The Music of 1966

The Music of 1966 (Part one)

I woke up from a nap and for some odd reason I started thinking about the music I listened to during my teenage years. I remembered that the music that I enjoyed the most was during the years 1965 and 1966. These were magical years for AM radio. This was still the era where the 45 or single ruled the airways. A band or singer needed one or two hit singles to sell their latest LP release. For the younger people who may be reading this I should explain a few terms. We now live in an era of digital music with ipods, mp3 players and digital downloads. When I was growing up we had just vinyl records. There were two basic forms of vinyl records. One was known as the single or the 45. This was a small record with a donut hole in the middle. You needed to have a plastic record adaptor to put in the donut hole. The 45 record contained two songs an A side and a B side. The A side usually contained the better song and got all the radio play. The B side usually contained a throw away song that was not expected to get radio play. Sometimes the B side would be included on the most recent LP release. If you are a young person your parents or even grandparents may still have 45 records in their house. You may already have seen the vinyl LP as some new bands are releasing these as special collector’s editions. Your grandparents may even have some 78s around. Theses are large two song singles pressed onto a larger vinyl format. The 78s were made of very brittle vinyl that would easily crack if you dropped the record on the floor. One of my worst childhood memories is falling down our basements stairs with a new Elvis Presley record in hand. To my great dismay the record slipped out of my hand and I sat on it. Of course the record cracked in half. Needless to say there would be no good rockin tonight coming from my basement.

The LP or long player album usually contained eleven to thirteen songs. One or two hit singles were usually included on the LP. If you lived in The United Kingdom, however, the hit singles would often be left off the LP album. This is why the LPs of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were often different in North America and The United Kingdom.

That’s enough of a history lesson for now. I’ll start writing about the music of 1966 on my next blog.