Otis Redding

“And my soul has been psychedelicized”

This is the second of two posts that present Spotify playlists of music from 1967. See “Music in 1967 Part 1” for two album-focused playlists. With one exception, each playlist contains a unique set of tracks. The exception is a personal list that pulls a mix out of the 207 tracks that appear on the other playlists. The playlists are alphabetically ordered by artist but were compiled with random playback in mind.

Blues, Soul and R&B

There was so much going on in Soul and R&B in 1967 that it’s hard to know where to start. James Brown dropped “Cold Sweat” which some have called the first true funk track. Otis Redding delivered the magisterial Live in Europe along with King & Queen, a duet album with the great Carla Thomas. Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell sang “There Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. Gladys Knight & The Pips “Heard It Through the Grapevine” on their debut album. And Aretha released the extraordinary album I Never Loved A Man the Way I Loved You which opened with Redding’s “Respect”.

Songs

Here is a collection of songs that didn’t fit anywhere else but were too good to be left out. For the most part these are tracks that I like and listeners are sure to find songs they love that aren’t included. Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” is here because it was the top selling single in the US in 1967. No songs by the Monkees are present because I couldn’t bring myself to include songs from a “band” that was built from a Hollywood casting call for a TV show in a year when Aretha demanded “Respect” while Sgt. Peppers reached previously unimagined heights of musical and technical creativity.  Some songs such as Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” were released on album in 1966 but received widespread radio play in 1967.

A personal collection

Finally, here’s a playlist of 92 selections taken from the other four playlists. This is the one I play went I want to hear music from 1967. It’s  a work in progress that changes frequently (it was at 91 tracks when I started writing this paragraph).