#126: Star Baby by the Guess Who
Peak Month: September 1974
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube.com: “Star Baby”
Lyrics: “Star Baby”
Randolph Charles Bachman was born in 1943 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When he was just three years old he entered the King of the Saddle singing contest on CKY radio, Manitoba’s first radio station that began in 1923. Bachman won the contest. When he turned five years he began to study the violin through the Royal Toronto Conservatory. Though he couldn’t read music, he was able to play anything once he heard it. He dropped out of high school and subsequently a business administration program in college. He co-founded a Winnipeg band called Al & The Silvertones with Chad Allan in 1960.
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#127: Fields Of Gold by Sting
Peak Month: August 1993
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #23
Year-End Peak – 1993 – on Billboard ~#87
YouTube.com: “Fields Of Gold”
Lyrics: “Fields Of Gold”
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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#960: Model Girl by Johnny Maestro
Peak Month: March 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
YouTube.com: “Model Girl”
Lyrics: “Model Girl”
John Mastrangelo was born in New York City in 1939. He began his career in 1957 as the original lead singer of the Crests, one of the first interracial groups in the music industry. Initially, The Crests had three African American members (one female), one Puerto Rican, and one Italian American (Johnny Maestro). Patricia Van Dross, older sister to famed R&B singer Luther Vandross, sang with Johnny Maestro while The Crests were signed to the Joyce Record label. Before The Crests signed with Coed Records, Patricia left the group because her mother didn’t want her 15-year old daughter touring with the older guys. After a regional hit with “My Juanita”/”Sweetest One” on the Joyce label, The Crests charted a song titled “Pretty Little Angel” that was a Top 20 hit in Buffalo, New York, in May 1958. Their follow-up hit, called “16 Candles” climbed to #2 in early 1959 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #9 on CKWX in Vancouver.
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#128: Love Is Alright Tonite by Rick Springfield
Peak Month: February 1982
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #20
YouTube.com: “Love Is Alright Tonite”
Lyrics: “Love Is Alright Tonite”
Richard Lewis Springthorpe was born in 1949 in suburban Sydney, Australia. His dad was an Australian Army officer, and in his childhood, Rick lived on an army base. He was 13 when he learned guitar. Rick joined various bands in England, where his father was stationed from 1958 to 1963, and several more after returning to Australia. When he was still 14, in mid-June 1964, Rick saw the Beatles in concert in Melbourne at Festival Hall. In 1968, he was approached by bass guitarist Pete Watson to join his group Rockhouse. By the fall of ’68, Watson changed the band’s name to MPD Ltd and, in October when he was 19 years old, they toured South Vietnam to perform in concert for Australian troops. Another member of MPD Ltd was Danny Finley (drummer). Upon returning to Australia, they formed Wickedy Wak. By 1969, Springthorpe was in a band called Zoot. The band recorded a heavy rock version of the Beatles “Eleanor Rigby”, which climbed to #4 on the Australian pop chart in 1970.
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#129: Blow Away by George Harrison
Peak Month: June 1979
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN Chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube.com: “Blow Away”
Lyrics: “Blow Away”
George Harrison was born in Liverpool in 1943. Harrison remembers cycling past a home in his neighborhood that was playing “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley. The encounter with the song got him hooked on rock ‘n roll. He subsequently was influenced by Little Richard and Buddy Holly. Harrison’s father bought him his first guitar in 1956 when Harrison was 13 years old. After Paul McCartney joined John Lennon’s group, the Quarymen, McCartney suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. They changed their name to the Silver Beatles and then the Beatles in the spring of 1960. They group headed to Hamburg, Germany, on August 17, 1960, for a three-and-a-half month stint. In early 1961 the Beatles returned for more engagements in Germany. On June 22, 1961, Bert Kaempfert produced “My Bonnie”, “Ain’t She Sweet” and eight other songs. Later in 1961, “My Bonnie” climbed to #4 on the Hamburg pop charts and #32 on the German pop charts.
