1964 in music.

Bob Dylan's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan won 1963. Let's see who wins 1964. The Stones debut this year and the Beatles drop two albums with the invasion really beginning.

Billboard chart-topping albums of 1964:
The Singing Nun - The Singing Nun
The Beatles - Meet the Beatles!
Louis Armstrong - Hello Dolly!
The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
Barbara Streisand - People
The Beach Boys - Beach Boys Concert

Billboard chart-topping singles of 1964:
Bobby Vinton - There! I've Said It Again
The Beatles - I Want to Hold Your Hand
The Beatles - She Loves You
The Beatles - Can't Buy Me Love
Louis Armstrong - Hello Dolly!
Mary Wells - My Guy
The Beatles - Love Me Do
The Dixie Cups - Chapel of Love
Peter and Gordon - A World Without Love
The Beach Boys - I Get Around
The Four Seasons - Rag Doll
The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
Dean Martin - Everybody Loves Somebody
The Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go
The Animals - The House of the Rising Sun
Roy Orbison - Oh, Pretty Woman
Manfred Mann - Do Wah Diddy Diddy
The Supremes - Baby Love
The Shangri-Las - Leader of the Pack
Lorne Greene - Ringo
Bobby Vinton - Mr. Lonely
The Supremes - Come See About Me
The Beatles - I Feel Fine


What are your top three albums for 1964? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan
2. The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
3. Bob Dylan - The Times They Are a-Changin

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN MUSIC • forum.chorus.fm

 

this was an insanely difficult one with the cuts. like half a dozen of these would be runaway #1s in the prior years and they didn't make my top 3.

tough cuts:
albert ayler - spirits
the animals - the animals
buck owens - together again
chet atkins - guitar country
george jones - blue and lonesome
the hollies - in the hollies style
johnny cash - bitter tears
johnny cash - I walk the line
the kinks - kinks
muddy waters - folk singer
otis redding - pain in my heart
rolling stones - 12x5
rolling stones - england's newest hitmakers
sam cooke - ain't that good news
the yardbirds - five live yardbirds

stuff to check out:
aretha franklin - unforgettable
bill evans - how my heart sings
charles mingus - mingus x5
chuck berry - st. louis to liverpool
dave clark five - glad all over
dusty springfield - a girl called dusty
herbie hancock - empyrean isles
the holy modal rounders - the holy modal rounders
ike and tina turner - the ike and tina revue
john coltrane - crescent
simon and garfunkel - wednesday morning 3am
stan getz and joao gilberto - getz/gilberto
the supremes - where did our love go
the temptations - meet the temptations
thelonious monk - it's monk's time

 

1. The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
2. Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto
3. The Kinks - Kinks

 

1. The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
2. Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto - Getz/GIlberto
3. Sam Cooke - At the Copa

Just Missed:
Bob Dylan - The Times Are A-Changin'
Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan
Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg
Muddy Waters - Folk Singer
The Beatles - Beatles for Sale
Peter, Paul, and Mary - In Concert
Henry Mancini - The Pink Panther
Doc Watson - Doc Watson
Sam Cooke - Ain't That Good News
Jacques Brel - Olympia '64

Others I Love:
The Ronettes - The Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica
Harry Belafonte - Ballads, Blues, and Boasters
Nina Simone - Broadway-Blues-Ballads
Dionne Warwick - Make Way for Dionne Warwick
Mary Wells - Sings My Guy
Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles
Nina Simone - In Concert
Otis Redding - Pain in My Heart
The Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go
Ella Fitzgerald - Sings the Johnny Mercer Songbook

Good Ones I've Heard:
Odetta - It's a Mighty World
Ravi Shankar - Portrait of Genius
John Lee Hooker - At Newport
Marvin Gaye - When I'm Alone I Cry
Nat King Cole - Sings My Fair Lady
The Supremes - A Bit of Liverpool

Not a fan:
Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch



Targets for Listening:
The Temptations - Meet the Temptations
Original Cast - Funny Girl
Barbra Streisand - People
Al Hirt - Cotton Candy
Solomon Burke - Rock 'n' Soul
Dusty Springfield - A Girl Called Dusty
The Kinks - Kinks
Johnny Cash - Bitter Tears
The Dave Clark Five - Glad All Over
Dave Van Ronk - Inside Dave Van Ronk
The Impressions - Keep on Pushing
The Hollies - In the Hollies Style
Chet Atkins - Guitar Country
Buck Owens - Together Again

 

I love how this list is wall-to-wall utter classics I've known every word to my whole life...and a pair of Bobby Vinton songs.

