Everyday by Bobby Lee

#595: Everyday by Bobby Lee

Peak Month: May 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Everyday”
Lyrics: “Everyday”

Robert L. “Bobby Lee” Viehmeyer, Jr. was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1941. Between the ages 4 to 10, Robert was plagued with illnesses. He recorded under the name of Bobby Lee on the Decca record label. Perhaps the choice to bill his name this way was that is sounded like the name of teen pop star Bobby Vee. And Lee’s studio recordings resembled Bobby Vee’s “Devil Or Angel” and numerous Buddy Holly recordings. Bobby Lee’s first single release with Decca was “Sugar Love” in 1961, penned by country star Webb Pierce. In this case he sounded a bit like Elvis Presley. Lee recorded several rock ‘n’ roll hits, including a song by Webb Pierce titled “Just Beginning”, in the spring of ’61. The B-side was an old Buddy Holly song titled “Everyday”. This was the side of the disc that DJ’s in Vancouver played on the radio starting in May ’61.

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It's A Cryin' Shame by Gayle McCormick

#596: It’s A Cryin’ Shame by Gayle McCormick

Peak Month: December 1971
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube.com: “It’s A Cryin’ Shame”
Lyrics: “It’s A Cryin’ Shame”

Gayle McCormick was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1948. She joined choir in high school and sang high soprano with the Suburb Choir, a 150-voice unit that performed annually with the St. Louis Symphony. By the mid-60s she sang in a band billed as Steve Cummings and The Klassmen, and sang covers of songs by Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Tina Turner. In 1967 her band released a single titled “Without You” which peaked at #14 in St. Louis. The following year McCormick released a solo titled “Mr. Loveman” which peaked at #21 in St. Louis. Then in 1969 she joined a band called Smith which subsequently got noticed by Del Shannon. He got Smith signed to Dunhill Records. Smith had a #5 hit with “Baby It’s You” on the Billboard Hot 100. The song had previously been a hit for both The Shirelles and The Beatles.
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Rocklandwonderland by Kim Mitchell

#1275: Rocklandwonderland by Kim Mitchell

Peak Month: November 1989
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Rocklandwonderland”
Lyrics: “Rocklandwonderland”

Joseph Kim Mitchell was born in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1952. In his teen years Mitchell learned to play guitar. When he was 14 he joined a band called Grass Company. After high school, by 1970 he was playing in a number of bands in Sarnia. He was in a band called Zooom for a few years. Then in 1973 he formed the Max Webster, a progressive rock and heavy metal band. Max Webster released six studio albums. Though it didn’t get a following in the USA, by the early 1980s the band had Top 20 hits in Hamilton, Toronto, Regina, Victoria, Quebec City, and Top 30 hits in Ottawa and Halifax. Kim Mitchell toured with Max Webster until it dissolved in 1982. Kim Mitchell tested a new sound in the club circuit in southwestern Ontario and formed the Kim Mitchell band.

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You Don't Know by Jim Byrnes

#1313: You Don’t Know by Jim Byrnes

Peak Month: September 1981
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “You Don’t Know”
“You Don’t Know” ~ Sam & Dave (original version)
Lyrics: “You Don’t Know”

James Thomas Kevin Byrnes was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1948. He lived in the north side of the city where one of the neighbourhood bars featured Ike and Tina Turner as the house band. Byrnes recalls when he was a teenager going to music clubs, he and his buddy were often the only white people in the place. “We never had any problems. We were too naïve, and had too much respect for the music and culture – they knew it, they could tell.” From the age of thirteen Jim Byrnes taught himself to play blues guitar. In 1964 he got a taste of a professional life as a musician when he was paid to perform. In the rich blues scene in St. Louis, Byrnes was able to appear onstage with John Lee Hooker, Taj Mahal and Muddy Waters and others. In 1964 he also appeared in stage productions with a St. Louis repertory company.

