#3: Unforgettable Fire by U2
City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKIK
Peak Month: January 1985
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Unforgettable Fire”
Lyrics: “Unforgettable Fire”
U2 is a band formed in Dublin, Ireland, in September 1976. Its members include lead vocalist and rhythm guitar player Bono, lead guitar and keyboard player the Edge, synthesizer and guitar player Adam Clayton, and drummer and percussionist Larry Mullen Jr. The band formed when its members were all teenagers. The band had several name changes before they settled on U2 in 1978. By 1980 they had been awarded a contract with Island Records and released their debut album Boy. With the release of their second album in 1981, October, and the lead Top Ten single in Ireland called “Fire”, the band were emerging as a force.
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#17: Hey Joe by the Enemys
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: September 1966
Peak Position in Edmonton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Hey Joe”
Lyrics: “Hey Joe”
The Enemys were a band formed in 1965. The founder was Cory Wells, born Emil Lewandowski in 1941 in Buffalo, NY. He played in a number of bands in Buffalo in his teens. He was raised in a troubled home by his abusive stepfather. As soon as he got out of high school, Lewandowski joined the United States Air Force. While in the Air Force, he formed a band of interracial musical performers, inspired by his boyhood love of a similar popular band called The Del-Vikings who were known for their 1957 hit “Come Go With Me”. When he returned from service in the USAF, Lewandowski joined a band in Buffalo called the Vibratos. He was encouraged to take the band to California, and on route they changed their name to the Enemys. His full stage name “Cory Wells” was suggested by The Enemys’ first manager, Gene Jacobs, who had a son named Cory.
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#18: Hard Life Alone by Ray Materick
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CFRN
Peak Month: November 1972
Peak Position in Edmonton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Hard Life Alone”
Lyrics: N/A
Ray Materick was born in Brantford, Ontario, in 1943. His father was an evangelical preacher, and also had been a dance band leader. Ray Materick tried to learn the guitar at the age of 8, but found it too challenging. In his teens he became proficient at guitar and was in a band called The Chevron Sextet. In his late twenties, he moved to Toronto in 1970. For several years he performed at concerts in the coffee house circuit in the Toronto regional area. In 1972, Materick recorded an album titled Sidestreets. It was hailed as a stellar example of roots-folk. The Toronto Star wrote, “Just remarkable. Ten autobiographical song sketches that make emotional participation mandatory and inescapable.” From the album came a single titled “Season of Plenty”. It was released on Kanata Records 1010, with the B-side, “Goodbye”. But it didn’t chart nationally, though the B-side charted in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Kanata re-released the song on Kanata 1013. At last, “Season of Plenty” began to appear on the Canadian RPM Top Pop Singles Chart on October 7, 1972.
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#19: Tippy Toeing by The Harden Trio
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: June 1966
Peak Position in Edmonton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube: “Tippy Toeing”
Lyrics: “Tippy Toeing”
Bobby, Robbie (born Fern) and Arlene (born Arleen) Harden were siblings born in England, Arkansas. Bobby was born in 1935, and Arleen was born in 1945. Robbie was likely born in the 1930s. They began their career as teenagers singing on a radio station KVLC in Little Rock, Arkansas. They performed as teenagers on the Ozark Jubilee and the Louisiana Hayride. In the early 60s’, Robbie moved to Nashville as part of The Browns filling in for Bonnie Brown on the Grand Ole Opry, and most road dates. The Browns were country-pop crossover recording artists with “The Three Bells” and “The Old Lamplighter” among their biggest hits. The Hardens and the Browns had grown up in the same area and worked together on the Ozark Jubilee. Bobby and Arleen soon followed and the trio was re-formed. In 1964, the trio signed with Columbia Records and released their debut single “Poor Boy”.
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#2: It’s So Easy by the Crickets
City: Charlottetown, PEI
Radio Station: CVER
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in Charlottetown ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “It’s So Easy”
Lyrics: “It’s So Easy”
The Crickets became a rock ‘n roll/rockabilly group in 1957. They are credited with influencing a whole range of recording artists including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles got the idea for their name as a riff off of another insect, cricket, just going up one letter of the alphabet from C to B for Beatles. Paul McCartney once told the press, “If it wasn’t for the Crickets, there wouldn’t be any Beatles.” The Crickets were initially the backing band for Buddy Holly and among their hits are “That’ll Be The Day”, Peggy Sue”, “Oh Boy”, “Not Fade Away”, “Maybe Baby”, “It’s So Easy” and “Rave On”.
