MUSI 2007 W12
The British Invasion and
Psychedelia
• The phrase “British Invasion” is often used to describe the
surge of popularity of UK acts in the US (and internationally)
in the period around 1964-1966.
• Before that time there was virtually no presence at all of UK
acts in US pop charts.
• There was no stylistic homogeneity between British Invasion
acts. The term included Merseybeat groups (defined later),
blues and R+B groups, pop groups, soul groups, etc.
• One thing they all had in common was that these tended to be
UK artists who had been strongly influenced by US styles,
and who sold versions of that music back to Americans.
• One irony here is that British Invasion groups often played an
unintentional role in damaging the career of the US artists and
styles that had influenced them.
• We’re going to look at two particular styles that were strongly
represented in the early British Invasion: Merseybeat
(centered on Liverpool and represented by early Beatles), and
London electric blues (represented by Eric Clapton and The
Bluesbreakers).
• Before doing this, we need to talk about two pre-1960s styles
which were strongly influential on the first wave of British
Invasion bands: electric Chicago blues, and Skiffle.
• Although there was a distinctive style of acoustic blues
associated with Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, when
people say “Chicago Blues” they usually mean the electric
style which developed in the 1940s.
• In many ways, Chicago blues can be thought of as electrified
delta blues. Although as musicians began to explore the
unique sounds made available through amplification, the
music changed to reflect those resources.
• Chess Records was founded in 1948, and became the
leading label for electric Chicago blues.
• Listen to this example, and ask yourself: (i) how is it similar
and different to the acoustic blues we’ve heard? (ii) what
specific musical effects are made possible here only because
the music is amplified/electric?
• Audio: Muddy Waters “Hoochie Coochie Man” (1952)
• Some answers to the questions on the last slide include...
• Heavy emphasis on the riff, and “four on the floor” rhythmic
profile.
• Fairly loud bass (electric bass instead of upright acoustic).
• Distortion (on voice and harmonica, not just guitars).
• Ability to make new sound combinations as amplified quiet
instruments can blend better with louder ones (notice, for
example, how the harmonica dominates over the electric
guitar).
• In general, Chicago artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin’
Wolf developed very macho, self-assertive personas, in part
because these were already common in blues culture and in
part because they suited the louder and more aggressive tone
of the electric music. These personas, in turn, became very
appealing to young British musicians (especially boys), who
emulated this kind of machismo in the emerging rock culture.
• We’ll talk shortly about the influence of US blues on UK
musicians in the 1960s, but first we need to look at a UKbased style that appeared in the 1950s: Skiffle.
• The word “skiffle” had been used in the US in the 1920s and
1930s to refer to dance music played on homemade or very
simple folk instruments (washtub bass, jugs, spoons, etc). In
the UK it came to refer to a movement of young musicians
playing fast, enthusiastic versions of US folk songs more
generally.
• The most prominent figure of UK skiffle was Lonnie Donegan.
• Audio: Lonnie Donegan “Rock Island Line” (1956).
• Although this performance is based on US folk songs, it
doesn’t sound like any US artist up to that point. What are the
major differences?
• Skiffle was appealing to young and/or amateur musicians
because the instruments were inexpensive, it was cheerfully
energetic, and you could play it with a minimum of training.
(Having said that, professional musicians also frequently
played skiffle once it became popular).
• As a result, many musicians who would become important UK
rock figures in the 1960s began their careers in skiffle bands.
Some examples include: The Beatles, Jimmy Page, Van
Morrison, etc.
• In general, it was common for people in the UK to be
fascinated with images and myths of the US. Skiffle is one
example where US folk music caught the attention of UK
artists, and was transformed when they tried to perform it.
Another example is the electric blues scene that began to
develop in London in the early 1960s. And unlike skiffle,
British blues musicians in turn had a major influence on
musical trends in the US.
• The London scene of the early 1960s evolved partly from
interest in US blues culture, and also partly as a reaction
against the poppier sounds coming from Liverpool at around
the same time (to be looked at soon).
• Many British blues fans were purists and in a way elitists –
they studied the history of the music extensively, they had
large collections full of rare and obscure records, and they
tended to favour performances which stuck as close as
possible to the sound of older US artists. There was a
generally anti-pop attitude, and an effort to appear serious
and bohemian.