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Wired For Sound by Cliff Richard

#597: Wired For Sound by Cliff Richard

Peak Month: November 1981
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube.com: “Wired For Sound”
Lyrics: “Wired For Sound”

Cliff Richard was born Harry Roger Webb on October 14, 1940, in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1940 Lucknow was part of the British Raj, as India was not yet an independent country. Webb’s father worked on as a catering manager for the Indian Railways. His mother raised Harry and his three sisters. In 1948, when India had become independent, the Webb family took a boat to Essex, England, and began a new chapter. At the age of 16 Harry Webb was given a guitar by his father. Harry then formed a vocal group called the Quintones. Webb was interested in skiffle music, a type of jug band music, popularized by “The King of Skiffle,” Scottish singer Lonnie Donegan who had an international hit in 1955 called “Rock Island Line”.

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Bye Bye Love by Webb Pierce

#598: Bye Bye Love by Webb Pierce

Peak Month: June 1957
5 weeks on Vancouver’s Red Robinson Teen Canteen chart on CKWX
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
YouTube.com: “Bye Bye Love”
Lyrics: “Bye Bye Love”

Michael Webb Pierce was born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1921. By the time he was 15 Pierce had learned to play guitar and had a weekly 15-minute show on KMLB-AM in Monroe. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1942. After the war ended he and his wife, Betty Jane Lewis, moved to Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1947 they appeared regularly on KTBS-AM on their morning show Webb Pierce with Betty Jane, the Singing Sweetheart. Webb Pierce worked as a manager of a men’s furnishing section of a Sears Roebuck department store. In 1949 the couple signed with 4-Star Records in California. Webb was successful, but Betty Jane was not. Their changing musical fortunes led to divorce in 1950.

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Witchcraft by Elvis Presley

#599: Witchcraft by Elvis Presley

Peak Month: November 1963
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
YouTube.com: “Witchcraft”
“Witchcraft” lyrics

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, on January 8, 1935. His twin brother, Jessie Garon Presley, was stillborn. When he was eleven years old his parents bought him a guitar at the Tupelo Hardware Store. As a result Elvis grew up as an only child. He and his parents, Vernon and Gladys, moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948. The young Presley graduated from high school in 1953. That year he stopped by the Memphis Recording Service to record two songs, including “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin”, song #1248 on this Countdown. Elvis’ musical influences were the pop and country music of the time, the gospel music he heard in church and at the all-night gospel sings he frequently attended, and the black R&B he absorbed on historic Beale Street as a Memphis teenager. In 1954, Elvis began his singing career recording “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” at Sun Records in Memphis.

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Rock N' Roll Duty by Kim Mitchell

#1078: Rock N’ Roll Duty by Kim Mitchell

Peak Month: August 1989
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Rock N” Roll Duty”
Lyrics: “Rock N’ Roll Duty”

Joseph Kim Mitchell was born in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1952. In his teen years Mitchell learned to play guitar. When he was 14 he joined a band called Grass Company. After high school, by 1970 he was playing in a number of bands in Sarnia. He was in a band called Zooom for a few years. Then in 1973 he formed the Max Webster, a progressive rock and heavy metal band. Max Webster released six studio albums. Though it didn’t get a following in the USA, by the early 1980s the band had Top 20 hits in Hamilton, Toronto, Regina, Victoria, Quebec City, and Top 30 hits in Ottawa and Halifax. Kim Mitchell toured with Max Webster until it dissolved in 1982. Kim Mitchell tested a new sound in the club circuit in southwestern Ontario and formed the Kim Mitchell band.

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Twist My Arm by Tragically Hip

#600: Twist My Arm by Tragically Hip

Peak Month: August 1991
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Twist My Arm”
Lyrics: “Twist My Arm”

In the early 1980’s bass player Gord Sinclair and guitar player Rob Baker were students at Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute in Kingston, Ontario. They had performed at the collegiate’s Variety Show in a band they called The Rodents. In 1984 Baker and Sinclair were in their early twenties. The Tragically Hip formed in 1984 in Kingston, Ontario when the duo added drummer Johnny Fay and lead singer Gordon Downie. Their name came from a skit in the movie Elephant Parts, directed by former Monkee’s guitarist Michael Nesmith. The Tragically Hip added Paul Langois, a guitar player, to their line-up in 1986. When they performed at the Horeshoe Tavern in Toronto in the mid-80’s, they were sign to a recording contract with MCA after the company president, Bruce Dickinson, saw the band at the tavern. A self-titled EP (Extended Play) was released in 1987 with a couple of singles that got some airplay. The group was launched.

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