Spectropop presents

Pop and Rock Music in the 60s

A Brief History
Essay by Jack Madani

Copyright 1998 Jack Madani. All rights reserved.

Published by permission of the author.

The Roots of Rock 'n' Roll:

In 1945, World War II ended. By 1946, American servicemen began returning home to start
up the families they had had to put on hold for 4 years. Thus began the unusually large
bubble in the population curve of America known as the Baby Boom, as gazillions of babies
were born all of a sudden in the span of five to ten years. Remember that all those babies
born in 1946-1947 would be 18 in 1964-1965 (and eventually 22 and out of college, and into
the marketplace in the early '70's, to kick off the Me Decade). What that means is that
American society would suddenly find itself catering to a generation of young people in a
way that had never occurred before.

Sixties rock finds its roots in several places, starting as far back as the big swing bands of
the pre-war era that the 60's kids' parents listened to as youngsters: Glenn Miller, Benny
Goodman, Count Basie, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and Duke Ellington's bands are
some of the most famous. Except for Duke Ellington, all those bands were primarily dance
bands, with big swinging backbeats. You can still hear some of their greatest hits today in
such unusual places as the Chips Ahoy commercial (1,000 chips in every bag).

There were also the smaller, "rhythm combo" groups, usually of only four or five players.
Their tunes were popular on the jukeboxes of the day, but were not considered artistically
important which is why we have mostly forgotten them today. The recent Broadway show
"Five Guys Named Moe," which highlights the career of Louis Jordan, tells about one of the
most popular rhythm combos of the day. Nat King Cole also had a small jazz combo that
had popular success, before he became a Sinatra-style pop ballad singer in the '50's.

Then there was Country & Western--especially what was called "Texas Swing," of which
Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys was the king. Hank Williams Sr. was another important
singer/songwriter of that era and genre.

Over in Memphis there was Sam Phillips and his Sun Studios, where rockabilly and Elvis
Presley were born. Besides Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and
Roy Orbison all began their recording careers at Sun Studios.

Two other sources of modern rock'n'roll, absolutely essential to the sound we think of as 60's
rock, were, first, the Blues. Blues began as the music of black sharecroppers in the poor
cotton-farming region of the Mississippi Delta, and traveled north to Chicago with the
sharecroppers as thousands of them moved north in search of a better life. It was in Chicago
that the blues went from acoustic solo guitar music to electric guitar-electric bass-drums
combos. Muddy Waters, Little Milton, B.B. King, and Howlin' Wolf were just a few of
these important Chicago blues artists.

The last source of modern rock'n'roll is actually a single man. Les Paul was a studio whiz
and guitar player who designed the Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, and pioneered the
technique of overdubbing, allowing one person to play more than one part on a recording.
Working with his wife Mary Ford, who sang the vocal parts, Les Paul created a series of two-
person recordings that sounded like an entire band was playing--and the music was all
guitar-based.

The 1960's Begin:

As the late fifties gave way to the early sixties, the rockabilly stars of the previous decade
(the Everlys, Elvis, Roy Orbison) were still having hits, but the older pop-music stars were
fading away as they struggled to find material that would click with this new and energetic
generation of kids. Pop music gradually became controlled by new young "vocal"-groups,
taking their power from a combination of the performer's charisma along with the songwriting
talents of the production team, who operated behind the scenes. Eventually rock artists
came to be expected to write and even produce their own songs, becoming responsible for
everything about how their records sounded--but that would have to wait for Marvin Gaye,
Brian Wilson and Lennon & McCartney.

In general there were four main pockets of early 60's pop:

the East Coast DooWop and girl groups were singers and groups whose origins are in the
streetcorner a cappella groups found in many urban centers. With very rare exceptions,
these groups did not write their own songs, but relied on their handlers to set up the
recording sessions, pick the material, and produce the records. In fact, many of these
behind-the-scenes people eventually became stars in their own right in the seventies.

