932 Laura Nyro “Wedding Bell Blues” 1966

“Jan Nigro remembers seeing Laura’s list of possible name changes, all variations of Nigro. Her father recalls that she seriously considered ‘Niagra,’ a name she had used on her creative writing book in 1960. But Lou had pointed out to her that it would not lessen the wisecracks. ‘Laura,’ he said, ‘if you trip, someone will say, Niagra falls. She settled on Nyro—pronounced, coincidentally, the same as the surname of a well-known earlier Music and Art alum, pianist Peter Nero. Spelled with a y, though, it would almost always be mispronounced as Nigh-ro—just as her father also warned. Perhaps the NY represented New York (NY); perhaps it had a resonance to a kindred spirit Bob Dylan’s name (which was often similarly mispronounced as Die-lan. ‘I think it was just an unusual name that she liked the sound of,’ says Jan Nigro. Whatever it stood for to her, Nyro was certainly unique: There was not another in any New York City phone book” (Michele Kort, Soul Music: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro, 2002). 

Laura Nyro “Wedding Bell Blues”

931 Aaron Neville “Tell It Like It Is” 1966

“When his singing career hit its stride in 1966, ‘Tell It Like It Is’ had zoomed to the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on two of the most respected music charts in the country and generated millions of dollars in record sales. But the money didn’t find its way into Neville’s pockets. He got no royalties, he says, and a 45-rpm that his friends spray painted gold was just about all he had to show for his effort...’Somebody made off with the money, and that song made somebody rich.’ Not Neville. At the height of the song’s popularity, Aaron was breaking his back working on the New Orleans docks to support his family. And over the next few years, he had to move from one job to another—digging ditches, painting houses and even driving a truck to deliver cigarettes and candy for a mere S50 a week” (W. Leavy, Ebony, Dec. 1991). 

Aaron Neville “Tell It Like It Is”

930 Fred Neil “The Dolphins” 1966

“Neil started his music career in 1955 when he moved from St. Petersburg to Memphis, Tenn…The singer became a cult favorite in New York City’s Greenwich Village folk scene after Roy Orbison released a blues recording of Neil’s ‘Candyman’ in 1960. The following year, a young Bob Dylan joined Neil on stage during a show at a Greenwich Village nightclub. Some of Neil’s other big-name fans in that era included musicians John Sebastian, Paul Kantner, Richie Havens, David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Neil moved to Miami’s Coconut Grove district after releasing his first solo album, ‘Bleecker & MacDougal,’ in 1965. While in South Florida, Neil took an interest in protecting dolphins and frequently visited Kathy, the star of television show ‘Flipper’” (The Associated Press State & Local Wire, 9 July 2001).  

Fred Neil “The Dolphins”

929 Napoleon XIV “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa” 1966

“Popular music is underwritten by advertisers. If a song is TOO controversial, and enough folks scream into their phones about it, its hit potential gets instantly curtailed. Witness Napoleon XIV’s #3 7-66 ‘They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa.’ Napoleon’ Jerry Samuels of New York claimed a million-seller, but after two days stations reeled from a fiery flurry of negative calls saying the song made vicious fun of the emotionally ill—which it did” (Maury Dean, Rock and Roll: Gold Rush, 2003).  

Napoleon XIV “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa”

928 Mouse and the Traps “A Public Execution” and “Maid of Sugar, Maid of Spice” 1966

“Tyler’s Mouse and the Traps…were actually to what would become the punk ethic. They were formed in 1964 by Ronnie ‘Mouse’ Weiss (vocals/guitar), Bugs Henderson (lead guitar), Dave Stanley (bass), Jerry Howell (organ), and Ken ‘Big Nardo’ Muray (drums). Produced by Robin Hood Bryans, they had two hits with ‘A Public Execution’ and ‘Maid of Sugar, made of Spice,’ and , all told, released thirteen 45s and an album for RCA. Though the band was legendary in Texas, struggles to gain attention elsewhere were less than successful, and they broke up in 1969. They still convene every decade for much-anticipated reunions” (Rick Koster, Texas Music, 1998). 

Mouse and the Traps “A Public Execution”

Mouse and the Traps “Maid of Sugar, Maid of Spice”

927 The Mothers of Invention “Who Are the Brain Police” 1966

“What people heard was arguably the first conceptual pop LP and way ahead of its time. Frank Zappa already had a clear vision of the mixture of music and satire that he wanted to put onto record. The LP’s sleeve came complete with a letter from the fictitious Suzy Creemcheese Salt Lake City, Utah. The letter implied just what Zappa wanted to get over about the group. With its talk of bearded weirdos who all smelled bad, it almost seemed to imply that the whole thing was an elaborate joke—which of course it wasn’t. Zappa couldn’t have been more serious about the music itself. However, he appeared to be smart enough to realize that the Mothers didn’t stand a chance in hell of gaining success in the rock world with their type of music if they came across as serious musicians” (Billy James, Necessity Is…The Early Years of Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, 2000).

The Mothers of Invention “Who Are the Brain Police”

926 Tony Mossop with The Soulseekers “He Bought My Soul at Calvary” 1966

Lead singer Tony Mossop was born in Jamaica and “started singing in a church choir as a boy of nine” (album notes). Based in London, the Soul Seekers performed country gospel from 1964 to 1969. “The Soul Seekers began as The Celestial Chords, who were formed in the early 1960s by Carl and Denver Grant, who played bass and lead guitar respectively. They were from Calvary Apostolic Church in Camberwall, London. By 1966, the group had expanded to include tony Mossop (vocals), Way Powell (rhythm guitar) and Barry Forde (drums). The group were determined from the outset to make a career in the music industry and they employed the managerial services of a South London manager called Ken McCarthy. McCarthy organized tours in Europe and secured radio airplay at a time when many stations refused to play black Gospel music.” Mossop died in a car crash in 1970 (Steve Alexander Smith, British Black Gospel, 2009).   
  
Tony Mossop with The Soulseekers “He Bought My Soul at Calvary”               

925 Ennio Morricone “Il Buono, Il Bruto, Il Cattivo (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Theme)” 1966

“many of the same qualities that made the rock-and-roll of the 1960s commercially successful did the same for Morricone’s film music: it was concise, easily remembered, harmonically and formally uncomplicated, yet melodically very original. Morricone’s scores, particularly the Westerns of the 1960s including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, demonstrate a fusion of many of the popular music elements of the time. The immense popularity of the electric guitar is the best example of this fusion…Undeniably, there is some similarity between these rock-and-roll instrumental hits of the 1960s [such as “Apache,” “Pipeline”] and Morricone’s use of the solo electric guitar in his Western scores of the same period” (Charles Leinberger, Ennio Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 2004).

“the soundtrack recording of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly became a best-seller in the United States, due in part to radio airplay being given to a [1968] cover version of the ‘Main Title’ by Hugo Montenegro” (Charles Leinberger, Ennio Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 2004). 

Ennio Morricone “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Theme”

924 The Monkees “Last Train to Clarksville” 1966

“Open auditions were held for the four Monkees in order to attract ‘real’ people for the sake of verisimilitude on the level of personae—the Beatles weren’t actors; the Monkees had to be ‘real’ also. The ad in Variety specified that what was sought was a type known to congregate at a particular after-hours hipster hangout in LA: ‘MADNESS!! Auditions—folk & roll musicians-singers for acting roles in new TV series. Running parts for 4 insane boys, age 17-21. Want spirited Ben Frank’s types. Have courage to work. Must come down [from your ‘drug trip’?] for interview’” (Matthew Stahl, Popular Music, Oct. 2002). 

The Monkees “Last Train to Clarksville”

923 The Monkees “I’m a Believer” 1966 and “(Theme from) The Monkees” 1966

Penn Jillette: “The Monkees were engineered to appeal to the broadest audience possible with no other concerns. The Monkees were sanitized to fit into America’s living rooms. My mom and dad would watch the Monkees with me, and other than their stupid haircuts, Mom and Dad weren’t bothered much by the Pre-fab Four. The silly Monkees did their thing in the wood veneer TV console under the white doily below the heirloom clock. They didn’t shock. They fit comfortably on the same cathode ray tube as Lawrence Welk” (Eric Lefcowitz, Monkee Business: The Revolutionary Made-For-TV Band, 2013). 

