#956: Something Good by Utah Saints
Peak Month: December 1992
9 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #13
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #98
YouTube: “Something Good”
Lyrics: “Something Good”
Jez Willis was born in 1968 in Brampton, UK. With Tim Garbutt, Willis formed the electronic music duo the Utah Saints in 1991. The duo met as music promoters and DJs for the Mix club in Harrogate, a 40 minute drive north of Leeds. In 1990 they formed Mega Dance Metal Allegiance. The duo were asked years later in an interview if they’d ever been to Utah in the United States. Tim Garbutt commented, “we did play there once in about 1996 and we had a stage invasion. It’s very different to Dubai; everyone should go there once in their lives. We often get emails from people in Utah with very weird requests.” Their work involved sampling other recordings and weaving them into their tracks. Jez told Digital Spy, “music is all about opinions, but we always try to do something interesting with a sample and put it in a different context, because that’s what’s interesting to us… people recognise it sonically, but they can’t place it initially.”
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#406: Black Dog by Led Zeppelin
Peak Month: January 1972
8 weeks on CKVN’s Vancouver Chart
1 week Preview
Peak Position ~ #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Black Dog”
Lyrics: “Black Dog”
Robert Anthony Plant was born in 1948 in West Bromwich, six miles northwest of Birmingham, England. He became the lead singer of Led Zeppelin, along with bandmates Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. At an early age Robert Plant was interested in being a pop singer. He said in an interview in 1994 on the Denton Show in Australia, “When I was a kid I used to hide behind the curtains at home at Christmas and I used to try and be Elvis. There was a certain ambience between the curtains and the French windows, there was a certain sound there for a ten-year-old. That was all the ambience I got at ten years old … And I always wanted to be … a bit similar to that.”
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#407: Slow Down by the Beatles
Peak Month: September 1964
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Slow Down”
Lyrics: “Slow Down”
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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#408: Woman In Chains by Tears for Fears
Peak Month: March 1990
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube: “Woman In Chains”
Lyrics: “Woman In Chains”
Raoul Jaime Orzabal de la Quintana was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1961. His parents legally changed his first name to Roland Orzabal within a few weeks of his birth. His father had a nervous breakdown early in Roland’s childhood. Later, his father ran an entertainment business, with his mother a dancer in the troupe. Orzabal met Curt Smith when they were in their teens, and both living in Smith’s birthplace of Bath, England. Smith learned to play guitar in his teens. In 1979 Orzabal and Smith became part of a new wave band called Neon. They released a couple of records and were session musicians for recordings by new wave band Naked Eyes. Smith and Orzabal were also part of a new wave band called Graduate who had a Top Ten hit in Spain in 1980 titled “Elvis Should Play Ska”. A grueling tour of Germany temporarily caused the duo to question the viability of a life as pop stars.
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#909: I Want You Back by West End Girls
Peak Month: September 1991
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “I Want You Back”
Lyrics: “I Want You Back”
Camille Henderson was born in Vancouver, BC, in 1970. From the age of ten she was a working actor in film, stage and TV. At the age of fifteen she starred in the Canadian film directed by Sandy Wilson titled My American Cousin. She played the role of Shirley, a preteen girl. Her father, Bill Henderson, was a member of the Vancouver Sixties band The Collectors. He continued with most of his bandmates as they morphed into Chilliwack in 1970.
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#399: Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart by the Supremes
Peak Month: May 1966
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
1 week Wax To Watch
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #9
YouTube: “Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart”
Lyrics: “Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart”
Born Diane Ross in 1944 in Detroit, Michigan, Diana Ross was the lead singer in The Supremes. According to Ross, her mother actually named her “Diane”. However, there was a clerical error. This resulted in her name being entered as “Diana” on her birth certificate. On the first recordings by The Supremes, she was listed as “Diane” Ross, and introduced herself as “Diane” as they began to hit the pop charts. Her friends and family still call her “Diane”. One of her neighbors growing up was future Motown recording artist Smokey Robinson. In 1958, at the age of 14, Diane Ross began taking classes including clothing design, millinery, pattern making, and tailoring, as she had aspired to become a fashion designer. She also took modeling and cosmetology classes at the school and participated in three or four other extracurricular activities while being there. In addition, she also worked at Hudson’s Department Store where she alleges she was the first black employee “allowed outside the kitchen.” At the time Ross was living in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects.
