The Most Influential Singles Of The 1960s # 1 – #10

 

After reading Pitchfork's list of the 100 best songs of the 1960s, I decided to make a similar list, but with two crucial distinctions.  First, I decided to limit myself to songs that were actually released as 45 rpm singles during the 1960s, because that was the dominant format for pop & rock music for most of that decade.  (The point when album sales overtook 45 rpm single sales didn't occur until 1966 or 1967, roughly at the same the time the Beatles were working on Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's.)  Second, instead of focusing on what songs I think are the best or the coolest or the most pleasurable of all guilty pleasures, I decided to focus on the songs that I considered the most influential, although a lot of great songs get uncovered in the process anyway.   

 

For this reason, some of the songs on my list will be quite common (because their influence is unavoidable), while others are more obscure, yet they are influential for other reasons.  For other songs, I can't necessarily prove that they're influential.  They're just so ahead of their time or stand so completely out of time that they must have been influential somehow, even if I can't prove it.  Other songs on the list are not as good, but I still couldn't deny they were influential.   

 

Since this a list about historical influence (although I like a lot of these songs too), I have listed these singles in rough chronological order according to order of release, not according to order of preference.

 

 

 

1. The Everly Brothers

 

Cathy's Clown / Always It's You (1960) [Single]

 

The first recording John Lennon, Paul McCartney, or George Harrison ever appeared on was an ultra-rare homemade 78 rpm recording made by the Quarrymen in 1958.  The A-side to that 78 rpm, "In Spite of All the Danger," is not only notable as the first composition written by Lennon, McCartney, or Harrison, but is also a rather decent Everly Brothers pastiche.  The Everly Brothers had recorded many excellent hit singles throughout the 1950s for Cadence Records including Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, All I Have to Do Is Dream, and Bird Dog, but their most influential single of the '60s was Cathy's Clown, their major label debut after getting snatched up by Warner Brothers. 

 

In fact, Cathy's Clown was the first single Warner Brothers ever released in the UK, paving the way for a sellout British concert tour by the Everly Brothers in the latter half of 1960.  The ex-Quarrymen who formed the Beatles had already fully assimilated the Everly Brothers' influence by that point (although claimed that some of the harmonies on Please Please Me were inspired by Cathy's Clown), but other younger would-be rock stars in the UK were still playing close attention.  (Listen to Pete Townshend harmonizing with Roger Daltrey on some of the early Who records to see what I mean.)  The Everly Brothers would later return the favor by paying tribute to the British Invasion with their Two Yanks in England LP. 

 

As for the song itself, it should completely destroy the myth that there were no pre-Beatles rock bands that could function successfully as a self-contained instrumental and songwriting unit.  Phil and Don Everly not only gave Cathy's Clown great chords and harmonies, but the lyrics are a perfect tale of how unrequited love leads to high school homeroom humiliation. 

 

Chart Position: US #1, UK #1

 

 

 

. 2.Roy Orbison

 

Only the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel) / Here Comes That Song Again (1960) [Single]

 

On his debut single for Sun Records, Ooby Dooby, Roy Orbison gets packaged by producer Sam Phillips as a rockabilly singer in the Elvis Presley mode, but Orbison's voice is too reedy and tentative to pull it off.  Orbison didn't truly become a star until Only the Lonely finally allowed him the opportunity to perfect the emotionally vulnerable sad sack persona that made him famous.  So, in a way, you could say that Roy Orbison was the first emo singer.   

 

The Beatles certainly had tremendous respect for Orbison, who accompanied them on a UK tour in 1963 shortly before the Beatles made their US debut.  The Beatles actually had higher billing than Orbison at the time, but Orbison showed up the Fab Four, winning encore after encore while performing his songs standing stock still, while the Beatles needed all their frenetic head bobs and yeah-yeah-yeahs to get the same result.  John Lennon not only credited Only the Lonely as an influence on writing Please Please Me, but also stated that Help! was originally conceptualized as a Roy Orbison-style ballad, although George Martin wisely advised Lennon to speed up both tunes.  All of this goes to show that, even on the cusp of Beatlemania, John Lennon still had yet to assimilate Roy Orbison's skill at conveying weepy emotionality, something that Lennon didn't really pull off until his 1970s solo recordings. 

