1966 #1 Singles Albums

1966 #1 Singles Albums

1966 #1 Singles Albums

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1966 #1 Singles Albums

January

November 27, 1965 – Jan 7, 1966: Herb Albert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights Billboard #1 album.

In 1966, LSD : Timothy Leary founded the League of Spiritual Development, with LSD as the sacrament.

In 1966: JB Lenoir’s “Vietnam Blues” Lenoir. “Mister President you always cry about peace, but you must clean up your house before you leave”

January 1 – 7, 1966: “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

January 3, 1966: the Psychedelic Shop head shop opens on Haight Street, S.F.

January 8, 1966, Teenage Culture: ABC’s Shindig!’s last show.  January 8, 1966, LSD : & Rock Venues: a San Francisco Acid Test by Ken Kesey at the Fillmore Auditorium.

Michael Rossman (S.F. Chronicle, 1/66): Up at the Fillmore Auditorium, Ken Kesey’s Acid test event was in action when I got there around the middle of the evening. The people were like the backstage crowd at the California Hall dance (that the Airplane played the same night). The costumes were, wow! a strobe light was flickering at a very high frequency in one corner of the hall and a group of people were bouncing a golden balloon up and down in it. It was a most perturbing frequency. in one corner there was a piece of metal, tubular sculpture by Ron Boise, a thumping machine. If you hit it, you got different sounds if you hit it in different places. There was a lot of electronic equipment which sent out a low reverberation that resonated throughout the hall. and the whole place was filled with streamers and balloons. There were tV cameras and a tV screen, and you could see yourself in it. Onstage there was a rock group; anybody could play with them. It was a kind of social Jam session. a guy in a white mechanic’s suit with a black cross on the front, and on the back a sign saying ‘Please Don’t Believe in Magic’, ran up and down all night. Oh wow! Periodically the lights went out and everybody cheered. Giant Frisbees, balloons like basketballs, acrobats, girls in felt eyelashes four inches long, people with eyes painted on their foreheads, glasses low on the nose with eyes painted on them, men with foxes on their shoulders! Wow!

January 8 – February 18, 1966, The Beatles: Rubber Soul the Billboard #1 album.

January 8 – 21, 1966, The Beatles: “We Can Work It Out” #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

January 12, 1966, Teenage Culture: ABC-TV’s replacement for Shindig broadcast: Batman.

January 15, 1966, LSD : Portland, Oregon Acid Test. (see Jan 17)

January 17, 1966, LSD : Ken Kesey trial for marijuana charge. Found guilty and sentenced to six months on a work farm and three years probation.

January 19, 1966, LSD : Ken Kesey arrested a second time for marijuana possession. Prankster Mountain Girl (Carolyn Garcia) also arrested.

January 21, 22, & 23 1966, LSD  & Grateful Dead: 10,000 people in San Francisco. Trips Festival at Longshoreman’s Hall.

The Trips Festival helped mark the beginning of the hippie counterculture movement in San Francisco. Organized by Stewart Brand, Ramon Sender, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, and Bill Graham at the Longshoremen’s Hall for January 21-23, 1966, the event brought together the city’s diverse underground arts scene, including rock music groups, experimental theater performers, dance companies, light show artists and film producers.

Prankster Ken Babbs recalled, We had this guy build us a soundboard; Buchla. He lived in San Francisco and he built us this thing called the Buchla Box. I think he worked on the Moog synthesizer. This guy was unbelievable. At the trips Festival at Longshoreman’s Hall [a venue with seats on all four sides of the floor], the weekend of January 22, 1966, he had ten speakers set up around there in the balcony. He had this board in which he could run the sound around in circles. He would isolate one, and have sound wheeling around the room. He had this thing like a piano that was just flat and you ran your fingers across it and it would play the notes. Made it himself, absoulutely fantastic. He made up this box for us that was essentially a mixer and a mike amp and a speaker box and an earphone box.

The Dead played on the 22 & 23 of the festival.

January 22 – 28, 1966: “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

January 23 – February 7, 1966: first issue of Crawdaddy! magazine: You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy! will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music….

January 23, 1966, LSD : Ken Kesey “commits suicide” and flees to Mexico to avoid imprisonment

January 29, 1966, LSD : Acid Test at Sound City Studios in San Francisco.

January 29 – February 4, 1966: ”We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

February 

In February 1966: LSD : newspapers began reporting that Ken Kesey was not dead but in Mexico.

