#1251: Rainbows, Pots of Gold & Moonbeams by Studebaker Hawk

Peak Month: September 1975
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Rainbows, Pots of Gold, And Moonbeams”

In 1969 a Canadian band named Motherlode had a Top Ten hit called “When I Die.” Although Canada’s RPM Magazine named them Canada’s first Supergroup, Motherlode disbanded in 1970. However, it was revived and was briefly fronted by Francophone bass player Breen Lebouf, born in North Bay, Ontario. Later in 1970 he went on to form a group called Southcote together with Lance Wright on drums and Joe Ress on keyboards with guitarist Charlie White. After three years of little success, Southcote split. Out of the ashes LeBouf, Wright and Ress got a new guitarist named Steve Cooley and formed Studebaker Hawk. In 1975 they released a single called “Rainbows, Pots of Gold and Moonbeams” written by Cooley.
Continue reading →

#1252: Blue Turns to Grey by Cliff Richard and the Shadows

Peak Month: May 1966
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Blue Turns To Grey”
Lyrics: “Blue Turns To Grey”

Cliff Richard was born Harry Roger Webb on October 14, 1940, in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1940 Lucknow was part of the British Raj, as India was not yet an independent country. Webb’s father worked on as a catering manager for the Indian Railways. His mother raised Harry and his three sisters. In 1948, when India had become independent, the Webb family took a boat to Essex, England, and began a new chapter. At the age of 16 Harry Webb was given a guitar by his father. Harry then formed a vocal group called the Quintones. Webb was interested in skiffle music, a type of jug band music, popularized by “The King of Skiffle,” Scottish singer Lonnie Donegan who had an international hit in 1955 called “Rock Island Line”,

Continue reading →

#1256: Fly Little White Dove by The Bells

Peak Month: November 1970
8 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 #95
YouTube.com: “Fly Little White Dove”
Lyrics: “Fly Little White Dove”

The mid-60s Montreal duo, Cliff Edwards and Anne Ralph, were persuaded to form a group. They added Anne’s sister Jacki Ralph on vocals, drummer Doug Gravelle and keyboard player Gordie McLeod. They named themselves The Five Bells. Shortly afterward Gordie McLeod left the group and Mickey Ottier became the groups drummer. In 1969 they released their first single called “Moody Manitoba Morning“. They continued to play clubs in Canada and landed an 11-week run at the Copacabana in New York. The group shortened their name to The Bells and Anne Ralph left the group, leaving Jackie Ralph as the featured female vocalist and Cliff Edwards the lead male vocalist.

Continue reading →

#1257: Pink Chiffon by Mitchell Torok

Peak Month: July 1960
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 #60
YouTube.com: “Pink Chiffon”
Lyrics: “Pink Chiffon”

In 1929 Mitchell Torok was born in Houston, Texas. His parents were immigrants from Hungary. Torok learned the guitar at the end of elementary school. A natural athlete, Mitch went to university in Nacogdoches, Texas, on a football and baseball scholarship. While at university he was hired to write a song to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Cononco Oil Company. He also cut his first record in the late 40s while hosting a radio show in Lufkin, two hours northeast of Houston, and another radio show in the Houston suburb of Rosenberg.

Continue reading →

#1258: The Mansion You Stole by Johnny Horton

Peak Month: December 1960
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #8 CFUN
Peak Position #7 CKWX
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “The Mansion You Stole”
Lyrics: “The Mansion You Stole”

John LeGale Horton was born on April 30, 1925, in Los Angeles, born to migrant fruit pickers. He spent most of his life growing up in East Texas when the family wasn’t back in California picking fruit. A great athlete, twenty-six colleges offered him basketball scholarships after his graduation from high school. Horton chose to study geology for a while in Seattle. Then in 1948 he went north to Alaska to pan for gold. While there he began to write songs. Back in the lower forty-eight, Horton was a winner at a talent contest in Henderson, Texas. This prompted him to move back to California and seek a career in music. He was a guest on Cliffie Stone’s Hometown Jamboree on KXLA-TV in Pasadena. This spawned The Singing Fisherman, Horton’s own half-hour show. He got married to a girl he met in Hollywood named Donna Cook. In high demand to perform on the Louisiana Hayride, they relocated to Shreveport, Louisiana. Touring was hard on the newlyweds and Horton got divorced.

