#23: Justified And Ancient by KLF and Tammy Wynette
Peak Month: March 1992
Peak Position #1
17 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube.com: “Justified And Ancient”
Virginia Wynette Pugh was born in 1942 in the unincorporated Mississippi community of Bounds Crossroads. The farm in which she was born was on the Alabama state line. Her father died of a brain tumor when she was nine months old. Her mother moved to work in a defense plant in Memphis, Tennessee. Wynette, as she was called by her middle name, was raised by her grandparents and picked cotton on their Mississippi farm. She learned to play piano by ear. She got married at 17 to Euple Byrd, studied cosmetology and enrolled in a Beauty School in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1964, her uncle worked for the WBRC television station in Birmingham. He helped Wynette secure an audition for the Country Boy Eddie country music television show. The show’s headliner, Eddie Burns, was impressed and agreed to have her on the program. On her first show, she sang a cover of Patsy Cline’s “Sweet Dreams”. In 1966 she got divorced and moved to Nashville.
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#24: Leah by Roy Orbison
Peak Month: October 1962
Peak Position #1
13 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #25
YouTube.com: “Leah”
Lyrics: “Leah”
Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas in 1936. When he turned six his dad gave him a guitar. Both his dad, Orbie Lee, and uncle Charlie Orbison, taught him how to play. Though his family moved to Forth Worth for work at a munitions factory, Roy was sent to live with his grandmother due to a polio outbreak in 1944. That year he wrote his first song “A Vow of Love”. The next year he won a contest on Vernon radio station KVWC and was offered his own radio show on Saturdays. After the war his family reunited and moved to Wink, Texas, where Roy formed his first band, in 1949, called The Wink Westerners.
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#25: Oh Boy by the Crickets
Peak Month: December 1957
Peak Position #1 Red Robinson Teen Canteen chart
18 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #10
YouTube.com: “Oh Boy”
Lyrics: “Oh Boy”
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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#26: Let Your Backbone Slide by Maestro Fresh Wes
Peak Month: March 1990
Peak Position #1
16 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube.com: “Let Your Backbone Slide”
Lyrics: “Let Your Backbone Slide”
Wesley Williams was born in 1968 in Toronto. He grew up in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough. His parents were Guyanese immigrants. From the moment he entered public school, young Wes Williams was very conscious of how exotic he was as the only black child in his classroom. This was, after all, the 1970s. At the age of six, a little girl who was a next door neighbor asked him, “Wes, when are you going to turn white?” Wes Williams was curious about the question. He noticed he was growing taller. So, considering his skin might change, he asked his dad the question. Williams remembers, “My dad just said, ‘I’m still waiting, boy!'” When he was twelve years old, young Wes Williams heard “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang in 1979. From that day forward Williams had a sense of purpose and vision for himself. Even though there was no such thing at that time as a black rapper in Canada.
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#1320: How Many Tears by Bobby Vee
Peak Month: May 1961
6 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #9
C-FUN Twin Pick Hit April 29, 1961
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #63
YouTube.com: “How Many Tears”
Lyrics: “How Many Tears”
Bobby Vee was born in Fargo, North Dakota as Robert Thomas Velline. He was part of a highschool band that was asked to step in and perform for the concert that was to be headlined by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Each had died in a small plane crash the day before. And the concert was held in Moorhead, Minnesota, across the Red River from Fargo. Fifteen year old Vee and his band were a hit and he got a contract with Liberty Records. It was his fourth single release, “Devil or Angel”, that catapulted him into the Top Ten and teen idol stardom. The single topped the pop charts in Vancouver on September 10, 1960.