February 4, 5, and 6, 1966, Rock Venues: Chet  Helms founded Family Dog Productions to begin promoting concerts at The Fillmore Auditorium, alternating weekends with promoter, Bill Graham.

February 5, 1966: LSD : Acid Test in Los Angeles. Northridge Unitarian Church.

February 5 – 18, 1966: “My Love” by Petula Clark #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

February 12, 1966, LSD : Acid Test in Los Angeles. Watts. Youth Opportunities Center. It was at this Test that Prankster Hugh Romney (later Wavy Gravy) decided to put LSD into Kool-Aid.

February 17, 1966, Brian Wilson began recording “Good Vibrations.” Six months, four studios and $50,000 later, he finally completed his three-minute-and-thirty-nine-second symphony, pieced together from more than 90 hours of tape recorded during literally hundreds of sessions.

February 19, 1966, Rock Venues: Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin performed at the Fillmore Auditorium.

February 19 – 25, 1966 – “Lightnin’ Strikes” by Lou Christie #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

February 19 – March 4, 1966 — Herb Albert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights is the Billboard #1 album. It is one of the most famous album covers of all time.

February 25, 1966, LSD : Acid Test in Los Angeles.Hollywood. Cinema Theatre.

February 26 – March 4, 1966: “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” by Nancy Sinatra #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

March

March 4, 1966, The Beatles: an interview by reporter and Beatle friend Maureen Cleave appeared in the London Evening Standard newspaper. In the 1169-word article Lennon discussed many things. After a paragraph about George Harrison’s interest in Indian music and before a paragraph about shopping, there was this:

Experience has sown few seeds of doubt in him: not that his mind is closed, but it’s closed round whatever he believes at the time. ‘Christianity will go,’ he said. ‘It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.’ He is reading extensively about religion.

No one took notice of it in Britain.

March 5 – April 8, 1966, Vietnam & News Music: “The Ballad of the Green Beret” by SSgt Barry Sadler #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

March 5 – 11, 1966: Herb Albert’s Going Places is the Billboard #1 album.

March 12 – April 15, 1966, Vietnam & News Music:  SSgt Barry Sadler’s  Ballads of the Green Beret  the Billboard #1 album.

March 19, 1966, LSD : Acid Test Los Angeles, California (Pico) Carthay Studios.

March 22, 1966, LSD : Prankster Mountain Girl fined $250 for marijuana possession.

March 25, 1966, LSD : Life magazine published cover article on LSD. “LSD: The Exploding Threat of the Mind Drug that Got Out of Control.”

March 25, 1966, LSD :  Acid Test at the Troupers Club in Los Angeles.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

April 

In April, 1966, LSD : Sandoz Pharmaceutical recalled the LSD it had previously distributed and withdrew its sponsorship for work with LSD.

April 1, 1966, The Beatles: John Lennon bought a copy of Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience and The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, where he read near the beginning of the book’s introduction; “When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float downstream,” which captured Lennon’s imagination and became the first line of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, (which he recorded 5 days later).

April 9 – 29, 1966: “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration” by The Righteous Brothers #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

April 16 – May 20, 1966: Herb Albert’s Going Places returns as to the Billboard #1 album.

April 18, 1966: 1965 Oscars held. Bob Hope hosts. Best picture: The Sound of Music (1964) which had surpassed Gone With the Wind (1939) as the number one box office hit of all time.

April 30 – May 6, 1966: “Good Lovin’” by the Young Rascals #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

May

May 1, 1966: The Beatles’ final scheduled live appearance in Britain. It was their fourth appearance at the New Musical Express Annual Poll-Winners’ All-Star Concert, which took place at the Empire Pool in Wembley, London. The Beatles performed before an audience of 10,000.

The group was on a bill which also included The Spencer Davis Group, The Fortunes, Herman’s Hermits, Roy Orbison, The Overlanders, The Alan Price Set, Cliff Richard and The Shadows, The Rolling Stones, The Seekers, The Small Faces, Sounds Incorporated, Dusty Springfield, Crispian St Peters, The Walker Brothers, The Who, The Yardbirds and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. The comperes were Peter Murray and Jimmy Savile.

The Beatles played a 15-minute set which included five songs: I Feel Fine, Nowhere Man, Day Tripper, If I Needed Someone and I’m Down.

