The early sixties saw rock and roll music develop into a cultural force as the baby-boomer generation entered their teens.  Transistor radios were carried everywhere, while Motown records and Phil Spector's wall-of-sound dominated the North American top-forty radio charts. 

In New York, a relatively unknown folk singer, Robert Zimmerman, would release his first album under the name Bob Dylan in 1962.  Dylan would become a major contributor and influence as his recordings reached the mainstream audience a few years later.

'Street corner' groups like The Supremes and Martha and The Vandellas were in their heyday, while R&B notables such as Wilson Picket and James Brown kept 'soul music' alive.  Peter, Paul and Mary and The Kingston Trio contributed folk music to the pop format. 

The Greenwich Village coffee houses and British beat clubs were about to impact the pop music mainstream, while music groups from Britain would change the face of rock and roll.

Garage Bands  [ top ]

Wikipedia notes that "By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers.  Some influential bands were  The Kingsmen , Paul Revere and the Raiders (left), the Trashmen and the Rivieras.  Other popular garage bands, such as the Sonics , never reached the Billboard 100.

Thousands of garage bands were extant in the USA and Canada during the era.  Several dozen of these produced national hit records, including: Louie, Louie by The Kingsmen (1963-64), Psychotic Reaction by The Count Five (1966), Pushin' Too Hard by The Seeds (1966), Gloria by The Shadows of Knight (1966), 96 Tears by Question Mark and the Mysterians (1966), and Talk Talk by The Music Machine (1966).

Ohio's Shondells released Hanky Panky, a minor regional hit in 1964 before disbanding.  When it was unearthed by a Pittsburgh DJ in 1965, the resulting success of the song revived the moribund career of Tommy James, who formed a new group of Shondells and went on to chart seven more Top 40 singles.

Television shows such as American Bandstand, then later, Shindig and Hullabaloo became a staple for rock music fans of this era.  The Ed Sullivan Show featured top pop music artists on Sunday night, and TV executives were beginning to realize the potential of rock music in their programming.

The British Invasion also inspired new, and often very raw, bands to form.  Garage rock bands were generally influenced by those British bands with a harder, blues-based attack, such as The Kinks, The Who, The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Small Faces, The Pretty Things and The Rolling Stones. Another influence was the folk-rock of the Byrds and Bob Dylan, especially on bands such as The Leaves.

Garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically during 1966. It went into a slow, but irreversible, decline beginning the following year, with fewer and fewer examples of the genre being released in 1968 and 1969. From a general interest standpoint, the genre was spent by 1970.

British Rock  [ top ]

Rock & Roll faded as Cliff Richard, the Shadows and the others followed Elvis into lightweight pop and schmaltzy ballads, but rock groups were stirring at a basement club level.  Surf music took the focus from traditional Rock and Roll in the U.S. and the teenage market was focused on the California Sound.

With their 1960 hit "Shakin' All Over," Johnny Kidd and the Pirates (left) introduced a harder beat for biker rockers.  Soon the song was being played by amateur groups at dances all round the UK along with R & B from the likes of Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker and invariably Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode.

London's blues clubs featured Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated which attracted the young trad jazz clarinetist Brian Jones to sit in and decide he too wanted a blues band.  Separately, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards joined in for sets along with Korner's drummer Charlie Watts, starting with Chuck Berry's "Around and Around". 

A group developed, taking their name from a Muddy Waters song, and The Rolling Stones formed on  July 12, 1962.

In 1962 the growing "Beat group" boom surfaced with the signing of Liverpool groups including Brian Poole and the Tremeloes whose hit with their cover of Do You Love Me (now that I can dance?) caught the mood: "I can mashed potato, I can do the twist, tell me baby, do you like it like this?"

The Beatles were an established Liverpool group, and on October 5, 1962 their first single Love Me Do came out.  Already this new sound stood out.

The beat got harder and the music more inventive with the Beatles' songwriting talents pulling them away from the pack.  British rock had established its distinctive identity.

The Rolling Stones got their first rock hit in June 1963 with a high-charged version of Berry's Come On.  Later, The Animals added their blues-rock version of The House of the Rising Sun.  The Who with My Generation and The Kinks with You Really Got Me kept up the rush while adding a new mod style.

Songs then became more lyrical and ingenious while retaining the distinctive driving rhythm, outright blues were issued with a hard beat instead of the bounce of the originals.  This new and developing pop sound drew an international interest.

