The 1960’s
Fully discussing a decade of music in one post is nearly impossible, but if you look back, I have done blogs titled: 1960, 1969 and The Greatest Pop Rock Ballads of the ’60s. I’ve also featured a number of artists and songs that were prominent during those 10 years. However, there are a number of significant gaps where I have missed singers, groups and songs that were popular in the 60s and many have an enduring quality as well. Certainly, the TV and Movie Industry has done a great job using songs from this era, whether the subject matter was from this time period or not.
Apart from many of the songs being a lot of fun, others, including myself, have described the 1960s pop music scene as being divided by pre- and post-Beatles/”British Invasion”. At the same time, while the Fab Four and similar bands had a significant impact, and were followed by the inevitable look and soundalike bands, enter ‘The Monkees‘, but not everyone was trying to emulate them. A lot of popular music during that time was churned out without so much as a passing thought to The Beatles. Though it was likely very hard to ignore the radio airplay, television appearances and of course, their chart success.
Oh sure, some record executives worked hard to duplicate The Beatles’ unique sound, and a few American bands were given ‘British’ names such as The Royal Guardsmen (“Snoopy vs. the Red Baron”), Sir Douglas Quintet (“She’s About a Mover”) and The Buckinghams (“Kind of a Drag”). Even their haircuts and clothing changed to emulate The Beatles’ style. The Byrds actually started out as a Beatles cover band. They recruited drummer Michael Clarke because he looked like Rolling Stones’ drummer Brian Jones, and if that’s not enough, they released their first single using the name The Beefeaters in an effort to sound more British. As I pointed out in Folk Rock II, as much as The Byrds took the Dylan sound electric they were very much influenced by The Beatles.
These early British “beat bands” as they were called, really caught America flat-footed. Some have described it as a bit of a “hit below the belt” as if they weren’t fighting fair. But I don’t think this ‘punch’ to the musical charts (that sometimes dished out covers of American Blues and R&B songs) was necessarily what you’d call a “fixed fight” (while I’m wearing out my boxing metaphors here). It just sort of happened. Having said that, there were a lot of other things happening in American music that I’ll expand upon later.
1960
In my post titled 1960, I talked about that year being similar to the late 1950s with hit songs from Elvis, Brenda Lee, Connie Francis and of course Paul Anka (Lonely Boy #1 on July 7, 1959) who was the sum total of the famed “Canadian Invasion” (not really, I just made that up). For simplicity, I’m using the Billboard Magazine’s Top 20/40/100 hits as they were indeed the best sellers, but I don’t for a minute think this was the only significant music of the day. However, it serves to demonstrate a point about the shift in American music and Pop music in particular. I will remind you that the investigation into pay for play (Payola) had started in 1959 and by 1960 Rock & Roll was getting a bad name in the press. Record companies started looking for what they perceived as ‘safer’ musical acts.
1961
In 1961, the year-end top song from Billboard Magazine was “Tossing and Turnin” by Bobby Lewis, which by the evolving standards of the day was still pretty edgy stuff. The song also hit #1 on the R&B charts. However, the #2 song was an instrumental version of the theme song from the movie “Exodus” by the piano duo Ferrante & Teicher. The #3 and #5 songs were “Wonderland by Night” by Bert Kaempfert and “Calcutta” by Lawrence Welk. So you get my meaning about Lewis being edgy!
Thanks to the database from Secondhandsongs.com I can list the most documented cover songs by year. I have mentioned before that as much as the charts tell a story about their lists of songs, there is often more of a story for the songs they miss. I know that the number of cover versions of any given song is not the only measure of a great song but hey, my blog is called Mostly-Music-Covers! Currently, at 493 versions, the most covered song originally released in 1961 is “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley, written by Luigi Creatore, George David Weiss, Hugo Peretti. Coming out in October, this was the last of 8 songs Elvis charted in the top 20 for 1961; it got as high as #2. This song proves my point, it did not appear on the year-end top 100 songs list, yet it is one of the most popularly recorded songs of all time. “Surrender” was his only #1 hit that year.
