“96 Tears” by ? & The Mysterians

"96 Tears" gave ? and the Mysterians their big hit and the title of their 1966 album, but Question Mark, also known as Rudy Martinez, had written it back in 1962, sitting in his manager's living room. He had to dig his heels in to make it the A-side over "Midnight Hour", and the band cut it in Bay City, Michigan, for Pa-Go-Go, a tiny label run by Lilly Gonzalez, who bankrolled them and opened up the studio in her basement.

It spread the old-fashioned way, from the ground up. Once it caught on locally, the band carried a copy to Bob Dell, the radio director in Flint; the requests piled up, the airplay spilled over into Canada, and Cameo Records picked it up for national release. By October 1966 these garage rockers were sitting on top of the Billboard Hot 100 and Canada's RPM 100 alike.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.