1960-1969 |
| The Poppy Family:
That's Where I Went Wrong / Shadows on My Wall - 7" - 1969
When 17-year-old Susan Pesklevits asked former Chessmen guitarist Terry Jacks to accompany her on CBC's mid-sixties TV show Music Hop, she probably had little idea of the great things to come... |
| The Churls:
Send Me No Flowers - 1969
The chord-crunching blues-rock on the Churls' self-titled debut was hardly a million-seller for A&M. Still, that didn't stop Herb Alpert from issuing a second set of songs for the lads the followin... |
| 49th Parallel:
The 49th Parallel - 1969
Calgary's torch bearers in the great sixties rock sweepstakes were 49th Parallel, whose 1969 chart success, 'Twilight Woman', garnered them a few deserved rays of limelight.
... |
| Shame Tree:
Junior Saw It Happen / My Little Buttercup - 7" - 1969
There is not a heck of a lot out there in cyberland on Edmonton's Shame Tree. It appears that the group was most probably a five-piece consisting of singer Ed Kilbride, guitarist Al Mix and keyboar... |
| The Lyme:
Measles / I'm Only Dreaming - 7" - 1969
The Lyme's only release, the superb double-sider 'Measles' b/w'I'm Only Dreaming', was purportedly the first stereo 45 released in Canada. And the record might even have scaled some local c... |
| La Revolution Francaise:
Quebecois / Shoo-Doo-Bee-Do - 7" - 1969
After quitting Les Sinners in October of 1968, singer Francois Guy teamed up with Les Jaguars guitarist Jean-Guy Cossette to form the ominously titled La Revolution Francaise. With one-time Sinners... |
| Bent Wind:
Sussex - 1969
Bent Wind's Sussex is phenomenally rare, with those few surviving copies fetching upwards of (USD)4000 bucks a pop.
Sussex traces its origins back to a drug-addled hous... |
| Five Man Electrical Band:
Five Man Electrical Band - 1969
With 1967 turning out to be a fruitful one for the Staccatos - their 'Half Past Midnight' had cracked the top ten in Canada - the band headed down to New Yo... |
| L' Infonie:
Vol. 3 - 1969
The Montreal-based electronic/free jazz/avant-garde collective L'Infonie formed in 1967 under the direction of Walter Boudreau and featured Quebecois singer/poet Raoul Duguay in his recording debut.... |
| Rockadrome:
Royal American 20th Century Blues - 1969
A near-mint copy of Rockadrome's lone 1969 LP will probably set you back at least a month's rent - and we're not talking a one-bedroom in up Wawa (ON), either. Recorded in the early months of 1969... |
| The British North-American Act:
In the Beginning... - 1969
The soft-psych sounds on the British North-American Act's 1969 LP In the Beginning... now fetch upwards of a thousand bucks a pop, though this must be due more to the record's obscurity than ... |
| David:
David - 1969
From the same label that gave us Rockadrome comes the six-man, one-woman David. Their sole album is one of those wonderful, flawed surprises from the era, an overreaching blend of orchestral pop wi... |
| Mother Tuckers Yellow Duck:
One Ring Jane / Kill the Pig - 7" - 1969
Though Toronto may have gotten all the press back in the day (try googling these: the Yorkville scene, the Festival Express, the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival), it seems that by the late sixties the... |
| The Stone Circus:
Stone Circus - 1969
The Stone Circus LP has long been one of the holy grails to collectors of the legendary Mainstream label, but so little is known about it that the misconceptions have grown along with its monetary v... |
| Cargo:
Front Side Back Side - 1969
Merv Buchanan originally started up his now-sought-after Trend label in 1965 in a crusty old studio out in the wilds of suburban east Toronto. The enterprising dee jay and producer half-flippantly ... |
| Cathy Young:
A Spoonful of Cathy Young - 1969
When local Diggers' David DePoe and Brian (Blues) Chapman organized the Queen's Park Love-In in May of 1967, the budding singer-songwriter Cathy Young was barely a busker on the streets of Toronto's... |
| Doomsday Machine:
Ain't Nobody Else (On My Mind) / Toe Nails - 7" - 1969
Doomsday Machine put out a couple of professionally recorded singles for the Dot label in 1969. The five-piece from Kingsville, just to the south of Windsor (ON), consisted of guitarist Jerry Alice... |
| Merryweather:
Merryweather - 1969
The mid-to-late 1960s California rock landscape was littered with Canadian expatriates jostling for a record deal and the allure of fame and fortune. By the end of the decade, Canadian musicians we... |
| Edward Bear:
Bearings - 1969
The group responsible for one of the seventies' most saccharine songs, the interminably sappy (though secretly pleasurable) 'Last Song', might have ended up... |
| The Village S.T.O.P.:
North Country / Vibration - 7" - 1969
If we are to believe guitarist Paul Marcoux, the Village S.T.O.P. were pretty much the cutting edge of Canadian freakdom back in the day.
The Hamilton quintet had just landed... |
| The Original Caste:
One Tin Soldier / Highway - 7" - 1969
As a child, Bruce Innes was something of a prodigy in his native Calgary, performing professionally at the tender age of eleven, with his father chauffeuring him to and from gigs and making sure tha... |
| The Five Bells:
Big City / Moody Manitoba Morning - 7" - 1969
Anyone alive in the early seventies will no doubt remember - and not necessarily fondly - the Bells' 'Stay Awhile', perhaps the most syrupy love ballad ever to ooze from all those transistor ... |
| Strange Movies:
(I Can) Feel It Coming / What a Drag - 7" - 1969
The origins of Strange Movies can actually be traced back to the mid-sixties and the sunny British Columbia interior. It was there that a couple of long-forgotten bands, Jimmy and the Rebounds and... |
| Suzanne:
Suzanne - 1969
Like many a teenaged Toronto musician in the mid-sixties, Greg Hambleton could be found in Yorkville making the scene in the clubs and cafes of that city's buzzing enclave. The would-be singer-songw... |
| Reign Ghost:
Reign Ghost - 1969
Bob Bryden was just twelve years old when his family shifted down the old Highway 7 from white-collar Ottawa to the gritty factory town of Oshawa, just outside Toronto. But after a brief spell of c... |
| Garry Garnette:
Have You Heard the News / Sick and Tired - 7" - 1969
Garry Garnette's 'Have You Heard the News' is about as tough to find as a record can get these days. Its silky supper club soul has found its way onto the UK dance floors and that of course ... |
| Sugar and Spice:
Cruel War / Not to Return - 7" - 1969
Sugar and Spice's 'Cruel War' was a cash cow of sorts for Frank Weiner and his tiny Franklin label. The Winnipeg band's hokey version of Peter Yarrow and Neil Stookey's love-in-a-time-of-war... |
| The Circle Widens:
See About Dreamin' / Weird Understanding - 7" - 1969
The Circle Widens' blistering b-side 'Weird Understanding' has been creating a bit of a stir amongst collectors of late. But what the cratediggers may not know is that the authors of that long-lost... |
| Le Triangle:
Deux miroirs / Les montagnes russes - 7" - 1969
Pierre Senecal, Rayburn Blake and Jerry Mercer had been kicking around the Montreal music scene since 1960, playing under various names like the Phantoms, Ray Blake's Combo and the Dominoes. By 1965... |
| The Trials of Jayson Hoover:
King Size / Baby I Love You - 7" - 1969
Unlike R&B-obsessed Toronto, Vancouver in the 1960s was more heavily affected by the electric sounds emanating out of northern California, with the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Co... |
| The Paper Dream:
My Mind's Eye / She's No Good - 7" - 1969
Tiny Smiths Falls, Ontario (pop. 8,780) may not mean much to most of us, but to those music insiders of a certain vintage, it was home to the massive RCA record pressing plant. From 1953 until its ... |
| Marie Claude:
Un Peu Beaucoup / La Lecon D'anglais - 7" - 1969
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Or something like that.