 

Chart Position: US #2, UK #1

 

 

 

3. Johnny Kidd (& The Pirates)

 

Shakin' All Over / Yes Sir, That's My Baby (1960) [Single]

 

The most groundbreaking rock 'n' roll single from England to predate the British Invasion, Shakin' All Over by Johnny Kidd & the Pirates has lustful lyrics and suggestive guitar riffing still influential enough today that I'm certain Jack White must have ripped it off for "I'm Shakin'" from his latest album.  Better yet, the Pirates are exceedingly influential on the later development of American and British rock, because the Pirates minus Kidd are technically the first "power trio," a format that many assume didn't arrive until Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.   

 

During the 1950s and the pre-Beatles era, the dominant rock 'n' roll band format focused more on keyboards and saxophone, with guitar playing a secondary role.  Buddy Holly & the Crickets pioneered the band format of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums, but that format didn't get fully institutionalized until the Beatles came along.  The Pirates, by contrast, took the two guitars-bass-drums format and got rid of the rhythm guitar as so much fluff.  That's why Johnny Kidd and the Pirates proved to be very influential with later generations of British rockers, including the Who (who covered "Shakin' All Over" on their Live at Leeds LP) and Led Zeppelin (who played "Shakin' All Over" in rehearsals), who both structured themselves according to the dynamic frontman + power trio format that Kidd originated. 

 

Aside from Adam Ant, Johnny Kidd also anticipated pirate chic earlier than anybody else by about four decades.  So the next time you celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, hoist a bottle of rum for the late, lamented Johnny Kidd.  It's the least ye could do, ye scurvy dogs! 

 

Chart Position: UK #1, US Did not chart

 

 

 

4.Wanda Jackson

 

Let's Have a Party / Cool Love (1960) [Single]

 

Carl Perkins may be the King of Rockabilly, but Wanda Jackson is its Queen.  If rockabilly equals rock + hillbilly, then Let's Have a Party hits both sides of the equation, channeling Elvis and Little Richard simultaneously in the body of a tiny little lady from Oklahoma.  Listen to the A-side and you will know why Jack White wanted to be her producer after reviving the career of Loretta Lynn.  Ms. Jackson, you are for real. 

 

Chart Position: US #37, UK #32

 

 

 

. 5. The Shadows

 

Apache / Quartermaster's Stores (1960) [Single]

 

The Shadows were the backup band to Cliff Richard, the biggest rock star in the UK before the Beatles came along, although the Beatles mainly viewed Richard as a cautionary tale, because his records never found success in America.  In their own right, the Shadows were a strong guitar-driven instrumental combo, who had their first UK #1 hit with Apache.  The Beatles used to play Apache and other Shadows instrumentals during their early Hamburg club dates, a debt they acknowledged in the title of the instrumental "Cry for a Shadow."  If only the Beatles had covered "Apache," the song wouldn't have been that influential, but in 1973, a studio-only group called the Incredible Bongo Band recorded a cover version of Apache that later hip hop DJ's coveted for its drum breaks.  Early rap group, the Sugar Hill Gang, recorded a cover version in 1981 with some vocals, and the song became cemented in hip hop history as a b-boy anthem. 

 

Chart Position: UK #1, US Did not chart

 

 

 

6. Chubby Checker

 

The Twist / Toot (1960) [Single]

 

I wish I could give this slot to the original Hank Ballard & the Midnighters version of The Twist, but that version was released in 1959, which makes it outside the scope of this list.  The Hank Ballard version was a B-side that peaked at #28 on the Billboard chart, which Dick Clark noticed was popular among his American Bandstand dancers.  Clark eventually got Chubby Checker to record a cover version of the Ballard song for Cameo-Parkway Records, a Philadelphia label where Dick Clark just so happened to be a silent partner.  Clark then used American Bandstand to give widespread exposure to Checker's version of the Twist, sending it to #1 on the pop charts in 1960.  So in addition to kicking off the biggest dance craze of the Sixties, Chubby Checker's the Twist is a paradigmatic example of the payola that made Dick Clark's fortune.  Chubby Checker's the Twist would be superseded eventually by other twist songs and dance crazes (necessitating the release of the sequel Let's Twist Again in 1961), but The Twist would get another revival, when society columnists started spotting celebrities ranging from Marilyn Monroe to Tennessee Williams to the Duchess of Windsor twisting the night away at New York's Peppermint Lounge.  As a result, the Twist hit the top of the Billboard charts on two separate occasions, in both 1960 and 1962, the only song in history of the Billboard pop charts to pull off such a feat. 

