It has to be the hardest of all times, when artists that would like for you to play their music could not use the "download" button to let the radio stations use their music. The only other way was when SDC Radio established the policy of having each artist send a copy of their release through the US Mail system, which will verify that these artists wanted SDC Digital Radio to play their music.
It all started with what you hear on the radio station locally is just what is playing across the United States, as Barbara Perez (of Rosamond California), began to explain to this writer, that the music charts are very different all across the United States.
It was during those days when AM Radio controlled the airwaves and FM Radio Stations were just getting started. The giants of Southern California Radio in those days, included KRLA out of Pasadena, KHJ and KGFJ and late night out of state radio like Oklahoma City's KOMO, and the real killer of them all, Monterey Mexico's XERB with Wolfman Jack. Alternative bands like Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention, Ruben and the Jets, Alice Cooper, the Others, Al Cooper, Shuggie Otis and other local Los Angeles bands were selling albums and not getting any AM Radio play at all.
We got things like "American Top 40" with Casey Kasam.
In Los Angeles County, recording artists like Hannibal and the Headhunters, Tierra, Captain Beefheart, Merrell and the Exiles could sell 100,000 - 45RPM Singles without even leaving the county or the state.
The Mamas & the Papas, "Monday, Monday" was the Number One record on the charts with the Monkees very close behind on this particular weekend before school was going to be out.
With the Texas trip with the family just one year early, I did manage to tie it all together. In every little town, for over two thousand miles, it was just the same top forty records that we listened too. This was a major shift in the record business in those days, as the British Music Invasion continued day after day, month after month, year after year forever.
Our small library did not subscribe to Billboard Magazine, Cash Box Magazine, Juke Box Magazine, or even Bill Gavin. During those days, if you landed on Bill Gavin's playlist, you just hit a home run. I have only been on the list one time with Merrell Fankhauser's "Tomorrow's Girl" with Barry White on drums that landed in the top 10 on American Bandstand with Dick Clark.
It was Perez earlier in the Seventh Grade that turned my head about "listening" to music, as our English teacher put on a piece by Vivaldi and asked the students, including me to write about what the music was speaking to each one of us. I swear it, Barbara wrote over two pages on both sides of the paper. I on the other hand just managed to get one paragraph out of the music.
The yellow background indicates the #1 song on Billboard's 1966 Year-End Chart of Pop Singles.
Issue Date Song Artist(s) Reference
January 1 "The Sound of Silence" Simon & Garfunkel
January 8 "We Can Work It Out" The Beatles
January 15
January 22 "The Sound of Silence" Simon & Garfunkel
January 29 "We Can Work It Out" The Beatles
February 5 "My Love" Petula Clark
February 12
February 19 "Lightnin' Strikes" Lou Christie
February 26 "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" Nancy Sinatra
March 5 "Ballad of the Green Berets" SSgt Barry Sadler
March 12
March 19
March 26
April 2
April 9 "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration" The Righteous Brothers
April 16
April 23
April 30 "Good Lovin'" The Young Rascals
May 7 "Monday, Monday" The Mamas & the Papas
May 14
May 21
May 28 "When a Man Loves a Woman" Percy Sledge
June 4
June 11 "Paint It Black" The Rolling Stones
June 18
June 25 "Paperback Writer" The Beatles
July 2 "Strangers in the Night" Frank Sinatra
July 9 "Paperback Writer" The Beatles
July 16 "Hanky Panky" Tommy James and the Shondells
July 23
July 30 "Wild Thing" The Troggs
August 6
August 13 "Summer in the City" The Lovin' Spoonful
August 20
August 27
September 3 "Sunshine Superman" Donovan
September 10 "You Can't Hurry Love" The Supremes
September 17
September 24 "Cherish" The Association
October 1
October 8
October 15 "Reach Out I'll Be There" Four Tops
October 22
October 29 "96 Tears" ? and the Mysterians
November 5 "Last Train to Clarksville" The Monkees
November 12 "Poor Side of Town" Johnny Rivers
November 19 "You Keep Me Hangin' On" The Supremes
November 26
December 3 "Winchester Cathedral" The New Vaudeville Band
December 10 "Good Vibrations" The Beach Boys
December 17 "Winchester Cathedral" The New Vaudeville Band
December 24
December 31 "I'm a Believer" The Monkees
One thing this writer remembers is that Peter Paul and Mary's "Puff The Magic Dragon" did not play much in Falls County Texas, City of Marlin in 1966. But Percy Sledge did alot, along with BB King, Bobby Blue Bland, KoKo Taylor, Ernestine Anderson and Lee Rogers among many artists of those days.
With my first years in radio, one of my jobs along with John Orr of the Marauder Times, was to compile the best songs that all of the kids in our local high schools and college was listening too. It was nothing like the radio. Nowhere close to it, except for KPFK-FM in Los Angeles who was playing all this stuff from the underground artists of the day.
Early songs were like The Velvetones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, James Brown, Steppenwolf, Captain Beefheart, The Doors and HMS Bounty in Lancaster California in those days. So now you know who was on our first lists top 50 songs of Music Artists in those days. - KHS