The R&B and Soul scene included many talented people who often didn't receive the
popularity of less-talented white groups, because of barriers and prejudices against buying
"race" records. Later in the decade, after the British groups acknowledged their debt to soul
music, and as the civil rights movement inspired black pride, the general American public
rediscovered these performers.

the California scene was first dominated by instrumental surf groups like the Surfaris, the
Crossfires, and Dick Dale & the Del-tones. Dale, the "King of Surf Guitar," in particular
helped define how modern rock guitar solos would sound. Then the Beach Boys added vocal
harmonies to the surf sound. This surf-&-drag, fun-in-the-sun sound was so popular that the
style showed up all over the place, even in tv theme songs such as the Munsters and Hawaii
Five-O. But the real important stuff was happening in the recording studios, where young
studio wizards like Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, and the team of Sloan & Barri began
turning the studio itself into their instrument, looking for new sounds in a quest not for
records but for productions. There were studio svengalis back east, too, including Bob
Crewe and the team of Burt Bacharach & Hal David. Modern artists like Prince, Lindsey
Buckingham, and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis who use synths and samplings, are rather like
the spiritual descendants of those white suburban teenagers, taking their distinctive sound
with them regardless of the particular artist they happen to be working with.

The Motown record label in Detroit was founded by Berry Gordy Jr., and while its recording
stars were all black, still you couldn't necessarily call this totally black or "soul" music.
Instead, Gordy controlled the performing styles, clothes, even hairdos of his artists, grooming
them for success in the wider mainstream (read white) American audiences. The label's
slogan, "the sound of young America," and their nickname, "Hitsville USA" point to the wide
net that Motown attempted to cast. Among the many successful performers who recorded for
Motown, one ought to mention Marvin Gaye, who was first to take control of his own career
and insist on artistic control over his recordings. Later Stevie Wonder and Smokey
Robinson would also prove to be outstanding writers and producers, but Marvin Gaye was
the first at Motown.

The British Invade:

With 1963 comes the end of rock'n'roll and the beginnings of "rock." Of course, in 1963 John
Kennedy was assassinated, and his vice president Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as
president. Soon LBJ escalated the United States' involvement in Viet Nam and declared war
on poverty as part of his Great Society program, a systematic widening of the government's
powers that required higher taxes and spurred ruinous inflation. Meanwhile, the televised
police beatings of members of Martin Luther King's nonviolent Civil Rights movement made
it plain to many people that the powers that be were not necessarily interested in protecting
people's human and constitutional rights. Thus it wasn't long before the youth of America
was finding itself deeply questioning its country's leaders. A large part of the innocence went
out of pop music. And then came the British.... The Beatles were merely the most visible of
the many British music acts that found success in America in the mid-60's. Many people
count the Fab Four's landing at La Guardia airport on February 7, 1964, and their
performance on the Ed Sullivan Show a week later, as the official beginning of what came to
be called the "British Invasion." The Beatles were hugely popular; at one point they had the
top five records on the Billboard Hot 100 list. Their sound and attitudes influenced everything
that came afterwards--even today, when kids sing along with pop tunes on the radio and sing
soft Britty "r's", they're unconsciously mimicking the English sound. Like the killer meteor that
caused mass extinctions 65 million years ago, clearing the way for a whole new evolutionary
path based on mammals instead of reptiles, the British Invasion killed off almost all the
existing American groups (only the Beach Boys, Four Seasons, and the biggest Motown acts
managed to survive). In their place rose up all sorts of American groups who dressed and
sounded just like the Brits, as for instance the Knickerbockers, Beau Brummels,
Buckinghams, Sir Douglas Quintet, and Turtles--before the Turtles became famous they
used to hang out at bowling alleys and order tea with plenty of milk, speaking in fake English
accents and trying to pass themselves off as Gerry and the Pacemakers. Then the folkies
went electric. For this the great turning point was 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival. Bob
Dylan turned up to perform with an electric guitar, and was practically booed off the stage,
but he had shown the new path for folk music. And the Byrds had their first big hit with
Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," using that record to show how folkie songs could be built on
a Beatle-esque sound (the first time group founder Roger McGuinn saw the Beatles on tv,
he went right out to buy a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar just like George Harrison's). From
Songs to Productions: Rock'n'Roll's death and the Birth of "Art Rock": The next two years,
from 1965 to 1967, saw the most amazing experiments and changes in rock music ever. The
simplest way to watch those changes is to review the back and forth record releases by the
Beatles and the Beach Boys, perhaps the two most innovative recording groups of the mid
60's. Back in 1964, these groups produced such fun energetic pop as:
 BEATLES BEACH BOYS
A Hard Day's Night I Get Around
By 1965 these groups became more studio-oriented and less interested in performance-
friendly songs. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had a nervous breakdown while on tour at
the beginning of 1965, so he stopped touring and concentrated on working in the studio.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles also became more interested in the
production angle, collaborating more with their longtime producer George Martin.
BEATLES BEACH BOYS
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) God Only Knows
Michelle Pet Sounds

