1960s in music
Encyclopedia
For music from a year in the 1960s, go to 60
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This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music
in the 1960s
.
In North America
, Europe
and Oceania
, the decade was particularly revolutionary in terms of popular music
as it saw the formation and evolution of rock
music. At the beginning of the decade, pop
and rock and roll
trends of the 1950s continued, yet, the rock and roll of the 50s started to merge into a more international, eclectic variant known as rock music. By the mid part of the decade, 1950s rock and roll in its purest form started to be overtaken by pop rock
, beat
, psychedelic rock
, blues rock and folk rock
, which had grown in popularity. The country
and folk
-influenced style associated to the latter-half of rock music in the 1960s spawned a generation of popular singer-songwriter
s who wrote and performed their own work. Towards the latter half of the decade, genres such as Baroque pop
, sunshine pop
, bubblegum pop
, progressive rock
and heavy metal
started to grow popular, with the latter two finding greater success in the following decade. The 1960s additionally saw the rise in popularity of funk
and soul
music; rhythm and blues
in general remained popular throughout the decade, and this style was commonly associated to girl group
s of the time, whose fusion of R&B and gospel
with rock and roll enjoyed success until the mid-part of the decade. Aside from the popularity of rock and R&B music in the 1960s, Latin American
as well as Jamaican
and Cuban
music achieved a degree of popularity throughout the decade, with genres such as bossa nova
, the cha-cha-cha
, ska, and calypso
being popular. From a classical
point of view, the 60s were also an important decade as they saw the development of experimental
, jazz and contemporary classical
music, notably minimalism and free improvisation
.
In Asia
, various trends marked the popular music of the 1960s. In Japan
, the decade saw the rise in popularity of several Western popular music groups such as The Beatles
, as well as rock and roll. The success of rock music and bands in the Japan started a new genre, known as Group Sounds
, which was popular in the latter half of the decade.
In South America
, genres such as bossa nova, nueva canción
and nueva ola
started to emerge and grow popular throughout the decade. Rock music started to leave its mark and achieve success in South America, and grew increasingly popular throughout the 1960s. Additionally, salsa
started to develop in popularity towards the end of the decade.
scene, in major urban centres in the UK like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London. This was particularly true in Liverpool, where it has been estimated that there were around 350 different bands active, often playing ballrooms, concert halls and clubs. Beat bands were heavily influenced by American bands of the era, such as Buddy Holly and the Crickets
(from which group The Beatles
derived their name), as well as earlier British groups such as The Shadows
. After the national success of the Beatles in Britain from 1962, a number of Liverpool performers were able to follow them into the charts, including Gerry & The Pacemakers
, The Searchers
, and Cilla Black
. Among the most successful beat acts from Birmingham were The Spencer Davis Group and The Moody Blues
. From London, the term Tottenham Sound was largely based around The Dave Clark Five
, but other London bands that benefited from the beat boom of this era included the Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds
. The first non-Liverpool
, non-Brian Epstein
-managed band to break through in the UK were Freddie and the Dreamers
, who were based in Manchester, as were Herman's Hermits
and The Hollies
. The beat movement provided most of the bands responsible for the British invasion
of the American pop charts in the period after 1964, and furnished the model for many important developments in pop and rock music.
like The Beatles drawing on a wide range of American influences including soul music
, rhythm and blues and surf music. Initially, they reinterpreted standard American tunes, playing for dancers doing the twist
, for example. These groups eventually infused their original rock compositions with increasingly complex musical ideas and a distinctive sound. In mid-1962 The Rolling Stones
started as one of a number of groups increasingly showing blues influence, along with bands like The Animals
and The Yardbirds
. During 1963, The Beatles and other beat groups
, such as The Searchers
and The Hollies
, achieved great popularity and commercial success in Britain.
British rock broke through to mainstream popularity in the United States in January 1964 with the success of the Beatles. "I Want to Hold Your Hand
" was the band's first #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100
chart, starting the British Invasion of the American music charts. The song entered the chart on January 18, 1964 at #45 before it became the #1 single for 7 weeks and went on to last a total of 15 weeks in the chart. Their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show February 9 is considered a milestone in American pop culture. The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers, at the time a record for an American television program. The Beatles went on to become the biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed by numerous British bands.
During the next two years, Chad & Jeremy, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, Manfred Mann
, Petula Clark
, Freddie and the Dreamers
, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits
, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs
, and Donovan
would have one or more #1 singles. Other acts that were part of the invasion included The Kinks
and The Dave Clark Five
. British Invasion acts also dominated the music charts at home in the United Kingdom.
The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music
, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idol
s, that had dominated the American charts in the late 1950s and 60s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino
and Chubby Checker
and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters.
. It reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s, when it developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar and made international stars of several proponents of the genre including The Rolling Stones
, Eric Clapton
, The Yardbirds
, Fleetwood Mac
and Led Zeppelin
.
A number of these moved through blues-rock
to different forms of rock music and as a result British blues helped to form many of the sub-genres of rock, including psychedelic rock
and heavy metal music
. Since then direct interest in the blues in Britain has declined, but many of the key performers have returned to it in recent years, new acts have emerged and there have been a renewed interest in the genre.
culture and attempted to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of hallucinogenic drugs
. The movement drew on non-Western sources such as Indian music's raga
s and sitar
s as well as studio effects and long instrumental passages and surreal lyrics. Established British artists such as Eric Burdon
, The Who
, Cream
, Pink Floyd
and The Beatles
produced a number of highly psychedelic tunes during the decade. Many British psychedelia bands of the 1960s never published their music and only appeared in live concerts during that time.
Cliff Richard
and The Shadows
, Dusty Springfield
, Petula Clark, Tom Jones
and Sandie Shaw
were some of the most popular European pop artists.
, Pete Seeger
, Woody Guthrie
, Odetta
, Peter, Paul and Mary
, Joan Baez
, Bob Dylan
, Judy Collins
, Leonard Cohen
, Joni Mitchell
, Carolyn Hester
, Phil Ochs
, Tom Paxton
, Buffy Sainte-Marie
, Dave Van Ronk
, Tom Rush
, Fred Neil
, Gordon Lightfoot
, Ian and Sylvia
, Arlo Guthrie
and several other performers were instrumental in launching the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s.
By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of the American folk music revival
had grown to a major movement, utilising traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie
and Pete Seeger
and often identified with progressive or labor politics
. In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez
and Bob Dylan
had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach a mainstream audience with hits including "Blowin' in the Wind
" (1963) and "Masters of War
" (1963), which brought "protest song
s" to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences.
Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals "House of the Rising Sun" (1964), which was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with The Byrds
' recording of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man
" which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the cafe-based folk scene in Los Angeles, the Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker
guitars, which became an major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage
of many folk purists, with his "Like a Rolling Stone
" becoming a US hit single. Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like The Mamas & the Papas
and Crosby, Stills and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including The Lovin' Spoonful
and Simon and Garfunkel
, with the latter's acoustic "The Sounds of Silence" being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits.
Folk rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967-8, before many acts moved off in a variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock
. However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song and concepts of "authenticity".
-inspired vibe began in the folk scene, with the New York-based Holy Modal Rounders
using the term in their 1964 recording of "Hesitation Blues
". The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators
from Texas, at the end of 1965; producing an album that made their direction clear, with The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
the following year.
Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed the Byrds from folk to folk rock from 1965. The Los Angeles-based group The Doors
formed in 1965 after a chance meeting on Venice Beach. Although its charismatic lead singer Jim Morrison
died in 1971, the band's popularity has endured to this day. The psychedelic life style had already developed in San Francisco since about 1964, and particularly prominent products of the scene were The Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish
, The Great Society and Jefferson Airplane
. The Byrds rapidly progressed from purely folk rock in 1966 with their single "Eight Miles High
", widely taken to be a reference to drug use.
Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. In America the Summer of Love
was prefaced by the Human Be-In
event and reached its peak at the Monterey Pop Festival
, the later helping to make major American stars of Jimi Hendrix and The Who, whose single "I Can See for Miles
" delved into psychedelic territory. Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow
and The Doors' Strange Days
. These trends climaxed in the 1969 Woodstock festival
, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, but by the end of the decade psychedelic rock was in retreat. The Jimi Hendrix Experience broke up before the end of the decade and many surviving acts, moved away from psychedelia into more back-to-basics "roots rock", the wider experimentation of progressive rock, or riff laden heavy rock.
was Surf Rock, which was characterized by being nearly entirely instrumental
and by heavy use of reverb
on the guitar
s. The spring reverb featured in Fender
amplifier
s of the day, cranked to its maximum volume, produced a guitar tone shimmering with sustain and evoking surf and ocean imagery.
Duane Eddy
's "Movin' and Groovin" is thought by many to be the main contender for laying the groundwork as the first surf rock record, while others claim the genre was invented by Dick Dale
on "Let's Go Trippin'
", which became a hit throughout California
. Most early surf bands were formed in during this decade in the Southern California
area. By the mid-1960s The Beach Boys
, who used complex pop harmonies over a basic surf rock rhythm, had emerged as the dominant surf group and helped popularize the genre. In addition, bands such as The Ventures
, The Shadows
, The Atlantics
, The Surfaris
and The Champs
were also among the most popular Surf Rock bands of the decade.
) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers
, the Remains
, and the Fifth Estate
). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound.
The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Louie Louie
" by The Kingsmen
(1963) is a mainstream example of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen
(Minneapolis) and the Rivieras
(South Bend, Indiana). In this early period many bands were heavily influenced by surf rock and there was a cross-pollination between garage rock and frat rock, sometimes viewed as merely a sub-genre of garage rock.
The British Invasion of 1964-66 greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod
groups) to adopt a British Invasion lilt, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the USA and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft
. New styles had evolved to replace garage rock (including blues-rock
, progressive rock
and country rock
). In Detroit garage rock stayed alive until the early 70s, with bands like the MC5
and The Stooges
, who employed a much more aggressive style. These bands began to be labelled punk rock
and are now often seen as proto-punk or proto-hard rock
.