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#27: Tarzan Boy by Baltimora
Peak Month: January 1986
Peak Position on CKLG chart ~ #2
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #13
Peak Position on Cashbox Singles Chart ~ #18
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Finnish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on French Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Dutch Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Spanish Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Austrian Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Irish Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Norwegian Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Swiss Singles chart ~ #4
YouTube.com: “Tarzan Boy”
Lyrics: “Tarzan Boy”
James Harry McShane was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1957. He was raised in a conservative household and was faced with rejection when he came out as gay to his family. He was hired as a stage dancer and backing singer, touring Europe with Dee D. Jackson and her band. During a visit to Italy with the band, he was attracted to the country’s underground dance scene, which inspired him to relocate to Milan in 1984. Having initially made his debut playing in small clubs in Derry without success, McShane instead went to work as an emergency medical technician for the Red Cross until meeting Italian record producer and keyboardist Maurizo Bassi, with whom he created the band Baltimora. Bassi was born in Italy in 1960.
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#28: Hound Dog Man/Friendly World by Fabian
Peak Month: November 1959
A-side: “Hound Dog Man”
Peak Position #1
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #9
Peak Position on Cashbox Singles Chart ~ #11
YouTube.com: “Hound Dog Man”
Lyrics: “Hound Dog Man”
Peak Month: January 1960
B-Side: “Friendly World”
Peak Position #2
15 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
Peak Position on Cashbox Singles Chart ~ #16
YouTube.com: “Friendly World”
Lyrics: “Friendly World”
Fabian Forte was born in Philadelphia in 1943. His father was a police officer in the city. Forte was discovered in 1957 by Bob Marcucci and Peter DeAngelis, owners of Chancellor. At the time, record producers were looking to the South Philadelphia neighborhoods in search of teenage talents with good looks. Marcucci was a friend of Fabian’s next-door neighbor. One day, Fabian’s father had a heart attack, and, while he was being taken away in an ambulance, Marcucci spotted Fabian. Fabian later recalled, “He kept staring at me and looking at me. I had a crew cut, but this was the day of Rick Nelson and Elvis. He comes up and says to me, ‘So if you’re ever interested in the rock and roll business…’ and hands me his card. I looked at the guy like he was out of his mind. I told him, ‘Leave me alone. I’m worried about my dad.'” When Fabian’s father returned from the hospital he was unable to work, so when Marcucci persisted, Fabian and his family were amenable, and he agreed to record a single. Frankie Avalon, also of South Philadelphia, suggested Forte as a possibility. Fabian later said, “They gave me a pompadour and some clothes and those goddamned white bucks and out I went. He was the right look and right for what we were going for”, wrote Marcucci later.
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#29: Lucky Lips by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: August 1963
Peak Position #1
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube.com: “Lucky Lips”
Lyrics: “Lucky Lips”
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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#30: Honky Tonk Man by Johnny Horton
Peak Month: April 1957 & March 1962
April 1957: 9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #3
March 1962: 9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #96
YouTube.com: “Honky Tonk Man”
Lyrics: “Honky Tonk Man”
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.
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#31: Eyes Of A Stranger by the Payola$
Peak Month: July 1982
14 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Eyes Of A Stranger”
Lyrics: “Eyes Of A Stranger”
In 1978 a band was formed in Vancouver by Paul Hyde and Bob Rock called the Payola$. Hyde was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1955, and came to Vancouver in his teens. Bob Rock was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1954, and moved to Victoria, British Columbia, with his family in his later childhood. Rock learned to play guitar. Meeting in the Victoria suburb of Langford, the band settled on a name recalling the American music industry scandal investigated by the US Congress starting in 1959 called Payola. This was an illegal act where record companies paid deejays and radio stations a bribe for playing a single the record company wanted to get promoted. While it was legal for a record company to receive money in exchange for playing it on the radio, such a transaction had to be disclosed and not counted as regular airplay. While the Payola scandal did not spread into the Canadian radio market, as local legendary Vancouver Deejay Red Robinson attests in Robin Brunet’s book Red Robinson: The Last Deejay, Payola still had a bad name in the industry in America into the 80s. Consequently, although the Payola$ sold well in Canada, they met with stiff resistance south of the border.
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