#36: Don’t Blame The Children by Sammy Davis Jr.
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: February 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #41
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube: “Don’t Blame The Children”
Lyrics: “Don’t Blame The Children”
Samuel “Sammy” George Davis Jr. was born in 1925. At age three, Davis began his career in Vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio. The trio toured nationally, and Davis Jr.’s film career began in 1933. His first film was Rufus Jones for President whose plot concerned an African-American’s run for the presidency in the USA. The candidate is a 7-year-old child named Rufus, played by Sammy Davis Jr. He was drafted into the United States Army at the age of 18 in 1944. After military service, Davis returned to the trio. In 1949, he released his first single titled “Bebop the Beguine”. The next year he released a cover of the 1934 Jimmy Durante hit record “Inka Dinka Doo”. Sammy Davis Jr. became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro’s in West Hollywood after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1953, Davis was offered his own television show on ABC, Three for the Road—with the Will Mastin Trio. However, the network couldn’t get a sponsor, so they dropped the show. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities. That year he covered Rosemary Clooney’s “Hey There”, with his version reaching #16 on the Billboard pop singles chart. In 1955, he appeared as a guest in the TV show What’s My Line? That same year he had a #9 hit on the Billboard Pop chart with “Something’s Gotta Give”, which reached #11 in the UK. That year he saw “Love Me Or Leave Me” reach #12 in the USA and #8 in the UK. While another hit singles in 1955, “That Old Black Magic”, climbed to #13 in the USA.
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#24: Makin’ Love by Bobby Curtola
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CFAC
Peak Month: August 1965
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Makin’ Love”
Lyrics: “Makin’ Love”
Bobby Curtola was born in Port Arthur, Ontario, in 1943. (The town would become amalgamated into the city of Thunder Bay in 1970). His cousin Susan Andrusco remembers “Bobby would always be singing at our family gatherings. The family loved him. And he loved being the centre of attention. He would sing Oh My Papa, and my grandpa would cry.” Oh My Papa was a number-one hit for Eddie Fisher in January 1954, when Bobby Curtola was still ten-years-old. In the fall of 1959, sixteen-year-old high school student Bobby Curtola went from pumping gas at his father’s garage in Thunder Bay, Ontario, to the life of a teen idol. Within a year he went from playing in his basement band, Bobby and the Bobcats, to recording his first hit single in 1960, “Hand In Hand With You”, which charted in June ’60 in Ontario, but not in Vancouver.
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#30: Run Home Girl by Sad Cafe
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CIHI
Peak Month: February 1979
Peak Position in Fredericton: #12
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube: “Run Home Girl”
Lyrics: “Run Home Girl”
Sad Café formed in 1976 in Manchester, UK. Lead singer Paul Young was born in greater Manchester in 1947. When he was just 16-years-old, Paul Young joined The Toggery Five. They opened concerts for Freddie and the Dreamers, and the Hollies. The Toggery Five were offered a song titled “I’m Alive” and had it recorded. But the Hollies quickly recorded the song and got it released two weeks before The Toggery Five. “I’m Alive” became a number-one hit for the Hollies and The Toggery Five missed out on a hit record. Later Paul Young formed Gyro in the mid-70s. Sad Café emerged as am amalgamation with a progressive rock band called Mandalaband. From Mandalaband came Vic Emerson on keyboards, Ashley Mulford on guitar, Tony Cresswell on drums, and John Stimpson on bass guitar. Another member of Sad Café was guitar player Ian Wilson. The band took their name from the Southern Gothic novel by Carson McCullers titled The Ballad of the Sad Café.
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#22: Tiny Bubbles by Don Ho
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: March 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #7 | #95 song of the year on CFNB
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #57
YouTube: “Tiny Bubbles”
Lyrics: “Tiny Bubbles”
Donald Tai Loy Ho was born in 1930 in Honolulu. He is a descendant of ethnic Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and German heritage. He attended Springfield College in Massachusetts on a football scholarship in 1950. But he but returned home to earn a Bachelor’s degree in sociology at University of Hawaii in 1953. In 1954, Ho entered the United States Air Force doing his primary training at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi and spent time flying C-97s with the Military Air Transport Service. Transferred to Travis Air Force Base, California, he went to the local city of Concord and bought an electronic keyboard from a music store, and recalls, “That’s when it all started.” Ho traveled from state to state with his young family until he was called home to help his mother with the family bar business called Honey’s in Kaneohe, O’ahu.
