#999: Little Honda by The Beach Boys
Peak Month: October 1964
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #65
YouTube.com: “Little Honda”
Lyrics: “Little Honda”
Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, in 1942. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin’s book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, he relates that when Brian Wilson first heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” it had a huge emotional impact on him. As a youngster, Wilson learned to play a toy accordion and sang in children’s choirs. In his teens he started a group with his cousin, Mike Love and his brother, Carl. His named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was so impressed with the performance that he let the group know. Jardine would later be enlisted, along with Dennis Wilson to form the Pendletones in 1961. The first song Brian Wilson wrote would become “Surfer Girl”. A demo of the tune was made in February 1962 and would go on to be a Top Ten hit when it was released a year later in 1963. However, their first recording was a doo-wop-surf tune called “Surfin’” in October 1961. It was released in November ’61 on the Candix Enterprises Inc. label. The surprise for the group was that the record label had changed the group’s name from the Pendletones to the Beach Boys. Consequently, as each time the record was played by a DJ in America, radio listeners were being introduced to the Beach Boys. The name Pendletones was now history.
Continue reading →
#1002: The Last Leaf/Shy Girl by The Cascades
Peak Month: May 1963
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart (The Last Leaf)
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart (Shy Girl)
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #60/#91
YouTube.com: “The Last Leaf”
Lyrics: “The Last Leaf”
YouTube.com: “Shy Girl”
Lyrics: “Shy Girl”
The origins of The Cascades, a smooth pop harmony group, were born in 1960 aboard the U.S.S. Jason AR-8. When the ship wasn’t overseas in Sasebo, Japan, it docked in San Diego. The group initially consisted of singer and lead guitarist Lenny Green, singer and drummer Dave Wilson, bass player Dave Stevens and rhythm guitarist Art Eastlink. On and off ship they were known to other servicemen and local San Diegans’ as The Silver Strands. Fellow friend and serviceman on the U.S.S. Jason, John Gummoe, was a huge fan and started to serve as the group’s manager. Gummoe booked the group for five gigs a week. He also performed duets with Dave Wilson as part of the Silver Strands’ concerts. The group left the U.S. Navy and became billed as The Thundernotes. They released an instrumental surf single in the fall of 1961. “Pay Day” got airplay on the local San Diego radio station KDEO. Lenny Green left the group and John Gummoe officially joined the band as lead vocalist.
Continue reading →
#1003: Real Wild Child by Iggy Pop
Peak Month: March-April 1987
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Real Wild Child”
Lyrics: “Real Wild Child”
James Newell Osterberg, Jr. was born in 1947 in Muskegon, Michigan. His family lived in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, 18 miles west of Detroit. During high school he played the drum in numerous high school bands. One of the bands he played for from Ann Arbor, Michigan, were called the Iguanas. Young James Newell Osterberg Jr. derived his stage name from the Iguanas and became Iggy Pop. He moved to Chicago and was influenced by the Los Angeles based Doors, the Tacoma, Washington, based Sonics and the Lincoln Park, Michigan, based MC5. As he shaped his sound he formed The Psychedelic Stooges. Looking back on his formative years, Iggy Pop remarked in an interview with David Fricke of Rolling Stone Magazine in 2007, “Once I hit junior high in Ann Arbor, I began going to school with the son of the president of Ford Motor Company, with kids of wealth and distinction. But I had a wealth that beat them all. I had the tremendous investment my parents made in me. I got a lot of care. They helped me explore anything I was interested in. This culminated in their evacuation from the master bedroom in the trailer, because that was the only room big enough for my drum kit. They gave me their bedroom.”
Continue reading →
#1006: Moon Dawg ’65 by The Arrows Featuring Davie Allan
Peak Month: June 1965
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Moon Dawg”
Davie Allan is a guitarist best known for his work on soundtracks to various teen and biker movies in the 1960s. Allan’s backing band is almost always the Arrows (i.e., Davie Allan & the Arrows), although the Arrows have never been a stable lineup. In the late sixties, Davie Allan & The Arrows carved their niche in the musical history books with an array of classic instrumentals and two dozen motion picture soundtracks. The most notable of the movies was Roger Corman’s cult classic The Wild Angels featuring Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra. The Arrows also were featured in Devil’s Angels, The Glory Stompers (Dennis Hopper) and Born Losers (the film that introduced the character Billy Jack). Some of the other 60’s “B” films were Riot On Sunset Strip, Thunder Alley, The Angry Breed, Mary Jane, Teenage Rebellion, Hellcats, Mondo Hollywood, The Wild Racers, Wild in The Streets, The Golden Breed, Skaterdater and The Hard Ride. The LA Reader described the bands’ sound as “perhaps the closest thing you’ll ever hear to a combination of Link Wray, Dick Dale and Henry Mancini…”
Continue reading →
#1009: What A Surprise by Johnny Maestro
Peak Month: June 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #33
YouTube.com: “What A Surprise”
Lyrics: “What A Surprise”
John Mastrangelo was born in New York City in 1939. He began his career in 1957 as the original lead singer of the Crests, one of the first interracial groups in the music industry. Initially, The Crests had three African American members (one female), one Puerto Rican, and one Italian American (Johnny Maestro). Patricia Van Dross, older sister to famed R&B singer Luther Vandross, sang with Johnny Maestro while The Crests were signed to the Joyce Record label. Before The Crests signed with Coed Records, Patricia left the group because her mother didn’t want her 15-year old daughter touring with the older guys. After a regional hit with “My Juanita”/”Sweetest One” on the Joyce label, The Crests charted a song titled “Pretty Little Angel” that was a Top 20 hit in Buffalo, New York, in May 1958. Their follow-up hit, called “16 Candles” climbed to #2 in early 1959 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #9 on CKWX in Vancouver.
Continue reading →
#1011: Beatnik Sticks by Paul Revere And The Raiders
Peak Month: September 1960
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Beatnik Sticks”
A band called The Downbeats formed in Boise, Idaho, in 1958. Paul Revere Dick started the band originally as an instrumental group. They had their first chart single in Vancouver in 1960, an instrumental riff on the piano tune, Chopsticks, called “Beatnik Sticks.” They changed their name to Paul Revere & The Raiders in 1960. Between 1960 and 1976 they released 41 singles. They charted five songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA beginning in 1966 with songs like “Kicks”, and “Hungry” (1966), “Him Or Me – What’s It Gonna Be?” (1967) and their cover of Don Fardon’s 1968 single “Indian Reservation” which peaked at #1 for the band in 1971. They were even more popular in Vancouver where they charted over fifteen songs into the Top Ten on the local charts here on the West Coast.
Continue reading →
#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.
Continue reading →
#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.
Continue reading →
#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.
Continue reading →
#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.
Continue reading →
