675 Cliff Bruner’s (1915-2000) Texas Wanderers “Truck Driver Blues” 1939

“I never copied fiddle players, intentionally I didn’t…matter of fact, on a jazzy tune it’s impossible for me to play the same way twice. I cannot do it and if I play it a hundred times, each time it’d be different. And so we just learned then to just improvise, and still sticking with the melody, we’d doctor it up a little bit. And I think it puts a lot of beauty into a tune” (Jean A. Boyd, interviewer, “Oral Memoirs of Cliff Bruner,” 8/14/1991). 

Cliff Bruner’s Texas Wanderers “Truck Driver Blues”

674 Lydia Mendoza (1916-2007) “Mal Hombre” 1934

“Lydia Mendoza began her long musical career as a child in the 1920s, singing for pennies and nickels on the streets of downtown San Antonio, Texas. She lived most of her adult life in Houston, Texas, where she was born…In the early 1930s she established her reputation first and foremost as a grassroots idol with a loyal following among U.S.-Mexican migrant farm workers who followed the crops from Texas to Michigan and later to California and the Pacific Northwest as well. Her earliest solo hit, ‘Mal Hombre’ (‘Evil Man’), in 1934 made her an overnight star, and that song never waned in popularity throughout her long career. Mendoza’s loyal fans nicknamed her ‘La Alondra de la Frontera’ (‘The Meadowlark of the Border’) and ‘La Concionera de los Pobres’ (‘Singer of the Poor’)” (Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez, Lydia Mendoza, Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music, 2001). 

Lydia Mendoza “Mal Hombre”

673 Washington Phillips (1880-1954) “What Are They Doing In Heaven” 1928

“He hailed from Texas and was born in 1880. It is believed that at some time early in his career Washington and his two brothers made the acquaintance of another local musician named Blind Lemon Jefferson and performed as a quartet. The differences between Washington and Jefferson could hardly be wider. While Lemon was a master of the Delta blues, Washington sang holiness music and accompanied himself on an instrument related to the zither, but as modified by Phillips it has become known as a dulceola. He began recording in 1927 and his recordings were described as Gospel songs with novelty accompaniment” (Tom Druckenmiller, Sing Out!, Fall 2005). 

Washington Phillips “What Are They Doing In Heaven”

672 Sippie Wallace (1898-1986) “Bedroom Blues” 1926

Born in Houston and known as the Texas Nightingale, “A majestic singer in the ‘classic’ blues idiom of the mid-twenties, Sippie Wallace outlived nearly all her contemporaries to bring her stately style to audiences two generations later…She retired from performing in 1929 to work for the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit, but made brief returns to the business” (The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001). 

Sippie Wallace “Bedroom Blues”

671 Arizona Dranes (1889/91?-1963) “Lamb's Blood Has Washed Me Clean” & “My Soul's a Witness for the Lord” 1926

“What little is known about her suggests Arizona Dranes was a remarkably strong individual. In many ways, she was one of American society’s most disadvantaged members: a blind black female of modest if not poor background from the Deep South who grew up during the height of the Jim Crow era...her options in life were very limited. The Institute for Deaf, Dumb and Blind Colored Youths of the State of Texas prominently featured musical instruction as a major component in the education of the blind...Active in Pentecostal circles, her musical talent was recognized and she was given an opportunity to record. Although her recording career was brief, it was extremely influential, and, in many ways, she laid the groundwork for what would become known as gospel music a few years later when Thomas A. Dorsey, a Baptist, combined blues and black sacred music to become recognized as ‘the father of gospel music’” (Timothy Dodge, The School of Arizona Dranes: Gospel Music Pioneer, 2013). 

Arizona Dranes “Lamb's Blood Has Washed Me Clean”

Arizona Dranes “My Soul's a Witness for the Lord”

670 Doris Troy (1937-2004) “Just One Look” 1963

“Nicknamed ‘Mama Soul’ by her many British fans, Doris Troy was a singer who combined her gospel roots with a strong and dramatic vocal style to produce Just One Look, one of the most memorable rhythm and blues hits of the 1960s…Constantly used in films and advertising campaigns, it provided Troy with a steady income throughout the years. Or as Troy herself put it: ‘You know, baby, when I recorded that song in that little basement studio in New York, I asked God to keep that song alive for ever. And you know, He answers prayers! Cause something’s happened with Just One Look every year since” (The Times (United Kingdom), 3/1/2004). 

