#2: It’s So Easy by the Crickets
City: Charlottetown, PEI
Radio Station: CVER
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in Charlottetown ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “It’s So Easy”
Lyrics: “It’s So Easy”
The Crickets became a rock ‘n roll/rockabilly group in 1957. They are credited with influencing a whole range of recording artists including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles got the idea for their name as a riff off of another insect, cricket, just going up one letter of the alphabet from C to B for Beatles. Paul McCartney once told the press, “If it wasn’t for the Crickets, there wouldn’t be any Beatles.” The Crickets were initially the backing band for Buddy Holly and among their hits are “That’ll Be The Day”, Peggy Sue”, “Oh Boy”, “Not Fade Away”, “Maybe Baby”, “It’s So Easy” and “Rave On”.
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#21: Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil by Jefferson Airplane
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: October 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #42
YouTube: “Ballad Of You, Me And Pooneil”
Lyrics: “Ballad Of You, Me And Pooneil”
Paul Kantner was born in San Francisco in 1941. His mother died when he was eight, and his father sent him to see the circus instead of allowing him to attend the funeral. Kantner was sent to a Catholic Military boarding school. In the face of his strict upbringing, Paul Kantner became interested in Pete Seeger, folk and protest songs. At the University of Santa Clara he met Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. Born in 1940, Jorma Kaukonen was from Washington D.C. and had Finnish and Russian Jewish roots. His family lived in Pakistan for awhile before they returned to Washington D.C. where Jorma formed a band called the Triumphs. From 1962 he was a solo act in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1964, he recorded a solo album with Janis Joplin playing acoustic guitar on “The Typewriter Tapes”, given that name due to his spouse typing on the typewriter in the background.
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#346: Ballad of Thunder Road by Robert Mitchum
Peak Month: August 1958 and January 1962
Peak CFUN position in Vancouver ~ #2 (1958)
Peak CFUN position in Vancouver ~ #4 (1962)
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Ballad Of Thunder Road”
Lyrics: “Ballad of Thunder Road”
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was born in Bridgeport (CT) in 1917. His father died in a railyard accident in 1919. At the age of 12, young Robert Mitchum began performing in a Vaudeville show that appeared along the East Coast. At the age of 14 he hopped freight trains and travelled across America. He dug ditches, fought as a boxer, and worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1933 he was arrested for vagrancy and worked on a chain gang. During WWII Mitchum worked as a machine operator for Lockheed Martin. In 1942-43, he appeared in a number of episodes in Hopalong Cassidy. This included the 1943 movie Hoppy Serves a Writ.
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#28: That’s The Way God Planned It by Billy Preston
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: September 1969
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver: #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100: #62
YouTube: “That’s The Way God Planned It”
Lyrics: “That’s The Way God Planned It”
William Everett Preston was born in Houston, Texas, in 1946. He learned to play the organ by himself and was viewed as a child prodigy. In 1957, Billy Preston appeared on The Nat King Cole Show performing “Blueberry Hill” in a duet with Cole. In 1963, Preston played the organ as a musician in the studio for Sam Cooke’s album Night Beat. That year he released his debut album titled 16 Yr. Old Soul. He was in the recording studio on keyboards for Little Richard in 1965 for “I Don’t Know What You Got (But It’s Got Me)”. In 1967, Preston was again in the studio for Ray Charles recording of his Top 40 hit “In the Heat of the Night”. Meanwhile, Billy Preston released four more studio albums between 1965 and 1967. The Most Exciting Organ Ever! and Wildest Organ in Town both cracked the Top Ten on the R&B album charts in the USA.
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#29: I Love Onions by Susan Christie
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: July 1966
Peak Position in Edmonton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #63
YouTube: “I Love Onions”
Lyrics: “I Love Onions”
Susan Christie was born in 1942 in Philadelphia. She studied music at Berkelee College of Music in Boston. John Hill, who Christie met as part of a junior high school play production, went with her to Cameo-Parkway Records. At the time, Hill and Christie were part of a folk group called The Highlanders that was on the folk festival circuit in New England. In 1966, Susan Christie released a single titled “No One Can Hear You Cry”. The haunting jazz-pop influenced single was a commercial flop.