The next three most covered songs from 1961 are: “Insensatez” (How Sensitive) by João Gilberto and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes which has 480 recordings, Willie Nelson-penned “Crazy” sung by the amazing Patsy Cline (#9 on Billboard Hot 100) with 316 versions, followed by the huge international hit “Et maintenant” by Gilbert Bécaud. It was translated into English by Carl Sigman and called, “What Now My Love”. Combined with several instrumental versions it’s been recorded 292 times. Here is a beautiful English and French version by Connie Francis from 1965, and surprisingly hard to find on Youtube. The first English version was a release from the versatile voice of Jane Morgan in 1962 and since re-recorded over 100 times, one great cover from Elvis Presley.
1962
At year’s end in 1962 we had some very good songs but still pretty sanitized stuff: #1 “The Twist“, #2 “Can’t Stop Loving You“, #3 “The Peppermint Twist” and worry not, we have an instrumental at #7 – the great Clarinetist, Acker Bilk with “Stranger on the Shore” which hit #1 for one week in May and spent 13 weeks on the charts. Bilk was the first British artist to hit #1 on Billboard’s weekly list, then known as The Top Singles Chart.
At an astounding 692 versions, the most covered song from 1962 is “Garota de Ipanema“. Here we have another appearance by João Gilberto and Vinicius de Moraes, written this time with Bossa Nova legend Antônio Carlos Jobim. It was first performed by this trio at a concert in Brazil (1962). It is better known by the Portuguese & English version (lyrics by Norman Gimbel) which was released in 1964 with an English title, “The Girl from Ipanema“. This newer version features Joao Gilberto singing in Portuguese for the first part and his then wife, Astrud Gilberto sang with incredible English diction. Later, an all-English version was released by Astrud Gilberto. The great Stan Getz, Gilberto’s oft collaborator (who would be Astruds next lover) was the featured saxophone player. To finish the top four most covered songs we have “The Days of Wine and Roses” (Henri Mancini), the Christmas song “Do You Hear What I Hear” written by WWII veteran Noël Regney with music by his then wife Gloria Shayne Baker (416 versions). There is a fascinating story attached to that song, for another day perhaps. At #4 we have Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” with 365 versions. Dylan of course holds the solo record for the most covered song titles at 340 songs re-recorded and over 6,400 versions.
1963
1963 saw “Sugar Shack“, “Hey Hey Paula” and “Dominique” round out the top three with “Louie Louie” hitting #4, pushed largely by sales from teenagers rebelling against the attempted (and in some parts successful) banning of the song. This was all brought on by, let’s just call ‘them’ the ‘establishment’ aka “old fuddy duddys”. Once again, an instrumental song appears in the year end’s top 10 with a ‘pre-invasion’ band from London England, The Tornados, with “Telstar“. Following Acker Bilk’s solo credit, The Tornados were the first British group to hit #1 in America. It hit the top for the last two weeks of December of 1962 and their song started 1963 at #1, followed by several more weeks in the top 20 helping it earn its high year-end rating.
For the top covered song from 1963, currently, there are 363 versions of “They Long to Be Close to You” written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, first released in 1963 by Richard Chamberlain (and not Dr. Kildare’s only hit song either). It is, of course, best known for the tune’s fourth cover version, released by the Carpenters in 1970. The Beatles would (as they could not imagine) begin their dominance in the cover song arena as they hold the #2 spot with “All My Loving” at 255 versions and #3 with 242 recordings of “I Want to Hold Your Hand“. The #4 most covered song is the seasonal favourite “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year“.
February 1964 | The British Invasion
Most will know why I cut 1964 off in February. In the early weeks of that year, the chart-toppers were mostly songs from the previous year (which was typical) and “There, I’ve Said it Again“, “Popsicles, Icicles” and the annoying “Surfin’ Bird” also made appearances. The week ending February 1, 1964 “I Want to Hold Your Hand” hit #1. The week prior it was at #3 after jumping from a debut of #45 only a week before. After seven weeks at #1, it was followed by “She Loves You” for two weeks, and “Can’t Buy Me Love” for five weeks. It took Louie Armstrong with “Hello Dolly” to push The Beatles’ songs back to the #5, #11 and #12 spots. However, after two weeks of the Mary Wells song “My Guy“, the end of May saw them on top again with “Love Me Do” followed by “A Hard Day’s Night” at the beginning of August. The Supremes had one of their many #1’s with a two-week stint with “Where Did Our Love Go” before another British group, The Animals, hit #1 for three weeks with “House of the Rising Sun” (a cover sang in the style of an American Blues song). The Brits had Manfred Mann hit for two weeks with “Do-Wah Diddy” (also a cover of an American song) in October before The Beatles took the last week at #1 with “I Feel Fine“. This kind of chart performance had never happened before nor is it likely to happen again. Yes, I’m aware of Drake’s recent success, but the Beatles did not have the benefit of electronic music sales nor streaming, so songs never debuted at #1.
