655 Peter, Paul and Mary “Puff the Magic Dragon” 1963

“A few weeks ago, I was in an argument with my 3-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son. They were demanding that I play Katy Perry in my car for the billionth time…I had completely forgotten that I had downloaded ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ for a work project a couple of years ago. I let it play and began to sing along to the chorus. I got so lost in the song that I didn’t hear what my kids were saying until it was over. I turned the tunes down and asked them what they wanted, and in chorus they both said, ‘Play that one again, Daddy!’” (Dale Dudley, Austin Monthly, May 2015).

Peter, Paul & Mary “Puff the Magic Dragon”

654 Peter, Paul and Mary “Blowin’ in the Wind” 1963

“their most successful year was 1963 when for pop radio Peter Paul and Mary were the focal point of the burgeoning folk movement. They had Top Ten hits with 'Puff the Magic Dragon' (a children's song that was accused of harboring drug references) and 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'Don't Think Twice It's Alright', songs which brought their author, Dylan, into the public arena. The trio also led the singing at Martin Luther King's civil rights' march on Washington” (Phil Hardy, The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001). 

Peter, Paul & Mary “Blowin’ in the Wind”

653 Roy Orbison (1936-1988) “Blue Bayou” and “Mean Woman Blues” 1963

“In addition to the many Orbisons constructed over the years by the record companies and the artist himself, perhaps the common thread that dominates is one of mystery, be it the mystery of absence or the mysterious presence hidden behind dark glasses, seldom talking either in concerts or to the press…to the day he died, very few Americans could have told anyone anything about what Orbison thought or believed about any subject of any importance” (Peter Lehman, Roy Orbison: The Invention of an Alternative Rock Masculinity, 2003). 

Roy Orbison “Blue Bayou”

Roy Orbison “Mean Woman Blues”

652 Roy Orbison (1936-1988) “In Dreams” 1963

“They were micro-operas, and he
was as lifeless a tenor as could be
propped on a stage, so hidden in black
he seemed the emissary of oblivion, 
except that there was nothing 
he was capable of forgetting, no hurt” (David Rigsbee, “Roy Orbison, New Orleans, 1984,” Great River Review, 2012). 

Roy Orbison “In Dreams”

651 Garnet Mimms (1933- ) and the Enchanters “Get It While You Can” 1963

“He was born Garrett Mimms in 1933 in West Virginia, but everyone called him Garnet for some reason. And after he'd grown up singing next to his mother in church, the Mimms family moved to Philadelphia, where he was in several gospel groups that made records. His day job was in the laundry at Temple University, though, and he'd listen to the radio and heard Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke there…In the Army, Mimms put together an R and B group, the Deltones. And after he mustered out, he formed the Gainors, a group that included his friend Sam Bell and another future star, Howard Tate. The Gainors made a record for Cameo, but the group never caught on, so Garnet and Bell formed The Enchanters with Zola Pernell. And after a few gigs in a club in 1963, they invited producer Jerry Ragovoy to one of their shows, and he was hooked” (Ed Ward, Fresh Air (NPR), 7/20/2015). 

Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters “Get It While You Can”

650 Garnet Mimms (1933- ) and the Enchanters “Cry Baby” 1963

“Garnet Mimms didn’t see himself as a musical trailblazer when he cut the career-making ‘Cry Baby’ in 1963. ‘No, not really, but they told me I was,’ the 74-year-old gospel-soul singer says with a laugh…’ ‘They’ include R&B expert Robert Pruter…Pruter writes…’The song was a gospelized production so full of the soul-saving, fire-and-brimstone ecstasies of the black sanctified church that it singularly stood apart…Never had the public heard anything so intense and so emotional on top 40 radio’” (Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer, 1/10/2008).

Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters “Cry Baby”

649 Martha (1941- ) and the Vandellas “Quicksand” 1963

“Reeves went to work at Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan, without much thought of becoming a singer. Rather, she served as a secretary for the company shortly after she left high school. She occasionally sang lyrics on demonstration tapes to enable Motown’s artists to learn new songs, and when one of the company’s regular studio back-up singers was too ill to participate in a recording session, Reeves was allowed to take her place” (Elizabeth Thomas and Ronnie Lankford, Contemporary Musicians, 2006).

