VA - The London American Label Year By Year 1966 (2015)

London was fully swinging by 1966, but that's not something you'd learn from The London American Label, Year by Year: 1966. Ace's ongoing history of the London American Label captures 28 songs recorded in America and picked up by London for distribution in the U .K. In 1966, the label cast its net quite wide, pulling in the hit folk-pop single "Five O'Clock World" from the Vogues, the dreamy sunshine pop number one of the Association's "Cherish," and the legendary flop of Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep-Mountain High," along with a bunch of dynamite soul, a bit of rock & roll, and some of the fledgling progressive rock on Elektra. That label gives Butterfield Blues Band's "Come On In," Judy Collins' Dylan cover "I'll Keep It with Mine," and Love's rampaging "7 and 7 Is," which are nice contrasts to the Tex-Mex stomp of Sir Douglas Quintet's "The Rains Came," the trash of the Strangeloves' "Hand Jive," We the People's snarling garage sneer "You Burn Me Up and Down," and Leroy Pullins' Roger Miller rip-off "I'm a Nut." All this suggests just how wild, weird, and wonderful the American pop and rock scene was in 1966, and the best thing about this is that London didn't plan to be so far-reaching: 1966 is a snapshot of a label trying to make a buck and they captured a lot of terrific, silly, and memorable music as they did so.~Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine