#1420: Copper Kettle by Bob Dylan
Peak Month: August 1970
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Copper Kettle”
Lyrics: “Copper Kettle”
Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941. In his childhood he took up piano and guitar. He was fond of poetry as well as music, especially Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. In university he studied the poetry of Dylan Thomas. When he began to perform folk music in public, Zimmerman chose the name Bob Dylan as a tribute to Dylan Thomas. He moved to New York City and hung out in Greenwich Village, playing in folk clubs. In 1962 he released a self-titled album that reached #13 on the UK albums chart. However, back in North America the album got little notice. But when he released The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in May 1963. One of the tracks from the album was “Blowin’ In The Wind”, a #2 hit for two weeks for Peter, Paul and Mary on the Billboard Hot 100 in August ’63. President John F. Kennedy has signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the USSR on August 5, 1963. And on September 23, by a vote of 80-19, the United States Senate approved the treaty. “Blowin’ In The Wind” was on the Hot 100 throughout the push to ratify the treaty.
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#580: Do The Freddie by Chubby Checker
Peak Month: May 1965
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #40
YouTube.com: “Do The Freddie”
Lyrics: “Do The Freddie”
Ernest Evans was born in 1941 in Spring Gulley, South Carolina. He grew up in South Philadelphia. As a child, his mother took him to a show performed by child piano prodigy Sugar Child Robinson. Also at the performance was the country singer Ernest Tubb. Ernest was so inspired, that he decided to become an entertainer when he grew up. At the age of eleven he formed a street corner doo-wop group. He took up piano and while attending South Philadelphia High School, one of his friends was Fabian Forte. After school he worked at Fresh Farm Poultry on 9th Street at the Produce Market. His boss decided to give a nickname to his portly employee and called him “Chubby.”
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#584: I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone by The Monkees
Peak Month: December 1966
5 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #2o
YouTube.com: “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone”
Lyrics: “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won a talent contest at San Antonio College. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He became the “hoot master” at a regular hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. In 1963 Nesmith released a 45 of a song he wrote called “Wanderin'”. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in 1967.
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#586: Bandit of My Dreams by Eddie Hodges
Peak Month: January 1962
7 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #65
YouTube.com: “Bandit Of My Dreams”
“Bandit Of My Dreams” lyrics
Samuel Hodges was born in 1947 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. By the age of six he became a child actor billed as Eddie Hodges. He appeared on the Jackie Gleason Show and on Name That Tune in 1953. In 1957 he was cast in the role of ten-year-old Winthrope Paroo in the Broadway musical The Music Man. In the stage production he was one of those singing “The Wells Fargo Wagon” and “Gary, Indiana”, along with Robert Preston. In the 1962 film The Music Man, Ron Howard would appear as Winthrope Paroo. Eddie Hodges first film was in 1959 with Frank Sinatra in A Hole in The Head. Hodges played opposite Frank Sinatra (Tommy Manetta) as his 11-year-old son. The film about a down-and-out widowed father featured the Oscar award winning song “High Hopes” (Best Original Song) and a Grammy Award nomination. In the film Frank Sinatra and Eddie Hodges sang a duet. In 1959 Eddie Hodges appeared on The Jimmy Durante Show where he sang with Durante, Ray Bolger and Jane Powell. In 1960 Eddie Hodges starred as Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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#1395: Midnite Blues by Charlie Rich
Peak Month: May 1962
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Midnite Blues”
Lyrics:: “Midnite Blues”
Charles Allan Rich was born in 1932 in eastern Arkansas, in the village of Colt (population 267 in 1930, and 378 in 2017). His father was a hard-drinking sharecropper and his mother was a Bible-thumper. From the third grade he studied piano. As he grew into his youth, Charles became an athlete and played football. He was also raised on gospel, country, jazz and blues, and learned to play the saxophone. After graduating from high school he began to study music in college. During the Korean War he was drafted into the United States Air Force and posted in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma Rich joined a group called the Velvetones who played jazz and R&B. Alan Cackett writes that Charlie Rich’s group played in “hard-nosed joints.” Cackett explains, “A hard-nosed joint is one in which the musicians perform behind poultry wire for their safety.”
