Rock music

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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. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources.
Musically, rock has centred around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
By the late 1960s a number of distinct rock music sub-genres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, and jazz-rock fusion, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock influenced by the counter-cultural psychedelic scene. New genres that emerged from this scene included progressive rock, which extended the artistic elements; glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style, and the diverse and enduring major sub-genre of heavy metal, which emphasized volume, power and speed. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock both intensified and reacted against some of these trends to produce a raw, energetic form of music characterized by overt political and social critiques. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of other sub-genres, including New Wave, post-punk and eventually the alternative rock movement. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop, and indie rock. Further fusion sub-genres have since emerged, including pop punk, rap rock, and rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post-punk revival at the beginning of the new millennium.
Rock music has also embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major sub-cultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the "hippie" counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.
Contents [hide]
1 Characteristics
2 Background (1950s–early 1960s)
2.1 Rock and roll
2.2 The "in-between years"
2.3 Surf music
3 Emergence (mid- to late 1960s)
3.1 The British Invasion
3.2 Garage rock
3.3 Pop rock
3.4 Blues-rock
3.5 Folk rock
3.6 Psychedelic rock
4 Progression (late 1960s to mid-1970s)
4.1 Roots rock
4.2 Progressive rock
4.3 Jazz rock
4.4 Glam rock
4.5 Soft rock, hard rock and early heavy metal
4.6 Christian rock
5 Punk and its aftermath (mid-1970s to the 1980s)
5.1 Punk rock
5.2 New Wave
5.3 Post-punk
5.4 New waves and genres in heavy metal
5.5 Heartland rock
5.6 The emergence of alternative rock
6 Alternative goes mainstream (the 1990s)
6.1 Grunge
6.2 Britpop
6.3 Post-grunge
6.4 Pop punk
6.5 Indie rock
6.6 Alternative metal, rap rock and nu metal
6.7 Post-Britpop
7 The new millennium (the 2000s)
7.1 Post-hardcore and emo
7.2 Garage rock/post-punk revival
7.3 Contemporary heavy metal, metalcore and retro metal
7.4 Digital electronic rock
8 Social impact
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
[edit]Characteristics



Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2006, showing a quartet lineup for a rock band of a lead vocalist, guitarist, bassist, and drummer
The sound of rock is traditionally centered around the electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularization of rock and roll.[1] The sound of the electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by the electric bass guitar pioneered in jazz music in the same era,[2] and percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals.[3] This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of others, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers.[4] A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group and typically consists of between two and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer and occasionally that of keyboard player or other instrumentalist.[5]
Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four.[6] Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions.[6] Rock songs from the mid-1960s onwards often used the verse-chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model.[7] Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock.[8] Because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition."[9]


A simple 4/4 drum pattern common in rock music  Play (help·info)
Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes in addition to romantic love: including sex, rebellion against the establishment, social concerns and life styles.[6] These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm and blues.[10] The predominance of white, male and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted[11] and rock has been seen as an appropriation of black musical forms for a young, white and large male audience.[12] As a result it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics.[13]
Since the term rock began to be used in preference to rock and roll from the mid 1960s, it has often been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development.[14] According to Simon Frith "rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere".[14] In the new millennium the term rock has sometimes been used as a blanket term including forms such as pop music, reggae music, soul music, and even hip hop, with which it has been influenced but often contrasted through much of its history.[15]
[edit]Background (1950s–early 1960s)

[edit]Rock and roll
Main article: Rock and roll
See also: Origins of rock and roll and Rockabilly


Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for Jailhouse Rock in 1957
The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a mixing together of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country and western.[16] In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music.[17]
Debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. One contender is "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm), recorded by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951.[18] Four years later, Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" (1955) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture.[19]
It has been argued that "That's All Right (Mama)" (1954), Elvis Presley's first single for Sun Records in Memphis, was the first rock and roll record,[20] but, at the same time, Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle & Roll", later covered by Haley, was already at the top of the Billboard R&B charts. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent.[18] Soon rock and roll was the major force in American record sales and crooners, such as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, and Patti Page, who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed.[21]
Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct sub-genres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in the mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley.[22] In contrast doo wop placed an emphasis on multi-part vocal harmonies and meaningless backing lyrics (from which the genre later gained its name), which were usually supported with light instrumentation and had its origins in 1930s and '40s African American vocal groups.[23] Acts like The Crows, The Penguins, The El Dorados and The Turbans all scored major hits, and groups like The Platters, with songs including "The Great Pretender" (1955), and The Coasters with humorous songs like "Yakety Yak" (1958), ranked among the most successful rock and roll acts of the period.[24] The era also saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray, and Scotty Moore.[25]
In the United Kingdom, the trad jazz and folk movements brought visiting blues music artists to Britain.[26] Lonnie Donegan's 1955 hit "Rock Island Line" was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon's The Quarrymen, moved on to play rock and roll.[27]
Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become a preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the initial rock and roll era had come to an end.[18]
[edit]The "in-between years"
Main article: Rock and roll
See also: Doo Wop, British rock and roll, and Soul music


