Lecture
60s music history
February 11
When the British invasion began, countless bands flooded into America after the
Beatles arrived. I remember losing track of all the bands that were coming from
England: The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Rolling Stones, The Animals, Peter
(Asher) and Gordon (Waller), Herman's hermit's, The Who first US Tour in 1967),
etc. etc.
For them, America represented an immense commercial opportunity. The sheer
size of the marketplace represented by America's teenagers was bigger than
anything the British bands had seen back home.
By 1964 America's teenagers were ready for a brand-new sound. In fact they
were probably hungrier for it than even they realized themselves.
Here are some reasons why this is true.
Between 1959 to 1964, America's pop music marketplace was in a kind of "great
wilderness." The trailblazers for classic rock into the spotlight were gone. By
1957 Little Richard entered the ministry, Elvis Presley was drafted into the Army
and served mostly out of the public eye between 1958 and 1960, Chuck Berry
(1962) and Jerry Lee Lewis (1958) both in trouble due to scandal; Berry was
convicted in 1962 of violations of the Mann Act – transportation of a minor across
state lines; Lewis alienated many in the music industry because he married his
first cousin once removed. And sadly Buddy Holly has been killed in a plane
crash in February 1959.
So when the British invasion began, the US pop music marketplace could still be
considered Beach boys territory. Certainly, there also were other music
performers at work in America in the years between 1959 and 1964
(many were genuinely talented people like Neil Sadaka, Carole King and others)
But the years between 1959 and 1964 saw the Beach boys rise as a genuinely
talented, authentically creative American band.
At the same time, however, from 1959 to 1964 America's pop music scene also
saw the rise of something a lot less exciting (but still commercially viable) known
as schlock rock. Schlock rock was a watered-down sweetened , scrubbed ,
cleaned up trimmed & groomed , buffed up version of the rock 'n roll that had
exploded Onto the pop music scene in the mid 50s.
The major record labels recognized that the early classic rock and rollers had a
great deal of appeal among America's teenagers. Little Richard and Chuck Berry
and others were considered unconventional and they worried the recording
establishment; they made parents nervous. So, in an effort to reach the
mainstream marketplace that was beyond the narrow segment that was attracted
to the " saucier" classic rock sound, the major labels hired and trained and
cultivated talent that would perform this bland and derivative version of rock 'n roll.
It was their effort to get into the marketplace that the early more authentic and
scarier classic rock stars had created.
And in that respect it is now clear that the blues players who inspired the Rolling
Stones and the Beatles and other of the great British bands were not from the
schlock rock era, at all, but from the mid 50s 1955 to 1959. B.B. King, Muddy
Waters, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and even Elvis
all were major inspiration for the British bands.
It is in this five-year period where you find the music that inspired much of the
music underlying the British Invasion. And of course, the people who defined
the classic rock of the mid 50s were, themselves, inspired by the earlier masters
of the Delta blues, like Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Charlie Patton, howling
Wolf, Ellmore James, the list goes on and on.