, but the genre began to take off in the mid-60s as acts followed developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield
(whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat
, the early Jefferson Airplane
, Janis Joplin
, Johnny Winter
, The J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix
with his power trios, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys
, whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues-rock bands like Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd
and eventually ZZ Top
from the southern states, incorporated country elements into their style to produce distinctive Southern rock
.
. This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, have been seen as creating the genre of country folk
, a route pursued by a number of, largely acoustic, folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group The Band
and the Californian-based Creedence Clearwater Revival
, both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder
, Bonnie Raitt
and Lowell George
, and influenced the work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970).
In 1968 Gram Parsons
recorded Safe at Home
with the International Submarine Band
, arguably the first true country-rock album. Later that year he joined the Byrds for Sweetheart of the Rodeo
(1968), generally considered one of the most influential recordings in the genre. The Byrds continued in the same vein, but Parsons left to be joined by another ex-Byrds member Chris Hillman
in forming The Flying Burrito Brothers
who helped establish the respectability and parameters of the genre, before Parsons departed to pursue a solo career. Country rock was particularly popular in the Californian music scene, where it was adopted by bands including Hearts and Flowers, Poco
and Riders of the Purple Sage
, the Beau Brummels and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
. A number of performers also enjoyed a renaissance by adopting country sounds, including: the Everly Brothers; one-time teen idol
Rick Nelson who became the frontman for the Stone Canyon Band; former Monkee Mike Nesmith who formed the First National Band
; and Neil Young
. The Dillards
were, unusually, a country act, who moved towards rock music. The greatest commercial success for country rock came in the 1970s, with artist including the Doobie Brothers, Emmylou Harris
, Linda Ronstadt
and the Eagles (made up of members of the Burritos, Poco and Stone Canyon Band), who emerged as one of the most successful rock acts of all time, producing albums that included Hotel California (1976).
The founders of Southern rock
are usually thought to be the Allman Brothers Band, who developed a distinctive sound, largely derived from blues rock, but incorporating elements of boogie
, soul, and country in the early 1970s. The most successful act to follow them were Lynyrd Skynyrd
, who helped establish the "Good ol' boy
" image of the sub-genre and the general shape of 1970s guitar rock. Their successors included the fusion/progressive instrumentalists Dixie Dregs
, the more country-influenced Outlaws, jazz-leaning Wet Willie and (incorporating elements of R&B and gospel) the Ozark Mountain Daredevils
. After the loss of original members of the Allmans and Lynyrd Skynyrd, the genre began to fade in popularity in the late 1970s, but was sustained the 1980s with acts like .38 Special
, Molly Hatchet
and The Marshall Tucker Band
.
, was an attempt to move beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From the mid-1960s The Left Banke
, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords, wind and string
sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum
's "A Whiter Shade of Pale
" (1967), with its Bach inspired introduction. The Moody Blues
used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed
(1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesisers. Classical orchestration, keyboards and synthesisers were a frequent edition to the established rock format of guitars, bass and drums in subsequent progressive rock.
Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy
and science fiction
. The Pretty Things
' SF Sorrow (1968) and The Who's Tommy (1969) introduced the format of rock operas and opened the door to "concept album
s, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme." King Crimson
's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King
, which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron
, with jazz
and symphonic music, is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in the early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts.
Chubby Checker
during the early 1960s popularizes the enduring dance craze
The Twist with his hit
cover
of Hank Ballard
's R&B
hit "The Twist
".
Gerry Goffin
and Carole King
become a very influential duo in pop music, writing numerous number one hits including the first song to ever reach number one by a girl group, The Shirelles "Will You Love Me Tomorrow
" and the 1962 number one hit, "The Loco-Motion
" which was performed by Little Eva
.
Sugar Sugar becomes a big hit for The Archies
, defining the bubblegum pop
genre.
The predominant musical style during the decade was the Nashville Sound
, a style that emphasized string sections, background vocals, crooning lead vocals and production styles seen in country music. The style had first become popular in the late 1950s, in response to the growing encroachment of rock and roll on the country genre, but saw its greatest success in the 1960s. Artists like Jim Reeves
, Eddy Arnold
, Ray Price
, Patsy Cline
, Floyd Cramer
, Roger Miller
and many others achieved great success through songs such as "He'll Have to Go
," "Danny Boy
," "Make the World Go Away
", "King of the Road
" and "I Fall to Pieces
." The country-pop style was also evident on the 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
, recorded by rhythm and blues
and soul
singer Ray Charles
. Charles recorded covers of traditional country, folk
and classical music
standards in pop, R&B and jazz styles. The album was hailed as a critical and commercial success, and would be vastly influential in later country music styles. Songs from the album that were released for commercial airplay and record sales included "I Can't Stop Loving You
," "Born to Lose" and "You Don't Know Me."
By the end of the decade, the Nashville Sound became more polished and streamlined, and became known as "countrypolitan." Tammy Wynette
, Glen Campbell
, Dottie West
and Charley Pride
were among the top artists adopting this style. While George Jones
— by the early 1960s one of country music's most consistent hitmakers — also recorded countrypolitan-styled music, his background remained pure honky tonk, singing of heartbreak and lonlieness in many of his songs. Also, Marty Robbins
proved to be one of the genre's most diverse singers, singing everything from straight-ahead country to western to pop to blues ... and even Hawaiian.
Johnny Cash
-- who became known as "The Man in Black" -- became of the most influential musicians of the 1960s (and eventually, 20th century). Although primarily recording country, his songs and sound spanned many other genres including rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. His music showed great compassion for minorities and others who were shunned by society, including prison inmates. Two of Cash's most successful albums were recorded live in prison: At Folsom Prison
and At San Quentin
.
During the latter half of the 1960s, Pride — a native of Sledge, Mississippi
— became the first African-American superstar in country music, a genre virtually dominated by white artists. Some of his early hits, sang with a smooth baritone voice and in a style meshing honky-tonk and countrypolitan, included "Just Between You and Me," "The Easy Part's Over," "All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)" and a cover version of Hank Williams' "Kaw-Liga
." Pride continued to be successful for more than 20 years, amassing an eventual 29 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Singles
chart.
A newly emerging style, which had its roots in the 1950s but exploded in the mainstream during the 1960s, was the "Bakersfield sound
." Instead of creating a sound similar to mainstream pop music, the Bakersfield sound used honky tonk as its base and added electric instruments and a backbeat, plus stylistic elements borrowed from rock and roll. Buck Owens
, Merle Haggard
and Wynn Stewart
were some of the top artists adopting this sound, and by the late 1960s they were among country music's top selling artists.
Dolly Parton
, a native of the Smoky Mountains town of Locust Ridge, Tennessee, gained national exposure on the nationally syndicated program The Porter Wagoner Show. Her mountain-influenced, biographical brand of country and her down-home personality won many fans, and her star power would only begin to rise.
In addition to the syndicated
The Porter Wagoner Show, several other television programs were produced to allow country music to reach a wider audience, such as The Jimmy Dean Show
in med-decade. At the end of the decade, Hee Haw
began a 23-year run, first on CBS and later in syndication; Hee Haw, hosted by Owens and Roy Clark
was loosely based on the comedy series Rowan & Martin's Laugh In, and incorporated comedy along with performances by the show's cast or guest performers from the country music field. The Academy of Country Music
and Country Music Association
awards programs were telecast for the first time in the late 1960s.
The 1960s were marred with tragedy. Johnny Horton
, who sang in the saga-song style, was killed in a car accident in 1960. A March 5, 1963, plane crash claimed the lives of Patsy Cline
, Cowboy Copas
and Hawkshaw Hawkins
. Days later, Jack Anglin
was killed in a car accident, while Texas Ruby
died in a trailer fire in Texas. In July 1964, Jim Reeves lost his life while piloting a plane near Brentwood, Tennessee
. Ira Louvin
was killed in a car accident in 1965. Success overcame several of those tragic deaths, as both Cline and Reeves had many posthumous hits (with previously recorded songs issued after their deaths) and enjoyed strong followings for many years.
The 1960s began a trend toward a proliferation of No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, thanks to ever-changing data collecting methods. When the 1960s decade opened, there were but four No. 1 songs topping the chart (five, if one counts Marty Robbins' "El Paso
"), but by the mid 1960s, there were always at least a dozen songs topping the chart annually. In 1967, there were more than 20 songs reaching the top spot for the first time ever in a single calendar year ... and that number would only continue to rise during the next 20 years.
as the best Artist of the Decade for the 1960s. The band joined the list with Elvis Presley who has also been awarded with this prestigious honor in the previous decade.
. Immensely popular in the early 1960s, it was a fusion of samba
and cool jazz. Antonio Carlos Jobim
, João Gilberto
, and Astrud Gilberto
became the best known artists of the Bossa Nova movement. The latter's The Girl From Ipanema
, released in 1964, became the first Bossa Nova song to achieve international acclaim. In 1965, it won a Grammy Award
for Best Record of the Year
.
, twist
and British Invasion
music, were collectively labelled as Nueva ola
(Spanish for "New Wave"). Argentina suffered the Uruguayan Invasion
, a series of British Invasion
inspired rock bands from Montevideo that moved to Buenos Aires and soon became popular in Argentina. Rock music was during the 60s still largely sung in English, but some few bands like Los Macs used Spanish for their songs.
emerges and starts to expand its influence. This development is pioneered by the Chileans Violeta Parra
and Victor Jara
who base many of their songs in folklore, specially cueca
. Nueva Canción spreads quickly all over Latin America and becomes closely related to the New Left
and the Liberation theology
movements. In Francisco Franco
's Spain Joan Manuel Serrat
reaches widespread notability as an exponent of Nueva Canción and of the political opposition.
began to take form In a New York
scene dominated by Cubans and other Latin American communities, Salsa would not become popular all across Latin America until the late 1980s.
Early in the decade, Bruce Clarke began toying with the new Moog synthesiser. A musicians' strike led him to create a completely electronic soundtrack for a cigarette commercial in 1963. Innovative film makers, like Arthur Cantrill and Dušan Marek, employed tape manipulation, turntables and extended instrument techniques to create soundtracks for their short films. Avowed amateur and Melbourne physician, Val Stephen, became the first Australian to have electronic music released internationally.