“The Monkees were formed in 1965 by two young television producers [Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider] who pitched the idea of a weekly comedy TV show featuring a young band having wacky, surreal, intertextual adventures that would trade on and draw its inspiration from Richard Lester’s 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night. The two producers rounded up their young Hollywood friends, hired a song-writing team, auditioned and selected four young men and produced a successful television show that ran for two seasons and a band that was productive for years afterwards” (Matthew Stahl, Popular Music, Oct. 2002).

The Monkees “I’m a Believer”

The Monkees “(Theme from) The Monkees”

922 Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’66 “Mas Que Nada” 1966

“In describing his trademark Brasil ‘66 sound, the pianist/arranger says, ‘You can relate to it in an organic way, It makes you dream and it makes you feel good. It’s very rhythmical so you can dance to it, and it has haunting melodies that you take to bed with you, so you can hum and whistle them.’ Born February II, 1941 in Niteroi, Brazil, Sergio Mendes studied classical music in the local conservatory before being lured away by jazz, then bossa nova. He started his professional career in Rio in the late 1950s. Alongside Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Milton Nascimento and all the Brazilian greats, Mendes helped spread the gentle gospel of bossa nova across the world. In the ‘60s, as the leader of Brasil ‘66, he perfected a kind of Latin pop that was part easy listening, part psychedelia, and was the perfect bookend to the swanky sounds of fellow A&M artists Hurt Bacharach and Herb Alpert” (Bill DeMaine, Performing Songwriter, January 2006). 

Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’66 “Mas Que Nada”

921 John Mayall and the Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton “Steppin’ Out” 1966

John Mayall “spent two years in the service, including some time in Korea. Upon returning to England in 1955, he continued his education at the Regional College of Art in Manchester, where he formed his first band, the Powerhouse Four. Graduating in 1959, he landed a job with an advertising agency and quickly established a reputation as one of the best typographers and graphic artists in the region...In 1963, at the age of 29—old by most rock and roll standards—he took up residence in London and formed his dream group, the Bluesbreakers. Mayall worked days as a draftsman for about a year; but by early 1964 the Bluesbreakers were doing well enough for Mayall to become a full-time musician. The band backed American greats John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson on their tours of the United Kingdom and played dates in small clubs six nights a week. Before long the Bluesbreakers were acknowledged as the best blues band in England” (Joan Goldsworthy, Contemporary Musicians, 1992). 

John Mayall and the Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton “Steppin’ Out”

920 Al Martino “Spanish Eyes” 1966

“The son of Italian immigrants, a fact that was evident in his style and manner, Martino worked as bricklayer in his father’s construction business before being encouraged to become a singer by his frined Mario Lanza. After singing in local clubs and winning Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, he recorded ‘Here In My Heart” for the small BBS record label. It shot to number 1 in the US charts…the US record buyers apparently tired of Martino’s soulful ballads, although he remained popular in Europe for a time—particularly in the UK” (The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 2006).

Al Martino “Spanish Eyes”

919 The Mamas and The Papas “Monday, Monday” 1966

Lou Adler, record producer: “Denny [Doherty] could have been a big band singer in the ‘40s. he had that sort of wide-open, Western broadness to his voice. A very romantic singer. His intonation was just great. He’d get it every single time. Cass [Elliot] is also a throwback to the ‘20s and ‘30s; a very dramatic singer. She’d get a lot of drama out of a vocal. Michelle [Phillips], she’s a rock and roll baby. Her twists and turns some off of street corner type singing. Certainly not the strongest singer in the group, but definitely the heart and soul of rock and roll. John [Phillips] was more embarrassed of his lead singing; he didn’t ever really want to sing a lead. He was a perfect quartet singer and vocal arranger—one of the best vocal arrangers, ever” (Matthew Greenwald, Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas & The Papas, 2002). 

Doherty prompted John Phillips to write the song, but no one in the group like “Monday, Monday” when they first heard it. But Lou Adler believed “Monday, Monday” would be a hit “and insisted it be the follow-up single to California Dreamin’”(Doug Hall, The Mamas & The Papas: California Dreamin’, 2000).  

The Mamas and The Papas “Monday, Monday”

918 Lovin’ Spoonful “Summer in the City” 1966

“They followed with one hit after another until 1967, when Boone and Yanovsky were arrested in California for possession of marijuana. They angered a good number of their fans, many of whom were part of the hippie counterculture, by turning in their drug supplier to get out of doing jail time themselves. Many hippies called for a boycott of Lovin’ Spoonful’s records, and although it is impossible to say how much this affected their sales, the band did fall apart soon after. Yanovsky quit the band in 1967. ‘I should have left a year before then,’ he told the Ottawa Citizen years later, ‘but I was making pretty good money and so I sort of stuck it out. But the band was musically in a rut, and I think if you listen to the last album, you would agree. It was like a marriage, but instead of kids we stuck it out for the money’” (Michael Belfiore, Contemporary Musicians, 2002). 

Lovin’ Spoonful “Summer in the City”

917 Lovin’ Spoonful “Daydream” 1966

“John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky were joined in their new band by Steve Boone, who played bass, and Joe Butler on drums. At the beginning, as Sebastian put it years later in the San Francisco Chronicle, ‘We were smoking pot and drinking beer. We were having fun.’ But once the band started to take off, they got more serious about their music. ‘Once we started to have actual audiences, then nobody wanted to smoke pot before the show because it was too scary’” (Michael Belfiore, Contemporary Musicians, 2002). 

Lovin’ Spoonful “Daydream”

916 The Liverpool Raiders “Big Story” 1966

Lead singer Peter Lewis “was a key figure in the development of British Christian music.” His high school band Union City once beat the Quarrymen—who became the Beatles—in a competition. Union City changed its name to the Liverpool Raiders, and influenced by a Franciscan friar, Brother Ronald, Lewis became “involved in getting rock and roll into the Church” (www.crossrhythms.co.uk). 

The Liverpool Raiders “Big Story”

915 The Left Banke “Walk Away Renee” 1966

“Even in a year as star-blessed as 1966, the Left Banke’s Walk Away Renee stood out. There was a harpsichord, a string quartet, a keening vocal and a lyric of real teenage heartbreak. Back then, 15-year-old [Michael] Brown worked as a part time engineer at his father Harry Lookofsky’s recording studio in New York. In photos he looked mournful and out of time, with King Charles spaniel hair. He looked as if he would have felt at home in a Victorian drawing room, but the studio was where he met George Cameron, Tom Finn and singer Steve Martin (not the comedian). They became fast friends, forming the Left Banke in 1965. A No 5 hit, Walk Away Renee was big enough US hit for the group to record a Coca Cola jingle, and others - in their idiosyncratic style - for Hertz car rental and Toni hairspray... Brown had unlimited access to his father's studio where, according to the Left Banke’s part-time lyricist Tom Feher, ‘he’d just pound away at the piano, and we’d all stand around the piano and try to emulate the Beatles and the Hollies.’ One day in late 1965, Tom Finn had brought his girlfriend Renee Fladen along to the studio, and Brown was instantly smitten - in short order he wrote three songs about her...With orchestral arrangements from his father, and Brown’s knack for odd, bunched chords and a taste for extreme melancholy, the sound was quickly tagged ‘baroque pop’ by the press” (Bob Stanley, The Guardian, 20 March 2015).

The Left Banke “Walk Away Renee” 1966

914 The Kinks “Sunny Afternoon” 1966

“‘I really can't play with my brother [Dave Davies] as the Kinks and not have Mick [Avory] in the band,’ says [Ray] Davies. ‘Mick will work with him, but Dave doesn’t want to work with Mick. Sibling rivalry has nothing on their rivalry. I have no idea what’s wrong with them.” Dave first kicked over Mick’s drumkit onstage in 1965, and Mick retaliated by knocking him out with a drum pedal, so it’s a long history…For Davies, Sunny Afternoon is ‘a song cycle about two lads who didn't really fit together. I never really had a relationship with my brother in a normal way. But what’s wonderful is the telepathy we have. Or did have’” (Jasper Rees, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 October 2014). 

The Kinks “Sunny Afternoon”

913 The Joystrings (aka Joy Strings) “It’s an Open Secret” 1964 and “Love That’s In My Heart” 1966

Based in London, “The Joystrings were probably the most high profile Christian group during the mid 60s, and they were among the best…All the group members were members of the Salvation Army, and they performed in Salvation Army uniform.” They were unique in having “an even mix of men and women” in contrast to most 1960s groups (www.1960schristianmusic.com). 