Added these to the list thanks to you listing them. Hope to get to all of them.

Honestly jealous you get to listen to this for the first time. A staple of my nice-weather listening every year.

Great trio. I really need to get to that Kinks record.

 

It's far from their best album, I just really love the Kinks, and it's a solid debut.

 

I'm excited for anything that has "You Really Got Me" and "Stop Your Sobbing". Really wish "All Day and All of the Night" was on there though. Damn British albums leaving off singles deliberately.

 

Two absolute certainties here for me, with two of my favourite albums, and then a huge and difficult choice for the third.

1. Sam Cooke - Ain't That Good News
2. The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica
3. Bob Dylan - Another side of Bob Dylan

Sam Cooke's Ain't That Good News is the last studio record released in his last time, and it's absolutely perfect. One side of upbeat, danceable numbers, and then the other side being more mellow. All the songs are basically perfect, but his version of Tennessee Waltz is my favourite, and the contrast between his version and Otis Redding's version (both are my two favourites) is incredible - they sound like two completely different interpretations. This will be the last Cooke album to appear in these threads I think, but what an incredible talent he was.

The Ronettes only album is just a collection of absolutely perfect pop tracks, recorded with Phil Spector's incredible Wall of Sound production technique that just makes them feel so much larger and all encompassing. Again, like the Cooke record, every single song on here is absolutely incredible.

Third choice was slightly harder, and probably could have gone for either of Dylan's records this year (which is going to be a problem next year too!), but I think Another Side of Bob Dylan just about shades The Times They are-a Changing, as he took a little step away from the protest music, and had some more personal songs on here.

Rounding out for honourable mentions would include Nina Simone's Broadway Blues Ballads, which has two of my favourite Nina songs (Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood & See-Line Woman) and Muddy Water's Folk Singer, which is just an incredible collection of acoustic blues tracks, and Muddy Water's spellbinding voice.

A double live album mention here for Etta James Rocks the House, which is ferocious, loud and aggressive, and lives up to the title, and Sam Cooke's Live at the Copa, which is the opposite and has Cooke in full on charmer mode, smooth as you like it, an absolute master equally at home in the sweaty clubs, or the swanky stages.

Loads of great stuff elsewhere this year too!

 

Dude, Folk Singer is incredible. Even just as a feat of engineering. If you have it loud enough you can hear studio noises, it’s so intimate.

 

i know girl from ipanema but that’s about it.

i forgot to include the dave van ronk album, which would have been a cut of mine, and the streisand album, which i’m gonna check out

 

Top 3:
1. Bob Dylan: The Times They Are A-Changin'
2. The Supremes: Where Did Our Love Go
3. The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night

The Times They Are A-Changin' to me is taking the brilliance of Freewheelin' and doing it even better. With God on Our Side and Boots of Spanish Leather both stand out to me as some of Dylan's best. Another Side of Bob Dylan is also great, but I need to spend a little more time with it. I've only listened a handful of times.

Where Did Our Love Go is just wall to wall bops. Always so fun to listen to.

Other stuff I want to check out:
-The Kinks: Kinks (not sure if I've listened to the whole thing before)
-The Rolling Stones: The Rolling Stones
-The Rolling Stones: 12 X 5
-The Ronettes: Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
-Johnny Cash: I Walk the Line
-The Animals: The Animals
-The Shangri-Las: Leader of the Pack
-Aretha Franklin: Unforgettable
-Sam Cooke: Ain't That Good News
-Marvin Gaye: When I'm Alone I Cry
-The Temptations: Meet the Temptations:
-Joan Baez: Joan Baez 5
-Simon & Garfunkel: Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.