Although ABC TV was filming the concert, Brian Epstein failed to reach an agreement over terms, so the cameras were turned off while The Beatles performed. The group was, however, filmed receiving their poll awards.

May 7 – 27, 1966: “Monday, Monday” by the Mamas and the Papas #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

May 16, 1966, Bob Dylan: released Blond on Blonde.

May 16, 1966, The Beatles: The Beach Boys released “Pet Sounds“. The LP has been called one of the most influential records in the history of popular music and one of the best albums of the 1960s, including songs such as “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows.”

May 21 – May 27, 1966: The Mamas and the Papa’s If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears is the Billboard #1 album.

May 28 – June 10, 1966: “When A Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

May 28 – July 22, 1966: Herb Albert’s What Now My Love is the Billboard #1 album.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

June

In June, 1966, Future Woodstock Performers: Incredible String Band (Robin Williamson, age 22 , and Mike Heron, age 22 ) released first album, The Incredible String Band.

In June, 1966, Vietnam & News Music: Pete Seeger released Bring ‘em Home.

June 3, 1966, Grateful Dead:  the first appearance by the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore Auditorium. Along with the Dead, the Quicksilver Messenger Service who got top billing on the poster, and the Mothers joined. Created by the legendary rock artist Wes Wilson , the poster’s central image is a fairly simple one of a mushroom shape surrounded by circles.

June 6, 1966, The Beatles: appeared taped on the Ed Sullivan Show.

June 10 – 11, 1966, Grateful Dead: the Dead played the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco The poster’s central image is a drawing of a skeleton with a disproportionately large skull. The skeleton is very smartly dressed, wearing a cowboy hat and smoking a cigar.This poster is significant historically because it represents the first use of a skeleton as an emblem for the Grateful Dead. It predates the iconic Skeleton and Roses poster by Mouse Studios by several months which eventually became the signature of the Grateful Dead.

June 11 – June 24, 1966: “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

June 16, 1966, Roots of Rock: announcement that NY radio station WOR-FM would be first NYC FM station to play rock and roll music on a “regular basis.” June 20, 1966, The Beatles & Vietnam: Capitol Records released “Yesterday…and Today” album but refused to keep the original cover of Beatles sitting in butcher smocks and holding baby doll parts. John Lennon’s response was that the cover was a relevant as Vietnam.”

June 24 & 25, 1966,  San Francisco FM radio station KFRC sponsored the “The Beach Boys Summer Spectacular” at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Future Woodstock Music and Art Fair performers were: Jefferson Airplane and John Sebastian from the Lovin’ Spoonful.

June 25 – July 1, 1966, The Beatles “Paperback Writer” #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

July

In July, 1966, Future Woodstock Performers: Tim Hardin (age 25) released first album, Tim Hardin 1

July 2 – 8, 1966: “Strangers in the Night” by Frank Sinatra #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

July 9 – 15, 1966, The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

July 10, 1966: The Third Big Sur Folk Festival. July 16 – 24, 1966: “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. July 23 – 29, 1966: Frank Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night is the Billboard #1 album.

July 25 – August 12, 1966: “Wild Thing” by the Troggs #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

July 29, 1966, Bob Dylan: Dylan was involved in a motorcycle accident. The seriousness of the accident is still unknown. Dylan’s biographers have written that the crash offered him the much-needed chance to escape from the pressures that had built up around him. Dylan confirmed this interpretation of the crash when he stated in his autobiography, “I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race.” In the wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from the public and, apart from a few select appearances, did not tour again for almost eight years.

July 29, 1966, The Beatles: John Lennon’s March 4 interview with Maureen Cleave in which he says “We’re more popular than Jesus” appeared in American teen magazine, “Datebook.” Within days of publication, anti-Beatle sentiment builds up and American disc jockeys in the southern States encourages the destruction of Beatle records and memorabilia at bonfire rallies. Also enforced was a radio ban on Beatle records that was started by a Birmingham, Alabama D.J. The ban picked up momentum by other radio stations in the southern Bible belt. By August 6, thirty US radio stations have banned all Beatles records from airplay.

World reaction to John’s remarks:

  • South Africa: Piet Myer of the South African Broadcasting Corporation temporarily banned Beatles records from being played and noted that “The Beatles arrogance has passed the ultimate limit of decency. It is clowning no longer.”
  • Spain: three radio stations immediately bans the airing Beatle records.
  • Holland: one radio station banned the airing of Beatle records

July 30 – Sept 2, 1966, The Beatles: Yesterday and Today the Billboard #1 album.