Marie Claude's lone seven-inch, the deliciously dreamy 'Un peu beaucoup', is about as obscure as a reco... |
| Rhinoceros:
Apricot Brandy / When You Say You're Sorry - 7" - 1969
Michael Fonfara is not exactly the first person to come to mind when you hear the word 'legendary'. Nor, I suppose, are many of the bands he played in, from Jon and Lee and the Checkmates and Rhinoc... |
| Eric Mercury:
Electric Black Man - 1969
When he passed away in March 2022, Eric Mercury was unknown outside of a tiny niche of hardcore Canuckophiles. There were few if any mentions in the international or the music press. But here in Can... |
| Dianne Brooks:
Walkin' on My Mind / Need to Belong - 7" - 1969
Dianne Brooks is probably the best Canadian singer you've never heard of.
Ray Charles called her "the greatest voice I've heard since Dinah Washington", while to The Toronto Star's Ja... |
| Buckstone Hardware:
Pack It In / You're Still Feelin' Better - 7" - 1969
Jake Thomas first picked up his brother's guitar while he was just a kid in North Bay (ON), and by the age of seventeen he was already on the road touring northern towns like Timmins and Rouyn-Noran... |
| Tony Kosinec:
Processes - 1969
Tony Kosinec may not exactly be a household name. But he is author of one of the most enduring songs in Canadian history: the 'Okay Blue Jays' song, co-written with Jack Lenz in the early eighties a... |
| The Sedum Shadows:
Thinking Away / Anatomy of a Shadow - 7" - 1969
'Thinking Away' was the third release on Merv Buchanan's tiny Trend label, mostly known to the outside world for having issued Bent Wind's mega-ra... |
| The Looking Glass:
Get It Down / Waterfall - 7" - 1969
The Looking Glass formed in the Niagara Peninsula in the spring of 1968, and it certainly didn't take long for their riveting live sets to get noticed.
"The Looking Glass, from St. C... |
| The Folklords:
Release the Sunshine - 1968
The Folklords were a sort of tripped-out We Five. In their brief existence, the Toronto band issued just one LP, the vaguely psychedelic Release the Sunshine, which for what it's worth seems t... |
| The Media:
Girl, I Want You / Endless Dream - 7" - 1968
A mint copy of this insanely obscure psych nugget would probably set you back a few thousand bucks if you managed to track one down. What little is known about the record comes from a YouTube post ... |
| Mandala:
You Got Me / Help Me - 7" - 1968
Toronto's Mandala started things off as the Rogues in early 1965 when singer George Olliver teamed up with former Robbie Lane and the Disciples guitar whiz kid Dominic Troiano. A couple of years spen... |
| The Underworld:
Bound b/w Go Away - 7" - 1968
Toronto's Underworld were a garage band managed by Jed MacKay (of It's All Meat) along with fellow Meatster Rick McKim. McKim's father was rather conveniently positio... |
| Mock Duck:
Do Re Mi / Playing Games - 7" - 1968
Guitarist Joe Mock got his start fronting the folky Joe Mock and No Commercial Potential, but by 1967 the blossoming Vancouver scene was already starting to attract some of the more talked-about Cal... |
| The Mutual Understanding:
In Wonderland - 1968
"Welcome to Wonderland - momentary abode of the Mutual Understanding - a happy moment in time where all can share in the magic of a mighty and cheerful sound. And meet the Mutual Understanding - as... |
| J.K. & Co.:
Suddenly One Summer - 1968
Until its reissue onto CD (Beatrocket, 2001), J.K. & Co.'s Suddenly One Summer was one of those impossibly rare records that seemed to find its way onto every collector's want list, but which f... |
| The Paupers:
Ellis Island - 1968
Following the tepid response to their 1967 debut LP Magic People, and the near-mythical meltdown at The Monterey Pop Festival that followed it, the Paupers ... |
| Kensington Market:
Avenue Road - 1968
A late night jam with the Lovin' Spoonful's Zal Yanofsky in 1967 would prove to be the big break for Toronto's Kensington Market.
As Nicholas Jennings tells it ... |
| Expedition to Earth:
Expedition to Earth / Time Time Time - 7" - 1968
On the Garage Hangover site, Expedition to Earth's Dan Norton recounts how the band took small-town Canada by surprise, in this case the booming metropolis of Canora, Saskatchewan (pop. 2200). "...... |
| Mandala:
Soul Crusade - 1968
After the success of their top-ten corker 'Opportunity', the Mandala seemed destined for opportunities of their own. Their manager Rafael Markowitz (aka Ra... |
| The Plastic Cloud:
The Plastic Cloud - 1968
In July of 1967, the Jefferson Airplane took up a week-long residence at the massive O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. They followed that up with an additional free concert in the sun-drenched and still ne... |
| The Adanac Reply:
What Would It Be Like? / The Other One - 7" - 1968
Guitarist Thom Nelson originally formed the Nocturns in Calgary in the early sixties, and like many a budding rock star at the time, plied a Shadows-influenced brand of instrumental rock and roll. ... |
| The Rabble:
Give Us Back Elaine! - 1968
The Rabble, a criminally obscure assortment of hippies from Montreal's western suburbs, were riding a wave of popularity in 1968 after having scored locally with their fetchi... |
| Evolution Expantion:
Blow Up / Blues Finding - 7" - 1968
The orthographically challenged Evolution Expantion unleashed this devilishly rare seven-inch on Art Young's hip Montreal-based Trans-World label, home to local faves the Haunted and the Rabble, som... |
| Intersystems:
Free Psychedelic Poster Inside - 1968
As the experimental electronic duo Intersystems, synthesizer pioneer John Mills-Cockell and performance poet Blake Parker put out three records in the late 1960s: the relatively acoust... |
| Witness Inc.:
Harlem Lady / I Put a Spell on You - 7" - 1968
Saskatoon's Witness Inc were no doubt riding high after the success of their second single, the Frankie Laine classic 'Jezebel' - that one sold a surprising 50,000 ... |
| The Nihilist Spasm Band:
No Record - 1968
Taking their cue from the spasm bands of early New Orleans, essentially motley collections of musicians performing on found objects, London, Ontario's Nihilist Spasm Band are a fine example of both ... |
| The Fringe:
Plastic People / Nancy Brown - 7" - 1968
The Toronto-based Fringe were one of the most celebrated and exciting Canadian psych acts to emerge in Canada in the late sixties, so much so that Quality Records at the time hailed them as "Canada'... |
| The Grass Company:
Once a Days / Once a Child - 7" - 1968
In May 1967 The Windsor Star featured a story in its Saturday entertainment section with the hyperbolic headline "Sarnia's Answer to the Beatles". The fact that it was about a group that were barely... |
| Les Loups Blancs:
Je sais que tu mens b/w Sylvianne - 7" - 1968
Les Loups Blancs were so far behind the times that they almost seem like trailblazers. The Montreal band used to deck themselves out in matching Beatles suits and bleached-blond coiffures (hence t... |
| The Churls:
The Churls - 1968
Somewhere over the years the Churls ended up near the bottom of history's overcrowded dust heap. But back in late 1967 the heavy-hitting rockers had quite a presence on Toronto's Yorkville scene, at... |
| Influence:
Influence - 1968
Montreal, in French-speaking Quebec, is not the obvious place you would find British musicians at the height of the 1960s rock explosion. But that's exactly where two expatriates reunited by chance ... |
| Sweet Somethings:
He's My Soul Baby / Pot of Gold - 7" - 1968
It may not be widely known, but one of the first all-female rock and roll acts - anywhere in the world - was a group of five Montrealers called Les Beatlettes. That band formed in February 1964, iss... |
| The Valhallla:
Witch Doctor b/w Mister Fantasy - 7" - 1968
The Valhalla got their start in Toronto back in 1967 and issued this hyper-rare single the following year for Merv Buchanan's now sought-after Trend label. The band were a six-piece consisting of s... |
| The Mongrels:
My Woman / Sitting in the Station - 7" - 1968
Most people who know Winnipeg at all probably know it for the Guess Who, or perhaps as the place where a teenaged Neil Young cut his first record. But the prairie capital famous for its bitterly co... |
| United Empire Loyalists:
No, No, No / Afraid of the Dark - 7" - 1968
By the time the United Empire Loyalists got around to releasing this deliciously rare seven-inch - the only piece of wax they would ever make - they were already fixtures on the west coast undergrou... |
| Gordon Lightfoot:
Black Day in July / Pussywillows, Cat-Tails - 7" - 1968
It was actually more of a black night in July.
