'66: Rolling Stones, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs

The Rolling Stones -- 19th Nervous Breakdown

Even when I was a kid, when this came on the radio I knew right away what gave Mick the idea for the title: those Excedrin pain reliever commercials that numbered and documented headaches: Number 39, Number 24 etc. That's my idea, anyway. Here's a couple of them on youtube. Recognize that voice? The unmistakable Dick Cavett. 

The Stones performed the song live on the Ed Sullivan Show, well before the boys had a falling out with the impresario over a lyric in "Let's Spend the Night Together" that Ed wanted changed and Mick obliged, changing the words to "some time together," lifting his eyes to the ceiling mockingly. "Breakdown" concerns one of Mick's girlfriends who was acting pompous and conceited. The lyrics mention a couple of things recently outdated in 1966 that might engender blank stares these days: "Your father's still perfecting ways of making sealing wax." Before envelopes were mass-produced with sealer, for centuries wax was used to keep a letter closed and, with an impression as from a seal, identified the sender. Some firms still produce it, but usage is now more for ceremony or effect. Sealing wax was previously mentioned in lyrics of Peter, Paul and Mary's 1963 smash "Puff The Magic Dragon" which also made #2 Billboard.

"Breakdown," at 3:57, is rather long for a single in 1966. Listen for Keith's "divebombing" licks as the song ends. The song peaked at #2 on March 19, 1966, not being able to get past Sergeant Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Berets."

Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs -- Li'l Red Riding Hood

Domingo "Sam The Sham" Samudio and the Pharaohs had some trouble following up their 1965 #2 smash "Woolly Bully" -- "Ju Ju Hand," "Rang Dang Doo" and "Red Hot" had stiffed in late '65 and early '66 --  and they turned to the storybooks for songwriter Ronald Blackwell's "L'l Red Riding Hood" which did the trick, vaulting them to #2 once again. The followup, "The Hair on My Chinny Chin Chin," was a taunt by the Three Little Pigs.

Fantasist Roald Dahl rewrote the "Riding Hood" story, telling it his way:

In Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, the wolf enters the grandmother's house and devours her before putting on her clothes in order to eat Little Red Riding Hood next. Riding Hood is not disturbed, however, and calmly pulls a pistol out of her knickers and shoots the wolf ("The small girl smiles/Her eyelid flickers/She whips a pistol from her knickers/She aims it at the creature's head and BANG! BANG! BANG! she shoots him... dead.") - yielding her a new wolfskin coat. --wikipedia

'66: Donovan

Donovan -- Sunshine Superman

Finishing up the list of Number One hits of 1966, Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" was the first pop hit to mention the Man of Steel, though not the last: Herbie Man, the Ides of March, Dino, Desi and Billy, Donna Fargo and Five For Fighting would all follow on the Billboard Hot 100 with songs named "Superman", while yet another "Superman" showed up as the B-side of The Clique's Tommy James cover, "Sugar on Sunday" in 1969 (and that one turned up as a "hidden track" on REM's 1986 album "Lifes Rich Pageant.")

When "Sunshine Superman" hit in the fall of 1966, I'm reminded of how in the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, Calvin's father remarked one day "the world turned color in 1966." For me that statement was more or less correct: our family got its first color TV, a Philco, on Christmas of that year. As I recall about half of TV network programs were 'colorized' about that time, and soon after, networks went merrily kandy-koating TV shows with bright, garish costumes and backgrounds. "Sunshine Superman," to my knowledge the first "psychedelic" pop hit ("could've tripped out easy, but I've changed my ways") served notice that psychedelia was going to be a driving force in pop, as it was for the next couple of years. And, bear in mind that "Superman" was recorded a good seven months before it was released.

Donovan had been previously known as a Dylan-esque folk singer (but rather more wistful than Bob would ever allow himself to be); "Superman" was the beginning of a very successful 3-year collaboration between the Scotsman and British pop producer Mickie Most, which would see him through his most popular period in the USA on the Epic label. Future Yardbird and Zeppelin Jimmy Page can be heard on lead guitar,and arranger John Cameron played harpsichord. 

"Superman" has been covered by artists as diverse as Jewel, Hüsker Dü, Spirit of the West and yes, Mel Tormé, and made the Top 40 again in 1997 as a sample on Imani Coppola's "Legends of a Cowgirl" (though I remember reading at the time that Coppola didn't care for the original all that much).

