#1353: Time by Jerry Jackson
Peak Month: June 1961
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Time”
Lyrics: “Time”
Jerry was born in the Northeastern USA and raised in a large, talented family consisting of six sisters and six brothers. His dad was a preacher who traveled extensively throughout the southern states in the USA. His mother, a missionary, provided excellent mentoring to their children at home. They had migrated from the southern USA with their first three children several years before Jerry was born. They were all raised under strict biblical principles.Continue reading →
#1358: Julie by Jan and Dean
Peak Month: September 1961
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Julie”
“Oh Julie” (The Crescendos original lyrics)
Jan and Dean were a pop duo who formed in 1958. They met in 1957 while they were students at Emerson Junior High School in Los Angeles. A year later they were on the football team of University High School. They had adjoining lockers and began singing and harmonizing in the showers with a number of other football players. Dean Torrence was drafted into the US Army Reserve in 1958. Jan Berry went on to record his first single with Arnold P. “Arnie” Ginsburg under the name Jan & Arnie. (Ginsburg happened to have a namesake, Arnie “woo woo” Ginsburg, who was a career DJ in Boston including on WMEX). The hit, “Jennie Lee”, was penned by Ginsburg and inspired by a poster of a local Hollywood burlesque performer. Jan and Arnie performed on American Bandstand in May and the tune went to #8 on the Billboard charts. When Dean Torrence returned Jan & Dean recorded their first Top Ten hit, “Baby Talk”, peaking at #10 in 1959 (#20 on CKWX in Vancouver).
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#1386: What Does A Girl Do by Marcie Blane
Peak Month February 1963
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 #82
YouTube.com: “What Does A Girl Do?”
Lyrics: “What Does A Girl Do?”
Marcie Blane’s actual name was Marcia Blank and she was raised in Brooklyn, New York. She was the second oldest of four children living with her parents, Ernest and Muriel. Marcie had music in her blood. Ernest Blank made his salary as a professional musician and music teacher. He’d been working as a pianist in the Catskill Mountains when he met and fell in love with 16-year-old Muriel Shalit. Her parents only gave their blessing to their daughter’s marriage on the condition that Ernest graduate from college. After he graduated from New York University with a degree in music education the couple were married.
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#1376: Boys’ Night Out by Patti Page
Peak Month: August 1962
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #49
Peak Position on Cashbox ~ #60
YouTube.com: “Boys Night Out”
Lyrics: “Boys Night Out”
Patti Page was born on November 8, 1927. The New York Times writes “She was born Clara Ann Fowler in Claremore, Oklahoma, the second youngest of 11 children of a railroad laborer. Her mother and older sisters picked cotton. She often went without shoes. Because the family saved money on electricity, the only radio shows Miss Page heard as a child were Grand Old Opry, The Eddie Cantor Show and Chicago Barn Dance.”
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#1379: Mr. Piano Man by Annette
Peak Month: October 1962
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Mr. Piano Man”
Annette’s solo music career began in 1958 while her serial Annette, was airing on The Mickey Mouse Club. During a hayride scene in one of the episodes, Annette sang what was meant to be a hokey ballad called “How Will I Know My Love”, complete with juice harp and miniature accordion. As a result of Annette’s rendition her friend Laura apologizes for being previously critical of the song.
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#1380: Why Pick On Me by The Standells
Peak Month: November 1966
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #54
Peak Position on Cashbox ~ #68
YouTube.com link: “Why Pick On Me”
Lyrics: “Why Pick On Me”
“Best known for their hit Dirty Water, The Standells released a string of snotty, aggressive garage singles in the mid to late 1960s which are now rightly regarded as proto-punk classics. “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White”, “Why Pick On Me”, “Riot On Sunset Strip” ~ the songs of The Standells have been covered by everyone from Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith and U2 to Spacemen 3, Minor Threat and a million 77 punk bands as well as many subsequent scene bands. ”
– Pat Long
The Standells are considered by many to be the godfathers of punk rock. The group was formed in 1962 in Los Angeles by keyboardist and lead vocalist Larry Tamblyn and guitarist Tony Valentino. Larry created the name from “Standing” around booking agencies trying to get work. Originally the group was called the “Standels” (with one “l”), but was changed to the “Standells” spelling in 1963. The name was also lengthened for awhile to Larry Tamblyn and the Standells, as noted in the Vernon Joynson book “Fuzz Acid & Flowers”. Their first recording, “You’ll be Mine Someday”/”Girl in My Heart”, was recorded in 1963 and released in 1964 on Faro Records. Later that year, the name was shortened to “Standells.”
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#1384: Come Dance With Me by Eddie Quinteros
Peak Month June 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #101
YouTube.com: “Come Dance With Me”
Lyrics: “Come Dance With Me”
Eddie Quinteros was born in San Francisco, California, in 1943. He started his musical career at the age of 13. At the time he was not a member of the musicians union. He was playing in a Bay area union house and got busted. After that he joined the musicians union. In 1956 he had a rock n’ roll band that did a stint in San Francisco on KPIX radio. The manager for Bobby Freeman, a singer who had the 1958 hit “Do You Wanna Dance” saw Quinteros perform shortly after Freeman’s song was starting to climb the charts. Eddie Quinteros was asked if he wanted to play guitar with them. Freeman was going to tour in Hawaii. His manager needed a guitar player who could read music. Eddie auditioned and got the job at the age of 15.
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#1388: Hully Gully Cha Cha Cha by Skip and Flip
Peak Month August 1960
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #109
YouTube.com: “Hully Gully Cha Cha Cha”
Gary Sanford Paxton was born Larry Wayne Stevens on May 18, 1939, to an unmarried teenage couple in Coffeyville, Kansas. Raised by foster parents, he learned the story of his birth only at 17, when his mother introduced herself while he was dining at a restaurant. In his biography, Paxton said he was molested by a neighbor when he was seven, and began writing songs at age ten. When he was eleven, he contracted spinal meningitis, and was crippled for three years. He began performing with an electric Stratocaster guitar after moving to Tucson with his family as a teenager. Paxton dropped out of high school and married 14-year-old Betty Jean Brown when he was seventeen. This was his first of several marriages.
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#1389: Comfy ‘N Cozy by Conway Twitty
Peak Month: May 1962
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Music Vendor ~ #120
YouTube.com: “Comfy ‘N Cozy”
Lyrics: “Comfy N Cozy”
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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#1450: Little Saint Nick by the Beach Boys
Peak Month: December 1963
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox Magazine ~ #69
CFUN Twin Pick of the week ~ December 7, 1963
YouTube.com: “Little Saint Nick”
Lyrics: “Little Saint Nick”
On this first Christmas Day since the Countdown began on October 3, 2016, here is a song that was a hit in Vancouver called “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys. It was the CFUN Twin Pick of the week for December 7, 1963. As it only spent three weeks on the C-FUNTASTIC FIFTY, it did not chart as well as other songs on this Countdown. But it was a hit single here in Vancouver. As a song that made it onto record surveys in the USA it did well in a few radio markets in California (#9 in Los Angeles, #3 in San Bernardino and #1 in Sacramento), Seattle (#9) Salt Lake City (#5) and Boston (#10). Otherwise, the song got little airplay across the USA. For the most part, “Little Saint Nick” was a hit in December 1963 from the California coast up to Vancouver. The song was judged too cheery a tune to play on the radio in late November 1963, and December 1963, while Americans were still mourning the death of President John F. Kennedy.
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