#36: Where’s The Boy I Never Met by Jane Morgan
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: November 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Where’s The Boy I Never Met”
Lyrics: N/A
Florence Catherine Currier was born in 1924 in the suburbs of Boston. Her family moved to Florida when she was four-years-old. When she was five, Florence started taking voice lessons as well as piano. In the summertime, she was a child actor in theater productions at the Kennebunkport Playhouse in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Playhouse was founded by her brother. At the age of 17, in the summer of 1941, she was listed as the Treasurer of the Kennebunkport Playhouse. During her years at school, she competed in singing competitions with other students across Florida and the Southeast. Upon graduating from high school in Daytona Beach, she was accepted into the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan. She had plans to become an opera singer, and studied opera at the school.
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#7: I Ain’t Down Yet by Dinah Shore
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: March 1961
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #103
YouTube: “I Ain’t Down Yet”
Lyrics: “I Ain’t Down Yet”
Frances Rose Shore was born 1916 in the small town of Winchester, Tennessee. Her parents were Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers. At 18 months of age, she was stricken with polio. She developed a limp and a deformed foot. She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in sociology. In 1938 she appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, and made her radio debut on WSM in Nashville. She moved to New York City and auditioned to appear on radio. One of the popular songs of the era was “Dinah”, first recorded by Ethel Waters in 1925, and Louis Armstrong in 1930. Shore sang “Dinah” for WNEW DJ Martin Block. When he could not remember her name, he called her the “Dinah girl”, and soon after the name stuck, becoming her stage name. Dinah Shore eventually was hired as a vocalist at radio station WNEW, where she sang with Frank Sinatra. She recorded and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra, and signed a record contract with RCA Victor in 1940.
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#8: A Certain Smile by Johnny Mathis
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: October 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #7
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #14
YouTube: “A Certain Smile”
Lyrics: “A Certain Smile”
Johnny Mathis was born in Gilmer (TX) in 1935. His family moved to San Francisco when he was 5-years-old. His father was a vaudeville singer and piano player. Mathis began learning songs and routines from his father. Mathis’ first song was “My Blue Heaven”. He started singing and dancing for visitors at home, at school, and at church functions. When Mathis was 13, voice teacher Connie Cox accepted him as her student in exchange for housework. Mathis studied with Cox for six years, learning vocal scales and exercises, voice production, classical and operatic singing. In 1955, Mathis got a job singing weekends at Ann Dee’s 440 Club in San Francisco.
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#9: Very Much In Love by Johnny Mathis
City: Hull, PQ
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: June-July 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #88
YouTube: “Very Much In Love”
Lyrics: “Very Much In Love”
Johnny Mathis was born in Gilmer (TX) in 1935. His family moved to San Francisco when he was 5-years-old. His father was a vaudeville singer and piano player. Mathis began learning songs and routines from his father. Mathis’ first song was “My Blue Heaven”. He started singing and dancing for visitors at home, at school, and at church functions. When Mathis was 13, voice teacher Connie Cox accepted him as her student in exchange for housework. Mathis studied with Cox for six years, learning vocal scales and exercises, voice production, classical and operatic singing. In 1955, Mathis got a job singing weekends at Ann Dee’s 440 Club in San Francisco.
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#37: My Man by Peggy Lee
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: March 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #81
YouTube: “My Man”
Lyrics: “My Man”
Norma Deloris Egstrom was born in 1920 in Jamestown, North Dakota. Her family later moved to Wimbledon (ND). In Wimbledon, Lee was the female singer for a six-piece college dance band with leader Lyle “Doc” Haines. She traveled to various locations with Haines’ quintet on Fridays after school and on weekends. Lee first sang professionally over KVOC radio in Valley City, North Dakota, in 1936. She later had her own 15-minute Saturday radio show sponsored by a local restaurant that paid her salary in food. Both during and after her high-school years, Lee sang for small sums on local radio stations. In October 1937, radio personality Ken Kennedy, of WDAY in Fargo, (the most widely heard station in North Dakota), auditioned her and put her on the air that day, but not before he changed her name to Peggy Lee.