 

Listened to Nina Simone in Concert from this year, which is basically the safest new album choice I could have made, because I was certain I'd love it. A short little live collection, consisting of 7 tracks and 35 minutes, Nina is an excellent form, a truly wonderful live performer. It also shows her more playful and silly side, with the ridiculously fun, "Go Limp", where she forgets the words halfway through and laughs along with the audience, enjoying the innuendos of the song. She then follows it up with the ferocious "Mississippi Goddamn", just in case you were worried that it was going to be a comic end to it.

Excellent stuff, looking at her discography on Wiki, there's quite a few live albums of hers from this period that I haven't heard (I'd only previously heard 1962's Nina at the Village Gate), so I might spend some time with her live records this week.

 

i don't particularly love getz/gilberto but they're certainly a vibe. love the instrumentation

 

For something completely different, I listened to an album by the Singing Nun, who I’d never heard of, but noticed her name as one of the big sellers in the OP. She was a Belgian nun in the early 60s, who had some extremely unexpected hits, selling over two million records in 1964. Reading up on her on wiki, she met a tragic end unfortunately, and took her own life, after financial and spiritual troubles in the early 80s, along with her “partner”.

She had a beautiful voice, singing these lovely little folk devotional songs, all in French, but crystal clear and wonderful, with some nice simple harmonies. Perhaps a little bit one note for an entire album, but it’s certainly interesting reading up about her too. Not one I imagine I’ll be back to often, but a very nice discovery.

 

Phaynes/ Cshadows do you both post your lists first day just because you’re that confident in the top 3, or are you listening ahead?

I know there’s technically no rules , but for any year pre-1993ish I feel like an album I might not have heard before recommendations from you guys could sneak it’s way into the top 3. For that reason I think I’ll usually wait till close to the end of the week to cast my ballot.

 

i mean, i’m pretty familiar with all the albums i’ve voting for. an album that i’ve heard once or twice isn’t going to make it to the top of my list when i barely know it. maybe it could sneak up to that point eventually, but not within the course of a week haha. a lot of these albums are albums i’ve listened to for most of my life.

 

Yeah I guess that’s a solid point. LOL

 

His best song. Which, given the source, is saying a lot.

That version of "Mississippi Goddamn" is for sure one of her finest moments. "This is a showtune...only the show ain't been written for it yet."

You know I'm pretty open-minded, but that album got really tedious for me by the end. Glad I listened for the Grammy nom, the educational value, and "Dominique", but not for me really.

I don't listen ahead, I just feel like nothing I listen to for the first time is going to crack a top 3 in a year where I've heard 20-40 albums. They usually take more spins. So I figure may as well post my ballot and other stuff I like early and maybe people can get ideas for what to listen to (since it's not necessarily easy to look up releases by year in any kind of curated way).

 

@phaynes12 @George and obviously anyone else, I highly recommend Jerry Lee Lewis' Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, Doc Watson's s/t and the Jacques Brel Olympia '64 album. Seem like ones you could really get down with.

 

Alright sold - I’ll start doing it this way too , just hadn’t thought of it that way but pretty obvious.

Will post mine tomorrow along with my listening plans for the rest of the week! Thanks y’all.

 

chris, visions of johanna exists

 

yeah, the JLL album peaked my interest but I wasn't sure if it was a deal where the live album was trumped by a studio record. adding these to the list

 

1964 in Music

Best Single:
I Get Around - The Beach Boys

Other great 1964 singles:
Be My Baby - The Ronettes
Twist & Shout - The Beatles
Fun, Fun, Fun - The Beach Boys
House Of The Rising Sun - The Animals
Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five
The Girl From Ipanema - Getz/Gilberto
Oh, Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
I Feel Fine - The Beatles
A Hard Day’s Night - The Beatles
Can’t Buy Me Love - The Beatles
Remember (Walkin’ In The Sand) - The Shangri-las
Chapel Of Love - The Dixie Cups
Leader Of The Pack - The Shangri-las
She’s Not There - The Zombies
Baby Love - The Supremes
You Really Got Me - The Kinks
Dancing In The Street - Martha And The Vandellas

Notable Mention:
Terry Riley’s “In C”

Top 3 albums:
1. Beatles For Sale - The Beatles
2. A Hard Day’s Night - The Beatles
3. All Summer Long - The Beach Boys

 

Yeah I mean either way seems fine to me as long as it doesn’t deter you from exploring and relistening and such.

 

@irthesteve where ya been