 

Chart Position: US #1, UK #14

 

 

 

7. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

 

Shop Around / Who's Lovin' You (1960) [Single]

 

Motown had hit singles before Shop Around, most notably Barrett Strong's Money, but this was the record that kicked the Tamla-Motown hit machine into high gear.  Kneejerk R&B purists might insist that original "Detroit version" of Shop Around is superior, but Berry Gordy made a better version of Shop Around for national airplay by making the tempo more upbeat, tightening the harmonies while emphasizing Smokey Robinson's tenor, and smoothing out the juke joint sax solo from the Detroit original.  Gordy used assembly line procedures that mirrored Detroit's auto industry to make R&B more radio-friendly for pop crossover audiences, but the Motown assembly line did not finally achieve its full potential until Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Shop Around gave Motown its first million seller.  Despite the sweetening that Gordy added to the national version of Shop Around, the lyrical content, which centered on a mother advising her son to sample as much milk as he can before he buys a whole cow, was still quite culturally subversive in 1960, although it did implicitly uphold the sexual double standard. 

 

Chart Position: US #2, UK Did not chart

 

 

8. John Coltrane

 

My Favorite Things (Parts 1 & 2) (1961) [Single]

 

Jazz typically doesn't get released on 45 rpm singles, but when you're John Coltrane, they have to make an exception.  My Favorite Things debuted as a showcase for Mary Martin in the 1959 Broadway musical version of The Sound of Music, but two years later, John Coltrane recorded an LP version of the song that transformed the Broadway show tune into a 13-minute modal jazz epic that vamps on the E minor and E major chords in a manner similar to Indian raga.  The album proved to be such a sales success that the Ertegun brothers who ran Atlantic Records at the time thought the title track had enough crossover appeal to warrant issuing a 5-minute edit of the song as a two-part single.  The song was extremely influential with minimalist composers like La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich, who loved its glacially slow-moving chord changes, but Coltrane's work also inspired many psychedelic bands as well, including the Byrds (who based the opening riff for Eight Miles High on John Coltrane's India) and the Doors (who based Light My Fire on Coltrane's Olé).  Perhaps only Miles Davis comes close to matching John Coltrane's influence on non-jazz musicians from the 1960s. 

 

Chart Position: Did not chart in the US or UK

 

 

 

9. Bobby Parker

 

Watch Your Step / Steal Your Heart Away (1961) [Single]

 

Melodically and vocally, Bobby Parker's Watch Your Step is similar to Ray Charles, What'd I Say, but it's distinguished by its opening guitar solo, a monster riff that not only inspired Carlos Santana to start picking up a guitar, but that has also been plagiarized by everybody from the Beatles in I Feel Fine to Led Zeppelin in Moby Dick (and probably some early Kinks songs I'm forgetting here).  Bobby Parker created a primordial soup of riffs so good that the entire British Invasion should be paying him royalties. 

 

Chart Position: US #51, UK Did not chart

 

 

 

10. Tony Sheridan

 

My Bonnie / The Saints (1961) [Single]

 

This record credited to Tony Sheridan is the first appearance of the Beatles on a commercially available single under the moniker, the Beat Brothers, a name that Sheridan continued to use for his backup bands after the Beatles outgrew him.  It's obviously not the most auspicious debut for the Fab Four, but given the way the single repurposes two public domain folk songs with a twist beat, I suppose you could call it "folk rock" four years ahead of when Dylan and the Byrds purportedly invented it. 

 

Chart Position: US #26, UK #48