The Byrds

The southern Californian City of Angels was experiencing a huge change from the fast-paced “surf rock” scene to the newer “folk rock” scene. The Byrds surfaced as progenitors of Folk Rock under Dylan’s influence and epitomized as the quintessential American folk rock band. They would later follow the Beatles into the genre of “psychedelic rock” and then in 1968 help Dylan start “country rock”.

The Byrds came together in early 1964 Jim McGuinn, Gene Clark, and David Crosby got together all folk musicians from other groups in the folk scene such as the New Christy Minstrels, the Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Les Baxter’s Balladeers. The trio, along with drummer Michael Clarke and bassist Chris Hillman, went on to spearhead the “folk rock” movement. As the Byrds progressed throughout the mid-sixties, they would not only help “found” folk-rock but also help develop “psychedelic rock”.

The Beatles and the British Competition

After the initial British invasion, the Beatles had a couple of early folk rock songs, starting with “And I Love Her” off the “A Hard Day’s Night” album and the Beatles went practically country & western on their British release of “Beatles for Sale” album, which was the American albums “Beatles 65′” and “Beatles VI”. Next, came the album “Help!” with songs like “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and “I’ve Just Seen A Face”.

The Beatles master albums start with the great “Rubber Soul” album, in which great folk experimentations were conducted while providing classic rock with several rock anthems. In fact, the British version of Rubber Soul was chopped up, edited and re-packaged as a “folk-rock” album in the United States, much to the chagrin of the Beatles.

This was reciprocated with America’s Byrds albums “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Turn, Turn, Turn!”, “The Fifth Dimension” and “Younger than Yesterday”; Bob Dylan’s triumvirate of albums “Bringing It All Back Home”, “Highway 61” and 1966’s “Blonde on Blonde”; and Simon & Garfunkel’s albums “Sounds Of Silence” and “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme” which are all key albums in the musical branch of folk-rock within the whole of classic rock.

The songs became more progressive in their experimentations with folk rock, country rock, and psychedelic rock. Much of the Beatles music in the mid-sixties was influenced by the, then current, sounds of music going on in America. Along with Bob Dylan, The Byrds, the San Franciscan scene, and with surf rockers (The Beach Boys in California), there was cross-pollination with the UK bands, the Beatles, the Stones and the Kinks in 1965 in terms of folk rock.