The Detroit riots of 1967 were certainly not the first there - the city had previously erupted in the summer of 1943 leaving 34 dead a... |
| Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers:
Does Your Mama Know About Me / Fading Away - 7" - 1968
In his autobiography, Tommy Chong described the Calgary of his childhood as "more like Mississippi than California in the way that black people were treated." It was precisely in such an environmen... |
| The Poppy Family:
Beyond the Clouds / Free from the City - 7" - 1968
Susan Jacks (nee Pesklevits) started out young - at the age of seven to be precise - and by fifteen was singing regularly on TV. But the cherubic singer with the most beguiling of voices had to be ... |
| Le Pouvoir des Fleurs:
Je ne sais pas pourquoi / Va t'en chez toi - 7" - 1968
It is probably to no one's surprise that a band with a name like Le Pouvoir des Fleurs came into existence in 1967. But what many may not know is that the roots of this Quebec group actually go bac... |
| Grant Smith and the Power:
Thinkin' About You / You Got What I Want - 7" - 1968
Grant Smith and the Power are barely a footnote these days in the annals of Canuckistani scholarship, but in their time they were a popular group plying rock and soul at teen clubs around Toronto an... |
| Guido Basso:
Christmas Today - 1968
For people of a certain vintage, Yuletide used to mean Yukon Cornelius battling the abominable snowman, Andy Williams in turtlenecks, and the wholesome music of Henry Mancini, the Swingle Sisters or... |
| The Five Shy:
Try to Be Happy / Saints and Angels - 7" - 1968
Toronto's Five Shy were a rare example of sunshine pop in a city much better known at the time for sweaty, driving r'n'b and guitar-heavy garage-psych. Though the Five Shy are about as close to the... |
| Andy Kim:
How'd We Ever Get This Way / Are You Ever Coming Home - 7" - 1968
The world can probably be divided into two camps: those who will and those who will not admit to secretly loving Andy Kim's jubilant sing-alo... |
| The Willapuss Wallapuss:
To Jone / Sacrificial Virgin - 7" - 1968
Singer/keyboardist Bruce Ley had his fingers in a number of pies back in the day, from Hamilton garagesters the Gentle Touch and their scorchi... |
| Mary Saxton:
Sad Eyes / Take My Heart - 7" - 1968
She may have been as white as the snow that blanketed her hometown of Edmonton for much of the year, but Mary Saxton could belt out blistering northern soul with the best of them.
T... |
| The Fringe:
Flower Generation / Token for My Mind - 7" - 1968
The Fringe formed in 1967 and are mostly remembered, if at all, for having as a founding member the late Chuck Cadman, a thrice-elected Member of Parliament who died of cancer in 2005. They also ha... |
| Les Items:
Foxy Lady / J'aimerais tant te revoir - 7" - 1968
Throughout the 1960s in Quebec, Denis Pantis was the Man...well, sort of.
Pantis was actually one of three erstwhile pop idols from the early sixties who had turned their attentions a... |
| Tyme and a Half:
It's Been a Long Time / Magic Island - 7" - 1968
There must have been a bit of a Netherlands connection up in Trenton, Ontario. It was in that tiny military town some two hours to the east of Toronto that Dutch-born Barry 'Buzz' Vandersel hooked ... |
| The Sound Box:
Warm Your Mind and Soul / I'm Learning - 7" - 1968
The Sound Box issued a couple of decent psych singles on the Regency label at the tail end of the sixties. The Montreal quintet was formed in 1968 by drummer Brian Redmond, along with guitarist M... |
| The Tiaras:
Foolish Girl / Surprise - 7" - 1968
The Tiaras' two singles are virtually unknown outside of a handful of northern soul anoraks on the other side of the ocean in Britain. But here in Canuckistan, the Toronto group is important for be... |
| Simple Simon and the Piemen:
People of Time / Anyhow - 7" - 1968
Simple Simon and the Piemen from Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grace neighbourhood are probably best remembered today - if at all, truthfully - for having been the launching pad for guitarist Robert Stan... |
| The Tiaras:
Where Does All the Time Go / All I Ever Need Is You - 7" - 1968
Brenda Russell was just 12 years old when her musical parents (her father Gus Gordon was once a member of the Ink Spots) left Brooklyn for the relatively colour-blind city of Hamilton, Ontario. And ... |
| Rings and Things:
To Me: To Me: To Me / Strange Things Are Happening - 7" - 1968
Martin Hillman had his fingers in a number of pies back in the day. He left his native Montreal in the late 1950s to pursue his singing dreams down in the U.S. There, as Marty Hill, he recorded a h... |
| The Wee Beasties:
Something to Do with the Weather / The Cherry Tree - 7" - 1968
The Wee Beasties may be about as close to the bottom of that proverbial dustbin as a band can get these days, but that is certainly no reason to ignore this swell popsike seven-inch.
... |
| The Pinkerton Colours:
Strange Things / Girl by the Bay - 7" - 1968
The Pinkerton Colours released just one middling forty-five in their brief existence. That record, the vaguely psychedelic 'Strange Thing' with its whirling organ and searing guitar, seems t... |
| Jay Telfer:
Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness / Watch the Birdie - 7" - 1968
Though he was once a household name in Canrock circles, Jay Telfer seems to have fallen a little deeper than most down the well of pop history. As the singer and principle songwriter for A Passing F... |
| Paul Anka:
Can't Get You Out of My Mind / When We Get There - 7" - 1968
From a distance, it would seem as if Paul Anka's fall from the pop charts in the 1960s was precipitous. But that was only half the story. The Ottawa-born wunderkind, who at fourteen 'borrowed' his m... |
| The Raja:
Realize / Drifting in the Wind - 7" - 1968
Brian Russell's musical pedigree stretches all the way back to 1961, when he strummed guitar for the initial version of Vancouver's Classics (or, as they were also known, the CFUN Classics after the... |
| The Guess Who:
These Eyes / Lightfoot - 7" - 1968
The late 1960s was an exciting time for rock and roll, and the popular music scene in Canada was no exception. While Britain and America had numerous groups and singers dominating the radio and the ... |
| Eddie Spencer:
You're So Good to Me Baby / If This Is Love (I'd Rather Be Lonely) - 7" - 1968
It may not be the first song that comes to mind when you think of northern soul. But once you get past the more obvious Wigan classics - from stone-cold floorshakers like Dobie Gray... |
| Eddie Spencer:
Dream Lover / Whiter Shade of Pale - 7" - 1968
Of the dozen or so top-twenty hits that Bobby Darin enjoyed in his career, perhaps none is more durable than his silky smooth 'Dream Lover'. Indeed, the song has been covered countless times... |
| The Midnight Angels:
I'm Sufferin' / (I Wish) in the Moonlight - 7" - 1968
Charles Nabess first cut his guitar chops way up in the tiny hamlet of Thicket Portage, Manitoba, a good 600 km to the north of Winnipeg. The young Metis, who grew up as the second youngest in a f... |
| The Young Society:
Games / Flyin' Away - 7" - 1968
The Young Society were a short-lived concern, lasting just a couple of years towards the end of the sixties. But thankfully the BC band managed to bequeath a rather nifty seven-inch on the tiny Arre... |
| The Andantes:
Today's Fool / Lady - 7" - 1968
The Andantes were once considered to be the most talented band in Regina.
