#5: People Sure Act Funny by Arthur Conley
City: Belleville, ON
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: August 1968
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #8
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #58
YouTube: “People Sure Act Funny”
Lyrics: “People Sure Act Funny”
Arthur Lee Conley was born in rural McIntosh County, Georgia, on the Atlantic coast in 1946. At the age of 13, in 1959 he recorded as the lead singer of Arthur & the Corvets. With this group, he released three singles in 1963 and 1964—”Poor Girl”, “I Believe”, and “Flossie Mae”. In 1964, Conley released the single “I’m A Lonely Stranger” on a small Baltimore label. It got the attention of Otis Redding, and was re-recorded on Redding’s Jotis Records in 1965. The single climbed to #2 in December 1965 on the R&B station WAWA in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. More single releases followed as Conley switched to the Fame label, including “I Can’t Stop (No, No, No)”, which peaked at #3 on WRBD in Fort Lauderdale. While Fame Records release “Take Me Just As I Am” made the Top Ten on the Miami R&B station WAME, also in December 1966.
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#31: Surfin’ Safari by the Beach Boys
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CFAC
Peak Month: October 1962
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube.com: “Surfin’ Safari”
Lyrics: “Surfin’ Safari”
Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, in 1942. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin’s book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, he relates that when Brian Wilson first heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” it had a huge emotional impact on him. As a youngster, Wilson learned to play a toy accordion and sang in children’s choirs. In his teens he started a group with his cousin, Mike Love and his brother, Carl. Mike was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and Carl was born in 1946 in Hawthorne, California. Brian Wilson named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance in the fall of 1960 at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Their set included some songs by Dion and the Belmonts. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was born in Hawthorne in 1942. He was so impressed with the performance that he let the group know. Jardine would later be enlisted, along with Dennis Wilson to form the Pendletones in 1961. Dennis was born in Inglewood in 1944.
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#41: My Name Is Mud by Eddie Rambeau
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CFAC
Peak Month: August 1965
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #112
YouTube.com: “My Name Is Mud”
Lyrics: N/A
Eddie Rambeau was born Edward Cletus Fluri, in 1943. His birthplace was Hazelton, Pennsylvania. He is an singer, songwriter, actor and author. Rambeau sang at record hops in Hazelton where he impressed deejays with his talent. One of the deejays, Jim Ward, set up an audition for Rambeau at Swan Records. He was signed to the label and released his first single, “Skin Divin’”, under his new name, Eddie Rambeau, on graduation day in June 1961. The song made the Top 20 in several radio markets in Idaho and Massachusetts.
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#46: Living On Video by Trans-X
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CFCN
Peak Month: June 1986
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #9
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #61
YouTube.com: “Living On Video”
Lyrics: “Living On Video”
Pascal Languirand is the creator of Trans X. He was born in Paris, France, to Canadian parents in 1955, and moved back with them to Canada. In an interview with Manuel Montes and Jorge Munnshe, he related that though “he was brought up in Canada, he often travelled to Mexico. The reason for this was that he used to accompany his father, a writer, who felt fascinated by this country and found there the necessary inspiration to write his books. Pascal told us that because of this, at age four he had already learnt some Spanish while playing with Mexican children his age.” When he turned 18, he studied at McGill University in Montreal. He focus was electronic music and communications. He also studied cinematography at Concordia University, also in Montreal. He recalls, “Above all, I loved experimenting. I used to do so with tape, especially with my four-track recorder, with the electric guitar, something like Pink Floyd, playing with echo, the bass. Therefore, I based my work on the manipulation of sounds. My university studies, in actual fact, did not have any real usefulness for me. I preferred to experiment on my own.”
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#4: Soul Time by Shirley Ellis
City: Belleville, ON
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: May 1967
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #20
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #67
YouTube: “Soul Time”
Lyrics: “Soul Time”
Shirley Marie O’Garra was born in The Bronx in 1929. In 1954, the doo-wop group The Chords recorded two of Shirley’s compositions “Pretty Wild” and LV – LV”. In the early 1960’s, Shirley Ellis was the lead singer of the Metronomes. In 1961, she released “Love Can Make You Know” credited to Shirley Elliston. And in 1962 under the name Shirlee May, she released “Lonely Birthday”. In 1963, Ellis had the first of a series of novelty R&B crossover hits. “The Nitty Gritty” climbed to #4 in the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. In January 1964, the single peaked at #7 on CFUN in Vancouver. It was stuck behind four Beatles songs and one by Cliff Richard which were higher up the FUNTASTIC FIFTY.
