The 60's

Hedonism Or Hell

Wild rock replaces the Rockabilly style of music early in the 1960's with the British invasion around 1964.

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."

Well 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). This meant that American groups like the Knickerbockers, Beau Brummels, Buckinghams, Sir Douglas Quintet, and Turtles all dressed and sounded like the British invaders. Not surprising when you consider that the Beatles had five singles in the Billboard Hot 100 List.

Then Folk Music arrived in '65. Bob Dylan was the brave person to first introduce Folk Music to the American mass music market. He appeared at the Newport Folk Festival but his style of music did not go down well with the public and he was booed off stage.

However this brave first attempt paid off when the Byrds played Dylans song Mr Tambourine Man and the public went wild.

Between 1965 and 1967 many experiments in music took place. Established groups in 1965 mainly were studio based.

However in 1967 all the major bands embraced the 60's drugs culture.

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. Sgt. Pepper became the anthem for 1967's "Summer of Love;" it was the height of flower power, progressive music that seemed to influence the youth movement's naive sense that a new age was about to dawn.