Doris Troy “Just One Look”

669 The Trashmen “Surfin’ Bird” 1963

“Minnesota’s kings of surf. All around age 21 at the time they hit the charts, the Trashmen had been playing together in various bands since attending high school in Robbinsdale and north Minneapolis. After guitarist Tony Anderson got out of the service in 1962, they took a road trip to California to soak up the sunny surf-rock sound just starting to take off—which they brought back and played in local ballrooms and teen centers…They first improvised ‘Surfin’ Bird’ during a performance at Chubb’s Ballroom in Maple Grove over the summer of 1963. Local disc jockey Bill Diehl was there and insisted the band record the messy jam as a single to play on the radio” (Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), 1/22/2015). 

The Trashmen “Surfin’ Bird”

668 Rufus Thomas (1917-2001) “Walking the Dog” 1963

“Thomas believed that as a pure entertainer he had no equal. As he put it: ‘There is nobody alive, on the face of the earth, who can do Rufus like I do Rufus.’…his influence derives from the bawdy figure he cut and the freewheeling tone he set…He gave hot-blooded young male musicians from Mick Jagger to Busta Rhymes the grammar for thinking and talking and joking about their deepest, darkest, nastiest urges. With unabashedly raunchy good humor, he helped define the tradition of the fun-loving trickster, the likable lech” (Thomas Hackett, Southern Cultures, Spring 2013). 

Rufus Thomas “Walking the Dog”

667 Swinging Blue Jeans “Hippy Hippy Shake” 1963

“Originally a traditional jazz band, the Bluegenes were formed in 1958…After residencies in Hamburg and at Liverpool’s Cavern club, the group signed to HMV as the Swinging Blue Jeans (the name change following their sponsorship by a jeans’ manufacturer) in 1963 in the wake of Beatles hysteria…’Hippy Hippy Shake’ reached No. 2 in Britain (and was a hit a year later in America on Imperial. It set the pattern for their subsequent releases, all revivals of black hits” (The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001). 

Swinging Blue Jeans “Hippy Hippy Shake”

666 The Surfaris “Wipe Out” 1963

The band “achieved international success…with ‘Wipe Out’. This frantic yet simplistic instrumental, originally envisaged as a throwaway b-side, is recognized as one of the definitive surfing anthems. Controversy arose when the Surfaris discovered that the music gracing their debut album was, in fact played by a rival group, the Challengers. However, despite their understandable anger, such backroom machinations remained rife throughout the quintet’s career” (The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 2006). 

The Surfaris “Wipe Out”

665 Gene Summers (1939- ) and the Tom Toms “Big Blue Diamond” 1963

“Gene Summers, a Dallas-born guitarist began performing in 1955 at high school dances and within two years was making television appearances…Summers never found the national acclaim he was looking for, though he managed to change with times and stay afloat in the entertainment industry, including work as a television announcer for Saturday Night Wrestling in the early eighties. His career experienced a huge resurgence in England during the rockabilly revival of the eighties” (Paula Felps, Lone Stars and Legends: The Story of Texas Music, 2001). 

Gene Summers and the Tom Toms “Big Blue Diamond”

664 Dusty Springfield (1939-1999) “Wishin’ and Hopin’” 1963

“There is no avoiding psychobiography when writing about Dusty Springfield. She was troubled, out of place in her world. The authorized Dusty Springfield biography portrays Dusty’s life as one long, often sad if occasionally and curiously joyous, car crash of a life, a redemptive turn coming late in the game but almost too late. If one is to believe the biography—and why not?—Dusty was a good but deeply conflicted soul, more often settling for diversions from her torments rather than solutions to them” (Warren Zanes, Dusty in Memphis, 2003). 

Dusty Springfield “Wishin’ and Hopin’”

663 The Singing Nun, aka Soeur Sourire (Sister Smile) “Dominique” 1963

Jeannine Deckers (1933-1985) “committed the ultimate rebellion against her parents by entering a Dominican convent near Waterloo. In 1963, the convent reluctantly let her record a single to raise money for its mission in Congo under the name Soeur Sourire, a name she came to hate. The song, Dominique—inspired by the 13th-century saint who founded her order—sold millions of copies worldwide and Deckers remains the only Belgian to have had a US number one. After the one-hit wonder, struggling to cope with both fame and convent life, Deckers left the religious order and tried to continue her pop career without the wimple…Deckers killed herself alongside her partner, Anne Pecher, in 1985” (Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian International, 4/29/2009). 