Sylvia Dalziel, author of The Joystrings: The Story of the Salvation Army Pop Group: “We went into places like the Playboy Club, into nightclubs in Soho - places where you think Christians shouldn’t be. The attack came from the Church, thinking we shouldn’t be going into places like that; but not upon the music itself, because I think young people in the ‘60s were waiting for something new which would communicate with them and with people who needed the Gospel. It meant we had to begin to write lyrics which really communicated the Gospel message from the old Victorian language which was constantly sung in hymns. It was one of the producers in EMI who said, ‘When the Joystrings walked through the doors of Abbey Road studios, they changed the face of religious music forever’” (Cross Rhythms, "Joystrings: The pioneering Salvationist beat group 50 years on," www.crossrhythms.co.uk).

The Joystrings “It’s an Open Secret”

The Joystrings “Love That’s In My Heart”

912 Jefferson Airplane “It’s No Secret” 1966

“Like Rashomon, the story of Jefferson Airplane, the band’s Paul Kantner has astutely postulated, is also one of many truths. There’s a cliché these days, ‘If you can remember the ‘60s, you weren’t there.’ It’s a wisecrack intended to imply that denizens of that era were so zonked-out that their craniums have been reduced to space dust. But that’s not the case here; the former members of Jefferson Airplane were there all right, and they do remember the ‘60s. yet each has a such a distinctive personality and outlook on life, and the ‘60s was such a kaleidoscopic whirl, that, despite being in the same band, no two of them experienced the Airplane years the same way” (Jeff Tamarkin, Got a Revolution! The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane, 2003). 

Jefferson Airplane “It’s No Secret”

911 Tommy James and the Shondells “Hanky Panky” 1964, 1966

“In early 1966, a dejected Tommy James arrived home in Niles, Mich., from what appeared to be the last road gig with his then-group The Koachmen, just in time to answer a phone call that would change his life. Two years before, the group had recorded their first single, ‘Hanky Panky,’ which was recorded at a radio studio by a local DJ, Jack Douglas, and issued by a small local label. ‘The record just came and went.’ he says. ‘I graduated from high school in ‘65, and I took my band on the road. We played Rash Street in Chicago and up through the Midwest, and we came home very out of work and depressed.’ But then James received that telephone call. ‘Hanky Panky’ had sprouted new legs in Pittsburgh, thanks to numerous bootleg pressings from the original single. ‘They sold 80,000 pieces in 10 days, and it was the Number One record in Pittsburgh,’ he recalls. James had a hit on his hands. ‘If I had missed that call, there wouldn't have been a Tommy James’” (Matt Hurwitz, Mix, March 2008). 

Tommy James and the Shondells “Hanky Panky”

910 Mississippi John Hurt (1892-1966) “Candy Man” and “Coffee Blues” 1966

In 1963, Hurt was rediscovered by folk music archivists who were delighted to find that the performer of Hurt’s 1928 recordings still lived in Avalon, Mississippi. They invited him to record again. “Hurt only reluctantly agreed, but would eventually embark upon a remarkable second career of performing and recording, capturing the imagination of enthusiastic revival-era audiences like no other ‘rediscovered’ pre-War recording artist” (Daniel Fleck, Old-Time Herald, 2010). The album Today! is listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. 

Mississippi John Hurt “Candy Man”

Mississippi John Hurt “Coffee Blues”

909 The Hollies “Bus Stop” 1966

Graham Nash “grew up in Salford and sang in a duo with schoolfriend Allan Clarke before the pair formed The Hollies, one of the most successful chart groups of the 60s. ‘I've been realising just how good The Hollies actually were,’ muses Nash. ‘It was very important, the energy of the early Hollies. The Hollies were basically guitar, bass and drums and three voices. Allan never played guitar and I rarely played guitar -- half the time I wasn't plugged in. 'We were very similar to what the others -- The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield -- were doing with our harmonies...’ The Hollies progressed from inspired covers to writing (Nash, Clarke and guitarist Bobby Hicks) their own material. And yet Nash increasingly found their hit machine mentality provincial compared to what The Beatles, The Yardbirds and others were doing” (Record Collector, August 2018). 

The Hollies “Bus Stop”

908 The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Hey Joe” 1966

“Jimmy writes a letter home: I still have my guitar and amp and as long as I have that, no fool can keep me from living. There’s a few record companies I visited that I probably can record for. I think I’ll start working toward that line because actually when you’re playing behind other people you’re still not making a big name for yourself as you would if you were working for yourself. But I went on the road with other people to get exposed to the public and see how business is taken care of” (Johnny Black, Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Experience, 1999).  

The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Hey Joe”

907 Bobby Hebb “Sunny” 1966

“Bobby Hebb was raised in a musical family, and he performed as a child with his brother Harold at Nashville’s Bijou Theater. Spotted by Roy Acuff, he played miscellaneous instruments in the country star’s band in the early ‘50s. After Harold Hebb, a former member of vocal group the Marigolds, was fatally knifed outside a Music City club on Nov. 23, 1963 — the day after John F. Kennedy’s assassination — his younger sibling was moved to write his best known song. Recorded with producer Jerry Ross and arranger Joe Renzotti in New York, ‘Sunny’ became a No. 2 pop hit on the Philips label in summer 1966” (Christopher Morris, Daily Variety, 2010). 

Bobby Hebb “Sunny”

906 Davey Graham “The Fakir” 1966

“Although Mr. Graham was acclaimed among his peers, his eclecticism posed a marketing dilemma for record companies and booking agents. His music was not exactly folk and not exactly jazz. Mr. Graham incorporated Asian and Indian harmonies into his compositions and often played in unconventional guitar tunings. He once termed his style ‘folk-baroque’ because of the classical guitar techniques he brought to the folk guitar. ‘I suppose I saw myself as some kind of a Marco Polo,’ he told music writer Richie Unterberger. ‘Because I wanted to get on with the Pope and Genghis Khan, you know?’ David Michael Gordon Graham was born Nov. 22, 1940, in Leicester, England, to a Guyanese mother and a Scottish father...‘I’m a traveler really, I would die as a person if I stayed in place for more than a year,’ Mr. Graham once said. ‘I like to change my impressions and refresh my personality. My roots are in my music, and in my friends, that's enough’” (Terence McArdie, Washington Post, 18 December 2008). 

Davey Graham “The Fakir”

905 The Bobby Fuller Four “I Fought the Law” 1966

“Imagine that the British Invasion of the US never happened, that the Beatles’ three-night stand on The Ed Sullivan Show never aired, and that American popular music in the 1960s developed on its own, without the introduction of a viral strain from across the Atlantic. What might it have sounded like? Maybe the answer lies in the music of Bobby Fuller, self-styled ‘Rock’n’Roll King of the Southwest’, who died on 18 July 1966, aged 23, in mysterious circumstances. Throughout the early 60s—working variously as a songwriter, performer, producer, label-owner and impresario—Fuller carved out a unique sound, blending southern styles and drawing heavily on the stripped-down, raw, heart-on-sleeve rock’n’roll of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Eddie Cochran. To those elements he added vocal harmonies styled on the Everly Brothers and searing blasts of surf guitar and garage rock fuzz bass. It was a purely American music—one that didn’t acknowledge the Beatles or other British bands then making an impact in America…Randy Fuller recalls that his brother liked to say the Beatles would ‘never be able to do Buddy Holly like Buddy Holly because they’re not from Texas’” (Chris Campion, The Guardian, 16 July 2015). 

The Bobby Fuller Four “I Fought the Law”

904 The Fugs “Kill for Peace” 1966

“The Fugs, led by Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, made protest an ecstatic, sarcastic comedy (‘Kill for Peace’ was their hit), bridging the gap between Beats and hippies, creating a template later followed by Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. At the Bridge Theater, at 4 St. Marks Place, on August 7, 1965, a little more than a week after Lyndon Johnson sent 50,000 more troops to Vietnam, the Fugs held a ‘Night of Napalm.’ After their set, in what they termed the ‘new Fug spaghetti death,’ they pelted each other and their audience with spaghetti. ‘I spotted Andy Warhol in the front row,’ Sanders once wrote. ‘It appeared that he was wearing a leather tiethen blap! I got him full face with a glop of spaghetti’” (New York, March 2014). 

