ROCK

As the late fifties gave way to the early sixties, the rockabilly stars of the previous decade) were still having hits, but the older pop-music stars were fading away.

With 1963 came the end of rock'n'roll and the beginnings of "rock". Rock music of the 1950s did not prepare people for the upheaval of the 1960s and the open defiance against societal mores. Music mirrored the tensions of the Vietnam War era and played an important role in American culture. The verbal content of rock songs turned toward rebellion, social protest, sex, and, increasingly, drugs.

In 1964, the Beatles traveled to New York City to appear on a television broadcast "The Ed Sullivan Show" and launched the British Invasion. Soon, several British groups had developed individual distinctive styles: the Beatles, the Animals and the Rolling Stones.

As with early rock and roll, the major American record companies did not take the British bands seriously at first. Soon, however, the success of the British bands became too difficult to ignore, and some American musicians reacted by developing their own styles. In the early 1960s, a band by the name of the Byrds and artists like Dylan changed the way many people looked at music. These bands started an underground wave that flowed throughout the 60s - the "Psychedelic Era".

The great turning point was 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival where Bob Dylan turned up to perform with an electric guitar. The folk-rock style was further pioneered the same year by the Byrds.

By 1967, songwriters had responded to the new wave of drug popularity. Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers” album, Jefferson Airplane’s “Surrealistic Pillow” and the Cream’s “Disreali Gears” are the albums that attempted to recreate the LSD experience. 1967 also saw the release of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the Beach Boys' Smiley Smile. Both albums were full of weird effects and songs about drugs.

In 1968, 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.

By the late 1960s, rock was widely regarded as an important musical form. Musicians such as Miles Davis and John McLaughlin and groups like Traffic or Blood, Sweat, and Tears tried to fuse rock and jazz, while such disparate artists as Leonard Bernstein and Frank Zappa attempted to connect rock and classical music. Groups featuring virtuoso guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, and Jimmy Page continued to perform variations on classic blues themes using the traditional instruments of rock 'n' roll.