In 1966 the Beatles announced that they would no longer tour at all and retired full-time to
the recording studio. John was particularly interested in using recording tricks in Beatles
songs, and the subject matter of their songs was becoming more and more openly radical.
Brian, meanwhile, was now working completely with studio musicians, often using 25
musicians at a time in what was in effect the first rock-orchestra. He stopped writing songs in
the traditional manner, instead "constructing" songs out of recorded bits and pieces (pre-
dating Todd Rundgren's recent forays into "interactive music" by 25 years).

BEATLES BEACH BOYS

Eleanor Rigby Good Vibrations
Love You To Heroes and Villains
Tomorrow Never Knows Cabinessence

1967 saw the release of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the
Beach Boys' Smiley Smile. Sgt. Pepper was a complete and revolutionary album, full of
weird effects and songs about drugs. Smiley Smile was also a revolutionary album, full of
weird effects and songs about drugs. But it was not a finished album. Brian went through
another breakdown, this time caused by LSD, and the album he released wound up a pale
imitation of what he had intended to produce. Sgt. Pepper became the anthem for 1967's
"Summer of Love;" it was the height of flower power, arty progressive music that seemed to
influence the social fabric, and of the youth movement's naive sense that a new age was
about to dawn.

BEATLES BEACH BOYS

Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds Fall Breaks and Back to Winter
Within You Without You Wind Chimes
A Day In The Life Vegetables

1968 & 1969: The Unraveling:

No sooner had 1967's "summer of love" passed than it all started to come undone in 1968. In
that year both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated. LBJ had so
escalated America's involvement in the Viet Nam conflict that across the nation's campuses
students were rioting, while the "war on poverty" seemed to be going nowhere. The constant
criticism from every corner finally convinced Johnson not to run for re-election. There were
riots in the inner cities of many urban centers around the country (which would continue to
occur each summer for the next several years). The civil rights movement gave up its
nonviolence philosophy as SNCC was taken over by radical extremists; in Oakland the Black
Panther movement, the extremest of the extreme, was born. Richard Nixon was elected
president, and Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California; both ran on strong law-
and-order campaigns.

Rock music took a step back from its drug-fueled experiments of just a year before, and
turned to less-experimental sounds, while the topics became angrier. Creedence
Clearwater Revival was the most successful of the roots rock groups, with hits ranging from
"Green River" and "Proud Mary" to the ferocious anti-Viet Nam song "Fortunate Son." Even
mainstream acts like Elvis Presley and the Supremes released protest songs. The
Yardbirds broke up, and Led Zeppelin, the quintessential seventies hard rock band, grew up
out of its ashes (that was also the year that the first version of Pink Floyd appeared, although
it would still take a couple years of tinkering with the line-up to create the progressive-album-
rock juggernaut that would reign over the FM airwaves in the next decade). Finally, the rise
of the Black Power movement helped spur soul music to heights of popularity never before
experienced. Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin became major stars.