July 31, 1966, Roots of Rock: WOR-FM  [NYC] began running a freeform-based progressive rock format for most of its broadcast day. Management was unable to come to an agreement with  AFTRA (the union that represents on air talent). As a result, the DJ’s did not start until October 8.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

August

August 5, 1966, The Beatles: John Lennon  explains/defends/apologizes about statement that  Beatles are more popular than Jesus.

August 8, 1966, The Beatles:  US edition of Revolver  released in US. The original North American LP release of Revolver marked the last time Capitol would release an altered UK Beatles album for the North American market. As three of its tracks—”I’m Only Sleeping”, “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “Doctor Robert”—had been used for the earlier  Yesterday and Today Capitol compilation, they were simply removed in the North American version, yielding an 11 track album instead of the UK version’s 14.

August 12, 1966, The Beatles: The Beatles began their 14-date final tour with a concert at Chicago’s International Amphitheater, a venue they had previously played in September 1964. They played two shows, at 3pm and 7.30pm, each of which was seen by 13,000 people. Support acts for the entire tour were The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes. The Beatles’ standard set throughout the tour consisted of 11 songs: Rock And Roll Music, She’s A Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby’s In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer and I’m Down. During the tour they occasionally substituted the final song with Long Tall Sally. August 13, 1966, The Beatles: KLUE-AM radio of Longview, TX held the first of the “Beatles bonfires,” where ex-Beatle fans came to burn the groups’ records in protest to John’s Jesus statement.

In Cleveland, the Reverend Thurman H. Babbs, of the New Haven Baptist Church, called for the excommunication of all Beatles fans.

In an interesting twist, the morning after KLUE’s bonfire, the stations’s radio tower was struck by lightning, throwing the station off the air.

August 13 – September 2, 1966: “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

August 15, 1966, Future Woodstock Performers: Jefferson Airplane released their debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The personnel differs from the later “classic” lineup and the music is more folk-rock than the harder psychedelic sound for which the band later became famous. Signe Toly Anderson was the female vocalist and Skip Spence played drums. Both left the group shortly after the album’s release and were replaced by Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden, respectively.( Jorma Kaukonen (age 25), Paul Kantner (age 25), Jack Casady (age 22), Marty Balin (age 24), Grace Slick (age 26), Spencer Dryden (age 28).

August 23, 1966, The Beatles: a little over a year after their first triumphant appearance at New York’s Shea Stadium, The Beatles returned for a second time

. The concert did not sell out, with 11,000 of the 55,600 tickets still available. Nonetheless, The Beatles made more money from their appearance than they had in 1965, receiving $189,000 – 65 per cent of the gross takings of $292,000.

Curiously enough the second Shea Stadium concert had about 11,000 seats unsold. So it was a pretty unsettling time. And it was against this background that they said, ‘Right, we definitely won’t do any more. We are going to have a break and then we are going into the studio to make a record.’ (George Martin from Anthology)

The support acts were The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes. The Beatles performed 11 songs: Rock And Roll Music, She’s A Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby’s In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer and Long Tall Sally.

During the performance of Day Tripper hundreds of fans broke through barriers and attempted to reach the stage. They were held back by security guards and none managed to get close to The Beatles.

August 28, 1966, The Beatles: nearing the end of their final tour of America, The Beatles performed one show at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California, before a crowd of 45,000. The Beatles’ attempt to escape from the stadium in an armored truck was thwarted when the main gate was found to be locked and The Beatles have to spend two hours in the back of the truck before they can leave the stadium.

August 29, 1966, Teenage Culture: NBC-TV’s Hullaballoo’s last show. Replaced by The Monkees TV show.

August 29, 1966, The Beatles: performed their final live concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The Park’s capacity was 42,500, but only 25,000 tickets were sold, leaving large sections of unsold seats. Fans paid between $4.50 and $6.50 for tickets.

George Harrison: “We’d done about 1,400 live shows and I certainly felt this was it. It was nice to be popular, but when you saw the size of it, it was ridiculous, and it felt dangerous because everybody was out of hand. Even the cops were out of line….It was a very strange feeling. For a year or so I’d been saying, “Let’s not do this anymore.’ And then it played itself out, so that by 1966 everybody was feeling, ‘We’ve got to stop this.’ I don’t know exactly where in 1966, but obviously after the Philippines we thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got to pack this in.'”