• The scene was especially influenced by electric Chicago
blues and by acoustic delta blues. These influences were
partly musical, and partly a matter of image – young British
males could project many of their fantasies about power and
sexuality onto myths about black Americans.
• However, no matter how much an artist tries to duplicate
someone else’s style, it’s almost inevitable that they end up
transforming it. One example of an artist who began as a strict
copyist but then developed a significant new style of his own
is Eric Clapton.
• Clapton was on the London scene from the early 1960s. He
spent some time in The Yardbirds, but left because he felt
they were straying from a “pure” blues sound. In 1965 he
joined John Mayall’s Blues Breakers, and although he was
only with them until 1966 it is here that his original style really
began to come to the forefront (even though he joined the
band because they were very traditional in their approach).
• So, listen to this and ask: how is Clapton’s guitar in this
performance very different from most of what we’ve heard so
far (not only in its sound, but also in the role it plays)?
• Audio: Eric Clapton with The Bluesbreakers “All Your
Love” (1966).
• Clapton is maybe the first of the rock “guitar heroes” in the full
sense. It was around this time that graffiti saying “Clapton is
God” began springing up around London.
• Clapton’s sound is totally dependent on not only the electric
guitar, but also the sound of his particular amplifier. Notice
how the distortion increases sustain (provides compression),
which lets him get much more expression out of techniques
like vibrato, bending, and controlled feedback.
• Like Leo Fender in California, the British amplifier builder Jim
Marshall worked closely with musicians like Clapton to
develop gear that would meet their needs. In the case of
Marshall, his amplifiers were increasingly specialized in
making smooth and powerful distorted tones (which is ironic,
since almost all amplifier design up to that point had been
meant to avoid distortion). At this point it becomes obvious
that “the instrument” is the guitar and the amplifier, rather than
just the guitar.
• Probably the best-known group to emerge from the London
blues scene was The Rolling Stones.
• They originally started as another band that sought to copy
US blues and R+B. But when they began to diverge from that
model, they innovated in several directions at once...
• DVD: Rolling Stones on the T.A.M.I. SHOW (1964)
• Image: While The Beatles were friendly and unthreatening,
the Stones adopted a more decadent image. They didn’t hide
their drug use or sexual activity, and consistently projected a
tough and relatively unapproachable persona.
• Original Songwriting: Before the mid-1960s, it wasn’t
considered particularly important for rock musicians to write
their own material. But by the mid-1960s, rock musicians
needed to do this in order to be taken seriously. Why is that?
In any event, the Rolling Stones and The Beatles were
leaders in this trend, although in both cases the motives were
as much economic as anything else.
• Development of the “rock” sound: When the Stones began
to diverge from R+B and blues copying, they were important
to the development of a rock sound (as was Dylan, discussed
last week). Listen to the following, and think about all the
ways it does this, with special attention to: rhythm, lyrics,
timbre, and formal structure:
• Audio: The Rolling Stones “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
(1965)
• One important feature here is the use of a fuzz tone on the
guitar. Along with the outboard reverb units we discussed a
few weeks ago, this is one of the earliest examples of a guitar
effect (and this song is one of the earliest examples of fuzz on
a widely distributed record).
• One important question: how would we describe the mood or
purpose/message of these lyrics? And how does that relate to
the newly-emerging rock image and attitude?
• Along with London electric blues, the other most successful
British Invasion style was Merseybeat, named after the
Mersey river in Liverpool. It was also often just called Beat
Music.
• Beat groups were influenced by blues and R+B, but were also
especially interested in more pop-related styles, especially
Brill Building pop and soul music. And although some of them
had more streetwise images, for the most parts they had a
friendlier, more cheerful image than the London groups. This
is ironic, because in fact the Beat groups were generally from
a more working-class background than the London groups.
• The defining group in this style was the early Beatles. They
had evolved into the familiar version of the band by 1960-61,
and were a phenomenon in the UK by 1963.
• However, for a long time Capitol US, which was an affiliate of
their label EMI, would not release Beatles product in the US.
Why might that be?
• In early 1964 they were finally released by Capitol in the US,
and they made their first US visit. They were an immediate
sensation, and Beatlemania was in full swing internationally.
• Throughout this early period (about 1961-1964), The Beatles
were a great example of the Mersey Beat sound. And they
were also one of the groups to make the crucial move towards
writing their own material.