The Rock Explosion  [ top ]

Most North American music fans were unaware of the growing rock music scene across the Atlantic in Britain.  This was  largely due to North American record executives hesitancy to release British rock records, which they felt had no commercial appeal to audiences on this continent.

Brian Epstein persuaded America's Capitol Records to release The Beatles single I Want To Hold Your Hand along with an album in mid January 1964, on the strength of the band's upcoming appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9 of that year.

The Beatles started their first North American tour a couple of days later in Washington Coliseum, Washington DC, on February 11, 1964, and kicked the North American door wide open for generations of future British recording artists.

The Beatles first American album released by Capitol Records in January,1964.

The Rolling Stones first tour of the US in June, 1964 was a disappointment for the largely unheard-of band.  The often sparse audiences were derisive of the band's long haired appearance, Blues, R&B, and Chuck Berry cover songs.

A second North American tour in the fall of 1964 included an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.  The audience caused such a disturbance during the band's appearance that Sullivan vowed never to book them again.  He did, however, book them several times after this.

The Rolling Stones first North American album released in May, 1964 by London Records

The Rolling Stones were soon recognized as trendsetters in the music business, as they shunned the traditional "band uniform" look, preferring more casual, individual, clothing on stage.  The traditional look was exemplified by the popular "beatle jacket" worn by teenagers and other bands performing at the time. 

This casual on stage presentation was soon adopted by other bands, and became the standard for most of the new, and already established, rock performers during the mid to late sixties.  The style continues to this day.

Americans were captivated by British rock music, and bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones spiked teen imaginations.  Top-forty radio was dominated by English recording artists.  The Dave Clark Five, The Kinks, The Animals, and The Yardbirds were always in the top-ten.

Folk singers Marianne Faithful, Donovan, and Peter and Gordon introduced the British form to American audiences.  Herman's Hermits became a regular top-ten inhabitant with their variety of middle-of-the-road pop classics such as Henry the Eighth and Mrs. Brown ( you've got a lovely daughter ).

Fledgling hard-rock acts like The Who astonished audiences with their audacious stage antics.  No one had blown up amplifiers and smashed guitars before.

Carnaby Street fashion took hold of North America as teens grew their hair and wore clothes they saw on English pop stars.  The American bands were also adopting this look, and soon the long-haired look was a standard for rock bands internationally .

Critics felt the whole "Beatlemania" fad would pass in a year or two, and things would return to the way they were before the British influence.  Beatlemania did pass, but the influence would continue as rock music gained power in the following years and through to the present day.

Psychedelic Rock  [ top ]

Psychedelia began in the United States' folk scene, with New York City's Holy Modal Rounders introducing the term in 1964.

A similar band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions from San Francisco were influenced by The Byrds and the Beatles to switch from acoustic music to electric music in 1965.

Renaming themselves the Warlocks, they fell in with Ken Kesey's LSD-fuelled Merry Pranksters in November 1965, and changed their name to The Grateful Dead (above left) the following month. The Dead played to light shows at the Pranksters' "Acid Tests", with pulsing images being projected over the group in what became a widespread practice.

Iron Butterfly's (right) music was referred to as acid rock, which they played at the Trips Festival in January 1966 along with Big Brother & the Holding Company. The festival was held at the Longshoremen's Hall and was attended by some 10,000 people. For most of the attendees, it was their first encounter with both acid-rock and LSD.

Throughout 1966, the San Francisco music scene flourished, as the Fillmore, the Avalon Ballroom, and the Matrix club began booking local rock bands on a nightly basis. The emerging "San Francisco Sound" made local stars of numerous bands, including the Charlatans, Moby Grape, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Fifty Foot Hose, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe and the Fish, The Great Society, and the folk-rockers Jefferson Airplane, whose debut album was recorded during the winter of 1965/66 and released in August 1966.

Jefferson Airplane Takes Off was the first album to come out of San Francisco during this era and sold well enough to bring the city's music scene to the attention of the record industry.

Jefferson Airplane gained greater fame the following year with two of the earliest psychedelic hit singles: White Rabbit and Somebody to Love.  In fact, both these songs had originated with the band The Great Society, whose singer Grace Slick left to join Jefferson Airplane, taking the two compositions with her.

While the Grateful Dead were the acknowledged leaders of the San Francisco music scene in the 1960s by both local concert-goers and rival bands, their records did not sell as well as those of their Bay Area peers. As a result, the Grateful Dead didn't begin to attain national popularity until around 1969-1970, when their constant touring gained them a cult following.

