May 16, 1966: The Greatest Day In American Music

Left to right: Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson,

Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine

May 16, 1966: Was this the greatest day in the history of American music? Three epochal events happened. No one fully realized just how epochal until later.

The Beach Boys released their album Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson -- born on June 20, 1942, 2 days after Paul McCartney of The Beatles -- admitted that Pet Sounds was his response to the Beatle album Rubber Soul, released on December 3, 1965. Wilson viewed Pet Sounds as a solo album, and attributed its inspiration partly to his marijuana use, and an LSD-rooted spiritual awakening. 

He said he aimed to create "the greatest rock album ever made," surpassing Rubber Soul, and extending the innovations of producer Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound." This explains the use of an orchestra, and some instruments that even Spector hadn't used before.

It included 2 of the group's most-loved singles, "Wouldn't It Be Nice," which led off Side A, and "God Only Knows," which led off Side B. It also included "Sloop John B," an adaptation of the folk song "The Wreck of the John B." Oddly, given how much it sounds like it's in the spirit of the album, it does not include "Good Vibrations," which became the group's 3rd and last Number 1 hit, and is often called their greatest song.

John Lennon, the other main creative voice in The Beatles, said Brian was "doing some very great things." With Revolver about to be released on August 5, McCartney later said that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released on June 1, 1967, was his -- if not his band's -- response to Pet Sounds. Brian tried to top it with Smile, but, battling his inner demons, was unable to finish it.

Along with The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan and The Band, Lifehouse by The Who, The Black Album by Prince, and Chinese Democracy by Guns 'N Roses, Smile became one of the great talked-about-but-unreleased albums in rock and roll history. Of course, all of these were eventually released. In Smile's case, in 1993.

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On the same day, the aforementioned Bob Dylan released his album Blonde On Blonde. He's never said it was a response to anything.

Neither the name of the performer

nor the title of the album was on the front cover.

Bob already had that much oomph.

One of the things I love about Bob is that he came up with such great song titles. One of the things that drives me crazy about him is that sometimes, those titles are not mentioned anywhere in the lyrics, making it hard for someone who hears the song, but not the title, to know it. Typical of this is the song that leads off the album, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," better known by its chorus: "Everybody Must Get Stoned."

"I Want You" and "Just Like a Woman" were hit singles. The 9-verse, 7-minute "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" is fantastic. I once discovered that it fit the rhythm of Ernest Thayer's poem "Casey at the Bat," and imagined Dylan singing it to the tune. The album also includes "Visions of Johanna" and "Absolutely Sweet Marie."

It's a double album, 4 sides, although the 4th and last side is just 1 song, the 11-minute-23-second "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." Based on the lyrics, and the word "lowlands," we can presume that this song, along with some of the other songs on the album, were written about Sara Lownds, to whom he was married from 1965 to 1977. Their breakup inspired Dylan's best post-crash album, Blood On the Tracks, in 1975.

I say "post-crash" because, on July 29, 1966, just 76 days after releasing the album, Dylan was badly hurt in a motorcycle crash near his home in Woodstock, in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. He didn't record again for nearly a year, and didn't tour again until 1974.

In 1987, celebrating its 20th Anniversary, Rolling Stone magazine named its 100 Greatest Albums, though not limiting it to just the last 20 years. Sgt. Pepper came in 1st, Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen 2nd, Blonde on Blonde 3rd, and Pet Sounds 8th.

The magazine dropped Blonde on Blonde to 9th in 2003, and all the way to 38th in 2020. Perhaps there were 6 better albums released between 1987 and 2003, but there's no way in hell that 29 better albums were released between 2003 and 2020.

Pet Sounds was ranked 8th in 1987, rose to 2nd in 2003, and kept that honor in 2020. Sgt. Pepper has remained 1st.

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Those 2 albums being released on the same day would make the day epic enough. But, also on that day, Janet Damita Jo Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, outside Chicago. The youngest of the 9 singing siblings, she not only became the 2nd-most successful among them, but, by 1986, was able to establish her own "brand," separate from her megastar brother Michael, although they did occasionally work together. Judged solely on her own merits, she also became one of the biggest music stars in the world.

And, while this has nothing to do with music, another celebrity was born on the day: Thurman Thomas, running back for the Buffalo Bills, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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May 16, 1966 was a Monday. This was also the day that Chinese dictator Mao Zedong began what he called the Cultural Revolution. I have a separate entry for that event.

As Monday is often a travel day in baseball, football was out of season, and this was before the NBA and Stanley Cup Playoffs extended that far into the calendar year, only 1 major sporting event was played that day.

The Minnesota Twins beat the Washington Senators, 2-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Camilo Pascual went the distance for the win for the defending American League Champions. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-3 with a walk. The Senators' only run came on a home run by Jim King.

The current Senators franchise had been founded in 1961, to take the place of the old Senators franchise, who had moved to Minnesota. The "New Senators" also moved, after the 1971 season, to become the Texas Rangers.

March 25, 1963: The Beach Boys Release "Surfin' U.S.A."

Left to right: Al Jardine, Mike Love,

Dennis Wilson, Brian Wilson, and Carl Wilson.

March 25, 1963: The Beach Boys release their album Surfin' U.S.A. It contains the title track, which rose to Number 3 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart. It's not the best Beach Boys song, but it is the most familiar one – much like the soon-to-be-recorded "She Loves You" became the prototypical early Beatles song. The album also contains the racing song "Shut Down," which became the B-side to "Surfin' U.S.A.," and also became a Top 40 hit.