You won’t be surprised to hear that three of the four most covered songs from 1964 are by The Beatles. You may be surprised (as was I) to learn the most covered song is “And I Love Her” with 464 versions. The song was on the top 20 charts for only four weeks and peaked at #12. At #2 for covers is “A Hard Day’s Night” and #3 is “The Sound of Silence” which is the only non-Beatles’ tune at 304 versions. The #4 song is “Can’t Buy Me Love” with 282 versions.
British groups had #1 songs for 23 weeks of 1964 with The Beatles taking 18 of those.
1965 – 1969 | More Brits
In 1965 the invasion continues as British groups held the #1 spot for 28 weeks with new appearances by The Rolling Stones and four other bands. “Yesterday“, is the most covered pop song ever and currently has 944 versions. However despite spending four weeks a #1, at years end in 1965 “Yesterday” only finished at #46, at the top spot was the novelty song “Wooly Bully“, even though it never hit #1 at any point of its 12 week stint in the top 20. The other top songs that year were, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” (two weeks at #1), “Let’s Hang On to What We Got” (a strong top 20 chart performer that peaked at #3) and the only British act in the top five was “Downtown” (two weeks at #1) by Petula Clark. It strikes me as a bit odd, for example if we take The Beatles songs which held the #1 spot for 12 weeks that year, their highest charted songs finished the year at #11 (“Help” 3wks at #1), #37 (“I Feel Fine” 2wks at #1), #49 (“Ticket to Ride” one week at #1) and #78 (Eight Days a Week, 2wks at #1).
I know that reported record sales were a big driver in the ranking of songs on the charts, but when I look at past years lists, remembering that the year end takes into account 52 weeks of #1 songs as well as chart longevity, I don’t see a similar comparison to, not only the ranking of The Beatles songs in particular but The Rolling Stones and Hermans Hermits. Without investigating each records actual sales (very time consuming to do), I speculate there were other forces at work attempting to mitigate the perceived damage to American music suffered by The British Invasion. Stepping away from Billboard’s listings, the competing Cash Box Magazine year end songs showed a similar ranking of most songs, as were the results for The Beatles, which collectively spent 13 weeks in the #1 spot yet were ranked at numbers 11, 19, 36, 55 and Yesterday (3 wks at #1) was at #68. I’m not complaining about the treatment of British Invasion groups, however it just struck me there is an unusual contrast between the weekly performance results and typically where songs are placed on the year end list. Joining “Yesterday” in the top four most covered songs that originated that year are, “Shadow of Your Smile” with 590 versions, “Michelle” 495 versions and “Christmas Time is Here” with 472 versions, none of these last three charted in top 20 nor the year end top 100.
By 1966 the Brits #1’s were down to just 14 weeks. That same year came the second-most covered “pop music” song (of all time), “Eleanor Rigby” now with 596 recordings, it finished the year ranked #121. The number one song at year end was “Winchester Cathedral” by the British artist Geoff Stephens and his group The New Vaudeville Band. British groups had #1 songs for nine weeks 1967, and the number one cover song with 615 versions is “What a Wonderful World” written by George David Weiss, Bob Thiele and first recorded by, of course, the legendary Louis Armstrong. The Beatles are still high on the list with “Fool on the Hill” recorded 347 times. Top year end songs in 1967 were “Light My Fire” (264 versions), “To Sir with Love” (68 versions), “I’m a Believer” (169 versions) and “Incense and Peppermints” (16 versions).