Although San Francisco receives much of the credit for jumpstarting the psychedelic music scene, many other American cities contributed significantly to the new genre. Los Angeles boasted dozens of important psychedelic bands, including The Byrds, Iron Butterfly, Love, Spirit, the United States of America, and The Doors, among others.

New York City produced its share of psychedelic bands such as the Blues Magoos, the Blues Project, Bermuda Triangle Band, Electric Prunes, Lothar and the Hand People. and the Third Bardo.

The Detroit area gave rise to psychedelic bands The Amboy Dukes and the SRC. Texas (particularly Austin) is often cited for its contributions to psychedelic music, being home to the groundbreaking 13th Floor Elevators, as well as Bubble Puppy, Shiva's Headband, Golden Dawn, the Zakary Thaks, Red Krayola, and many others.

The Byrds (right) went psychedelic in 1966 with Eight Miles High, a song with odd vocal harmonies and an extended guitar solo that guitarist Roger McGuinn states was inspired by Raga and John Coltrane.

In 1965, members of Rick And The Ravens and The Psychedelic Rangers came together with Jim Morrison to form The Doors. They made a demo tape for Columbia Records in September of that year, which contained glimpses of their later acid-rock sound.

When nobody at Columbia wanted to produce The Doors (left), they were signed by Elektra Records, who released their debut album in January 1967. It contained their first hit single, Light My Fire. Clocking in at over 7 minutes, it became one of the first rock singles to break the mold of the three-minute pop song, although the version usually played on AM radio was a much-shorter version.

Initially, The Beach Boys, with their squeaky-clean image, seemed unlikely as psychedelic types. Their music, however, grew more psychedelic and experimental, perhaps due in part to writer/producer/arranger Brian Wilson's increased drug usage and burgeoning mental illness. In 1966, responding to the Beatles' innovations, they produced their album Pet Sounds and later that year had a massive hit with the psychedelic single Good Vibrations.

Wilson's magnum opus SMiLE (which was never finished, and was remade by Wilson with a new band in 2004) also shows this growing experimentation.

The psychedelic influence was also felt in black music, where record labels such as Motown dabbled for a while with psychedelic soul, producing such hits as Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today) and Psychedelic Shack by The Temptations, Reflections by Diana Ross & the Supremes, and the 11-minute-long Time Has Come Today by The Chambers Brothers, before falling out of favor.

Sly and the Family Stone, a racially integrated group whose roots were in soul and R&B, created music influenced by psychedelic rock. This is especially evident on their breakthrough second album, Dance to the Music.

United Kingdom  [ top ]

Psychedelic rock in the United Kingdom, in common with it's America counterpart had it's roots in the Folk Rock genre. In much the same way that Great Society and the original Jefferson Airplane were electrified folk bands, the same was true of early psychedelic bands in the U.K. such as Fairport Convention (above left).

The major difference between psychedelic rock in the U.K. and it's American counterpart is the role it played in a media revolution that changed the face of musical broadcasting, the music business and to a lesser degree, music publications nationwide.

Prior to the launch of BBC1 in 30 September 1967, BBC radio consisted of a single station (except for Radio Scotland) and had just two pop shows, Saturday Club and Easy Beat. These show were ultra conservative and almost (if not completely) ignored the 'Progressive' groups both from America (Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Doors, Byrds etc) and those in England like Hawk wind, The Move, The Yardbirds, and The Animals. Radio Luxembourg (which reached the South of England) was a little more progressive but still largely ignored the 'new' music scene.

The only real exposure that these groups could get was live performances in a handful of small clubs mostly in London with a few in other major cities. The advent of Pirate Radio and in particular pirate disc jockey, John Peel, changed all that. Suddenly these progressive bands were able to reach a mass audience and at their peak the pirates were boasting greater audiences than the BBC.

Adding to the impact and impression of a cultural revolution was the emergence of alternative weekly publications like IT (International Times) and OZ magazine which featured psychedelic and progressive music together with the counter culture lifestyle. Soon psychedelic rock clubs like the UFO club in Tottenham Court Road, Middle Earth club in Covent Garden, the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, the Country Club (Swiss Cottage) and the Art Lab (also in Covent Garden) were drawing capacity audience with psychedelic rock and groundbreaking liquid light shows.