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#130: Don’t Stand So Close To Me by the Police
Peak Month: December 1980
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #10
Peak 1981 Year-End Position on Billboard ~ #71
YouTube.com: “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”
Lyrics: “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”
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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#131: The Power Of Love by Jennifer Rush
Peak Month: June 1986
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #57
YouTube.com: “The Power Of Love”
Lyrics: “The Power Of Love”
Heidi Stern was born in 1960 in Queens, New York. Her father, Maurice Stern, was an opera tenor and teacher. Rush studied violin at the Juilliard School and also learned to play the piano. The Stern family moved to West Germany for about a half dozen years. When he father got a position at the University of Washington, they moved to Seattle. In 1979, she released a solo album titled Heidi. The album did not chart. Heidi Stern worked with Gene McDaniels – 1961 hit singer of “A Hundred Pounds of Clay” and “Tower of Strength”. In 1982, following McDaniels’s persistence, Rush moved to Wiesbaden, West Germany, where her father was engaged as an opera singer. She recorded a second album, Tonight, which also didn’t chart. In 1984 in Munich, she provided backing vocals for synth-pop band Panarama’s album Protection, but under her original name Heidi Stern.
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#132: Hot Rod Lincoln by Johnny Bond
Peak Month: August 1960
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX Chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #26
YouTube.com: “Hot Rod Lincoln”
Lyrics: “Hot Rod Lincoln”
Cyrus Whitfield Bond was born in 1915 in southern Oklahoma. Prior to 1907, Pickens County had been part of the Chickasaw Nation in the “Indian Territory.” His parents were farmers. In school, Bond played in a brass band. While in high school “Johnny” bought a ukulele, and subsequently learned the guitar. Bond first performed on radio in Oklahoma City when he was 19 years old. In 1937, he began performing with Jimmy Wakely and Scotty Harrell in the Bell Boys trio, named after the Bell Clothing Company, which sponsored the group on radio station WKY in Oklahoma City. With Decca Records the trio recorded as the Jimmy Wakely Trio. And with Columbia Records they recorded under the name Johnny Bond & the Cimarron Boys. In 1940, Bond went on to join Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch. He also performed with his own band the Red River Valley Boys.
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#133: Doin’ It Right by the Powder Blues
Peak Month: March 1980
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
2 weeks Playlist
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Doin’ It Right”
Lyrics: “Doin’ It Right”
In 1978 Prism band member, Tom Lavin, left the group to form Powder Blues. Lavin had also recorded and been a member of Denise McCann’s backing band. Powder Blues was made up of Tom Lavin on guitar and vocals, Jack Lavin on bass, Mark Hasselbach on trumpet, Duris Maxwell on drums, Wayne Kozak, Gordon Bertram and David Woodward all on saxophone, Bill Hicks on drums and Will MacCalder on keyboards and vocals. Jack Lavin had been a member of Teen Angel. Willie MacCalder was formerly a member of Willie and The Walkers. Duris Maxwell was a former member of Skylark and Doucette. Gordie Bertram had been a member of Foreman Byrnes. Mark Hasselbach had been with Airbrush, a jazz band. David Woodward, born in Arlington, Virginia, had been a member of Toronto’s Downchild Blues Band since 1971.
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#134: Wonderland By Night by Anita Bryant
Peak Month: December 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX Chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
YouTube.com: “Wonderland By Night”
Lyrics: “Wonderland By Night”
Anita Bryant was born in 1940 in a small town in northeastern Oklahoma. Her parents divorced by the time Bryant was 18 months old. Her father left to join the U.S. Army and fight in the war effort. While her mother got a job at Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City. When Bryant was two years old, her grandfather taught her to sing “Jesus Loves Me”. She was singing onstage at the age of six, at local fairgrounds in Oklahoma. She sang occasionally on radio and television, and was invited to audition when Arthur Godfrey’s talent show came to town.
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