Donovan -- Mellow Yellow

As it turns out, the Glaswegian also had the biggest Number Two hit in 1966, as his followup to "Superman" peaked in December 1966, stalling behind "Winchester Cathedral" and  "Good Vibrations." Donovan denies "Yellow" being about smoking banana peels (despite the phrase "electrical banana") but rather the relaxed, calm feeling after smoking pot; or a vibrator -- depending on what interview you read. "Yellow" employs future Zeppelin John Paul Jones supervising a horn arrangement that, at first, was a little to brassy for Donovan, who feared it came across too much like what would accompany a stripper. Applying mutes to the horns, Donovan got what he wanted. Rumor had it that Paul McCartney was whispering "quite rightly" throughout, but it later came out that that was Donovan himself (and I never thought it sounded like Paul, anyway).

The Coca-Cola company introduced a Mello Yello soft drink in 1979 to compete with Pepsi's Mountain Dew; Coca-Cola has by 2008 replaced it in most markets with Vault.

'66: Lou Christie, Frank Sinatra

Lou Christie -- Lightnin' Strikes

So, which pop falsetto is your favorite? I suppose the most successful in the genre was, of course, Frankie Valli, but there's also Eddie Holman ("Hey There Lonely Girl") Larry Henley of the Newbeats ("Bread and Butter"), any of the Bee Gees, and Robert John ("Sad Eyes"). But Lugee Sacco, of Glen Willard, Pennsylvania, used his like no other. He sang his songs in a normal register but as they built to a crescendo in the chorus, he'd soar into his trademark upper register.

You have to hand it to composers Lou and Twyla Herbert for demonstrating a lot of gall, unmitigated or otherwise, in the lyrics -- here we have a guy demanding of his girlfriend the right to play around until they get married. Till then, if someone comes along he's attracted to...lightnin' strikes! Lou met Twyla in Glen Willard in 1959, when he was 15 and she was about 30. They established a successful songwriting partnership that saw him through a decade-long pop charting career in which he appeared on nine different labels -- and he still regularly tours in the 2000s, recently appearing with Lesley Gore. "Lightnin' Strikes" was released on MGM in late 1965 and hit #1 in mid-February of the next year, though Lou has said in interviews that the president of MGM Records hated it so much when he heard it, he threw the tape away. It was wisely released anyway.

The backup singers, Jessica James and the Outlaws (Denise Ferri, Bernadette Carroll ("Party Girl") and Peggy Santiglia (who had been with The Angels), immortalized the nonsense backup phrase "buppy-ah-ooh" (do they make these up in the studio as they go along?) Other notable ones in the genre can be heard on Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash": "innashoo-wah-oo" and even Adam Ant's "Stand and Deliver": "a-diddley-quah quah." Christie returned the favor, doing the backup honors on JJ and the Outlaws' 1966 release, "We'll Be Makin' Out."

Frank Sinatra -- Strangers In The Night

When Frank Sinatra returned to the #1 spot in 1966, 5 months after daughter Nancy helped pave the way for him with "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'", it was a vastly different pop landscape than it had been in early 1955, the last time Frank had been to the top of the pops with "Learnin' The Blues"; accompanying him in the Top Five that year were Mitch Miller, the McGuire Sisters, the Fontane Sisters, and Cuban bandleader Perez Prado. That year, Bill Haley and His Comets had the first #1 rock record ("Rock Around the Clock"), Elvis became a phenomenon the next year, and the classic pop purveyed by Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como and Bing Crosby started to take a back seat, sales-wise. When Sinatra returned to the top in 1966, he found The Beatles, The Cyrkle, The Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield in the top five with him.

"Strangers in the Night" was an instrumental composed by Hamburg, Germany bandleader Bert Kaempfert, who had previously enjoyed two US #1 hits in 1960 ("Wonderland by Night" and Joe Dowell's "Wooden Heart," introduced by Elvis in GI Blues). Kaempfert had also composed "Swingin' Safari," used as the theme song for the 1960s incarnation of TV's The Match Game, and recorded Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers (the Beatles) in Hamburg in 1961. After Sinatra's label's public relations man Jimmy Bowen heard the instrumental, part of the soundtrack for the James Garner vehicle A Man Could Get Killed, he requested lyrics for the song, which he was sure Sinatra would record. By the time Sinatra had the song a few months later, the lyrics had already made the rounds of the recording industry and Bobby Darin and Jack Jones had already recorded it -- but radio picked up Frank's version and it rocketed to the top. 

'66: Nancy Sinatra, the Beach Boys, the Young Rascals

Nancy Sinatra: These Boots Are Made For Walkin'

You might think that Nancy Sinatra would have had, so to speak, a leg up on showbiz, since her father, Frank, was the #1 male singer of the 20th Century (and he wasn't done by 1966 by any means). Yet, it took Nancy a total of 16 single releases on her father's label, Reprise, by the time she clicked with "Boots," written and produced by mustachioed Oklahoman Lee Hazlewood (1929-2007). By 1966 Nancy was better known for her on-screen escapades with Elvis in Speedway and also in features like For Those Who Think Young and Get Yourself a College Girl. 

