The Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that aired intermittently from 1955 to 1996 and returned to social media in 2017. Created by Walt Disney and produced by Walt Disney Productions, the program was first televised for four seasons, from 1955 to 1959, by ABC. This original run featured a regular, but ever-changing cast of mostly teen performers. ABC broadcast reruns weekday afternoons during the 1958–1959 season, airing right after American Bandstand. The show was revived three times after its initial 1955–1959 run on ABC, first from 1977 to 1979 for first-run syndication as The New Mickey Mouse Club, then from 1989 to 1996 as The All-New Mickey Mouse Club airing on The Disney Channel, and again from 2017 to 2018 with the moniker Club Mickey Mouse airing on internet social media.
Bobby Darin was an American musician, songwriter, and actor. He performed jazz, pop, rock and roll, folk, swing, and country music.
Glen Dee Hardin is an American piano player and arranger. He has performed and recorded with such artists as Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, John Denver, and Ricky Nelson.
List of notable events in music that took place in the year 1966.
Francis Thomas Avallone , better known as Frankie Avalon, is an American actor, singer, and former teen idol. He had 31 charting U.S. Billboard singles from 1958 to late 1962, including number one hits, "Venus" and "Why" in 1959. He is the earliest surviving singer to have scored a solo number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
Jackie DeShannon is an American singer-songwriter and radio broadcaster with a string of hit song credits from the 1960s onwards, as both singer and composer. She was one of the first female singer-songwriters of the rock and roll period. She is best known as the singer of "What the World Needs Now Is Love" and "Put a Little Love in Your Heart", and as the writer of "When You Walk in the Room" and "Bette Davis Eyes", which became hits for The Searchers and Kim Carnes, respectively.
The Lawrence Welk Show is an American televised musical variety show hosted by big band leader Lawrence Welk. The series aired locally in Los Angeles for four years, from 1951 to 1955, then nationally for another 16 years on ABC from 1955 to 1971, followed by 11 years in first-run syndication from 1971 to 1982. Repeat episodes are broadcast in the United States by PBS stations. These airings incorporate an original program — usually, a color broadcast from 1965 to 1982 — in its entirety. In place of the commercials, newer performance and interview clips from the original stars and/or a family member of the performers are included; these clips are occasionally updated.
Go-go dancers are dancers who are employed to entertain crowds at nightclubs or other venues where music is played. Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s at the French bar Whisky a Gogo, located in the town of Juan-les-Pins. The bar's name was taken from the French title of the Scottish comedy film Whisky Galore! The French bar then licensed its name to the West Hollywood rock club Whisky a Go Go, which opened in January 1964 and chose the name to reflect the already popular craze of go-go dancing. Many 1960s-era nightclub dancers wore short, fringed skirts and high boots which eventually came to be called go-go boots. Nightclub promoters in the mid‑1960s then conceived the idea of hiring women dressed in these outfits to entertain patrons.
The Wrecking Crew, also known as the Clique and the First Call Gang, was a loose collective of American session musicians based in Los Angeles who played on many studio recordings in the 1960s and 1970s, including hundreds of top 40 hits. The musicians were not publicly recognized at the time, but were viewed with reverence by industry insiders. They are now considered one of the most successful and prolific session recording units in history.
Hullabaloo was an American musical variety series that ran on NBC from January 12, 1965, through April 11, 1966. Similar to ABC's Shindig! and in contrast to American Bandstand, it aired in prime time.
Dick and Dee Dee are an American singer-songwriter duo who reached popularity in the early to mid-1960s. The group was founded by California classmates Richard Gosting and Mary Sperling. They eventually changed their names to Dick St. John and Dee Dee Sperling. They had their first hit in 1961 when "The Mountain's High" reached No. 2 on the Billboard 100. They toured with the Beach Boys and opened for the Rolling Stones during the Stones's 1964 tour of California. Regulars on the show Shindig!, the duo had multiple hit songs before St. John and Sperling disbanded in 1969. In the 1980s, St. John toured with his wife, Sandy. Dick St. John died on December 27, 2003, after a fall at his home. Dee Dee Phelps began performing with actor/singer Michael Dunn as Dick and Dee Dee in 2008, appearing in large doo wop and rock and roll shows throughout the United States.
The Patty Duke Show is an American television sitcom created by Sidney Sheldon and William Asher. The series ran on ABC from September 18, 1963, to April 27, 1966.
The Hollywood Palace was an hourlong American television variety show broadcast Saturday nights on ABC from January 4, 1964, to February 7, 1970. Titled The Saturday Night Hollywood Palace for its first few weeks, it began as a midseason replacement for The Jerry Lewis Show, another variety show, which lasted only three months.
Where the Action Is is a music-based television variety show that aired in the United States from 1965 to 1967. It was carried by the ABC network and aired each weekday afternoon. Created by Dick Clark as a spin-off of American Bandstand, Where the Action Is premiered on June 28, 1965. The show was another step in the then-current trend of entertainment programs that targeted the teenage audience by focusing on pop music, following in the footsteps of Shindig! and Hullabaloo. Dick Clark's voice could be heard doing the artist introductions, and he sometimes did filmed interviews.
The Jimmy Dean Show is the name of several similar music and variety series on American local and network television between 1963 and 1975. Each starred country music singer Jimmy Dean as host.
The Gentrys were an American band of the 1960s and early 1970s, best known for their 1965 hit "Keep On Dancing". A cover by the Bay City Rollers charted No. 9 in the UK in 1971. Follow-up singles charted outside of the Top 40: "Every Day I Have to Cry" (1966), "Spread It on Thick" (1966), "Cinnamon Girl" (1970), "Why Should I Cry" (1970), "Wild World" (1971), and a 'Bubbling Under' Billboard chart entry, "Brown Paper Sack".
Gold Star Studios was an independent recording studio located in Hollywood, California. In its entire history, Gold Star was one of the most successful commercial recording studios in the world.
Susan M. Cappetta was an American pop musician. She was the writer of the top 40 hit "Dave Hull The Hullabalooer" in 1965, a song about Los Angeles radio personality Dave Hull. She was a member of the group, The Scuzzies, a group made up of herself, her brothers and cousins, and later worked in The Harrison & Tyler Show act. She had done work with Jimmy Ellis.
"Laugh, Laugh" is a song by American rock group the Beau Brummels, written by guitarist Ron Elliott and produced by Sylvester Stewart, later known as Sly Stone. Released in December 1964 as the band's debut single, the song reached number 15 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart the following February. "Laugh, Laugh" was the first hit single to come out of the emerging San Francisco music scene in response to the British Invasion. The song was later included on the band's first full-length album, Introducing the Beau Brummels, released in April 1965.
James Franklin O'Neill was an American DJ and broadcaster who hosted the ABC television musical variety show Shindig! from 1964 to 1966. O'Neill was owner of Pandora's Box, an influential Sunset Strip music venue in West Hollywood, California that was the center of the 1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots.