After working amongst the musical avant-garde in Paris, Keith Humble’s return to Australia helped to encourage educational institutions to take electronic music seriously. Humble’s most notably experimental work was his Nunique series. These vast multimedia events featured simultaneous performances by rock bands, string quartets and theatre ensembles, all according to precise flowcharts.
Humble initiated the Melbourne-based Society for the Private Performance of New Music in 1966, providing a supportive performance space for young innovators both in and outside the academy. Among these were the McKimm/Rooney/Clayton trio, who, since the 1964, had been incorporating graphic scores and aspects of serialism into jazz improvisation. Jazz was radicalising at the fringes: John Sangster explored free jazz concepts and Charlie Munro incorporated Eastern musical elements. Syd Clayton would leave jazz behind in pursuit of a new form of experimental music theatre that incorporated chance operations along with sports and games as musical structures.
Young composers, like David Ahern
, emerged, initially inspired by ideas of the European avant-garde, and applying them to Australian icons, such as Captain Cook and Ned Kelly. Ahern would travel to Europe later in the 1960s, where he encountered Stockhausen and Cardew, before returning home with further more radical ideas that questioned the very premises of composer and music itself.
1960 in music
-Events:*January 14 – Elvis Presley is promoted to Sergeant in the U.S. Army*February 6 – Songwriter Jesse Belvin dies in an automobile accident in Los Angeles...
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1961 in music
-Events:*January 15 – Motown Records signs The Supremes.*January 20 – Francis Poulenc's Gloria receives its premiėre in Boston, USA.*February 12 – The Miracles' "Shop Around" becomes Motown's first million-selling single....
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1962 in music
-Events:*January 1 – The Beatles and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes both audition at Decca Records, a company which has the option of signing one group only...
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1963 in music
-Events:*January 1 – The Beatles start a 5-day tour in Scotland to support the release of their new single, "Love Me Do".*January 4 – At Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy, Dalida receives a Juke Box Global Oscar for the year's most-played artist on juke boxes....
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1964 in music
-Events:*January 1 – Top of the Pops is broadcast for the first time, on BBC television.*January 3 – Footage of the Beatles performing a concert in Bournemouth, England is shown on The Jack Paar Show....
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1965 in music
-Events:*January 4 – Fender Musical Instruments Corporation is sold to CBS for $13 million.*January 12 – Hullabaloo premieres on NBC. The first show included performances by The New Christy Minstrels, comedian Woody Allen, actress Joey Heatherton and a segment from London in which Brian Epstein...
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1966 in music
-Events:*January 3 – Hullabaloo shows promotional videos of The Beatles songs "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work it Out".*January 8 – Shindig! airs for the last time on ABC, with musical guests the Kinks and the Who...
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1967 in music
The summer of 1967 is "The Summer of Love" in San Francisco. It also became an important year for psychedelic rock, with releases from The Beatles The summer of 1967 is "The Summer of Love" in San Francisco. It also became an important year for psychedelic rock, with releases from The Beatles The...
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1968 in music
-Events:*January 4 – Guitarist Jimi Hendrix is jailed by Stockholm police, after trashing a hotel room during a drunken fist fight with bassist Noel Redding.*January 6 – Gibson Guitar Corporation patents its Gibson Flying V electric guitar design....
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1969 in music
-Events:Perhaps the two most famous musical events of 1969 were concerts. At a Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, California, a fan was stabbed to death by Hells Angels, a biker gang that had been hired to provide security for the event...
This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
in the 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
.
In North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
, the decade was particularly revolutionary in terms of popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
as it saw the formation and evolution of rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
music. At the beginning of the decade, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
trends of the 1950s continued, yet, the rock and roll of the 50s started to merge into a more international, eclectic variant known as rock music. By the mid part of the decade, 1950s rock and roll in its purest form started to be overtaken by pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
, beat
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
, psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
, blues rock and folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
, which had grown in popularity. The country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
-influenced style associated to the latter-half of rock music in the 1960s spawned a generation of popular singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s who wrote and performed their own work. Towards the latter half of the decade, genres such as Baroque pop
Baroque pop
Baroque pop, Baroque rock, or English baroque, often used interchangeably with chamber pop/rock, is a pop and rock music subgenre which originated in the mid-1960s in the United Kingdom and United States...
, sunshine pop
Sunshine pop
Sunshine pop is a subgenre of pop music originating in the United States, mainly the state of California, in the mid-1960s. Sunshine pop, by nature, is cheerful and upbeat music which is characterised by warm sounds, prominent vocal harmonies, as well as sophisticated productions...
, bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop is a genre of pop music with an upbeat sound contrived and marketed to appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, often using unknown singers.Bubblegum's classic period ran from 1967 to 1972...
, progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
and heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
started to grow popular, with the latter two finding greater success in the following decade. The 1960s additionally saw the rise in popularity of funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
and soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
music; rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
in general remained popular throughout the decade, and this style was commonly associated to girl group
Girl group
A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...
s of the time, whose fusion of R&B and gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
with rock and roll enjoyed success until the mid-part of the decade. Aside from the popularity of rock and R&B music in the 1960s, Latin American
Latin American music
Latin American music, found within Central and South America, is a series of musical styles and genres that mixes influences from Spanish, African and indigenous sources, that has recently become very famous in the US.-Argentina:...
as well as Jamaican
Music of Jamaica
The music of Jamaica includes Jamaican folk music and many popular genres, such as mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub music, dancehall, reggae fusion and related styles. Jamaica's music culture is a fusion of elements from the United States , Africa, and neighboring Caribbean islands such as...
and Cuban
Music of Cuba
The Caribbean island of Cuba has developed a wide range of creolized musical styles, based on its cultural origins in Europe and Africa. Since the 19th century its music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world...
music achieved a degree of popularity throughout the decade, with genres such as bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
, the cha-cha-cha
Cha-cha-cha (music)
The Cha-cha-chá is a style of Cuban music. It is popular dance music which developed from the danzón in the early 1950s.- Origin :As a dance music genre, cha-cha-chá is unusual in that its creation can be attributed to a single composer, Enrique Jorrín, then violinist and songwriter with the...
, ska, and calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
being popular. From a classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
point of view, the 60s were also an important decade as they saw the development of experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
, jazz and contemporary classical
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
music, notably minimalism and free improvisation
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
.
In Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, various trends marked the popular music of the 1960s. In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, the decade saw the rise in popularity of several Western popular music groups such as The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, as well as rock and roll. The success of rock music and bands in the Japan started a new genre, known as Group Sounds
Group Sounds
Group Sounds is a genre of Japanese rock music. Inspired by The Beatles, Group Sounds became popular in the mid to late 1960s. Group Sounds initiated fusion of Japanese kayōkyoku music and rock music...
, which was popular in the latter half of the decade.
In South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, genres such as bossa nova, nueva canción
Nueva canción
Nueva canción is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music...
and nueva ola
Nueva ola
The Nueva ola is a term applied to a loose group of musicians, mainly in Spanish speaking South America, who played and introduced rock and roll and other American and European music of the 50s and 60s to their countries. Artist associated with the Nueva ola reached their peak of popularity in the...
started to emerge and grow popular throughout the decade. Rock music started to leave its mark and achieve success in South America, and grew increasingly popular throughout the 1960s. Additionally, salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
started to develop in popularity towards the end of the decade.
Beat music
In the late 1950s, a flourishing culture of groups began to emerge, often out of the declining skiffleSkiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
scene, in major urban centres in the UK like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London. This was particularly true in Liverpool, where it has been estimated that there were around 350 different bands active, often playing ballrooms, concert halls and clubs. Beat bands were heavily influenced by American bands of the era, such as Buddy Holly and the Crickets
The Crickets
The Crickets are a rock & roll band from Lubbock, Texas, formed by singer/songwriter Buddy Holly in the 1950s. Their first hit record was "That'll Be the Day", released in 1957....
(from which group The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
derived their name), as well as earlier British groups such as The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
. After the national success of the Beatles in Britain from 1962, a number of Liverpool performers were able to follow them into the charts, including Gerry & The Pacemakers
Gerry & the Pacemakers
Gerry and the Pacemakers were a British beat music group prominent during the 1960s. In common with The Beatles, they came from Liverpool, were managed by Brian Epstein and recorded by George Martin. They are most remembered for being the first act to reach number one in the UK Singles Chart with...
, The Searchers
The Searchers (band)
The Searchers are an English beat group, who emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with The Beatles, The Fourmost, The Merseybeats, The Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry & The Pacemakers....
, and Cilla Black
Cilla Black
Cilla Black OBE is an English singer, actress, entertainer and media personality, who has been consistently popular as a light entertainment figure since 1963. She is most famous for her singles Anyone Who Had A Heart, You're My World, and Alfie...
. Among the most successful beat acts from Birmingham were The Spencer Davis Group and The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....
. From London, the term Tottenham Sound was largely based around The Dave Clark Five
The Dave Clark Five
The Dave Clark Five were an English pop rock group. Their single "Glad All Over" knocked The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the UK singles charts in January 1964: it eventually peaked at No.6 in the United States in April 1964.They were the second group of the British Invasion,...
, but other London bands that benefited from the beat boom of this era included the Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
. The first non-Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, non-Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein , was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle...
-managed band to break through in the UK were Freddie and the Dreamers
Freddie and the Dreamers
Freddie and the Dreamers were an English band who had a number of hit records between May 1963 and November 1965. Their stage act was based around the comic antics of the 5-foot-3-inch-tall Freddie Garrity, who would bounce around the stage with arms and legs flying. The group remained active...
, who were based in Manchester, as were Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits are an English beat band, formed in Manchester in 1963 as Herman & The Hermits. The group's record producer, Mickie Most , emphasized a simple, non-threatening, clean-cut image, although the band originally played R&B numbers...
and The Hollies
The Hollies
The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...
. The beat movement provided most of the bands responsible for the British invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
of the American pop charts in the period after 1964, and furnished the model for many important developments in pop and rock music.