The Fugs “Kill for Peace”

903 The Four Tops “Standing in the Shadows of Love” 1966

“The Four Tops are a one-in-a-million. They were the best in my neighborhood in Detroit when I was growing up. When I was eleven or so, my first group was an early version of what would become the Miracles. Back then the Four Tops were called the Four Aims. We all used to sing on the corners, at school functions and at house parties. Sometimes we'd have talent competitions. But all the groups in the neighborhood knew that if the Four Aims were going to be there, you were going to be singing for second place at best. They were the first group from the neighborhood that sang modern harmony: They could sing like a gospel group but then do R&B like no one else. I love singers whom you can identify the first second they open their mouth, and Levi Stubbs is one of those; he's one of the greatest of all time. He has that distinctive voice, and his range is staggering. The combination of Levi, Obie Benson, Duke Fakir and Lawrence Payton was truly awesome” (Smokey Robinson, Gregory Machess, Rolling Stone, 21 April 2005). 

The Four Tops “Standing in the Shadows of Love”

902 The Four Tops “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” 1966

Lamont Dozier (songwriter): “Back in ’66, we were listening to a lot to Bob Dylan. He was the poet then, and we were inspired by his talk-singing style on ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ Dylan was something else—a guy we looked up to. We loved the complexity of his lyrics and how he spoke the lines in some places and sang them in others. We wanted Levi [Levi Stubbs, lead singer] to shout-sing the lyrics to ‘Reach Out’—as a shout-out to Dylan” (Marc Myers, Anatomy of a Song, 2016). 

The Four Tops “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”

901 The Four Seasons “Working My Way Back to You” 1966

“Their success has been attributed to the strong falsetto and three-octave range of Valli, the group’s tight doo-wop harmonies, the songwriting skill of pianist Bob Gaudio, and excellent production. Their recording career spans five decades; the Four Seasons is the only group to have at least one hit in so many consecutive decades…With sales over 100 million records worldwide, they are the most successful white doo-wop group in rock and roll history” (Roger Wesby, Encyclopedia of New Jersey, 2004).

The Four Seasons “Working My Way Back to You”

900 Eddie Floyd “Knock on Wood” 1966

“A founder member of the Detroit-based Falcons, Floyd was present on both their major hits, ‘You’re So Fine” and ‘I Found A Love’. He then recorded solo for Lupine in Detroit and Safice in Washington, DC, before moving to Memphis , in 1965 to join the Stax Records organization…During Floyd’s recording tenure at Stax, he enjoyed the use of the session bands Booker T. And The MGs and the Mar-Keys. He opened his account with ‘Things Get Better’, followed by the anthem-like ‘Knock On Wood’, one of soul’s enduring moments, and probably the oly time ‘lightning’ and ‘frightening’ have been coupled without sounding trite” (The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 2006). 

Eddie Floyd “Knock on Wood”

899 The Exceptions “Glory to God” (from Rock ‘n’ Roll Mass) 1966

The Exceptions were based in Chicago. Band member Peter Cetera “went on to become the lead vocalist and front-man for the 1970s band, ‘Chicago’” (www.1960schristianmusic.com).

“One of the most exciting developments of our time is in religious thought: the updating of worship, the involvement of the sacred with the secular. This record follows the revolutionary traditions of St. Ambrose in the 4th cen. And Martin Luther in the 16th cen. In utilizing a popular secular music style with official text of a Church (Roman Catholic) for worship. Although not intended at this time for use in the Roman Catholic liturgy, this music is offered as an example of what some young people find to be a meaningful expression of Worship” (album notes).   

The Exceptions “Glory to God”

898 The Electric Prunes “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” 1966

“Mark Tulin was born in Philadelphia to Jewish parents, Rose and Leon, and later moved to LA. He and his brother, Kip, were encouraged to learn musical instruments. While studying at Taft high school in Woodland Hills, he joined the guitarist Ken Williams, the singer James Lowe and the drummer Michael Weakley in the Sanctions, who became Jim and the Lords. Like thousands of groups across suburban America, the band could not afford a rehearsal studio, so they practised in their parents’ garage. During one rehearsal, they were discovered by Barbara Harris, whose husband, an estate agent, was in the neighbourhood. Harris introduced the band to Dave Hassinger, an engineer at RCA records who became their manager. Signing to Reprise, the band changed their name to the punchline of a goofy joke ("What's purple and goes buzz-buzz?") and released a single, Ain’t It Hard (1966), which flopped. Reprise’s parent label, Warner Brothers, were nervous about releasing a follow-up, particularly one with such an odd title, but I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) was released with little fanfare in 1966 and became a sleeper hit, rising to No 11 in the US and No 49 in the UK (Pat Long, The Guardian, 18 March 2011). 

The Electric Prunes “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)”

897 Bob Dylan “Just Like a Woman” 1966

“‘Just Like a Woman’ is the ultimate heartbreaker on the album (Blonde on Blonde), a tale of two ships that don’t just pass in the night; they hit each other at ramming speed and stagger on to their next destination much the worse for wear. It is the kind of breakup whereby the participants will live and learn from it, but they still might not ever be able to shake its lingering repercussions. It is important to note that the song is just as much about the spurned narrator as it is about the ‘Woman’ from the title, if only to provide a defense for it against the criticism from some corners that it is sexist. Were the song completely comprised of the narrator listing all the faults of his former lover, this criticism might have more merit, although it would just mean that the narrator is sexist, not that Dylan is. This is a song, not an op-ed piece” (Jim Beviglia, Counting Down Bob Dylan, 2013).

Bob Dylan “Just Like a Woman”

896 Bob Dylan “Visions of Johanna” 1966

“Being without the one you love can play funny tricks on you. The narrator in ‘Visions of Johanna’ describes the world around him as if viewed through a fun-house mirror, yet he manages striking clarity with his observations in the midst of this skewed reality. Ultimately, it’s of little consolation or consequence to him because Johanna is all that matters. Dylan’s songwriting gifts have never been so brazenly on display as on this staggering effort from Blonde on Blonde. It has perhaps a higher degree of difficulty than any of his songs, in that it must make you interested in the narrator’s wanderings without ever diverting focus from what’s most important: That he misses Johanna” (Jim Beviglia, Counting Down Bob Dylan, 2013).

Bob Dylan “Visions of Johanna”

895 Bob Dylan “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” 1966

“In his live shows from that era…Dylan was challenging his audience rightly to get on board or get out of the way. Even in these shows, however, it wasn’t like he was unleashing an hour’s worth of feedback on the audience. In fact, the No Direction Home documentary features footage of disgruntled fans at his 1966 British concerts complaining that the music was too commercial. These British fans had already been introduced to blues-based rock, so what Dylan was doing seemed to them more of a capitulation than a revolution. If anything, the alteration in the subject matter and lyrics from his acoustic period to his electric period was far more game-changing…Dylan’s words were leaps and bounds ahead of anything else that was being released at the time” (Jim Beviglia, Counting Down Bob Dylan, 2013).

Bob Dylan “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” 

894 Bob Dylan “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” 1966

“…determining Dylan’s motivation behind the song has always been a bit of a head-scratcher. There are two camps here: Those who see Dylan as advocating the use of drugs as a way to solve problems, and those who detect a streak of dark sarcasm in his use of the double meaning of the word ‘stoned’ to throw listeners off track. The songwriter himself has given mixed messages on the subject. He has vehemently denied in interviews that this or any of his other compositions were intended to be about drugs, nor has he ever advocated the use of drugs as a way of enhancing the listening experience. Yet, by all accounts, he insisted that he would have nobody playing on the session for the song who wasn’t stoned, which can account in part for the woozy yet wondrous recording” (Jim Beviglia, Counting Down Bob Dylan, 2013). 

Bob Dylan “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”

893 Donovan “Sunshine Superman”

Donovan: “The inspiration for the lyric came out of meeting my wife Linda in 1965. She had been in a relationship with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. When they split we got together, but it became apparent that Linda wasn’t ready for another ride around this extraordinary thing called fame. So we parted. But in the parting, she put me on the charts, because I immediately wrote ‘Sunshine Superman.’ It isn’t the sort of song that sounds like a broken heart. There seemed to be an intense feeling that we would meet again, and sure enough, we did” (Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, May 2007). 