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#1: The Hula Hoop Song by Georgia Gibbs
City: Charlottetown, PEI
Radio Station: CVER
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in Charlottetown ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #39
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube: “The Hula Hoop Song”
Lyrics: “The Hula Hoop Song”
Georgia Gibbs was a traditional pop singer who sang with the Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and other big bands in the 40s. She went on to have numerous hits prior to the arrival of Elvis Presley in 1956, who with other rock n’ rollers swept many traditional pop singers like Georgia Gibbs off the pop charts. Gibbs was born in 1919 as Frieda Lipschitz in a Russian-Jewish immigrant home in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father died shortly after she was born and as an infant lived in an orphanage until she was seven years old. Before she left the orphanage her musical talents were in bloom and she got lead roles each year in the orphanage’s variety show. Back at home when her mother got work as a midwife, young Frieda was often left on her own for weeks at a time with only a Philco radio for company.
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#30: Las Vegas Scene by Wes Dakus
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: October 1964
Peak Position in Edmonton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Las Vegas Scene”
In 1938, Wes Dakus was born in Mannville, Alberta. He moved to Edmonton and formed The Rebels in 1958. The Rebels quickly became one of the most popular predominantly instrumental groups on the prairies. They performed in rural hotels and seniors drop-in centres. Initially the band was known as the CJCA Rebels. It was Edmonton radio station that promoted them. CJCA gave The Rebels air-time on its local talent features and helped them with the bookings. The Rebels became one of the regular bands at The Commercial and The Rainbow Ballroom in Edmonton. By the time Dakus caught the attention of Quality Records’ VP Lloyd Dunn, he and The Rebels had gotten to know Alberta’s roads like the backs of their hands. By this time The Rebels were making tours across western Canada. The band travelled to Clovis, New Mexico where they recorded with Buddy Holly’s producer Norman Petty. He ultimately became their manager, and two singles were released under the name of The Club 93 Rebels, a nod to their radio station sponsor CJCA 930-AM.
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#37: Reuben James by the First Edition
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: October 1969
Peak Position in Edmonton ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #26
YouTube: “Rueben James”
Lyrics: “Rueben James”
Kenneth Ray Rogers was born in Houston, Texas, in 1938. Rogers has both Irish and American Indian ancestry. In 1956 he formed a doo-wop group called The Scholars. He began his recording career with a teen ballad “That Crazy Feeling” in 1957. The single climbed to #2 in Houston in February 1958 and appeared on the bottom of the CHUM Hit Parade in Toronto. By 1960 Rogers gained a reputation as a bass player and joined The Bobby Doyle Three, a jazz trio. The third member was Don Russell. At the time Rogers was a student at the University of Texas. In 1962 the trio released an album titled In A Most Unusual Way. They disbanded in 1965. Rogers released a single as a solo artist in early 1966 which was a flop. He joined The New Christy Minstrels in July 1966 as on vocals and double bass. Feeling stuck in the folk groove, he left the group and formed The First Edition. The other members of The First Edition also exited The New Christy Minstrels with Rogers. They were Mike Settle, Terry Williams and Thelma Camacho.
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#38: You Only Live Twice by Nancy Sinatra
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #44
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube: “You Only Live Twice”
Lyrics: “You Only Live Twice”
Nancy Sinatra is the daughter of crooner Frank Sinatra and was born in New Jersey in 1940. When she was 5 years old he recorded a song about her titled “Nancy, With the Laughing Face”. At the age of twenty she began her career appearing on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. This was a television special on the occasion of Elvis Presley’s discharge from the U.S. Army after being drafted to into the services in 1958. Nancy was sent by her father to meet Elvis at the airport in front of a pack of photographers. In 1960, she also got married to singer and actor, Tommy Sands.
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#2: Scatter Shield by the Surfaris
City: Abbotsford, BC
Radio Station: CFUR
Peak Month: February 1964
Peak Position in Abbotsford ~ #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Scatter Shield”
Ronald Lee Wilson was born in 1944 in Los Angeles. At the age of 17 he was a drummer in a high school band in Covina, California, called the Charter Oak Lancers. Bob Berryhill was born in 1947 in Glendora, California. When he was eight years old his parents bought an acoustic guitar which his Dad played. Bob got interested in guitars, and when he was 13 his parents took the family to Hawaii. It was there he saw a performer play a ukulele. When Berryhill returned home he went with his Dad to a music store and asked the staff to show him a ukulele. They told him they didn’t have any, but suggested he buy a guitar. Bob Berryhill soon began to play guitar and in eighth grade was entered in a talent contest. It was at the talent show that Berryhill heard the duo Pat Connolly and Jim Fuller. In fact, they borrowed Berryhill’s music equipment.
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