#386: Cutie Pie by Johnny Tillotson

Peak Month: August 1961
9 weeks on CKWX’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Cutie Pie”
Lyrics: “Cutie Pie”

In 1939 Johnny Tillotson was born in Jacksonville. He had four Top Ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and ten more in the American Top 40. He took an early interest in appearing on stage and by high school had a talent as a singer. In his teens he got a contract to be in the line-up of regular performers on the Jacksonville TV show, McDuff Hayride,  hosted by Toby Dowdy. And in the mid-50s Tillotson had his own variety TV show, called The Velda Show, on WFGA. In 1957, a local Jacksonville deejay, Bob Norris, sent a recording of Tillotson singing at a Pet Milk talent contest. He ended up performing on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Cadence Records owner, Archie Bleyer, signed Tillotson to a record contract. “Dreamy Eyes” was his first single released in the fall of 1958. It peaked at #63 on the Billboard Hot 100. It would wait three years before appearing on the pop charts in Vancouver in 1961, peaking at #8, as the song enjoyed a more successful re-issue.

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#395: Gypsy Woman/String Along by Rick Nelson

Peak Month: June 1963
5 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Gypsy Woman Peak Position ~ #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Gypsy Woman”
Lyrics: “Gypsy Woman”

Peak Month: June 1963
6 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
String Along Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “String Along”
Lyrics: “String Along”

In 1940 Eric Hilliard Nelson was born. On February 20, 1949, while still eight years old, he took the stage name of Ricky Nelson when appearing on the radio program, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. A child actor, Ricky was also a musician and singer-songwriter. who starred alongside his family in the long-running television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952–66), as well as co-starring alongside John Wayne and Dean Martin in the western Rio Bravo (1959). He placed 53 songs on the Billboard singles charts between 1957 and 1973.

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#394: So Far Away by Carole King

Peak Month: October 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “So Far Away”
Lyrics: “So Far Away”

Carole King was born Carol Joan Klein in 1942 in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn. Her parents were Jewish. From the age of three, her mother taught her how to play piano. At age four her parents discovered she had perfect pitch, and was able to sing each note on target. Of her piano lessons King later said in an interview, “My mother never forced me to practice. She didn’t have to. I wanted so much to master the popular songs that poured out of the radio.” In 1957 Carole Klein formed a group called the Co-sines, and changed her surname from Klein to King. At the time she dated Neil Sedaka. She and fellow student Paul Simon recorded demo records for $25 a disc.

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#396: Jump Over by Freddy Cannon

Peak Month: June 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Jump Over”
Lyrics: “Jump Over”

Frederick Anthony Picariello, Jr. was born in 1940 in the Boston suburb of Revere. His dad was a truck driver and also played trumpet  and sang several bands. Young Picariello Jr. began to play guitar in his teens. On guitar at the age of 15 he accompanied the nearby Roxbury, Massachusetts, R&B doo-wop group the G-Clefs on their hit single “Ka-Ding-Dong”. The song climbed to #17 on the Cashbox Top 100 Pop Singles chart in September ’56. After he graduated from Lynn Vocational High School, Freddy was a member of a doo-wop group called the Sandrifts. They had a local hit titled “Cha Cha Doo”. Next Picariello Jr. formed a group called Freddy Karmon & The Hurricanes.

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#649: Can’t Truss It by Public Enemy

Peak Month: January 1992
Peak Position #8
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube: “Can’t Truss It”
Lyrics: “Can’t Truss It”

Carlton Douglas Ridenhour was born in 1960 in the New York City borough of Queens. After the 1977 New York City blackout, he started to put pen to paper. From 1981-84 he attended Adelphi University on Long Island and studied graphic design. While he was there, Ridenhour co-hosted hip hop radio show called the Super Spectrum Mix Hour. On the show he went by the name of Chuck D, which was run on Saturday nights at Long Island rock radio station WLIR. William Jonathan Drayton Jr.was born in 1959 in the small town of Roosevelt, Nassau County, on Long Island. Drayton Jr. taught himself to play the piano from the age of five. In addition he sang in a youth choir at his church. As well, he learned to play drums and guitar during his childhood. In his late teens Drayton Jr. served time in prison once for robbery, and another time for burglary.

