A Rock-Solid Case for 1966

What is rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest year?

Some people might make a case for 1954, when it started taking control of the charts on the strength of new stars, including Elvis Presley.

Others might cite 1964, when Beatlemania ushered in the British Invasion.

The year 1977 might come up because it’s when punk music rose to challenge and rejuvenate a sound grown complacent and rap was rising in New York. Younger fans might prefer 1991, the year punk broke commercially, with the rise of Nirvana and other grunge bands.

But it would be hard for any year to beat 1966, a glory year when the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys were releasing their greatest works, alongside soul and R&B; classics that have stood the test of time.

“It’s my favorite year in rock,” Marshall Crenshaw says. He plays the Beatles’ “I’m Only Dreaming” in concerts, from the band’s 1966 high-water mark, “Revolver.”

“It is generally agreed that 1966 is the year that it all came together,” says rock writer Greg Shaw in the liner notes for the first “Nuggets” boxed set. (Issued in 1998, the collection is called “Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968.”) He was talking about garage rock in particular, which had its own high-water mark that year with No. 1 singles by the Troggs and ? and the Mysterians.

“I think it was an incredible renaissance period,” says Little Steven Van Zandt, the Bruce Springsteen guitarist (and “Sopranos” mobster) who has become a garage-rock purveyor himself. “Why it happened, I don’t know. It was a culmination of circumstance, an incredible group of talented people who were all around at the same time--basically what happens in any renaissance. It was a revolutionary period as part of our culture, and the music was reflecting that.”

This is the 35th anniversary of rock’s renaissance year, when the Beatles were still playing live and Otis Redding was still alive.

Pop music had not yet fractured; AM radio played all manner of great rock, soul and pop (with both Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra hitting No. 1). The possibility that art could be found in a 45 rpm single was borne out by matchless singles such as “Good Vibrations” or played across complex concept albums such as “Pet Sounds,” to cite two examples of Brian Wilson’s work for the Beach Boys.

Surrealistic Lyrics and a Psychedelic Swirl

In 1966, the first dabbling in drugs brought an almost innocent surrealism to the lyrics and a mild psychedelic swirl to the music by year’s end. (It wasn’t until later that harder drugs began destroying lives, killing off rock stars and resulting in dour, pretentious psychedelic ramblings.)

In 1966, Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention were doing it with their brash double album “Freak Out!,” part of a progressive era blossoming in all corners of the work world.

In San Francisco, the beginnings of a new scene stirred as Janis Joplin joined Big Brother & the Holding Company; “Jefferson Airplane Takes Off” was issued, and the Grateful Dead signed its first major-label contract.

In England, Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were formed.

In Los Angeles, where the Doors were signed and Buffalo Springfield was formed, the Byrds’ 1966 hits ranged from “Turn! Turn! Turn!” to “Eight Miles High,” and the Mamas & the Papas were showing a new sophistication with their folk-rock harmonies.

In Detroit, where the local band scene was pumping out Mitch Ryder and early Bob Seger and Motown was at its peak, with the Supremes hitting the top with “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” the Four Tops landing No. 1 with the thrilling “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” and hits from Stevie Wonder, the Temptations and the Miracles.

Memphis soul was raging too, with Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” hitting No. 1, Redding releasing “Try a Little Tenderness,” Sam & Dave calling out “Hold On! I’m Comin’,” and Wilson Pickett hitting with “Mustang Sally” and “Land of 1000 Dances.”

‘You Don’t Really Want to be Cute Anymore’

Elsewhere in soul that year, James Brown made the Top 10 with “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” Aretha Franklin had found a producer who could get the most out of her voice when she signed with Atlantic Records and Phil Spector wrested Tina Turner away to sing on his masterwork, “River Deep, Mountain High.”

In London, the Kinks issued their exquisite “Sunny Afternoon” and the Who blasted “Substitute.”

And in New York, a new art-rock sound was the basis of the Velvet Underground, which was recording tracks that would, in spite of light sales, go on to influence avant-rock for generations.

Yet the biggest names had the biggest influence, and the Beatles, Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys were all having banner years.

The Beatles completed their final tour in August 1966. By the end of the year, they had recorded “Strawberry Fields” and “Penny Lane,” pointing the way toward “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

But even before that, they had been spending more time on their albums, resulting in one often voted rock’s all-time best, “Revolver.”

After he heard it, Dylan told the Beatles, “Oh, I get it, you don’t really want to be cute anymore.”

Dylan was at the peak of his powers in 1966, having released the ambitious double-album “Blonde on Blonde,” which produced his last chart singles for years, “Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35,” “I Want You” and “Just Like a Woman.”

It was 35 years ago, July 29, 1966, that Dylan effectively ended the first half of his career by crashing his motorcycle on a country road near Woodstock, N.Y. His lengthy convalescence lent further mystery to the legend he had so remarkably built.

Folk rock flourished. Donovan reached his commercial peak with “Sunshine Superman” and “Mellow Yellow.” Simon & Garfunkel, who had the No. 1 song as 1966 dawned, “Sounds of Silence,” returned to the charts that year with “Homeward Bound,” “I Am a Rock” and “The Dangling Conversation.”

Barely noticed among the major releases from the Beatles and Dylan was the Rolling Stones’ breakthrough--their first full album of all-original material.

The Rolling Stones might have issued its breakthrough “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” the year before, but 1966 saw the appearance of the band’s first greatest-hits album (the 3-million selling “Big Hits [High Tide and Green Grass]” and the band’s first live album, “Got Live if You Want It.”

The Beach Boys’ most ambitious effort, “Pet Sounds,” was their worst-selling album, reaching only No. 10, chased from the charts two months after its release by a greatest-hits album. Yet the songs from the Brian Wilson-penned masterpiece, the first he completed after getting off the road, continue to reverberate, winning best-ever polls, a Grammy nomination for an expanded boxed set version five years ago and accolades for a touring symphonic version that crossed the country last year. Still on a roll, he completed “Good Vibrations” by the end of the year.

Roger Catlin is rock music critic for the Hartford Courant, a Tribune Company.