Continue reading →

#1259: If Only by Jack Scott

Peak Month: December 1962
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “If Only”
Lyrics: “If Only”

Giovanni Dominico Scafone Jr. was born in 1936 in Windsor, Ontario, and spent some of his years growing up in the Detroit suburb of Hazel Park, Michigan. In 1954 he formed a band called the Southern Drifters. In 1957 he got a record deal with ABC-Paramount. He scored four Top Ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and two more in the Top 30 in the USA. In Vancouver Jack Scott was a teen idol with his good looks and classic rock ‘n roll. He enjoyed eight Top Ten hits on the Vancouver charts including  “What In The World’s Come Over You” and his most successful hit in town, “Goodbye Baby” that peaked at #2 and spent 17 weeks on the CKWX charts in 1958. At the time, Scott had more US singles in the Billboard Hot 100 (19), in a shorter period of time (41 months), than any other recording artist – with the exception of The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino and Connie Francis. Scott charted twenty songs on the local record surveys in Vancouver between July 1958 and November 1962.

Continue reading →

#1311: I’m Running After You by Major Hoople’s Boarding House

Peak Month: October 1975
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “I’m Running After You”

In their early promotional material Kitchener, Ontario’s, Major Hoople’s Boarding House said of their young quintet: “Over 69 years of musical experience comprise the Boarding House Band. The Band started when Major Hoople got himself a set of drums, and with his nightly practice, kept everybody else awake all night. As the saying goes, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” And so other boarders got instruments and started singing and making sounds all night long, too. Freddie Fritz, basement dweller, still three years behind with the rent, plays lead guitar. Peter Patter, third floor apartment, plays rhythm. Pop’s thumbs base guitar… And Ma Hoople plays organ. And what a voice. You should hear her call the boarders for supper.”
Continue reading →

#1261: Igmoo by Stonewall Jackson

Peak Month: October 1959
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 #95
YouTube.com: “Igmoo (The Pride of South Central High)”
Lyrics: “Igmoo (The Pride of South Central High)”

In 1959 country and western singer, Stonewall Jackson, had a Top Ten hit in the spring of that year called “Waterloo” that spent 13 weeks on the record survey on CKWX peaking at #4. Jackson was born in Tabor City, North Carolina, about 35 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on the border dividing the Carolinas. After serving for four years in the US Navy, Stonewall Jackson moved to Nashville and in time he got an audition with the Grand Ole Opry. He got a break when he recorded a song written by George Jones called “Life To Go”. The song Stonewall Jackson sung was from the perspective of a murderer who has been in jail for eighteen years and will remain for life. It peaked in 1958 at #2 on the Billboard Country chart.
Continue reading →

Peak Month: April 1974
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “I Am What I Am”
Lyrics: “I Am What I Am”

In the early sixties Lois Fletcher appeared on a Canadian variety show. This led to some performances at coffee houses in Greenwich Village in New York City. After Randy Sparks of the New Christy Minstrels saw her, she was invited to join his other folk troupe, The Back Porch Majority. Sparks had co-written “Green Green” for the New Christy Minstrels with Barry McGuire. The Back Porch Majority were meant to be a kind of junior league folk group whose stars might get the nod to join the New Christy Minstrels. But the Back Porch Majority outdid themselves releasing six albums and seven singles between 1964 and 1966.

Continue reading →

#1266: Mustang/Meadowlands by The Chessmen

Peak Month: December 1964
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #14
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Mustang”
YouTube.com: “Meadowlands”

In 1959 Guy Sobell became a member of a Vancouver band called The Ken Clark Trio. They drew inspiration from The Shadows, The Beatles and Sweden’s instrumental group the Spotnicks. For the first few years the trio subsisted by playing at frat parties at the University of British Columbia. In 1962 Sobell decided to form a new band. Among the musicians responding to an ad was Terry Jacks, who was 17 years old and studying architecture and a member of a band called The Sand Dwellers. Jacks band had released a single called “Build Your Castle Higher”. Written along with bandmade John Crowe, it was Jacks’ first recording. It was covered by Jerry Cole and His Spacemen as a track on their debut album, Outer Limits. The track was retitled “Midnight Surfer” and Jerry Cole went on to be part of Phil Spector’s group of now legendary session musicians called the Wrecking Crew who played on over 40 #1 hits in the USA. Prior to His Spacemen band, Jerry Cole was a member of the instrumental group The Champs who had a #1 hit in 1958 called “Tequila”. I don’t know if The Sand Dwellers got any royalties from Jerry Cole and His Spacemen.

Continue reading →