Psychedelic rock audiences were also a major break with tradition. With long hair and dressed in wild shirts from shops like Mr Fish, Granny Takes a Trip and old military uniforms from Carnaby Street (Soho) and Kings Road (Chelsea) boutiques, they were in stark contrast to the drab and conventional dress of most (Teddyboys perhaps being an exception ) teenagers prior to that.

The August 1966 album by The Beatles, Revolver, shows a psychedelic influence with songs like Tomorrow Never Knows and Yellow Submarine and marked the beginning of the demise of their harmless pop 'mop-tops' image.

Donovans transformation to 'electric' music (like Dylan before him), had a 1966 hit with Sunshine Superman, one of the very first overtly psychedelic pop records.  Pink Floyd had been developing experimental rock with light shows since 1965 in the underground culture scene, and in 1966 the Soft Machine formed.

From a blues rock background, the British supergroup Cream (right) debuted in December. The Jimi Hendrix Experience with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell brought Jimi Hendrix fame in Britain, and later in his American homeland.

Pink Floyd's Arnold Layne in March 1967 only hinted at their live sound; the Beatles' groundbreaking album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was recorded on nearly all of the same dates as Pink Floyd's first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.  Cream showed their psychedelic sounds the same year in Disraeli Gears.

In the folk scene itself blues, drugs, jazz and eastern influences had featured since 1964 in the work of Davy Graham and Bert Jansch, and in 1967 the Incredible String Band's The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion developed this into full blown psychedelia.

Other artists joining the psychedelic revolution included Eric Burdon (previously of The Animals), and The Small Faces. The Who's Sell Out had two early psychedelic tracks, I Can See for Miles and Armenia City in the Sky, but the album concept was out of tune with the times, and it was their later album Tommy that established them in the scene.

The Rolling Stones had drug references and psychedelic hints in their 1966 singles 19th Nervous Breakdown and Paint It, Black, then the fully psychedelic Their Satanic Majesties Request (In Another Land) suffered from the problems the group was having at the time, but has been considered a classic. In 1968 Jumpin' Jack Flash and Beggars Banquet re-established them, but their disastrous concert at Altamont in 1969 ended the dream on a downer.

With 1967, The Beatles embraced a colourful new frontier. Strawberry Fields Forever was the first song recorded intended for an album about nostalgia and childhood in 1966.  Brian Epstein hastily released the first two songs recorded which would have ended up on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. It was released as a double-A sided single along with Penny Lane on February 13, 1967 in the UK and on February 17, 1967 in the U.S.

Strawberry Fields Forever induced a "magic carpet" of sound, with its unusual chord progression, a kaleidoscope of instruments and effects, and an unusual edit of two completely separate versions (the latter of which had to be slowed down to fit.) topped off with a false ending.

The album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (partially influenced by their studio neighbors Pink Floyd --then recording The Piper at the Gates of Dawn-- and vice versa) was a veritable encyclopedia of psychedelia (among other elements), as well as an explosion of creativity that would set the standard for rock albums decades later. From the title track to Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds to Within You Without You to A Day in the Life, the album showcased a wildly colourful palette, with unpredictable changes in rhythm, texture, melody, and tone colour that few groups could equal.

The single All You Need Is Love debuted for a worldwide audience on the "Our World" television special, restated the message of "The Word", but with a Sgt. Pepper style arrangement. Yet after the death of Brian Epstein and the unpopular television movie Magical Mystery Tour (with an uneven soundtrack album accompanying it) the band returned to a more raw style in 1968, albeit a more earthy and complex version than had been heard before Rubber Soul.

Around the same time The Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper, another British group was recording their first international album. Upon returning to England from Australia, The Bee Gees (left) wrote and recorded their debut LP, Bee Gees' 1st, which contained such psychedelic songs such as "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You", New York Mining Disaster 1941 and Turn Of The Century.

The Bee Gees continued throughout the remainder of the 60's in the psychedelic/baroque rock style with albums such as Horizontal, Idea and the classic double album Odessa.

After a 16 month break-up and reunion, The Bee Gees completely reinvented their sound in the early 1970's into a more R&B/Soul style. Many rock critics consider the 1960's era Bee Gees as their classic period.

Hard Rock  [ top ]

Early Years (1960s)

One of the major influences of hard rock is blues music, especially British blues. British rock bands, such as Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Yardbirds, The Who and The Kinks modified rock and roll by adding harder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming and louder vocals to the standard genre .