The British Invasion
By the end of 1962, the British rock scene had started with beat groupsBeat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
like The Beatles drawing on a wide range of American influences including soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, rhythm and blues and surf music. Initially, they reinterpreted standard American tunes, playing for dancers doing the twist
Twist (dance)
The Twist was a dance inspired by rock and roll music. It became the first worldwide dance craze in the early 1960s, enjoying immense popularity among young people and drawing fire from critics who felt it was too provocative. It inspired dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed...
, for example. These groups eventually infused their original rock compositions with increasingly complex musical ideas and a distinctive sound. In mid-1962 The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
started as one of a number of groups increasingly showing blues influence, along with bands like The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
and The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
. During 1963, The Beatles and other beat groups
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
, such as The Searchers
The Searchers (band)
The Searchers are an English beat group, who emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with The Beatles, The Fourmost, The Merseybeats, The Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry & The Pacemakers....
and The Hollies
The Hollies
The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...
, achieved great popularity and commercial success in Britain.
British rock broke through to mainstream popularity in the United States in January 1964 with the success of the Beatles. "I Want to Hold Your Hand
I Want to Hold Your Hand
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a song by the English rock band The Beatles. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and recorded in October 1963, it was the first Beatles record to be made using four-track equipment....
" was the band's first #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart, starting the British Invasion of the American music charts. The song entered the chart on January 18, 1964 at #45 before it became the #1 single for 7 weeks and went on to last a total of 15 weeks in the chart. Their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show February 9 is considered a milestone in American pop culture. The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers, at the time a record for an American television program. The Beatles went on to become the biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed by numerous British bands.
During the next two years, Chad & Jeremy, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...
, Petula Clark
Petula Clark
Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
, Freddie and the Dreamers
Freddie and the Dreamers
Freddie and the Dreamers were an English band who had a number of hit records between May 1963 and November 1965. Their stage act was based around the comic antics of the 5-foot-3-inch-tall Freddie Garrity, who would bounce around the stage with arms and legs flying. The group remained active...
, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits are an English beat band, formed in Manchester in 1963 as Herman & The Hermits. The group's record producer, Mickie Most , emphasized a simple, non-threatening, clean-cut image, although the band originally played R&B numbers...
, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs
The Troggs
The Troggs are an English rock band from the 1960s that had a number of hits in UK and the US. Their most famous songs include, "Wild Thing", "With a Girl Like You", and "Love Is All Around"...
, and Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
would have one or more #1 singles. Other acts that were part of the invasion included The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
and The Dave Clark Five
The Dave Clark Five
The Dave Clark Five were an English pop rock group. Their single "Glad All Over" knocked The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the UK singles charts in January 1964: it eventually peaked at No.6 in the United States in April 1964.They were the second group of the British Invasion,...
. British Invasion acts also dominated the music charts at home in the United Kingdom.
The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music
Surf music
Surf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It was particularly popular between 1961 and 1965, has subsequently been revived and was highly influential on subsequent rock music...
, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idol
Teen idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors...
s, that had dominated the American charts in the late 1950s and 60s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino
Fats Domino
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino, Jr. is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Creole was his first language....
and Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker is an American singer-songwriter. He is widely known for popularizing the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard's R&B hit "The Twist"...
and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters.
British blues boom
In parallel with Beat music, in the late 1950s and early 1960s a British blues scene was developing recreating the sounds of American R&B and later particularly the sounds of bluesmen Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf and Muddy WatersMuddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
. It reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s, when it developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar and made international stars of several proponents of the genre including The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
, Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
and Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
.
A number of these moved through blues-rock
Blues-rock
Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...
to different forms of rock music and as a result British blues helped to form many of the sub-genres of rock, including psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
and heavy metal music
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
. Since then direct interest in the blues in Britain has declined, but many of the key performers have returned to it in recent years, new acts have emerged and there have been a renewed interest in the genre.
British psychedelia
British psychedelia emerged during the mid 1960s, was influenced by psychedelicPsychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
culture and attempted to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of hallucinogenic drugs
Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants
This general group of pharmacological agents can be divided into three broad categories: psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants. These classes of psychoactive drugs have in common that they can cause subjective changes in perception, thought, emotion and consciousness...
. The movement drew on non-Western sources such as Indian music's raga
Raga
A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made...
s and sitar
Sitar
The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...
s as well as studio effects and long instrumental passages and surreal lyrics. Established British artists such as Eric Burdon
Eric Burdon
Eric Victor Burdon is an English singer-songwriter best known as a founding member and vocalist of rock band The Animals, and the funk rock band War and for his aggressive stage performance...
, The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
, Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
and The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
produced a number of highly psychedelic tunes during the decade. Many British psychedelia bands of the 1960s never published their music and only appeared in live concerts during that time.
Pop
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
and The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
, Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
, Petula Clark, Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...
and Sandie Shaw
Sandie Shaw
Sandie Shaw is an English pop singer, who was one of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s. In 1967 she was the first UK act to win the Eurovision Song Contest...
were some of the most popular European pop artists.
Folk music
The Kingston Trio, The WeaversThe Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, Odetta
Odetta
Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...
, Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
, Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
, Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Carolyn Hester
Carolyn Hester
Carolyn Hester is an American folk singer and songwriter. She was a figure in the early 1960s folk music revival.-Biography:...
, Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
, Tom Paxton
Tom Paxton
Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years...
, Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes...
, Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
, Tom Rush
Tom Rush
Tom Rush is an American folk and blues singer, songwriter, musician and recording artist.- Life and career :Rush was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His father was a teacher at St. Paul's School, in Concord, New Hampshire. Tom began performing in 1961 while studying at Harvard University after...
, Fred Neil
Fred Neil
Fred Neil was an American folk singer-songwriter in the 1960s and early 1970s. He did not achieve commercial success as a performer, and is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material – particularly "Everybody's Talkin'", which became a hit for Harry Nilsson after being...
, Gordon Lightfoot
Gordon Lightfoot
Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, Jr. is a Canadian singer-songwriter who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music, and has been credited for helping define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s...
, Ian and Sylvia
Ian and Sylvia
Ian & Sylvia were a Canadian folk and country music duo which consisted of Ian and Sylvia Tyson, née Fricker. They began performing together in 1959, married in 1964, and divorced and stopped performing together in 1975.-Early lives:...
, Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
and several other performers were instrumental in launching the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s.
Folk rock
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
had grown to a major movement, utilising traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
and Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and often identified with progressive or labor politics
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
. In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
and Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach a mainstream audience with hits including "Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
" (1963) and "Masters of War
Masters of War
"Masters of War" is a song by Bob Dylan, written over the winter of 1962-63 and released on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in the spring of 1963. The song's melody was adapted from the traditional "Nottamun Town"...
" (1963), which brought "protest song
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
s" to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences.
Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals "House of the Rising Sun" (1964), which was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
' recording of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man
Mr. Tambourine Man
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
" which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the cafe-based folk scene in Los Angeles, the Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
guitars, which became an major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage
Electric Dylan controversy
By 1965, Bob Dylan had achieved the status of leading songwriter of the American folk music revival.Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong...
of many folk purists, with his "Like a Rolling Stone
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England...
" becoming a US hit single. Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...
and Crosby, Stills and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...
and Simon and Garfunkel
Simon and Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel are an American duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They formed the group Tom & Jerry in 1957 and had their first success with the minor hit "Hey, Schoolgirl". As Simon & Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, largely on the strength of the...
, with the latter's acoustic "The Sounds of Silence" being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits.
Folk rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967-8, before many acts moved off in a variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock
Country rock
Country rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
. However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song and concepts of "authenticity".
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic music's LSDLSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
-inspired vibe began in the folk scene, with the New York-based Holy Modal Rounders
Holy Modal Rounders
The Holy Modal Rounders were an American folk music duo from the Lower East Side of New York City which started in the early 1960s, consisting of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber. Their unique blend of folk music revival and psychedelia gave them a cult-like following from the late 1960s into the 1970s...
using the term in their 1964 recording of "Hesitation Blues
Hesitation Blues
"Hesitation Blues" is a popular song adapted from a traditional tune. One version was published by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and Art Gillham. Another was published by W.C. Handy as "Hesitating Blues." Because the tune is a traditional tune many artists have given themselves credit as...
". The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators
13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators were an American rock band from Austin, Texas formed by guitarist and vocalist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland, which existed from 1965 to 1969...
from Texas, at the end of 1965; producing an album that made their direction clear, with The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators is a 1966 album by 13th Floor Elevators. The album's sound, featuring elements of folk, garage, blues and, of course, psychedelia, is notable for its use of the electric jug, as featured on the band's only hit, "You're Gonna Miss Me", which...
the following year.
Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed the Byrds from folk to folk rock from 1965. The Los Angeles-based group The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
formed in 1965 after a chance meeting on Venice Beach. Although its charismatic lead singer Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
died in 1971, the band's popularity has endured to this day. The psychedelic life style had already developed in San Francisco since about 1964, and particularly prominent products of the scene were The Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish was a rock band most widely known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1966 to 1971, and also regarded as a seminal influence to psychedelic rock.-History:...
, The Great Society and Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
. The Byrds rapidly progressed from purely folk rock in 1966 with their single "Eight Miles High
Eight Miles High
"Eight Miles High" is a song by the American rock band The Byrds, written by Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn, and David Crosby and first released as a single on March 14, 1966 . The single managed to reach the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and the Top 30 of the UK Singles Chart...
", widely taken to be a reference to drug use.
Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. In America the Summer of Love
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
was prefaced by the Human Be-In
Human Be-In
The Human Be-In was a happening in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the afternoon and evening of January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol as the center of an American counterculture and introduced the word 'psychedelic'...
event and reached its peak at the Monterey Pop Festival
Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California...
, the later helping to make major American stars of Jimi Hendrix and The Who, whose single "I Can See for Miles
I Can See For Miles
"I Can See for Miles" is a song written by Pete Townshend of The Who, recorded for the band's 1967 album, The Who Sell Out. It was the only song from the album to be released as a single, on 14 October 1967...
