#1471: Somebody Help Me by The Shockers

Peak Month: July 1967
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Somebody Help Me” at minute 5:24
Lyrics: “Somebody Help Me”

The Shockers were a local Vancouver band that started in 1965. They all attended Gladstone Secondary High School in Vancouver’s east side. It was located north of Kingsway, east of Victoria Drive, south of Trout Lake Park and west of Nanaimo Street. Fellow Grade 11 students, David Jonsson recalls, “Only one of us (Mike Wilson) could actually play an instrument (guitar). Keith Foreman had a good voice and a sufficient strut of ego and so became the vocalist. I was deemed, “a good dancer” which meant I should become the drummer. Sounded like a great idea to me. Roy Kessler started on rhythm guitar and eventually switched to bass, at which he really excelled. Jean Laloge was our first bass player. He changed his name to Carter (his mom’s maiden name) many years later and moved to England where he became Elton John’s road manager for a number of years. Graham Kinnear was our original organist and was replaced by a real live Englishman who showed up at our school in Grade 12. Ed Coppard played both guitar and keys at first but eventually stuck with organ and piano. Most were born around 1948.

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#1469: Let’s Run Away by The Staccatos

Peak Month: November 1966
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Let’s Run Away”

In 1963 the Staccatos, an Ottawa group was formed. It included lead singer and local disc jockey Dean Hagopian. Other bandmates were Vern Craig on guitar, Brian Rading on bass and Rick Bell on drums and backing vocals. Immediately, they began to get a regular gig as the house band at the Chaudiere Club in Alymer, Quebec. Hagopian left the band in 1964 and Les Emmerson (born in 1944) stepped in as lead vocalist. Rick Bell also took turns as lead vocalist on some of their emerging set when performing in concert. At the time Vern Craig recalls, “it was the British Invasion at the time. Nobody wanted to talk to anybody about a group unless they were from Jolly Old England.”

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#1470: The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Townsmen

Peak Month: October 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” lyrics

In the early ’60’s there was a local Ottawa band doing the dance club circuit named the Darnells. They included vocalist Frank Morrison, guitarist Dave Milliken and bassist Wayne Leslie. Meanwhile, another band named the Esquires included a drummer named Paul Huot and guitarist named Andre Legault. Andy Legault learned how to play guitar in his cousins’ basement. Hot and Legault were itching for something bigger. They talked with Morrision, Milliken and Leslie and the five became a band. They eventually settled naming themselves The Townsmen. In the summer of 1965 the Townsmen were regular performers At the Pineland Dance Pavillion in Ottawa.

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Peak Month: March 1967
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Canada”
Lyrics: “Canada”

Robert Stead Gimby was born in Cabri, Saskatchewan, in 1918. After a fire burned down his father’s hardware store, the family moved to Chilliwack, British Columbia. While in Chilliwack he learned to play the trumpet and joined the Town Band, which was a hit at local dances. In 1941, he became a member of Canadian band leader Mart Kenny’s touring orchestra. The Winnipeg Free Press referred to Gimby as “The Wizard of the Trumpet.” Gimby also was a member of Mart Kenney’s Western Gentlemen which was based in Vancouver and toured western Canada. In 1944 Bobby Gimby moved to Toronto where he formed his own band. Simpsons was the sponsor of his band and he became very popular at teen dances in “Hogtown.” He made some recordings and in 1945 became a member of the Happy Gang, a popular CBC radio show with over two million listeners daily. During its run, the population of Canada between 1937 and 1959 increased from 11 million to 15 million.

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#1472: Audience Reflections by The Painted Ship

Peak Month: May 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Audience Reflections (From Polyanna’s Dreamworld)”

In 1965 a local Vancouver band emerged calling themselves The Wee Beasties. Co-founder, William “Bill” Hay told It’s Psychedelic Baby Mag in 2011 about how the band began. “I met Rob Rowden at the University of British Columbia. I was writing a lot of poetry, mostly bad, at the time. Rob was playing in a commercial R&B band. We became friends over the period of a few months and I told him that I was thinking of starting a band. We talked about it. I warned him that it would be unlike anything that he’d done previously.” Bill Hay got the name The Wee Beasties from 17th century scientist, Van Leeuwenhoek, who looked through a microscope at one drop of water and found it teeming with microscopic life. Leeuwenhoek called the microscopic life – microbes – the “wee beasties.” However, the band changed their name before they began performing. The new name was The Painted Ship.

