#1: Super Freak by Rick James
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: December 1981
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Netherlands Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #4
YouTube: “Super Freak”
Lyrics: “Super Freak”
James Ambrose Johnson Jr. was born in 1948 in Buffalo (NY). His dad left the family in 1958, and his mother who was a dancer got additional work as a numbers runner with the Buffalo crime family to make ends meet. This gave a James the chance to see acts like John Coltrane, Etta James and Miles Davis. But it also introduced him to the underbelly of society as an older child. In his autobiography, Glow, it is stated that he lost his virginity to a girl of 14 when he was “9 or 10.” James joined the Navy at age 14 or 15, lying about his age to avoid the draft for the Vietnam war. The singer had already picked up a penchant for narcotics and theft by this time in his life, and there was hope the Navy could go some way to straighten him out. However, that was soon dashed as he failed to turn up to his fortnightly reserve session aboard USS Enterprise. It also gained him a ticket to Vietnam.
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#2: Knowing You Knowing Me by ABBA
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: July 1977
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Knowing You Knowing Me”
Lyrics: “Knowing You Knowing Me”
ABBA is a pop band from Sweden. Agneta Fältskog was born in 1950 in the lakeside city of Jönköping in southern Sweden. Fältskog wrote her first song at the age of six, which she named “Två små troll” (“Two Small Trolls”). In 1958, she began taking piano lessons, and also sang in a local church choir. In early 1960, Fältskog formed a musical trio, the Cambers. At age 15 she left school to pursue a career in music. She considers Connie Francis, Lesley Gore, Aretha Franklin and Marianne Faithfull as her prime influences on her musical style. Fältskog worked on reception for a car firm while performing with the Bernt Enghardt band. In 1967 she wrote “Jag var så kär” (“I Was So in Love”), after a dating relationship ended. The single topped the Swedish pop charts in early 1968. That year she met Björn Ulvaeus, a member of the Hootenanny Singers. Ulvaeus was born in the western coast city of Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1945. In the early Sixties, Ulvaeus joined the Hootenanny Singers. They had a #5 hit in Sweden in 1964 with “Gabrielle”, based on the Russian folksong “May Here Always Be Sunshine”. The folk group had many Top Ten hits in Sweden into the early 70s, including a cover of “Green, Green Grass of Home” (“En sång en gång för längese’n”).
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#8: Give Me One More Chance by Wilmer & the Dukes
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: July 1968
Peak Position in Guelph ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #80
YouTube: “Give Me One More Chance”
Wilmer Alexander Jr. was born in 1943 in Geneva, NY. Alexander Jr., Ronnie Alberts, and Ralph Gillotte formed Wilmer Alexander Junior and the Dukes in Geneva (NY) in1957. Except for Alexander, all of the members were white. This made the band stand out even more in some of the all-black clubs that they first played in. The Alexanders lived on 90 Wadsworth Street in Geneva, and the band used to practice at one of the garages owned by the Felice Trucking Company on Kirkwood Ave. Alexander sang and played saxophone, and the band was managed by Ebo (Owl) Alberts, the father of the drummer, Ronnie Alberts, and the original bassist, Monty Alberts.
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#26: Real True Lovin’ by Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: May 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #119
YouTube: “Real True Lovin’”
Sidney Liebowitz was born in 1935 to Jewish parents in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. His father, Max, was a cantor at the Brooklyn synagogue Beth Sholom Tomchei Harav, and his mother, Helen, was a homemaker. During high school, Lawrence skipped school to spend time at the Brill Building in the hopes of being employed as a singer. In 1952 at the age of 16, Lawrence signed a contract with King Records after winning a talent contest on Arthur Godfrey’s CBS TV show. That year he had a #21 hit single credited to Steve Lawrence on the Billboard pop chart titled “Poinciana”. The next year, talk show host Steve Allen hired Lawrence to be one of the singers on Allen’s local New York City late night show on WNBC-TV, with vocalists Eydie Gormé and Andy Williams. The show was chosen by NBC to be seen on the national network, becoming The Tonight Show, and Lawrence, Gormé, and Williams stayed until the program’s end in 1957. Lawrence credited the exposure and experience he gained on Allen’s show for launching his career “I think Steve Allen was the biggest thing that happened to me. Every night I was called upon to do something different. In its own way, it was better than vaudeville.”