• Audio: The Beatles “Please Please Me” (1963).
• Elements of the Beat sound here include: folk influence (from
skiffle), catchy melody, concise pop song form, very jangly
guitar sounds and emphasis on cymbals in the drum kit (a
bright sound overall), simple lyrics with a typically pop
romance theme, and yet at the same time a certain degree of
toughness in the sound (volume, distortion).
• By 1966, The Beatles were becoming tired of playing for huge
audiences, and were also experiencing some public relations
problems (especially when Lennon remarked that The Beatles
had become “more popular than Jesus”). So in that year they
decided to retire from live performance, and to mostly limit
their activity to the recording studio.
• This allowed them to make recordings which could not
possibly have been played live given the technology of the
day. Up to that point, records were usually thought of as
“records” of a live performance – the idea that the record is
more like sculpture (an art form that isn’t about live
performance but is more about slowly building up an object
over a long period of time) was somewhat radical.
• Doing this allowed the Beatles to become leaders in two
experimental branches of rock music: “art rock” (where rock
tries to be more like classical music), and psychedelic rock
(where experimentation is crucial).
• Although The Beatles are usually portrayed as the leading
rock experimentalists of the mid-1960s, they did have peers
and competition. And interestingly, for a while one of their
biggest friendly rivalries was with The Beach Boys.
• Brian Wilson, the leader of The Beach Boys, became
increasingly interested in radical studio experiments in the
mid-1960s. Like The Beatles, he began to make records that
didn’t sound at all like anything that could be played live, but
were more like classical music in their textural complexity.
• Audio: The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” (1966).
• This song took at least five months to record, and includes
dozens of unusual fragments (e.g., fuzz bass, clarinet, cello,
and a theremin-like electronic instrument).
• It is also a good example of what we could call sectional form,
which relates it closely to certain classical music forms.
• Question: what details are “psychedelic” in this record?
• The early psychedelic style was most strongly associated with
the hippie counterculture centered in the Haight-Ashbury
neighbourhood of San Francisco. An important psychedelic
scene also developed just a little later in London.
• In the 1950s, interest slowly began to grow in psychedelic
drugs, partly because students were being exposed to them in
government tests. The new psychedelic sensibility became
the basis for a subculture by around 1965. The peak of public
visibility for the movement was the “Summer Of Love” in
1967.
• Although drugs had been part of popular culture for a long
time, psychedelic rock (also called “acid rock”) was the first
style of music which actively sought to depict a particular drug
experience, and/or to enhance it.
• Let’s listen to a few examples of psychedelic rock, and talk
about the particular features which relate to the psychedelic
drug experience.
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Audio: Jefferson Airplane “White Rabbit” (1967).
Discuss psychedelic features.
Audio: The Grateful Dead “Dark Star” (1969).
Again, discuss psychedelic features.
• In general, psychedelic rock often included such features as...
• An interest in “Eastern” musical devices (extended
improvisation, drones, scales outside of the Western
major/minor). This was both for sonic and for philosophical
reasons.
• Extensive experimentation with sound, either finding brand
new sounds or finding ways to make old ones unfamiliar.
• Emphasis on long group improvisations (especially in the
case of The Grateful Dead).
• Lyrical references to childhood literature.
• Psychedelic rock was often called “head music,” not only
because of the meaning of “head” as a drug person, but also
because it was often listened to while sitting down, and/or
alone, in a manner more like classical music.
• This is one way that psychedelic rock and “art rock”
overlapped. In many cases, with groups like The Beatles, the
psychedelic elements and the “art” elements were difficult to
distinguish, or were one and the same. (Although not all “art
rock” bands were psychedelic).
• In general, “art rock” was a phrase that was used to indicate
that some rock music was trying to be more like classical
music. Some specific ideas that often went with this...
• That it was music for listening rather than dancing.
• That is was experimental, about finding new ideas.
• That it was complex and difficult to compose and/or perform.
• That it deserved to be taken “seriously.”
• Because the Beatles became interested in studio
experimentation and in psychedelia at the same time (around
1965-1966), and because they were already extremely
famous, they became important popularizers for both trends
(art rock and psychedelic rock).
• Audio: The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” (1966).
• Discuss exactly how this was made, and why it couldn’t have
been played live.