60s Music

The 60s was a legendary era for Music. Many British bands were born that later went on to become iconic, but the whole scene was born out of a need for something new and exciting as the new generation refused to conform to their parent’s idea of having a good time. Blues musicians became very popular in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and early 1960s. British blues soon became a distinct genre, and rock and roll, rockabilly, rhythm and blues and other forms of popular music mixed in the UK, resulting teen crazes such as mod and Merseybeat. By the mid-1960s, British rock dominated charts over much of the world, leading to the term British Invasion. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones(before Mick Jagger started to look a bit like a chicken and Keith Richards started falling out of coconut trees), The Yardbirds, The Animals and other British artists played pop and rock with grit and swagger. Bands such as the Stones and the Who developed out of the early blues scene, taking inspiration from the American rhythm and blues music of the 50s, and in the process creating a blueprint for songwriting that has been religiously followed ever since. There was also a small folk movement including singer/songwriters such as Donovan, Simon and Garfunkel and Bert Jansch. However it was the British sound that inspired the most famous folk star, Bob Dylan, to make his controversial decision to “Go Electric”, playing his first electric show in nowhere other than Manchester. With all the American influences very apparent in the music of most British bands, the 60s was also a time for some quintessential Englishness. One of my favourite bands, The Kinks became a long-running band that was popular primarily in the UK. The Kinks' Ray Davies, with his observational lyrics and memorable guitar style is often considered a quintessential British performer, writing songs such as ‘you really got me’ and ‘waterloo sunset’ during his career, his influence defining the next thirty years of