Andrew Grant Jackson - 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music

January

The Beatles I Feel Fine holds the top spot for the second of three weeks with the first intentional use of feedback on a record.

President Lyndon Johnson announces plans for Great Society government programs such as Medicare to create abundance and liberty for all.

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The Rolling Stones record their version of the Staple Singers gospel (The Last Time) and baroque chamber pop (Play with Fire).

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Dylan records Bringing It All Back Home , fusing psychedelic folk lyrics with rock and roll.

Connie Smiths Once a Day ends its eight-week run at the top of the country chart, the record for a female artist until 2012.

Lyndon Johnsons inauguration draws the largest crowd until Barack Obamas in 2009.

The Byrds record Mr. Tambourine Man, matching the Beatles jangling guitar and beat with Dylans surreal lyrics and an intro inspired by Bach.

February

John Coltrane releases his magnum opus, A Love Supreme , in February (exact date unknown).

James Brown records Papas Got a Brand New Bag in one hour, inventing the funk genre.

You Lost That Lovin Feelin becomes the longest No. 1 record to date, at 3:45.

Martha and the Vandellas release Nowhere to Run, a future anthem to soldiers and rioters, and inspiration for the riff of Satisfaction.

While demonstrating for the right to vote, a black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, is fatally shot in the stomach by a state trooper in Selma, Alabama.

Buck Owenss Ive Got a Tiger by the Tail tops the country chart, epitomizing the Bakersfield sound.

Malcolm X is assassinated.

March

President Johnson orders the Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

The Temptations My Girl (co-written/co-produced by Smokey Robinson) tops the charts.

Sam Cookes civil rights anthem A Change Is Gonna Come peaks at No. 31.

ABC interrupts the Sunday Night Movie ( Judgment at Nuremberg ) to broadcast images of civil rights demonstrators being beaten by Alabama state troopers, an incident that will be dubbed Bloody Sunday.

The Deacons for Defense and Justice, an armed civil rights organization, incorporates in Louisiana.

The first combat troops arrive in Vietnam. Thirty-five hundred marines land at China Beach, joining twenty-three thousand American military advisers training the South Vietnamese.

Brian Wilsons precursor to Pet Sounds , The Beach Boys Today! , is released, boasting a stunning array of instrumentation.

President Johnson vows We Shall Overcome in a televised speech supporting protestors in Selma.

Eighty-two-year-old activist Alice Herz sets herself on fire in Detroit to protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

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Thirty-five hundred people attend a teach-in about Vietnam held at the University of Michigan and organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

The March from Selma to Montgomery concludes with twenty-five thousand gathered at the Alabama State Capitol. Martin Luther King Jr. gives his How Long? Not Long! speech.

Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions civil rights anthem People Get Ready peaks at No. 14. Bob Marley and the Wailers rework it into One Love in Jamaica later in the year.

Dylans Bringing It All Back Home is released.

John Lennon and George Harrison are dosed with LSD without their consent for the first time by Harrisons dentist.

April

Solomon Burkes Got to Get You Off My Mind, inspired by the death of his friend Sam Cooke, tops the R&B charts.

The Staple Singers record Freedom Highway, about the Selma-to-Montgomery March, at Chicagos New Nazareth Church (on an undetermined Sunday during April).

Guitarist Eric Clapton leaves the Yardbirds because he considers the harpsichord-laden For Your Love too pop. The band tries to recruit Jimmy Page, who declines and suggests Jeff Beck.

The Pawnbroker is released in American movie theaters, featuring the first bare breasts approved by the U.S. Production Code.

May

The civil rights anthem Were Gonna Make It, by Little Milton, tops the R&B charts.

The Grateful Dead (under the name the Warlocks) debut at Magoos Pizza, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

James Brown recuts I Got You (I Feel Good) in Miami, Florida, in his new funk style.

The Rolling Stones write Satisfaction at a hotel pool in Clearwater, Florida, as a Dylanesque folk song.

The British Invasion of the United States peaks as eight of the U.S. Top 10 singles are English (and one Australian).

The Rolling Stones rework Satisfaction with the beat of the Four Tops I Cant Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch).

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Between ten thousand and thirty thousand people attend an antiwar teach-in in Berkeley, California.

The Who release Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, with an avant-garde feedback instrumental.

Marvin Gayes Ill Be Doggone (produced/co-written by Smokey Robinson) tops the R&B charts with a riff influenced by the Searchers proto-folk-rock Needles and Pins.

The Beatles top the charts with the jangle pop of Ticket to Ride.

Van Morrison and Thems garage rock anthem Gloria peaks in the United States at No. 93.

June

Bob Marley and the Wailers release the ska anthem Rude Boy (approximate date).

James Browns Papas Got a Brand New Bag is released; starting on August 14, it will top the R&B charts for eight weeks.

Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs Wooly Bully reaches No. 2. Billboard later determines it the best-selling song of the year.

(I Cant Get No) Satisfaction is released. Starting July 10, it will top the pop charts for four weeks.