Rock Music

Rock music is a term that has a very broad and complex meaning. it’s really hard to define considering all the sub-genres that make-up what is commonly known as “rock music”. What is it about rock music the describes the myriad of styles in one genre, as well as, all the new genres that have splintered off and out of the rock branch of the R&B tree?

Where is the line of demarcation between where “rock” music begins and rock & roll ends? When does rock music sound distinctively different from that good old time rock & roll that was so prevalent?

The fidelity of the technology had become more developed for both mono and a newer sound production tech called stereo. The sensitivity of microphones, the techniques in mixing and processing music, the innovation, programming and the social aspects of radio all helped to make the 1960s a decade akin to rapid “evolution” especially when it came to music.

To My ears, much of the music of 1964 was of this good old rock & roll in the spirit of the golden oldies from the 50s. The fast rhythms, themes, sound production and speed of the music make it seem that 1964 was like the last year of that good old time rock and roll music. At least as a dominant form of popular music.

1965 things started to change very rapidly and at a very fast rate. Up till 1964, rock & roll had either a fast-paced danceable beat or a slow ballad style beat for slow dancing with your sweetheart.

But in 1965, folk rock, blues rock and a raw form of garage rock infiltrated the scope of popular music competing with R&B and jazz-styled popular music. The rhythms started to slow down or speed up. Experiments in mid-tempo beats were used from the influence of the many styles of folk, blues and country music that was in 1965 being amplified.

There were many “old time rock & roll” R&B styled hits after 1964 for many years on, hey, rock & roll never died. Many of the groups that went to experimented either came back to rock & roll like the Beatles or your Stones, or they started whole new forms of rock, like country rock, hard rock, and other “rocks” that came after.

Bob Dylan

Dylan going electric, to me, signifies the start of “Classic Rock” to be distinguished from good old time rock & roll. Dylan’s triumvirate of albums “Bring It All Back Home”, “Highway 61” and the double album “Blond On Blond” shaped rock music for a pursuit of lyrics, themes, and vocalization on a higher, more artistic level than from before.

Dylan would go n to be the first of rocks greatest lyricists and songwriter, showing the wide range of folk, blues and country styles of music that would both inspire and motivate a whole generation of rock performers and recording artists out of the great musical decade of the Sixties

The Beatles

Another crucial innovator of rock music was the British rock band the Beatles. The Beatles broke on the scene in January of 1964 to set America on fire with their absolute love and commitment to all the styles of good-time American kick-ass rock & Roll. They shook America out of the depression of  November 22nd, 1963.

The Beatles would re-ignite the fire for rock & roll in America and then go on to change the face of modern music with their curious experimentation and development of a genre that would make rock music, be called “classic rock”, a genre of music where anything goes, any kind of music mixed with the rock ethos. The Beatles are a great source of study of modern rock music, a litmus test, a Dow Jones or barometer of one of the most innovatively artistic decades in music to come out of the 20th Century and indeed of all musical time.

In 1965, after their cap on the rock & roll period of modern music, the Beatles went first for a couple of country & western influenced albums and then dropped the first of their masterpiece albums, the folk-rock jewel “Rubber Soul”. After that, the four Beatles would go on to define classic rock with their studies in Indian and world music, soul and Motown sounds, blues-rock music, classical music and the new and strange sounds of psychedelia and the Avant Gard, even “Musique Concrete”.

The British Invasion

The Beatles would open up the floodgates of British artists that would go on to define many of the sub-genres that would split off from the rock branch. The Stones in 1965 would be pushing out some heavy mixes of blues rock, mixed with psychedelia and their unashamed ability to roll with the fads over several decades to come. With the fuzz-toned “Satisfaction”, the darkly lyrical triple crown of “Painted Black”, “19th Nervous Breakdown” and “Mother’s Little Helper” The Stones would be the quintessential example of what a “rock & roll” band in the rock era should be, warts and all.

The Kinks would provide the catalysts for early hard rock and garage rock that would inevitably lead to heavy metal & punk rock, and then the band would be exiled from the US and change into a great lost album-oriented rock band.

The Yardbirds and the Who would take rhythm and blues into maximum overdrive. Clapton, Beck and Jimmy Page would go on to shape and influence blues-rock and hard rock. “Bubblegum” pop-rock by bands like Herman’s Hermits down to Dave Clark Five would top the charts. There would be the start of prog rock or progressive rock by British psychedelic rock band, Pink Floyd. England would become a great incubator for many American artists who didn’t get their recognition in the states like Jimi Hendrix and many others to come in the following decades after the 60’s.

California Rock

Los Angeles would put forth the great Dylan-esque band the Byrds who would go on to influence country rock. Frank Zappa and “the Mothers” of Invention, (eyebrows), came out with some strange psychedelic like music, Frank would go on to help invent jazz fusion, prog rock and to help cultivate funk and hard rock music and Doo-Wop, (eyebrows). The Beach Boys would have a recording technique innovation. And the great Jim Morrison and the Doors tripped and rocked out, another of rocks greatest songwriters and a band that would be another example of what an American rock & roll band should be like with that California tinge.

San Francisco had great psychedelia and country style rock from bands like Love, the Grateful Dead and off-shoots Canned Heat and Riders of the Purple Sage. Janice Joplin (“and the Holding Company”), Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane brought out sounds in a mix of blues, soul, gospel and country music. There are many authentic sounds coming out of the bay area in the mid 60’s. too many to cover here.

The “Soul” Branch from the R&B Tree

Soul as a music is a separate entity or “branch”, if you will, of the rhythm and blues, backbeat form of modern music, was also developing and progressing.  The Beatles had a love of the “crossover” hit, they covered many “girl groups” songs.

