The Music of 1964

A weekly look at America’s top singles in the year that The British Invasion changed pop music forever

By: Ken F. Jarrell

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

1964 was, without a doubt, one of the most influential years in the history of popular music in America. The arrival of The Beatles changed everything. Following their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by a record TV audience, the course of pop music, and pop culture, was forever altered. The Beatles dominated the Hot 100 singles chart like no act had done, placing 6 songs at #1 in 1964. Remarkably, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote all of them as well as a seventh for Peter and Gordon. This was while most of their contemporaries were charting with cover versions. The Beatles famously held the top 5 positions on the April 4 1964 chart and the following week had 14 chart entries in total, The unprecedented success of The Beatles opened a flood gate of talent from the UK. Among the acts from Britain reaching the Hot 100 charts for the first time in 1964 were The Dave Clark Five, The Rolling Stones, Gerry and The Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer with The Dakotas, The Kinks, The Hollies, Peter and Gordon, Chad and Jeremy, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Marianne Faithfull, The Swinging Blue Jeans, The Searchers, The Animals, Manfred Mann and Herman’s Hermits. Despite the success of the British Invasion artists, one might forget that Bobby Vinton had two #1 hits in 1964, and songs by Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong and Lorne Greene also reached the top spot. Al Martino, Barbra Streisand, Al Hirt and The Singing Nun also had Top 10 hits. 1964: A weekly look at America’s top singles in the year that The British Invasion changed pop music forever examines the Hot 100 chart for each week in 1964. Each chapter examines a single week beginning with the #1 song, the rest of the Top 10, songs that were quickly moving up the chart and a sampling of the new entries. The rest of each chapter focuses on different aspects of the chart that week, sometimes about the songs, sometimes the songwriters or the artists, sometimes about famous artists before they were famous and sometimes strange coincidences and amusing trivia. For example, Andy White, the “professional drummer” that George Martin brought in to play on The Beatles’ first single 'Love Me Do' in 1962, was married to a woman who would later be a member of a group called The Carefrees who had a hit record in 1964 called 'We Love You Beatles'. Or Cher’s very first solo record, 'Ringo I Love You (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!)', released under the name Bonnie Jo Mason and produced by Wall of Sound master Phil Spector, received very little radio play because some DJs thought Cher’s deep voice made it sound like a man expressing his love for The Beatles’ drummer at a time when homosexuality was a crime. Or Dick and Dee Dee, who had a Top 20 hit in 1964 with 'Thou Shalt Not Steal', would be heard (but not seen) singing Rob Petrie’s song 'Bupkis' on the radio as the fictitious group The Dum Dums, on a 1965 episode of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'. 1964: A weekly look at America’s top singles in the year that The British Invasion changed pop music forever will appeal to Baby Boomers who, like the author, grew up listening to those early 45s and who developed a lifelong love of those seminal records. Readers will be able to follow, week by week, the takeover of the American pop charts by British artists, as seemingly each week a new British Invasion talent would have a debut on the singles chart. There is something about hearing a song from your youth that can transport you back in time and cause you to remember details about your life at that time. It may be your school, your home, maybe your room. Maybe it’s your haircut, your mother telling you to turn down your record player or the neighborhood kids you played with. For others it may be your first crush, first kiss or first dance. For many of us, it’s the songs that forged a lifelong love of a certain band. As you come across the songs in 1964, you may remember ones you had long forgot and others that bring back vivid memories of a time we loved.

fun review of 1964

As a music fan I really enjoyed this book. I'm about the same age as the author and began to pay attention to music in 1964. The narration however was both annoying and amusing. Many words were mispronounced and there were awkward pauses for no particular reason. every time the narrator mentioned the Beatles, she sounded like Gollum... the Beatlesss... I still recommend the book overall. I plan on listening to the others in the series...