WXYZ-AM 1270 THE DETROIT SOUND SURVEY
MCRFB FLASHBACK RECORD 45RPM: NEW VOICE Records; 1966
“Devil With A Blue Dress / Good Golly Miss Molly,” Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels
Release label: NEW VOICE Records; Peaked highest (date): November 26, 1966. Peaked: No. 4. Weeks on charts: 16. Ranked overall entire year: No. 52 (1966)
From the MCRFB news archives: 1963
C’MON EVERYBODY, IT’S MONKEY TIME
NEW YORK — The ‘Monkey,’ the newest teen dance, is a mighty hot one, with three records of monkey tunes really moving this week. Hottest of all three is “The Monkey Time” by Major Lance on Okeh Records. And just to add to the scene the label has issued an LP by the same title. “The Monkey Time” jumped to No. 12 on the Hot 100 this week.
Second hottest of the Monkey hits is “Mickey’s Monkey,” by the Miracles on the Motown Records Tamla label, which is the No. 39 most popular hit on the Billboard chart for the week. And the third most popular “Monkey” tune on the chart is “Everybody’s Monkey” by Freddie Cannon listed on the chart.
There is a fourth monkey hit making the new dance scene as well, pushing forward slowly on the chart, and it is King Curtis’ “Do The Monkey,” on the Capitol record label. And there have probably been a half a dozen other monkey dance-themed recordings issued in the past few weeks. On the same kick as well, there have been other related animal-dances like the ‘gorilla,’ and the ‘frog.’ END
(Information and news source: Billboard; August 31, 1963).
MAJOR LANCE * “The Monkey Time” * OKEH RECORDS (1963)
Canadian Girl Singer Hails from Richmond Hill, Ontario
S A N D Y S E L S I E .
IF YOU WERE TO DO A SEARCH on the world-wide web, not much information can be found on the Internet today regarding, Sandy Selsie.
All that has been primarily known about Sandy Selsie was that she had several country/pop singles in the early-1960s on the Columbia record label. And that she originally was from Canada. And that’s just about it.
But there was a detailed mention about this female Canadian artist on a Yahoo message board, which I recently found on the Spectropop blog site message forum.
A poster there, who goes by the name of “Boris” laid claims he resides in Ottawa, Ontario in Canada. An avid record collector on “girl/girl groups” since the early-nineties, and in researching Canadian recording artists, he stated he once had gone to the Canadian National Archives library and came across a newspaper article on Sandy Selsie, which appeared in the local Richmond Hill, Ottawa newspaper called The Liberal.
Accordingly, the article first appeared in 1963. The article had stated Sandy Selsie hailed from Richmond Hill, Ontario, now a large suburb outside of Toronto.
Back in 1963, according to The Liberal article, Sandy Selsie was a grade 10 student who attended Bayview High School in Richmond Hill, at the age of 15. Her father, Fred Selsie was her talent-manager during that time. Mr. Selsie was instrumental in signing a 5-year contract for Sandy with Columbia Records earlier in 1961. Her first recording for the label was, “A Date With Loneliness” which was released in November of that year.
The article quoted Sandy Selsie as stating how her career came into prominence early-on. “I started out singing in the area shows. And gradually branched over to radio and television. I’ve had guest spots on the Country Hoedown television show as well as appearances on the Tommy Hunter radio show.”
The article also stated her big break happened when the family took a vacation down to Nashville, Tennessee, early in 1961.
“We were down there on our vacation. And we decided I should drop in to Columbia Studios for an audition.” She was signed immediately. “I was really surprised, because it’s unusual for a big recording studio to sign you just like that.”
In closing the article, Sandy Selsie expressed her desires in pursuing a Major in Performing Arts.
On a small note, as it were, Columbia Records initially released Sandy Selsie’s “When Jimmy Comes Home” in November, 1963. The song debuted on the CHUM playlist early-on in November in Sandy Selsie’s own home-town. Just the same, the song would find it’s way over to CKEY 580 AM in Toronto about the same time-frame.
Locally, the Selsie song made it’s way over here on Detroit radio, “When Jimmy Comes Home” debuted first on WJBK Radio 1500 on Friday, November 15, 1963.
Six days later, it debuted at the #30 spot on the WKNR Keener 13 playlist for Thursday, November 21, 1963. On a local level, the song didn’t stay long on the charts here in Detroit. But after having first heard it played on WKNR late in 1963, personally, this Sandy Selsie classic will always be a great Keener song memory from that year.
While certainly there weren’t too many, this long forgotten, obscure song as was recorded by Sandy Selsie, arguably, may well have been the greatest “Jimmy” song that was ever recorded in the Top 40 era.
— M O T O R C I T Y R A D I O F L A S H B A C K S