That may sound like a joke - I mean, the Saskatchewan city in the mid-sixties had barely 125,000 souls - but ... |
| Chicho Valle and His Orchestra:
Latin Lustre - 1968
Long before there was Hilario Duran or Evaristo Machado or even Jane Bunnett, there was Chicho Valle. In the 1950s and '60s, decades before concepts like 'world music' or 'globalization' were part o... |
| Winter's Green:
Are You a Monkey? / Jump in the River - 7" - 1968
Winter's Green trace their roots back to early 1966 and the merging of two little-known Vancouver bands, the Citations and the Continentals. By the following year, Winter's Green started finding the... |
| Jaye's Rayders:
No Chance / I Still Love You - 7" - 1968
These Brantford ON lads - and I do mean 'lads' as they were all still in their teens - seem to have taken a page out of the Paul Revere and the Raiders schtick book. The Oct. 25, 1965 issue of RPM ... |
| Gloria Kaye:
Weather / Child - 7" - 1968
The year 1968 was a banner year for Greg Hambleton, or so said RPM. In its November 11th issue, the music magazine wrote that "Greg Hambleton, singer, composer, engineer, publisher and producer has ... |
| Meddy's People:
Fantasy World / Mister Sister - 7" - 1968
Meddy's People actually trace their lineage to southern England, where they formed as the Traces in 1964. But the BC group didn't qualify for CanRock certification until the following year when 16-y... |
| Carnival Connection:
Poster Man / Alfred Appleby - 7" - 1968
"We were entertainers," J.B. and the Playboys' singer Allan Nicholls told the Montreal Gazette. "We took it seriously."
Nicholls formed the group with guitarist Bill Hill in 1963. The... |
| The Chosen Few:
Footsee / You Can Never Be Wrong - 7" - 1968
In the fall of 1974, Russ Winstanley gave an obscure US instrumental 45 a spin at the legendary Wigan Casino. It was a long-forgotten throwaway song called 'Footsie' by a group of Montrealers called... |
| The Ugly Ducklings:
Somewhere Outside - 1967
Nineteen sixty-six was the year pop's voice cracked, when its squeaky clean Beatles complexion broke out in the pimply scruff of garage rock all over North America. From the Chocolate Watchband out in... |
| The Rabble:
The Rabble - 1967
The Rabble were five boho lads from Pointe Claire on Montreal's west island who played a nominally funky, oddly eccentric alternative to the Haunted's straight-on garage rock. Their first album is ... |
| The Rabble:
You Come On Too Strong / Golden Girl - 7" - 1967
The Rabble got their start in 1966 when guitarist Mike Harris teamed up with singer John Pimm and guitarist Rick Metcalfe in Pointe Claire over on Montreal's west island. However, despite releasing... |
| Les Sinners:
Sinerisme - 1967
Les Sinners flitted between English and French-speaking Montreal, a place where the stone structures along Rue St.-Jacques, once the storehouse of stolid anglo wealth, sat just around the corner from ... |
| The Haunted:
The Haunted - 1967
Mid-sixties fuzzbox-driven garage rock was ubiquitous across North America in 1966 and the Montreal area was no exception. Local legends the Haunted, with guitarists Jurgen Peter and Al Birmingham at... |
| The Ugly Ducklings:
Postman's Fancy / Not for Long - 7" - 1967
The Ugly Ducklings' fourth single saw them dabbling in psychedelia to limited success. The b-side, 'Not for Long', is the better of the two tracks here, a summery slice of pop existentialism, languor... |
| The Amen:
Carnivals and Cotton Candy / Peter Zeus - 7" - 1967
The Amen got their start up in Sault Ste. Marie in the early part of 1966. The band were weekly regulars at their local Teen Centre and spent much of that year toiling about northern Ontario, venturin... |
| (Those) Rogues:
Wish I Could See You Again / Girl - 7" - 1967
Like the Amen, (Those) Rogues came out of the tiny, though curiously fertile, Sault Ste Marie (Ontario) scene. The five-piece is known to have played at a place called the Sundown Room as well as i... |
| Les Miserables:
Les Miserables - 1967
If the Ugly Ducklings were Canada's Rolling Stones, then Les Miserables were Quebec's.
Like the Stones in the mid-sixties, Les Miserables were a five-piece. They were also known as th... |
| M.G. and the Escorts:
A Someday Fool / It's Too Late - 7" - 1967
From suburban Pointe-Claire, on Montreal's west island, M.G. and the Escorts saw some chart action at local radio station CFCF with their 1966 debut seven-incher, the rather lame merseybeat of 'Plea... |
| Inferno 5 Plus 1:
I Can Take It / Fay's Gig - 7" - 1967
As Inferno 5, guitarist Lance Whitman, singer John Bell, bassist Wayne Wallace, drummer Leslie Maki and Dave Powers on keyboards, were in charge of keeping the locals entertained at the Inferno club... |
| Witness Inc.:
Jezebel / Not You Girl - 7" - 1967
Out of the prairies - Saskatoon to be exact - came local heroes the Witness Inc., who got their 15 minutes' worth with their second seven-incher for Apex, a cover of the Frankie Laine hit 'Jezebel' th... |
| The Quiet Jungle:
Ship of Dreams / Everything - 7" - 1967
Doug Rankine and the Secrets scored a huge hit in early 1966 with a rather goofy novelty tune called 'Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack'. The song was a quintessentially Canadian ode to the bur... |
| Threads of Fybre:
Mama / Believe Me - 7" - 1967
From the tiny village of St. Clement's near Kitchener, Ontario, Threads of Fybre were a rather fleeting concern, allegedly performing not more than ten times in their entire career. Nonetheless, in t... |
| The Staccatos:
Half Past Midnight / Weatherman - 7" - 1967
Following on the success of early rock 'n' rollers the Esquires, Ottawa's most successful sixties group got their start in 1963 as the backing band for local DJ and singer Dean Hagopian, releasing a... |
| The Northwest Company:
Hard to Cry b/w Get Away from It All - 7" - 1967
Things were happening big time on the west coast in 1967, not just in California, but all the way up the Pacific to places like Vancouver. Bands like the Painted Ship and the Collectors had their r... |
| The Eyes of Dawn:
Little by Little / Kaleidoscope - 7 - 1967
After the modest success of their debut seven-inch 'Time to Be Going', which had seen some local chart action earlier in the year, the Eyes of Dawn lost the... |
| The Mike Jones Group:
Each and Every Day / Funny Feeling - 7" - 1967
The Mike Jones Group was originally formed in the early months of 1966 by a couple of high school buddies, singer Michel Lachance (a.k.a. Mike Jones) and guitarist Bob Panetta. The Montreal five-pie... |
| The Mandala:
Opportunity / Lost Love - 7" - 1967
With the Rogues, keyboard player Josef Chirowski, bassist Don Elliot and drummer Whitey Glan cut their soul teeth in the clubs on Toronto's Yonge Street, most notably at Club Bluenote, where they we... |
| The Stonemen:
In the Evening / Faded Colors - 7" - 1967
The Stonemen's lone single is criminally obscure, with only a handful of copies known to have survived the sixties. For years there was such a paucity of information out in cyberland that even the ... |
| The Nocturnals:
Do What You Want / Detroit - 7" - 1967
The Nocturnals were actually part-owners of the cleverly named Grooveyard, a happening nightclub over in New Westminster, B.C. that played host to r'n'b acts from 1965 to 1968. The band had been ki... |
| The Painted Ship:
Audience Reflections / And She Said Yes - 7" - 1967
After the regional success of their fantastic double-sider 'Little White Lies' / 'Frustration', William (the Captain) Hay and his Painted Ship sailed into t... |
| Les Lutins:
Je cherche / Elle n'a rien compris - 7" - 1967
Back in the early 1960s, Saint-Hyacinthe was sort of Quebec's version of Liverpool. The charming city of 50,000 just east of Montreal punched way above its weight, giving birth to a number of cool ... |
| Chapter V:
Dolly's Magic / The Sun Is Green - 7" - 1967
This obscure little single marked one of Brian Ahern's first trips into the studio, both in front of the microphone and behind the controls. The mega-famous producer, who by now is renowned for ha... |