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#409: Tamoure by Bill Justis
Peak Month: May 1963
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #101
YouTube: “Tamoure”
William Everett “Bill” Justis Jr. was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1926. He was a pioneer rock n’ roll musician, composer, and musical arranger, best known for his 1957 Grammy Hall of Fame song, “Raunchy”. Justis grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and studied music at Tulane University in New Orleans. Fine-tuning his trumpet and saxophone skills, he was featured in concert with local jazz and dance bands. In 1954, Justis went back to Memphis and hired by Sam Philips at Sun Records. While in the employ of Sun Records, Bill Justis made his own recordings. In addition he was a musical arranger Sun recordings by Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash.
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#410: Ramona by Stampeders
Peak Month: February 1975
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Ramona”
Lyrics: “Ramona”
The Stampeders are a rock trio from Calgary named after that city’s football team, The Calgary Stampeders. Although, it could be argued that the yearly Calgary Stampede was also an inspiration for their name. During the band’s most successful chart run from 1968 to 1976, it was made up of guitarist Rich Dodson, bass player Ronnie King (born Cornelius Van Sprang) and drummer Kim Berly (born Kim Meyer). All three provided vocals. Originally, the band was a group of five formed in 1964 called The Rebounds. The Rebounds had five members: Rich Dodson, Len Roemer, Brendan Lyttle, Kim Berly, and Race Holiday. They renamed themselves The Stampeders in 1965 and Len Roemer was replaced with Ronnie King and Van Louis, making them a band of six for a few years. But after a temporary move to Toronto in 1966 the band was down to three members, Dodson, King and Berly by 1968. Between 1967 and 1976 The Stampeders charted 15 singles into the Canadian RPM Top 40.
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#920: The Friends Of Mr. Cairo by Jon and Vangelis
Peak Month: December 1981
10 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “The Friends Of Mr. Cairo”
Lyrics: “The Friends Of Mr. Cairo”
Jon and Vangelis was the name for a musical collaboration between the lead singer of Yes, Jon Anderson, and Greek multi-instrumentalist Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou – known professionally as Vangelis. John Roy Anderson was born in Lancashire, England, in 1944. At age 15 he left school and got work as a lorry driver and then a milkman to help make money for the family. His brother Tony, was part of a band called The Warriors, and John was asked to join on vocals. He was with the Warriors from 1962 to 1968. Anderson released two solo singles with little commercial success in 1968. That year he also met bass guitarist Chris Squires, guitar player Peter Banks, drummer Bill Bruford and reconnected with keyboard player Tony Kaye. The five musicians formed a band they called Yes. The band released a self-titled debut album in 1969. In 1970 John Anderson dropped the “h” from his first name, becoming Jon Anderson. From 1969 to 1978 Yes released nine studio albums. Their 1973 Top 20 hit, “Roundabout” was the zenith of their early fame.
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#411: Sausalito Summernight by Diesel
Peak Month: October 1981
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube: “Sausalito Summernight”
Lyrics: “Sausalito Summernight”
Wilhelmus Frederikus “Pim” Koopman was born in the North Holland town of Hilversum in 1953. In 1972 he co-founded a progressive rock band called Kayak. They had a number of Top 30 hits in the Netherlands, with “Ruthless Queen” peaking in the nation at #6 in 1979. Koopman left Kayak in 1976 due to health problems and interpersonal conflicts with the band’s manager. Next, Koopman began to focus on being a producer of other recording acts records. These included the Dutch singing duo Maywood (comprised of sisters Aaltje (“Alie”) and Doetje (“Edith”) de Vries; pop singer José Hoebee; multi-instrumentalist Valensia; and Dutch classical-pop crossover singer Petra Berger. In 1978 Pim Koopman founded Nederpop band Diesel.
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