Lonesome Mary b/w Ridin'

'Lonesome Mary' was Chilliwack's first hit. The Vancouver band grew out of The Collectors in 1970. Singer Howie Vickers had left, guitarist Bill Henderson took over lead vocals, and the band's early records were long, exploratory pieces. Henderson's song runs under three minutes.

It opened the band's second album, a self-titled A&M double LP released in September 1971. Henderson, Claire Lawrence and Ross Turney recorded it at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco with engineer Stephen Barncard, who co-produced the Grateful Dead's American Beauty in 1970. The same album has the 13-minute 'Changing Reels' and the 17-minute 'Night-Morning'.

The song is a portrait of a woman alone in her house, weeping, who has driven off everyone around her. Asked how she can live that way, she puts it down to her soul.

Radio took it up in the fall of 1971. It reached #4 on CKVN's West Coast Music Survey in Vancouver on November 12 and went to #9 in RPM. It was also Chilliwack's first US chart entry, peaking at #75 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1972. Stations in Boston, Washington, Boise, Ottawa and Fort Lauderdale charted it too. The album reached #10 in Canada.

The B-side, 'Ridin'', is a Lawrence/Henderson song from the same double album. Lawrence left Chilliwack in 1971. By the time 'Lonesome Mary' was on the radio, the band was Henderson, Turney and Glenn Miller, back on bass. That trio carried Chilliwack into the mid-1970s.

-Robert Williston