Lisa B brings the unfinished ideas of 1967 into the present on ’60s Magic Now!

Several of the most durable songs released in 1967 imagined freedom through characters who could not be easily explained. They celebrated wanderers, mysterious women, fantasy figures, and collective dreams. On ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse. Lisa B returns to those songs with an interest in what their freedom included, what it overlooked, and what it might offer listeners nearly six decades later.

The album arrives during another period of political division and social strain. Lisa conceived it partly in response to the Trump administration and the larger pressures of contemporary life, but the music avoids becoming a historical reenactment or a direct political tract. Its argument emerges through the act of arranging old songs differently.

That strategy is evident in the movement from Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” to “Everybody Get Together.” The first addresses those who stand in the way of change, while the second calls people toward love and unity. Placing them on the same record allows confrontation and community to coexist, as they often did in the music and activism of the period.

Lisa’s own “’60s Magic Now!” makes clear that the record’s title refers to a present-tense possibility. The vocal rap-drum duet with Jeff Marrs does not imitate the sound of the decade. It establishes Lisa’s contemporary voice and creates a bridge into the covers that follow.



Those interpretations are willing to revise perspective as well as style. “Spooky” lets its mysterious woman answer the person observing her. “Ruby Tuesday” becomes an inquiry into the title character’s independence. “

Dear Mr. Fantasy” introduces Lyrics Born as the figure being asked to lift everyone’s spirits, with a new rap that considers the relationship between creative swagger and repair.

The newly spotlighted “Windy” is especially successful at joining those social, personal, and mythic concerns. Lisa connects The Association’s free-spirited character with Oya, the Yoruba goddess and orisha of wind. The prelude frames change as an elemental feminine force before the familiar composition enters.

A Latin pop-soul-jazz arrangement supplies the physical momentum. Ben Flint, Aaron Germain, Jeff Marrs, Brent Sunderland, and Sandy Cressman surround Lisa with keyboards, bass, drums, percussion, and background vocals. Recorded at 2200 Studios in Sausalito with overdubs at Oakland’s Santo Recording, the track reflects the album’s Bay Area foundation. Its official video is available now.

The record’s genre range is broad, yet its ideas provide continuity. Soul-jazz warmth, hip-hop language, Latin rhythm, folk directness, and spoken poetry all become ways of asking how inherited music can remain socially and emotionally useful. Engineers Dale “D-Wiz” Everingham and James Gardiner help hold those elements together.

Lisa’s Y-Verse concept turns that inquiry into a recurring visual and verbal motif. The letter appears in every cover title, sounds like a question, and resembles a peace symbol. It also names the alternate reality of the album, a place where the aspirations attached to 1967 can be inspected without pretending they were ever fully realized.

Available digitally today, August 21, ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse is a thoughtful album about cultural memory and unfinished change. The physical release follows September 25, with a performance scheduled for October 3 at The Back Room in Berkeley. “Windy” provides its most buoyant focal point, carrying Lisa’s larger inquiry forward on a rhythm built for motion.