The album also includes 2 instrumentals that had been made famous the year before by lefthanded guitarist Dick Dale, considered the true father of surf rock: "Misirlou" and "Let's Go Trippin'." At the time, "trippin'" meant just that, going on a roadtrip, not feeling the effects of a mind-altering drug, or simply being crazy -- subjects with which the Beach Boys would, eventually, become sadly familiar.

Beach Boys bass guitarist and main songwriter Brian Wilson was then dating a woman named Judy Bowles, whose brother Jim was a surfer, and knew all the surfing spots in the southern half of California. Brian thought of how Chuck Berry had listed a bunch of cities in his 1958 song "Sweet Little Sixteen," and decided to try the same thing.

Brian's brother, Carl Wilson, was one of the few guitarists who has ever been able to play Chuck Berry riffs as well as Chuck himself. But this song was so close to "Sweet Little Sixteen" that Chuck sued. A settlement was reached, and Chuck has been listed as the sole author of "Surfin' U.S.A." ever since. Chuck later told them that he loved the song, he just wanted to be properly credited and paid for his role in writing it.

The Beach Boys' 1st song, titled simply "Surfin'," was released in 1961, and was a regional hit. The next year, they released "Surfin' Safari," and it became a national Top 20 hit. "Surf rock" became a big deal, especially with instrumentals like "Misirlou," The Chantays' "Pipeline," and The Surfaris' "Wipe Out," with its epic drumming by Ron Wilson (no relation to the Beach Boys).

And yet, the only song about surfing that ever hit Number 1 on Billboard magazine's "Hot 100" chart was "Surf City," by Jan & Dean (Jan Berry and Dean Torrence), in the magazine's July 20, 1963 edition. As the skateboarding craze followed, Jan & Dean had a Top 20 hit with "Sidewalk Surfin'" in 1964.

The Beach Boys also specialized in songs about cars, and the racing thereof, like "Shut Down," "409," "Little Deuce Coupe," "Fun, Fun, Fun" (about a teenage girl and her Ford Thunderbird), and their 1st Number 1 hit, "I Get Around," which topped the chart in Summer 1964. They even recorded a Christmas album, which included "Little Saint Nick," which invoked Santa Claus working on his sleigh as if it were a hot rod.

The Beach Boys' car songs inspired others: "G.T.O." by Ronnie & the Daytonas, "Hey Little Cobra" by The Rip Chords, and "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan & Dean. The last of these, partly written by Brian Wilson, proved tragic and prophetic: In 1966, Jan Berry was badly hurt in a crash on North Whittier Drive, not far from the real-life curve mentioned in the song, at 9900 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Ironically, the only member of the Beach Boys who was a regular surfer was the other Wilson brother, Dennis, the drummer. Brian, Carl, their cousin and lead singer Mike Love, and rhythm guitarist Al Jardine, who had been Hawthorne High School quarterback Brian's best friend and star receiver, weren't surfers, though they all acted out the part, especially with their onstage clothes. Brian never went surfing until 1976.

In a further irony, Dennis died by drowning in 1983, although that was because he was drunk and fell off a boat, not because of a surfing accident. Carl Wilson died of cancer in 1998. As of March 25, 2022, Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine are still alive. So is Bruce Johnston, who took over from Brian as the touring bass guitarist in late 1965. (UPDATE: Brian Wilson died in 2025.)

"Surfin' U.S.A." is one of those songs with a notorious misheard lyric: The opening line, "If everybody had an ocean" often gets heard as "If everybody had a notion." "Baggies" are loose-fitting, or "baggy," swimming trunks.

As for the locations mentioned in the song: Waimea Bay is in Hawaii, and Narrabeen is in Australia. The rest, as you might guess, are in California: Manhattan Beach, Haggerty's, Pacific Palisades and Redondo Beach are in Los Angeles County; Doheny and Sunset are in Orange County; Ventura County Line is in, you guessed it, Ventura County; Santa Cruz is in, of course, Santa Cruz County; and Del Mar, San Onofre, Trestles, Swami's Beach and La Jolla are in San Diego County.

Newport, Rhode Island is considered the top surfing location on the East Coast. The Trade Winds were a band from Providence, Rhode Island, and in 1965, they had a hit with "New York's a Lonely Town," about a boy who claims he's "the only surfer boy around." "Woodies," the wood-paneled cars of the 1930s, were popular among surfers, and Jan & Dean mentioned them in "Surf City." The Trade Winds sang, "My Woodie's outside, covered with snow."

Even Bo Diddley, best known for one of the founding records of rock and roll, the 1955 hit "Bo Diddley," got into the act: In 1963, he released Surfin' with Bo Diddley. Bo was black, and the vast majority of surfers -- at least, outside of Hawaii, where the natives taught the tourists -- have been white. As rock and roll historian Dave Marsh pointed out, it wasn't Bo's race that was the outlier, it was the location. The title of his 1960 album Bo Diddley is a Gunslinger made sense, especially given that he recorded on the South Side of Chicago; but where was he going to surf, Lake Michigan?

For the record, I have never surfed. Or skied. I'm not that crazy.

The Beach Boys hit Number 1 on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 Singles charts 4 times: With "I Get Around" in 1964, "Help Me, Rhonda" in 1965, "Good Vibrations" in 1966, and then, long after their initial run of success, "Kokomo" in 1988.

So who was Rhonda? Brian Wilson insisted that the song wasn't based on a real person, and that "Rhonda" just sounded like a good name to use. Can't argue with that, even if there would be car commercials 20 years later singing, "Help me, Honda."

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March 25, 1963 was a Monday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were no NBA games scheduled. And the NHL was between the regular season and the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. So there were no scores on this historic day.