Classic Rock 1966: The Beat Goes On

'Track durations obtained from software.

Volume 7 of a 30 volume set.

Issued with an 8 page booklet & no barcode
No mastering code or Specialty Records Corporation logo

Produced in cooperation with Warner Special Products

Printed on back cover inlay:
Manufactured for Time-Life Music by Warner Special Products, a Warner Communications Company
℗ 1988 Warner Special Products

Booklet:
Time Life Music:
The Author:
Joe Sasfy is a regular contributor to 'The Washington Post', and his articles have also appeared in 'Musician, Country Music and Creem'. He is chief consultant for both the Classic Rock and the Rock 'n' Roll Era series.

Time-Life Music wishes to thank William L. Schurk of the Music Library and Sound Recordings Archives, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, for providing valuable reference material.

Time-Life Music is a division of Time-Life Books Inc. © 1988 Time-Life Books Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
Time-Life is trademark of Time Incorporated U.S.A.

Cover art by Ernie Norcia © 1988 Time-Life Books Inc.

Manufactured for Time-Life Music by Warner Special Products,
a Warner Communications Company
℗ 1988 Warner Special Products

Printed on CD:
Manufactured by Warner Special Products, a division of Warner Communications, Inc.
℗ 1988 Warner Special Products
Made in U.S.A.

Complete liner notes:

From its inception, rock 'n' roll has endured a never-ending procession of self-appointed censors eager to clean up the music, especially the lyrics (or 'leerics,' as Variety tagged them in 1954). While sex was the bogeyman in early rock 'n' roll, the '60s brought a new concern: drugs. In 1966, Newsweek alerted the public to the thinly veiled drug references in rock songs and the Gavin Report, a key radio programing tip sheet, notified stations of the problematic words in the Byrds' Eight Miles High, the Association's Along Comes Mary and Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.

Like so many rock songs of this era, the obtuse lyricism of Eight Miles High (e.g., 'Plain gray town known for its sound, in places small faces unbound') invited various interpretations. The Byrds maintained that Eight Miles High described the somewhat foreboding England they encountered on a disastrous United Kingdom tour in late 1965. The song, featuring Roger McGuinn's incredible 12-string-guitar leads inspired by jazz innovator John Coltrane, was perhaps the group's finest moment and the year's most musically adventurous single. Thanks partly to the Gavin Report's stigmatization, the record stalled at No. 14 on the charts.

Donovan's Mellow Yellow was also suspect, thanks to a few lines which seemed to attribute psychedelic properties to bananas (e.g., 'Electrical banana is gonna be a sudden craze'). Banana peels were dutifully dried and futilely smoked all across America before everyone realized that a more satisfying effect was achieved by discarding the peel and eating the fruit. One rumor about the song proved true - Paul McCartney sang backup vocals. The clean-cut Association also took some heat for their first hit, Along Comes Mary, widely viewed as an ode to marijuana. Group member Ted Bluechel later explained that the song 'can be about anything you want it to be,' noting that many parochial schools named St. Mary's used it at pep rallies.

Given this atmosphere of freewheeling interpretations, it's a small wonder that no one branded the Lovin' Spoonful's Daydream or the Mamas and the Papas' California Dreamin' as products of drug-induced reveries. John Phillips wrote his West Coast fantasy on a dreary winter day while he and Michelle Phillips were living in Manhattan. Shortly thereafter, the couple hooked up with two folkies, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot, in the Virgin Islands and there the cascading harmonies of the Mamas and the Papas took shape. With the help of their friend Barry McGuire, the group moved to Los Angeles and signed with Lou Adler's Dunhill label.

Though drugs were on (or in) most everybody's mind, rock songwriters hardly abandoned old-fashioned topics like sex. Erotic connotations were obvious in Lou Christie's Lightnin' Strikes and its follow-up, Rhapsody in the Rain. In fact, there was such an outcry over Rhapsody that Christie returned to the studio and rewrote passages such as 'In this car, our love went too far.' These songs, like his earlier material, were penned by Christie and Twyla Herbert, a clairvoyant who claimed she could predict which of his records would become hits.

Fortunately, the guardians of teen morality weren't aware that the idea behind Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich's Hanky Panky came while the famous song-writing team was parked at a lovers' lane contemplating all the couples engaged in...um ...hanky panky. Originally recorded by the Raindrops (Barry and Greenwich's group), Hanky Panky was also released by the Shondells, a teen-age band from Niles, Michigan. Their single was forgotten until late 1965 when it became a surprise hit in Pittsburgh, drawing lead singer Tommy Jackson (now billed as Tommy James) to town to promote the record. James picked a local Pittsburgh group, the Raconteurs, to be the new Shondells. After Roulette Records purchased the master, this simplest of rock ditties became a No. 1 hit, astonishing both James and the song's authors.

