It Was a Very Good Year

In Roger Catlin’s “A Rock-Solid Case for 1966” (Aug. 3), he makes the assertion that this was the most influential and creatively dominant year in rock music history. I couldn’t agree more, and would like to take this a step further, by proclaiming 1966 as the most significant and creative year in pop culture history!

On TV, we were introduced to “Batman,” “Star Trek” and “The Monkees,” all of which became national phenomena, lasting in popularity more than 35 years now. (Let’s not forget “The Green Hornet,” which marked Bruce Lee’s entrance to pop culture.)

In 1966, Sandy Koufax pitched his last season for the Dodgers; the Beatles had their final tour (including Dodger Stadium); the biggest Bond film of the ‘60s, “Thunderball,” played in theaters, and the Whisky A Go-Go on the famed Sunset Strip became the nucleus of rock music culture for the most prolific bands of the era, including Love, the Doors, Dylan, Janis Joplin and even R&B; acts such as Otis Redding, whose legendary “Live” album was recorded that year at the Whisky.

HAL LIFSON

Sherman Oaks

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1966 was undeniably one of the greatest years in the history of pop/rock music, but the greatest? Hands down, that honor must be given to 1967.

Without even dipping into the more obscure gems of 1967, that astounding year saw the release of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour” by the Beatles, “Between the Buttons” and “Their Satanic Majesty’s Request” by the Rolling Stones, the first two albums by the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, Linda Ronstadt’s Stone Poneys and Frank Zappa’s the Mothers of Invention.

That year of the Monterey Pop Festival also saw: the first three Monkees albums; three albums each by Donovan and Otis Redding; the first two seminal Atlantic LPs by Aretha Franklin; two albums each plus a greatest hits collection by the Mamas and the Papas and Paul Revere & the Raiders; and two albums each by the Hollies, Eric Burdon & the Animals, the Four Tops, the Spencer Davis Group, the Temptations, the Small Faces, the Supremes, the Young Rascals and the Kinks.

WILLIAM STOUT

Pasadena