#33: The Girl I Knew Somewhere by the Monkees
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube: “The Girl I Knew Somewhere”
Lyrics: “The Girl I Knew Somewhere”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won a talent contest at San Antonio College. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He became the “hoot master” at a regular hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. In 1963 Nesmith released a 45 of a song he wrote called “Wanderin'”. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in 1967.
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#5: Sky Pilot by Eric Burdon and the Animals
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: June 1968
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Sky Pilot”
Lyrics: “Sky Pilot”
Eric Victor Burdon was born in 1941 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. He was born into a working class family. Due to the river pollution and humidity in Newcastle he suffered asthma attacks daily. During primary school, Burdon writes in his memoir, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, he was “stuck at the rear of the classroom of around 40 to 50 kids and received constant harassment from kids and teachers alike”. He goes on to say his primary school was “jammed between a slaughterhouse and a shipyard on the banks of the Tyne. Some teachers were sadistic…and sexual molestation and regular corporal punishment with a leather strap was the order of the day.” In his song “When I Was Young”, he states he met his first love at 13, who was very experienced while he was not. He also says he smoked his first cigarette at 10 years old and would skip school with his friends to drink.
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#9: Green, Green by the New Christy Minstrels
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CFAC
Peak Month: August 1963
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “Green, Green”
Lyrics: “Green, Green”
The New Christy Minstrels were a folk group formed by Randy Sparks in 1961. Randy Sparks was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1933. He was singing at the Purple Onion in San Francisco by the mid-50s. He released two solo albums in the late 50s. He sang over the opening credits for the 1958 movie Thunder Road, the film’s theme song. Sparks combined his trio with the Oregon quartet the Fairmount Singers, the Inn Group (singers John Forsha, Karol Dugan and Jerry Yester), banjo player Billy Cudmore, folk-blues singer Terry Wadsworth, folk singer Dolan Ellis and singer/guitarist Art Podell. In 1962, the group released their debut album titled Presenting the New Christy Minstrels. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Chorus in 1963. In 1962, the group had a minor hit with “This Land Is Your Land”, which stalled at #93 on the Billboard Hot 100. Jerry Yester left the group and in time joined the Lovin’ Spoonful.
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#6: Island Of Lost Souls by Blondie
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CFRN
Peak Month: July 1982
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #23
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Island Of Lost Souls”
Lyrics: “Island Of Lost Souls”
Blondie is a band founded in 1974 in New York City by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the new wave scene of the mid-1970s in Manhattan. Angela Trimble was born in 1945 in Miami, Florida. She was adopted into the Harry family and raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey. Out of school, she worked as a Playboy Bunny, a go-go dancer, and a secretary for the BBC in New York City. In the late 60s she was in a folk group called Wind in the Willows who released an album in 1968. By this time she billed herself as Deborah Harry. In 1973 Harry joined The Stillettoes, which included guitarist Chris Stein. Harry and Stein became romantically involved. In 1974, Stein and Harry became the core for the band Angel and the Snake. By late 1974, they renamed the band Blondie.
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#7: As Long As I’m Sure Of You by Bobby Curtola
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: June 1964
Peak Position in Edmonton #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “As Long As I’m Sure Of You”
Lyrics: N/A
Bobby Curtola was born in Port Arthur, Ontario, in 1943. (The town would become amalgamated into the city of Thunder Bay in 1970). His cousin Susan Andrusco remembers “Bobby would always be singing at our family gatherings. The family loved him. And he loved being the centre of attention. He would sing Oh My Papa, and my grandpa would cry.” Oh My Papa was a number-one hit for Eddie Fisher in January 1954, when Bobby Curtola was still ten-years-old. In the fall of 1959, sixteen-year-old high school student Bobby Curtola went from pumping gas at his father’s garage in Thunder Bay, Ontario, to the life of a teen idol. Within a year he went from playing in his basement band, Bobby and the Bobcats, to recording his first hit single in 1960, “Hand In Hand With You”, which charted in June ’60 in Ontario, but not in Vancouver.