1966 #1 Singles Albums

September

In September 1966, News Music: Janis Ian, Society’s Child released. Recorded in 1965, 15-year-old Janis Ian’s song about teenage interracial romance was daring even in an age of openness. She was criticized by both conservatives because of the song’s topic and by folk musicians because of the song’s use of drums and harpsichord.

in September 1966, The Beatles after live performances: George Harrison goes to India for 6 weeks to study sitar with Ravi Shankar.

in September 1966, LSD : Timothy Leary held a press conference at NY Advertising Club, to announce the formation of a psychedelic religion – League for Spiritual Discovery (“Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present—turn on, tune in, drop out”)

September 3 – 9, 1966: “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

September 3 – 9, 1966: Herb Albert’s What Now My Love returns to the Billboard #1 album position.

September 10 – October 21, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: Revolver the Billboard #1 album.

September 10 – 23, 1966: “You Can’t Hurry Love” by the Supremes #1 on the Billboard Hot 10.

September 12, 1966, Teenage Culture: the made-for-TV show band, The Monkees, premiered on NBC.

September 16, 1966, Grateful Dead:   Dead poster for a show at the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco. [from Professor Poster] Undoubtedly the most famous poster from the 60’s as well as the most recognized image ever used by the Grateful Dead. The central image is a drawing done by Edward Joseph Sullivan, a late 19th and early 20th century artist. Sullivan created this drawing to illustrate one of the quatrains of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Mouse and Kelley added the color, as the original drawing was in black and white. A thorough examination of this poster shows the excellent lettering, fine use of the ribbon motif an ideal choice of coloring and perfect framing and balance in the design.

September 24 – October 14, 1966: “Cherish” by the Association #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

September 24, 1966, Jimi Hendrix: impressed with Hendrix’s version of “Hey Joe”, The Animals’ bassist, Chas Chandler, brought him to London and signed him to a management and production contract with himself and ex-Animals manager Michael Jeffery. Chandler then helped Hendrix form a new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, with guitarist-turned-bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, both English musicians.

September 26, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, hospitalized in a London clinic. The official given reason was that it was a check-up, although it later transpired that he had overdosed on prescribed drugs. Epstein had been suffering from depression and anxiety for some time, a condition exacerbated by his use of drugs – both prescribed and illegal. His anxiety had heightened following The Beatles decision to stop touring, which left Epstein with less involvement in their careers. Each member was undertaking individual projects in the late summer of 1966 and he had intended to join John Lennon in Spain on the set of How I Won The War. owever,. As a result, he was forced to cancel his visit to Spain in order to recuperate. Although Epstein is known to have made later suicide attempts, it is believed that this overdose was accidental.

September 30 – October 2, 1966, LSD :  Acid Test. San Francisco State College. Whatever It Is Festival.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

October

In early October, LSD : Ken Kesey sneaked back into the US.

October 1, 1966, Jimi Hendrix: Cream was playing a show at London Polytechnic. Hendrix asked Eric Clapton if he could jam with them and did playing “Killing Floor” and amazing the audience as well as the members of Cream.

October 3, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, recently released from hospitalization, denied reports that Paul McCartney was leaving the group. There had been much press speculation during the latter part of 1966 that The Beatles were splitting up. Each of the four members had pursued outside interests after their final concert, with John Lennon filming How I Won The War in Germany and Spain, George Harrison visiting India, and McCartney and Ringo Starr busying themselves in England. Epstein also revealed that Lennon was appearing as Private Gripweed in Richard Lester’s film, and that McCartney was composing the music for another movie entitled Wedlocked, or All In Good Time.

October 4, 1966,  after over six months of recording and production work, “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys was released.

October 5, 1966: Otis Redding released Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul album, his fifth.

October 5, 1966, Jimi Hendrix: Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding played together for the first time.

October 6, 1966, LSD : a new federal law makes possession of LSD illegal.

October 8, 1966, Roots of Rock: in New York City, WOR-FM disc jockeys start.

October 10, 1966, Teenage Culture: the Monkees release their first album, The Monkees.

October 15 – 28, 1966: “Reach Out I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

October 16, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: United Artists announced that the film was to be retitled All In Good Time, and that Lennon and McCartney would be writing the soundtrack together. It was eventually released as The Family Way and Lennon had no involvement in the music.