" delved into psychedelic territory. Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow
Surrealistic Pillow
Surrealistic Pillow is the second album by American psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane, released in February 1967.Original drummer Alexander 'Skip' Spence had left the band in mid-1966, replaced by a jazz drummer from Los Angeles, Spencer Dryden, a nephew of Charlie Chaplin. New lead vocalist...
and The Doors' Strange Days
Strange Days (album)
Strange Days is the second album released by American rock band The Doors. The album was a commercial success, earning a gold record and reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Despite this, the album's producer, Paul Rothchild, considered it a commercial failure, even if it was an...
. These trends climaxed in the 1969 Woodstock festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, but by the end of the decade psychedelic rock was in retreat. The Jimi Hendrix Experience broke up before the end of the decade and many surviving acts, moved away from psychedelia into more back-to-basics "roots rock", the wider experimentation of progressive rock, or riff laden heavy rock.
Surf rock
In the early 1960s, one of the most popular forms of rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
was Surf Rock, which was characterized by being nearly entirely instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
and by heavy use of reverb
Reverberation
Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...
on the guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s. The spring reverb featured in Fender
Fender
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, commonly referred to as simply Fender, of Scottsdale, Arizona is a manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers, such as solid-body electric guitars, including the Stratocaster and the Telecaster...
amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
s of the day, cranked to its maximum volume, produced a guitar tone shimmering with sustain and evoking surf and ocean imagery.
Duane Eddy
Duane Eddy
Duane Eddy is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he had a string of hit records, produced by Lee Hazlewood, which were noted for their characteristically "twangy" sound, including "Rebel Rouser", "Peter Gunn", and "Because They're Young"...
's "Movin' and Groovin" is thought by many to be the main contender for laying the groundwork as the first surf rock record, while others claim the genre was invented by Dick Dale
Dick Dale
Dick Dale is an American surf rock guitarist, known as The King of the Surf Guitar. He experimented with reverberation and made use of custom made Fender amplifiers, including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier.-Early life:Dale was born in South Boston, Massachusetts and lived in nearby...
on "Let's Go Trippin'
Let's Go Trippin'
"Let's Go Trippin" is an instrumental by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. It is often regarded as the first surf rock instrumental. First played in public on May 31, 1958 at the Rendezvous ballroom in Balboa, Ca...
", which became a hit throughout California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Most early surf bands were formed in during this decade in the Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
area. By the mid-1960s The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
, who used complex pop harmonies over a basic surf rock rhythm, had emerged as the dominant surf group and helped popularize the genre. In addition, bands such as The Ventures
The Ventures
The Ventures is an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. Founded by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, the group in its various incarnations has had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide. With over 100 million records sold, the group is the best-selling...
, The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
, The Atlantics
The Atlantics
This article refers to the Australian Surf rock band. See paragraph at the end of this page for information on other bands called The Atlantics....
, The Surfaris
The Surfaris
The Surfaris were an American surf rock band formed in Glendora, California in 1962. They are best known for two songs that hit the charts in the Los Angeles, California area, and nationally by May 1963: "Surfer Joe" on the A-side and "Wipe Out" on the B-side of a 45 RPM single.-Career:The original...
and The Champs
The Champs
The Champs were an American rock and roll band, most famous for their Latin-tinged instrumental "Tequila". Formed by studio executives at Gene Autry's Challenge Records to record a B-Side for the Dave Burgess single, the intended throwaway track became more famous than its A-Side, "Train to...
were also among the most popular Surf Rock bands of the decade.
Garage rock
Garage rock was a form of amateurish rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in the mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in a suburban family garage. Garage rock songs revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery were notably more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. They ranged from crude one-chord music (like the SeedsThe Seeds
The Seeds were an American rock band. The group, whose repertoire spread between garage rock and acid rock, are considered one of the pioneers of punk rock.-History:...
) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers
The Knickerbockers
The Knickerbockers were an American pop/rock music group, best remembered for their 1965 Beatles sound alike hit single, "Lies."-Formation:The band was formed in 1962 in Bergenfield, New Jersey by brothers Beau Charles and John Charles with fluctuating personnel until 1964, when they met...
, the Remains
The Remains
The Remains were a mid-1960s rock group from Boston, Massachusetts, led by Barry Tashian, who later was harmony vocalist and guitarist for Emmylou Harris and part of the duo, Barry and Holly Tashian...
, and the Fifth Estate
The Fifth Estate (band)
The Fifth Estate was a rock and roll band, originally formed in Stamford, Connecticut as The D-Men in early 1964.-Early years :...
). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound.
The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Louie Louie
Louie Louie
"Louie Louie" is an American rock 'n' roll song written by Richard Berry in 1955. It has become a standard in pop and rock, with hundreds of versions recorded by different artists...
" by The Kingsmen
The Kingsmen
The Kingsmen is a 1960s garage rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States. They are best known for their 1963 recording of Richard Berry's "Louie Louie", which held the #2 spot on the Billboard charts for six weeks...
(1963) is a mainstream example of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen
The Trashmen
The Trashmen are a rock and roll band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1962. The group's original lineup was Tony Andreason on lead guitar and vocals, Dal Winslow on guitar and vocals, Steve Wahrer on drums and vocals, and Bob Reed on bass guitar...
(Minneapolis) and the Rivieras
The Rivieras
# California Sun# Danny Boy# Twist & Shout# Little Donna# Church Key# Killer Joe# Lets Have A Party# Rockin' Robin# H.B. Goose Step# Keep A Knockin'# Oh, Boy# When The Saints- Personnel :* Marty "Bo" Fortson: vocals, rhythm guitar...
(South Bend, Indiana). In this early period many bands were heavily influenced by surf rock and there was a cross-pollination between garage rock and frat rock, sometimes viewed as merely a sub-genre of garage rock.
The British Invasion of 1964-66 greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod
Hot rod
Hot rods are typically American cars with large engines modified for linear speed. The origin of the term "hot rod" is unclear. One explanation is that the term is a contraction of "hot roadster," meaning a roadster that was modified for speed. Another possible origin includes modifications to or...
groups) to adopt a British Invasion lilt, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the USA and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
. New styles had evolved to replace garage rock (including blues-rock
Blues-rock
Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...
, progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
and country rock
Country rock
Country rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
). In Detroit garage rock stayed alive until the early 70s, with bands like the MC5
MC5
The MC5 is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan and originally active from 1964 to 1972. The original band line-up consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson...
and The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
, who employed a much more aggressive style. These bands began to be labelled punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and are now often seen as proto-punk or proto-hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
.
Blues-rock
The American blues-rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie MackLonnie Mack
Lonnie Mack is an American rock, blues and country guitarist and vocalist....
, but the genre began to take off in the mid-60s as acts followed developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...
(whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...
, the early Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter
John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...
, The J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
with his power trios, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys
Band of Gypsys
Band of Gypsys was a blues rock band led by Jimi Hendrix and backed by Billy Cox and Buddy Miles. Hendrix formed the band after the dissolution of The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Band of Gypsys is also the band's eponymous live album recorded on two separate nights, 31 December 1969 and 1 January...
, whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues-rock bands like Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
and eventually ZZ Top
ZZ Top
ZZ Top is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "That Little Ol' Band from Texas". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based boogie rock, has come to incorporate elements of arena, southern, and boogie rock. The band, from Houston Texas, formed in 1969...
from the southern states, incorporated country elements into their style to produce distinctive Southern rock
Southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music, and genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals...
.
Roots rock
Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to a more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock. In 1966 Bob Dylan spearheaded the movement when he went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on BlondeBlonde on Blonde
Blonde on Blonde is American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's seventh studio album, released in May or June 1966 on Columbia Records and produced by Bob Johnston. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with a plethora of backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing...
. This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, have been seen as creating the genre of country folk
Country folk
Country folk is a hybrid sub-genre of country and folk music closely associated with the singer-songwriter and folk rock sub-genres. It is generally characterized as a component of the progressive country style and has its roots in the recordings of folk artist Bob Dylan.-Style:Country folk has...
, a route pursued by a number of, largely acoustic, folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
and the Californian-based Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival was an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums....
, both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder
Ry Cooder
Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
, Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
and Lowell George
Lowell George
Lowell Thomas George was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, who was the main guitarist and songwriter for the rock band Little Feat.- Early years :...
, and influenced the work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970).
In 1968 Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
recorded Safe at Home
Safe at Home
Safe at Home was the 1968 album by The International Submarine Band, led by the 21-year-old Gram Parsons. Featuring four of Parsons' originals surrounded by six covers of classic country and rock and roll music, it helped to forge the country rock movement of the late 1960s and early...
with the International Submarine Band
International submarine band
The International Submarine Band was formed by country rock pioneer Gram Parsons while a theology student at Harvard University and John Nuese, a guitar player for local rock group, The Trolls. Nuese is largely credited with having persuaded Parsons to pursue the country-rock sound he would later...
, arguably the first true country-rock album. Later that year he joined the Byrds for Sweetheart of the Rodeo
Sweetheart of the Rodeo
Sweetheart of the Rodeo is the sixth album by American rock band The Byrds and was released on August 30, 1968 on Columbia Records...
(1968), generally considered one of the most influential recordings in the genre. The Byrds continued in the same vein, but Parsons left to be joined by another ex-Byrds member Chris Hillman
Chris Hillman
Christopher Hillman was one of the original members of The Byrds which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, and Michael Clarke....
in forming The Flying Burrito Brothers
The Flying Burrito Brothers
The Flying Burrito Brothers was an early country rock band, best known for its influential debut album,The Gilded Palace of Sin . Although the group is most often mentioned in connection with country rock legends Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, the group underwent many personnel changes.-Original...
who helped establish the respectability and parameters of the genre, before Parsons departed to pursue a solo career. Country rock was particularly popular in the Californian music scene, where it was adopted by bands including Hearts and Flowers, Poco
Poco
Poco is an Southern California country rock band originally formed by Richie Furay and Jim Messina following the demise of Buffalo Springfield in 1968. The title of their first album, Pickin' Up the Pieces, is a reference to the break-up of Buffalo Springfield. Highly influential and creative,...
and Riders of the Purple Sage
Riders of the Purple Sage
Riders of the Purple Sage is Zane Grey's best-known novel, originally published in 1912. Most critics agree that it played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre.- Plot in a paragraph :...