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#25: My Dad by Davy Jones
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June-July 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “My Dad”
Lyrics: “My Dad”
David Thomas Jones was born in suburban Manchester, UK, in 1945. Jones began acting in his childhood. In 1959, his Aunt Jessie answered an ad in the Manchester Evening News calling for “school boys to audition for a radio play” with the BBC She helped David, at 13, get the lead role in There is a Happy Land. He was on an episode of Coronation Street in March 1961, when he was 15 years of age. He also had a guest appearance in the BBC police TV show Z-Cars. He considered pursuing becoming a jockey riding on horses. However, he was encouraged to pursue acting. He appeared on stage as Little Michael in Peter Pan, and then as the Artful Dodger in Oliver! in the early 60’s in the West End of London. In 1964 he was in a Broadway production of Oliver! and nominated for a Tony Award at the age of 18. On February 9, 1964, Jones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on one of the episodes where the Beatles also were guests.
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#8: Cry Baby by the Nomads
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: January 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Cry Baby”
Lyrics: “N/A
The Nomads formed in 1958 and had nine members. Notable lead vocalist, Lennie Richards, was born in Edmonton in 1940. He joined the band in 1961. In 1962 Lennie Richards and the Nomads released “Teem Twist” in 1962. On the back of the 45 RPM record jacket it read “When he was 16 he began singing and playing the guitar. An Edmonton disc jockey heard him sing and arranged an audition which launched him on his singing career. Lennie performed with various local “Rock n’ Roll” groups throughout his high school days and after graduation up until 1961. In the spring of 1961, he joined the Nomads as their feature vocalist and rhythm guitar player. Today, Lennie Richards is one of the most popular young singers in Western Canada.” The band also released a cover of the Bell-Notes 1959 hit “I’ve Had It”.
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#9: So Far Away by Dire Straits
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: February 1986
Peak Position in Edmonton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ Playlist
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube: “So Far Away”
Lyrics: “So Far Away”
Dire Straits is a band that formed in 1977 comprised of Mark and David Knopfler, John Illsley and Pick Withers. Mark Freuder Knopfler was born in 1949 in Glasgow, Scotland. His Jewish-Hungarian father fled Hungary in 1939 before the outbreak of World War II. He learned to play guitar when he was a child and appeared on a local TV station in 1965 as part of a duo. Mark was influenced by Django Reinhardt, Hank Marvin of The Shadows, B.B. King, Chet Atkins and others. He studied journalism and kept his hand in music playing in the Duolian String Pickers and the Café Racers. Younger brother, David, was born in 1952. He was playing guitar, drum and piano by age eleven. At the age of 14 David Knopfler was playing in folk clubs. He went into social work and was living in London in the mid-70’s and sharing a flat with a promising guitarist named John Illsley. John Edward Illsley was born in Leister, England, in 1949. By the 1970’s Illsley was involved with a timber firm, studying sociology and opening a record shop. David Knopfler was impressed with Illsley’s talent and introduced him to Mark. Mark, David and John began jamming together, and Mark invited Illsley to join his band the Café Racers.
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#10: Armful Of Teddy Bears by Barry Allen
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: January 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ Playlist
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Armful Of Teddy Bears”
Lyrics: N/A
Barry Allen Rasmussen was born in 1945 in Edmonton, Alberta. His family was musical, and he learned guitar and sang from an early age. Barry wrote for the Canadianbands.com website decades later of himself: “While attending Victoria High School, he was a member of the curling club, and had aspirations of becoming a chartered accountant. But by the time he’d graduated, he was looking at a musical future, and spent the next couple of years in a number of makeshift groups, honing his chops and emulating his British invasion idols.” He joined Wes Dakus and the Rebels in 1965. They band went to New Mexico and recorded with Norman Petty, producer of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Roy Orbison, Buddy Knox and others. Petty was taken with Barry Allen’s vocal abilities and suggested Allen make some solo records. The outcome were the single releases in early 1965, “Easy Come Easy Go”, and “It’s Alright With Me Now”. The first single climbed to #6 in Edmonton in January 1965, and made the Top 30 in Regina (SK) and Calgary (AB). The followup single climbed to #9 in Edmonton in July 1965.
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#575: Sugar Baby Love by the Rubettes
Peak Month: September-October 1974
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Sugar Baby Love”
Lyrics: “Sugar Baby Love”
In 1973, Wayne Bickerton, then head of A&R at Polydor Records, wrote four songs in an “American 50’s type” sound with co-writer Tony Waddington. A group of session musicians and singers were gathered in a London studio and recorded a demo of these tracks. Three of the session musicians were then asked to form the beginnings of a band, and with that John Richardson, Alan Williams and Pete Arnesen were the start of The Rubettes. John got some musician friends to round out the group, with Mick Clarke, Bill Hurd and Tony Thorpe making the original group of six.
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