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.
Pushing the Envelope Beatles and Beach Boys
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From the course by University of Rochester
History of Rock, Part One
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From the lesson
Psychedelia (1966-69)
How can music be psychedelic? Underground psychedelic scenes in San Francisco and London. Psychedelia in LA. The Summer of Love and the rise of hippie culture. The birth of FM rock and rock magazines. Woodstock and Altamont.
Meet the Instructors
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
We turn now, to the music of the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
as I think I said a couple of weeks ago. Here are two bands that not only share
the same listeners, in many cases, but they share the same label Capitol Records
in Los Angeles. At least, in the United States.
Now, the Beatles were signed to EMI, and that was the the
Important signing for them in the UK, but in this country they were on the same
label with The Beach Boys, Capitol out of Los Angeles.
So, they not only shared common listeners, they not only shared a common
label, but they also shared a lot of other characteristics that are maybe
sometimes overlooked as they begin to sort of push the boundaries of what it
means to be a musician. With artistic ambition for their music.
Now we talked a bit about this when we talked about The Beatles earlier and we
talked about The Beach Boys earlier. So, we're going to sort of continue that
story for a minute as a way of setting the scene for the psychedelic musicians
that come after them. both of these bands explored new
possibilities. And enjoyed freedom in the studio because
of their success. Because their records had been successful
they were able to do things in a studio environment which was in those days a
very expensive environment to be in. Record companies weren't interested in
giving just any group hours, days, weeks in the recording studio, they had to be
clear there was going to be some financial return.
And with the Beatles and the Beach Boys it was, to continue to push the envelopes
and experiment. They both used the recording studio as a
kind of compositional tool, as a way of expand the possibilities of what could be
done in the recording studio and search for new stand, new sounds.
And both of them used classical features. in their music, drawing both from the
nineteenth century tradition and from Avant-guard.
So in this case, we can talk about the use of strings or orchestra instruments
generally, tape editing, tape loops. These kind of things you find, you find
throughout the music. of The Beatles and The Beach Boys to some
extent with both groups. we turn now to the music of The Beach
Boys and how it became increasingly ambitious from about the mid 1960's
through 1967 or so. we need to remember that Brian Wilson is
now at this point. But after about 19's, certainly by early
1965 in the studio full time. He's no longer touring with the group as
they tour because he's had a problem being able to get onto an airplane.
So he stays home and works on the music and the other guys go out and tour it.
And so he's got the luxury of being able to sit in the studio.
He's sold a lot of records. He can book studio time without any
problem. Sit there and experiment with things.
He's using some of the best session musicians in L.A.
A group called The Wrecking Crew. Well a group of sort of a kind, a bunch
of musicians, not just one band. There were, there were probably a dozen
that were involved in The Wrecking Crew. But they're the top studio musicians and
they're coming in and he's working on all kind of music.
There's a There is a box set for Pet Sounds that
you can get that's four cd's worth of of stuff to make up one album that maybe
lasts maybe 35 minutes top to bottom. and, and that's, even that's just a
selection of the tapes that were there. I mean the guy did a lot of recording, he
did a lot of experimenting. Probably the first sign we see of that is
his, is his track California Girls, which we talked about earlier.
but the big album that sort of is the arrival of the Beach Boys
Sort of more experimental artistic approach is Pet Sounds from mid 1966.
That album is influenced by Rubber Soul, the Beatles had released in late 1965.
Probably the two tracks on Pet Sounds you really want to check out to get the idea
of the Beach Boys at their most ambitious is a track called Wouldn't It Be Nice and
most especially, A track called God Only Knows.
They then went on to do Good Vibrations in late 1966, which was released after
The Beatles album, Revolver. Which had been released in August of
1966. Good Vibrations is a track where you can
clearly hear Brian Wilson setting the different sections up, and sort of
editing them together to create this kind of composite very, very kind of trippy.
a kind of peace. We're talking about late 1966 now, and
what Brian had intended to do was to release an album called Smile.