, the Beau Brummels and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is an American country-folk-rock band that has existed in various forms since its founding in Long Beach, California in 1966. The group's membership has had at least a dozen changes over the years, including a period from 1976 to 1981 when the band performed and recorded...
. A number of performers also enjoyed a renaissance by adopting country sounds, including: the Everly Brothers; one-time teen idol
Teen idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors...
Rick Nelson who became the frontman for the Stone Canyon Band; former Monkee Mike Nesmith who formed the First National Band
First National Band
The First National Band was a short-lived American collaborative band, led by former Monkee Michael Nesmith, which issued three albums in the country rock genre in 1970–1971.-Pre-First National Band:...
; and Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
. The Dillards
The Dillards
The Dillards are an American bluegrass band from Salem, Missouri, consisting of Douglas Flint "Doug" Dillard The Dillards are an American bluegrass band from Salem, Missouri, consisting of Douglas Flint "Doug" Dillard The Dillards are an American bluegrass band from Salem, Missouri, consisting of...
were, unusually, a country act, who moved towards rock music. The greatest commercial success for country rock came in the 1970s, with artist including the Doobie Brothers, Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
, Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
and the Eagles (made up of members of the Burritos, Poco and Stone Canyon Band), who emerged as one of the most successful rock acts of all time, producing albums that included Hotel California (1976).
The founders of Southern rock
Southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music, and genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals...
are usually thought to be the Allman Brothers Band, who developed a distinctive sound, largely derived from blues rock, but incorporating elements of boogie
Boogie
Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music. The characteristic rhythm and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar, double bass, and other instruments. The earliest recorded...
, soul, and country in the early 1970s. The most successful act to follow them were Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
, who helped establish the "Good ol' boy
Good ol' boy
Good ol' boy is an American slang term that can have both positive and negative meanings, depending on context and usage.The term can be used for well socialized men who live in rural and generally Southern areas. If a man is humble and well thought of, he can be referred to as a "good old boy",...
" image of the sub-genre and the general shape of 1970s guitar rock. Their successors included the fusion/progressive instrumentalists Dixie Dregs
Dixie Dregs
The Dixie Dregs are an American band formed in the 1970s. Their mostly instrumental music fuses jazz, southern rock, bluegrass and classical forms in an often unique style.-Formation and early years:...
, the more country-influenced Outlaws, jazz-leaning Wet Willie and (incorporating elements of R&B and gospel) the Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Ozark Mountain Daredevils
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils are a Southern rock/country rock band formed in 1972 in Springfield, Missouri, USA. They are most widely known for their singles "If You Wanna Get To Heaven" in 1974 and "Jackie Blue" in 1975....
. After the loss of original members of the Allmans and Lynyrd Skynyrd, the genre began to fade in popularity in the late 1970s, but was sustained the 1980s with acts like .38 Special
.38 Special (band)
38 Special is an American rock band that was formed by neighborhood friends Don Barnes and Donnie Van Zant in 1974 in Jacksonville, Florida. The band's first two albums had a strong southern rock influence. By the early 1980s, 38 Special shifted to a more accessible arena rock style without...
, Molly Hatchet
Molly Hatchet
Molly Hatchet is an American southern rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1975. They are widely known for their hit song "Flirtin' with Disaster" from the album of the same title. The band, founded by Dave Hlubek and Steve Holland, took its name from a prostitute who allegedly mutilated...
and The Marshall Tucker Band
The Marshall Tucker Band
The Marshall Tucker Band is an American Southern rock band originally from Spartanburg, South Carolina. The band's blend of rock, rhythm and blues, jazz, country, and gospel helped establish the Southern rock genre in the early 1970s...
.
Progressive rock
Progressive rock, sometimes used interchangeably with art rockArt rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
, was an attempt to move beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From the mid-1960s The Left Banke
The Left Banke
The Left Banke is an American baroque pop band that formed in New York City in 1965 and disbanded in 1969. They are best remembered for their two U.S. hit singles, "Walk Away Renée" and "Pretty Ballerina"...
, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords, wind and string
String orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...
sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum
Procol Harum
Procol Harum are a British rock band, formed in 1967, which contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock. Their best-known recording is their 1967 single "A Whiter Shade of Pale"...
's "A Whiter Shade of Pale
A Whiter Shade of Pale
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" is the debut song by the British band Procol Harum, released 12 May 1967. The single reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 8 June 1967, and stayed there for six weeks. Without much promotion, it reached #5 on the US charts, as well...
" (1967), with its Bach inspired introduction. The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....
used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed
Days of Future Passed
Days of Future Passed is the second album and first concept album by The Moody Blues, released in 1967. It was also their first album to feature Justin Hayward and John Lodge, who would play a very strong role in directing the band's sound in the decades to come...
(1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesisers. Classical orchestration, keyboards and synthesisers were a frequent edition to the established rock format of guitars, bass and drums in subsequent progressive rock.
Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. The Pretty Things
The Pretty Things
The Pretty Things are an English rock and roll band from London, who originally formed in 1963. They took their name from Bo Diddley's 1955 song "Pretty Thing" and, in their early days, were dubbed by the British press the "uglier cousins of the Rolling Stones". Their most commercially successful...
' SF Sorrow (1968) and The Who's Tommy (1969) introduced the format of rock operas and opened the door to "concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
s, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme." King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King
In the Court of the Crimson King
In the Court of the Crimson King is the 1969 debut album by the British progressive rock group King Crimson. The album reached No. 5 on the British charts, and is certified gold in the United States....
, which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
, with jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and symphonic music, is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in the early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts.
Pop
Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker is an American singer-songwriter. He is widely known for popularizing the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard's R&B hit "The Twist"...
during the early 1960s popularizes the enduring dance craze
Dance Craze
Dance Craze is a 1981 British documentary film about the English 2 Tone music genre.The film was directed by Joe Massot, who originally wanted to do a film only about the band Madness, who he met during their first US tour. Massot later changed his plans to include the whole 2 Tone movement...
The Twist with his hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of Hank Ballard
Hank Ballard
Hank Ballard , born John Henry Kendricks, was a rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters and one of the first proto-rock 'n' roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s...
's R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
hit "The Twist
The Twist (song)
"The Twist" is a twelve bar blues song that gave birth to the Twistdance craze. The song was written and originally released in 1959 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as a B-side but his version was only a moderate 1960 hit, peaking at 28 on the Billboard Hot 100...
".
Gerry Goffin
Gerry Goffin
Gerry Goffin is an American lyricist. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 with former songwriting partner and first wife, Carole King. he has co-written six Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers.-Career:Goffin enlisted with the Marine Corps Reserve after graduating from...
and Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
become a very influential duo in pop music, writing numerous number one hits including the first song to ever reach number one by a girl group, The Shirelles "Will You Love Me Tomorrow
Will You Love Me Tomorrow
"Will You Love Me Tomorrow", also known as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", is a song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and originally recorded by The Shirelles. It has been recorded by many artists and was ranked among Rolling Stone 's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time at #125...
" and the 1962 number one hit, "The Loco-Motion
The Loco-Motion
"The Loco-Motion" is a 1962 pop song written by American songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King. The song is notable for appearing in the American Top 5 three times – each time in a different decade: for Little Eva in 1962 ; for Grand Funk Railroad in 1974 ; and for Kylie Minogue in 1988 "The...
" which was performed by Little Eva
Little Eva
Eva Narcissus Boyd , known by the stage name of Little Eva , was an American pop singer.-Biography:...
.
Sugar Sugar becomes a big hit for The Archies
The Archies
The Archies are a garage band founded by Archie Andrews, Reggie Mantle, and Jughead Jones, a group of adolescent fictional characters of the Archie universe, in the context of the animated TV series, The Archie Show...
, defining the bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop is a genre of pop music with an upbeat sound contrived and marketed to appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, often using unknown singers.Bubblegum's classic period ran from 1967 to 1972...
genre.
R&B and Soul
- The Detroit-based Motown label develops as a pop-influenced answer to soul music. The label begins a long run of No. 1 U.S. hit singles in 1961 with "Please Mr. PostmanPlease Mr. Postman"Please Mr. Postman" is the debut single by The Marvelettes for the Tamla label, notable as the first Motown song to reach the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart. The single achieved this position in late 1961; it hit number one on the R&B chart as well. "Please Mr...
" by The MarvelettesThe MarvelettesThe Marvelettes were an American singing girl group on the Tamla label. Motown's first successful female vocal group, the Marvelettes are most notable for recording the company's first #1 Pop hit, "Please Mr...
. The label would have numerous No. 1 Billboard hits throughout the decade and into the 1990s. Notable Motown acts included The SupremesThe SupremesThe Supremes, an American female singing group, were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s.Originally founded as The Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop, soul, Broadway show tunes, psychedelic soul, and disco...
, The TemptationsThe TemptationsThe Temptations is an American vocal group having achieved fame as one of the most successful acts to record for Motown Records. The group's repertoire has included, at various times during its five-decade career, R&B, doo-wop, funk, disco, soul, and adult contemporary music.Formed in Detroit,...
, The Four Tops, Martha and the VandellasMartha and the VandellasMartha and the Vandellas were among the most successful groups of the Motown roster during the period 1963–1967...
, and the Jackson Five, who debuted in 1969. - Soul musicSoul musicSoul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
develops popularity throughout the decade, led by Sam CookeSam CookeSamuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...
, James BrownJames BrownJames Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
, and Otis ReddingOtis ReddingOtis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul and R&B...
, among many others. - FunkFunkFunk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
begins later in the decade with James Brown and Sly & the Family StoneSly & the Family StoneSly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music...
having early hits. - You Keep Me Hanging On uses a fast tempo which would prove innovative in the development of disco music.
- Aretha FranklinAretha FranklinAretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
's 1967 recordings, such as "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", "RespectRespect (song)"Respect" is a song written and originally released by Stax recording artist Otis Redding in 1965. "Respect" became a 1967 hit and signature song for R&B singer Aretha Franklin. The music in the two versions is significantly different, and through a few minor changes in the lyrics, the stories told...