The Singing Nun “Dominique”

662 Pete Seeger (1919-2014) “We Shall Overcome” and “Little Boxes” 1963

Seeger learned “We Shall Overcome” from the music director at Highlander Folk School, Ziphia Horton. After she died, “folksinger and sociologist Guy Carawan…took her place as musical director.” Carawan was “the right man in the right place” and “undoubtedly  the catalyst in making ‘We Shall Overcome’ and other civil rights songs known and sung throughout the South.” Glazer writes, “Starting out as a black church song, ‘We Shall Overcome’ became a union song developed by black workers and sung for many years by white workers as their union song. It then became a civil rights song shaped and spread by three white musicians (Zilphia Horton, Pete Seeger, and Guy Carawan). Finally, it came home to the black community as the expression of its hopes and dreams” (Joe Glazer, Labor’s Troubadour, 2001). The album We Shall Overcome  is listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. 

Pete Seeger “We Shall Overcome”

Pete Seeger “Little Boxes”

661 The Ronettes “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” 1963

In a six week recording marathon, Phil Spector produced A Christmas Gift to You, featuring the Ronettes, Darlene Love, the Crystals, and Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Genes. “If the album had been done without genuine care and sincerity, there would have been no audience for it. Instead, when it was finally completed, it was a feast of cool and mawkish, a hipster’s way of appreciating the seasonal standards that had become stale and depressing for a burgeoning generation of young adults” (Mark Ribowsky, He’s a Rebel, 1989). 

The Ronettes “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”

660 The Ronettes “Be My Baby” 1963

“It’s possible for some Americans to be better known in England than they are in the United States. In the case of a trio of rock ‘n’ roll singers who call themselves the Ronettes, it’s highly probable. Voted the third top singing group in England last year, they were topped only by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. A year earlier they had been tabbed ‘The Best Girl Group in England’ when their record, Be My Baby, became a hit. ‘We visited England then,’ recalls one of the girls, Nedra Talley, ‘and were given a welcome party by the Beatles. We’ve been good friends ever since’” (Ebony, Nov. 1966). Listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.

The Ronettes “Be My Baby”

659 The Rolling Stones “I Wanna Be Your Man” 1963

Rolling Stone’s manager Andrew Oldham was struggling to find a hit song for their next record when he met the Beatles’ McCartney and Lennon. “Andrew jumped into the cab, speed-rapping about his single problem with the Stones until Paul helpfully mentioned, ‘We’ve got some fresh numbers that might be right for the Stones.’…Handed guitars, Lennon and McCartney played them the first verse and chorus of ‘I Wanna Be Your Man,’ which they’d written for Ringo to sing. Andrew’s problem was solved. Rescued by the Beatles!” (Stephen Davis, Old Gods Almost Dead: The 40-Year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones, 2001). 

The Rolling Stones “I Wanna Be Your Man”

658 The Rivieras “California Sun” 1963

Noted for their surfer hit, the band was from South Bend, Indiana. ‘California Sun’ “went to US number 5 in 1964. The song had earlier been recorded by Joe Jones as a slow bluesy number, but the band speeded it up and gave it a happy California surf-music sound. Before the record was released, however, [guitarist Joe] Pennell and [lead vocalist Marty] Fortson had gone into national service” (The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 2006).    

The Rivieras “California Sun”

657 Cliff Richard (1940- ) and the Shadows “Summer Holiday” 1963

“When The Beatles began their own string of number ones in 1963, the media once again whipped up a frenzy, predicting that Cliff and the Shadows would be left behind in their Liverpudlian dust. ‘We knew they’d be enormous because their songs were terrific,’ acknowledges [Bruce] Welch. ‘We’d already been going for five years by then, though, so we were the establishment, the guys in tuxes and silk shirts, the Rat Pack of British pop, and The Beatles overturned all of that. But, at the same time, those mid-Sixties years were the most successful we ever had in terms of the number of hits and the amount of records we were selling.’ In retrospect, although The Beatles revolutionized the music industry, their seven-year recording career now looks like a temporary blip in comparison to Cliff’s unparalleled longevity” (Johnny Black, Music Week, 9/27/2008). 

Cliff Richard and the Shadows “Summer Holiday”

656 Tito Puente (1923-2000) “Oye Como Va” 1963

“The King of Latin Music, Ernest Anthony Puente, Jr., was born…in New York City to parents who has just arrived from their native Puerto Rico, grew up in East Harlem’s El Barrio neighborhood, and with his sister performed as a child song and dance team in the early 1930s…Puente would subsequently laugh when he told the story of how he was initially outraged when he learned that a rock group had covered his song—until he received the first royalty check…Tito Puente was…’the most influential artist in the development of Latin American music in the United States during the twentieth century’” (Steve Sullivan, Encyclopedia of Great Popular Recordings, 2013). 

Tito Puente “Oye Como Va”