| The Paupers:
Magic People - 1967
For someone giving Magic People a spin for the first time, there is a point midway through the track 'It's Your Mind', precisely when the blithe rhythms segue into the sort of sunshiny chorus... |
| The Eyes of Dawn:
Time to Be Going / Ignorance and Hardship - 7" - 1967
Formed in Ottawa in 1966, the five-piece Eyes of Dawn won a Big 9 battle of the bands contest across the river in Hull, Quebec, leading to a six-month stint as the house band at the La Petite Souris... |
| R. Dean Taylor:
There's a Ghost in My House / Don't Fool Around - 7" - 1967
R. Dean Taylor started singing at various open-air country and western shows when he was just 12 years old, and by 21 the Toronto native had already issued his first record, the pop/rockabilly floor... |
| Our Generation:
I'm a Man / Run Down Every Street - 7" - 1967
In the mid sixties Montreal's anglo suburbs on the western part of the island were a hotbed of garage rock, with bands like the Haunted and M.G. and the Escorts kicking up quite a storm locally. Th... |
| Our Generation:
Out to Get Light / Cool Summer - 7" - 1967
Right about the time that Montreal's Our Generation were enjoying their first quarter hour of fame, courtesy of their version of Muddy Waters' 'I'm a Man' o... |
| The Footprints:
Never Say Die / Mama Rand's - 7" - 1967
This totally forgotten Montreal band released a few singles in the 1960s on the Columbia and Capitol labels, the best of which is probably this cool double-sider, which according to Billboard magazi... |
| The Collectors:
Looking at a Baby / Old Man - 7" - 1967
The Collectors were probably Vancouver's premier psychedelic band and the only one at the time, aside from the Poppy Family, to have the bulk of their records also released south of the border. The... |
| Christine et Ses Copains:
Mon mini-croulant / Parce que je suis petite - 7" - 1967
The very short-lived Christine et Ses Copains recorded at least three groovy singles on the Elysee label in Quebec before seemingly vanishing into thin air. The Montreal five-piece was fronted by t... |
| Les Talmud:
Avoir raison / Un autre ami - 7" - 1967
In the summer of 1967, while Expo '67 was drawing in hordes of visitors over on Montreal's Ile Ste-Helene and anglophone bands like the Rabble and the Haunted pushed envelopes over on the west islan... |
| The New Wing:
The Thinking Animal / My Petite - 7" - 1967
The fertile late-sixties Alberta scene saw a number of bands head south to record at recognized American studios. That list would include Wes Dakus and the Rebels, Barry Allen, Happy Feeling and th... |
| Les Chanceliers:
Le p'tit popy / La generation d'aujourd'hui - 7" - 1967
The seeds of Les Chanceliers started to germinate in Montreal as far back as 1963 when guitarist Gilles Briere formed an instrumental quartet and dubbed it Les Chancellords. But it wasn't until 196... |
| Luke and the Apostles:
Been Burnt / Don't Know Why - 7" - 1967
Mike McKenna had found fleeting fame fronting a blues band called Mike's Trio, playing regular nights at the Cellar Club in Toronto's rapidly changing Yorkville neighbourhood. But sometime in 1964,... |
| Jerry Toth:
A Place to Stand b/w A Place to Stand - 7" - 1967
Had it not been for Ontario's one-time unofficial provincial anthem, the talented musician, composer and arranger Jerry Toth would be even more forgotten than he already is.
The Winds... |
| Jack Hennig and the Breaking Point Group:
Busy People / Maybe Tomorrow - 7" - 1967
Edmontonian Jack Hennig, a blond hunk of a singer who kept good ol' Albertans hopping throughout the seventies with his country and western sounds, actually had a secret psychedelic past that few kn... |
| Mini Robin:
Pourras-tu me pardonner / Personne - 7" - 1967
Singer and record producer Martin Hillman went by many names back in the day, including Billy, Billy Blue, Martin Martin and most notably Marty Hill. Under the latter pseudonym, the enigmatic Montr... |
| Lucio Agostini:
Once Upon a Hundred Years - 1967
It is doubtful whether Giuseppe Agostini spoke much English or French when he arrived in Montreal in 1915 with his wife and one-year-old son Lucio, but one thing is for sure. As a former bandleader... |
| The Fifth:
Yesterdays Today / Something You've Got - 7" - 1967
The Fifth were one of the most popular acts in the Winnipeg area throughout the latter half of the sixties. But as Vance Masters, who drummed for the group in one of their many incarnations, recalle... |
| Sandi Shore:
Like A Madness / Until You're Home Again - 7" - 1967
If not for a brief obituary in the weekly Vancouver Courier, Sandi Shore might have died a completely forgotten woman.
The Vancouver singer (who was actually born as Sandra Loranger... |
| The One Way Street:
Listen to Me (Bring It on Home) / Tears - 7" - 1967
The One Way Street got started in 1966, which for those few keeping track was the year Vancouver lost its innocence. The once-sleepy burg got its first whiff of the Haight-Ashbury freakfest in Janu... |
| Michele Richard:
Un jour, un jour / Hey Friend, Say Friend - 7" - 1967
Michelle Richard started her recording career as a young teenager, and from the late fifties to the mid-sixties had managed to tweak the Quebec charts under a plethora of musical guises, from romant... |
| For Keeps:
Morning Town / Highest Degree- 7" - 1967
Doug Hutton may be a forgotten man these days, but at one point in the 1960s, he had his fingers in a number of pies. The northern Saskatchewan native ran successful Calgary nightspots The Haunted H... |
| The Power of Beckett:
Lost Soul in Disillusion / Back to Me - 7" - 1967
There is not much out there in cyberland on the Power of Beckett, but what we do know for certain is that this Montreal garage band issued a couple of singles in the late sixties on Quality that are... |
| The Spasstiks:
Love's Got a Hold on Me / If That's What She Wants - 7" - 1967
The Spasstiks' big moment came at precisely ten in the morning on September 24, 1966, when they opened the Toronto Sound revue at Maple Leaf Gardens. That massive show ("14 Hours - 14 Big Groups in... |
| The Shags:
Smiling Fenceposts / Dr. Feel-Good - 7" - 1967
The Shags were part of the hopping mid-to-late-sixties rock and roll scene in southern Manitoba that included, in addition to the obvious Guess Who, groups like the Quid, the Deverons, the Jury, the... |
| The Mood:
Train's Late / Who Do You Love - 7" - 1967
The Mood were a short-lived quartet from the Welland (ON) region that issued this lone forty-five in 1967. The nucleus of the band got their start in 1965 as the Sinners, who spent the better part ... |
| The Luv-Lites:
Where It's At / Born in Chicago - 7" - 1967
The Luv-Lites may be barely a footnote in the annals of CanRock, but that doesn't excuse fans of r'n'b from not knowing about their scorching version of Nick Gravenites' 'Born in Chicago'. Gravenite... |
| Les Mystics:
Je m'sens bien, je m'sens mal / Mon pere est millionnaire - 7" - 1967
Les Mystics were a group of teenagers from Grand-Mere, just to the northeast of Shawinigan. The five - singer Marc Bouchard, guitarists Bertin Saint-Amand and Mario Gelinas, bassist Denis Lahaie an... |
| Three to One:
See Emily Play / Give Me Love - 7" - 1967
The Pink Floyd's 'See Emily Play' is one of the greatest pop songs ever written, psychedelic or otherwise. Syd Barrett's dreamy nugget, ostensibly about a free-spirited fifteen-year-old but with fa... |
| The Kidds:
You Were Wrong / Children in Love - 7" - 1967
Allegedly, the Kidds got their name from the British Modbeats' singer Fraser Loveman, who often referred to them as 'kids'. The St. Catharines (ON) five-piece was originally formed in 1965 by guita... |
| Lords of London:
Cornflakes and Ice Cream / Time Waits for No One - 7" - 1967
Lords of London are best remembered for their bubble gum hit 'Cornflakes and Ice Cream', which was one of the very few Canadian records to top the prestigious CHUM-AM charts.
