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”