Donovan “Sunshine Superman”

892 Donovan “Season of the Witch” 1966

Donovan: “My father brought me up in the socialist tradition. He read me poems of radical change. Poets in the 1700s addressed the great tragedy of the working man and how the industrial revolution was enslaving mankind. With my father, revolution was always in the air. He was a unionist, brought up in the factory world in Glasgow. He went to school barefoot in 1920 but taught himself about poetry and literature. So I was well primed when I was 16 and heard the radical songs of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and realized what was going on” (Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, May 2007). 

Donovan “Season of the Witch”

891 Donovan “Mellow Yellow” 1966

“Leonard Cohen said that a poet finds his theme when he’s a teenager and then never
leaves it. Has that been true for you?
Donovan: Absolutely. The theme is set and all other songs are variations of the theme. From a very early age, my theme was how to rediscover the Celtic magic of the troubadour sound that leads people into the inner world where all creativity comes from.
What techniques did you use to find that inner world as a songwriter?
Donovan: Reading Jack Kerouac and hearing the word ‘Zen’ and going on to Buddhism, then rediscovering the Eastern philosophies and the word ‘meditation,’ I realized that there was an actual technique for finding the inner world that we’d lost in the West” (Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, May 2007).

Donovan “Mellow Yellow”

890 The Spencer Davis Group “Gimme Some Loving” 1966

Steve Winwood, keyboard player: “I came from a musical family. My father, who worked at my great-uncle’s foundry, played the saxophone, clarinet, bass and drums, and he had four brothers who all played music. I started picking out tunes on the piano when I was five or six; when I was nine I got a guitar. I was in the church choir and when my voice broke I began trying to emulate these blues singers that I’d heard, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley. I suppose I missed out on the usual teenage growing up, but I gained so much. I'm eternally grateful for the freedom that my parents gave me. I think my father felt that if the music didn't work out he could always get me a job in the foundry” (Naomi West, The Daily Telegraph, London, 12 June 2010). 

The Spencer Davis Group “Gimme Some Loving”

889 The Crusaders “Praise We the Lord” 1966

“Not only were these Southern Californians one of the first on the scene with a ‘contemporary musical expression: The Beat’, they had one big advantage over other Christian beat outfits of the time (mostly UK bands), and that’s the support of a mainstream label. And boy does it ever show. This one’s got the heaviest garage sound for the era, ‘Praise We The Lord’ probably being the closest Christian music ever got to the raw punk energy of early Who (it’s actually a rip-off of The Yardbird’s tune ‘You’re A Better Man Than I’)” (www.theancientstar-song.com). 

The Crusaders “Praise We the Lord”

888 The Creation “Making Time” 1966

“Two British bands of the 1960s could have been described as the rock equivalent of a pop-art action painting. One, of course, was the Who. The other was often tapped as one of the bands most likely to succeed, but rock operas and stadium tours were not in the cards for the Creation. The group boasted a guitarist who did more than any other British musicians except Pete Townshend and Jeff Beck to pioneer feedback and distortion. It’s even been reported that he declined an invitation to join the Who as a second guitarist.” Said producer Shel Talmy, “Eddie Phillips deserves to be up there as one of the great rock ’n’ roll guitarists of our time, and he’s hardly ever mentioned. Jimmy Page stole the bowing bit of the guitar from Eddie. Eddie was phenomenal” (Richie Unterberger, Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll, 1998).

The Creation “Making Time”

887 Cream “I’m So Glad” 1966

“Cream made its official debut on July 31, 1966, before a crowd of 20,000 at Britain’s 6th National Jazz & Blues Festival. Robert Stigwood, whose other primary client was the Bee Gees, managed the group. Cream signed a five-year recording contract with the Reaction label for a reported 50,000 pounds (more than $150,000). In the United States, Cream was signed to Atlantic Records, where label head Ahmet Ertegun was determined to make a star out of the man he considered Cream’s chief asset, Eric Clapton. ‘[We] are tired of having talent that doesn’t make any big money,’ said Clapton, who was twenty-one years old. ‘Personally, I’d like some big money. I’ve lived in dingy rooms long enough. I’ve given all I’ve had to make music. Now I want something back’” (John Milward, How the Blues Shaped Rock ’n’ Roll and Rock Saved the Blues, 2013). 

Cream “I’m So Glad”

886 The Concords “He Thinks of You” 1966

A Christian quartet based in Scotland that performed from 1961 to the late 1960s (www.1960schristianmusic.com). “Unique in approach and universal in appeal, the music of the Concords has been appreciated by many thousands of people within the past five years or so. There can be no doubt that these young men are among the top artists of their kind, or that their popularity and reputation are continually growing and promises with the release of this record to reach new heights. The Concords sing Gospel music only. Why? Simply because they believe in the message of the gospel and have chosen to sing songs they believe will benefit their fellow man…These are fine, clean-living young men who do not sing for money, having purchased expensive equipment from their own pockets. They do no consider their music as being ‘entertainment’: the Concords seek higher rewards than the clamour of public applause” (Soul Purpose album notes). 

The Concords “He Thinks of You”

885 Judy Collins “Suzanne” 1966

“I have always been grateful that I did not fall in love with Leonard [Cohen] in the way that I fell in love with his songs. I could have, certainly. He had that charm, that glint in his eyes, that secretly knowing air that always attracted me to the dangerous ones—men who had fantastic sex appeal, were terribly smart and funny, and seemed to slip in and out of other women’s lives. I adored Leonard, but thankfully it wasn’t the kind of passion that got me into trouble. Instead, his songs would let me fly” (Judy Collins, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music, 2011). 

Judy Collins “Suzanne”

884 The Cobblers “There Is a Green Hill” 1966

A Christian British group’s revision of “House of the Rising Sun.” “The Cobblers started as a result of the Billy Graham North of England Crusade in Manchester…Bob Worwick, a converted night club star,” started the group at William Carey Baptist Church. The group took its name from Carey, who “was a cobbler before he was a minister and a missionary” (There Is a Green Hill album cover notes). 

The Cobblers “There Is a Green Hill”

883 Cher “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” 1966

“Sometimes I think, ‘It’s such a pain in my ass,’” says Cher of being, well, Cher. “But then I remember, ‘You’re so lucky to be able to do what you’re doing.’”... “I always believe that what belongs to you comes to you. It’s not about achieving goals. With success, luck has so much to do with it. I know people who are a lot more talented than I am, who just haven’t been lucky” (Jeff Nelson, People, 8 October 2018).

Cher “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”

882 The Byrds “Eight Miles High” 1966

“Roger McGuinn’s twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar was one of the defining sounds of 1960s pop, and never was it heard to more brilliant effect than on Eight Miles High. He has said his soloing here was inspired by jazz saxophone legend John Coltrane, and indeed Coltrane’s ‘sheets of sound’ is  a phrase that applies to the breathtaking torrent of notes cascading from McGuinn’s guitar here—no doubt in turn also inspiring an up-and-coming virtuoso named Jimi Hendrix. It was Byrds colleague David Crosby who first turned McGuinn on to Coltrane and Indian sitar wizard Ravi Shankar” (Steve Sullivan, Encyclopedia of Great Popular Recordings, 2013). 

The Byrds “Eight Miles High”

881 The Paul Butterfield Blues Band “East West” 1966

“Living in Chicago, Bloomfield was able to hear Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy and other blues giants live. Briefly a rock-band guitarist, he worked as a folk-club manager and played his earliest acoustic gigs with fellow white blues fans Nick Gravenites (vocals) and Charley Musselwhite (harmonica). In 1965 he joined Paul Butterfield's Blues Band. The band’s earliest recordings, released on the Elektra sampler What’s Shakin’? (1965), were some of Bloomfield’s finest, with his solos like lightning flashes illuminating the songs” (Phil Hardy, The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001). 

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band “East West”

880 James Brown “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” 1966

“While recording ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,’ I could feel something new kicking around inside me. Soon enough, I gave birth to a little baby I named funk…I had created something new and important for both Black and White audiences, and like the great Mr. Sinatra, I’m not ashamed to say I did it my way” (James Brown, I Feel Good, 2005).

James Brown “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”

879 James Brown “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” 1966

“what I do is not rock and roll! Rock and roll happens to be some of the music that I love, but let’s face it: it is a derivative of Black R & B, with some Hank Williams—type country thrown in and maybe a little Midwestern folk…everything I do begins with feeling. Soul music comes directly from the heart—it’s let-it-all-hang-out music that has a deep, direct connection to the soul” (James Brown, I Feel Good, 2005).