This sound created the basis for hard rock. Early forms of hard rock can be heard in the songs You Really Got Me by The Kinks, Happenings Ten Years Time Ago by The Yardbirds, I Can See for Miles by The Who, and Revolution and Helter Skelter by The Beatles.

At the same time, Jimi Hendrix, produced a form of blues-influenced psychedelic rock, which combined elements of jazz, blues and rock and roll, creating a unique genre. He was one of the first guitarists to experiment with new guitar effects like phasing, feedback and distortion, along with Dave Davies of the Kinks, Pete Townshend of The Who, Eric Clapton of Cream, and Jeff Beck of the Yardbirds.

Hard rock emerged with British groups of the late-1960s, such as Black Sabbath (right) and Led Zeppelin, who mixed the music of early British rock bands with a more hard-edged form of blues rock and acid rock.

Deep Purple helped pioneer the hard rock genre with the albums Shades of Deep Purple (1968), The Book of Taliesyn (1968), and Deep Purple (1969), but they made their big break with their fourth album, Deep Purple in Rock (1970).

Led Zeppelin's eponymous first album, Led Zeppelin I (1969), and The Who's Live at Leeds (1970), are examples of music from the beginning of the hard rock genre.  The blues origins of the albums are clear, and a few songs by well-known blues artists are adapted or covered within them.

First era (1970s)

Led Zeppelin's third album, Led Zeppelin III was more folk-rock oriented than their second, but the heavy aspects of their music remained. In 1970, Black Sabbath released what is considered the first heavy metal album, Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath's music was revolutionary even in hard rock; it was typified by dark lyrics, hard riffs and a heavy atmosphere, transforming the current hard rock into to an early form of heavy metal.

Deep Purple's (right) transformation of hard rock continued with their album, Machine Head, considered (along with Black Sabbath) as one of the first heavy metal albums. Two songs in Machine Head had great success: Highway Star, which is considered the first speed metal song, and Smoke On The Water, whose main riff made it become the signature Deep Purple song.

Another band, Nazareth, provided a blend of hard rock which commercialised the genre further with their best selling album, Hair of the Dog, which in turn, influenced numerous other bands.

American power trio, The James Gang, appeared as one of the album-oriented bands in the early '70s, and spotlighted Joe Walsh as one of the eras new stars.  Their classic album The James Gang Rides Again, released by ABC Records in 1970, remains a staple in classic rock collections.

During the 1970s, hard rock developed a variety of sub-genres. In 1972, heavy metal pioneer Alice Cooper put shock rock into the mainstream with the top ten album School's Out. The following year, Aerosmith, Queen and Montrose released their eponymous debut albums, demonstrating the broadening directions of hard rock.

In 1974, Bad Company released its debut album, Rush released their first, self entitled album and Queen released its third album, Sheer Heart Attack, with the track Stone Cold Crazy influencing later thrash metal artists, such as Metallica and Megadeth.

Queen used layered vocals and guitars and mixed hard rock with glam rock, heavy metal, progressive rock, and even opera. KISS released their first three albums Kiss, Hotter Than Hell and Dressed To Kill, in a little over a year, achieving their commercial breakthrough with double live album Alive!.

In the mid-1970s, Aerosmith (right) released the ground-breaking Toys in the Attic and Rocks which incorporated elements of blues and hard rock and would later influence rock artists as diverse as Metallica, Guns N' Roses, and Mötley Crüe.

With the death of Tommy Bolin in 1976, Deep Purple disbanded. In 1976, Boston released a highly successful debut album. Heart paved the way for women in the genre with the release of their debut album. In 1978, The Who's drummer, Keith Moon died in his sleep via an overdose.

With the rise of disco in the U.S. and punk rock in the UK, hard rock began to lose popularity. Disco appealed to a more diverse group of people and punk seemed to take over the rebellious role that hard rock once held. Meanwhile, Black Sabbath moved away from the darkness of their early work with albums such as Technical Ecstasy.

Van Halen (left), another important group in hard rock, emerged in 1978. Their music was based mostly on the guitar skills of Eddie Van Halen, the lead guitarist, who introduced a smart technique called tapping in guitar playing. The song "Eruption" from the album Van Halen, demonstrated Eddie Van Halen's technique and was very influential.

In 1979, the differences between the hard rock movement and the rising heavy metal movement were highlighted when the Australian hard rock band, AC/DC, released its second-biggest album, Highway to Hell. AC/DC's music was based mostly on rhythm & blues and early-1970s hard rock, with the group explicitly repudiating the "heavy metal" tag.

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