Where were you on Wednesday, March 16, 1966? I was in my senior year at a grossly overrated Catholic prep school in New Jersey run by an obscure religious order. In the fall I would start at a small engineering college in Philadelphia. I had no idea that my high school record hop DJ work would lead to college radio, which would lead in turn to a brief stint at a 50 kilowatt rock station in Seattle. So let’s cue the Rockumentary theme!
San Remo Golden Strings: “Festival Time”
They had started as Tom & Jerry, and they’d gotten a small hit in 1957 in the style of the Everly Brothers. After “The Sounds of Silence”, there was some question as to how they could follow it up. This answered that question. It came in at #10.
“Where were you on Wednesday, March 16, 1966?”
I was but a gleam in my father’s eye. :)
I was in ninth grade at Darmstadt American School in Darmstadt, Germany.
The music scene there was rather interesting. During breakfast on week days, we would listen to variety shows imported from the US over the Armed Forces Network radio station in Frankfurt. If I remember correctly, Ira Cook was the host of the morning show.
In those days, AFN played a lot of standards, as well as polkas and Hawaiian music--just about everything except rock and roll, although Jim Pewter hosted an "oldies" show on Saturday afternoon. An occasional rock hit such as the Mamas & Papas' "California Dreaming" might somehow sneak onto the playlist, but in March, 1966, it was tunes such as these that got the lion's share of the airplay:
Meanwhile, one of the students at the school somehow found a copy of Jack the Ripper by Screamin' Lord Such & the Savages--probably during a trip to England--and soon everyone was singing it.