#1012: Brown Paper Sack/Spread It On Thick by The Gentrys
Peak Month: February 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #101/#50
YouTube.com: “Brown Paper Sack”
Lyrics: “Brown Paper Sack”
YouTube.com: “Spread It On Thick”
Lyrics: “Spread It On Thick”
The Gentrys were seven guys who all had attended Treadwell High School in Memphis, Tennessee. The group formed in May 1963 to play for local high school dances. They consisted of lead vocalist and guitar player, Larry Raspberry, vocalists Jimmy Hart and Bruce Bowles, trumpet player Jimmy Johnson, bass guitarist Pat Neal, saxophone and keyboard player Bobby Fisher and drummer Rob Straube. At the Mid-South Fair Talent Competition in September 1964, The Gentrys came in third and auditioned for and appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. That same year they won the Memphis Battle of the Bands. By the end of the year The Gentrys signed a record deal with Youngstown Records. They released their first single, “Sometimes”, which became a hit in the Memphis radio market in January 1965.
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#1014: Willyam, Willyam by Dee Dee Sharp
Peak Month: February 1964
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #97
CFUN Twin Pick ~ January 18. 1964
YouTube.com: “William, Willyam”
Dione LaRue was born in Philadelphia in 1945. She began singing as a child at her grandfather’s church. She answered a newspaper ad at age 13 for a girl who could read music, play piano and sing. From 1959 on she was singing background vocals on records by Frankie Avalon, Freddie Cannon, Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker. In 1962 she took center stage at Cameo-Parkway Records when she was asked to record her first solo record, “Mashed Potato Time” which climbed to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver. The hits kept on coming in 1962 in the midst of a dance craze and record buyers keen to scoop up the latest song about the latest dance. Sharp had the following hits make the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 from March 1962 to March 1963, “Slow Twistin'” (with Chubby Checker) (#3),”Gravy” (#9), “Ride” (#5) and “Do The Bird” (#10). In Vancouver, it was “Ride” that actually charted the highest at #4.
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#1017: Hello Hello by The Sopwith Camel
Peak Month: January 1967
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #26
Lyrics: “Hello Hello”
The Sopwith Camel was a psychedelic rock band involved with the San Francisco hippie scene of the late 1960’s. The Sopwith Camel is remembered for being the second San Francisco band to get a recording contract with a national record label. They were the first San Francisco band from the psychedelic rock scene to have a Top 40 hit. In 1965, vocalist and lyricist, twenty-one-year-old Peter Kraemer, had conjured the name The Sopwith Camel for a band he wanted to form. Kraemer’s name was based on The Sopwith Camel, a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company and became one of the most iconic fighter aircraft of the First World War.
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#1021: Cool Operator by Sandy Nelson
Peak Month: January 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #4 – CFUN
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Cool Operator”
Lloyd Sander Nelson was born in Santa Monica, California, in 1938. Jan Berry, Dean Torrence and Phil Spector were among the students in his school who also pursued careers in pop music. Sandy became a proficient drummer and joined his first group, Kip Tyler and the Flips. Another member of the group was future Beach Boy, Bruce Johnston, who played piano. Ki Tyler and the Flips recorded a few songs on local record labels in Los Angeles, introducing Sandy Nelson to the world of studio recording. In 1957, with three friends from high school, Marshall Leib, Sandy Nelson, and Annette Kleinbard, Phil Spector formed a group called the Teddy Bears. Nelson played drums on the Teddy Bears’ chart-topping 1958 hit, “To Know Him, Is To Love Him”. In 1959 Sandy Nelson played drums for Gene Vincent on “Crazy Times” before going solo.
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#1024: Dear Ivan by Jimmy Dean
Peak Month: December 1961
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
Hot Prospects ~ CKWX ~ December 16, 1961
YouTube.com: “Dear Ivan”
Lyrics: “Dear Ivan”
In 1928 Jimmy Ray Dean was born in Plainview, Texas. His mother taught him to play piano. He dropped out of high school to work to help his mother. Next he joined the U.S. Air Force. He later and a professional entertainer around the time Dean married his first wife Mary Sue (Sue) in 1950. He had his first Top Ten hit on the Billboard Country charts in 1952 called “Bumming Around.” In 1954, Jimmy Dean became the host of radio program Town and Country Time on WARL in Washington D.C. Dean and his Texas Wildcats grew in popularity across the Mid-Atlantic region. Among the singers who got their start on the show were Patsy Cline, Roy Clark and Billy Grammar. He gained more fame with several more radio shows in Maryland and Virgina. In 1958-59 he was host of the Jimmy Dean Show on CBS. That show included a debut of a young puppeteer named Jim Henson who later created the Muppets.
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#1026: November Snow by Rejoice
Peak Month: April 1969
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #126
YouTube.com: “November Snow”
Rejoice was a band made up of guitarist Tom Brown, bass player Nancy Brown, pianist Dick Conte and drummer Michael Patrick Moore. They were from Marin County, north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Browns’ were a husband and wife duo and their harmonies bear strong echoes of the coffee house folk circuit blended with the gentle, hazily psychedelic Bay Area sounds of the day. Rejoice was signed by Jay Lasker, then president of the Dunhill label. Rejoice originally went into the studio with Terry Melcher as producer in April 1968. Melcher was the only son of singer Doris Day and he had previously produced the Byrds albums Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn, Turn Turn. Melcher also had produced all the albums for Paul Revere & The Raiders from 1965 to 1968, including their string of hit singles from “Just Like Me” to “I Had A Dream”. Melcher had also been the producer of the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. Rejoice were very excited to have Terry Melcher in place as their producer.
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#1027: Hotel Indiscreet by Sagittarius
Peak Month: October 1967
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #70
YouTube.com: “Hotel Indiscreet”
Lyrics: “Hotel Indiscreet”
Gary Usher was born in Massachusetts in 1938 and grew up in the community of Grafton. After graduating from high school in 1957, Usher headed to California and was a musician in a few local rock ‘n roll bands. As it happened, Gary Usher’s uncle was a neighbor of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys over in Hawthorne, a suburb of Los Angeles. Usher and Wilson ended up co-writing a number of songs for The Beach Boys including “409” and “In My Room”. The latter was a Top 30 hit in America in December 1963. Gary Usher also produced records in the mid-60’s for The Byrds, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, The Hondells and others. After considerable success as a producer, he eventually became a staff producer for Columbia Records. It was at this position that, during 1967, he produced Chad & Jeremy. They had played him several songs, which he felt lacked any commercial potential.
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#1028: Little Egypt by The Coasters
Peak Month: May 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
YouTube.com: “Little Egypt”
Lyrics: “Little Egypt”
The Coasters are rhythm and blues group that had six Top Ten hits on the Billboard pop charts in the late 1950’s. Their most memorable songs were written by the songwriting and producing team of Leiber and Stoller. The Coasters formed in October 1955 from an earlier Los Angeles based R&B group named The Robins. They were the third “bird” group in the R&B scene, along with The Ravens and The Orioles. The Robins had a #9 R&B hit in 1954 called “Riot in Cell Block No. 9”. Then in 1955, they had an even bigger regional hit in California called “Smokey Joe’s Cafe”. The song, written by Leiber and Stoller, was inspired by a real cafe, a beanery called “Smokey Joe’s” which was right next to an oil well at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega. The record became popular enough that Atlantic Records offered The Robins an independent contract to produce the group for the Atlantic label. Only two of The Robins, Carl Gardner and Bobby Nunn, were willing to make the move to Atlantic and become part of what was renamed The Coasters. The original Coasters’ members were Carl Gardner, Billy Guy, Bobby Nunn, Leon Hughes, and guitarist Adolph Jacobs.
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#1030: Bluejean Bop by Gene Vincent
Peak Month: October 1956
4 weeks on Vancouver’s Red Robinson chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #49
YouTube.com: “Bluejean Bop”
Lyrics: “Bluejean Bop”
Vincent Eugene Craddock was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1935. He later took the stage name Gene Vincent and is best known for the rockabilly hit from 1956 titled “Be-Bop-A-Lula.” From a young age he was interested in classical music as well as country and rhythm and blues. He received his first guitar at the age of twelve as a gift from a friend. Norfolk, Virginia, was the home of a large naval base and Vincent’s parents opened a general store and sailors’ tailoring shop. Vincent Eugene Craddock dropped out of school at 17 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1952. His completed a Korean War deployment though he never saw combat. Craddock planned a career in the Navy. However, in 1955, he used his $612 re-enlistment bonus to buy a new Triumph motorcycle. In July 1955 his left leg was shattered in a motorcycle crash in Norfolk. In hospital, his leg was saved. But the injury left him with a limp and chronic pain. He wasn’t suitable for the U.S. Navy anymore. He wore a steel sheath around the leg from then onward. The female driver in a Chrysler who who ran a red light and struck him was drunk. Craddock changed his name to Gene Vincent, with his first name, Vincent, as his surname and his shortened middle name, Eugene, as his first name.
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#1031: Milk And Honey by Eddie Fisher
Peak Month: March 1962
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox chart ~ #104
Peak Position on Music Vendor ~ #107
YouTube.com: “Milk And Honey”
Lyrics: “Milk And Honey”
Edwin John “Eddie” Fisher was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1928 in Russian Jewish immigrants. His father’s surname was originally Tisch, but was changed to Fisher by the time of the 1940 USA census. From childhood Eddie had a vocal talent. He made his radio debut on WFIL, a local Philadelphia radio station. He also performed on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, a popular radio show that later moved to television. Because he became a local star, Fisher dropped out of high school in the middle of his senior year to pursue his career. By 1946, Fisher was crooning with the bands of Buddy Morrow and Charlie Ventura. He was heard in 1949 by Eddie Cantor at Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel in the Borscht Belt. Cantor’s so-called discovery of Fisher was later described as a totally contrived, “manipulated’ arrangement by Milton Blackstone, Grossinger’s publicity director. After performing on Cantor’s radio show he was an instant hit and gained nationwide exposure. He then signed a recording contract with RCA Victor.
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