Peak Month: August 1959
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “Velvet Waters”

Frank Haywood Henry was born in 1913 in Birmingham, Alabama. He first learned to play the clarinet. But he later learned the baritone saxophone, which became his primary instrument. While in college he became a member of the Bama State Collegians in 1930. That student jazz band became the band for Erskine Hawkins Orchestra in 1934. Heywood Henry was a member of the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra from 1934 into the early 1950s. Hawkins and his orchestra were a house band at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in the late 1930s. Their sign-off song was “Tuxedo Junction”. Erskine Hawkins Orchestra participated in a battle of the bands with bandleaders Glenn Miller, Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington. Haywood Henry was one of the musicians in the recording studio for “Tuxedo Junction”, “Until The Real Thing Comes Along”, “Five O’Clock Whistle” and “Bicycle Bounce” – all hit records on the pop music charts.
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#474: Ring Of Fire by Duane Eddy

Peak Month: June 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #84
YouTube.com: “Ring Of Fire”

Duane Eddy was born in Corning, New York, in 1938. When he turned five years old he started to play guitar. His family moved to Arizona and in 1954, at the age of 16, Eddy got a Chet Atkins Gretch guitar. In 1954, at Coolidge High School Duane met Jimmy Delbridge who shared his love of music. Both boys played guitar and sang. In short order they were appearing on local radio in Coolidge, KCKY, as Jimmy and Duane. Jimmy sang best and Duane was a superior guitar player. Duane persuaded Jimmy leave the guitar behind and play piano. During 1955 local Phoenix disc jockey Lee Hazlewood was informally managing the duo. In June ’55 Hazlewood drove Eddy and Jimmy Dell (as he was now known) to Ramsey Recording Studio in Phoenix. In the studio the duo recorded the first of Hazelwood’s songs, “Soda Fountain Girl” and “I Want Some Lovin’ Baby”. These were old hillbilly tunes  backed by Buddy Long & the Western Melody Boys.

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#478: Soolaimon by Neil Diamond

Peak Month: June 1970
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube.com: “Soolaimon”
Lyrics: “Soolaimon”

Neil Leslie Diamond was born in Brooklyn in 1941. His parents were Russian and Polish immigrants and both Jewish. His dad was a dry-goods merchant. When he was in high school he met Barbra Streisand in a Freshman Chorus and Choral Club. Years later they would become friends. When he was sixteen Diamond was sent to a Jewish summer camp called Surprise Lake Camp in upstate New York. While there he heard folk singer, Pete Seeger, perform in concert. That year Diamond got a guitar and, influenced by Pete Seeger, began to write poems and song lyrics. While he was in his Senior year in high school, Sunbeam Music Publishing gave Neil Diamond an initial four month contract composing songs for $50 a week (US $413 in 2017 dollars). and he dropped out of college to accept it.

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#479: Whirly Girl by OXO

Peak Month: May 1983
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube.com: “Whirly Girl”
Lyrics: “Whirly Girl”

Ismael Angel Ledesma was born in 1952 in Cuba and migrated to Miami as a child. He was influenced by the Latin sounds that pervaded his Cuban culture. Ismael also thrived on pop and rock and roll music that he first heard in Cuba and later coming to Florida in the late 50’s. Ledesma recalls, “My education has come from ‘Hands On’ experience which started at T.K. Records in Miami, FL and continued on through all the recording studios I worked at as a recording artist, record producer and sound engineer.” He began his work with T.K. Records in 1971. In the early 1970s, Ledesma was hired by as a session musician. Ledesma’s credits include guitar on Gwen McCrae’s 1975 disco hit “Rockin’ Chair”. In 1976 he formed a disco band based in the Miami suburb of Hialeah, Florida, named Foxy. They had a number one hit on the Billboard R&B chart in August 1978 titled “Get Off”. The song was co-written by Ledesma. “Get Off” made the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 that November. Foxy appeared on American Bandstand, the Midnight Special, The Joey Bishop Show and The Mer Griffin Show. Foxy also toured as an opening act with The Jackson 5, Rick James, Natalie Cole and Sister Sledge.
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#480: Fancy by Bobbie Gentry

Peak Month: February 1970
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “Fancy”
Lyrics: “Fancy”

Bobbie Gentry was born in 1942 and named Roberta Lee Streeter at birth. She was born and raised in Woodland, Mississippi, about 80 miles from the Tallahatchie Bridge in Money, Mississippi. When she was 13 she moved to be with her mom in Arcadia, California. After graduating from high school in 1960, she chose her stage name from the 1952 film Ruby Gentry, about a heroine born into poverty but determined to make a success of her life. Bobbie Gentry started performing at local country clubs. She was introduced to Bob Hope who helped make some connections and she performed in a revue at Les Folies Bergeres nightclub of Las Vegas.