Though ostensibly about supporting a friend, Sam and Dave's Hold On! I'm Comin' provoked anxieties among radio programers because the duo's earthy delivery and lusty asides reinforced the title's supposed salaciousness. Some stations banned the record; some DJs simply called it Hold On; Stax Records even re-released it under the less provocative name Hold On, I'm a-Comin'. The song originated at the Memphis soul studio where David Porter and Isaac Hayes were trying to come up with a hit for Sam and Dave. When Hayes found Porter dawdling in the men's room, he told him to hurry up and Porter yelled back, 'Hold on, man, I'm comin'.' Porter emerged a moment later shouting, 'I've got it.'

The sweaty Memphis soul style was also adopted by Wilson Pickett, who scored his biggest hit with a revved-up remake of Land of 1000 Dances, originally written and performed by Chris Kenner during the dance-crazy early '60s. Regarding Pickett's patented shrieks, Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler later commented: 'Wilson would scream notes, where other screamers just scream sound.' As soul shouters go, Pickett received stiff competition from a white singer from Detroit named Billy Levise, who grew up idolizing Little Richard and James Brown. When Levise and his band, the Rivieras, signed with Bob Crewe's New Voice label, they changed their name to Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Their biggest hit was a frenetic medley of Shorty Long's Devil with a Blue Dress On and Little Richard's Good Golly Miss Molly, later used as a show-stopping concert finale by Bruce Springsteen.

Soul provided some of the year's biggest dance hits, including the kinetic Cool Jerk by the Capitols and Going to a Go-Go by the Miracles, something of a departure for Motown's premier balladeers. While the Supremes kept rolling with Holland-Dozier-Holland compositions such as My World Is Empty without You, the most significant development at Motown was Stevie Wonder's maturation, reflected in Uptight (Everything's Alright), his first major hit since Fingertips - Part 2 made it to No. 1 in 1963. The 15-year-old phenomenon displayed a stronger, more masculine voice on Uptight and got his first song-writing credit. Wonder, who toured with the Rolling Stones in 1964, snatched Uptight's driving tempo from Satisfaction.

The Beach Boys' brilliant composer and producer, Brian Wilson, pushed his group into a new era of musical sophistication with the album Pet Sounds. Drawing on Phil Spector's production techniques and challenged by the Beatles' Rubber Soul, Wilson employed a host of nonrock instruments to create a rich orchestral framework for his song cycle about the uncertainties of growing up. Although the album proved to be too 'heavy' for many Beach Boys fans, it did yield the top-10 singles Wouldn't It Be Nice and Sloop John B.

One of the most refreshing sounds of 1966 came from the Left Banke led by Michael Brown, a classically trained pianist responsible for the group's two hits, Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina. His unrequited love for Renee Fladen, girlfriend of band member Tom Finn, inspired both of these wistful, bittersweet songs. Brown's father, a violinist, engaged the string quartet that gave the Left Banke's recordings their distinctive Baroque quality. Michael Brown later formed Stories, a band that topped the charts in 1973 with the controversial Brother Louie.

In late 1965, a record called Lies convinced many rock fans that the Beatles had assumed the name the Knickerbockers as a joke. Actually, the Knickerbockers were an upstate New York quartet who had recorded probably the most skillful imitation of the Beatles' early-Merseybeat style ever. The success of Lies earned the Knickerbockers a regular slot on Dick Clark's Where the Action Is TV show, in which the group's conservative suits and outdated hair styles revealed them as hopelessly square. Lead vocalist Buddy Randell had earlier been in the Royal Teens and co-wrote their smash, Short Shorts.

Another Beatle-esque creation, Last Train to Clarksville, cropped up in the fall of 1966. Of course, it wasn't the Fab Four, but the Monkees, a pre-fab four selected to star in a new television series. Their debut single, derived partly from the Beatles' Paperback Writer, was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart and, though the Monkees sang, they didn't play a note. It was true that the Monkees had little involvement in the making of their early records, but, according to Peter Tork, even the Monkees were not created equal: 'I was lucky to be included at all. It was all Micky and Davey, and Mike got his chance because he wrote some songs and he insisted on producing them himself. I was left out in the cold.'

- Joe Sasfy'[discogs]