#453: An Emotion Away by Alanis Morissette
Peak Month: December 1992
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “An Emotion Away”
Alanis Nadine Morissette was born in Ottawa in 1974. At the age of six she began to take piano, and the following year took up dance. In Junior High School she appeared on five episodes of a local CTV comedy show called You Can’t Do That on Television. In 1987 she recorded a demo with the help of Rich Dodson of The Stampeders. Four years later she released her debut album, Alanis. Her debut single was titled “Too Hot“.
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#454: Opus 17 by the Four Seasons
Peak Month: June 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #13
YouTube: “Opus 17”
Lyrics: “Opus 17”
Pianist Bob Gaudio was born in The Bronx in 1942. At 14 years of age he co-founded The Royals. Gaudio had been playing piano since he turned eight in 1950. Gaudio was born in November 1942 in Bergenfield, New Jersey. The Royals opened for a local New Jersey doo-wop group named The Three Friends who had a hit in New York and Baltimore in the winter of 1956-57 titled “Blanche”. After the Fort Lee concert, The Three Friends invited The Royals to come to New York to be the session musicians for their upcoming recording date in the Brill Building at 1650 Broadway. It was there The Royals met The Three Friends manager, Leo Rogers. On the strength of their musical skills, Rogers invited The Royals to be session musicians for numerous recording artists in the building. They were also given a chance to record a song.
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#455: Banned In The USA by 2 Live Crew
Peak Month: September 1990
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube: “Banned In The USA”
Lyrics: “Banned In The USA”
David Hobbs was born in Santa Ana, California, in 1963. After high school he joined the United States Air Force. In 1984, while he was stationed in Riverside, California, he met two other Airmen, and Christopher Wong Won and Yuri Vielot. Christopher Wong Won was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1964. His family moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1976. The trio became rap group named 2 Live Crew, and released their first single “The Revelation”. Hobbs was known as Mr. Mixx. Wong Won as Fresh Kid Ice and Vielot as Amazing Vee. When their rap single became a regional hit in Florida a DJ in the Sunshine State named Luke Skywalker invited the trio to move to Florida. Mr. Mixx and Fresh Kid Ice relocated to Florida, while Yuri Vielot stayed behind in California.
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#943: Lust For Love by Images In Vogue
Peak Month: December 1983
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Lust For Love”
Lyrics: “Lust For Love”
Images In Vogue was formed in April 1981 in Vancouver, by co-founders Gary Smith and Don Gordon. Gordon was a guitarist and Smith played bass guitar. Kevin Crompton played percussion and Joe Vizvary played synthesizers. The band’s manager was Kim Clarke Champniss, later to become a MuchMusic VJ. Images In Vogue began recording new material and sent demos to the UBC college radio station CITR and Co-op Radio in the Downtown East Side. Images In Vogue’s website states that their first concert in Vancouver was on September 26, 1981, at “Electra – Vancouver’s First Fashion Dance.” In October the band began to record their first EP.
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#457: Smooth As Silk by MCJ & Cool G
Peak Month: March 1991
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Smooth As Silk”
MCJ & Cool G were James McQuaid (MCJ), originally part of the Halifax hip hop group New Beginning, and Richard Gray (Cool G). MCJ was the rapper and Cool G mostly sang the choruses. Their sound included new jack swing which was popular at the time. New jack swing originated with Janet Jackon’s 1986 Control album, featuring her hits “What Have You Done For Me Lately”, “When I Think Of You”, “Nasty” and the title track. Other examples of new jack swing are Club Nouveau’s cover of “Lean On Me”, Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up”, “I Like The Way (The Kissing Game)” by Hi Five, “I’m Your Baby Tonight” by Whitney Houston, “My Prerogative” by Bobby Brown, and “I Wanna Sex You Up” by Color Me Badd.
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#458: Shy Away by Jerry Fuller
Peak Month: April-May 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube: “Shy Away”
Lyrics: “Shy Away”
In 1938 Jerry Fuller was born in Fort Worth, Texas. His father was a carpenter who had a voice like Bing Crosby, while his mom sang like Patti Page. As a musical family, at the age of eleven, Jerry and his brother Bill became were billed as The Fuller Brothers. His mother arranged for them to appear at school, churches, talent contests, minstrel shows and jamborees. Out of high school, Fuller wrote a rockabilly tune called “I Found A New Love” and got it recorded Lin records in 1958.
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#459: Badge by Cream
Peak Month: May 1969
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #60
YouTube: “Badge”
Lyrics: “Badge”
Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker was born in 1939 in South London. He excellent at British football in his teens. At age fifteen he began to play drums and took lessons from iconic British jazz drummer Phil Seaman. In 1962 Baker joined Blues Incorporated along with Jack Bruce and others who played at the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. In 1963, Baker was one of the founding members of a jazz/rhythm & blues band, called The Graham Bond Organisation, spelled the British way. Jack Bruce also joined the band. The band appeared in the 1965 UK film Gonks Go Beat, which also featured Lulu and the Nashville Teens.
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#1329: Only You by the Flying Pickets
Peak Month: June 1984
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Only You”
Lyrics: “Only You”
Brian Hibbard was born in the County of Monmouth in southwestern Wales in 1946. He got employment as a chimney sweep, a steel worker, a barman and a teacher before becoming an actor. In 1972-74 he supported the the UK miner’s strike. He joined John McGrath’s 7:84 Theatre Company. The theatre group’s name was chosen based on an article McGrath recalled from 1966 in the Economist which reported that 7% of the people in the UK owned 84% of the country’s wealth. 7:84 was a leftwing Scottish “political” theatre or agitprop company. In 1981 they performed a production called One Big Blow about a group of miners in a colliery brass band.
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#460: Daytime Night-time by Keith Hampshire
Peak Month: January 1973
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “Daytime Night-Time”
Lyrics: “Daytime, Night-Time”
Keith Hampshire was born in London in 1945. At the age of four he got tap dancing lessons and His family moved to Canada when he was six-years-old. They visited Toronto, took a train west and moved to Calgary. It was in Calgary that Keith Hampshire took singing lessons, founded a number of high-school bands, including the Intruders, Keith and The Bristols, and the Variations. Each band got gigs at other schools and clubs around town. The Variations opened for Roy Orbison one summer in the early 60s at the Calgary Stampede. Out of high school Keith Hampshire got a position at CFCN radio and TV as a cameraman. He ended up programming and announcing, playing Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Animals and the Searchers at the beginning of the British Invasion. At the age of 21 Hampshire moved back to the UK and got work from July 1966 to August 1967 as a DJ for a pirate radio station called Radio Caroline South. He moved back to Canada in September 1967 and got a job as a DJ with CKFH in Toronto. He got married in 1969.
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#461: Ooby Dooby by Roy Orbison
Peak Month: January 1957
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55
YouTube.com: “Ooby Dooby”
Lyrics: “Ooby Dooby”
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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