Chubby Checker in 2005
The period of the later 1950s and early 1960s, between the end of the initial period of innovation and what became known in the USA as the "British Invasion", has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible.[28][29] While early rock and roll, particularly through the advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the Twist dance craze of the early '60s, mainly benefiting the career of Chubby Checker.[29] Having died down in the late 1950s, doo wop enjoyed a revival in the same period, with hits for acts like The Marcels, The Capris, Maurice Williams and Shep and the Limelights.[24] The rise of girl groups like The Chantels, The Shirelles and The Crystals placed an emphasis on harmonies and polished production that was in contrast to earlier rock and roll.[30] Some of the most significant girl group hits were products of the Brill Building Sound, named after the block in New York where many songwriters were based, which included the number 1 hit for the Shirelles "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" in 1960, penned by the partnership of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.[31]
Cliff Richard had the first British rock and roll hit with "Move It", effectively ushering in the sound of British rock.[32] At the start of the 1960s, his backing group The Shadows was the most successful group recording instrumentals.[33] While rock 'n' roll was fading into lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances, heavily influenced by blues-rock pioneers like Alexis Korner, were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts.[34]
Also significant was the advent of soul music as a major commercial force. Developing out of rhythm and blues with a re-injection of gospel music and pop, led by pioneers like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke from the mid-1950s, by the early '60s figures like Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder were dominating the R&B charts and breaking through into the main pop charts, helping to accelerate their desegregation, while Motown and Stax/Volt Records were becoming major forces in the record industry.[35] All of these elements, including the close harmonies of doo wop and girl groups, the carefully crafted song-writing of the Brill Building Sound and the polished production values of soul, have been seen as influencing the Merseybeat sound, particularly the early work of The Beatles, and through them the form of later rock music.[36] Some historians of music have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including the electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek, and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector.[29]
[edit]Surf music
Main article: Surf music


The Beach Boys performing in 1964
The instrumental rock and roll pioneered by performers such as Duane Eddy, Link Wray, and The Ventures was developed by Dick Dale who added distinctive "wet" reverb, rapid alternate picking, as well as Middle Eastern and Mexican influences, producing the regional hit "Let's Go Trippin'" in 1961 and launching the surf music craze. Like Dale and his Del-Tones, most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs, the Challengers, and Eddie & the Showmen.[37] The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with "Pipeline" in 1963 and probably the best known surf tune was 1963's "Wipe Out", by the Surfaris, which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965.[38]
The growing popularity of the genre led groups from other areas to try their hand. These included The Astronauts, from Boulder, Colorado, The Trashmen, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, who had a number 4 hit with "Surfin Bird" in 1964 and The Rivieras from South Bend, Indiana, who reached number 5 in 1964 with "California Sun".[39] The Atlantics, from Sydney, Australia, made a significant contribution to the genre, with their hit "Bombora" (1963).[39] European instrumental bands around this time generally focused more on the more rock and roll style played by The Shadows, but The Dakotas, who were the British backing band for Merseybeat singer Billy J. Kramer, gained some attention as surf musicians with "Cruel Sea" (1963), which was later covered by American instrumental surf bands, including The Ventures.[40]
Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal music, particularly the work of the Beach Boys, formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen.[39] Their first chart hit, "Surfin'" in 1962 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze a national phenomenon.[41] From 1963 the group began to leave surfing behind as subject matter as Brian Wilson became their major composer and producer, moving on to the more general themes of male adolescence including cars and girl in songs like "Fun, Fun, Fun" (1964) and "California Girls" (1965).[41] Other vocal surf acts followed, including one-hit wonders like Ronny & the Daytonas with "G. T. O." (1964) and Rip Chords with "Hey Little Cobra", which both reached the top ten, but the only other act to achieve sustained success with the formula were Jan & Dean, who had a number 1 hit with "Surf City" (co-written with Brian Wilson) in 1963.[39] The surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964.[39] Only the Beach Boys were able to sustain a creative career into the mid-1960s, producing a string of hit singles and albums, including the highly regarded Pet Sounds in 1966, which made them, arguably, the only American rock or pop act that could rival The Beatles.[41]
[edit]Emergence (mid- to late 1960s)

[edit]The British Invasion
Main article: British Invasion
See also: Beat music and British rhythm and blues


