Music with Purple Flashes: 1966

1966. Perhaps it was the most exciting year pop has ever produced. It was a year that saw experiment take over from 'beat', soul take over from R & B and the artists right to expression reach greater heights than ever before.

London replaced Liverpool and in America, California replaced New York as the hub of musical activity. Names - the Seeds, Love, 13th Floor Elevators - that we, in the UK could only read about in some of the more hip music papers, had US hit singles and released their first LPs. Folk rock blossomed with the Byrds and bloomed with the Mamas and the Papas, whose records still sound vital and exciting today. The Lovin' Spoonful too - most of whose members had played in New York, Greenwich Village folk years - migrated west. Everyone was there - perhaps it was the heat! - producing incredible, indispensable and relevant music.

Here in the UK we heard some of it via radio. In 1966 pirate radio was at its height. It was great, compulsive and innovative. Best was probably Swinging Radio England. Sounding just like KHJ Los Angeles (Boss radio indeed), it was fast and furious. The Troggs, Them and The Small Faces all gained from early plays on SRE, but it especially concentrated on the USA - Love (the still amazing "7 & 7 is"), Sir Douglas Quintet and soul records galore. There were also the broadcasts from the original two pirates, Radios Caroline and London which when reception was good led to one being able to tune into a veritable twenty-four hour jukebox.

The Rolling Stones too changed the way music was made. "Aftermath" included the 11-minute "Going Home" that in turn influenced Love to record "Revelation" on their "Da Capo" LP recorded later in 1966. It was all fertilisation and cross fertilisation; folk to folk rock became early psychedelia and the San Francisco scene. It seemed that everyone was influencing everyone.

And so it was in San Francisco that, as 1966 drew to a close, we in the UK began to read of groups with names like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. What did these groups sound like? It was impossible to tell. 1967 would answer this question but pose many others.

1966 Top Ten
This list is in no particular order but simply represents my favourites.

1. The Rolling Stones "Aftermath", Decca. UK issue.
2. Otis Redding "Otis Blue", Atlantic.
3. Love "Love", Elektra.
4. Spencer Davis Group "Autumn '66", Fontana.
5. The Kinks "Face to Face", Pye.
6. The Mamas and the Papas "If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears", RCA.
7. The Beatles "Revolver", Parlophone.
8. 13th Floor Elevators "Psychedelic Sounds of …", International Astists.
9. Bob Dylan "Blonde on Blonde", CBS.
10. The Misunderstood "I Can Take You to the Sun", Fontana.
This is the only single listed but what a single. Released in December 1966 this has to be one of the finest records ever made. Its power, excitement and brilliance still stand almost forty years later.

- Simon Black