The next year, 1969, saw two important rock festivals, Woodstock in August and Altamont
in December. While people tend to remember Woodstock fondly because the hippies were
mostly able to organize and run a 450,000-person three-day festival with few major
problems, in retrospect its overwhelmed facilities (only 200,000 had been expected) and
lousy weather were a symbol that Woodstock was in reality the end of an era, not the
dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Only a few months later, at a concert in Altamont, California,
(which was documented in the movie "Gimme Shelter,") a fan was knifed to death in the
audience as the Rolling Stones performed on stage.

In 1969, Charles Manson and his gang were living in Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's house,
sponging off Dennis and using his credit cards. Manson was writing songs and trying to
break into the music business. At the same time he was also trying to build up a new religion
with himself as God, with followers who were willing to do his bidding. Musically, he got as
far as to get the Beach Boys to record one of his songs ("Never Learn Not to Love," on the
album 20/20), before Dennis got fed up and kicked him and his gang out. A month later,
Manson and his followers committed the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders. The grizzly
multiple murder was part ritual sacrifice to show loyalty to Manson, and part warning to the
music business not to mess with Charlie (a producer used to own the house in which the
murders took place). One of the clues that led to their finally being caught was the fact that
Manson had smeared "Helter Skelter" (a Beatles song title from the White Album) in blood
on the walls at the scene of the crime. Seems like '60's rock no longer pointed the way to a
better world.

By the end of 1969, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix had
all died of drug overdoses. In England, the Beatles produced a documentary ("Get Back")
that had been meant as a kind of new start for the group, but which instead showed how the
boys could barely stand to be in the same room with each other anymore. In America, on the
tiny island of Chappaquiddick off Martha's Vineyard, Senator Edward Kennedy was involved
in a car crash in which a young woman died. The bizarre and ambiguous circumstances
surrounding the fatal accident put a stain on the remaining Kennedy brother's reputation that
he was never able to shake.

In 1969 Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, but when that singular moment in the history of
mankind was announced at an Earth-bound rock festival, the self-absorbed audience booed
the news. A year later, the Beatles broke up and Diana Ross left the Supremes; one year
after that, Berry Gordy moved his Motown operations from Detroit to Los Angeles. The
musical decade of the sixties was over.
 TEXTBOOK EXAMPLES OF THE GENRES
1950's pop music
the "popular vocalist" type such as often recorded in Los Angeles for Capitol Records, Frank
Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, Peggy Lee, Jo Stafford, The Four Freshmen, Patti Page, Bobby
Darin, Tony Bennett

Rhythm'n'Blues, Rockabilly

"Race" music (which eventually became soul music)

Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Roy Orbison, Sam Cooke, The
Coasters, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Billy Haley & The Comets, The Everly Brothers, Rickie
Nelson, Little Richard, LaVern Baker.

1960's early pop music

the behind-the-scenes people who wrote and produced songs, especially for the NY groups
(and who eventually in many cases became the sensitive singer/songwriters of the 1970's),
Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich, Neil Diamond, Burt
Bacharach & Hal David, Quincy Jones, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Jerry Leiber & Mike
Stoller, Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman.

New York Doo Wop and girl groups

The Skyliners, The Tokens, The Shirelles, The Chiffons, The Shangri- Las, The Duprees,
Dion & The Belmonts, Little Eva, The Four Seasons.

R&B, Soul
Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, The Isley Brothers, Jackie Wilson, The Impressions, Inez Foxx,
Wilson Pickett, The Drifters, Ike & Tina Turner, Percy Sledge, James Brown, Ray Charles,
Booker T. & The MG's, Ben E. King, Otis Redding.

California Studio Wizards and Surf Groups

Beach Boys/Brian Wilson, Jan & Dean, Gary Lewis & The Playboys, Phil Spector, Dick Dale
& The Deltones, The Surfaris, The Ventures, The Fantastic Baggys (Phil Sloan &Steve
Barri), Terry Melcher, Gary Usher, Curt Boettcher, Gary Zekley.

Detroit Motown (Berry Gordy, Jr., founder and producer)

The Supremes Marvin Gaye, The Temptations Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops Mary Wells,
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Holland, Dozier &
Holland (producers & songwriters).

