#1120: 100 or Two by Springfield Rifle
Peak Month: May 1967
9 weeks on CKLG
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “100 Or Two”
Seattle’s Springfield Rifle was a band that formed in 1966 that evolved out of a group called The Dynamics. They comprised of musicians who played saxophone, trombone, trumpet, guitar, bass, keyboard and drums, and variously had between five and seven band members. These included Jeff Afdem (saxophone), Dennis Ashbrook (saxophone), Mark Bishop (organ), Sam Wisner (drums), Dave Talbot (bass), Mark Whitman (vocals, guitar), Larry Duff (trumpet, trombone) and Dean Quackenbush (trumpet). There were lineup changes later. Other band members included Harry Wilson on guitar, Terry Afdem on keyboards, Denny Brabant on drums, Ron Hendee on trumpet and Marty Tuttle on drums. Joe Cavender, who also played drums for awhile with Springfield Rifle, was a former member of The Demons from Spokane, Washington.
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#1122: Sugar Candy by Georgia Gibbs
Peak Month: June 1957
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Sugar Candy”
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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#1124: Boom Boom Baby by Crash Craddock
Peak Month: December 1959
7 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Boom Boom Baby”
Lyrics: “Boom Boom Baby”
In 1939, Billy “Crash” Craddock was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was the youngest of thirteen children. The Craddock’s were a clan that were tight, knit with the threads of love of family and music. Craddock’s dad played harmonica, spoons, wash board and buck danced. His whole family mother harmonized as they sang old gospel song and folk tunes. Craddock would listen to Little Jimmy Dickens, Faron Young and others on the radio. It would only take him a time or two to learn the lyrics and tune by heart. One brother paid little Billy Craddock a nickel for each song he could sing word-perfect. He learned to play guitar when he was just six. When he was eleven, Craddock entered a talent contest on a local TV station. He was voted the winner for fifteen weeks in a row. Craddock got his nickname, “Crash,” from playing football in high school. Inspired by Elvis Presley, Crash Craddock formed a rockabilly band with one of his brothers called The Four Rebels. And he got a record deal with Sky Castle Records in Greensboro and released a single titled “Smacky-Mouth” in 1957.
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#1125: We Gotta All Get Together by Paul Revere And The Raiders
Peak Month: October 1969
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube.com: “We Gotta All Get Together”
Lyrics: “We Gotta All Get Together”
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 And 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. These included “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.
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#1133: Red Hot by Billy Riley
Peak Month: November 1957
4 weeks on Teen Canteen chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Red Hot”
Lyrics: “Red Hot”
Billy Lee Riley was born in in Pocahontas, Arkansas in 1933. His father was a sharecropper, which means he rented land from a landowner and used the land in return for giving a portion of the profits of the crops produced to the landowner on their portion of land. Though Riley’s father was a house painter by trade he would work in the cotton fields to feed the family during lean times. Young Billy Lee began playing harmonica at age six, and learned blues guitar in his early teens. “Blues is the music I grew up hearing on the plantation. There were black families and white families all living together, far from town. We were poor, and playing music was our main form of entertainment,” he recalled. In 1957 Riley recorded “Red Hot,” included in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Song’s that Shaped Rock n’ Roll.
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#1134: Stormy by Donnie Owens
Peak Month: March 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Stormy”
Donald Lee Owens was born October 30, 1932, in Chester, Pennsylvania. Out of high school Owens went into the U.S. Air Force where he served as Airman First Class. He was a veteran of the Korean War. Taking the stage name, Donnie Owens, for five years Donnie Owens and the 4 Jacks played at a Harry’s Capri Lounge in Phoenix, Arizona. Owens recorded three 45’s on the Guyden Records label. Each featured Duane Eddy on guitar. Owens was a pop singer and guitarist. He played guitar for Duane Eddy’s backing band, the Rebels. In that capacity, Donnie Owens was one of the guitarists heard on “Because They’re Young” and other hits by Duane Eddy. Though he was American, Donnie Owens only had one hit record in the USA. On October 6, 1958 Owens made his Billboard Hot 100 debut with “Need You”. The record peaked on the Hot 100 at #25 and stayed on the chart for 15 weeks. It peaked in Vancouver on CKWX at #26 and spent 9 weeks on the charts. Duane Eddy is heard playing acoustic guitar on the record. The hit resembled the plodding pace of the more popular hit by Jack Scott, “My True Love.”