... |
| The Rabble:
Please Set Me Free / I Still Can Hear Them Laughing - 7" - 1967
The Rabble's proverbial fifteen minutes of fame was more like a year...from May 1967 to April 1968 to be exact. The Montreal five-piece had barely arrived back from Toronto after playing to thousand... |
| Les Asteks:
On N'est Pas Bien Compris / Oui Je T'aime - 7" - 1967
Like Les Lutins before them, Les Asteks' shtick was to have a preteen singer as their frontman, in this case the cherubic Michel Champoux, who was just eleven years old when they formed in 1966. (Al... |
| The Unforscene:
These Are the Words / You and Me - 7" - 1967
"In 1966, two members of a band from Canada called the Unforscene brought some demo records to me," producer Don Perry recalled in his 2016 memo... |
| Tomorrow's Keepsake:
High And Mighty (Here We Stand) / Elevator Operator - 7" - 1967
The White Knights were one of the most popular bands in Regina in the mid-sixties, so much so that RPM featured them on the front cover of their March 11, 1967 issue. The four-piece of singer/guitar... |
| The Scene:
Scenes (from Another World) / You're In A Bad Way - 7" - 1967
'Scenes (from Another World)' is a criminally overlooked record, especially since it is one of the few Canadian productions of songwriter/producer/arranger Neil Sheppard.
Born... |
| Lisa Taan:
Simon Simon / No One 'Cep' Me - 7" - 1967
Both sides of this obscure seven-inch come from the pen of Martin Hillman, a.k.a. Martin Martin, the Montreal producer whose sixties resume boasted such gems as Rings and Things' groo... |
| Bill Marion:
Flower Girl / Give Me More Love - 7" - 1967
Bill Marion was a founding member of the Paupers along with Skip Prokop, and he was even responsible for the band's name ("We had 50 cents among us," Prokop has said. "Bill said, 'Why don't we call ... |
| The Five D:
Baby Boy / Good Time Music - 7" - 1967
"We were just another band that was hacking away doing the top 40 or whatever was on the chart."
The Five D, as singer Dave Poulin would tell Jim Hurcomb in his boo... |
| Alex Fontaine:
Goodbye / Tu N'es Pas Sincere - 7" - 1967
Alex Fontaine's garage corker 'Tu n'est pas sincere' has long been a holy grail of sorts for fans of Quebec francophone 45s, and decent copies will set you back upwards of 200 bucks these day... |
| Susan Taylor:
Don't Make Promises / Twelfth of Never - 7" - 1967
'Don't Make Promises' was the first song on side one of Tim Hardin 1. And while it is now overshadowed by the heart-rending 'Reason to Believe' (which kicked off the other side of that LP), i... |
| Tom Northcott:
Sunny Goodge Street / Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden - 7" - 1967
'Sunny Goodge Street', Donovan's jazz-tinged ode to the magical pleasures of weed, was first issued in October 1965 on his Fairytale LP. The world took note almost immediately. Just a few mon... |
| A Passing Fancy:
I'm Losing Tonight / A Passing Fancy - 7" - 1967
High school mates Jay and Ian Telfer, Phil Seon, Brian Price and Greg Hershoff formed a group called the Dimensions on the northern fringes of Toronto in the summer of 1965. They had the good fortun... |
| David Clayton Thomas and the Bossmen:
Brain Washed / Barbie-Lee - 7" - 1966
Even back in the day, when David Clayton-Thomas was riding high as the frontman for Blood Sweat and Tears with their string of top-ten international hits, few knew that the golden-throated singer wa... |
| The 409:
They Say / Born in Chicago - 7" - 1966
What's strange about the 409 is that, though the group were francophone and recorded mostly in French, they are best remembered today for their sole English-language disc. Equally odd is that nearly... |
| Douglas Rankine with the Secrets:
Clear the Track Here Comes Shack / Warming the Bench - 7" - 1966
The Secrets were just a bunch of teenagers playing at the Toronto Pressmen's Club sometime in late 1965 or early '66 when the CBC's Brian McFarlane approached them with an idea he had. Singer and g... |
| The Ugly Ducklings:
Just in Case You Wonder b/w That's Just a Thought That I Had in My Mind - 7" - 1966
By late 1966, the Ugly Ducklings were ascending the throne of Toronto's Yorkville scene, with their debut single 'Nothin'' having shot to #18 on the CHUM radi... |
| The Painted Ship:
Little White Lies / Frustration - 7" - 1966
Vancouver's Painted Ship first hit the water in the summer of 1965. That was when singer and budding poet William 'The Captain' Hay teamed up with guitarist Rob Rowden out at the University of British... |
| The Sparrow:
Tomorrow's Ship / Isn't It Strange - 7" - 1966
In Canada, if you couldn't get tickets to see the Beatles, there was always Jack London and the Sparrows.
The Oshawa (ON) band was formed in 1964 with London, who was actually born in ... |
| Les Sultans:
La poupee qui fait non / Il n'y a rien au monde que... - 7" - 1966
Like most francophone pop bands in Quebec during the 1960s, Les Sultans were busy churning out French-language versions of all those popular anglo hits, starting with 'Toujours devant moi' (a cover ... |
| Gilles Vigneault:
Mon Pays - 1966
Singer-songwriter, poet and Quebecois icon Gilles Vigneault got his first break in 1958 when folk singer Jacques Labrecque agreed to record his song 'Jos Monferrand', written in 1957 and marking the y... |
| The Haunted:
1-2-5 / Eight O'Clock in the Morning - 7" - 1966
As Haunted guitarist Jurgen Peter tells it, the Beatles-era Montreal music scene was not much different from the rest of Canada at the time, rife with garage bands of varying talent, yet constricted b... |
| The Mynah Birds:
It's My Time / Go On and Cry - 7" - 1966
Though they were never actually released at the time, these obscure Mynah Birds sides are probably two of the most important unreleased songs in the entire history of pop music. And if that sounds... |
| The Ugly Ducklings:
Nothin' / I Can Tell - 7" - 1966
Toronto's Ugly Ducklings were hatched in the proverbial backwaters of suburban Scarborough, but it wasn't long before they would become the most popular band in the hip Yorkville neighbourhood downt... |
| The Plague:
The Face of Time / We Were Meant to Be - 7" - 1966
Thunder Bay's Plague were a quintet consisting of guitarist Donald Brown, singer/saxophonist Tom Horricks, bass player George Stevenson, keyboardist Joel Stapansky and drummer Lynn McEachern. The b... |
| Gilles Vigneault:
Enregistre a Paris - 1966
Released the same year as Gilles Vigneault's iconic Mons Pays LP, Enregistre a Paris finds the Quebecois chansonnier in the City of Lights, where he... |
| Thee Deuces:
You Gotta Try / Hung Up on You - 7" - 1966
Originally from the small town of Almonte (about 40 km southwest of Ottawa), Thee Deuces started out as an instrumental combo in 1964. A forty-seven-week residence at the Inter-Provincial Hotel acro... |
| Les Loups:
Pour tout dire / De toi - 7" - 1966
During their brief existence, Les Loups put out four singles between the years 1965 and 1967. But for the Quebec five-piece of singer Maurice Paquin, guitarists Robert Paradis and Daniel Giroux, ba... |
| The Checkerlads:
Baby Send for Me / Shake Yourself Down - 7" - 1966
In their March 11, 1967 issue, RPM featured a front-page story on two of Regina's hottest bands. "Are the White Nights the most popular group in Regina, or are the Checkerlads on top of the heap?" ... |
| The Gentle Touch:
Visitors Parking Only / One Way Ride - 7" - 1966
The Gentle Touch were formed in the Hammer - that's Hamilton to the tourists - roundabout 1965. The quartet of Jeff Snider, Alex Harrington, Ron Boyes and Bruce Ley were originally known as the Ph... |
| Les Fleaux:
Gloria / Ma Lili hello - 7" - 1966
These barely pubescent youngsters from Lachute, just to the west of Montreal, would likely never have committed any music to wax had it not been for a fortuitous hook-up with the fledgling music mog... |
| Sandi Shore:
I'll Know Better (Next Time) / Roses and Heartaches - 7" - 1966
Brian Wilson once admired him and Phil Spector was allegedly scared of him, but these days no one really remembers Gary Paxton. The erstwhile svengali behind such early hits as 'Alley Oop' b... |
| Mike Campbell:
Remorse / One Girl - 7" - 1966
This is one record that was definitely well worth all the cyber-research.