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#397: Stay With Me Tonight by Jeffrey Osborne

Peak Month: February 1984
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “Stay With Me Tonight”
Lyrics: “Stay With Me Tonight”

Jeffrey Linton Osborne was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1948. He was the youngest of twelve children. His dad was Clarence “Legs” Osborne who was a trumpeter with Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. When he was 13-years-old, Jeffrey’s dad died in 1961. At the age of fifteen, in 1963, young Jeffrey was a drummer with the O’Jays for two weeks (when the group’s drummer took ill). In 1970 Osborne joined the group L.T.D. (standing for Love, Togetherness, and Devotion). In 1977 they had a Top Ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts with “(Every Time I Turn Around) Back in Love Again”. Two other singles, “Love Ballad” (1976) and “Holding On (When Love Is Gone)” (1978), also topped the R&B chart. Jeffrey Osborne sang lead vocals on all three of the groups’ number-one R&B singles.

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Peak Month: August 1963
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Surfin’ Doll”

According to a comment on a YouTube.com thread by someone claiming to be her grandchild, Kathy Brandon was born in California. Kathy Brandon wrote or cowrote her songs. She was signed to Crystalette Records in 1962 while she was still in high school. Crystalette was a label started in 1956 and a subsidiary of Dot Records. Crystalette had few notable chart successes with its stable of recording artists. The exception was a million-seller in 1959 called “Pink Shoelaces” by Dodie Stevens. That single peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #6 in Vancouver (BC) on CKWX. Kathy Brandon’s first single release was in 1962 titled “Boy Of My Dreams”. The single was a commercial flop. In 1962 CFUN in Vancouver happened to spin “Shy Guy” by the Crystalettes on Crystalette Records. The single made it to #2 in October of that year. Possibly, the folks at Crystalette Records had a good promotional pitch with the DJ’s at CFUN.

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#402: It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World by James Brown

Peak Month: June 1966
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #1
1 week Wax to Watch
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #8
YouTube: “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”
Lyrics: “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”

James Joseph Brown Jr. was born in a shack in the piney woods of South Carolina, outside the small town of Barnwell, 45 miles southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The year was 1933, and Brown never knew his parents. From the age of four he was raised in a whorehouse in Augusta. As America entered World War II in December 1941, young James entertained troops at Camp Gordon doing buck dances (similar to clogging) on a bridge near his aunts brothel. He quit school in grade six, and won a talent contest in 1944 at the Lenox Theatre in Augusta. By age 13 he had a sidewalk group named the Cremona Trio, who made pennies for songs. He also took up boxing. But in 1949 he was sent to jail for three years for armed robbery. In June 1952, after being paroled Brown joined the gospel group the Ever-Ready Gospel Singers.

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#404: Her Town Too by James Taylor and J.D. Souther

Peak Month: May 1981
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Her Town Too”
Lyrics: “Her Town Too”

James Vernon Taylor was born in Boston in 1948. From the age of three, he lived with his family in North Carolina. Taylor would say later “Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people.” During his childhood he took cello lessons, and picked up guitar at the age of 12. James Taylor got to know people in the folk music scene on Martha’s Vineyard, where his family had a vacation home. In 1963 he was playing coffeehouses on the island as part of a duo named Jamie & Kootch. But in 1961 he was enrolled in a boarding school in Milton, Massachusetts. The pressures of the school were too much for the very sensitive James, even though he was doing well academically. Back in North Carolina he became depressed and by 1965 was sleeping for 20 hours a day.

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#399: Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart by the Supremes

Peak Month: May 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Wax To Watch
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #9
YouTube: “Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart”
Lyrics: “Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart”

Born Diane Ross in 1944 in Detroit, Michigan, Diana Ross was the lead singer in The Supremes. According to Ross, her mother actually named her “Diane”. However, there was a clerical error. This  resulted in her name being entered as “Diana” on her birth certificate. On the first recordings by The Supremes, she was listed as “Diane” Ross, and introduced herself as “Diane” as they began to hit the pop charts. Her friends and family still call her “Diane”. One of her neighbors growing up was future Motown recording artist Smokey Robinson. In 1958, at the age of 14, Diane Ross began taking classes including clothing design, millinery, pattern making, and tailoring, as she had aspired to become a fashion designer. She also took modeling and cosmetology classes at the school and participated in three or four other extracurricular activities while being there. In addition, she also worked at Hudson’s Department Store where she alleges she was the first black employee “allowed outside the kitchen.” At the time Ross was living in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects.

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