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#1135: So Young by Ray Smith
Peak Month: October 1958
4 weeks on Vancouver’s Teen Canteen chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “So Young”
Ray Smith was born in 1934 in the hamlet of Melber, Kentucky, thirteen miles from the town of Paducah where the Ohio River and the Tennessee River meet. Smith was the seventh son of a sharecropper who, in turn, was also the seventh son in Smith’s grandfather’s family. His dad later worked at the atomic bomb plant in Paducah. Smith left his home at the age of twelve. He worked as a gopher on a Coca-Cola Truck and then operated an oven at Kirchoff’s Bread plant in Paducah. As he grew up Ray Smith worked as a curb hop at Price’s Barbecue at 34th and Broadway where he would serve U.S. (KY) Senator Alben W. Barkley, who later became President Harry Truman’s Vice-President. Next he worked as a sole back tacker and tack machine operator at the International Shoe Company.
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#1178: Boomerang by Donnie Brooks
Peak Month: August 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
WX DISC-overy of the week ~ July 22, 1961
YouTube.com: “Boomerang”
In 1936 John Dee Abohosh was born in Dallas, Texas. His family moved to Ventura, California when he was in his youth. In his teens he was adopted by his stepfather, John D. Fairecloth, who supported young John in developing his voice. John Dee Abohosh was than given the surname Fairecloth. While growing up in southern California, he studied under the same vocal coach who previously instructed Eddie Fisher. In high school John Dee Fairecloth made his professional debut on a classical music showcase broadcast by Ventura-based station KBCC. After graduating from high school, Fairecloth earned his living singing at local clubs, fairs, and weddings, embracing rock & roll and in 1957 signing to local indie Fable Records to cut his debut single, “You Gotta Walk the Line“, credited to Johnny Faire.
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#1095: Crying My Heart Out For You by Julius La Rosa
Peak Month: June 1957
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Crying My Heart Out For You”
Julius La Rosa was born in Brooklyn in 1930 and raised in an Italian-American Roman Catholic milieu. Out of high school he joined the U.S. Navy and became a radioman. According to a 1991 New York Times article, La Rosa sang in the Navy Choir, at officers clubs and bars to pay for drinks. La Rosa was in the Navy when Arthur Godfrey heard him sing. Godfrey had been encouraged to listen to La Rosa by a buddy of La Rosa’s named George “Bud” Andrews, who happened to be the seaman mechanic on Godfrey’s personal airplane. Godfrey soon invited Julius La Rosa to appear on his CBS TV show. After his discharge, Julius La Rosa became a star on the Arthur Godfrey and his Friends from 1951 to 1953, recording several hits including “Eh, Cumpari”, which shot to #2 on the Billboard pop charts.
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#1139: Little Man by Sonny & Cher
Peak Month: October 1966
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #21
YouTube.com: “Little Man”
Lyrics: “Little Man”
In November 1962, in a coffee shop in Los Angeles, sixteen year old Cherilyn Sarkisian met twenty-seven year old Salvatore Bono. At the time Bono was employed at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood working for record producer Phil Spector. Cher began to work as a back up singer for Phil Spector including on “Be My Baby” for the Ronettes in 1963, and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” for the Righteous Brothers, recorded in November 1964. Meanwhile, Sonny & Cher released several singles under the billing, Caesar and Cleo, including “The Letter” which made the Top 40 in Los Angeles. In the fall of 1964 they released the single, “Baby Don’t Go” under the billing Sonny & Cher. It was a regional hit that fall peaking at #2 in San Bernardino, #5 in Honolulu, #7 in Los Angeles and #14 in San Francisco. The song would chart again in the fall of 1965, after their #1 hit that summer, “I Got You Babe”.
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