It was even advertised for release in 1967 but didn't seem to pull it all
together, too much music going on, maybe too much acid, whatever, in the studio,
and so that fell apart. In the meantime The Beatles in 1967
released Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields as a double sided single so the sm-, the
Smile Project falls apart and the, the Beach Boys instead release an album
called Smiley Smile in August, 1967, which was released after Sgt Pepper,
which had been released in June of 1967. So by comparing the releases of these two
groups you can see that they get increasingly ambitious.
Brian Wilson, I guess, kind of loses in the, the, the ambition sh, sweepstakes
because he isn't able to bring Smile out, although it's been rerecorded in recent
years. We talked about this a couple of weeks
ago. and it's a fantastic record on its, of
its own merits. Had it been released I think it would
have had a tremendous amount of. influence, but it wasn't.
you can see the kind of back and forth between the two groups, a friendly kind
of competition. Maybe friendlier from the Beatles side
than from Brian Wilson's side. I don't know for sure.
let's turn now to the, the Beatles themselves and what they were doing.
Of course Revolver is usually seen as sort of the album that really introduces
at least some element of psychedelia to The Beatles music, released in August of
1966. Primarily because of the last track on
that album. Tomorrow Never Knows, which is certainly
the most avant guarde, experimental, ambitious piece the Beatles had released
up to that time. we talked a bit about that a couple of
weeks ago. As I said before, they followed with
Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields. They, those two tracks were originally
going to be part of a concept album When they decided to stop touring in 19, in
August of 1966, they decided they would do, they would just be a studio band.
This new album was going to be written purposely to be not, that they would
never have to worry about performing. They were going to try to do all kinds of
things in the studio that they never had to worry about doing.
live. The first two tracks, Penny Lane and
Strawberry Fields were going to be on that concept album which was going to be
all about growing up in Liverpool. but because they had used those two
tracks, they didn't want to use them on the album that followed.
So the concept of the album became Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band. The Beatles would actually be Sergeant
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. They would come out, they would say,
we're Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the tunes would go one into
each other and, as you notice at the beginning of that album, you get Sergeant
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and they say, and now here's Billy Shears.
Of course there's Ringo, who comes on to sing With A Little Help From My Friends,
but as they get into the second tune, they kind of drop that format and just do
tunes, until they get to the very end there's a reprise of the Sergeant Pepper
music and then they go into a Day In The Life on the second side.
But, because of the packaging which participated in this Sergeant Pepper
idea. There was a gate fold cover that opened
out like this, that had a picture of the Beatles.
When you brought, when you pulled the record out it had a sleeve that had a, a
little sort of cardboard mustache and a little sort of cardboard patch you could
put on. Really participated a whole lot.
And the back cover had the lyrics, all of the lyrics written out.
Now surprising as it may seem today. This is the first big pop album that
actually had the lyrics written on the back of the cover.
Like, you could read em without listening to the music.
Right? Of all those Dylan albums that we've
talked about, the importance of Dylan as a lyricist, the lyrics were never written
out on those albums. Right?
So here is already a kind of a a step forward, a sort of putting into greater
relief the context of the lyrics themselves.
the album itself is often viewed as the first concept album.
Even if it were a concept album, if that, e, even if that question, there was not a
question about that, it probably still wouldn't be the first concept album.
This i, this idea can be traced back. Even back before rock and roll, back to
people like Frank Sinatra, maybe John Coltrane in jazz.
But nevertheless, it was thought of as the first concept album because of the
Sergeant Pepper idea. John Lennon always said, my songs could
have appeared. On any Beatles record.
I don't know what the Sergeant Pepper idea is.
My songs didn't have anything to do with it.
It doesn't really matter what John said. What matters is what people thought it
was, because bands started imitating what they thought Sergeant Pepper was.