James Brown “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”

878 The Buckinghams “Kind of a Drag” 1966

“‘Kind of a Drag’ definitely made The Buckinghams happy. The song catapulted the regionally successful Chicago band to national stardom when it reached No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart in January 1967. ‘Kind of a Drag’ became both the commercial and sonic foundation for The Buckinghams with its use of a horn section, something the band didn't actually have…By the end of 1967, …The Buckinghams played 300 gigs and made numerous television appearances. ‘It was exciting, to say the least,’ guitarist Giammarese says about 1967. ‘It was a very crazy time and such a whirlwind. (We were) burning the candle at both ends and sleeping very little,’ Giammarese says. ‘But when you’re 19, you can handle that. The girls, it was the time period of the screaming girls, and you could hardly hear yourself onstage’” (Andrew Hughes, South Bend Tribune, 23 June 2011)

The Buckinghams “Kind of a Drag”

877 The Blues Magoos “We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet” 1966

“The Blues Magoos formed in 1964 and were initially called the Trenchcoats, which quickly became an important part of the emerging Greenwich Village rock scene, securing a residency at the fabled Night Owl Club. Changing their names to the Bloos Magoos, they released several singles for Ganim and Verve Records before getting signed to Mercury Records, and breaking out with their debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, which showed the band’s roots with its covers of songs by James Brown (“I’ll Go Crazy”) and Chicago blues man Big Maceo Merriweather (“Worried Life Blues”). The album’s breakout single, “We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet,” written by Castro, Gilbert, Scala and Esposito, went to #5 on the Billboard charts, and became a ‘60s underground anthem” (thebluesmagoos.com). 

The Blues Magoos “We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet”

876 Sandie Shaw “(There’s) Always Something to Remind Me” 1964 and “Long Live Love” 1965

“Shaw herself was discovered by Adam Faith after she took part in a talent contest, and became the first British artist to win the Eurovision song contest, with ‘Puppet on a String.’ ... Shaw, whose real name is Sandra Goodrich, was working at the Ford car plant in Dagenham and as a part time model when she took part in a talent contest at the age of 17. Coming second, she got to take part in a charity concert and was seen by Adam Faith, the singer, whose manager won her a contract and gave her the stage name and topped the charts that year - 1964 - with (There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me” (Josie Ensor, The Telegraph, 27 March 2013). 

Sandie Shaw “(There’s) Always Something to Remind Me” 

Sandie Shaw “Long Live Love”

875 Cilla Black “Alfie” 1966 and “Anyone Who Had a Heart” 1964

“The career of Cilla Black, who died after a fall at her home on Spain’s Costa del Sol in August 2015, provided a definitive illustration of the experiences of many female singers who, as they get older, are obliged to seek an alternative role in the entertainment industry. In Black’s case, it was a spectacularly successful transition. After a decade or more as one of Britain’s leading pop stars, she survived a fallow period before reinventing herself as a popular television host and arguably enjoyed even greater fame” (Ian Inglis, Popular Music and Society, 2016). 

Cilla Black “Alfie”

Cilla Black “Anyone Who Had a Heart”

874 The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” 1966

“Although the Beatles’ Revolver revolution makes some claims to our political consciousnesses by critiquing some ‘institutions,’ they really aim, throughout the album but especially on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ at our psychospiritual and aesthetic sensibilities instead…What is revolutionary and ‘shining’ for the Beatles on Revolver is nothing less (or nothing more) than what John Lennon, following Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, called the void: a pathless path that one reaches by relaxing and floating downstream, not by beating against the current, and certainly not by firing machine guns, rifles, or revolvers” (Russell Reising in Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four, 2006). 

The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows”

873 The Beatles “Here, There and Everywhere” 1966

“By the evening of August 29 [1966], when they enact their final concert—at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, to a less than sold-out house—they have been working at being the Beatles for nearly a decade, effectively without cease. And now a good part of it is over: no more will they appear as exposed objects on the stage of public display, or serve as fleshly targets for either adoration or hostility…That’s why John and Paul take their Tokyo cameras to the stage and snap pictures throughout the show” (Devin McKinney, Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History, 2003). 

The Beatles “Here, There and Everywhere”

872 The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby” 1966

“‘Eleanor Rigby’ emerges as the Beatle’s most explicitly religious song…What the Beatles offered in place of a religious eschatology was an unprecedented emphasis on the reality of the here and now…Doubly ironic, then, is that the Beatles should be viewed as simultaneously symbolic of the past and as quasi-religious figures themselves” (Kevin McCarron, in Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four, 2006).

The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby”

871 The Beatles “Rain” 1966

“JOHN: People ask me what music I listen to. I listen to traffic and birds singing and people breathing. And fire engines. I always used to listen to the water pipes at night when the lights were off, and they played tunes. Half the musical ideas I’ve had have been accidental. The first time I discovered backwards guitar was when we made ‘Rain’. This was a song I wrote about people moaning about the weather all the time. I took the tracks home to see what gimmicks I could add, because the song wasn’t quite right…That one was the gift of God—of Jah, actually, the god of marijuana. Jah gave me that one” (The Beatles Anthology, 2000). 

The Beatles “Rain”

870 The Beatles “Paperback Writer” 1966

“There can’t be many number one hit singles on which the French nursery rhyme ‘Frere Jacques’ is sung. But ‘Paperback Writer’ is one. It was Paul’s idea that John and George should rekindle childhood memories with this unusual backing vocal…Eighteen-year-old Richard Lush, another Abbey Road apprentice with a promising future, made his recording session debut as Beatles tape operator on this day. ‘I was pretty nervous. I’d worked with Cliff and the Shadows and they were very easy going but I knew that Beatles sessions were private…It certainly took a while before they knew me as Richard. Until then it was Who is that boy sitting in the corner hearing all of our music?’” (Mark Lewisohn, The Beatles Recording Sessions, 1988). 

The Beatles “Paperback Writer”

869 The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” 1966

“In the early hours of the morning of Thursday September 22nd, after 22 sessions lasting around 94 hours in four different recording studio, Brian’s masterpiece is finally completed…‘Good Vibrations’ has cost around $50,000 to produce—and in 1966 this makes it the most expensive single ever made. No one has ever heard anything like it before. Bruce [Johnston] speculates that The Beach Boys will either have the biggest hit of their lives or that their careers will be ended by the song” (Keith Badman, The Beach Boys, 2004). 

The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”

868 The Beach Boys “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” 1966

Brian Wilson “wouldn’t hesitate to put a musician through his or her paces if the effort helped achieve the precise shading he desired. While the tracking sessions could be long and tedious, they were—according to most of the musicians—‘productive and fun.’ Brian thrived on the collegial relationship he enjoyed with his musicians, and he treated them with respect” (Charles Granata, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, 2003). The Pet Sounds album is listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. 

The Beach Boys “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”

867 The Beach Boys “God Only Knows” 1966

“Looking back, Brian said, ‘God was with us the whole time we were doing this record…” Brian always had a keen sense of what the marketplace wanted in a pop song by the Beach Boys. Surfing, the beach, cars, girls…But now he was going to record a pop song with the word ‘God’ in the title…” Paul McCartney said, “It’s a big favorite of mine” (Jim Fusilli, Pet Sounds, 2005). The Pet Sounds album is listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. 

The Beach Boys “God Only Knows”

866 The Beach Boys “Sloop John B” 1966

“The first single from Pet Sounds to hit the charts owes its existence to Al Jardine’s love for the Kingston Trio. ‘Sloop John B’ has origins dating to 1926, and the excavation of the John B off the coast of Nassau, Bahamas. The shipwreck’s story was set to a Bahamian sea chantey: a folk song lamenting the seafarer’s lot….The song was included on the album at the suggestion of Capital Records…’we need a single. How are we going to sell this thing?’” (Charles Granata, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, 2003). The Pet Sounds album is listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. 

The Beach Boys “Sloop John B”

865 The Beach Boys “Caroline, No” 1966

Brian Wilson “identified one of the key themes, when he recalled the sad and reflective end of the album with ‘Caroline No,’ ‘Oh it was (sad), but you know life goes on. So you get knocked on your butt. I got knocked on my butt a couple of times, but you get back up and you keep working. I mean, like there’s always the chance of a better day. Giving up is only for idiots” (Kingsley Abbot, The Beach Boys Pet Sounds, 2001). The Pet Sounds album is listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. 