In 1968, there were 13 weeks of British #1’s, in most part thanks to the year’s number one most covered song, “Hey Jude” which has 468 versions and spent nine weeks at #1, finished the year at #1 overall, and was one of four Beatles songs in the year-end Top 100. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked the song #8 on the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. For this next Beatles song that did not chart at all, it managed to become the second-most covered song for the year of 1968. The song is “Blackbird” and it has 435 versions. Additionally, in 1968 there were 10 more weeks of non-American acts hitting #1, such as Paul Mauriat (France) for five weeks with “Love is Blue“. In 1969 “Get Back” was #1 for five weeks, “Honky Tonk Woman” by The Rolling Stones for four weeks, and in the last week of November it’s The Beatles again with the double “A” side single (combined release) of “Come Together/Something”. Written by George Harrison, “Something” is the most covered song from 1969 with 491 versions, followed by three more Beatles songs, “Let It Be” with 470 versions, “Come Together” with 389 versions and “Here Comes the Sun” with 358 versions.
By my calculation that’s at least 88 weeks that British/Invasion acts were at #1, so for the period of focus here (February 1964 to the end of 1969) that’s 28% of the time. Before that British/International or non-American #1’s on Billboard’s top singles chart would typically be less than one or two percent. So, the impact, while not devastating, was quite profound. The Beatles, yes you may be sick of hearing about them, but if you think their music is just a thing of the past, recording artists don’t agree. For the period of 1963 to 1969 while The Beatles were active, they currently have 16 out of 28 of the most covered songs of all time. Brazilian Antônio Carlos Jobim is the only other name that comes close for the whole decade but you have to go back and include 1960 onward to get to his impressive number of six songs. I should also mention Donovan Leitch (#1 hit “Sunshine Superman“) was in that ‘British’ number (above) as he actually hails from Scotland. Though he’s also lived in London and California, now his home is in County Cork, Ireland.
Outside of the typical Top 40 singles market with early acts like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Hermans Hermits, The Who and Manfred Mann, the US, Canada and much of the world would embrace more music from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and other foreign destinations. By 1966/67 we started to know: The Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin, The Hollies, Cat Stevens, Eric Clapton, The Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, Procol Harum, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, Cream and dozens more.
American Made Music
Despite the omnipresent British acts, as I mentioned above, there were a lot of great American songs that still represented the majority on the charts and the bulk of the top 100 hits. By 1960, Motown was getting its start and R&B artists were becoming more mainstream. Elvis and Connie Francis were still having chart success, not as many #1’s but still very popular, and selling lots of records. Frank Sinatra was back with #1 hits in 1966 and ’67 and he was all over the Adult Contemporary charts throughout the decade.
There was just so much going on in the American music scene from 1960 to the end of 1969 it can’t be captured in one post. If I focus on highlights from R&B, Rock & Roll, Folk and other popular music, I can give you a brief thumbnail sketch.
Motown
Artists from the Motown label and its subsidiaries (Talma, Gordy) had over 20 #1 Billboard Hot 100 hits in the 1960s and dozens of Top 10 and Top 40 songs. Starting with The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman” in 1961, to Mary Wells’ “My Guy” (1964) we saw The Supremes follow with 12 #1 songs. We all recognize The Four Tops, The Temptations and names such as Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross took their early success into the 1970s and beyond.
R&B
If you’ve read any of my prior posts, you’ll know how I feel about the importance of this genre. I have dedicated over a dozen posts to Blues and R&B artists and referenced them numerous times. Even before the label of Rhythm and Blues, without the early Blues music making its way “across the pond”, the British Invasion might never have happened. It’s well documented that records from Black American Blues artists imported to the UK were eagerly snatched up by musicians and teens in particular. This music made its way to some BBC Radio programs as well. Virtually everyone involved in music in the 1950s and early 60s in the UK will cite artists like Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Mama Thornton and others as having an influence on their musical interests and development. To my mind, and there is plenty of evidence to back this up, Blues and R&B was the catalyst for the British Invasion. It’s written all over in the number of cover songs, the 12-bar blues format of the songs and the emulation of the vocal styles.
