Summer of 1966: Pop Music's Greatest Era
As Part of Oggy's ongoing preservation of all things pop music, he has located what he believes to be the greatest weeks of music in the radio era.
Take a look at that! Are you joking? This was a series of weeks and months in which the radio was filled with the following: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Yardbirds, Simon & Garfunkel, The Supremes, The Righteous Brothers, Bob Dylan, The Four Seasons, The Four Tops, The Walker Brothers, The Temptations, Lovin' Spoonful, The Hollies, Tina Turner, The Kinks, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, The Byrds!
Holy Shit! These were basically brand new acts and they have lasted for over 40 years.
These songs, Paperback Writer, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Working my Way Back to You, Soul and Inspiration, I Am A Rock, California Dreamin', Good Vibrations...were all brand new! These were new releases! Singles! You'd buy a 7 inch record for $1 with Good Vibrations and Wouldn't it Be Nice on the B side. And you had never heard either song before. Oggy is just amazed that such an era existed. You could sit in your 1960 Chrysler convertible and turn the radio on and the DJ would say, "Here's the latest single from the Beatles, Yellow Submarine!" And the next sound you heard would be the fog whistle and cranks and such from that song. And you had never heard that song before. Maybe you didn't dig it, and would say, "I wish they would play some Troggs again. I just love their new song, Wild Thing." But honestly, for their to be a month like May 1966 when the top 20 on any given day are now considered complete timeless classics. When Eight Miles High by The Byrds is the runt of the bunch (#20) then you know you are dealing with some great songs!
Oggy has taken this walk back in time, some 5 years before he was alive, because he was listening to The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore) by The Walker Brothers. He must recommend it to any fan of '60s era music. It's a rip-off of Phil Spector's production strategy with a "wall of sound" and possibly slowing the tape down to get a deep deep voice, but it's a great rip off. The Righteous Brothers made it work and the lesser known Walker Brothers (who were not related) both make this approach work. Somehow, Oggy was not alive in May 1966, but it is not difficult to pretend what that would have been like. To be alive in 1966, say, the age of Oggy's father at the time, 26. Yes, the war in Vietnam was getting ugly, and Kennedy had been mercilessly gunned down and then America relived his murder for the next two years as thousands of people were murdered in Vietnam, but music, radio pop music was the salve applied by the likes of James Brown and The Mindbenders and Paul Revere & The Raiders. No matter how bleak the news was you could kind of predict great things from that new duo, Simon & Garfunkel. Bob Dylan seemed kind of freaky with his wacky lyrics, but his songs seemed harmless. The Hippies weren't yet filling the highways with their thumbs and smoking pot in the park or dropping LSD in the parking lot outside a Dead Concert. Hell, Frank Sinatra was still cool and showed up in a movie every once in a while. This was back in the day when a performing artist didn't embarrass himself when he tried to act. Global Warming was what happened after the last ice age. Land was $20 an acre. Los Angeles was still a desert town where no one wanted to live. Elvis was in rehab. Oggy likes to pretend he was alive back then. He is nostalgic to an extreme, so he can actually recreate a nostalgia for a time he never experienced. The Walker Brothers' "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" would have been Oggy's favorite song of 1966. It makes sense because his favorite song of 1965 was "You've Lost That Loving Feeling." The Walker Brothers definitely knew what sound they wanted. Listening to that song makes Oggy feel young again, like he would have felt in 1966 and was in love with his neighbor. Oggy was managing a lumber store in New Hampshire. Lots of new developments were going up and he had to coordinate all that lumber. It was hectic, but it was his father's business and it had a good future. In the evening he would go to the drive in theater, listening to whatever happened to come on the radio, songs from The Rolling Stones or The Four Seasons, you know, the new sound. And Oggy would meet his friends at the drive in and they would sit around and talk about baseball games they played in High School, back in 1957, and girls in poodle skirts would walk by as a song by The Beatles came on the radio followed by The Sounds of Silence, which was kind of old since it had come out way back in January.
The sky was clear in 1966, DDT was still sold in the hardware store down the street and families covered their home gardens with it to keep the worms off the lettuce. The miracles of modern science were infinite! And The Mamas & The Papas turned barbershop quartet harmonies on their head with some upbeat rock and roll. Country music was still cool, but Rock and Roll was the way of the future. You might hear, Monday Monday, Good Lovin, Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, Kicks, When a Man Loves a Woman, Sloop John B, A Groovy Kind of Love, (You're My) Soul and Inspiration, Secret Agent Man, I Am a Rock....song that had been first released within the last 4 weeks.
Yet Oggy would still pause when The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore came on the radio. He would listen intently and raise his eyes to the night sky. This song would forever define May 1966 to Oggy. More than the news his brother had been drafted or his first "real" car or learning a friend from school had died in Boot Camp. Those other memories would be the ones triggered by this song. Not the other way around. Those other memories would only exist in the context of this song and it would remain that way forever.
Listen to the walker bros. tune and imagine what it was like to hear it in 1966. Oggy doesn't want to live in the past, but songs like this force him to do just that.