Martha and the Vandellas “Quicksand”

648 Martha (1941- ) and the Vandellas “(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave” 1963

Martha Reeves “was one of eleven children of Elijah Joshua and Ruby Lee (Gilmore) Reeves. When she was an infant, the family relocated to Detroit, settling on the city’s eas side. Reeve’s grandfather was a minister at Detroit’s Metropolitan Church, where she began singing in the choir at age three. At Northeastern High School Reeves sang in the choir and took voice lessons from Abraham Silver, who also coached future Motown stars Florence Ballard and Marry Wilson of the Supremes and Bobby Rogers of the Miracles” (Deborah Ring, Contemporary Black Biography, 2011). 

Martha and the Vandellas “(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave”

647 Robert Marley (1945-1981) and Beverly's Allstars “Judge Not” 1962

“By 1961, Bob was working at the welding yard at South Camp Road and beginning to write tunes. Once he was bold enough to scout the action at Beverley’s, a record store owned by a young Chinese entrepreneur named Leslie Kong, who was beginning to record ska songs by Jamaican singers for local consumption. Bob asked someone behind the counter for an audition with Mr. Kong, and was impolitely advised to get lost” (Stephen Davis, Bob Marley, 1990).

Robert Marley and Beverly's Allstars “Judge Not”

646 The Collins Kids “Hop, Skip and Jump” 1957

“Along with Michael Jackson, the Collins Kids may have been the most prodigious sub-15-year-olds in rock history. They were one of the first, if not the first, Los Angeles-based rockabilly act; Larry Collins was, without a doubt, the first rock musician to use a double-necked guitar, long before Jimmy Page was causing Led Zeppelin audiences to gasp at his audacity for bringing the instrument onstage…Lorrie Collins, along with the aforementioned Wanda Jackson, was the only game in town as far as female rockabilly singers were concerned” (Richie Unterberger, Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll, 1998).

The Collins Kids “Hop, Skip and Jump”

645 Little Peggy March (1948- ) “I Will Follow Him” 1963

“Teen-style solo singers had a keen edge on their immature voices, the quality children have when shouting on the streets. Their major contribution was to the boyfriend literature…they went as far as they could go with the boyfriend theme when the girl’s only ambition in life was stated in the title” (Aida Pavletich, Sirens of Song, 1982).

Little Peggy March “I Will Follow Him”

644 Darlene Love (1941- ) “Today I Met the Boy I’m Gonna Marry” 1963

“The daughter of a minister, Love grew up in Los Angeles and Texas, singing in the choirs at her father’s churches. ‘Mostly all of my singing was in church, for quite a while,’ she said. While she was in high school, she joined a girl group called the Blossoms, and they began touring the circuit for black performers in the segregated musical world of te 1950s and ‘60s…Love’s and the Blossoms’ careers really took off when they met legendary music producer Phil Spector in 1961, and he began to use them in constructing his famous Wall of Sound musical style” (Ryan Marshall, Frederick news-Post (MD), 10/5/2017).

Darlene Love “Today I Met the Boy I’m Gonna Marry”

643 Trini Lopez (1937- ) “If I Had a Hammer” 1963

“Music got him and his family out of poverty. As the son of Mexican immigrants from Guanajuato, he remembers his challenging beginnings in the Little Mexico barrio in Dallas. Being poor. Violence and prejudice in his neighborhood. But everything seemed to change after his father bought him a $12 guitar from a pawnshop…Lopez stuck to his Latino roots despite growing up in a time where he was once told that no one would buy an album from an artist with a Mexican last name. ‘Lopez has got to go,’ he remembers being told about an album deal…’You know how many [Latino] artists in America that changed their name? Vikki Carr and Freddy Fender. I insisted on keep my name Lopez. I’m proud to be a Lopez. I’m proud to be a Mexicano’” (Cassandra Jaramillo, Dallas Morning News, 9/12/2017).

Trini Lopez “If I Had a Hammer”

642 The Lively Ones “Surf Rider” 1963

“When the Lively Ones were riding the crest of the surf-rock explosion in the early to mid-‘60s, guitarist Jim Masoner was known for his sometimes hyperkinetic stage antics. Jumping on amplifiers and hurling his shoulder into walls to help create outrageous guitar racket, Masoner would often discover that his jacket or pants needed mending following a typical sweaty show” (Jon Matsumoto, Los Angeles Times, 5/27/1996).