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#1368: The Wonder Of You by Ray Peterson
Peak Month: April 1964
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #70
YouTube.com: “The Wonder Of You”
Lyrics: “The Wonder Of You”
Ray T. Peterson was born in Denton, Texas, in 1939. He became an athlete in high school. But he contracted polio at the age of fifteen. He had thought singing was for sissies, but with polio he focused on his vocal gift. He took singing lessons and developed a four-octave range. Ray Peterson was told he would never walk again. And then his doctors told him he could only walk with crutches. Peterson persevered and performed at singing contests in San Antonio. He won some contests and was flown out to Los Angeles to appear with Bob Hope in a telethon for polio victims. By 1957 he moved to Los Angeles and got a contract with RCA Victor that fall.
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#591: Rough Boy by ZZ Top
Peak Month: May 1986
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube.com: “Rough Boy”
Lyrics: “Rough Boy”
ZZ Top was formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. The band has had three members since it began. Guitar player, Billy Gibbons, is the lead vocalist for the trio. Dusty Hill also shared lead vocals and plays bass guitar. The bands’ drummer is Frank Beard. Gibbons and Hill wear beards, however Frank Beard is clean-shaven. The band has sold over 25 million records of their blues-rock infused recordings. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. They credit the rock group Cream as one of their major influences. Among their early singles was “La Grange”, in 1973. This was a song about a brothel actually called the Chicken Shack on the outskirts of La Grange, Texas, from 1905 to 1973. The Chicken Shack was the basis for a play called The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas that debuted on Broadway in 1978. The song peaked at #41 on the Billboard Hot 100, but did not chart in Vancouver.
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#1369: A Million Teardrops by Conway Twitty
Peak Month: July 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “A Million Teardrops”
Lyrics: “A Million Teardrops”
Conway Twitty was an American Country and Western singer with three crossover pop hits on the US charts and five crossover hits on the pop charts in Vancouver. He went on to chart 58 songs in the Canadian Country charts between 1968 and 1990 (61 songs on US Country & Western charts). Born Harold Lloyd Jenkins, in 1957 he decided his real name didn’t have the right stuff for the music business and becoming a star. He looked on a map and finding Conway, Arkansas and Twitty, Texas, he put the two towns names together and became Conway Twitty. From his initial #1 hit in 1958, “It’s Only Make Believe”, 25 year old Conway Twitty became known for his blend of country, rockabilly and rock n’ roll.
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#1441: He’s An Indian Cowboy In The Rodeo by Buffy Sainte-Marie
Peak Month: September 1972
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #14
Preview August 7/72
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube.com: “He’s An Indian Cowboy In The Rodeo”
Lyrics: “He’s An Indian Cowboy In The Rodeo”
In 1941 Beverley Jean Santamaria was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Her father was Italian and her mother was English. The family changed their surname after WWII to “Sainte-Marie” due to anti-Italian sentiment stemming from the war. Buffy studied teaching and Asian philosophy at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in the late ’50s. From the 1963 she told the Vancouver Sun she was born on the Piapot Cree Reserve in southwestern Saskatchewan and was “a Cree Indian.” A CBC investigation in 2023 discovered she was not born in Canada.
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#1435: Ballad Of The One Eyed Jacks by Johnny Burnette
Peak Month: May 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Ballad Of The One Eyed Jacks”
John Joseph “Johnny” Burnette was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1934. When he was four his dad bought him a Gene Autry guitar, along with one for his older brother, Dorsey. During his teens, Johnny was a member of the school baseball and football teams. Along with his older brother, Dorsey, Johnny began appearing on Memphis radio stations and playing gigs for beer money, kicks and girls. Johnny Burnette was only 17. From 1948 to 1954, the Burnette brothers lived in a housing project in the Lauderdale Courts area of Memphis. This was the same housing project where Elvis Presley and his parents lived. After leaving high school, Johnny Burnette tried to become a professional boxer, However, after one fight with a sixty-dollar purse and a broken nose, Johnny Burnette traded in his boxing gloves to work on the barges up and down the Mississippi River. In 1953, an amateur boxer named Paul Burlison, returned from the U.S. Army to Memphis. Dorsey had met Paul Burlison when he was boxing in the late ’40’s. Dorsey, Johnny and Paul formed a trio named the Rhythm Rangers. They later renamed themselves the Rock and toll Trio. They first performed “Rockabilly Boogie” in 1953. The songs’ title was made up from the name of cousin a of the Burnette brothers named Rocky, together with the name Billy. From that songs first performance the term rockabilly was coined. Johnny Burnette is singing the lead on this with Dorsey Burnette on guitar.
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