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#20: Friday On My Mind by the Easybeats
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: June 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #9
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #16
YouTube: “Friday On My Mind”
Lyrics: “Friday On My Mind”
Stephen “Stevie” Carlton Wright was born in Leeds, England, in 1947. When he was nine-years-old his family moved to Melbourne, Australia. He moved to Sydney and joined a local band called The Outlaws. By 1964 Stevie had formed Chris Langdon & the Langdells. While he was with this band he met Johannes Hendrikus Jacob van den Berg. Johannes was born in the Netherlands in 1946. When he turned 13 he taught himself to play guitar in his family’s tenement home. He played guitar in a band called The Starfighters, based in The Hague. When he was seventeen his family moved to Australia in 1963. The following year, going by the anglicized name of Harry Vanda, he became the lead guitar player for a Sydney band called The Easybeats. A co-founder of the band was George Young. Also an immigrant to Australia, in his case from Glasgow, Scotland, George Redburn Young was born in 1947. He was a rhythm guitarist. After one of the coldest winters in Scotland on record in 1962, the Young family saw a Television ad from the Australian government promising travel assistance for families seeking a new start with a life in Australia.
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#21: Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil by Jefferson Airplane
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: October 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #42
YouTube: “Ballad Of You, Me And Pooneil”
Lyrics: “Ballad Of You, Me And Pooneil”
Paul Kantner was born in San Francisco in 1941. His mother died when he was eight, and his father sent him to see the circus instead of allowing him to attend the funeral. Kantner was sent to a Catholic Military boarding school. In the face of his strict upbringing, Paul Kantner became interested in Pete Seeger, folk and protest songs. At the University of Santa Clara he met Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. Born in 1940, Jorma Kaukonen was from Washington D.C. and had Finnish and Russian Jewish roots. His family lived in Pakistan for awhile before they returned to Washington D.C. where Jorma formed a band called the Triumphs. From 1962 he was a solo act in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1964, he recorded a solo album with Janis Joplin playing acoustic guitar on “The Typewriter Tapes”, given that name due to his spouse typing on the typewriter in the background.
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#22: Morningtown Ride by the Seekers
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CJCA
Peak Month: April 1967
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver: #27
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100: #44
YouTube: “Morningtown Ride”
Lyrics: “Morningtown Ride”
The Seekers were a group from Australia. Formed in Melbourne in 1962, it was founded by Athol Guy. He was born in a small city southwest of Melbourne in 1940. In 1958 he formed a group called the Ramblers. He attended Melbourne Boys High School and became friends with schoolmates Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley. Keith Potter was born in 1941 in Columbo, Ceylon. His family moved to Australia while he was a child. In the late 50s, Potger led a rock ‘n roll group named the Trinamics. Bruce Woodley was born in 1942 in Melbourne. He and Athol Guy formed the Escorts in the early 60s. By 1962, the Escorts morphed into the Seekers. There were several lineup changes before they got the right fit. Athol Guy played double-bass guitar. Keith Potger played twelve-string guitar. Bruce Woodley played guitar. While Judith Durham became the female lead vocalist. Born Judith Mavis Cock in 1943 in suburban Melbourne, she had a knack for music. In her late teens she began to have some professional engagements playing piano. She had classical vocal training as a soprano, and performed blues, gospel and jazz pieces. Starting in 1961, at the age of 18, Judith Cock took her mother’s maiden name, Durham, as a surname for her stage name: Judith Durham.
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#346: Ballad of Thunder Road by Robert Mitchum
Peak Month: August 1958 and January 1962
Peak CFUN position in Vancouver ~ #2 (1958)
Peak CFUN position in Vancouver ~ #4 (1962)
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “Ballad Of Thunder Road”
Lyrics: “Ballad of Thunder Road”
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was born in Bridgeport (CT) in 1917. His father died in a railyard accident in 1919. At the age of 12, young Robert Mitchum began performing in a Vaudeville show that appeared along the East Coast. At the age of 14 he hopped freight trains and travelled across America. He dug ditches, fought as a boxer, and worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1933 he was arrested for vagrancy and worked on a chain gang. During WWII Mitchum worked as a machine operator for Lockheed Martin. In 1942-43, he appeared in a number of episodes in Hopalong Cassidy. This included the 1943 movie Hoppy Serves a Writ.
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#27: Crossroads by Cream
City: Edmonton, AB
Radio Station: CHED
Peak Month: March 1969
Peak Position in Edmonton: #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #8
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #28
YouTube: “Crossroads”
Lyrics: “Crossroads”
Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker was born in 1939 in South London. He excellent at British football in his teens. At age fifteen he began to play drums and took lessons from iconic British jazz drummer Phil Seaman. In 1962 Baker joined Blues Incorporated along with Jack Bruce and others who played at the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. In 1963, Baker was one of the founding members of a jazz/rhythm & blues band, called The Graham Bond Organisation, spelled the British way. Jack Bruce also joined the band. The band appeared in the 1965 UK film Gonks Go Beat, which also featured Lulu and the Nashville Teens.
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