#3: I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats
Peak Month: December 1979
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
YouTube.com: “I Don’t Like Mondays”
Lyrics: “I Don’t Like Mondays”
The Boomtown Rats formed in Dublin in 1975. Bob Geldof was born in 1951 in a town on the coast south of Dublin called. Dún Laoghaire. After graduating from school, he had several jobs including working for The Georgia Straight newspaper in Vancouver, before returning to Ireland. Pete Briquette (born Patrick Martin Cusack) was born in 1954 in Ballyjamesduff where peat briquettes were burned for heat instead of coal. Garrick Roberts was born in Dublin in 1950, while Gerry Cott was born there in 1954. Cott learned to play flamenco guitar at the age of 11, and saw Bob Dylan in concert on May 5, 1966. The experience inspired Cott. Simon Crowe was born in Dublin in 1955, while Johnnie Fingers (born John Peter Moylett) was born in Dublin in 1956. When the band formed in 1975 they first named themselves The Nightlife Thugs. But they changed their name after Bob Geldof read Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory. In Guthrie’s autobiography, the Boomtown Rats is the name of Guthrie’s boyhood gang.
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#4: Right Down The Line by Gerry Rafferty
Peak Month: November-December 1978
Peak Position #1
22 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
YouTube.com: “Right Down The Line”
Lyrics: “Right Down The Line”
Gerry Rafferty was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1947. From the age of 17 he got work variously in a butcher’s shop, as a civil service clerk, and in a shoe shop. Once Beatlemania took hold, he formed a band called the Maverixs, who were a cover band singing songs by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. In the mid 1960s Rafferty earned money as a busker on the London Underground. In 1966, Rafferty joined the band The Fifth Column. The group released the single “Benjamin Day”/”There’s Nobody Here”. However it was a commercial flop. In 1969 he joined the folk group the Humblebums, and remained with them, performing at numbers of folk festivals into 1971.
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#5: Living Doll by Cliff Richard/David Hill
Peak Month: October-November 1959
Peak Position #1
20 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30 (Cliff Richard)/ did not chart (David Hill)
YouTube.com: “Living Doll” ~ Cliff Richard
YouTube.com: “Living Doll” ~ David Hill
Lyrics: “Living Doll”
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”.
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#6: Wasn’t That A Party by the Rovers
Peak Month: November-December 1980
Peak Position #1
19 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
YouTube.com: “Wasn’t That A Party”
Lyrics: “Wasn’t That A Party”
The Irish Rovers is a group of Irish musicians that originated in Toronto, Canada. They formed in 1963 and were named after the traditional song “The Irish Rover” they are best known for their international television series, contributing to the popularization of Irish Music in North America, including for their breakthrough song in 1968 called “The Unicorn”. Founding members and brothers, George Millar and Will Millar, were both born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Will Millar was born in 1940, and George in 1947. The children grew up in a musical household as their father Bob played button-key accordion for several bands throughout the years. Their cousin Joe Millar, who also sang, took part in the family kitchen parties playing button-key accordion and harmonica. As children, George and Will performed with their sister, Sandra Beech as “The Millar Kids” in Ireland, before the family emigrated to Canada.
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#7: My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone) by Chilliwack
Peak Month: November 1981
22 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
2 weeks Top 20 Extras
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube.com: “My Girl”
Lyrics: “My Girl”
Bill Henderson was born in Vancouver in 1944. He learned guitar and became the guitarist for the Panarama Trio that performed at the Panarama Roof dance club on the 15th Floor of the Hotel Vancouver. He formed the psychedelic pop-rock Vancouver band, The Collectors, in 1966. The Vancouver rock band The Collectors, was formerly named The Classics who were a Vancouver group led by Howie Vickers in the mid-60s who often appeared on CFUN. The Classics were part of the regular line-up on Let’s Go, a show on CBC TV. Though the Classics released several singles the group needed room to grow and reformed as The Collectors. They would become one of the most innovative of Vancouver’s recording acts through the rest 60s. In the spring of 1966, Vickers was asked to put together a house band at the Torch Cabaret in Vancouver. Along with Claire Lawrence on horns, they recruited guitarist Terry Frewer, drummer Ross Turney and Brian Newcombe on bass. Within a couple of months, fellow Classics member Glenn Miller replaced Newcombe on bass and Bill Henderson, a student at UBC, replaced Frewer on guitars. With Vickers now handling vocals, their sound changed from doing covers of R&B tunes to psychedelic rock. This led them to gigs along the Canadian and US west coast. Their strongest fan base in America was in California.