So what does this all mean for R&B in the 1960’s you might ask? Firstly, some of the greatest artists in music either began their recording careers in the 60s or at least really hit their stride at that time. I won’t attempt to list them all (some I’ve mentioned above already) and most I have touched on in previous posts. Just a reminder that we saw the likes of Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Tina Turner, Gladys Knight, Jean Knight, Dionne Warwick, Al Green, The Jackson 5, Bill Withers, Lou Rawls, Isaac Hayes, Sly and The Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield and many more. In Chicago, Chess/Checker records were still going strong, Fontella Bass recorded a great side in 1965 with “Rescue Me“.
We also saw an escalation of a trend that started in the 1950s: the crossing over of songs by Black artists from the R&B Charts to what was then considered mainstream music from the Billboard Hot 100 and the Adult Contemporary charts. This would have a growing impact on the groups that formed The British Invasion, not to mention many American artists. More importantly for the record companies, the public’s buying habits were changing. The sales of R&B records started to increase, especially the ones that crossed over to the other charts but also many of the ones that remained on the R&B charts were being purchased by white listeners. This brought more investment into R&B, an area that had been largely abandoned by the major labels. This trend has continued to the point where R&B/Hip Hop is now the top genre. The growth in R&B sales happened despite the continuation of White artists covering R&B and Rock & Roll songs from Black artists, and competing on the mainstream charts as many White artists are becoming fixtures in the R&B/Hip Hop scene.
Folk Music
By 1960, the Folk Music Revival that began in the 1940s had started to wane. The big names were still the more popular artists from late 50’s such as The Kingston Trio and Joan Baez. Bob Dylan’s big break came by way of playing harmonica in 1961 on a Carolyn Hester album. Her producer was John Hammond who signed Dylan to Columbia Records. After a slow-selling first album, his second, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was full of original songs including “Blowin’ in the Wind” which came to prominence when covered by Peter, Paul and Mary and hit #2 on the Billboard charts. Dylan would join Joan Baez and the star of the 1950s, Pete Seeger, as the face of the protest movement. This is reflected in Dylan’s third album, The Times They Are a-Changin’. He had made his home in the west Manhattan neighbourhood of Greenwich Village. With its Bohemian lifestyle, “The Village”, has spawned countless works of art and poetry for generations and was also home to the rise of the most popular American Folk Music, and more than a few Coffee Houses as well.
Record sales by these rising stars sparked a mini-revival and we saw some great songs from some now-iconic Folk singer/songwriters such as Phil Ochs and Buffy Sainte-Marie. Others who started then were Arlo Guthrie, John Denver and Fred Neil. Judy Collins had great success covering songs by Pete Seeger, Joni Mitchell and Ian Tyson. Though things would change dramatically for Folk music for two main reasons: firstly, it fell victim to The British Invasion which sucked the life out record sales and suddenly every agent wanted to book Rock and Roll artists. Secondly, Dylan went electric. In July of 1965, he released what is now considered by many, including Rolling Stone Magazine, as the greatest song of all time, “Like a Rolling Stone“. Traditional Folk music started a quick and steep decline, but Folk Rock was born; The Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and The Papas and the Lovin’ Spoonful filled radio airwaves and record companies’ pockets. Folk music did not die out of course but never regained the popularity it held in the 1950’s and those few short years of the early 1960s.
The Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel
We don’t normally think of these two acts in one sentence but for my purposes, they go together nicely. In the face of the British Invasion, they and a few other artists kept American music on the map. On the east coast, Simon and Garfunkel were at the beginning of the Folk-Rock scene with “Sound of Silence” in 1965, followed by “I am a Rock” in 1966 and “Mrs. Robinson” in 1968. They continued with their success into the early 70s. The Beach Boys championed the west coast with their surf sounds. Already riding the success of “Surfin’ U.S.A.” in 1963, they weathered the British Invasion by hitting #1 in 1964 with “I Get Around” and “Help Me Rhonda” in 1965 and their last #1 of the 1960’s was the solo single release, “Good Vibrations“, which is ranked #6 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs. “Kokomo” in 1988 would be their next and last #1 song. After releasing three studio albums in 1965, Pet Sounds came out in 1966 and it is widely regarded as one of the finest works of pop music and ranked #2 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums which contains classic songs like “God Only Knows“, “Sloop John B.” and “Wouldn’t it be Nice“.