The Beach Boys “Caroline, No”

864 The Barbarians “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl” 1965 and “Moulty” 1966

“Formed in Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1964, this band was originally composed of band members Victor ‘Moulty’ Moulton (drums), Bruce Benson (rhythm guitar), Ronnie Enos (lead guitar), and Jerri Causi (bass)…The group decided to make their stage outfits resembles those of pirates/beach bums, as their drummer ‘Moulty’ Moulton had a hook for a hand…The song is sung by band’s drummer, Moulty, and tells the autobiography of his life and how he overcame losing his hand when a homemade pipe bomb went off in his face in 1959 when he was fourteen. Quite interestingly, Moulty didn’t record the song with his usual bandmates and released it without their approval. He instead recorded the vocals while being backed by Levon & The Hawks” (A Bit Like You And Me blog, 5 April 2013). 

The Barbarians “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl”

The Barbarians “Moulty”

863 The Association “Cherish” 1966

“The group was formed out a 13-strong (yes, 13!) aggregation calling themselves The Men. Internal squabbles resulted in six of them forming their own band, with somebody’s wife leafing through a dictionary in search of a name and coming up with The Association. The group at this point consisted of Ted Bluechel Jr (drums), Brian Cole (bass guitar), Gary Alexander (lead guitar), Russ Giguere (vocalist), Terry Kirkman (multi-instrumentalist) and Bob Page (guitar). Page lasted only a couple of weeks before being replaced by Jim Yester (rhythm guitar)…September saw the follow-up Cherish, written by Terry Kirkman, occupy the No. 1 spot in the US Hot 100—a lovely romantic ballad that couldn’t have been more different from Mary” (Record Collector, July 2013). 

The Association “Cherish”

862 The Liverbirds “Diddley Daddy” and “Leave All Your Loves in the Past” 1965

The Liverbirds “(pronounced lie-vah)…played the Cavern Club alongside the Beatles and were sent to the Reeperbahn in the early Sixties on the same promotional circuit. They never came back to England. Their looks was masculine—apparently Astrid Kirchherr helped them with it. They played Chuck Berry covers and songs with names like ‘Peanut Butter’. They performed nightly, for a hefty pay packet, on Hamburg’s street of sailors and hookers—and were all aged 16 and 17. The Liverbirds rolled joints for Jimi Hendrix; Jimmy Savile was one of their earliest supporters” (Kate Mossman, New Statesman, October 2015). 

The Liverbirds “Diddley Daddy”

The Liverbirds “Leave All Your Loves in the Past”

861 Goldie and the Gingerbreads “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” 1965

“Before there were the Go-Go’s, the Runaways, or Fanny, there was Goldie and the Gingerbreads, the first all-female band ever signed to a major label. Unlike other girl groups of the ‘60s, Goldie and the Gingerbreads played their own instruments, and the groundbreaking group made a splash in the U.K. with their 1965 hit single, ‘Can’t You Hear My Heart Beat?...” 

Genya Ravan: “We were considered a novelty till they heard us. Right from the first note, they knew they were hearing and watching something special. The U.S. was far more misogynistic than [Europeans]. In Europe they said, ‘Wow, you are great!’ and in the U.S., guys were like, ‘Do you broads really wanna be in this business? Shouldn’t you be home married with children?’ I never let it bother me—it drove me to become so good that male musicians would get embarrassed when they followed us onstage. The thing that really bothered me was how journalists would mention age [when writing about us]. They don’t say ‘Mick Jaggar is in his 30s now’ or talk about what male groups wore that night’” (Bess Korey, Bitch Magazine, Winter 2011).  

Goldie and the Gingerbreads “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat”

860 The Association “Along Comes Mary” 1966

“The Association were a successful sixties vocal-harmony group who, despite selling some 15 million copies of their singles, were unable to build a long-term career for themselves. Formed around Terry Kirkman (who had played with Frank Zappa) and Jules Alexander in Los Angeles in 1965, the group from the start ploughed the path of soft, rather than hard, rock. Signed to Valiant in 1966, they had an immediate million-seller with the controversial ‘Along Comes Mary’ (despite its soft harmonies, the song was widely regarded, like the Byrds’ ‘Eight Miles High’, as an ode to marijuana” (Phil Hardy, The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001).

The Association “Along Comes Mary”

859 The Yardbirds “Heart Full of Soul” 1965

“The three successive lead guitarists of the highly influential Yardbirds personified the changes in (London-based) British rock of the sixties: from blues (Eric Clapton) through the beginnings of psychedelia (Jeff Beck) to heavy rock (Jimmy Page, who formed Led Zeppelin as a direct descendant of the Yardbirds.) As was the case with many British groups of the early sixties, Samwell-Smith (bass), Relf (vocals), Dreja (guitar) and McCarty (drums) met while performing in school and folk-club bands. They formed the Metropolitan Blues Quartet in 1963, which became the Yardbirds with the addition of lead guitarist Topham. With the arrival of Clapton to replace Topham, who chose to remain at art school (Phil Hardy, The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001).

The Yardbirds “Heart Full of Soul”

858 The Yardbirds “For Your Love” 1965

“‘For Your Love’ was composed in the changing room of a men’s clothing shop where one of British pop’s great enigmas then worked. The originator of smashes, home and abroad, for The Hollies, Herman’s Hermits, Dave Berry, Freddie & the Dreamers and Wayne Fontana as well as The Yardbirds, Manchester’s Graham Gouldman was oddly unable to get far with his own groups, The Whirlwinds and then The Mockingbirds—whose 1964 version ‘For Your Love’ had been urned down by Columbia…At first, Gouldman’s manager Harvey Lisberg pondered sending the number to The Beatles—but as Graham himself would muse with a laugh, ‘They were doing all right in the songwriting department…but he still mentioned the idea to a publisher friend, who suggested that instead it should be offered to The Yardbirds as they were looking to break away from pure R&B and become more commercial” (Alan Clayson, The Yardbirds, 2002). 

The Yardbirds “For Your Love”

857 Stevie Wonder “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” 1965

“When they finished working and released the record in December 1965, ‘Uptight’ exploded with a funky, exuberant expression of the gospel vision. Paying Stevie’s debt to Ray Charles in full, the song’s celebration of redemptive love rang out in a stirring call and response with the chorus of voices that was transforming the American soundscape…Most white rockers set themselves up in defiant opposition to the stifling worlds where they’d grown up. Wonder never gave a thought to rejecting his elders and ancestors. Backed by James Jamerson’s pulsing bass and Benny Benjamin’s thunderous drums, Wonder joyously declares himself a poor man’s son from the wrong side of the tracks” (Craig Werner, Higher Ground, 2004). 

Stevie Wonder “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”

856 Junior Wells with Buddy Guy “Hoodoo Man Blues” 1965

“Amos Wells Blakemore Jr. arrived in Chicago as a boy and made his first records in his own name in 1953, aged just eighteen. Elmore James and Muddy Waters served as session men. He learned to play harp at the feet of Sonny Boy Williamson, and he fronted The Aces—Louis and Dave Myers, and Fred Below—one of the finest of all Chicago blues bands. By the mid-1960s Junior Wells was at the forefront of the city’s blues scene, a veteran of the Muddy Waters band and the resident headline at Theresa’s Tavern…He was a genuine star, born to perform: a brooding and almost sinister presence during a slow blues, an eccentrically electrifying dancer, and a mesmerizing singer who would punctuate an impassioned tenor wail with weird, guttural clicks and growls. He sang and played as if totally possessed. When Junior Wells was up on stage, nothing else in the room could hold your attention” (Alan Harper, Waiting for Buddy Guy: Chicago Blues at the Crossroads, 2016). 

Junior Wells with Buddy Guy “Hoodoo Man Blues”

855 The Who “My Generation” 1965

Manager Kit Lambert: “I paid my few shillings and went into the back. On a stage made entirely of beer crates…were The High Numbers, ugly in the extreme. Roger with his teeth crossed at the front, moving from foot to foot like a zombie. John immobile, looking like a stationary blob. Townshend like a lanky beanpole. Behind them Keith Moon sitting on a bicycle saddle, with his ridiculous eyes in his round moon face, bashing away for dear life, sending them all up and ogling the audience. They were all quarrelling among themselves between numbers. Yet there was an evil excitement about it all and instantly I know they could become world superstars” (John Perry, Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy: The Who, 1998). The Who Sings My Generation album is listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.