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#23: Happy by Blades Of Grass
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: September 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #87
YouTube: “Happy”
Lyrics: “Happy”
Formed in 1967, the Blades Of Grass lineup consisted of Bruce Ames on rhythm guitar and vocals, David Gordon on drums and organ, Frank DiChiara on bass guitar and vocals), and Marc Black on lead guitar and vocals. They were each born around 1950. Marc Black remembers being five-years-old when he got introduced to a ragtime tune titled “The Crazy Otto Melody”. The following year he heard Elvis Presley. In 1964, Black formed The Toasters. By 1966, he was in a band who named themselves the Furnace Men to allude to the basement of a store in Maplewood, New Jersey, where the band typically practiced. They performed at high school dances, and dances at the Jewish temple in town. Marc Black recalls, “By the time we were seniors, we would just rent a hall and lots of kids would show up.” Becoming a popular attraction in their hometown, the Furnace Men – Ames, Gordon, DiChiara and Black – received interest in managing partners Frank Latagona and Walter Gollander. The managers promised to find the Furnace Men a recording contract. In the spring of 1967, a contract was signed with Jubilee Records.
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#21: The Comancheros by Claude King
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CFAC
Peak Month: December 1961
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube: “The Comancheros”
Lyrics: “The Comancheros”
Claude King was born in 1923 in rural Louisiana. He served in the United States Navy during World War II. After WWII King formed a band with two of his friends and were called the Rainbow Boys. The trio played around Shreveport in their spare time while working an assortment of other jobs. He joined the Louisiana Hayride, a television and radio show produced at the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium and broadcast throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom. He was on shows with Elvis Presley, Faron Young, Johnny Cash, Tex Ritter, Hank Williams, Johnny Horton, Jim Reeves, Webb Pierce, Kitty Wells and others. He recorded for Gotham Records with little success. But when he switched to Columbia Records, he had a hit with “Big River, Big Man”. It was both a country top 10 and a small pop crossover success. Next, Claude King released “The Comancheros”.
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#1: More To Love by Jim Photoglo
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CFRN
Peak Month: October 1981
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “More To Love”
Lyrics: “More To Love”
Jim Photoglo grew up in Los Angeles. He began playing in bands as a teenager but never considered music as a “career” until he was in his early 20’s. Photoglo reminisces, “I wanted to get out of L.A., so I took to the highway ‘James Taylor’ style with an acoustic guitar, a sleeping bag and a lot of time to think…and all I thought about was music.” Returning to Los Angeles with music as a career goal, Photoglo began paying the usual dues. He took every kind of gig from playing in a funeral band to putting together a group to back John Belushi’s “Joe Cocker” imitation at a party for Paul McCartney. His solo career took off when he was signed to the Twentieth Century Fox label in 1979.
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#3: Thank You Girl by the Beatles
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: June 1964
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #35
YouTube: “Thank You Girl”
Lyrics: “Thank You Girl”
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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#4: It’s Nice To Be With You by the Monkees
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: July 1968
Peak Position in Edmonton: #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
YouTube: “It’s Nice To Be With You”
Lyrics: “It’s Nice To Be With You”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won a talent contest at San Antonio College. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He became the “hoot master” at a regular hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. In 1963 Nesmith released a 45 of a song he wrote called “Wanderin'”. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in 1967.
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#33: The Girl I Knew Somewhere by the Monkees
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #39
YouTube: “The Girl I Knew Somewhere”
Lyrics: “The Girl I Knew Somewhere”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed “Nez,” he learned to play saxophone as a young child and joined the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In 1962 Nesmith won a talent contest at San Antonio College. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles, with the intent of getting into the movie business. He became the “hoot master” at a regular hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. In 1963 Nesmith released a 45 of a song he wrote called “Wanderin'”. In 1964 Nesmith wrote “Different Drum”, which was a #13 hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in Vancouver in 1967.
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