Counterculture
Counterculture is generally defined as a culture that behaves in a way counter to the norms and values of mainstream society. As referenced above, the original “Bohemian” culture was spawned in the US via immigration in the 1850’s. Today I reference the more modern American lifestyle that was the center of the Art/Music scene in the 1950’s located in San Francisco. From this we saw the music movement that was inspired by the hallucinogenic drug commonly known as LSD, which was legal in the US until first outlawed in California in May 1966. The groups at the heart of this phenomenon were the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane.
Monterey Pop
Once again framing the coasts, first we had the Monterey Festival in California from June 16-18th in 1967. This “Summer of Love” brought together many musical styles and culminated in bringing some 100,000 people to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Also, the now infamous January 14th “Human Be-In” where Timothy Leary voiced his phrase, “turn on, tune in, drop out” (there was also a Central Park “Be-In” in March, featuring Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick). The song “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” was released in May of 1967. Sung by Scott McKenzie, it was actually written by John Phillips to help promote the Monterey Festival. Aside from the leading Folk and Folk-Rock acts, we saw bands from the aforementioned Counterculture (tied very closely to the Hippie movement). This also brought together new genres like Acid Rock, Psychedelic Rock and Hard Rock. It was the first appearance of Ravi Shankar as Ragas were heavily influencing not only The Beatles but also many forms of American music.
Woodstock
In the east and following after Monterey, The Woodstock Rock Festival was from August 15-18. Known as simply “Woodstock” it was held in Bethel, New York and capped off the decade with a massive four-day event. Jimi Hendrix was one of the main acts (as he was for the Monterey Festival). He passed away due to a heroin overdose just a year later. Also from Monterey, we had Ravi Shankar, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin (with Big Brother and the Holding Company at Monterey). A sampling of the other acts is a bit like a ‘Who’s Who’ list of the top musicians from the 1960s: Sly and the Family Stone, Canned Heat, CCR, Crosby and Stills (not the full CSNY), Santana, Mountain and John Sebastian.
Conclusion
As I said I could not cover the whole decade and missed mentioning more of key artists like Frankie Valli (and The Four Seasons), The Doors, and the rise of Roots Rock or Funk Music with James Brown. Where would 2020 Pandemic cover songs be without “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond, released in 1967? And I didn’t even touch on Country Music or Jazz, but a lot of that is covered off in my other posts.
As much as we all have our favourite music and sometimes a whole decade, when it comes to songs and artists, there had never and has not been, a time with more change. The growth of genres and subgenres of music has never been more prolific that during the 1960’s. On most any list of the top songs of all time, they rank more songs from the 1960’s than from any other decade. Rolling Stone Magazine lists 5 songs from the 1960’s in the top 10 of The Greatest Songs of all Time. Adding in my favorite metric, the cover song, we see the sixties songs in the top spots as well. Yes it is in large part due to The Beatles songs and the fact these songs have had sixty years to be re recorded. However the other top covered pop songs are from the sixties as well such as Simon and Garfunkels “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”, “Sound of Silence”, “Sunny” from Bobby Hebb (1966) is the top covered song from the Soul genre, not to mention thousands of covers of Bob Dylan’s songs from the 1960’s.
Sure we’ve seen the addition of dozens more sub and sub sub genre, but from the birth of Motown, Folk Rock, The British Invasion, Hard Rock, the continuing great music from The Brill Building, the expansion of R&B and so much more, I don’t think we’ll ever see a decade like the 1960’s.
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Edited by Richelle Dafoe
Mostly Music Covers 
Always appreciate your insight, yes LSD was such a problem in California they were the first to outlaw its use and by the end of 1967 the rest of the States followed. It was made illegal a bit earlier in Canada (1962). I suppose that's why they got Grace Slick and we got Anne Murray (I do love her though)!
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I agree Randy – an incredible decade. Been watching some documentaries about some British Invasion artists and they all talk about their major American blues influence. Also did not know about LSD being legal till 1966!
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