" (originally sung by Otis ReddingOtis ReddingOtis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul and R&B...
), and "Do Right Woman-Do Right Man", are considered the apogee of the soul genre, and were among its most commercially successful productions.
Country music
Triumph and great tragedy marked the 1960s in country music. The genre continued to gain national exposure through network television, with weekly series and awards programs gaining popularity. Sales of records continued to rise as new artists and trends came to the forefront. However, several top stars died under tragic circumstances, including several who were killed in plane crashes.The predominant musical style during the decade was the Nashville Sound
Nashville sound
The Nashville sound originated during the late 1950s as a sub-genre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of honky tonk music which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s...
, a style that emphasized string sections, background vocals, crooning lead vocals and production styles seen in country music. The style had first become popular in the late 1950s, in response to the growing encroachment of rock and roll on the country genre, but saw its greatest success in the 1960s. Artists like Jim Reeves
Jim Reeves
James Travis Reeves , better known as Jim Reeves, was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well-known for being a practitioner of the Nashville sound...
, Eddy Arnold
Eddy Arnold
Richard Edward Arnold , known professionally as Eddy Arnold, was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a so-called Nashville sound innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the Billboard country music charts, second only to George Jones. He sold more...
, Ray Price
Ray Price (musician)
Ray Price is an American country music singer, songwriter and guitarist. His wide-ranging baritone has often been praised as among the best male voices of country music...
, Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...
, Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer was an American Hall of Fame pianist who was one of the architects of the "Nashville sound." He popularized the "slip note" piano style where an out-of-tune note slides effortlessly into the correct note...
, Roger Miller
Roger Miller
Roger Dean Miller was an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor, best known for his honky tonk-influenced novelty songs...
and many others achieved great success through songs such as "He'll Have to Go
He'll Have to Go
"He'll Have to Go" is an American country and pop hit recorded on October 15, 1959 by Jim Reeves. The song, released in the fall of 1959, went on to become a massive hit in both genres early in 1960.-Background:...
," "Danny Boy
Danny Boy
-Background:The words to "Danny Boy" were written by English lawyer and lyricist Frederic Weatherly in 1910. Although the lyrics were originally written for a different tune, Weatherly modified them to fit the "Londonderry Air" in 1913, after his sister-in-law in the U.S. sent him a copy. Ernestine...
," "Make the World Go Away
Make the World Go Away
"Make the World Go Away" is a country-popular music song composed by Hank Cochran. It has become a Top 40 popular success three times: for Timi Yuro , for Eddy Arnold , and for the brother-sister duo Donny and Marie Osmond . The original version of the song was recorded by Ray Price during...
", "King of the Road
King of the Road (song)
"King of the Road" is a 1964 song written and originally recorded by country singer Roger Miller.The lyrics tell of a hobo who despite being poor revels in his freedom, describing himself humorously as the "king of the road"...
" and "I Fall to Pieces
I Fall to Pieces
"I Fall to Pieces" is a single released by Patsy Cline in 1961, and was featured on her 1961 studio album, Patsy Cline Showcase. "I Fall to Pieces" was Cline's first #1 hit on the Country charts, and her second hit single to cross over onto the Pop charts...
." The country-pop style was also evident on the 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music is a studio album by American R&B and soul musician Ray Charles, released in April 1962 on ABC-Paramount Records. Recording sessions for the album took place in early to mid-February 1962 at Capitol Studios in New York City and at United Recording Studios...
, recorded by rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
and soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
singer Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
. Charles recorded covers of traditional country, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
and classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
standards in pop, R&B and jazz styles. The album was hailed as a critical and commercial success, and would be vastly influential in later country music styles. Songs from the album that were released for commercial airplay and record sales included "I Can't Stop Loving You
I Can't Stop Loving You
"I Can't Stop Loving You" is a popular song written and composed by country singer, songwriter and musician Don Gibson, who first recorded it on December 30, 1957, for RCA Victor Records...
," "Born to Lose" and "You Don't Know Me."
By the end of the decade, the Nashville Sound became more polished and streamlined, and became known as "countrypolitan." Tammy Wynette
Tammy Wynette
Virginia Wynette Pugh, known professionally as Tammy Wynette , was an American country music singer-songwriter and one of the genre's best-known artists and biggest-selling female vocalists....
, Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell
Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...
, Dottie West
Dottie West
Dottie West was an American country music singer and songwriter. Along with her friends and co-recording artists Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, she is considered one of the genre's most influential and groundbreaking female artists...
and Charley Pride
Charley Pride
Charley Frank Pride is an American country music singer. His smooth baritone voice was featured on thirty-nine number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. His greatest success came in the early- to mid-1970s, when he became the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis...
were among the top artists adopting this style. While George Jones
George Jones
George Glenn Jones is an American country music singer known for his long list of hit records, his distinctive voice and phrasing, and his marriage to Tammy Wynette....
— by the early 1960s one of country music's most consistent hitmakers — also recorded countrypolitan-styled music, his background remained pure honky tonk, singing of heartbreak and lonlieness in many of his songs. Also, Marty Robbins
Marty Robbins
Martin David Robinson , known professionally as Marty Robbins, was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist...
proved to be one of the genre's most diverse singers, singing everything from straight-ahead country to western to pop to blues ... and even Hawaiian.
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
-- who became known as "The Man in Black" -- became of the most influential musicians of the 1960s (and eventually, 20th century). Although primarily recording country, his songs and sound spanned many other genres including rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. His music showed great compassion for minorities and others who were shunned by society, including prison inmates. Two of Cash's most successful albums were recorded live in prison: At Folsom Prison
At Folsom Prison
At Folsom Prison is a live album by Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in May 1968. Since his 1955 song "Folsom Prison Blues", Cash had been interested in performing at a prison. His idea was put on hold until 1967, when personnel changes at Columbia Records put Bob Johnston in charge of...
and At San Quentin
At San Quentin
At San Quentin is a recording of a live concert given by Johnny Cash to the inmates of San Quentin State Prison. As well as being released on record the concert was filmed by Granada Television....
.
During the latter half of the 1960s, Pride — a native of Sledge, Mississippi
Sledge, Mississippi
Sledge is a town located in Quitman County, Mississippi. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 529.Famous African American Country singer Charley Pride is from Sledge. Leroy Brown was an actual man from the area who may have very well have been the inspiration for the Jim Croce...
— became the first African-American superstar in country music, a genre virtually dominated by white artists. Some of his early hits, sang with a smooth baritone voice and in a style meshing honky-tonk and countrypolitan, included "Just Between You and Me," "The Easy Part's Over," "All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)" and a cover version of Hank Williams' "Kaw-Liga
Kaw-Liga (song)
Kaw-Liga is a country-music song written by Hank Williams and Fred Rose. Backed by the Drifting Cowboys, Hank Williams recorded the song in Nashville in September, 1952 and the single was released posthumously in January 1953 on the MGM Records label. It remained No. 1 on the Billboard Country...
." Pride continued to be successful for more than 20 years, amassing an eventual 29 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Singles
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...
chart.
A newly emerging style, which had its roots in the 1950s but exploded in the mainstream during the 1960s, was the "Bakersfield sound
Bakersfield sound
The Bakersfield sound was a genre of country music developed in the mid- to late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. The many hit singles were largely produced by Capitol Records country music head, Ken Nelson. Bakersfield country was a reaction against the slickly produced, string...
." Instead of creating a sound similar to mainstream pop music, the Bakersfield sound used honky tonk as its base and added electric instruments and a backbeat, plus stylistic elements borrowed from rock and roll. Buck Owens
Buck Owens
Alvis Edgar Owens, Jr. , better known as Buck Owens, was an American singer and guitarist who had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band, the Buckaroos...
, Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...
and Wynn Stewart
Wynn Stewart
Winford Lindsey Stewart , better known as Wynn Stewart, was an American country music performer. He was one of the progenitors of the Bakersfield sound...
were some of the top artists adopting this sound, and by the late 1960s they were among country music's top selling artists.
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
, a native of the Smoky Mountains town of Locust Ridge, Tennessee, gained national exposure on the nationally syndicated program The Porter Wagoner Show. Her mountain-influenced, biographical brand of country and her down-home personality won many fans, and her star power would only begin to rise.
In addition to the syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
The Porter Wagoner Show, several other television programs were produced to allow country music to reach a wider audience, such as The Jimmy Dean Show
The Jimmy Dean Show
The Jimmy Dean Show is the name of several similar music and variety series on American local and network television between 1957–75. Each starred country music singer Jimmy Dean as host.-Daytime:...
in med-decade. At the end of the decade, Hee Haw
Hee Haw
Hee Haw is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with fictional rural Kornfield Kounty as a backdrop. It aired on CBS-TV from 1969–1971 before a 20-year run in local syndication. The show was inspired by Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the major difference being...
began a 23-year run, first on CBS and later in syndication; Hee Haw, hosted by Owens and Roy Clark
Roy Clark
Roy Linwood Clark is an American country music musician and performer. He is best known for hosting Hee Haw, a nationally televised country variety show, from 1969–1992. Clark has been an important and influential figure in country music, both as a performer and helping to popularize the genre...
was loosely based on the comedy series Rowan & Martin's Laugh In, and incorporated comedy along with performances by the show's cast or guest performers from the country music field. The Academy of Country Music
Academy of Country Music
The Academy of Country Music was founded in 1964 in Los Angeles, California as the Country & Western Music Academy. Whereas the Country Music Association, founded in 1958, was based in Nashville, the Academy sought to promote country music in the western states. Among those involved in the...
and Country Music Association
Country Music Association
The Country Music Association was founded in 1958 in Nashville, Tennessee. It originally consisted of only 233 members and was the first trade organization formed to promote a music genre...
awards programs were telecast for the first time in the late 1960s.
The 1960s were marred with tragedy. Johnny Horton
Johnny Horton
John Gale "Johnny" Horton was an American country music and rockabilly singer most famous for his semi-folk, so-called "saga songs" which began the "historical ballad" craze of the late 1950s and early 1960s...