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#622: The Joker Went Wild by Brian Hyland

Peak Month: August 1966
8 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “The Joker Went Wild”
Lyrics: “The Joker Went Wild”

Brian Hyland was born in 1943 in Queens, New York. In his childhood Hyland learned to play the guitar and the clarinet. In 1958, while he was still 14 years-old, he formed a group named the Delfis. Though they tried to get a record contract they were never signed. In 1959 Brian Hyland got a record deal with Kapp and released “Rosemary“. The single had limited success, though it spent six weeks on the pop chart in Vancouver reaching #14 in May 1960. Hyland released his next single at the age of sixteen. His debut release became a #1 hit in 1960 titled “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”. “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” had backing vocals by Peggy Powers who did a duet with Andy Williams in 1957 titled “I Like Your Kind Of Love”. And Trudy Packer provided the the spoken lyrics (i.e. “two, three, four, tell the people what she wore.”)

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#623: (He’s A) Big Man by Kathy Kirby

Peak Month: February 1963
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “(He’s A) Big Man”
Lyrics: “(He’s A) Big Man”

Kathleen O’Rourke was born in suburban London, UK, in 1938. She was raised by her single mom after her father left the family when she was very young. Her singing talent became apparent early on and she took singing lessons with a view to becoming an opera star. She was discovered by British bandleader Bert Ambrose in 1954 when she was still 16. He was one of the highest-paid musicians in Britain. He performed every Saturday night on BBC radio, recorded countless singles, and was renowned for having an unerring ear for a hit. Bert Ambrose made Kathy Kirby a featured singer in his band from 1956 to 1959. Ambrose went on to become her manager and her lover until his death in 1971 at the age of 74. Because of her looks Kathy Kirby was referred to as the ‘British Monroe.’
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#624: Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy by Pagliaro

Peak Month: December 1971
11 weeks on CKVN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy”
Lyrics: “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy”

Montreal’s Michel Pagliaro was born in 1948. He picked up guitar when he was eleven years old. At the age of 15 he was in a band les Stringmen. They morphed into les Bluebirds and finally les Merseys. Pagliaro got a break at the age of 18 when he was asked to join the Quebec band les Chanceliers. He was lead vocalist for the group which had a succession of singles and a self-titled album in the mid-60s. Their catalogue included “La generation d’aujourd’hui” (Today’s Generation), “Toi jeune fille”, a French version of “White Christmas”, and “Le p’tit popy” (The Little Poppy). In 1968, at the age of twenty, Pagliaro released some singles as a solo artist. His “Comme d’habitude” became a #1 hit in Quebec. Some of the lyrics in French “Tu the deshabillera come d’habitude” meant in English “you’ll take your clothes off as usual.” Nonetheless, the tune was adapted by Canadian pop singer Paul Anka and became the classic “My Way” popularized by Frank Sinatra.  It was followed with another number one hit for Pagliaro in French Canada in 1968 called “Avec la Tete, Avec la Coeur”.

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#1474: Don’t Cry For Me Babe by Marti Shannon

Peak Month: September 1966
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #26
4 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN ALL CANADIAN TOP TEN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com link: “Don’t Cry For Me Babe”

Mary Rosalie Bryans was born in Washington D.C. in 1942. She grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her dad was on the Royal Canadian Air Force. After graduation she joined the Royal Canadian Navy and was stationed at HMSC Cornwallis, near Digby, Nova Scotia. A classmate of hers, named Sheila, wrote online in 2010, that Mary Bryans “was a Rebel with a capital R and was always going against the rules. Her father was at the base one day and had their photo taken together. Him in his Air Force blue’s and she with her navy blue’s. She said at that time that they were always butting heads.” Bryans was later stationed in Halifax by 1962. While she was in Halifax she bought a Gibson guitar and went to the Candlelight Lounge where she would play and sing. In 1965, when she was 23, she appeared on the CBC TV show Let’s Sing Out. She was billed as Marti Shannon.
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#625: Daydreams/So Goes The Story by Johnny Crawford

Peak Month: July 1961 ~ “Daydreams”
9 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #70
YouTube.com: “Daydreams”
Lyrics: “Daydreams”

Peak Month: July 1961 ~ “So Goes The Story”
5 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “So Goes The Story”

John Ernest Crawford was born in 1946 in Los Angeles. He got into acting as a child star and by the age of  nine was one of the Mouseketeers in the first season caste of the The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955. Though he was cut from the show in 1956 after Disney cut the caste from 24 to 12, Crawford continued to get acting roles. Between 1956 and 1958 he appeared in episodes of The Lone Ranger, The Loretta Young Show, Sheriff of Cochise, Wagon Train, Crossroads, Whirlybirds, Mr. Adams and Eve and Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater. The latter featured an episode that became a syndicated TV show called The Rifleman. Johnny Crawford played Mark McCain, son of Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors). In 1959 Crawford was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role in The Rifleman. The show ran from 1958 to 1963.
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