#151: Jesse by Roberta Flack
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CHOM
Peak Month: November 1973
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “Jesse”
Lyrics: “Jesse”
Roberta Flack was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, in 1937. Her family moved to Arlington, Virginia, when she was five. Growing up in a large, musical family, she often accompanied the choir of Lomax African Methodist-Episcopal Zion Church by playing hymns and spirituals on piano. She also attended a Baptist in her neighborhood to listen to contemporary gospel music including songs performed by Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke. When Flack was nine, she began to play the piano. Into her teens, she excelled at classical piano, finishing second in a statewide competition for Black 13-year-old students. In connection with the competition, she won a full music scholarship to Howard University.
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#18: While The Record Goes Around by the Playmates
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “While The Record Goes Around”
Lyrics: “While The Record Goes Around”
The Nitwits were a vocal group that began performing in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1952. They were a trio consisting of Chic Hetti (born Carl Cicchetti) on piano and lead vocals, drummer and vocalist Donny Conn (born Donald Clapps), and Morey Carr (born Morey Cohen) on vocals and bass. All three were born in the Waterbury area. Each had attended the University of Connecticut in the early 50’s and decided to form a comedy group that also sang songs. They toured lounges in the USA and Canada. Their routine and material resembled another vocal group from the mid-50’s into the early 60’s named the Four Preps. Over five years of touring, the Nitwits shifted their focus from comedy skits with songs to being primarily a vocal group with comedic banter between tunes. In the spring of 1957, the Nitwits got a contract with Roulette Records, becoming the labels first vocal group. They changed their name from the Nitwits to the Playmates. In the middle of the calypso craze, they released an album titled Playmates Visit the West Indies. That year “Darling It’s Wonderful” peaked at #12 in Toronto.
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#19: A House, A Car And A Wedding Ring by Dale Hawkins
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: November 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #46
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #88
YouTube: “A House, A Car, And A Wedding Ring”
Lyrics: “A House, A Car, And A Wedding Ring”
Delmar Allen “Dale” Hawkins was born in Goldmine Plantation, Louisiana, in 1936. Fellow rockabilly singer, Ronnie Hawkins, was his cousin. His family was poor and he picked cotton with Black-Americans to get by. He left home when he was fifteen and joined the United States Navy. After he left the Navy in 1953, he got a job in Shreveport (LA) working for Stanley Lewis at Stan’s Record Shop. He began recording in 1956 and released “See You Soon Baboon”, which opened with a Tarzan call. In 1957, Hawkins was playing at Shreveport clubs. His music was influenced by the new rock and roll style of Elvis Presley and the guitar sounds of Scotty Moore. Still, Hawkins blended that sound with the uniquely heavy blues sound of black Louisiana artists for his recording of his swamp-rock classic, “Susie Q”. He took five months to write the song before August 1954. In early 1957, Hawkins recorded the song late one night at KWKH-AM in Shreveport. The recording was sold to Chess Records which released it as a single in May ’57. “Susie Q” peaked at #7 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart. It reached #27 on the Billboard pop chart in July ’57. In Canada, “Susie Q” reached #6 in Toronto and #10 in Winnipeg.
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#21: Getting Dizzy by the Elegants
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Getting Dizzy”
Lyrics: N/A
The Elegants were a doo-wop group that was started in 1958 by Vito Picone, Arthur Venosa, Frank Tardogno, Carman Romano and James Moschello in South Beach, Staten Island, New York. They started out performing under the boardwalk by their homes. Back in 1955 in Staten Island,Vito Picone was 15-years old and his friend Carman Romano played the trombone in their high school. But in the mid-50s they wanted form a vocal group. They recruited reunited high school bandmate Ronnie Jones, who played trombone. The fourth member of their group was and girl trumpet player Pat “Cordel” Croccitto. They named themselves The Crescents. The foursome sang for the fun of it and performed at local church functions and dances.
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#23: Dream World by the Four Coins
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: August 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Dream World”
Lyrics: N/A
The Four Coins were a vocal harmony group formed in 1952 in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, by George Mantalis. He was born in 1934. The other members of the quartet, all Greek-American, were James Gregorakis, (born in 1934) and brothers George and Jack Mahramas. Jack Mahramas, born in 1940 in Canonsburg, was the youngest member of the quartet. The Mahramas brothers assumed the stage names George and Jack James. Mantalis and Gregorakis were cousins of the Maharamas brothers, and all were living within a few houses of each other on the same block in East Canonsburg (PA). Before they became a quartet, three of its members were horn players with Stanley “Bobby” Vinton and His Band of Tomorrow Orchestra in 1951-52. At the time Vinton was just 16-years-old, and also a Canonsburg native. The future pop star rose to fame with his number-one 1962 hit “Roses Are Red”.