October 20, 1966, LSD : Ken Kesey arrested.

October 22 – November 4, 1966: The Supremes’ Supremes A’ Go-Go is the Billboard #1 album.

October 23, 1966: The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded their first single ‘Hey Joe’, at De Lane Lea studios in London. The earliest known commercial recording of the song is the late-1965 single by the Los Angeles garage band the The Leaves; the band then re-recorded the track and released it in 1966 as a follow-up single which became a hit.

October 29 – November 4, 1966: “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

October 31, 1966, LSD :  San Francisco, California (Acid Test Graduation at Winterland)

1966 #1 Singles Albums

November

November 5 – 11, 1966: “Last Train to Clarkesville” by the Monkees #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

November 5 – 11, 1966: the soundtrack to Dr Zhivago is the Billboard #1 album.

November 7, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: John Lennon visited the Indica Gallery in London where he met Yoko Ono who was displaying her art. The Indica Gallery was in the basement of the Indica Bookshop in Mason’s Yard, just off Duke Street in Mayfair, London and co-owned by John Dunbar, Peter Asher, and Barry Miles, and was supported in its early years by Paul McCartney.

November 12, 1966, Teenage Culture &  News Music: deejay Jimmy O’Neill was host of the popular teen music show Shindig!, He opened a nightclub called Pandora’s Box on the Sunset Strip. This led to massive throngs of teens and traffic on the strip, and Los Angeles city enacted a series of loitering and curfew laws targeting teenagers. Young people gathered at Pandora’s Box to defy the 10pm curfew. The riots kept growing, and the panicked L.A. City Council quickly moved to condemn and demolish Pandora’s Box, which they ultimately did in 1967. The incident inspired a number of songs:

  • For What It’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield (1967)
  • Plastic People” by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention (1967)
  • Daily Nightly” by The Monkees (1967)
  • Riot on Sunset Strip” by The Standells (1967)

November 12 – 18, 1966: “Poor Side of Town” by Johnny Rivers #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

November 12, 1966 – February 10, 1967: The Monkees’ The Monkees the Billboard #1 album.

November 19, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: on a return trip from Nairobi, Kenya, Paul McCartney got the idea for the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Band album. From Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, Paul is quoted: We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that fucking four little mop-top boys approach. We were not boys, we were men. It was all gone, all that boy shit, all that screaming, we didn’t want any more, plus, we’d now got turned on to pot and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers. There was now more to it; not only had John and I been writing, George had been writing, we’d been in films, John had written books, so it was natural that we should become artists.

Then suddenly on the plane I got this idea. I thought, Let’s not be ourselves. Let’s develop alter egos so we’re not having to project an image which we know. It would be much more free. What would really be interesting would be to actually take on the personas of this different band. We could say, ‘How would somebody else sing this? He might approach it a bit more sarcastically, perhaps.’ So I had this idea of giving the Beatles alter egos simply to get a different approach; then when John came up to the microphone or I did, it wouldn’t be John or Paul singing, it would be the members of this band. It would be a freeing element. I thought we can run this philosophy through the whole album: with this alter-ego band, it won’t be us making all that sound, it won’t be the Beatles, it’ll be this other band, so we’ll be able to lose our identities in this.

November 19 – December 2, 1966: “You Keep Me Hanging On” by the Supremes #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

November 24, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: began recording Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band.

November 30, 1966, LSD : Ken Kesey trial on second marijuana possession results in hung jury.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

December

December 3 – 9, 1966: “Winchester Cathedral” by The New Vaudeville Band #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

December 5, 1966 – Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” recorded.

December 10 – 16, 1966: “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

December 16, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: release of Beatles Fourth Christmas Record — Pantomime: Everywhere It’s Christmas to fan club members.

December 17 – 30, 1966: “Winchester Cathedral” by The New Vaudeville Band #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

December 18, 1966, The Beatles after live performances: “The Family Way” movie premiered. Music by Paul McCartney.December 26, 1966, Jimi Hendrix: while in the dressing room of The Uppercut Club in London, Jimi Hendrix wrote the lyrics to “Purple Haze”. The original title for the song was “Purple Haze / Jesus Saves”. He changed the it by the time he recorded it.

December 31, 1966 – February 17, 1967: “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1966 #1 Singles Albums

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