The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)
(Bob Crewe/Bob Gaudio)
Loneliness is a cloak you wear
A deep shade of blue is always there
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love (Baby)
Emptiness is a place you're in
and nothing to lose but no more to win
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love
Lonely without you baby
Girl I need you, I can't go on
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love (Baby)
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love (Baby)
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love (Baby)
Take a look at that! Are you joking? This was a series of weeks and months in which the radio was filled with the following: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Yardbirds, Simon & Garfunkel, The Supremes, The Righteous Brothers, Bob Dylan, The Four Seasons, The Four Tops, The Walker Brothers, The Temptations, Lovin' Spoonful, The Hollies, Tina Turner, The Kinks, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, The Byrds!
Holy Shit! These were basically brand new acts and they have lasted for over 40 years.
These songs, Paperback Writer, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Working my Way Back to You, Soul and Inspiration, I Am A Rock, California Dreamin', Good Vibrations...were all brand new! These were new releases! Singles! You'd buy a 7 inch record for $1 with Good Vibrations and Wouldn't it Be Nice on the B side. And you had never heard either song before. Oggy is just amazed that such an era existed. You could sit in your 1960 Chrysler convertible and turn the radio on and the DJ would say, "Here's the latest single from the Beatles, Yellow Submarine!" And the next sound you heard would be the fog whistle and cranks and such from that song. And you had never heard that song before. Maybe you didn't dig it, and would say, "I wish they would play some Troggs again. I just love their new song, Wild Thing." But honestly, for their to be a month like May 1966 when the top 20 on any given day are now considered complete timeless classics. When Eight Miles High by The Byrds is the runt of the bunch (#20) then you know you are dealing with some great songs!
Oggy has taken this walk back in time, some 5 years before he was alive, because he was listening to The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore) by The Walker Brothers. He must recommend it to any fan of '60s era music. It's a rip-off of Phil Spector's production strategy with a "wall of sound" and possibly slowing the tape down to get a deep deep voice, but it's a great rip off. The Righteous Brothers made it work and the lesser known Walker Brothers (who were not related) both make this approach work. Somehow, Oggy was not alive in May 1966, but it is not difficult to pretend what that would have been like. To be alive in 1966, say, the age of Oggy's father at the time, 26. Yes, the war in Vietnam was getting ugly, and Kennedy had been mercilessly gunned down and then America relived his murder for the next two years as thousands of people were murdered in Vietnam, but music, radio pop music was the salve applied by the likes of James Brown and The Mindbenders and Paul Revere & The Raiders. No matter how bleak the news was you could kind of predict great things from that new duo, Simon & Garfunkel. Bob Dylan seemed kind of freaky with his wacky lyrics, but his songs seemed harmless. The Hippies weren't yet filling the highways with their thumbs and smoking pot in the park or dropping LSD in the parking lot outside a Dead Concert. Hell, Frank Sinatra was still cool and showed up in a movie every once in a while. This was back in the day when a performing artist didn't embarrass himself when he tried to act. Global Warming was what happened after the last ice age. Land was $20 an acre. Los Angeles was still a desert town where no one wanted to live. Elvis was in rehab. Oggy likes to pretend he was alive back then. He is nostalgic to an extreme, so he can actually recreate a nostalgia for a time he never experienced. The Walker Brothers' "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" would have been Oggy's favorite song of 1966. It makes sense because his favorite song of 1965 was "You've Lost That Loving Feeling." The Walker Brothers definitely knew what sound they wanted. Listening to that song makes Oggy feel young again, like he would have felt in 1966 and was in love with his neighbor. Oggy was managing a lumber store in New Hampshire. Lots of new developments were going up and he had to coordinate all that lumber. It was hectic, but it was his father's business and it had a good future. In the evening he would go to the drive in theater, listening to whatever happened to come on the radio, songs from The Rolling Stones or The Four Seasons, you know, the new sound. And Oggy would meet his friends at the drive in and they would sit around and talk about baseball games they played in High School, back in 1957, and girls in poodle skirts would walk by as a song by The Beatles came on the radio followed by The Sounds of Silence, which was kind of old since it had come out way back in January.
The sky was clear in 1966, DDT was still sold in the hardware store down the street and families covered their home gardens with it to keep the worms off the lettuce. The miracles of modern science were infinite! And The Mamas & The Papas turned barbershop quartet harmonies on their head with some upbeat rock and roll. Country music was still cool, but Rock and Roll was the way of the future. You might hear, Monday Monday, Good Lovin, Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, Kicks, When a Man Loves a Woman, Sloop John B, A Groovy Kind of Love, (You're My) Soul and Inspiration, Secret Agent Man, I Am a Rock....song that had been first released within the last 4 weeks.
Yet Oggy would still pause when The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore came on the radio. He would listen intently and raise his eyes to the night sky. This song would forever define May 1966 to Oggy. More than the news his brother had been drafted or his first "real" car or learning a friend from school had died in Boot Camp. Those other memories would be the ones triggered by this song. Not the other way around. Those other memories would only exist in the context of this song and it would remain that way forever.
Listen to the walker bros. tune and imagine what it was like to hear it in 1966. Oggy doesn't want to live in the past, but songs like this force him to do just that.
The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)
(Bob Crewe/Bob Gaudio)
Loneliness is a cloak you wear
A deep shade of blue is always there
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love (Baby)
Emptiness is a place you're in
and nothing to lose but no more to win
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love
Lonely without you baby
Girl I need you, I can't go on
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love (Baby)
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love (Baby)
The sun ain't gonna shine anymore
The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you're without love (Baby)
posted by Oggy Bleacher | 12:10 AM
