This course, part 1 of a 2-course sequence, examines the history of rock, primarily as it unfolded in the United States, from the days before rock (pre-1955) to the end of the 1960s. This course covers the music of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and many more artists, with an emphasis both on cultural context and on the music itself. We will also explore how developments in the music business and in technology helped shape the ways in which styles developed. Rock emerged in the mid 1950s as a blending of mainstream pop, rhythm and blues, and country and western--styles that previously had remained relatively separate. This new style became the music of the emerging youth culture and was often associated with teen rebellion. We will follow the story of how this rowdy first wave of rock and roll (1955-59) was tamed in the early 60s but came roaring back with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and then went psychedelic by the end of the decade.
Folk Rock and the Byrds
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From the course by University of Rochester
History of Rock, Part One
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From the lesson
American Responses (1965-67)
Dylan, the Byrds and folk rock. Garage bands in the northwest. Sonny and Cher and the legacy of Phil Spector. TV rock, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Monkees. Music in New York and Los Angeles.
Meet the Instructors
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
Bob Dylan was an important figure in the American response during the
mid-1960s, but he certainly wasn't the only one that was, that was making
a difference in sort of fending off, if you will, the, the
British acts who were, who were so dominating the charts during this period.
often together with the story that we've heard about Bob
Dylan the summer of 65 the Newport Folk Festival Like a
Rolling Stone and all that went that, with that.
We have to talk about the music of The Byrds, because it's sort of
intimate, well in many ways it's intimately
related with what was going on with Dylan.
The Byrds started by Roger McGuinn, a guitarist, along
with David Crosby, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke.
That group McGuinn and Crosby emerged out of the Greenwich Village folk scene as,
as many of the other musicians did.
But at this point in time, there's kind of a, the beginnings
of a real migration toward the west coast in the music business.
In fact, between the beginning of the 60s and the end of the 60s, you can really
see the music business in this country really, in
large part, migrate from New York to Los Angeles.
There is a lot of natural attractions to Los Angeles.
One of them is the television and the movie business were out there.
And so, there was a lot of sophisticated people
out there who involve the production, there
were good recording studios, this kind of thing.
and so McGuinn makes his way out to LA, starts doing his folk routine, his, has
folk act, doing traditional folk songs, and also playing songs, Beatles songs
[LAUGH]
in his, in his folk act which I guess was
a little bit a little bit strange for the day.
but you could already see the beginning of, of McGuinn
wanting to go in the direction of what the Beatles did.
their first, the, the first collections of, the
first version of The Birds was called The Beefeaters.
And they used to have a song that they
did called Mr Tambourine Man, which was a Dylan song.
But it's a Dylan song that Dylan hadn't yet recorded.
he'd done a recording of it.
And as the story goes, Rambling Jack Elliott
had been on the, the, the recording they'd done.
Something about the playing on it was out of tune and they decided not to use it.
But the guy that was producing The Byrds at
the time, Terry Melcher got a hold of this recording.
And The Byrds heard it, and so they started
working up this version of Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man.
Initially doing it with an acoustic twelve string, very much
like you know, a kind of folk revival group from
the first half of the 1960s.
New Christie Mitchells or something like that.
but then A Hard Day's Night came out in the summer of 1965.
And so the guys from The Birds went to see A Hard Day's Night.
First, like everybody else, they were totally enraptured by the
Beatles and Beatlemania and all was going, this is fantastic.
This is just what we want to do.
We want to be just like these guys.
But they noticed that in that guitar, in
that Movie, George Harrison is playing a Rickenbacker twelve
string guitar.
Now McGuinn had been playing a twelve string acoustic
guitar, but this Rickenbacker electric twelve string had six pegs.
If you looked at it straight on, had six pegs
just like the normal guitar, but if you turned it
sideways, you would see that there were six more pegs
for the extra six strings that added up to twelve.
And there's George Harrison playing that
Roger McGuinn thought that's fantastic, that's
what I'm going to do, I'm going to get a guitar just like that.
Well, it turned out that Rickenbacker guitars
were made right there in Southern California.
He was able
to go a music store, and, as the story goes, trade in like, I don't
know, an acoustic twelve-string and a banjo or
something like that for a brand-new Rickenbacker guitar.
They decided to do their version of Mr.
Tambourine Man with that Rickenbacker electric 12 string guitar.
And that jingly jangly sound of folk rock, which has been
you know, emblematic ever since in, in, the pop music business.
You think about groups like REM, Tom Petty, all that sort of jingle jangle.
It all comes
from that moment in 1965 when Roger McGuinn picks up to the Hard
Days Night guitar, and you know, puts it on a Bob Dylan song.
Right.
And plays a little introduction that he says is, is
influenced by Jesu Joy Of Man's Desiring by J.S Bach.
Puts all these things together and creates this hit single Mr.
Tambourine Man which goes to number one.
Released in April of 1965, so just at the same time as Like a Rolling, Like
a Rolling Stone is on the charts.
We've also got Mr Tambourine Man two Bob
Dylan songs interestingly one song written by Bob
Dylan but not performed by him and one
song written by Bob Dylan and performed by him.
Sort of the two sides of what Dylan's career had been up to that point.
an interesting element of that song Mr Tambourine Man, is not only that it
combines a Beatles' guitar a Dylan song and this Bach influenced introduction.
But also that it uses the same studio band
as had worked with Phil Spector in, in his records.
And in fact, it was some of the same guys who'd been
on a Beach Boys session called, for a song called Don't Worry Baby.
And when they were putting together Mr.
Tambourine Man, these studio musicians, remembered
this and, Terry Melcher said, can
you do the beat, can you do the feel from The Beach Boys.
So they took the Beach Boys feel
from Don't Worry Baby and put it together with that McGuinn
already had on the tune and that's what became Mr Tambourine Man.
You notice I'm talking about a studio band.
The only person actually playing on Mr.
Tambourine Man is Roger McGuinn from The Byrds, the rest are all studio musicians.
The other Byrds members are singing, but in a couple years, when we talk about the
music of The Monkeys, well then, well, when
Monkey's music comes along in a couple of years.
we'll talk about how people that
were so inauthentic that the Monkeys weren't even playing on their own records.
But it turns out when it comes to Mr Tambourine Man, an iconic folk rock hit of
unquestioned authenticity, it turns out that the, most
of the musicians on the recording were studio musicians.
Nevertheless, after that the, the Byrds played on their own records
and had subsequent hits with All I Really Want to Do.
There's a fun story which has to do with Cher
that I'll, that I'll tell you about in just a minute.
Turn, Turn, Turn a Pete Seger song which again
went to number one in the fall of 65.
And Eight Miles High which is a song that mm, McGuinn said is
about a cross-country airline flight which would be
seven miles high, but eight miles, that, that didn't scan
so well as a lyric, so it became eight miles high.
But of course, Eight Miles High, everyone thought they were drug lyrics.
And so, in fact, the song only got as high as number 14 in the Spring
of 1966 and got pushed off the charts because a word
went round to radio stations that it was a drug song.
It's also very much influenced by the music
of John Coltrane, that, there's a guitar lick on
the 12 string at the very beginning, which is
a quote directly from a John Coltrane track, India.
I think it is, so that's the story with the Byrds is, taking this fold thing as
[UNKNOWN]
was doing, and really sort of turning into that jingly-jangly sound.
Speaking of the jingle-jangle that I mentioned before,
in the previous video that we would that, that,
the guy, the producer Tom Wilson would become
an important member, an important part of this discussion.
let's talk a little bit about Simon Garfunkel Simon and Garfunkel
and how, how all of that how all works out for them.
Another important group here coming out of New
York City and actually staying in New York City.
Well, it turns
out that, that Simon and Garfunkel had actually been a kind of
[UNKNOWN]
brothers kind of group back in the 50s called Tom and Jerry.
They had a mild hit with the song called Hey Schoolgirl.
they even appeared on the American band stand, right,
as a kind of teenage version of of the
[UNKNOWN].
