(Credits: Far Out)
Sat 2 August 2025 23:00, UK
To make a trite comparison, the British invasion of the 1960s was like the school bully in the playground, careering its way through the American charts and its culture at large to completely decimate any sense of self it had left.
Livelihoods were ruined and artists were left cowering in fear as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and their gang of tyrants completely and utterly stormed through the scene, dominating popular music with barely any peep from anyone on the outside. When you come to think of it, it was almost like a dictatorship.
While this puts a pretty bleak slant on what was otherwise a peak time in the history of music and Western culture at large, there’s no getting away from the fact that by the very name of the British invasion, the American sonic landscape was more or less destroyed for a time, in favour of the next big thing hailing from the other side of the Atlantic. It was basically only if you were The Beach Boys or by some stroke of luck had a massive one-hit wonder that you made it out alive, and even then, it wasn’t without some cuts and bruises.
All of this is to say that, essentially, you could count on one hand the number of truly successful American homegrown talents worth mentioning within this era – but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t put up a fight while trying. One of those soldiers was Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, a novelty rock band who, despite all the many other outfits fighting in vain around them, became the beholders of the first American record to make a dent in the armour of the British invasion.
With their song ‘Wooly Bully’, they took home the title of the best-selling song in the US charts of 1965, even though ironically it never quite hit the number one spot. Despite being pipped to the post by ‘Help Me, Rhonda’ by The Beach Boys, the song somehow gained the accolade of the tune of the year, marking it out as a glimmer of hope amid a sea of Union Jacks and British allure. The stars and stripes were down, but not completely out.
What broader cultural impact did this have outside the British invasion?
But becoming the first American tune to sell over a million copies during the height of the British invasion wasn’t the only trophy that ‘Wooly Bully’ gathered. Among many other things, such as being the standout enduring musical legacy for Sam the Sham, it was also credited with bringing Mexican rhythms into the heart of the mainstream, giving rise to masses of other hits as we know them today.
As it turns out, you wouldn’t be able to bust your best moves at the school disco to the ‘Macarena’ if ‘Wooly Bully’ hadn’t come first, so although it could be viewed with some spite in terms of breaking the British streak, Sam the Sham’s tune did claw back just a hint of redemption.
Of course, history has a terrible habit of painting things in a very black and white manner. As far as that goes with the British invasion, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the entire 1960s era was completely dominated by UK bands all over the world, with no other nationality ever getting even a sniff at success. But as Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs more than proved, there was some nuance in the scene, and though it became dulled, America didn’t fully lose its spark.
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