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#24: Cap And Gown by Marty Robbins
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: July 1959
Peak Position in London ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #57
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube: “Cap and Gown”
Lyrics: “Cap and Gown”
Martin “Marty” David Robinson was born Glendale (AZ) in 1925. His parents divorced when he was 12. He quit school and got work as an amateur boxer, dug ditches, drove trucks, delivered ice, and served as a mechanics assistant. At 17, Robbins left home to serve in the United States Navy as an landing tank craft coxswain during WWII. He was stationed in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. To pass the time during the war, he learned to play the guitar, got introduced to Hawaiian music and began songwriting. After his discharge from the military in 1947, Robbins got married. The next year he started to play at local venues in Phoenix. In the early 1950s Marty moved on to host his own show on KYYL (Mesa, AZ) and then his own television show Western Caravan on KPHO-TV in Phoenix. His show got on the radar of Columbia Records after Little Jimmy Dickens made a guest appearance on Western Caravan.
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#25: Real Wild Child by Ivan
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in London ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #68
YouTube: “Real Wild Child”
Lyrics: “Real Wild Child”
Jerry “Ivan” Allison was born in 1939 in Hillsboro, Texas. He learned to play drums in his youth. In the mid-50s, Allison met Buddy Holly and the pair created a duo. Holly played guitar and sang, while Allison played the drums. Allison went to a recording studio in Nashville in 1956 for Buddy Holly’s first recording session. However, two single releases on the Decca label for Holly were commercial flops. Allison and Holly met Joe Mauldin in 1957 and they formed a trio they named The Crickets. The three were capable of writing, playing, producing and recording their own records. They were also skilled at over-dubbing in the studio years before it became a standard feature of studio recording. “That’ll Be The Day” climbed to #1 in the spring of 1957 establishing The Crickets as a part of the vanguard of rock ‘n roll at a time that many music critics predicted its demise and regarded it as a “music fad.” While The Crickets were not acknowledged on the record label credits for “Peggy Sue”, many DJ’s knew that Buddy Holly’s band was playing on the record.
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#5: Half Heaven-Half Heartache by Gene Pitney
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CFPL
Peak Month: January 1963
Peak Position in London ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
YouTube: “Half Heaven-Half Heartache”
Lyrics: “Half Heaven-Half Heartache”
Gene Pitney was born in 1940 in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a songwriter who became a pop singer, something rare at the time. Some of the songs he wrote for other recording artists include “Rubber Ball” for Bobby Vee, “He’s A Rebel” for The Crystals and “Hello Mary Lou” for Ricky Nelson. Pitney was more popular in Vancouver than in his native America. Over his career he charted 14 songs into the Top Ten in Vancouver, while he only charted four songs into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Curiously, only two of these songs overlap: “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Vallance” and “I’m Gonna Be Strong”. Surprisingly “Only Love Can Break A Heart”, which peaked at #2 in the USA, stalled at #14 in Vancouver, and “It Hurts To Be In Love” stalled at #11 in Vancouver while it peaked at #7 south of the border.
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#30: Stampede/You Gotta Be A Music Man by Danny Valentino
City: London, ON
Radio Station: CKSL
Peak Month: January 1960
Peak Position in London ~ #10
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Stampede”
Lyrics: N/A
YouTube: “(You Gotta Be A) Music Man”
Lyrics: N/A
Vincent Pacimeo was born in 1941 in Flushing, New York. He was interviewed on the This Is My Story website by and Dik de Heer in 2016. Pacimeo first sang in public when he was five-years-old. Then his career as a musician was launched when he was nine-years-old and appeared “on the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour television show playing the drums.” His musical influences were Al Jolson and WWII big bands (like Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman etc.). As he got better at drumming, Vince was invited to “play with older and seasoned musicians. By that time he was tap dancing and singing Broadway and movie musical songs.” Vince was inspired by the great singer and dancer, Gene Kelly. In the early 50s, singer and tap dancer Gene Kelly starred in numbers of musicals, including An American In Paris (1951), Singing In The Rain (1952), and Brigadoon (1954). Vince had a dream that he could be a great singer and dancer like Gene Kelly. In his mid-teens, Vince was captivated by jazz music. And he began to focus more on his vocal skills than his drumming.
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#64: I Promise To Remember by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CFRN
Peak Month: September 1956
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver: #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100: #57
YouTube: “I Promise To Remember”
Lyrics: “I Promise To Remember”
In 1942 Franklin Joseph “Frankie” Lymon was born in New York City. Frankie and his brothers grew up in a musical home in Harlem. Their mother, Jeanette, was a domestic maid. Their dad, Howard Lymon Sr., had a job as a truck driver and was a member of a gospel group called the Harlemaires. Frankie and his brothers, Howard and Lewis, all attended the Harlemaires rehearsals and concerts from an early age. From the age of ten Frankie worked at a grocery store to help the family pay the rent. He also had a sideline hustling prostitutes. When Frankie’s voice developed into a beautiful boy soprano lead singer he joined a group called The Teenagers. The doo-wop groups original lineup consisted of three African Americans: Frankie Lymon, Jimmy Merchant and Sherman Garnes, and two Puerto Ricans: Herman Santiago and Joe Negroni.
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