Popular music of the United States in the 1960s became innately tied up into causes, opposing certain ideas, influenced by the sexual revolution, feminism, Black Power and environmentalism. This trend took place in a tumultuous period of massive public, unrest in the United States which consisted of the Cold War, Vietnam War, and Civil Rights Movement.
Central to this trend was a folk roots revival that inspired a wave of similar trends across Europe and the rest of the world. This stemmed from a revival of hillbilly music early in the decade, and drew on Appalachian folk-pop pioneers The Weavers. Singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez broke new ground in lyrical approach and personal style in composition, setting the stage for the next wave of lighter, country music and rhythm and blues-influenced singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Elton John, Carole King, and Cat Stevens, who began topping the charts in the very early 1970s.
The 1960s began with soul music topping the charts, including pure soul divas and singers specializing in the new, rhythm and blues-gospel music fusion with a secular approach. Later specialties in soul cropped up, including girl groups, blue-eyed soul, brown-eyed soul, Memphis soul, Philly soul and, most popular, Motown. The last part of the decade saw soul singer-songwriters like Marvin Gaye invent album-oriented soul, and James Brown and his ever-evolving backing band invent funk.
Modern music in the 1960s was dominated by the Nashville sound until Merle Haggard changed the national country sound to the Bakersfield sound. For a time, the Bakersfield sound was the only homegrown music that could compete in sales against an influx of British bands; this was called the British Invasion, and it sparked a new wave of music and social activism. Psychedelic rock arose from this subculture, which opposed the Vietnam War and supported civil rights and other generally leftist causes. While the energy in this scene remained strong for some time, it soon splintered into competing heavy metal, early art-punk rock and progressive rock.
Folk music
These performers and several others were instrumental in launching the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s. The Kingston Trio Show 18. The Weavers 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 The Brothers Four The Limeliters
Rock
Folk rock
By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of the American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, using traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments.G. Mitchell, The North American Folk Music Revival: Nation and Identity in the United States and Canada, 1945–1980 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), , p. 95. 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.G. Mitchell, The North American Folk Music Revival: Nation and Identity in the United States and Canada, 1945–1980 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), , p. 72. Dylan had begun to reach a mainstream audience with hits including "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "Masters of War" (1963), which brought "protest songs" to a wider public,J. E. Perone, Music of the Counterculture Era American History Through Music (Westwood, CT: Greenwood, 2004), , p. 37. 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.Dave Marsh, The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, NAL, 1989. Entry #91. 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 café-based folk scene in Los Angeles, the Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which were initially seen by the band, being used in The Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night (film) which became a 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.G. W. Haslam, A. H. Russell and R. Chon, Workin' Man Blues: Country Music in California (Berkeley CA: Heyday Books, 2005), , p. 201. 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".K. Keightley, "Reconsidering rock" in, S. Frith, W. Straw and J. Street, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), , p. 121.
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic music's LSD-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".M. Hicks, Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions (University of Illinois Press, 2000), , pp. 59–60. 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 psychedelic life style had already developed in San Francisco 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", perceived by many listeners to be a reference to drug use. In actuality, it referred to The Byrds' 1965 plane trip to England."Eight Miles High: Historic Home Movie Rediscovered", retrieved November 30, 2015
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.W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), , p. 223. Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and The Doors' Strange Days.J. E. Perone, Music of the Counterculture Era American History Through Music (Westwood, CT: Greenwood, 2004), , p. 24. 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.
Surf rock
In the early 1960s, one of the most popular forms of rock and roll was Surf Rock, which was characterized by being nearly entirely instrumental and by heavy use of reverb on the guitars. The spring reverb featured in Fender amplifiers 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 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.
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.R. Shuker, Popular Music: the Key Concepts (Abingdon: Routledge, 2nd edn., 2005), , p. 140.E. J. Abbey, Garage Rock and its Roots: Musical Rebels and the Drive for Individuality (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006), , pp. 74–6. 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 Seeds) 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.N. Campbell, American Youth Cultures (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2nd edn., 2004), , p. 213.
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),W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), , p. 213. the Trashmen (Minneapolis)J. Austen, TV-a-Go-Go: Rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol (Chicago IL: Chicago Review Press, 2005), , p. 19. and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana).S. Waksman, This Ain't the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk (Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 2009), , p. 116. 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 subgenre of garage rock.W. Osgerby, "'Chewing out a rhythm on my bubble gum': the teenage astheic and genealogies of American punk", in R. Sabin, ed., Punk Rock: So What?: the Cultural Legacy of Punk (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), , p. 159.