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#483: The Majestic by Dion

Peak Month: December 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #2
1 week Hot Prospects
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube.com: “The Majestic”
Lyrics: “The Majestic”

Dion Francis DiMucci was born in the Bronx, NY, in 1939. His parents named him Dion in honor of the French Canadian Dionne quintuplents who captured the interest of millions around the world after the five infants were born in May 1934. Dion’s dad, Pasquale DiMucci, was a vaudeville performer and Dion accompanied him to see his dad on stage. As a child he was given an $8 dollar guitar by his uncle while he lived on 183rd Street. Dion’s childhood was set in the midst of conflict between his parents. In an interview with New York Magazine in 2007, Dion remembers “…There was a lot of unresolved conflict in my house… My pop, Pasquale, couldn’t make the $36-a-month rent on our apartment at 183rd and Crotona Avenue.” He was a dreamer, a failed vaudevillian, and sometimes Catskills puppeteer. He’d talk big and lift weights he’d made from oilcans, while Frances, Mrs. DiMucci, took two buses and the subway downtown to work in the garment district on a sewing machine. “When they’d start yelling, I’d go out on the stoop with my $8 Gibson and try to resolve things that way.”

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#484: Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard by Paul Simon

Peak Month: May 1972
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN
1 week Preview
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube.com: “Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard”
Lyrics: “Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard”

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. 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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#489: Puppy Love by Barbara Lewis

Peak Month: April 1964
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #38
YouTube.com: “Puppy Love”
Lyrics: “Puppy Love”

Barbara Ann Lewis was born in 1943 in Salem, Michigan, 31 miles west of Detroit. She began to write songs at the age of nine. As well she had learned to play harmonica, piano and guitar. Her bandleader father played the trumpet and her mother played the saxophone. And her cousin, Shelton Brooks, had written “Some Of These Days”, a hit for Sophie Tucker in 1911. Brooks also composed the “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” for The Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917. Despite the musical focus of her extended family, young Barbara Lewis only thought about nursing as a future career. However, in her teens she began to collaborate with Ann Arbor DJ Ollie McLaughlin. The DJ had “discovered” her after McLaughlin asked her father to have Barbara audition for him. Ollie McLaughlin had a radio show on WHRV in Ann Arbor called Ollie’s Caravan. It had a fan base of over 10,000. He also had a small record label called Karen, named after one of his daughters. Her first single on Karen was one she wrote titled “My Heart Went Do Dat Da”. It was recorded at the Chess Record studio in Chicago. It became a break-out hit in the Detroit area, and was picked up for national distribution on Atlantic. The song made the Top 20 subsequently in Colorado Springs (CO).
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#490: On The Road Again by Canned Heat

Peak Month: September 1968
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube.com: “On The Road Again”
Lyrics: “On The Road Again”

Robert Ernest Hite was born in 1943 in Torrence, California. He took an interest in blues, rhythm & blues and rock ‘n roll by the early 50s. His record collection of 78 RPMs grew to over 15,000, which he liked to sing along with. Plump into his twenties, Hite was nicknamed “The Bear.” Alan Christie Wilson was also born in 1943, in Arlington, Massachusetts. He was part of a high school jazz ensemble and played trombone. But in 1959, at the age of sixteen, Wilson turned his attention to the blues after he heard The Best of Muddy Waters album. Inspired by Little Walter (“My Babe”), Wilson began to play the harmonica. In 1964, blues legend Mississippi John Hurt performed at Cafe Yana in Cambridge (MA). Alan Wilson was invited to come on stage and accompany Hurt. At the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, Alan Wilson was able to interact with bluesman Skip James. It was from James he learned high-pitched blues singing which he later employed while singing “On The Road Again” and “Going Up The Country”.

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#490: Isn’t She Lovely by Stevie Wonder

Peak Month: January 1977
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #7
LP Cut – BONUS
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Isn’t She Lovely”
Lyrics: “Isn’t She Lovely”

Stevland Hardaway Judkins was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950. He was born six weeks premature and confined to a hospital incubator. After birth he developed resulted in retinopathy of prematurity – a condition of some premature babies – in which the growth of the eyes is aborted and causes the retinas to detach. Soon after his birth he became blind. As an adult he remarked “people who see often choose the book by the cover…. Maybe a person is also beautiful inwardly and that’s the side I’ll know first.” When he was four his mother divorced his father and remarried. The boy took his new father’s legal name, Morris, after they moved to Detroit. He remembers that in the winter of 1954 “my mother, brothers and I went to this dry dock where there was coal and steal some to keep warm. To a poor person, that’s not stealing, that’s not a crime. That’s a necessity.” As he could not see, he spent a lot of time in his family home listening to the radio. His favorite recording acts were Johnny Ace, Hank Ballard & The Midnighters, and later Del Shannon. An uncle gave him a harmonica. After he mastered the instrument, he was given a drum kit one Christmas. And a neighbor gave her piano to Stevie where she moved from the neighborhood. He formed a singing partnership with his friend John Glover. They billed themselves as Stevie and John, playing on street corners, parties and dances.

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