Hazlewood, for his part, had been active since the 1950s, mostly as producer for guitar legend Duane Eddy, he had written Sanford Clark's 1956 rockabilly hit "The Fool," and "Houston" for Frank's Rat Pack partner, Dean Martin. (The title of the song is a line in the Frank Sinatra-Dean Martin 1963 Western 4 For Texas.) Hazlewood encouraged Nancy to get in touch with her tougher side when recording "Boots": "I know there's garbage in there somewhere." After "Boots" clicked, Nancy and Lee teamed up for over a dozen more hits.

Jessica Simpson had a Top 20 hit in 2005 with a remake on the soundtrack for The Dukes of Hazzard; she rewrote the lyrics to befit the personality of her character Daisy Duke. The song has been covered dozens of times by disparate artists such as the Supremes, Loretta Lynn, Billy Ray Cyrus and Boy George.

The Beach Boys -- Good Vibrations

Was Brian Wilson the first prog-rocker? The familiar 3-minutes and change "Good Vibrations" is actually distilled down from lengthy musical sections that added up to a full half hour -- more than the 23 minutes generally allotted to album sides in 1966. The original "Good Vibrations" sessions can be heard, in large part, on the Beach Boys' 1993 box set (of the same title) and others can be heard on their 2001 compilation, Hawthorne, CA. Brian Wilson's reputation as a studio perfectionist is fully heard on these, and also the Pet Sounds sessions. 

Working with the Beach Boys' 1960s studio group, the legendary Wrecking Crew, Brian Wilson produced what some call the world's first "pop symphony" with layers of overdubs and instrumentation, including some never before heard on a pop record, such as a theremin. Tony Asher's original lyrics were more explicitly "trippy," but Brian and Mike Love rewrote them for pop airplay. The song was originally going to be the centerpiece of the Beach Boy's Smile album, an experimental suite Wilson wrote with Van Dyke Parks, but Brian could never complete it and it was shelved until 2004, when he recorded it with a different group of musicians. The other 'Boys were never crazy about Smile; Mike Love admonished Wilson "don't f!@# with the formula." Indeed the Beach Boys didn't return to the top ten after "Good Vibrations" until 1975, and that was a remake of Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music."

Brian was ahead of his time in one regard, though: in the next few years, album-side long conceptual pieces would become the rage in rock, with Jethro Tull's A Passion Play, Pink Floyd's "Echoes" and Dark Side of the Moon, most of what Yes recorded, and hundreds of others. Todd Rundgren had a hit version in 1976 that carefully tried to recreate the original note for note (as were all the songs on his Faithful LP that year).

Here's a live version from 1976.

Young Rascals -- Good Lovin'

Think AC/DC's Angus Young was the first rocker to go on stage in a schoolboy uniform? When the Young Rascals first began performing on stage in 1965, all four of them did. Fortunately that phase didn't last long. That year keyboardist/singer Felix Cavaliere, percussionist Eddie Brigati and guitar player Gene Cornish were coming off a stint with Joey Dee and the Starlighters (the trio arrived after "Peppermint Twist" hit in 1961, though Eddie's brother David had been with Dee at that time). Joining with drummer Dino Danelli, who had played in Lionel Hampton's band in New Orleans and in session work, the four worked on a repetiore of about 25 songs, many written by Cavaliere and Brigati, and made their debut in '65 New Jersey roadhouse called the Choo Choo Club and, gaining a following,  began a heavy tour schedule in the NY-NJ area and came to the attention of promoter Sid Bernstein, who had brought the Beatles to America, and signed with the Atlantic label, known for its R&B and soul acts.

Their first single, "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore," charted but not highly. For their second 45 they turned to a song that had been a minor hit in early 1965 for the R&B group The Olympics ("Western Movies") and it was an immediate smash. Here's a live version from 1966.

"Good Lovin'" has been covered by The Who (their 1965 BBC Sessions version was probably picked up via The Olympics') and the Grateful Dead stretched it out to a lengthy jam in concert.

'66 - ? and the Mysterians, Johnny Rivers

? and the Mysterians -- 96 Tears

Here's Rudy Martinez, the "?" in ? and the Mysterians, and the band playing "96 Tears" in 1999, sounding like they did 33 years before when they came out of nowhere exploiting the Tex Mex sound that Doug Sahm had pioneered with the Sir Douglas Quintet a few years before, organizing rock and roll in the process. Rudy, like Mott the Hoople's Ian Hunter, has still never removed his sunglasses in all these years.