A little digging reveals that Mike Campbell was once a bit of a teen idol on the west coast, making upwards... |
| The Big Town Boys:
August 32nd / My Babe - 7" - 1966
Tommy Goodings joined his first band way back in 1958, and with a bit of perseverance, had managed to work his way up the Toronto club scene, eventually gigging regularly at Toronto's legendary Club... |
| The Quid:
Crazy Things / Mersey Side - 7" - 1966
The Quid's lead singer Ron Rene was allegedly such a stage dynamo that the Guess Who name-checked him in their acid stormer 'Friends of Mine' (with Burton Cummings belting out "...and fade away / li... |
| Les Dabsters:
J'en ai assez / Tu le sais bien - 7" - 1966
Les Dabsters hailed from the hardscrabble neighbourhoods of St-Henri and Verdun in the southwest corners of Montreal. In a rather tough-to-find promo piece from the January 1967 issue of Photo Vede... |
| The Last Words:
I Symbolize You / It Made Me Cry - 7" - 1966
The Last Words got their start in Clarkson, Ontario, in what is now Mississauga, just as the fifties rock and roll of Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and Little Richard was about to give way to the Beatle... |
| Les Intrigantes:
Mets chinois / Le seuil du soleil - 7" - 1966
Les Intrigantes got their start in Quebec City in 1964. It was in that year that the four - guitarists Diane Gallichand and Carole Boutin along with bassist Claire Gallichand and drummer Ginette Do... |
| Pat Hervey:
Can't Get You Out of My Mind / Givin' In - 7" - 1966
Pat Hervey passed away in 2016, quietly as it were with nary a peep about it in the mainstream media. Like many of the stars of the pre-Beatles era, her achievements have been largely forgotten save... |
| The Skaliwags:
365 Days a Year / Turn Him Down - 7" - 1966
This monster of a double-sider is reputed to be one of the rarest and most sought-after garage records in all of Canuckistan. The band behind it, a Gatineau quintet called the Skaliwags, had been ki... |
| Paul Anka:
I Can't Help Loving You / Can't Get Along Very Well Without Her - 7" - 1966
You knew Paul Anka was Canadian, right? And of course you knew he was responsible for a string of sappy hits like 'Diana', 'Lonely Boy' and 'Puppy Love' in the late fifties and ... |
| The B + 3:
Taboo / Why Oh Why - 7" - 1966
The guy on the cowbell.
Any rock and roller worthy of the distinction knows Corky Laing as the percussive force behind that mother of all power trios, Mountain. Or maybe even as one-... |
| The Eternal Triangle:
It's True / Watch Me Go - 7" - 1966
If you bend the truth just a little bit, you could probably make the case for the Eternal Triangle as Canada's first supergroup. The trio got their start when Tom Northcott, who at the time was hea... |
| The Luvin' Kind:
That Jungle Sun / It's Not Always That Way - 7" - 1966
The Luvin' Kind were a Winnipeg group - from the Norwood/St. Boniface area to be more specific - that featured a couple of brothers, Ed and Jerry LeClair. Their first single, the faux-primiti... |
| The Willows:
My Kinda Guy / Hurtin' All Over - 7" - 1966
Save for a few northern soul anoraks in Britain, the Willows are not talked about much anymore. Though their 'My Kinda Guy' climbed the charts in the summer of 1966, the Toronto trio are pro... |
| Mary Saxton:
Is It Better to Live or to Die / Losing Control - 7" - 1966
Mary Saxton may not exactly be a household name up here in Canuckistan, but her singles fetch big bucks across the pond in U.K. northern soul circles.
Saxton was just a tweenie when h... |
| Gillian Russell:
Man in the Street / Going Home - 7" - 1966
They have all pretty much dropped off the musical spectrum, but at one time siblings Gillian, Brian and John Russell were sort of BC's musical first family. The three can trace their history back to... |
| The Allan Sisters:
I'm in with the Downtown Crowd / Give It Up Girl - 7" - 1966
The Allan Sisters would probably be a mere footnote in the annals of CanCon were it not for the northern soul obsessives across the Atlantic who trade copies of the... |
| Don Norman and the Other Four:
Low Man / Mustang Sally - 7" - 1966
When Don Norman left the Esquires in the summer of 1965 after a successful run that included an album, a #9 hit nationally ('So Many Other Boys') and the first rock video ever shot in Canada ... |
| The Young Canadians:
Makin’ My Mind Up / Satisfied Mind - 7" - 1966
The Dalton brothers - Dan, Jack and Wally - honed their musical skills in tiny Erieau ON, where they formed a group called the Dalton Boys. The 'boys', who were still in their teens, were brimming w... |
| The Counts:
He Will Break Your Heart / Searchin' - 7" - 1966
Alexander Mair, the mild-mannered record promotions man who was awarded the Order of Canada while he lay dying of cancer, had a resume a mile long. His work experience spanned all the way from his f... |
| The Canadian Squires:
Uh Uh Uh / Leave Me Alone - 7" - 1965
In 1963 Ronnie Hawkins was the unofficial mayor of Toronto's Yonge Street strip. He and his backing band the Hawks belted out their brand of southern r'n'b, like the thunderous 'Who Do You Love', nig... |
| The Charmaines:
(You Are) Hypnotized / The One for Me - 7" - 1965
'(You Are) Hypnotized' was not the Charmaines' greatest record. Nor was it their best selling. But it was only ever issued in Canada and is thus the one for which collectors fork over the big... |
| Race Marbles:
Like a Dribbling Fram / Someday (the World Will Be as Lovely as Before) - 7" - 1965
The mid-1950s to the early seventies were not only the heyday of the forty-five but also the time of hit novelty records, from Buchanan and Goodman's 'Flying Saucer' all the way through to Ri... |
| David Clayton Thomas and the Shays:
Take Me Back / Send Her Home - 7" - 1965
David Clayton-Thomas spent the better part of his childhood either on the receiving end of a physically abusive father or mired in Ontario's rough-and-tumble penal system. So when the 20-year-old T... |
| The Guess Who:
Till We Kissed / Shakin' All Over - 7" - 1965
Though it was a number one smash for Johnny Kidd and the Pirates in England in 1960, 'Shakin' All Over' was really not well known outside Europe until a bunch of lads from the Canadian prairies deci... |
| Roy Kenner and the Associates:
Without My Sweet Baby / Baby You're What I Need - 7" - 1965
This was the first release on Merv Buchanon's Trend label. Roy Kenner was a charismatic soul singer who wowed crowds - the ladies especially - with his good looks, boundless energy and James Brown ... |
| The Tom Northcott Trio:
Just Don't / Let Me Know - 7" - 1965
Tom Northcott had already been a fixture for several years in the Kitsilano clubs when he decided to join the Vancouver Playboys in 1965. Around the same time he was also busy establishing his own ... |
| King-Beezz:
Gloria / She Belongs to Me - 7" - 1965
Northern Alberta in the mid-sixties is not the first place that comes to mind as a hotbed of garage rock. But it was there in Edmonton, a city that registered just shy of 360,000 souls in its 1964 ... |
| The Berries:
Night Winds / Valley of Three Tears - 7" - 1965
This Toronto band may not have exactly been 'the berries', but they did manage to bequeath one curious garage seven-inch. The quirky, flute-flecked 'Night Winds' seems to have died without a... |
| The Marrs Five:
Ouie Di Douie / Remember Those Days - 7" - 1965
The Marrs Five's oddly named 'Ouie Di Douie' is about as bottom-of-the-barrel as it gets these days. Likely released in early 1965 (though some internet pages list it as early as 1962), the g... |
| The Nick Ayoub Quintet:
The Montreal Scene - 1965
Nick Ayoub was a fixture on the Montreal jazz scene for nearly forty years. Born in Trois-Rivieres but raised in Montreal, the talented musician studied clarinet and saxophone at the prestigious Hi... |
| The Brian Browne Trio:
The Toronto Scene - 1965
In May 1965 RCA announced the first in a trilogy of records showcasing a jazz artist in each of the country's three metropolises, to be issued on the label's boutique RCA Canada International imprin... |
| Johnny Bower and Little John with the Rinky Dinks:
Honky the Christmas Goose / Banjo Mule - 7" - 1965
He won four Stanley Cups, was twice awarded the Vezina Trophy and in 1976 was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. But Johnny Bower's most unlikely achievement had to have been the 40,000 copies h... |
| Dianne James:
Don't Go / The Time Has Come - 7" - 1965
If we are to believe the hype in RPM back in the day, Dianne James was headed for the big time. A March '65 issue gushed that the teenage singer from Saskatoon was "ambitious and on [her] way to sta... |
| Andy Kim:
I Hear You Say (I Love You Baby) / Falling in Love - 7" - 1965
"I was 15 years old, going on 25."
