#247: Spotlight by Madonna
Peak Month: February 1988
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Spotlight”
Lyrics: “Spotlight”
Madonna Louise Ciccone was born in Bay City, Michigan, in 1958. Raised in the Pontiac, Michigan, Madonna’s mother died of cancer in 1963. While she was attending a Catholic middle school Madonna, as reported in Madonna: An Intimate Biography, would perform cartwheels and handstands in the hallways between classes, dangle by her knees from the monkey bars during recess, and pull up her skirt during class—all so that the boys could see her underwear. Madonna later told Vanity Fair that she saw herself in her youth as a “lonely girl who was searching for something. I wasn’t rebellious in a certain way. I cared about being good at something. I didn’t shave my underarms and I didn’t wear make-up like normal girls do.” After high school, she got a dance scholarship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
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#1233: Love Monkey #9 by Bootsauce
Peak Month: May 1992
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Love Monkey #9”
Lyrics: “Love Monkey #9”
Sonny Greenwich Jr. was born on January 1, 1962, in Toronto. In his childhood his family moved to the south shore of Montreal and went to high school in the suburb of Longueuil. He got his first guitar on the occasion of his sixteenth birthday and formed a band that became named Dogstar. At a Montreal area Christmas party in 1988, Greenwich met singer Drew Ling (born Drew Thorpe) and guitarist Perry Johnson (who was later billed as Pere Fume). They instantly hit it off and found they shared musical interests. Soon they were playing with each other and formed a band.
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#248: Love Her Madly by the Doors
Peak Month: May 1971
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
Peak Position #2
1 week Preview
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
Year-End Top 100 on Billboard ~ #94
YouTube: “Love Her Madly”
Lyrics: “Love Her Madly”
The Doors were a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles featuring Jim Morrison on vocals, Robbie Kreiger on guitar, Ray Manzarek on keyboards and drummer John Densmore. In 1965 Morrison and Manzarek were UCLA film students. They met each other for the first time on Venice Beach. Morrison had graduated and was living a vagabond life, sleeping on the beach, taking drugs and writing poetry. Morrison told Manzarek, “I was taking notes at a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll concert going on in my head.” Then he sang “Moonlight Drive” to Manzarek. Discovering their addition interest in music, the two decided to form a band. Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne (FL) in 1943. He was the oldest child and his father was a U.S. Naval officer. Morrison suggested the name of the band. It came from the novel by Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. Huxley’s novel, in turn, drew inspiration from poet William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” In that poem Blake writes: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The Doors signed a record contract with Columbia Records in the winter of 1965-66.
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#249: Weekend by Wet Willie
Peak Month: October 1979
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
YouTube: “Weekend”
Lyrics: “Weekend”
Drummer Lewis Ross assembled the musicians for a group called “Fox” in the summer of 1969. The first “gig” was a booking in Panama City, Florida at a club called the Oddessy, a geodesic dome right on the beach. Later, they relocated from Mobile, Alabama to Macon, Georgia. By 1970 the band changed its name to Wet Willie. That summer they appeared at the Love Valley Rock Festival in Love Valley, North Carolina. And in August 1970, the band travelled to San Antonio to perform at the Municipal Auditorium. Though they played numerous concerts in Atlanta, Wet Willie got wider exposure touring with The Allman Brothers Band in 1971-72. In the early 70s, their concert dates included stops in Chicago, Nashville, Boston, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Columbus (OH), New Orleans, New York City, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Memphis, Louisville, Washington D.C., Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, Long Beach, West Hollywood, and elsewhere. On August 16, 1975, Wet Willie appeared in concert in Vancouver at the Pacific Coliseum. Wet Willie made its name playing Southern rock from 1971 until 1978, producing a number of albums and several charting singles, one of them achieving Top Ten success.