The British Invasion:

in their own category

The Beatles

the mop-tops
Chad & Jeremy, Peter & Gordon, Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas, Gerry & The Pacemakers.

mods and rockers

Dave Clark Five, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Spencer Davis Group, The Hollies, The
Swinging Blue Jeans, The Kinks, The Small Faces, electric blues, Derek & The Dominoes,
 Cream, The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin.

the phonies and wanna-be's, and other heavily-influenced's

The Standells, The Monkees, The Buckinghams, The Searchers, Tommy James & The
Shondells, The Turtles, The Beau Brummells.

Electric Folk
The Byrds, The Lovin' Spoonful, Donovan, The Band, The Mamas & Papas, Simon &
Garfunkel, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

White Blues, Blue-eyed Soul

Janis Joplin, Mitch Ryder, Three Dog Night, The Animals.

Mainstream Protest Songs

War (What Is It Good For), Eve of Destruction, Think, Who'll Stop The Rain, Cloud Nine,
Abraham Martin & John, Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), What's Going On, Living For The
City, Love Child, Have You Ever Seen The Rain, Ball of Confusion, Fortunate Son, In The
Ghetto.

Copyright 1998 Jack Madani. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of the author.

RANKING NR 1

20. paul mccartney - dress me up as a robber

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_kkiIXdkuI
19. cyndi lauper - true colors
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS53zuf_X10
18. barbra streisand - woman in love
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ppc_dT-J5E
17. sting - sister moon
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiH7YhpiWXY
16. madness - one better day
www.youtube.com/watch?v=176AFEl7DU8
15. radiohead - knives out
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lpw3yMCWro
14. nik kershaw - dancing girls
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0uLOgxvRNQ
13. joni mitchell - edith and the kingpin
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTgGYr-INqc
12. dionne warwick - san jose
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZuOgEptHcU
11. erykah badu - boogie nights/all night long
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIUDcocllvs
10. thief - atlantic
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FbRWqikQdU
9. a-ha - there's never a forever thing
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6eREN3tISg
8. xtc - the man who sailed around his soul
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRQGZUKS2Y
7. bee gees - someone belonging to someone
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ds45uejmbo
6. anna jurksztowicz - stan pogody
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyKS3QA73so
5. kate bush - walk straight down the middle
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rl8bSK8HB4
4. stranglers - european female
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwH8lmcOSks
3. kajagoogoo - hang on now
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2bfMqd32us
2. david bowie - you've been around
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-MzTl_kjAU
1. beatles - eleanor rigby
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxyJLxV0_-8
RANKING NR 2

20. prince - god created woman

tiny.pl/hhrk8
19. stereolab - captain easychord
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjTIs6OItso
18. radiohead - sail to the moon
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkpaJ6FAfZI
17. dismemberment plan - gyroscope
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo5iPll7TII
16. jessica simpson - if you were mine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jERYAja-Bnc
15. xtc - that's really super, supergirl
www.youtube.com/watch?v=41ws8trjL0I
14. drivealone - hospitility
tiny.pl/hhrks
13. beatles - martha my dear
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDVUPi56WT0
12. genesis - please don't ask
hhana.id.joe.pl/mp3-muzyka_19496-please-dont-ask.html
11. kate bush - fullhouse
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUbrOZZxw0c
10. carpenters - we've only just begun
tiny.pl/hhrk6
9. wrens - it's not getting any good
www.zshare.net/audio/6291906970bfbed1/
8. the bird & the bee - fucking boyfriend
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RXqmYNHrF8
7. beach boys - surf's up
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hYIlH4nOEo
6. prefab sprout - hallelujah
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2QlhOpQXk
5. basia - a new day for you
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T5GKHqU35Y
4. spandau ballet - true
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e4WLdLNajs
3. charlotte hatherley - behave
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVin_npzHgU
2. joni mitchell - edith and the kingpin
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTgGYr-INqc
1. steely dan - doctor wu
www.zshare.net/audio/629192209d98e3d1