The Beatles arriving in New York in January 1964 at the beginning of the British Invasion
By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like The Beatles, Gerry & The Pacemakers and The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers, Herman's Hermits and The Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including soul, rhythm and blues and surf music,[42] initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like The Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast,[43] and particularly those from London like The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds, were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music.[44] Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British rhythm and blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in the early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies.[45] By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts.[46]
In 1964 the Beatles achieved a breakthrough to mainstream popularity in the United States. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was the band's first number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, spending 7 weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on the chart.[47][48] Their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) often is considered a milestone in American pop culture. The Beatles went on to become the biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands.[45] During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with 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 all having one or more number 1 singles.[47] Other major acts that were part of the invasion included The Kinks and The Dave Clark Five.[49][50]
The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success.[51] In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols, that had dominated the American charts in the late 1950s and '60s.[52] 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.[53] 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.[23]
[edit]Garage rock
Main article: Garage rock


The D-Men (later The Fifth Estate) in 1964
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.[54][55] Garage rock songs revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" being particularly common.[56] The lyrics and delivery were more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming.[54] 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.[56] The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound.[57]
The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by The Wailers and "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages.[58] By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise),[59] the Trashmen (Minneapolis)[60] and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana).[61] Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached the Billboard Hot 100.[62] 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.[63]
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.[56] Thousands of garage bands were extant in the USA and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits.[56] Examples include: "The Witch" by Tacoma's The Sonics (1965), "Where You Gonna Go" by Detroit's Unrelated Segments (1967), "Girl I Got News for You" by Miami's Birdwatchers (1966) and "1–2–5" by Montreal's The Haunted. 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.[56] By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft.[56] New styles had evolved to replace garage rock (including blues-rock, progressive rock and country rock).[56] 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.[64]
[edit]Pop rock
Main article: Pop rock
See also: Pop music and Power pop


The Everly Brothers in 2006
The term pop has been used since the early 20th century to refer to popular music in general, but from the mid-1950s it began to be used for a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll.[65][66] In the aftermath of the British Invasion, from about 1967, it was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, to describe a form that was more commercial, ephemeral and accessible.[14] In contrast rock music was seen as focusing on extended works, particularly albums, was often associated with particular sub-cultures (like the counter-culture), placed an emphasis on artistic values and "authenticity", stressed live performance and instrumental or vocal virtuosity and was often seen as encapsulating progressive developments rather than simply reflecting existing trends.[14][65][66][67]
Nevertheless much pop and rock music has been very similar in sound, instrumentation and even lyrical content. The terms "pop-rock" and "power pop" have been used to describe more commercially successful music that uses elements from, or the form of, rock music.[68] Pop-rock has been defined as an "upbeat variety of rock music represented by artists such as Elton John, Paul McCartney, The Everly Brothers, Rod Stewart, Chicago, and Peter Frampton."[69] In contrast, self-published music reviewer George Starostin defines it as a subgenre of pop music that uses catchy pop songs that are mostly guitar-based. Starostin argues that most of what is traditionally called "power pop" falls into the pop rock subgenre and that the lyrical content of pop rock is "normally secondary to the music."[70] The term power pop was coined by Pete Townshend of The Who in 1966, but not much used until it was applied to bands like Badfinger in the 1970s, who proved some of the most commercially successful of the period.[71] Throughout its history there have been rock acts that have used elements of pop, and pop artists who have used rock music as a basis for their work, or striven for rock "authenticity".
[edit]Blues-rock
Main article: Blues-rock
See also: British blues


Eric Clapton performing in Barcelona in 1974
Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts, the impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues, including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds.[72] British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early '60s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly, who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson.[73] Increasingly they adopted a loud amplified sound, often centred around the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues, particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated.[74] The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream, combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis.[34]
The other key focus for British blues was around John Mayall who formed the Bluesbreakers, whose members included Eric Clapton (after his departure from The Yardbirds) and later Peter Green. Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States.[75] Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos, followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues-rock into the mainstream.[74] Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre.[74] In the late '60s Jeff Beck, also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues-rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band, The Jeff Beck Group.[74] The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page, who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin. Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs.[74]
In America blues-rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack,[76] but the genre began to take off in the mid-'60s as acts 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.[74] Blues-rock bands from the southern states, like Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ZZ Top, incorporated country elements into their style to produce distinctive Southern rock.[77]
Early blues-rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be a major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience had begun to move away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia.[78] By the 1970s blues-rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, and the lines between blues-rock and hard rock "were barely visible",[78] as bands began recording rock-style albums.[78] The genre was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers,[74] but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues-rock began to slip out of the mainstream.[79]
[edit]Folk rock
Main article: Folk rock
See also: Electric folk


Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in 1963
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.[80] In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics.[80] In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters.[81] 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,[82] but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences.[83]
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[84] and the Beatles "I'm a Loser" (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan.[85] 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.[83] 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 a major element in the sound of the genre.[83] 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.[83] 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" (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits.[83]
These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention.[83] In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments.[86] This electric folk was taken up by bands including Pentangle, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band, which turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band, Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel, to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s.[87]
Folk rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in a variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock.[88] 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".[83][89]