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#5: Baby Jane by Rod Stewart
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: September 1983
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Spanish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Baby Jane”
Lyrics: “Baby Jane”
Roderick David Stewart was born in London, England, in 1945. In 1956 he got introduced to rock ‘n roll when he saw Bill Haley and His Comets in concert, and heard Little Richard’s “The Girl Can’t Help It”. He was given a guitar by his dad in 1959, and he learned to play the Kingston Trio’s “A Worried Man”. He quit school at age 15 and worked as a newspaper boy. He auditioned with Joe Meek in 1961, but didn’t get a record deal. By 1963 he was part of an R&B band called The Dimensions. In 1965 he teamed up with Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger to form a blues band called Steampacket. This lasted another year. Eventually, Stewart became part of the Jeff Beck Group in 1967. When that band broke up in the fall of ’68, Rod Stewart got invited to join the reformed Small Faces, who were now just called Faces.
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#6: Roxanne by the Police
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: April 1979
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #32
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #8
YouTube: “Roxanne”
Lyrics: “Roxanne”
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was born in Wallsend on Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, England, in 1951. His mother was a hairdresser and his father was a milkman and engineer. When he was ten-years-old, young Sumner got introduced to Spanish guitar, when a family friend left it at the Sumner residence. After high school he was variously a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer. He went to college and from 1974-76 was a public school teacher. Sumner performed jazz in the evening, weekends and during breaks from college and teaching, playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname, “Sting,” due to his habit of wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought Sumner looked like a bee which prompted the name “Sting.” According to Sting, in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, “they thought I looked like a wasp, and they’d joke. They called me Sting. They thought it was hilarious…That became my name.”
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#7: C’est La Vie ~ Greg Lake
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: September 1977
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #14
YouTube: “C’est La Vie”
Lyrics: “C’est La Vie”
Greg Lake was born in 1947 in Parkstone, Dorset, England. Lake started to play guitar in 1959 when he was twelve. In 1963-64 Lake was a dockworker in Poole, England. At the age of 17 he decided to become a full-time musician. Greg Lake was a member of Unit 4 (not to be confused with Unit 4 +2), the Time Checks and The Shame. Then, he formed King Crimson with childhood buddy, Robert Fripp, in the winter of 1968. King Crimson made their breakthrough as an opening act for the Rolling Stones at a concert in Hyde Park for over 500,000 concert goers in July 1969.
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#24: Games That Grown Up Children Play by Browning Bryant
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: July 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Games That Grown Up Children Play”
Lyrics: “Games That Grown Up Children Play”
Known professionally as Browning Bryant (born in 1957), he was the only child of Maud and Ray Bryant, and a long-time resident of Pickens, South Carolina. He was given a guitar at age three, took lessons at age seven, and soon began performing. He attained success singing folk-pop that was uncharacteristically mature and introspective for a pre-teen heartthrob. With a young voice compared to Wayne Newton, Browning Bryant’s career is highlighted in a meteoric rise starting around the age of ten. In 1967, he sang at the Easley Football Jamboree and was invited on a Charlotte, North Carolina, TV show. He appeared six times on The Arthur Godfrey Show on CBS. That led to a talent agency visit in New York. In 1968 , at the age of eleven, he was signed to Dot Records. His first single release was in 1969 at the age of twelve.
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#8: I.O.U. by Freeez
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: September 1983
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot Dance/Disco Club Play ~ #1
Peak Position on Iceland Singles Chart ~ #1
YouTube: “I.O.U.”
Lyrics: “I.O.U.”
John Rocca was born in London, UK, in 1960. In 1980, while he was still 19-years-old, Rocca formed the jazz-funk-dance band Freeez. Other members of the band included Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick (born in 1957 in Mauritius), Maunick had formed the band Incognito in 1979 when Rocca invited him to join Freeez. As well, there was Andy Stennett (keyboards), Peter Maas (bass guitar) and Paul Morgan (drums). In 1980, the band released “Keep in Touch” which peaked at #49 in the UK Pop singles chart.
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#9: Just An Illusion by Imagination
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: June 1982
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Italian Singles Chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Just An Illusion”
Lyrics: “Just An Illusion”
Imagination were a British trio. It was comprised of Leee John (born in 1957 in London), whose parents moved to England from St. Lucia in 1955. After his parents divorce, he moved to New York City and at the age of ten was signed to a record company. He provided backing vocals for a number of groups including The Delfonics and The Chairmen of the Board. He moved back to England in his teens. In college he recorded an album with EMI, but it was not commercially successful. While working as a backing singer, Leee met guitar and bass player Ashley Ingram. They formed a band called Fizz and began writing songs. The pair met Errol Kennedy in the early 80s and formed the group Imagination.
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