The original "96 Tears" was recorded in the Mysterians' manager Lilly Gonzalez's living room in Adrian, Michigan. Martinez and the rest of the group were born in Mexico but had all emigrated with their parents to the Saginaw Valley in the Wolverine State. "96 Tears," originally released on the Pa-Go-Go label, gained significant airplay and popularity in Flint, Bay City, and finally Detroit, where Cameo Records president Neil Bogart (later an executive at Buddah Records and the founder of the Casablanca and Boardwalk labels) heard it, purchased the master and released it nationwide; it hit #1 for a week on October 29th. According to legend, the original title was "69 Tears," but Martinez has never officially confirmed that. 

"96 Tears" has been covered most notably by Aretha Franklin, Big Maybelle (whose version hit #96), British bands The Stranglers and Inspiral Carpets (as you might expect from those two keyboard-heavy groups),  Joe "King" Carrasco, and Garland Jeffreys.

Johnny Rivers --Poor Side of Town

This was Brooklyn-born John Ramistella's biggest hit and his lone #1. John and his parents moved to Baton Rouge, LA when he was three and he became proficient on guitar and mandolin beginning at age eight. As a teenager he visited New York and Nashville to find work in recording studios and sat in with local bands. On one such visit he met legendary deejay Alan Freed, who liked what he heard and got him a contract with Gone Records, changing his name to Rivers in the process.  The single he put out on Gone didn't click and he went to Nashville, where he forged a friendship with Roger Miller and wrote "I'll Make Believe" for Ricky Nelson. 

After meeting Nelson in Los Angeles in 1958 Rivers found that he enjoyed the southern California lifestyle; by 1963 he was building up a following at Gazzara's on Sunset Strip and soon was headlining at a new club that would spawn the careers of many southern California superstars, the Whiskey a -Go-Go. Things fell into place quickly as producer Lou Adler signed him to a contract with Imperial Records, where he would join Nelson. His first few major hits ("Memphis," "Maybelline," Seventh Son" ) were recorded at the Whisky.

"Poor Side of Town," in which Rivers welcomes back a girlfriend who had strayed with a wealthy suitor, was Rivers' only major hit that he wrote himself. It hit #1 on November 12, 42 years to the day I am writing this.

'66: Beatles, Petula, Monkees

The Beatles -- Paperback Writer

Prior to this hit, Paul McCartney's bass was hardly audible on most Beatles recordings, or certainly wasn't prominent. That all changed on "Paperback Writer," their second biggest hit in 1966 ("We Can Work It Out" was the biggest) and a return to #1 after "Nowhere Man" was a relative stiff, only hitting #3 Billboard. Paul usually used a Hofner but switched to a Rickenbacker for this session at Abbey Road Studios, and a loudspeaker was placed in front of the bass speaker. In that era, recording studios were loath to use a fat bass on waxings because needles often jumped when encountering it. EMI, the Beatles' British label, alleviated this with new technology called the ATOC -- Automatic Transient Overload Control. Paul's bass was almost played as a lead instrument on later Beatles recordings (re "Something").

McCartney's theme here is written in the form of a submission letter to a publishing house "Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?" It's possible he wrote it as a subtle jibe at John Lennon, who had already published two books of light humor (In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. American fans, by the way, may have missed the pun in the latter title, a takeoff on the British spanner, meaning wrench). Paul has said, though, he was inspired by reading an article in the Daily Mail (the newspaper is mentioned in the song) about an aspiring author.

John and George sneak in the words "Frere Jacques" ("Brother John") in the backing vocal on the second verse, but notice they come in a little late the second time around.

In England, "Paperback Writer" b/w "Rain" was promoted in trade publications with their infamous "butcher photo" in which the smirking Fab Four posed with broken baby dolls and cuts of freshly butchered meat. The photo made its way onto the cover of the Capitol compilation LP, The Beatles -- Yesterday and Today but Capitol quickly realized what a mistake this would have been -- The Beatles still had pretty much a squeaky-clean image in 1966 and this wouldn't have been the way to broaden people's perceptions -- and recalled the album, replacing it with a more innocuous group picture.

Petula Clark -- My Love

The rollicking "My Love" is probably my favorite Petula Clark hit, but when her chief writer, her husband Tony Hatch, first presented it to her after writing it on a transatlantic flight over the North Pole from London to Los Angeles, Petula despised the song and, even after duly recording it in LA, begged Warner Brothers to not release it. The label's instincts were right and it became Clark's second USA #1, and in so doing she became the first British woman to enjoy two chart toppers in the USA.