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#8: All My Loving/This Boy by the Beatles
A-side: “All My Loving”
Peak Month: March 1964
Peak Position #1
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #45
YouTube.com: “All My Loving”
Lyrics: “All My Loving”
B-side: “This Boy”
Peak Month: March 1964
Peak Position #1
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “This Boy”
Lyrics: “This Boy”
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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#9: Mister Fire Eyes by Bonnie Guitar
Peak Month: October-November 1957
Peak Position #2
20 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube.com: “Mister Fire Eyes”
Lyrics: “Mister Fire Eyes”
Bonnie Buckingham was born in 1923 in Seattle. She was raised on a farm outside of Auburn, south of Seattle. She learned to play guitar at the age of 12 from her older brothers. At the age of 16, she began performing at the end of the Great Depression. Having taken up playing the guitar as a teenager, this led to her stage name: Bonnie Guitar. She later started songwriting. At the age of 21, in 1944 Bonnie Guitar married her former guitar teacher Paul Tutmarc. The couple performed together around the Pacific Northwest as bandmates with Paul Tutmarc and the Wranglers. She got several offers to audition for roles in Hollywood movies. However, as Guitar told the Seattle Times in 1986, “It never culminated. My first husband didn’t want me to have anything to do with the Hollywood scene. And I wasn’t ready to make the move at the time.” The couple had one daughter in 1950 named Paula. But the marriage collapsed in 1955, and Bonnie moved to Los Angeles.
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#10: Too Bad by Doug and the Slugs
Peak Month: March-April-May 1980
Peak Position #2
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Plus 3 weeks Playlist
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Too Bad”
Lyrics: “Too Bad”
Doug Bennett was born in Toronto in 1951. He worked as a graphic designer after his schooling and at the age of 22 moved to Vancouver in 1973. He got a job as a cartoonist and editor for the weekly alternative paper the Georgia Strait. He also played with a number of bands. By 1977 Bennett was in search of some new outlets for his creativity and was introduced to guitarist John Burton. Burton had been in a group called The Ugly Slugs. Bennett and Burton began performing locally and added bassist Dennis Henderson, drummer Ted Laturnus and and Drew Neville on keyboards. They became Doug and The Slugs.
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#11: Fortune Teller/Johnny Take Your Time by Bobby Curtola
A-side: “Fortune Teller”
Peak Month: March 1962
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #1
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #41
YouTube.com: “Fortune Teller”
Lyrics: “Fortune Teller”
B-side: “Johnny Take Your Time”
Peak Month: May 1962
11 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Johnny Take Your Time”
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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#12: Modern Love by David Bowie
Peak Month: November 1983
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #1
2 weeks Playlist Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube.com: “Modern Love”
Lyrics: “Modern Love”
David Robert Jones was born in 1947 in Brixton, a suburb in the southern part of London, UK. From an early age he demonstrated talent as a singer and especially through dance and movement. When he was nine years old his father brought home some 45’s by Elvis Presley, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, Fats Domino and others. When David Jones heard Little Richard sing “Tutti Frutti” he later said in an interview that he “heard God.” Growing up, David learned to play the recorder, ukulele, piano and baritone saxophone. In 1962, at the age of 15 he formed a band named the Konrads. In 1964 he formed a band named David Jones and the King Bees. They appeared on the variety show Ready Steady Go! to sing their debut single, “Liza Jane”. Jones briefly moved on to join the Mannish Boys before being the front man for Davy Jones and The Lower Third. They released a single in 1965 titled “You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving”. Due to the growing popularity of another English recording artist named Davy Jones (who went on to become lead singer for The Monkees), David Robert Jones decided to change his professional name to David Bowie. He chose his surname after a 19th Century American pioneer named James Bowie who invented the Bowie knife.
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