Week 18 of music1967.com, a week by week history of music’s crucial year, takes us to the so-called Chitlin’ Circuit, which in 1967 featured some of the biggest, most important acts music has ever seen, not least of them being Ike and Tina Turner and Mr. Showbiz himself, James Brown.
Week 18, covering April 3touches on the fundamental musical changes that were taking place in 1967, especially those at the command of James Brown and the Famous Flames, his crack band. But there is also the issue of male-female relationships, which were a building block of the industry, but often at the expense of the women involved.
But all of it was pointing forward, all the way to where music is today. This is a particularly fascinating week in a year full of them!
One week of music1967.com will appear every week, during the corresponding week of 2020.
Prior weeks have included:
Week Two: January 8-14, focuses on London, where Jimi Hendrix’s first single is rising on the charts and England’s big-name guitarists – Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend – are struggling to get a grip on this new force.
Week Four: January 22-28 finds us in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where a veteran R&B and gospel singer who has struggled to find her place in the charts sits down at a piano and plays “the unknown chord.”
Week Eight: February 19-26 finds us in Nashville, as well as “Nashville West,” aka Bakersfield, California. Here a bumper crop of new artists is rising like summer corn: Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and others join country stalwarts like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.
Week 11: March 12-18 takes us to New York City, where a pair of new bands that have come to dominate the dance (and drug) scenes of their respective towns see the release of their debut albums: The Velvet Underground and Nico and Grateful Dead.
Catch up with a new week in 1967 every week through 2020 at music1967.com.
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