, who sang in the saga-song style, was killed in a car accident in 1960. A March 5, 1963, plane crash claimed the lives of Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...
, Cowboy Copas
Cowboy Copas
Lloyd Estel Copas , known by his stage name Cowboy Copas, was an American country music singer popular from the 1940s until his death in the 1963 plane crash that also killed country stars Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins. He was a member of the Grand Ole Opry.-Biography:Copas was born in 1913 in...
and Hawkshaw Hawkins
Hawkshaw Hawkins
Harold Franklin Hawkins , better known as Hawkshaw Hawkins, was an American country music singer popular from the 1950s into the early 60s known for his rich, smooth vocals and music drawn from blues, boogie and honky tonk...
. Days later, Jack Anglin
Jack Anglin
Jack Anglin was an American country music singer best known as a member of The Anglin Brothers, and later Johnnie & Jack with Johnnie Wright....
was killed in a car accident, while Texas Ruby
Texas Ruby
Texas Ruby , born Ruby Agnes Owens, was a pioneering country music female vocalist of the 1930s through the early 1960s.-Biography:...
died in a trailer fire in Texas. In July 1964, Jim Reeves lost his life while piloting a plane near Brentwood, Tennessee
Brentwood, Tennessee
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 23,445 people, 7,693 households, and 6,808 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 7,889 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 94.63% European American, 1.89% African American,...
. Ira Louvin
Ira Louvin
Ira Lonnie Loudermilk , known professionally as Ira Louvin, was an American country music singer, mandolinist and songwriter. He was a cousin of songwriter John D. Loudermilk.-Biography:...
was killed in a car accident in 1965. Success overcame several of those tragic deaths, as both Cline and Reeves had many posthumous hits (with previously recorded songs issued after their deaths) and enjoyed strong followings for many years.
The 1960s began a trend toward a proliferation of No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, thanks to ever-changing data collecting methods. When the 1960s decade opened, there were but four No. 1 songs topping the chart (five, if one counts Marty Robbins' "El Paso
El Paso (song)
"El Paso" is a country and western ballad written and originally recorded by Marty Robbins, and first released on Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs in September 1959. It was released as a single the following month, and became a major hit on both the country and pop music charts, reaching number...
"), but by the mid 1960s, there were always at least a dozen songs topping the chart annually. In 1967, there were more than 20 songs reaching the top spot for the first time ever in a single calendar year ... and that number would only continue to rise during the next 20 years.
Other trends and musical events
- Late in the decade, the Monterey Pop FestivalMonterey Pop FestivalThe Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California...
and Woodstock Music Festival would epitomize the American countercultureCounterculture of the 1960sThe counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
. - Current events become a major influence on popular music. Many songs are written in protest to the Vietnam WarVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. The song "OhioOhio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song)"Ohio" is a protest song written and composed by Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, and performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It was released as a single, backed with Stephen Stills's "Find the Cost of Freedom," peaking at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100...
" was written about the Kent State Massacre, and became a hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. - World music sees a huge rise in popularity as many seek interest in other cultures. Ravi ShankarRavi ShankarRavi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
performs at the Monterey and Woodstock festivals. Latin Rock artist Carlos SantanaCarlos SantanaCarlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...
sees popularity throughout the decade. George HarrisonGeorge HarrisonGeorge Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
develops an interest in the Hare KrishnaInternational Society for Krishna ConsciousnessThe International Society for Krishna Consciousness , known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava religious organization. It was founded in 1966 in New York City by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada...
culture, adding Indian influence to The Beatles' music including the use of a sitarSitarThe 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...
. ReggaeReggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
begins to popularize at this time. - In 1969, the Rolling Stones organized the ill-fated Altamont Free Concert.
- Songs like "Summertime BluesSummertime Blues"Summertime Blues" is the title of a song co-written and recorded by American rockabilly artist Eddie Cochran. It was written in the late 1950s by Cochran and his manager Jerry Capehart. Originally a single B-side, it was released in August 1958 and peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 on...
" and "Eve of Destruction" address the issue of the voting age, which at the time was 21. The issue was that soldiers were drafted at 18, but could not vote. The voting age was eventually lowered to eighteen. - A few songs such as Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the WindBlowin' in the Wind"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
address the Civil Rights MovementCivil rights movementThe civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
.
Billboard Artist of the Decade
On December 1969 the American music magazine Billboard Magazine named the English band The BeatlesThe Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
as the best Artist of the Decade for the 1960s. The band joined the list with Elvis Presley who has also been awarded with this prestigious honor in the previous decade.
Bossa Nova
This Brazilian musical style, which means "New Trend", had its origins in the upscale neighbourhoods of Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
. Immensely popular in the early 1960s, it was a fusion of samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
and cool jazz. Antonio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim , also known as Tom Jobim , was a Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within...
, João Gilberto
João Gilberto
João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known as João Gilberto , is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. His seminal recordings, including many songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, established the new musical genre of Bossa nova in the late 1950s.-Biography:From an early age, music...
, and Astrud Gilberto
Astrud Gilberto
Astrud Gilberto is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She is well known for the Grammy Award-winning song "The Girl from Ipanema".-Biography:...
became the best known artists of the Bossa Nova movement. The latter's The Girl From Ipanema
The Girl from Ipanema
"Garota de Ipanema" is a well-known bossa nova song, a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s that won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. English lyrics were written later by Norman Gimbel.The...
, released in 1964, became the first Bossa Nova song to achieve international acclaim. In 1965, it won a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Record of the Year
Grammy Awards of 1965
The 7th Grammy Awards were held in 1965. They recognized accomplishments of musicians for the year 1964.-Award winners:*Record of the Year**Astrud Gilberto & Stan Getz for "The Girl from Ipanema"*Album of the Year...
.
Nueva ola
It was during the 60s that rock music began to gain acclaim in Latin America. In Spanish speaking South America musicians who adopted US and British inspired rock, mainly rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, twist
Twist (dance)
The Twist was a dance inspired by rock and roll music. It became the first worldwide dance craze in the early 1960s, enjoying immense popularity among young people and drawing fire from critics who felt it was too provocative. It inspired dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed...
and British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
music, were collectively labelled as Nueva ola
Nueva ola
The Nueva ola is a term applied to a loose group of musicians, mainly in Spanish speaking South America, who played and introduced rock and roll and other American and European music of the 50s and 60s to their countries. Artist associated with the Nueva ola reached their peak of popularity in the...
(Spanish for "New Wave"). Argentina suffered the Uruguayan Invasion
Uruguayan Invasion
The Uruguayan Invasion was a musical phenomenon of the 1960s similar to the British Invasion, with rock bands from Uruguay gaining popularity in Argentina.-History:...
, a series of British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
inspired rock bands from Montevideo that moved to Buenos Aires and soon became popular in Argentina. Rock music was during the 60s still largely sung in English, but some few bands like Los Macs used Spanish for their songs.
Nueva canción
During the 1960s Nueva CanciónNueva canción
Nueva canción is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music...
emerges and starts to expand its influence. This development is pioneered by the Chileans Violeta Parra
Violeta Parra
Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval was a notable Chilean composer, songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist...
and Victor Jara
Víctor Jara
Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, political activist and member of the Communist Party of Chile...
who base many of their songs in folklore, specially cueca
Cueca
Cueca is a family of musical styles and associated dances from Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina. In Chile, the cueca holds the status of national dance, where it was officially selected on September 18, 1979.- Origins :...
. Nueva Canción spreads quickly all over Latin America and becomes closely related to the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
and the Liberation theology
Liberation theology
Liberation theology is a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions...
movements. In Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's Spain Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat i Teresa is a Catalan Spanish singer-songwriter.Serrat is considered one of the most important figures of modern, popular music in both the Spanish and Catalan languages...
reaches widespread notability as an exponent of Nueva Canción and of the political opposition.
Salsa
Even though salsa musicSalsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
began to take form In a New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
scene dominated by Cubans and other Latin American communities, Salsa would not become popular all across Latin America until the late 1980s.
Australia and New Zealand
The 1960s saw increasing interest in how electronic music could solve both compositional and more practical problems. Composers were also absorbing ideas from overseas, such as indeterminacy and electro-acoustic music, and interpreting them in an Australian context to mixed responses from local audiences.Early in the decade, Bruce Clarke began toying with the new Moog synthesiser. A musicians' strike led him to create a completely electronic soundtrack for a cigarette commercial in 1963. Innovative film makers, like Arthur Cantrill and Dušan Marek, employed tape manipulation, turntables and extended instrument techniques to create soundtracks for their short films. Avowed amateur and Melbourne physician, Val Stephen, became the first Australian to have electronic music released internationally.
After working amongst the musical avant-garde in Paris, Keith Humble’s return to Australia helped to encourage educational institutions to take electronic music seriously. Humble’s most notably experimental work was his Nunique series. These vast multimedia events featured simultaneous performances by rock bands, string quartets and theatre ensembles, all according to precise flowcharts.
Humble initiated the Melbourne-based Society for the Private Performance of New Music in 1966, providing a supportive performance space for young innovators both in and outside the academy. Among these were the McKimm/Rooney/Clayton trio, who, since the 1964, had been incorporating graphic scores and aspects of serialism into jazz improvisation. Jazz was radicalising at the fringes: John Sangster explored free jazz concepts and Charlie Munro incorporated Eastern musical elements. Syd Clayton would leave jazz behind in pursuit of a new form of experimental music theatre that incorporated chance operations along with sports and games as musical structures.
Young composers, like David Ahern
David Ahern
David Anthony Ahern was an Australian composer and music critic, who became a prominent artist in the avant-garde genre after his best-known work, Ned Kelly Music was released and performed at the Sydney Proms music series.Born and raised in Sydney, Ahern decided to become a composer in his...
, emerged, initially inspired by ideas of the European avant-garde, and applying them to Australian icons, such as Captain Cook and Ned Kelly. Ahern would travel to Europe later in the 1960s, where he encountered Stockhausen and Cardew, before returning home with further more radical ideas that questioned the very premises of composer and music itself.