They started imitating the concept album. Idea and that's what made the album so
influential. If you're looking for the, the, the, the
tracks that are perhaps the most ambitious, musically speaking certainly a
track like Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite is one because of the sort of use of
tape loops that occurs there. But, A Day in the Life, the one that
follows it is a fantastic most of, sort of most epic five minutes of music, a lot
of people have said in the rock catalogue.
you know there's two transitions where they're done totally by chance.
Where the orchestra players are just playing any instrument and any note on
the instrument they just have to come together at a particular time at the end
of it on these big sort of crescendos. I'm sure if you've listened to the track
you know what I mean. And the whole thing of piecing together a
John song at the beginning, a Paul song in the middle, and then returning to a
John song, putting together fragments, doing this chant sort of orchestral
build-up crescendo, all of those things make that track the most ambitious one
that they had done to date. And really sort of set a model, raised
the bar, for all those musicians that would follow and many of them began to
imitate them. They tried to continue this idea with
Magical Mystery Tour, which was released in late 1967, December of 1967, and they
also did their own movie to go with it. But the movie flopped and most people
didn't think the movie was very good. They loved to see The Beatles, they loved
to see the music, hear the music, but the movie was not very good.
and now the jer, now the journalists finally could say The Beatles had finally
done something that's flopped. Now they're done for.
Or of course, they weren't done, we know the story.
But, even here at this late date, into 1967, into 1968, they still wanted, to
write the story, that said The Beatles were all done, they'd finally flopped.
I am the, Magical Mystery Tour does contain the
video for I Am the Walrus and Paul McCartney has said a number of times he
defends it on the on the value of that. also in 1967, in August of 1967, their
long time manager, or the manger since 1962 anyway, Brian Epstein dies.
apparently of a drug overdose. and so the Beatles are left without a
manager at about the same time as they're getting involved with the [UNKNOWN] yogi
and transcendental meditation. and so, in this I think we can read two
things about The Beatles' career. One is that they've now got some
management issues they're going to have to deal with, and it takes them a while
to sort of get that together, and they lose a lot of money in the process.
But also, this turn toward the east. We already heard the sitar.
In Norwegian Wood going back to Rubber Soul.
and George Harrison's interests in eastern music generally Within You,
Without You on Sergeant Pepper. Now this east meets west thing that The
Beatles sort of enact by getting involved in trans-elementation, going to India to
visit with to study meditation with the Maharishi really sort of put it into the
mainstream. Remember, when we talk about the Beach
Boys and the Beatles, we're talking about the mainstream artists not the
psychedelic underground. So by the time we get to the summer of
'67, this east meets west thing, India as the source of wisdom and a kind of
alternate spirituality really starts to come together.
Of course, the Beatles after all of this sort of psychedelic stuff, take a real
trip sort of step in reverse. The White Album from November of 1968 is
really more of a songwriter's collective. they begin to sort of look back to their
roots more and more. The most ambitious piece on The White
Album is a taped piece by John Lennon called Revolution number 9 which probably
has the distinction of being the most widely heard electronic music piece in
the history of music. Although many people probably only heard
it once and maybe didn't even let it play to the very end.
Nevertheless, it exposed a lot of people to the idea of what electronic music
could be. The Get Back project which ended up being
the album, Let It Be followed in January 1969, again.
Getting back to their roots and then finally, the last album The Beatles
released in September of 1969, Abbey Road.
and probably the most ambitious things that sort of fit with our psychedelic ID
here. Alright at the end of side one.
I want you she's so heavy which ends with a big creshendo of noise and looping of
guitar chords and then a very sudden stop.
And the side two where Paul put together many many fragments to create this sort
of suite which kind of creates an extended piece.
So now having seen what the Beatles and the Beach Boys are doing to kind of bring
some of this ambitious stuff into the main stream.
let's turn to the psychedelic sub-culture in San Francisco to hate Ashbury and see
what was happening during just at the same time.
But sort of off the radar developing out in San Francisco.
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