Novelty songs first appeared in the late 19th century and were popular on the radio into the 1980s. One of the weirdest and most successful was 1966’s “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” by Napoleon XIV.

“Disco Inferno” was first recorded as the title track of the Trammps’ 1976 album. Released as a single, “Disco Inferno” only reached №53. When the Philadelphia group’s tune was included in the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, “Disco Inferno” was re-released and shot up to №1 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart.

Billboard magazine called Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” the №1 single of 1967. Critics have disputed The King’s contribution to the song, though Presley and Otis Blackwell are listed as its songwriters.

New wave band Talking Heads, fronted by David Byrne, got its name from an issue of TV Guide. In the liner notes of Popular Favorites 1976–1972: Sand in the Vaseline, bassist Tina Weymouth said the magazine “explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as ‘all content, no action’. It fit.”

By 1964, the members of The Band — Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson — had left Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band, the Hawks. After touring with Bob Dylan in 1965 and ’66, the group moved to a house near Dylan in Woodstock, NY. Recordings made in the basement studio were the beginnings of the Music From Big Pink album.

Guitarist Spencer Davis, bassist Muff Winwood, and Muff’s 14-year-old brother Steve Winwood on keyboards and vocals formed the Spencer Davis Group in 1963. The group had №1 hits in the UK with two songs by Jamaican-born Jackie Edwards: “Keep on Running” and “Somebody Help Me.” In 1966, manager Chris Blackwell decided the band had to write a song of their own.

In 1967, Procol Harum released one of the few singles to sell 10 million copies worldwide: “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” The members who recorded the №5 hit — Gary Brooker (vocals and piano), Matthew Fisher (Hammond M-102 organ), David Knights (bass), Ray Royer (guitar), and session drummer Bill Eyden (later replaced by Bobby Harrison) — had an important “sixth member”: lyricist Keith Reid.

It is sad to note the passing of Dash Crofts, 78, who scored a number of hits in the 1970s with bandmate Jim Seals, who died in 2022. Crofts was a singer, songwriter, and played guitar and mandolin. Seals and Crofts earned Grammy nominations for “Diamond Girl” and “Summer Breeze.”

Palisades Park was a popular New Jersey amusement park that was open from 1898 to 1971. The park was located atop the New Jersey Palisades overlooking Manhattan. Game show creator Chuck Barris, the host and producer of The Gong Show, wrote “Palisades Park.” Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon, a Massachusetts native, had a №3 hit with the tune in 1962.

In the mid-1980s, John Fogerty found himself at a creative dead end. His most productive period had been from 1968–1972, when he and his band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, charted nine Top 10 singles.

One of the sweetest ballads recorded by the Turtles was the 1968 hit “You Showed Me.” The track was part of The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands, a concept album on which the group poked fun at musical genres by pretending to be different bands for each track. “Nature’s Children” was the “band” that contributed “You Showed Me.”

“People Got to Be Free” was released by the Rascals in the summer of 1968 during Civil Rights Movement protests. Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati were inspired to write what became an anthem for racial tolerance after they were threatened during a tour of the South.

Rock Quiz: 1000 Questions Classic Rock Challenge! Book Excerpt

Beatlemania in Australia reached its peak in June 1964 when the Fab Four staged a three-week tour of the country. Hundreds of rock groups sprouted as a result, formed by teens who hoped to emulate their heroes from Liverpool.

In the early 1960s, Archie Bell & the Drells were a struggling Houston vocal group performing their brand of Texas funk at local talent shows. In 1964, the group recorded a demo of a song called “Tighten Up.” Although they often performed the song live, the demo was soon forgotten.

Janis Ian was 14 when she wrote her 1967 hit single “Society’s Child,” a controversial song about how social pressure doomed an interracial romance. “I was sitting on a bus in East Orange, NJ, where I was living with my parents, and I saw it happening around me,” Ian told Songwriter Universe.

Rock Quiz: 1000 Questions Classic Rock Challenge! Book Excerpt

Keith Carradine wrote and performed “I’m Easy” for the 1975 Robert Altman film Nashville. Carradine, as womanizing musician Tom Frank, performs the song to an audience of past, present, and possibly future lovers.

It was 1956. Drummer Tom Austin and keyboardist Bob Gaudio were talented New Jersey teenagers who recruited guitarist Billy Dalton and saxophonist Billy Crandall to form a band, the Royals. Austin and Gaudio teamed to write “Short Shorts,” a number three hit in 1958 for the newly named Royal Teens.

Guitarist Mick Jones wrote Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is,” a №1 hit in 1985. “I always worked late at night, when everybody left and the phone stopped ringing,” Jones recalled in Classic Rock.