The Who “My Generation”

854 The Who “I Can’t Explain” 1964

Pete Townshend: “I grew up in Acton, and heard Ken Colyer’s band locally near Hounslow where my friend Jimpy lived. His band was called the Crane River Band, and they played all the Louis Armstrong marching songs. Ken had actually gone to New Orleans in the Merchant Navy, and came back with stories about Louis Armstrong. Before The Who, John Entwistle and I had a jazz band called The Confederates, and we played all those songs. Later, when I made the connection that a lot of skiffle (that grew out of Trad Jazz in the UK) was based on country blues, I started looking further, and found Snooks Eaglin and a few others from New Orleans itself. I think rock ‘n’ roll related to, and grew partly out of New Orleans jazz…” (John Swenson, Offbeat, 2 May 2015).  

The Who “I Can’t Explain”

853 The We Five “Let’s Get Together” and “You Were On My Mind” 1965

“A major attraction on the San Francisco scene, We Five found that elusive middle ground between folk and pop and enjoyed a fair amount of success stateside in the latter half of the Sixties…At their best, they harnessed their instinctive folk sensibilities to more commercial songs…We Five were also the first of many bands to feature on a Coca-Cola advertisement…How To Make A Soft Drink Commercial includes some attempts they made and making the perfect jingle before they nailed it” (Music Week, 7 March 2009). 

The We Five “Let’s Get Together” 

The We Five “You Were On My Mind” 

852 Junior Walker and the All Stars “Shotgun” 1965

“Born Autry DeWalt II in 1942 in Blythesville, Arkansas, the saxophonist was nicknamed Junior by his stepfather, whose name was Walker. When he turned professional in 1962, he took up the stage name of Junior Walker while still signing his compositions with the DeWalt monicker. Walker’s honking, hard-driving style was heavily influenced by Earl Bostic, a Lionel Hampton sideman and one of the early exponents of the R&B and jazz crossover genre. In the late Fifties, Walker met up with the guitarist Willie Wood in the South Bend area of Indiana and formed the band Jumping Jacks. In 1961, an over-excited fan jumped on stage in Battle Creek, Michigan, and shouted ‘These guys are all stars.’ The name stuck…Detroit was the place to be for black musicians in the mid-Sixties and Junior Walker was keen to join label-mates like the Temptations, the Four tops and the Supremes in the charts. In 1965, while playing a gig in Benton Harbor, Michigan, he spotted two teenagers doing an unusual dance they called the Shotgun: Walker went back to his motel room, penned an infectious tune he simply called ‘Shotgun’ and recorded it as soon as he was back in Detroit” (Pierre Perrone, The Independent (London), 25 Nov. 19950).   

Junior Walker and the All Stars “Shotgun”

851 The Turtles “It Ain’t Me Babe” 1965

“This is a great example of how, even on a song you love and think you know by heart, Dylan can trick you. Given just a perfunctory listen, ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’ comes off as a guy’s admission that he’s just no damn good, and, as a result, he is chivalrously stepping away from a girl who holds him in lofty status in her mind…When the Turtles took the song to the U.S. Top 10 in 1965, they seemed practically gleeful in re-telling Dylan’s tale. In their hands, ‘It Aint’t Me, Babe’ came off sounding like a guy who knew he was the weak link in the relationship and was completely unapologetic about it. That same year, Johnny and June Carter Cash put out a duet of the song which messed with the context in fascinating ways, taking Bob’s measured words and shouting them at each other like two former lovers who were each trying to win the blame game” (Jim Beviglia, Counting Down Bob Dylan: His 100 Finest Songs, 2013). 

The Turtles “It Ain’t Me, Babe”

850 Them “Gloria” 1964

“The release of ‘Baby Please Don’t Go/’Gloria’ in November of 1964 is the landmark record that changed, however briefly, how the world saw Belfast and, just as importantly, how Belfast saw itself…The record is ‘one of the greatest achievements of the British R’n’B scene of the time and, by extension, one of the most significant achievements of the beat era in Ireland’. It was selected as the signature theme tune of ‘the most hip programme on British television of the time’—Ready Set Go—and hence conferred on Belfast a ‘cultural cache that wasn’t there previously” (Noel McLaughlin, Joanna Braniff, Popular Music History, 2015).

Them “Gloria”

849 The Supremes “Stop! In the Name of Love” 1965

“This one was inspired by an argument between its composer, Lamont Dozier, and his girlfriend. Just as she was about to take a swing at him after catching him in a lie, Lamont shouted out, ‘Please, baby! Stop! In the name of love!’ Years later, he recalled, ‘It was so corny and silly that we burst out laughing. Then, I said, Ding, ding, ding! And she asked, What’ that? And I said, It’s the cash register, baby. Can’t you hear it? In other words, I knew in that very second that I had a hit, and it would be for the Supremes. Oh, and it also ended the fight’” (J. Randy Taraborrelli, Diana Ross: An Unauthorized Biography, 2007). 

The Supremes “Stop! In the Name of Love”

848 The Statler Brothers “Flowers on the Wall” 1965

“The ride began in the early 1960s when the Statler Brothers, who had formed in 1955 and later took their name from a box of tissues in a hotel room, first opened for Johnny Cash. Agent Marshall Grant had seen them perform in 1963 and remembered them the following year when Cash’s band was searching for background vocalists…The Statler Brothers’ own historic recording career commenced when Cash was late for a session at Owen Bradley’s fabled Quonset Hut studio. Cash producer and Columbia executive Don Law asked the group if it wanted to record something. Grant says, ‘So Don pushed the button and we recorded Flowers on the Wall’” (Jim Bessman, Billboard, 7 Dec. 2002). 

The Statler Brothers “Flowers on the Wall”

847 Sonny and Cher “I Got You Babe” 1965

“The son of Italian immigrants (father Santo was a truck driver, mother Jean a beautician), he tried to break into show business after graduating from high school in Inglewood, Calif., in 1952. Working as a deliveryman for a meat company, he ducked into record-company offices between stops to peddle his songs. By 1962 he was working in promotion for an independent record distributor. Bono was 27 and separated from his first wife when he took a liking to 16-year-old runaway Cherilyn LaPierre on a double date in 1963…Deciding that Cher was star material, Sonny brought her to impresario Phil Spector. Soon she was singing backup on hits like the Crystals’ ‘Da Doo Ron Ron.’ Still too shy to perform alone when given a chance to solo on ‘Baby Don’t Go’ in 1965, she insisted that Sonny sing with her, and a duo was born” (Michelle Cunneff, People, Aug. 1991). 

Sonny and Cher “I Got You Babe”

846 The Sonics “Strychnine” 1965

Jerry Roslie’s “voice—a meaty, lunatic, blast of hoodlum-R&B bravado, punctuated with bloodcurdling howls—would be Roslie’s ticket to legend with his next band, Tacoma garage-rock pioneers the Sonics” (David Frick, Rolling Stone, 7 May 2015).

“One of the earliest exponents of the garage sound cited as an influence on everyone who kicked up a fearsome racket from iggy and the Stooges to Eagles of Death Metal. Jimi Hendrix was a big fan” (Pete Clark, Evening Standard, 26 March 2008). 

The Sonics “Strychnine”

845 The Sonics “Have Love Will Travel” 1965, Richard Berry “Have Love Will Travel” 1959

“Founded in 1961 by guitarist Larry Parypa and his bassist brother, Andy, the Sonics were part of a singular Northwest ferment with the Kingsmen, the Fabulous Wailers, and Paul Revere and the Raiders, packing teen dances with Fifties-R&B fundamentals and proto-punk ferocity. The Sonics—with drummer Bob Bennett—were rougher than the rest. ‘We used to call beer our polish,’ Roslie says. ‘We’d dring beer to become polished’” (David Frick, Rolling Stone, 7 May 2015). 

Richard Berry “became a street-smart L.A. record hustler, the studio rat who seemed born to stay up all night, singing into a mike for pleasure and profit. Berry possessed the studio hustler’s arsenal of skills, including singing, piano playing, arranging, bandleading, and—potentially most profitably—songwriting” (Dave March, Louie Louie, 2004). 

The Sonics “Have Love Will Travel”

Richard Berry “Have Love Will Travel”