It would be girl groups, that would give the Beatles the most competitive on the charts in the 60s, namely the Supremes. The Supremes dominated soul music on the charts when it came to number one “runs” and commercial success, right at the same time that “The God Father” James Brown was developing funk music and before “The Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin had her late 60s ascendency 

Bands like Sly & the Family Stone, Funkadelic and James Brown’s Band, The JBs with Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, and others, were inventing the next stage of development, funk music, with funk going on to influence rock music in another double “crossover” (of music, that is).

The Beatles and the Decade of the 60’s (The transmutation of Rock & Roll into Classic Rock and Soul

The Beatles didn’t invent Rock & Roll nor were they around during its initial rise.  However, as a vague analogy, not counting the original forefathers of our country what would the USA be without President Lincoln born way later in American history? It can be said, The Beatles, great fans, and lovers of 50’s rock & roll. In a sense, The Beatles first revived and the revitalized rock & roll and then transformed rock& roll into Rock. in 1965, the Beatles made a shift from the old time rock & roll they were playing to a new form called Folk Rock that was brought on by influences of the day like Bob Dylan and the Byrds. Then with the album Revolver, The Beatles paved the way for an anything goes experimentalism that helped create what we know as Classic Rock.

For the most part of their career, The Beatles were apolitical and wrote more about peace, love & understanding, joke songs, and experimented with Psychedelic mood songs rather than protesting about the myriad of problems going on like the Vietnam (War) conflict. Later on John Lennon unable to keep his rage in exploded in 1968, obviously outraged at the assassinations, the War, and being made to keep silent throughout the Beatles early and mid-career (except for the out of context ‘More Popular than Jesus Christ”, ” Christianity will go extinct” magazine article).

John Lennon with Yoko Ono and others became very vocal and preceded to engage in controversy to bring attention to their collective missions (bagism, bed in for peace, him and Yoko full frontal nudity). John Lennon would go on to be one of the most vocal protestors of the late 60’s early 70’s, receiving special attention from Nixon, the CIA and the FBI who tried to deport Lennon from the states.

John Lennon’s “gag” in the early days, enforced by Brian Epstein and supported by Paul McCartney and the other two Beatles, might have been a catalyst to the demise of the Beatles as a group. Lennon could be very quick-tongued and sometimes would reverse himself from his previous stands on many issues.  He, at one point, became militant for a thankfully brief period. “Don’t you know that you can count me Out (In)” as on the Revolution 1 version on the White album.

The Beatles Influence on America Rock & Roll and Rock Music

An argument can be made that the Beatles had in a way saved the USA from falling into depression and despair after JFK was shot and under the ominous circumstances surrounding his death. There was a revitalization that many have recounted when remembering the first time hearing the Beatles. Was it a need for distraction, to forget and get on with living. They have seemed to energize the Pop bands and singers at the time into a playful comradely competition. Which led to the renaissance that occurred in 1965.

The 60’s as the Decade of Progress and Transformative Change

Each band trying to one-up on the other however slightly or strongly it was perceived by the fans, it made Rock & Roll a genre of music that started to transcend the medium it was born out of. Instead of music to dance or listen to it began to be an art form, first off and secondly an “instrument” for poetry, songs of strong messages in morality, ethics, perspectives, philosophy and the dangerous politics & religion.  Many experimental and strange albums were made in the 60’s and 70’s. Art, music, poetry, writings, fashion, light and our arena rituals all melded into some grand ritual celebration next to sports. The progression of the Rock & Roll show to a Multi-Day Festival.

The American Music Festival, seen as an almost religious experience to some, a spiritual experience to others.  This grew out of a combination of the folk movement, the Jazz festival and the Ken Kesey Acid Tests in San Francisco. A Festival of endurance, a rite of passage, in terms of braving dehydration to bad trips, to outright overdose. The rock festival is very shamanistic, just like Jim Morrison had mentioned, the festivals unite people who get hyped up watching the Shamans freak out.  the experience sometimes feels ancient, like the “primitive tribes” erecting stone monuments, using astronomy, and having a deeper understanding of sound, music, and sonic medicines and cures.

The 60’s was a time where great artistical expression came to the front of pop music where the groups stayed true to the rock & roll, rhythm & blues, deep blues, folk music ethos. This is where music through rock & roll became a philosophy and a way of life, almost like a religion to some people. This new spiritualism was complete with myths, tales, and mysteries.  Written by the laureates and sages of rock & roll and performed and administered by the priests or shamans whipping out a most “devil worshipping” rhythmic conjuring corrupting the youths of the generations in the adulation and ecstasies of the music.

That is what rock & roll represents above all else – Angst, boredom cure, an emotional cure-all. “I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel so bad”. Music has always had the nature of upliftment, even the Blues songs. But then the use of sound changed after the assassinations Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Bobby Kennedy in 1968. ushering some real anger and resentment to the socio-political military economic corporate complex. They still lie to us regardless of the political parties involved. Racism, is still an issue, Roe v. Wade, still an issue, etc.

McCartney is in many ways that songwriting entity that transcends time, that creative spark inherent and residing in all great pop music. He is a multi-instrumentalist, a master of the pop song like anyone at the Brill building, master of the pop hook, a great solo guitar composer who used to work out his solos step by step. McCartney was an essential ingredient to the Beatles success in using a wide range of musical styles or “musics” (as McCartney says), this song is proof of that.

The Bass Fidelity

The bass sound is very important in determining a songs age I hear a difference on the Rubber Soul album.