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#250: I Am The Walrus by the Beatles
Peak Month: December 1967
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
1 week Preview
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #56
YouTube: “I Am The Walrus”
Lyrics: “I Am TheWalrus”
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. He attended the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and met fellow classmates George Harrison on a school bus. When Paul was 14 his mom died from a blockage in one of her blood vessels. In his early teens McCartney learned to play trumpet, guitar and piano. He was left-handed and restrung the strings to make it work. In 1957, Paul met John Lennon and in October he was invited to join John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, which Lennon had founded in 1956. After Paul joined the group his suggested that his friend, George Harrison, join the group. Harrison became one of the Quarrymen in early 1958, though he was still only 14. Other original members of the Quarrymen, Len Garry, Rod Davis, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Pete Shotton left the band when their set changed from skiffle to rock ‘n roll. John Duff Lowe, a friend of Paul’s from the Liverpool Institute, who had joined the Quarrymen in early 1958 left the band at the end of school. This left Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as remaining trio. On July 15, 1958, John Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident.
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#251: Broken/Albert Flasher by the Guess Who
Peak Month: May 1971
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKVN chart
1 week Preview
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29 ~ “Albert Flasher”
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #55 ~ “Broken”
YouTube: “Broken”
Lyrics: “Broken”
Youtube: “Albert Flasher”
Lyrics: “Albert Flasher”
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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#252: Doll House by Donnie Brooks
Peak Month: December 1960
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “Doll House”
Lyrics: “Doll House”
In 1936 John Dee Abohosh was born in Dallas, Texas. His family moved to Ventura, California when he was in his youth. In his teens he was adopted by his stepfather, John D. Fairecloth, who supported young John in developing his voice. John Dee Abohosh was than given the surname Fairecloth. While growing up in southern California, he studied under the same vocal coach who previously instructed Eddie Fisher. In high school John Dee Fairecloth made his professional debut on a classical music showcase broadcast by Ventura-based station KBCC. After graduating from high school, Fairecloth earned his living singing at local clubs, fairs, and weddings, embracing rock & roll and in 1957 signing to local indie Fable Records to cut his debut single, “You Gotta Walk The Line”, credited to Johnny Faire. He was twenty-one years old.
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#253: Werewolves Of London by Warren Zevon
Peak Month: June 1978
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #21
YouTube: “Werewolves Of London”
Lyrics: “Werewolves Of London”
Warren Zevon was born in Chicago in 1947. His father, William Zivotovsky, was a Jewish immigrant from Russia. Once in America, the surname was changed from Zitovsky to Zevon. William Zevon worked as a bookie who handled volume bets and dice games for the notorious Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen. He worked for years in the Cohen crime family, in which he was known as Stumpy Zevon, and was best man at Cohen’s first wedding. Young Warren Zevon studied classical music from age 13 with Igor Stravinsky, from time to time. But when his parents divorced when he was 16-years-old, Warren moved to Los Angeles and became a folk singer. In 1965 he formed a folk duo named Lyme (his mother’s maiden surname) & Cybelle. The single “Follow Me” became a Top Ten hit in San Jose and San Bernardino (CA), as well as climbing to #11 in Los Angeles.
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#1339: Keep On Movin’ by Finesse & Showbiz
Peak Month: November 1992
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Keep On Movin’”
Finesse & Showbiz were a pioneering west coast Canadian rap group formed in Nanaimo, B.C. They later relocated to Vancouver. In January 1991, the group submitted a cassette demo, “Where You At,” to local Top 40 station LG73. This resulted in heavy airplay and hitting #3 on the station’s nightly chart (different from the weekly CKLG Top 40. In 1992, Finesse & Showbiz was the first Vancouver rap group to release full length album with national and international distribution.
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#254: Angela Jones by Johnny Ferguson
Peak Month: April 1960
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #27
YouTube: “Angela Jones” – Johnny Ferguson
YouTube: “Angela Jones” – John D. Loudermilk (composer)
Lyrics: “Angela Jones”
John Lambeth Ferguson III was born in Nashville in 1937. He graduated from Hillsboro High School Ferguson began his musical career in the late 50s while he was a disc jockey on a variety of small stations in and around the Nashville, Tennessee. He had begun doing work as a DJ while still in high school for WNAH, WAGG and WSM-TV. As a writer, he managed to have a couple of his songs recorded by country acts Judy Lynn and Pat Kelly. In 1958 Ferguson recorded “Sad Sad Day”, a rockabilly tune, on Decca Records. The B-side was “Candy Love”, which had some Buddy Holly-esque vocals. However, the single got little notice. A second Decca release in 1958 was “Til School Starts Again”. It was a commercial flop. However, a demo of one of his songs that persuaded Arnold Maxin, the managing director at MGM Records, to sign him.
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