“It was (50) years ago today . . . “

Happy to watch 2016 recede in the rear-view mirror, I looked 50 years further back and thought that if memory serves, 1967 was a pretty good year for music. But did memory serve? If several decades carrying out scientific research into human memory taught me anything, it was that memory provides an unreliable window into the past. So I did some more research. It turned out my memory was good.

1967 was an extraordinary year for music. The Beatles stunned the listening and recording worlds with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Jimi Hendrix ran into a “Foxey Lady” while in a “Purple Haze”, James Brown broke into a “Cold Sweat”, the Doors lit a fire and Aretha demanded “Respect”. And that’s not the half of it.

“Music in 1967 – Albums and Songs” are two posts that present Spotify playlists of some of the music of 1967. The playlists are alphabetically ordered by artist but were compiled with random playback in mind.

The Big Five . . .

Any year that saw the release of Sgt. Pepper’s would be great but The Beatles masterpiece was only one of a collection of groundbreaking albums released in 1967. In addition to Sgt. Pepper’s, Jimi Hendrix’s first album Are you Experienced?, The Doors self-titled debut, Jefferson Airplane’s first album with Grace Slick Surrealistic Pillow, and The Velvet Underground and Nico, were all released in 1967.

. . . and so much more

The first playlist doesn’t begin to exhaust the treasure trove of outstanding albums released in 1967. Here is a playlist that compiles some hand-picked tracks from a variety of other albums. You’ll notice there aren’t any Soul or R&B tracks on this playlist which will seem strange if you know me. There were so many outstanding recordings in Soul and R&B in 1967 that they’ve been collected in their own playlist that can be found in “Music in 1967 Part 2 – Songs“.