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.