Every RPM Canadian Content #1 single discussion thread 1964-2000

The Beatles forced a lot of tired acts off the charts.

thankgoodness

 

"Night Train From Tunisia" was the intended A-side:



I think I've got their album boxed up somewhere.

 

Yeah. "Me and You" hit number one, so that album comes up again in a week or two. It'snot bad.

 

Also, in Francophone Quebec Canadian record history, there's at least one French speaking artist, who was on two record labels simultaneously due to this independent nature of Canadian culture (hint, she's not Canadian Content per se, so off topic). In Francophone Canada, her records appeared on Trans-Canada records licensed from Disques Vogue, (and this included French and English Language recordings) in the rest of Canada on Warner Brothers Records via the Compo Company Of Canada. This artist is Petula Clark. An oddity in Canadian Record Industry history. Back to the topic of CanCon.

 

Peaking at #19 the week of December 28th, "Charlottetown" by Johnny Wayne (of Wayne & Shuster)

 

Peaking at #19 the next week, from Vancouver, Patty Surbey & The Canadian V.I.P's with "(I Want) A Beatle For Christmas"

 

Wow, what a wonderful find. Prime cheese, but still, Johnny has an excellent voice for a comedian. And what a Canadian song!

 

That's not 100% true, interestingly enough. A fair bit of her French-language recordings were recorded in Québec using Québécois songwriters. For example, her most recent album, Vu d'ici, is actually entirely CanCon from start to finish.

Petula Clark is amazing. A career that started in the 1940s and is still going strong today. Who else can say that?

 

so what is the most unsung Canadian label we are going to be seeing here?

been a few low-rent ones so far, Capitol seemed so top shelf that i had to comment


met the owner of Shotgun Records a few times, his son was an acquaintance in high school

 

I met Patterson a handful of times when I lived in Ottawa - we had mutual friends. He was a nice guy who had lots of interesting stories about the early music scene in Ottawa.

 

"Alone And Lonely" is your run-of-the-mill Bobby Curtola song. Competently done, but by no means memorable. It peaked at #11 on the main chart and, as far as I know, has never been issued on any CD.

Thanks to everyone for all the Gale Garnett info. Twenty-four hours ago I had no idea she had ever lived in Canada, but now I'm ready to acknowledge her as a fellow Canadian Everyone knows "We'll Sing In The Sunshine", so there's no need to post that, but by sheer coincidence, the week we're currently at, December 21, 1964, was the sole week that her only other Top 40 hit, "Lovin' Place", was on the chart (at #35).



I actually don't think the lyrics to "We'll Sing In The Sunshine" are all that Canadian. So she's going to stay with this dude for a year and sing in the sunshine and laugh every day. Even when it's minus 20?

 

Thanks for the update on Petula Clark, and the information about her having some CanCon in her recorded output.

 

Wow, great stuff. Thanks for posting. And just to clarify, we're talking #19 on the Cancon chart, not the general chart. That's how obscure this stuff is.

 

I'm a bit hesitant to bring it up after yesterday's discussion, but on the general RPM chart at which we've arrived, December 21, 1964, in addition to Lorne Greene and Gale Garnett, there was a third Canadian on the chart who apparently was not Canadian enough for RPM. His parents were French Canadian, he was raised in Edmonton, and he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, but he was actually born in Massachusetts (and, if the legend is true, must have been Elvis Presley's least favourite performer). I'm talking about this guy:



Just a couple of months earlier, there had weeks when on the forty-position regular RPM chart there had not been a single Canadian artist. But on the December 21, 1964, chart, including Lorne Greene, Gale Garnett, and Robert Goulet, I count eight Canadian artists.

Of the three subjects of the are-they-sufficiently-Canadian issue (Lorne Greene, Gale Garnett, and Robert Goulet), none would ever have another Top 40 hit.

UPDATE: It turns out that RPM initially did place “My Love Forgive Me” and “Ringo” and its ‘Chart Action Across Canada’ chart. On the October 26, 1964, chart, “My Love Forgive Me” debuted at #14. The following week, it rose to #6, while “Ringo” debuted at #8. But the week after that, November 9, both songs were gone, never to return.

 

On the December 21, 1964, RPM country chart (which was Cancon only), "Don't Come Crying" by Ron McLeod & The Lincoln County Boys started a four week stay at #1. It's more rockabilly than country with a nice Johnny Cash-type touch.

 

Here is my Gale Garnett anecdote - In 1974 I was working as a floor director at CITY-TV in Toronto.
Gale was on the News subbing for the host one night. She was forced to change her blouse and didn't want to leave the set.
So, she stripped there and then and told us not to look. I looked anyway.
Nice lady!

 

Although not Cancon related, the December 21, 1964, chart brings up a pet peeve of mine about Canadian oldies radio. On the main RPM chart that week, the #1 song was a recording by Sandie Shaw, a seventeen-year-old British lass, of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me". It was also #1 in Britain but in the US it only reached #52. In the more than forty years that I have been listening to Canadian oldies stations in various Canadian cities, I don't think I have ever heard this song. And this might be because Canadian oldies stations tend to be programmed by US-based consultants. Has anyone ever heard the song discussed yesterday, "So Many Other Boys" by The Esquires, an overall Top 10 hit in Canada, on a Canadian oldies station?

One more little quirk about "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me". It never made the CHUM chart. So we had the bizarre situation of RPM considering a song the #1 song in Canada even though the Top 40 station with the biggest audience in the country wasn't playing it. So after CHUM became an oldies station in 1986, it at least had a legitimate excuse for not playing the song. They hadn't played it in 1964 either!

 

Gary Ferrier was a CHUM disc jockey who made the occasional record. Enough other stations played "Ringo-Deer" for the song to peek on the January 4, 1965, main RPM chart at #33 (and at #4 on the CanCon chart on January 18). From the Youtube image, it appears it even had a US release.





I guess Beatlemania was so overwhelming that even this slice of mediocrity became a hit. I'll take Patty Surbey & The Canadian V.I.P's (Post #131) over this thing any day.

 

Correct.

 

There was a Canadian oldies station from around 20 years ago that would play B.C. stuff like Tom Northcott, the Collectors, the Nocturnals, that Laurel Ward & Terry Black song that wasn't even a hit.

 

Thank you for making this thread! I'm very interested in the earlier years of Canada's music industry, especially before '68/'69 when folks like Neil Young, The Band, Guess Who, etc. broke through internationally.

 

Weyburn, Saskatchewan, is 414 kilometers south of Yellow Creek, the birthplace of Joe Popiel, one of several Canadian artists recorded by Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico. His only Top 40 hit peaked on the January 4, 1965, main RPM chart at #35 (and at #4 on the CanCon chart on February 1.).







Norman Petty is listed on the label as a co-writer, as he is on some Buddy Holly songs, but I don't know if he actually was involved in the writing of any of these songs.

 

I was listening today to a frankly bizarre Bob Dylan parody that he did called "Like a Dribbling Fram".



And also if you're interested in records by CHUM DJs, there's the completely sincere "Brotherhoods of Man" by the Chumingbirds. One of the vocalists there was Bob Mcadorey, who I remember from TV as a kid, and whise daughter Michelle went on to front one of my favourite-ever CanCon bands, Crash Vegas.

 

Too bad this single isn't included on the Great Scots CD put out by Sundazed: The Great Scots - The Great Lost Great Scots Album!!!

 

It's on the CD shown in the video.

Bob & Lucille* - The Canadian Sweethearts

Also this one of just her solo work:

Lucille Starr - Sweet Memories