Andy Kim arrived in New York City with $40 in his pocket and his eyes set on fame. He may have been young, but he had grown up in the hardscrabble s... |
| The Royal Family:
Sometimes / Solitude - 7" - 1965
Troyka are by now well known in collector's circles for having been Canada's premier power trio, especially since the reissues of their self-titled 1970 LP on CD an... |
| Shirley Matthews:
(He Makes Me) Feel So Pretty / Is He Really Mine? - 7" - 1964
After the success of her floor-stomping 'Big Town Boy' - a top-ten single in Canada around Christmas 1963 - Shirley Matthews certainly must have felt like a... |
| Patty Surbey:
(I Want) a Beatle for Christmas / Christmas All Year 'Round - 7" - 1964
Patty Surbey was sort of a perky amalgam of Connie Francis and Brenda Lee, with maybe a bit of Annette Funicello or Cathy Carroll thrown in for good measure. The Burnaby (BC) singer only released a... |
| Ian and Sylvia:
Northern Journey - 1964
Ian and Sylvia were a couple who were part of the folk music boom of the early 1960s. Ian Tyson was originally from British Columbia and Sylvia Fricker from Chatham, Ontario. They met in Toronto thr... |
| Shirley Matthews:
Private Property / Wise Guys - 7" - 1964
It may be mere conjecture given the dearth of information out there on Shirley Matthews, but I'm willing to bet that the young singer from Harrow (ON) absorbed a heck of a lot of soul influence grow... |
| The Esquires:
Man from Adano / Gee Whiz It's You - 7" - 1964
The Esquires have managed to work their way down to the bottom of history's trash heap, but they were at one time responsible for a number of important milestones. The Ottawa group were one of the f... |
| Hughie Scott and the Meteors:
I Will / Be Bop A Lula - 7" - 1964
For years Hughie Scott was the king of the Ottawa Valley country music scene. In fact Scott, who grew up in the nearby hamlet of Riceville, rarely ventured outside the capital region. He started pl... |
| The Squires:
The Sultan / Aurora - 7" - 1963
Boasting a 17-year-old tyke by the name of Neil Young on guitar, this seven-inch of plucky guitar instrumentals by Winnipeg's Squires is perhaps the rarest and most sought-after of all Canadian record... |
| Shirley Matthews:
Big Town Boy / (You Can) Count On That - 7" - 1963
Shirley Matthews was born in the shadow of Motown, in Harrow, Ontario, a small community just to the south of Windsor. She eventually made her way up to r'n'b-obsessed Toronto, where she found hers... |
| Neil Sheppard:
In My Imagination / Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt - 7" - 1963
Neil Ship knew from an early age that he wanted to be in the music business. The Montreal lad attended his first audition at the early age of thirteen. But as he recounts on his LinkedIn page, livi... |
| Jackie Shane:
Any Other Way / Sticks and Stones - 7" - 1963
"Is he or isn't she?"
That is precisely how one writer summed up what must have been the question on everyone's mind. You see, in the staid old Toronto of the 1960s, Jackie Shane w... |
| The Echo Tones:
Low Down Guitar / Inland Surfer - 7" - 1963
The Echo Tones are about as bottom-of-the-barrel as it gets these days. Their lone forty-five, 'Low Down Guitar', registers just a single sale on the massive Popsike database. The casual lis... |
| Jack Scott:
There's Trouble Brewin' / Jingle Bell Slide - 7" - 1963
When Jack Scott died of congestive heart failure on Dec. 12, 2019, there was an almost immediate outpouring of tributes on the internet, including from singer Robert Gordon, who released his own ver... |
| Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights:
Charlena / You've Got the Power - 7" - 1963
'Charlena' was the first truly Canadian record to reach #1 on the CHUM-AM charts. That was impressive enough. But the fact that it came from a totally unknown local band makes the story all ... |
| Ronnie Hawkins:
Bo Diddley / Who Do You Love - 7" - 1963
If you were young and living in Ontario's largest city in the 1960s, you would have been comatose not to have heard the words 'Toronto Sound'.
The Toronto Sound was more of a spirit ... |
| Chad Allan and the Reflections:
Tribute to Buddy Holly / Back and Forth - 7" - 1962
As the Silvertones, and then as Allan and the Silvertones, singer-guitarist Chad Allan assembled an early rock and roll band that included fellow Winnipeggers Randy Bachman, Jim Kale, Gary Peterson an... |
| Bonnie Dobson:
At Folk City - 1962
For Bonnie Dobson, protest singing must have run deep in her veins. The Toronto-born singer-songwriter was the daughter of a trade unionist who would send her to socialist camps when she was barely... |
| Hank Snow:
I've Been Everywhere / Ancient History - 7" - 1962
Given his wretched childhood, it's a wonder Hank Snow ever sang at all, let alone became Canada's most important country music performer ever.
Born in tiny Brooklyn, Nova Scotia into... |
| Sandy Selsie:
The Poorest Girl in Town / A Date with Loneliness - 7" - 1962
No one talks about Sandy Selsie anymore. But at one point in the early sixties she was known as Canada's Brenda Lee.
Selsie got her start locally, in the (then) tiny burg of Richmond... |
| Dorothy Collins:
Experiment Songs - 1961
In the late fifties, songwriters Lou Singer and Hy Zaret conceived of a series of educational LPs to teach curious kids about the wonders of modern science. The six recordings were sheathed in fasc... |
| The Hi-Fives:
Fujikami the Warrior / Mo-Shun - 7" - 1961
Some fifteen years before John Belushi and his Samurai Futaba character terrorized the set of Saturday Night Live, the Hi-Fives were at it on the local Vancouver airwaves with their totally o... |
| Jack Bailey and the Naturals:
Oh What Love Is / Beneath the Moonlight - 7" - 1961
During his short lifetime, Jack Bailey rarely ventured from his home in Peterborough, Ontario. He was perhaps the most talented musician ever to come out of the Kawartha Lakes region, but a relucta... |
