#1428: I Wish I Knew by Solomon Burke
Peak Month: May 1968
5 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68
YouTube.com link: “I Wish I Knew” Solomon Burke
“I Wish I Knew“Billy Taylor Trio
In 1940 James Solomon McDonald was born in his grandmother’s home in a row house in West Philadelphia. Burke was the child of Josephine Moore and an absentee father. His mother Josephine was a nurse, schoolteacher, concert performer and pastor. Burke was consecrated a bishop at birth by his grandmother in the Solomon’s Temple, a congregation of the United House of Prayer for All People, which she founded at her home in Black Bottom, West Philadelphia. When Burke was nine, his mother married rabbi and butcher Vincent Burke and had James Solomon McDonald had his name changed to Solomon Vincent McDonald Burke.
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#1116: (If’n You Don’t) Somebody Else Will by Monica Lewis
Peak Month: May 1957
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “(If’n You Don’t) Somebody Else Will”
Lyrics: “(If’n You Don’t) Somebody Else Will”
May Lewis was born in Chicago in 1922. Her father Leon, was a musical director for CBS and her mother, Jessica, sang with the Chicago Opera Company. Lewis began to take singing lessons in her childhood. She overcame early poverty and capitalized on lucky breaks. She was discovered by Benny Goodman. Miss Lewis was studying at Hunter College when she was hired as a $25-a-week vocalist on a radio wake-up program called Gloom Dodgers to help support the family. She soon had her own radio show, Monica Makes Music. Then she won the part of a singing cigarette girl in the short-lived Broadway show Johnny 2×4, starring alongside a very young Lauren Bacall.
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#1118: Tell Someone You Love Them by Dino, Desi and Billy
Peak Month: September 1968
6 weeks on CKLG chart
Peak Position #9
1 week Hitbound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #92
YouTube.com: “Tell Someone You Love Them”
Lyrics: “Tell Someone You Love Them”
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV is the son of Des Arnaz and Lucille Ball. His birth in 1953 was one of the most publicized in television history. His parents were the stars of the television sitcom I Love Lucy, and Ball’s pregnancy was part of the storyline, which was considered daring then. The same day Lucy gave birth to Desi Jr., the fictional Lucy Ricardo gave birth to “Little Ricky.” As a testament to how interested the American public was in Lucy’s TV baby, Arnaz appeared on the cover on the very first issue of TV Guide with a title that read: “Lucy’s $50,000,000 baby.” The reason he was given this title was because revenue from certain tie-in commitments were expected to top that mark. In 1964 Desi became the drummer for the pop trio Dino, Desi and Billy. “Dino” was Dean Paul Martin, the son of pop singer Dean Martin “Billy” was Billy Hinsche, brother-in-law of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.
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#1120: Love Hurts by Roy Orbison
Peak Month: June 1961
7 weeks on CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Love Hurts”
Lyrics: “Love Hurts”
Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas in 1936. When he turned six his dad gave him a guitar. Both his dad, Orbie Lee, and uncle Charlie Orbison, taught him how to play. Though his family moved to Forth Worth for work at a munitions factory, Roy was sent to live with his grandmother due to a polio outbreak in 1944. That year he wrote his first song “A Vow of Love”. The next year he won a contest on Vernon radio station KVWC and was offered his own radio show on Saturdays. After the war his family reunited and moved to Wink, Texas, where Roy formed his first band, in 1949, called The Wink Westerners.
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#1121: 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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#1123: 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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#1125: 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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#1126: 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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#1134: 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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#1135: 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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