The Monkees - Last Train to Clarksville

The "Pre-Fab Four" 's first single hit the #1 mark in November, 1966, composed by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who play guitar on the recording. In fact the only Monkee on the record was Mickey Dolenz; as a rule, the Monkees did not play a big role in the instrumentation on their early smashes. That wasn't an exception for mid-Sixties pop acts, however; the Beach Boys and even the Byrds often brought in studio professionals to augment their sound, and in many cases, even replace the band in the studio. After a time, though, the Monkees thought themselves proficient enough to play everything on their recordings and did so, to a great degree, on their Headquarters album in 1967. The distinctive opening lick is played by ace studio guitarist Louie Shelton.

There's a poignancy in the Boyce and Hart lyric that is often glossed over after you've heard it a hundred times: a man is in a railroad station going off to war, telephoning his girlfriend hoping for one last meeting; he says, "And I don't know if I'm ever coming home." This was in 1966, before the country had largely turned against the war in Vietnam. Boyce and Hart did not specifically mean Clarksville, TN, Clarksville, AZ, Clarksville, MO, or Clarksville, IA, Clarksville, IN, or any other Clarksville; they were being deliberately vague.

'66: Percy Sledge, Supremes, Tommy James

Percy Sledge -- When A Man Loves A Woman

Here's a live take of Percy Sledge's classic that he wrote during the time he was working as an orderly at Colbert County Hospital in Leighton, Alabama. Sledge was also a singer in a local group, the Esquires, and at his church, Galilee Baptist Church; he has said in interviews that he worked up the song on stage one night, miserable from a breakup, with bass player Cameron Lewis and organist Arthur Wright (who are credited on the 45 label due to Sledge's generosity). He auditioned the song for local producer Quin Ivy and recorded it with the renowned Rick Hall's FAME studio band in Muscle Shoals. Released on the Atlantic label, the song quickly ascended to #1 in May '66. 

"When a Man Loves a Woman" has also charted with versions by Esther Phillips and Bette Midler, and went to #1 again in 1991 in a version by Michael Bolton, who performs it here with Sledge. The song's title was used for a 1994 film starring Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan.

Supremes -- You Keep Me Hangin' On

Probably my favorite Supremes classic next to "Stop! In the Name of Love," this Holland, Dozier, Holland classic concerns an ex-boyfriend who won't leave, wishing to be "just friends", while Diana Ross is having none of it. Lamont Dozier inserted a "Morse code" guitar figure into the song after hearing a similar sound effect on a radio news report, and it became one of the Supremes' most rock-oriented hits. The Supremes recorded eight versions with Motown's The Funk Brothers before they had just the version H-D-H was satisfied with. 

It's one of the most-covered songs in the Motown songbook; Vanilla Fudge did it first, with their trademark lugubriously lengthy sound, followed by artists as diverse as Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Tim Buckley, Rod Stewart (with Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice) , Kim Wilde (a #1 cover) and 2007 American Idol runnerup Blake Lewis.

Tommy James and the Shondells -- Hanky Panky

In late 1963 the Raindrops needed a B-side for their latest single "That Boy John," and Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich wrote and performed "Hanky Panky," then promptly forgot about it. The record went nowhere when JFK was assassinated on November 22, scotching any chance a record about a boy named John would be a hit, apparently. 

"Hanky Panky" did make an impression, though, on 15-year-old Tommy Jackson, who heard a local group, the Spinners (not the Spinners of "I'll Be Around" fame) doing the song at a club in South Bend, Indiana. Seeing the crowd response, he hastened to cut it (with improvised lyrics, as Jackson, by now Tommy James, had forgotten the original Barry/Greenwich words) with his own band, the Shondells (named for a guitarist Jackson admired named Troy Shondell). The song did well in the midwest, slipped off the charts there, and James finished high school.

In 1965 the song began to gain popularity again when local DJs in Pittsburgh, PA began to play it and it was bootlegged to play at dance parties around town (an estimated 80,000 nonlegal versions were sold this way). DJ Mad Mike Metro convinced James to come to town to promote "Hanky Panky." He had to hastily assemble another Shondells backing band -- a local group called the Raconteurs agreed to it, and so originated the Tommy James and the Shondells that hit the charts continuously till the end of the 1960s. James, meanwhile, sold the master recorded back in his hometown, Niles, MI, to Roulette Records, it got to radio nationwide, and became a Number One smash -- the sort of um, grass roots sort of star-making probably impossible today.