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The Music of 1966: A weekly look at America’s top singles in the year that The British Invasion began to wane

The music of 1966 doesn’t have the cachet of some of the other years of that incredible decade. It’s not 1964 with The British Invasion, and the thrill of hearing The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks for the first time, and it’s not 1967 with hippies, Flower Power, ‘All You Need Is Love’ and the psychedelic music explosion, or 1969 with Woodstock, The Rolling Stones’ infamous concert at Altamont or The Beatles’ last live performance on the rooftop of their Apple offices. Maybe nothing in particular about the music of 1966 stands out to you, but I bet you remember many of the bands and their hit songs that year.1966 is a year that the dominance of British acts in 1964/65 starts to ebb. On Billboard’s list of the top singles of 1966, the highest placing record by a British artist is ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’ by The Mindbenders and it ranks a rather lowly 20th. The 19 songs that placed higher than that were all by American acts, with ‘California Dreamin’’ by The Mamas and The Papas ranked as the Top Record of the year.1966 is also the year that featured early psychedelic records, with guitars with feedback and distortion, reverse tapes and tape loops, like ‘Rain’ by The Beatles and ‘Eight Miles High’ by The Byrds. Novelty songs were big in 1966, none weirder than Napoleon XIV’s ‘They’re Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haa!’, but there was also ‘Snoopy Vs The Red Baron’ by The Royal Guardsmen, and ‘Lil’ Red Riding Hood’ by Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs. Artists known primarily for one song were abundant in 1966. ? and The Mysterians had the #1 hit ‘96 Tears’ but there were lots of others. Some of the biggest include Keith (‘98.6’), The Electric Prunes (‘I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)’), Count Five (‘Psychotic Reaction’), Los Bravos (‘Black Is Black’), The Shadows of Knight (‘Gloria’), The Bobby Fuller Four (‘I Fought The Law’), Bobby Hebb (‘Sunny’), Bob Lind (‘Elusive Butterfly’), and The Blues Magoos (‘(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet’). 1966 is also the year of the first Hot 100 entries by such stars as Neil Diamo

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