It’s week 27 of 2020, which means that we’re starting the second half of music1967.com with Week 27: The Beatles, Stones, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Monkees and The Who get the focus – along with big trouble in the British Empire.
The Beatles saw the end of the first half of the year with a live(ish) performance that was beamed via satellite to much of the world that got television – that is to say, some – and they began July with a well-earned group vacation in Greece. Meanwhile, their buddies in the Rolling Stones were having a significantly-different sort of year, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards having just been convicted of drug offenses and currently out on bail to appeal their harsh sentences.
Meanwhile, The Monkees were doing their first tour with opening act Jimi Hendrix, who was not long for the tour. Hendrix’ fellow Monterey breakout stars The Who found themselves in a similarly-ludicrous opening spot, for for the similarly-poppy Herman’s Hermits. And yet, Pete Townshend was writing some of his best songs yet…
Meanwhile, former British colonies from Hong Kong to Nigeria were in fierce conflict as the Summer of Love dawned.
Visit music1967.com to find out!
I’m shifting these posts from Wednesday to Thursday, since the first day of the 1967 weeks actually fall on a Thursday (that is, Sunday, Jan 1, 1967=Thursday, Jan. 1, 2020. So this week, which began on Sunday, May 14, 1967, begins on THURSDAY, May 14, 2020.
Past posts include…
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 Five: January 29-February 4 takes us to Los Angeles, where recording artists from The Beach Boys to Frank Zappa to Frank Sinatra (and Antonio Carlos Jobim) take advantage of the heavyweight skills of the world’s best studio musicians, creating a wide variety of amazing music.
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.
Or jump to Week 17: April 23-29, which takes us to a place few American music fans were thinking about at the time: Jamaica. Just five years independent, the Caribbean nation was a hotbed of new music, influenced by American soul and influencing British mods – and a struggle for survival.
Catch up with a new week in 1967 every week through 2020 at music1967.com.
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