https://stevenejones.org
Author of "Everything Is Everything: Tom Wilson and Pop Music in 1966" (Stanford UP, September 2026): https://www.sup.org/books/literary-studies-and-literature/everything-everything
Steven E. Jones
This month, 1966: the Velvet Underground re-recorded 3 songs (including "Heroin") with producer Tom Wilson. With earlier tracks + "Sunday Morning" (also produced by Wilson) this became the influential "banana album" (1967). John Cale said the VU "never again had as good a producer as Tom Wilson."
The just-released album, Zappa '66 Vol. 1, made me think of the earlier Freak Out! sessions in March of the same year, 1966. In both cases Freaks off the streets of L.A. served as a kind of hairy dada choir (and dance troupe) for Frank Zappa to conduct.
#everythingiseverything
This month in 1966, trumpeter Hugh Masekela's "The Americanization of Ooga Booga" was released, produced by Tom Wilson. Its title and cover art satirized stereotypes of African identity (Wilson called it "black humor," pun intended). Its sound mixed South African township music and American jazz.
The SUP Fall / Winter 2026-2027 Catalog is out!
Learn about our forthcoming titles, which include a rousing tour through Chekhov's stories & plays, a look at which ideas of politics & power characterize the tech industry, and the untold stories of American activists who fought for US ideals abroad
This month in 1966: “Animalisms" was released in the UK (May 13), produced by Tom Wilson, who would go on in 1966-1967 to produce multiple American albums by Eric Burdon and the variously-constituted Animals.
When released (June 1966), Freak Out! by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention came with an address you could write to for paratext, a map of "FREAK OUT Hot Spots!" in LA. It depicted Hollywood as if it were the Hundred Acre Wood or Middle-earth, but for the Freak scene.