But then the, they you know, they finish school and,
and did other kinds of things and they came back as
part of folk revival as Simon and Garfunkel doing totally acoustic
music released an album in 1964 called Wednesday Morning, 3 am.
It kind of flopped it has a song on it called the sounds
of silence, but it's not the version that you are used to hearing.
Anyway, the album flops. Paul Simon goes off to England,
to, to sing.
I think Art Garfunkel goes to graduate school, whatever.
And so they're really not doing Simon and Garfunkel at the time.
But when Mr Tambourine Man hits, and when the Dylan tune hits in the summer of 65.
Tom Wilson, the producer remembers this, this album, this Wednesday Morning,
3 am, which was on the same label as, as, Dylan, Columbia.
And he so, without the knowledge of Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel, he brings studio
musicians into the studio.
They take The Sounds of Silence and they
add to it electric guitar, bass, and drums.
Now how do you add something to a song that's already recorded?
Well you can tell if you listen to the recording that the
first couple of measures to it are the acoustic guitar all by itself.
That's how the musicians are able to pick up where the tempo is.
And then after a couple of measures, the electric guitar
comes in, the bass comes in, the drums come in.
And so without their knowledge this song was re-released in this country and
actually became a big hit a number one hit in 1965.
Imagine being Paul Simon, and getting that phone call.
Well, listen, Paul, it's your record company calling.
Guess what?
You've got a hit in America.
What do you mean I've got a hit in America.
Well, in, so that's the whole story.
And so, what Tom Wilson essentially did was
took what was an acoustic folk song, added
the electric guitar as base and drums to
it, and really, that's the definition of what
folk rock is.
Well, Simon and Garfunkel went on to record an album The Sounds of
Silence and, and that's, that's the one
your probably familiar with and that version.
other songs like Homeward Bound from 1966, and I Am a Rock really kind
of made them one of the most important acts of that of that era.
also coming out of LA we've got The Mamas & The Papas.
Now they also form in New York, but again,
like what we saw with the Byrds, moved to LA.
And they're,
they're a little bit late comers to this, this folk rock thing.
The group led by John Philips, but having two men in the group, two males and
two females, so those are the the Papas
and the Mamas there, including Cass Mama Cass Elliot.
who was, sort of, the, in many ways, sort of the star of the group.
Well, although all of the, a lot of the song writing and harmonies, vocal
harmonies and arrangements were done by John
Phillips, one of the guys in the group.
their big hit, first big hit, California Dreamin, went to number four in 1966.
And their big number one hit, from '6,
from '66, was a track called Monday, Monday.
And another thing that began to happen among these, these folk-rock groups
is because The Byrds had had so much success, covering Dylan's songs.
Other groups either covered Dylan's songs, or try
to imitate in their songwriting what a Dylan song
sounded like.
So there was a fellow by the name of Barry McGuire
who had a number one hit in the fall of 1965.
So this was kind of just, just in months after
the emergence of, of folk rock and Mr Tamborine Man.
This track is called Eve of Destruction, and the
guy who write the song, P.F Sloan was essentially
given the assignment, I think it was by Lou
Adler, the record company to basically write a song
that sounded like a Dylan song that wasn't
a Dylan song so he wrote Eve of Destruction.
Barry McGuire had a number one hit with that one.
The Turtles, another group from LA covered the Dylan song, It Ain't
Me Babe, and had a number eight hit with that in 1965.
The hurd, the Turtles made up of dual singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan
would later be known as Flore, Phlorescent Leech and Eddy or Flo and Eddy when
they appeared on Frank Zappa albums and had their own solo career in the 70s.
But early on, they were the Turtles.
It Ain't Me Babe is a fantastic tune.
But Happy Together, their number oe hit from slightly later, 1967,
is one of the classic American, pop hits, from the 1960s.
So this, this, in many ways, wraps up our discussion of folk rock.
But there were other elements of the american response
that we can talk about on the 1960s and
in the next video we'll turn to the legacy of Phil Spector.
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