#1093: 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”.
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#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.
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#1450: 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.
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#1461: 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.
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#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.
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#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.
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#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.”
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#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.
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#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.
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#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.”
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