, Texas, where Roy formed his first band, in 1949, called The Wink Westerners.
Continue reading →
#463: Language Of Love by John D Loudermilk
Peak Month: November 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “Language Of Love”
Lyrics: “Language Of Love”
John D. Loudermilk was born in Durham, North Carolina, in 1934. Although he had a middle initial, D, the “D” wasn’t short for any middle name. His father was an illiterate carpenter, John D Loudermilk Sr. When John D. Jr. was, seven his dad gave him a ukulele made from a cigar box. Young John D Jr. learned to play guitar in his youth and began to write poems and songs. His poetry was inspired after he began to read the works of Kahlil Gibran. In his late teens, in the early 50’s, John D Jr. wrote a poem titled “A Rose And A Baby Ruth.” It concerned a teenage couple who have a quarrel and the boy gives his girlfriend a rose and a Baby Ruth candy bar to make up. Loudermilk put notes to the poem and played the sung version on a local TV station. This caught the attention of country singer, George Hamilton IV. The song was published in 1956 and became a Top Ten hit on both the Country and Pop charts on Billboard Magazine. The following year, Loudermilk penned “Sittin’ In The Balcony” for Eddie Cochran. Once that became a hit, Loudermilk’s songwriting career was launched. He co-wrote “Waterloo,” a #1 country hit and #4 pop hit in 1959 for country singer, Stonewall Jackson.
Continue reading →
#464: You’re So Good To Me by the Beach Boys
Peak Month: May 1966
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “You’re So Good To Me”
Lyrics: “You’re So Good To Me”
Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, in 1942. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin’s book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, he relates that when Brian Wilson first heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” it had a huge emotional impact on him. As a youngster, Wilson learned to play a toy accordion and sang in children’s choirs. In his teens he started a group with his cousin, Mike Love and his brother, Carl. Mike was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and Carl was born in 1946 in Hawthorne, California. Brian Wilson named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance in the fall of 1960 at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Their set included some songs by Dion and the Belmonts. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was born in Hawthorne in 1942. He was so impressed with the performance that he let the group know. Jardine would later be enlisted, along with Dennis Wilson to form the Pendletones in 1961. Dennis was born in Inglewood in 1944.
Continue reading →
#467: Brandy by Scott English
Peak Month: April 1972
10 weeks on CKVN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
YouTube: “Brandy”
Lyrics: “Brandy”
Scott English was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937. He released his first single when he was 17 years old in 1960 called “4,000 Miles Away”. It didn’t crack the Billboard Hot 100. In the winter of 1963 he had a regional hit that reached the Top Five in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Columbus (OH) and Springfield (MA). It was called “High on a Hill”. In 1966, The Animals recorded English’s song “Help Me Girl”. It became a national Top 30 hit. The following year English wrote “Bend Me, Shape Me”, a #5 hit for the American Breed in the USA. It was covered by the Amen Corner and peaked at #3 in Britain.
Continue reading →
#471: Playing For Keeps by Elvis Presley
Peak Month: January 1957
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CJOR ~ Red Robinson Teen Canteen chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #34
YouTube: “Playing For Keeps”
Lyrics: “Playing For Keeps”
Elvis Aaron Presley was born on in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, on January 8, 1935. His twin brother, Jessie Garon Presley, was stillborn. When he was eleven years old his parents bought him a guitar at the Tupelo Hardware Store. As a result Elvis grew up as an only child. He and his parents, Vernon and Gladys, moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948. The young Presley graduated from high school in 1953. That year he stopped by the Memphis Recording Service to record two songs, including “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin”, song #1196 on this Countdown. Elvis’ musical influences were the pop and country music of the time, the gospel music he heard in church and at the all-night gospel sings he frequently attended, and the black R&B he absorbed on historic Beale Street as a Memphis teenager. In 1954, Elvis began his singing career recording “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” at Sun Records in Memphis.
Continue reading →
