is featured on the front cover of the 1967 volume of 's excellent, ongoing country music series , and his presence suggests how things were changing. was the first African-American country music superstar, a pop icon perfectly suited for the Civil Rights era, but he was positively conservative compared to other singers who charted in 1967. Some of 's peers tackled controversial topics -- 's "I Don't Wanna Play House" addressed divorce in a clear, unsentimental fashion, while her duet with on "My Elusive Dreams" chronicled a uniquely '60s futility -- while others rode the zeitgeist coming out of California, with sharply navigating rock and soul on his "Mental Revenge" and "The Chokin' Kind." was quickly eclipsing his benefactor via such nervy, finely etched songs as "Branded Man" and "Sing Me Back Home," while dug in his heels with "Walk Through This World With Me," about as exquisite a single as Nashville ever produced. Elsewhere, there were straightforward honky tonk hits -- none better than 's beer-drinking anthem "Pop A Top" -- and lively, winking, referential cuts like 's "Guitar Man," but nothing signaled the shifting tides like 's "Gentle on My Mind," 's "Ode to Billie Joe," and, especially, 's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," the latter splitting the difference between the folk narrative of and the Hollywood symphony of . This was the sound of the late '60s, and it remains vivid, cinematic, and haunting. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine