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.
Other British Bands
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History of Rock, Part One
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From the lesson
The Beatles and the British Invasion (1964-66)
The Beatles transform the UK music scene and then invade America. Other Beatles-type British bands. The London blues scene and the Rolling Stones. Other Stones-type bands. The Who and the Kinks.
Meet the Instructors
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
After the Beatle's come to this country and break open the American market for
British acts there's literally a flood of British acts that come on to the scene in
this country. It's as if what people saw in the
Beatles. Were a band of British guys with matching
suits and these mop-top haircuts. And, since the British Invasion was in
fact a kind of a fad, you know, like a slinky, or a mood ring, or a hula hoop.
really any British group that, that, that looked kind of like, did kind of what the
Beatles did, was good enough. and so all these groups were kind of
lumped together as British invasion bands.
Everybody had to have one, everybody had to sign one.
This is not so different then what we talked about happening with Elvis Presley
in 1956 when he signed to RCA. All of a sudden, which RCA, a major
label, got into the game with Elvis Presley, the other labels felt like they
had to find somebody too. So Decca signs Buddy Holly, Capital signs
Gene Vincent, people like that. And so, what we find happening is all
types of groups flooding in. Some of them are ultimately forgettable
in the sense that we study them as part of the British invasion, they had hits at
the time, but they really weren't able to sustain any careers after that.
Others, of course continue to have success past the British invasion groups
like The Who, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, somebody like Stevie Winwood and
Spencer Davis the Yardbirds who eventually morphed into Led Zeppelin.
These groups continued to have success but a lot of the others like Gerry and
the Pacemakers, the Dave Clark Five the Freddie and the Dreamers.
These are, these are groups that really are consigned to the oldies file, when
you hear about their music. So really what these groups were about is
is, is having the matching suits and haircuts,the obvious British accents but
you can begin to divide these groups it just for organizational purposes into
what we might call almost. We can divide them almost all of them
this way. There will be a couple at the end of, of
this sequence of videos that I'll talk about that don't quite fit the mold.
But almost all of them can be divided into either Beatles type groups or Stones
type groups. If they're Beatles types groups, the
songs emphasize the song and the vocals. It's a smoother kind of performance.
Maybe a lot more of vocal harmony, and a more sort of professional sound to the
recording. If they're Stones type groups, there's
more emphasis on a blues influence. Maybe the vocals are a little sort of
grittier, and that kind of thing. And maybe the production values are not
quite as as polished as the Beatles type groups.
This is just sort of a general way of dividing these groups out.
Of the Beatles type bands that we might talk about.
There's Gerry and the Pacemakers, a group that was also from Liverpool.
Also managed by Brian Epstein and also produced by George Martin.
So they were in a stable of artists that Brian Epstein began to pull together
after The Beatles first success. there's The Dave Clark Five a, a group
that was run by the drummer, Dave Clark, who owned the rights to all the music and
somewhere along, along the line decided that as the years went by he wasn't
going to license that music to, to anthologies and to, and to collected hits
collections and things like that. And so, go out and try and find a Dave
Clark Five CD or record online. At least until at least a couple years
ago last time I looked, I, I actually did find some but, It was very, very tough to
do this because Dave Clark had basically pulled that music out of circulation.
Why? I'm not quite sure, maybe he's waiting
for something, who knows. anyway The Dave Clark Five were an
interesting group because they were the group John Lennon was afraid was going to
overtake The Beatles. In those early days it was always, who's
going to eclipse The Beatles? Is it going to be this group, is it
going to be that group, is it going to be this group?
Nobody had the idea The Beatles were going to be as big as they were and John
was afraid. That The Dave Clark Five that, that was
the group that he respected and he thought was pretty good.
It had something, it had something pretty special.
Herman's Hermits was another one of these Beatles type groups, led by Peter Noone,
who I don't know whether he purposely emphasized his accent, but when you, when
you hear him sing Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter.
Singing it as Mrs. Brown, you've got a lovely daughter, like
that. It's really obvious that it's a British
singer. and maybe that's just the way he would've
done it anyway, but it seems to sort of play on the British-ness of the British
invasion. Herman's Hermits' Peter Noone has often
said, after they signed everybody else, they finally got to the bottom of the
barrel, and we were them. The fact is those Herman's Hermits
records stand up pretty well. And Peter Noone has gone on to have a
pretty good singing career playing, you know, clubs and casinos and that kind of
thing. Another group, Beatles type group, The
Hollies featuring Graham Nash later of Crosby, Stills, Nash, sometimes with
Young that had a big hit, a couple of big hits.
Bus Stop was a big hit for them. But also a song called Carrie Anne.
Which was actually a song about Mary Ann Faithful, who we mentioned earlier as
having had a hit with As Time Goes By and having been the girlfriend of Mick
Jagger. So they wrote a song, but they didn't
have enough guts to call it Mary Ann, so they called it Carrie Anne, as if that
obscured the meaning. Somehow and then another of the last of
these Beatles type groups that I mentioned is Freddie and the Dreamers who
really were gosh of of of very kind of strange group, I mean they really just
had only the sort of minimal amount of, of ahm.
requirement to be a British invasion group, the guy Freddie who was a lead
singer, they, they had a song called Do the Freddie, I guess they were trying to
create something like the twist of something and he would Do the Freddie and
it was, it looks especially like a guy doing jumping jacks.
So you've got this situation where they're on The Ed Sullivan Show and
you've got these all guy, all these guys. Sort of looking like Beatles but the
singer in the front, sort of with Buddy Holly horn-rim glasses, singing a song
called Do the Freddy. And, sort of, doing jumping jacks and
running across the stage. Anyway, I talk about things that, that,
that, that didn't quite make a historical mark.
that might of been one of them. But we can see where they came from.
Other groups, Chad and Jeremy. Peter and Gordon.
these are all sort of, think of these as Beatles type groups.
Really sort of focused on the vocals. Focused on the song.
but not a lot of rought edges in those. And then, against that, you've got groups
that are Stones type groups. Now these Stones type groups influence by
blues, it turns out that a lot of people who were members of these stones type
groups end up having pretty good careers after the British Invasion, into the late
sixties and certainly into the seventies and beyond.
The best example of stones type groups of course is The Yardbirds, who as i
mentioned before take over at the Crawdaddy Club And then are managed by
Giorgio Gomelsky the first important guitarist in the group, though he wasn't
strictly speaking. The first guitarist in the group, was
Eric Clapton, who I mentioned before quit the group while they were recording,
after they recorded the first single because it just was getting all too pop
oriented. He went to work with John Mayall and the
Blues Breakers. That was gave Eric Clapton the real sort
of badge of authenticity that has been part of his career and his, his appeal
ever since. He was replaced by Jeff Beck guitarist
Jimmy Page came in first on bass when the bass player in the group quit.
Jimmy Page had been a session musician was doing tons of sessions at the time
but decided he wanted to be in a band. So first he went on bass, then they said
why we've got Jimmy Page on bass, let's put him on guitar.
So that was Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page on guitar.
They were actually buddies, they had known each other for many years, but the
competition, well that didn't work out. So Jeff Beck left the group and Jimmy
Page left with the group stayed in the group.
And he was sort of still the one left standing when everybody had quit the
group and there were still some gigs left over that they need to.
That they needed to do, as late as 1968, 1969, and so he got some people together
this, this kid from the country Robert Plant, and a drummer that he knew, John
Bonham, and another session musician he'd worked with during his studio days.
John Paul Jones, who put the group together they were going to be called The
New Yardbirds, but then they decided they would change the name to Led Zeppelin,
and so you see The Yardbirds really give birth to Led Zeppelin, and that's another
story for another day, part two of the history of rock.
The Animals, another Stones type British band, although they weren't part of the
London blues scene. im, important with Eric Burdon on lead
vocals. when they did House of the Rising Sun
with the electric guitar and the organ, apparently Dylan heard that, and that was
one of the things that made him think, maybe he should use electric guitar more.
That story we'll tell next week, when Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk,
Folk Festival in 1965. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames.
Not a group you hear much about, except that they had John McLaughlin, the famous
guitarist in the group and Mitch Mitchell, who later ended up in the Jimmy
Page, Jimmy Hendrix Experience. The Graham Bond Organization that also
had John McLachlan for a time. Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, those two,
Bruce and Baker who would team up with Clapton to form Cream later.
The Zombies, a group the was run by Rob Argent who would later have a group in
the 70's called simply Argent. Zoot Money's Big Roll Band featuring
guitarist Andy Summers who would later emerge in the Police at the end of the
70's, going into the 80's. And the Spencer Davis group.
Which featured a young Stevie Winwood. By young, I mean like teen-aged Stevie
Winwood. And his voice, of all these groups, the
Rolling Stones included. And all the Stones type British bands.
his voice, Stevie Winwood's voice is the one that could most likely pass for
actually being an African-American blues singer from the late 1950's.
And what was funny was it came out of a skinny little teenage kid but there was
that big voice on those Spencer Davis records.
Maybe the other guy who could compete with him for this sort of sounding of
authenticity would be somebody like Eric Burton.
So, when we think about The Beatles. And The Stones, we can think about most
of the other of these British invasion bands as either Beatles type or Stones
type. And we have to be kind of liberal in the
way that we distribute, we think about that because it's never going to work
this categorization. But there's two groups.
That no matter how we stretch it, no matter how we try and do it, we can't get
to work into the, fit into these two categories.
And those groups are The Kinks and The Who, and it's to those bands that we turn
in the next video.
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