Module 3

Counterculture Roots: Folk Rock

Highway 61 Revisited

The year 1965 was pivotal for Bob Dylan and rock and roll. Dylan began fusing elements of electrified rock with folk music lyrics and song forms to create a new brand of rock and roll. Influenced by the Beatles, Dylan released two albums that included recordings with drums, electric guitar, electric organ and electric bass. His best-selling single “Like A Rolling Stone” was the first track on his sixth studio album Highway 61 Revisited. On July 25, 1965, Dylan headlined at the Newport Folk Festival with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, an electric blues band with rock inflections. Dylan received criticism for his artistic decision and was booed by the “folkie” faithful in attendance. Folkies generally disdained rock music and what it stood for.

The Summer of Love

The year 1967 marked the Summer of Love. Baby boomers, the generation of youths born after World War II, began to redefine cultural norms and promote a counter-culture. They were easily identified by colorful clothing, long and natural hair styles on both men and women, and a new, more communal and anti-establishment attitude toward life. San Francisco became an important center for this movement and its followers, known as hippies. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was a hallucinogen that many hippies consumed to alter the mind. The drug was often taken at live music performances. The combined experience of drug use, alternative lifestyle, and rock music was known as Psychedelic. Psychedelic rock described several San Francisco-based bands including Big Brother and Holding Co., the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. The Jefferson Airplane formed in 1965 and released their number one album Surrealistic Pillow two years later. “White Rabbit” was a number one single from the album, written and sung by Grace Slick, the band’s talented vocalist and front-woman.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

In 1967, the Beatles abandoned live performing and began to record in the studio exclusively. Their first studio effort was the legendary Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a concept album that launched the Psychedelic movement to international acclaim. A concept album, Sgt. Pepper’s was intended to be heard from beginning to end as a single work rather than a collection of singles. None of the songs on the album were released as singles. One of their best-known titles from the album is “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds.” Many suspected the hidden message “LSD” in the title (Lucy, Sky, Diamonds).

Psychedelic Rock Diversity

Cheap Thrills

At the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, Big Brother and Holding Co. performed “Ball and Chain” and debuted their new singer Janis Joplin. The song became an instant hit with the audience and helped launch Joplin into international fame. Joplin grew up in Texas as a devoted fan of blues singer Bessie Smith, proven by the fact that Joplin purchased the tombstone at Smith’s grave with the engraved words “THE GREATEST BLUES SINGER IN THE WORLD WILL NEVER STOP SINGING.” Big Brother and Holding Co. was a blues-based rock band. Adding Joplin to their act strengthened their blues-based identity in a Psychedelic context. Their second album Cheap Thrills was released in 1968 and topped the album charts. Afterwards, Joplin left the band to pursue a new group, the Kosmic Blues Band.

Multi-ethnic bands also emerged from the Psychedelic scene, most notably Santana and Sly and the Family Stone. Santana developed a hard, blues-based rock over Afro-Cuban rhythms that included various Afro-Cuban percussion instruments. Originally from San Francisco’s Mission District, the Santana Blues Band solidified by 1968. They were regulars at the Filmore West, a Psychedelic venue run by Bill Graham. In 1969, the organizers of the upcoming Woodstock Festival asked Graham to help with the logistics of an event that they anticipated would attract over one hundred thousand attendees. Graham agreed on one condition, that they gave Santana a spot to perform. They agreed and Santana performed “Soul Sacrifice,” an extended “jam” first recorded live at the Filmore in 1968. When the Woodstock film reached theaters the following year, Santana broke into international fame almost immediately and became one of the best-selling bands throughout the 1970s.

Sly and the Family Stone was another interracial group that performed at the Woodstock Festival. Sylvester Stewart founded the group in 1966. He featured a horn section combined with the standard rock band instrumentation. In 1968, Sly released Dance To the Music, and the title track reached the Top Ten. Sly’s sound was heavily influenced by James Brown. The Family Stone went on to create a brand of funk that appealed to a large, integrated audience. Artists like George Clinton and Stevie Wonder would continue to develop this brand of Funk in the 1970s, often adding elements of Psychedelia and seventies disco.

Are You Experienced?

Jimi Hendrix is arguably the most prolific artist to come out of the Psychedelic scene in the late 1960s. Originally a backup guitarist for R&B bands through the early 1960s, Hendrix moved to England in 1966 and fronted his own band, the Experience. That same year, their debut album Are You Experienced was released. Hendrix experimented with various devices to supplement his electric guitar sound. Pete Townshend from the Who recommended Jim Marshall, who then developed more powerful amplifiers and special effects pedals for Hendrix.

In 1967, Hendrix introduced his new power trio to American audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival. During his performance of “Wild Thing,” a cover originally recorded by the Troggs, Hendrix lit his guitar on fire and smashed it up in similar fashion to Pete Townshend. Afterwards, the little-known Hendrix, who had already gained widespread recognition in the U.K., became a rock icon in the U.S. In 1969, originally not scheduled to perform, Hendrix was a last-minute add to the Woodstock Festival. There he performed his now legendary rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner” as the last of the massive crowd left Woodstock. His performance took place on Monday, August 18, the day after Woodstock was scheduled to end.

Exploration

Watch the following analysis of "White Rabbit."

Optional: Watch excerpts from Monterey Pop (1968).

Optional: Watch excerpts from Woodstock (Part 1, 1970)

Optional: Watch excerpts from Woodstock (Part 2, 1970)

Select "Next" to continue.