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#10: I Don’t Care Only Love Me by Steve Lawrence
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: June 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #55
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #62
YouTube: “(I Don’t Care) Only Love Me”
Lyrics: “(I Don’t Care) Only Love Me”
Sidney Liebowitz was born in 1935 to Jewish parents in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. His father, Max, was a cantor at the Brooklyn synagogue Beth Sholom Tomchei Harav, and his mother, Helen, was a homemaker. During high school, Lawrence skipped school to spend time at the Brill Building in the hopes of being employed as a singer. In 1952 at the age of 16, Lawrence signed a contract with King Records after winning a talent contest on Arthur Godfrey’s CBS TV show. That year he had a #21 hit single credited to Steve Lawrence on the Billboard pop chart titled “Poinciana”. The next year, talk show host Steve Allen hired Lawrence to be one of the singers on Allen’s local New York City late night show on WNBC-TV, with vocalists Eydie Gormé and Andy Williams. The show was chosen by NBC to be seen on the national network, becoming The Tonight Show, and Lawrence, Gormé, and Williams stayed until the program’s end in 1957. Lawrence credited the exposure and experience he gained on Allen’s show for launching his career “I think Steve Allen was the biggest thing that happened to me. Every night I was called upon to do something different. In its own way, it was better than vaudeville.”
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#5: The Blob by the Five Blobs
City: Guelph, ON
Radio Station: CJOY
Peak Month: November 1958
Peak Position in Guelph ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #40
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #35
YouTube: “The Blob”
Lyrics: “The Blob”
This “Artists’ Biography for Jockey Programming” was released by Columbia Records.
All Five Blobs Are Bernie Nee
Columbia’s Five Blobs are, one and all, Bernie Nee, an ex-Seabee who got his first taste of show business leading a band o Saipan. When he was discharged from the service in 1946, the Bronc lad re-entered New York University, switching his major from dentistry to music. He was fortunate enough to receive encouragement from his family. Upon graduation in 1948, Nee began playing guitar and bass with small groups at dances and weddings in and around New York. Then in 1951, he began to make demonstration records for song writers. During the same year he also made 30 children’s records, and sang radio and TV commercials with the Goldswan Singers. The tall, brown-haired singer is 32, married, and the father of three children.”
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#11: I’ve Got Bells On My Heart by Jane Morgan
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: June 1958
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #21
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “I’ve Got Bells On My Heart”
Lyrics: “I’ve Got Bells On My Heart”
Florence Catherine Currier was born in 1924 in the suburbs of Boston. Her family moved to Florida when she was four-years-old. When she was five, Florence started taking voice lessons as well as piano. In the summertime, she was a child actor in theater productions at the Kennebunkport Playhouse in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Playhouse was founded by her brother. At the age of 17, in the summer of 1941, she was listed as the Treasurer of the Kennebunkport Playhouse. During her years at school, she competed in singing competitions with other students across Florida and the Southeast. Upon graduating from high school in Daytona Beach, she was accepted into the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan. She had plans to become an opera singer, and studied opera at the school.
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#13: Pillow Talk by Doris Day
City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: December 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Pillow Talk”
Lyrics: “Pillow Talk”
Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff was born in 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. For most of her life, Day stated that she was born in 1924, but on the occasion of her 95th birthday, the Associated Press found her birth certificate that showed a 1922 date of birth. She was part of a dance duo into the mid-30s, but an October 1937 car accident with a freight train resulted in her having a broken leg. As she recovered, she found herself singing along with variety songs on the radio. She took singing lessons. During the eight months when she was receiving singing lessons, Day secured her first professional jobs as a vocalist on the WLW-Cincinnati radio program Carlin’s Carnival and in a local restaurant, Charlie Yee’s Shanghai Inn. During her radio performances, she first caught the attention of Barney Rapp who was seeking a female vocalist and asked her to audition for the job. According to Rapp, he had auditioned about 200 other singers.
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#10: This Night Won’t Last Forever by Michael Johnson
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: October 1979
Peak Position in Fredericton: #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #29 (CKLG Playlist)
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube: “This Night Won’t Last Forever”
Lyrics: “This Night Won’t Last Forever”
Michael Johnson was born in Alamosa, Colorado, in 1944. He began to play guitar at age 13. In 1965, he won an international talent contest. In 1966 he toured with Randy Sparks in the folk group New Society. When the group split in 1967, Johnson joined the Mitchell Trio (formerly named the Chad Mitchell Trio before Chad left in 1965). He co-wrote songs with fellow member John Denver. The trio morphed into Denver, Boise & Johnson. They released a single titled “Take Me Tomorrow” with a B-side titled “The ’68 Nixon (This Year’s Model)”.
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