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#12: Tillicum by Syrinx
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: April 1971
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Canadian RPM Pop Singles chart ~ #38
YouTube: “Tillicum”
John Mills-Cockell was born in Toronto in 1943. He studied music at the University of Toronto from 1963 to 1967, and piano and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto from 1964 to 1968, where he also taught electronic music. He undertook graduate studies at the University of Toronto’s Electronic Music Studio in 1967 and 1968. In 1967, Mills-Cockell was involved as a musician with the University of Toronto’s Perception ’67 Arts Festival. It was there he met Alan Ginsberg. After a stint in the avant-garde mixed media project “Intersystems” in 1968, and forays into the rock forum the following year with the Kensington Market in Toronto, and the lesser-known Hydro Electric Streetcar Hydro Electric Streetcar in Vancouver. In late 1969 he co-founded Syrinx with Doug Pringle.
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#45: City Lights by The Churls
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: March 1969
Peak Position in Calgary ~#8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “City Lights”
Lyrics: “City Lights”
The Churls formed 1967 in Toronto. They fell into the garage rock (sixties garage rock) and psychedelic rock genre at the time. Robert O’ Neill was the lead vocalist, Sam Hurrie and Hal Ames were on guitar, John Barr played bass guitar, and Brad Fowles was the bands’ drummer. By the summer of 1967, the Churls were one of the hottest bands on the Yorkville scene. In the winter of 1967, they signed a record contract with Glotzer and Katz Management, the same people who managed Blood Sweat & Tears. The Churls were encouraged to perform in the USA. They spent much of early 1968 playing in New York as the houseband at both Cafe a Go-Go and The Scene. The Churls performed in medieval attire. It was at these Manhattan venues that the Churles notably received encouragement from John Lennon and Paul McCartney and jammed onstage with Jimi Hendrix.
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#40: When I’m Sixty-Four by the Beatles
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: July 1967
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “When I’m Sixty-Four”
Lyrics: “When I’m Sixty-Four”
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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#3: Pretty World by Sergio Mendes
City: Belleville, ON
Radio Station: CJBQ
Peak Month: June 1969
Peak Position in Belleville ~ #5
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Pretty World”
Lyrics: “Pretty World”
Sérgio Santos Mendes was born in 1941 in Niterói, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. He attended the local conservatory intending to become a classical pianist. However, his interest in jazz grew, and he started playing in nightclubs in the late 1950s. This was while bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was emerging. Mendes played with his mentor, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and with many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil. In 1961, Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded the album Dance Modern. In the early Sixties, Mendes toured Europe and the United States. He recorded albums with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Hancock. Mendes also played at the Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the U.S. in 1964 and cut two albums under the group name Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’65. The first, Brasil ’65, is a Portuguese-language album. The second release, The Great Arrival, is an instrumental album. A cover of the Mamas’ and The Papas’ “Monday Monday” later became a minor hit single in 1967. In 1966, it was suggested to Mendes that he add two women who could sing both in English and in Portuguese. The revised lineup was dubbed Brasil ’66.
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#47: Oh Yeah by Yello
City: Calgary, Alberta
Radio Station: CFCN
Peak Month: October 1987
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #51
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Singles ~ #49
YouTube.com: “Oh Yeah”
Lyrics: “Oh Yeah”
Yello is a Swiss electronic music band formed in Zurich in 1979. Boris Blank was born in Bern, Switzerland, in 1952. Before he joined Yello he was a truck driver. As a child he was very interested in music, but had no formal training. He never learned to read musical notation but always was interested in producing new sounds and samples. Blank began experimenting with tape loops and echo effects as a teenager. He recorded water sounds from a bucket of water and played sounds on a homemade bamboo flute. It was in this period he met Carlos Perón, who was born in Zurich in 1952. The third member to join the band was Deiter Meier. Born in 1945 in Zurich, Meier studied law in university, but never completed his degree. He went into banking and became a professional gambler. Blank and Perón approached Meier when they realized they needed a singer, as Blank’s vocals were better suited to backing vocals. The band’s name, Yello, was chosen as a neologism based on a comment made by Meier, “a yelled Hello”
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