The Lively Ones “Surf Rider”

641 Major Lance (1939?-1994) “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um” and “The Monkey Time” 1963

“He was a boxer for a time, and started out singing gospel” (New York Times, 9/5/1994). “Chicago soul singer who for a few short years in the mid-1960s was one of the biggest R&B artists in the country. His thin but interestingly piercing vocals were perfectly showcased by producer Carl Davis, and the result was a series of sparkling and brassy dance records on OKeh Records that virtually defined the more energetic side of the Chicago sound in soul” (Encyclopedia of the Blues, 2006). 

Major Lance “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um”

Major Lance “The Monkey Time”

640 The Kingsmen “Louie Louie” 1963

“one Friday night in April 1963 at the Chase, the Kingsmen decided to try an experiment. They would play, one time only, a double-length set—an hour and a half—consisting of nothing but one long ‘Louie Louie’…this first of all ‘Louie’ marathons confirms some weird kind of incipient rock’n’roll genius stirred within them” (Dave Marsh, Louie Louie, 1993). 

The Kingsmen “Louie Louie”

639 Jan and Dean “Surf City” 1963

“In the mid 1960s, Jan Berry (1941-2004) was the golden boy of Southern California pop: tall, blond and handsome; a medical student with a genius-level IQ; and a million-selling star as half of the surf-rock duo Jan and Dean. As a singer, producer and song-writer, Berry scored ten Top Thirty hits from 1963 to 1965 with Dean Torrence (1940- ), his best friend since high school…Then, on the morning of April 12th, 1966, nine days after his twenty-fifth birthday, Berry plowed his Corvette into a parked truck in Beverly Hills. He narrowly survived the accident; his career did not. Berry suffered severe brain damage from which he never fully recovered. But despite partial paralysis and impaired speech, Berry fought to make music for the rest of his life” (David Fricke, Rolling Stone, 2004). 

Jan and Dean “Surf City”

638 Lesley Gore (1946-2015) “You Don’t Own Me” 1963

“Her career became shaky” because of “the Beatles and the British Invasion that landed on our shores right at the peak of Gore’s popularity. She continued touring and recording, though on these fronts her star had faded. She even had an acting career, appearing in two episodes of Batman (as Catwoman’s sidekick) in 1967. But her major accomplishments after 1970 were in movie songwriting, which she carried out in collaboration with her brother Michael” (Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, March-April 2016). 

Lesley Gore “You Don’t Own Me”

637 Lesley Gore (1946-2015) “It’s My Party” 1963

“Lesley Gore was born in Brooklyn into an upwardly mobile Jewish family, which soon moved to Tenafly, New Jersey, where she attended high school at the Dwight School for Girls. In middle school she had joined a girl group; by high school, where she sang in the chorus, her talent as a singer was apparent. She begged her parents for a vocal coach. They hired one, and he was impressed enough to take Gore to a music studio, where she recorded a small number of songs to pass around to her family. A cousin gave one of these records to a bandleader, who invited Gore to perform at a gig where the president of Mercury Records was seated in the audience” (Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, March-April 2016). 

Lesley Gore “It’s My Party”

636 Jimmy Gilmer (1940- ) and the Fireballs “Sugar Shack” 1963

“One night while George Tomsco (1940- ) was in his college dorm room listening to an acetate of his band, a fellow student walked by his room and asked who the band was. When the student found out it was Tomsco and The Fireballs, he said they were good and should go to Clovis, N.M., to record with Buddy Holly’s producer Norman Petty….’Sugar Shack’ was written by Lubbock, Texas, songwriter Keith McCormack in 1962. While living with his aunt Fay in Lubbock in 1962, McCormack began every day by trying to write a song. ‘Keith woke up one morning and started with this little ‘Sugar Shack’ thing, and his aunt Fay said, ‘Keith, I really do like that song,’ explains Tomsco. In exchange for forgiving a $40 debt with his aunt, McCormack shared songwriting credits for ‘Sugar Shack’ with her” (Ron Skinner, Mix, June 2011). 

Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs “Sugar Shack”