Rock Music: The Definitive History

Background: The 20th Century

Rock'n'roll is usually defined as a merger of rhythm'n'blues and country music. While this is roughly correct, many more factors came into play in the first half of the 20th century that enabled the birth of rock'n'roll and its future developments.

One could start with 1892, when popular music became big business and music publishers started renting offices around 28th Street in New York City, next to the vaudeville theaters of 27th Street, an area that would be renamed "Tin Pan Alley". Sheet music was the primary "product" of popular music and the industry was dominated by music publishing houses. In 1914 the American Society for Composers (ASCAP) was founded to protect songwriters. That same year, the first blues was published (Hart Wand's Dallas Blues).

Other events that would shape the rest of the century occurred in the first two decades. In 1914 Jerome Kern invented the "musical" by integrating music, drama and ballet and setting it into the present. While that would generate an industry of its own, the real revolution for white popular music took place without almost anyone noticing. In 1910 John Lomax published "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads", and in 1916 Cecil Sharp published a collection of folk music from the Appalachian mountains, two events that sparked interest for the white musical heritage, although the world had to wait until 1922 before someone, Texan fiddler Eck Robertson, would cut the first record of "old-time music". The following year, John Carson recorded two "hillbilly" songs, an event that is often considered the official founding of "country" music. In 1924 Riley Puckett introduced the "yodeling" style of singing (originally from the Swiss and Austrian Alps) into country music, the style adopted in 1927 by the first star of country music, Jimmie Rodgers, who wed it to the Hawaiian slide guitar and, de facto, invented the white equivalent of the blues. In 1925 Carl Sprague became the first musician to record cowboy songs (the first "singing cowboy" of country music). And, finally, in 1925, Nashville's first radio station (WSM) began broadcasting a program that would eventually change name to "Grand Ole Opry". Country music was steaming ahead.

Black music also came into its own. The first jazz record was cut in New York in 1917. Mamie Smith's Crazy Blues (1920) was the first blues to become a nation-wide hit. And Bessie Smith would follow suit with her first blues record in 1923. None of them was a real blues musician (itinerant, street performer from the South). But in 1926 Blind Lemon Jefferson became the first real bluesman to enter a major recording studio.

By 1921, 106 million records were sold yearly in the USA, mostly published on "Tin Pan Alley", but control of the market was already shifting towards the record companies.

It is not a coincidence that, at about this time, new record companies were created that would last for a century. In 1924 the Music Corporation of America (MCA) was founded in Chicago as a talent agency, and the German record company Deutsche Grammophon (DG) opened the Polydor company to distribute records abroad. In 1926 General Electric started the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). In 1928 the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) of 47 affiliate stations was created. In 1929 Decca was founded in Britain as a classical music company, and RCA purchased the glorious Victor Talking Machines. In 1931 EMI, formed by the merger of Gramophone and the British subsidiary of Columbia, opened the largest recording studio in the world at Abbey Road in London.

Record companies also realized that the support was not adequate to a mass market. In 1926 Vitaphone introduced 16-inch acetate-coated shellac discs playing at 33 1/3 RPM (a size and speed calculated to be the equivalent of a reel of film), but they were hardly noticed.

The effect of all this turmoil was felt also in the much more conservative, traditional field of "pop" music. In 1925 the Mills Brothers invented the "barbershop harmonies", which would become the reference standard for all future vocal groups, and in 1926 Bing Crosby cut his first record and invented the "crooning" style of singing (thanks to a new kind of microphone), a style that would become the sound of the white middle-class of the USA. Maybe it wasn't "popular" music, but in 1927 the German classical composer Kurt Weill began a collaboration with the playwright Bertold Brecht, incorporating jazz, folk and pop elements in his soundtracks (probably the first time that the three genres had been merged).

The term "rock'n'roll" might be as old as any of these historical events. Trixie Smith cut My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll (1922) four years before Chuck Berry was born. In 1934 John Lomax and his son Alan began recording black music of the southern states, and discovered the gospel genre of "rocking and reeling" that had been around for years, if not decades.


While most of these events were unknown (and are still unknown) to even the most scrupulous music historians, their effects were rapidly visible. The innovators of classical music were not as lucky: they did not have a recording industry that was interested in selling their ideas. But their ideas would come back after many decades to haunt the grand-grand-children of the roaring 1910s and 1920s. For example, in 1906 Thaddeus Cahill built the first electronic instrument. In 1907 Ferruccio Busoni published "Entwurf einer neuen Aesthetik der Tonkunst", predicting the use of dissonant and electric sound in musical composition. In 1913 the Italian "futurist" Luigi Russolo published "L'Arte dei Rumori", in which he proclaimed noise to be the sound of the 20th century, and especially noise produced by machines, such as his own "Intonarumori". In 1916 Henry Cowell composed quartets using combinations of rhythms and overtones that are impossible to play by humans. In 1920 Eric Satie composed music not to be listened to ("musique d'ameublement", furniture music), the first form of "ambient music". In 1922 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy advocated the use of phonograph records to produce music, not only to reproduce it. In 1923 Arnold Schoenberg completed his 12-tone system of composition (the first form of "serialism"). In 1928 Maurice Martenot invented a new electronic instrument, the Ondes-Martenot. In 1927 the Russian composer Leon Termen performed the first concerto with his "theremin". In 1930 Leon Termen invented the first rhythm machine, the "Rhythmicon". In 1931 Edgar Varese premiered a piece for percussions, Ionisation. All of these people were considered little more (or less) than eccentric characters, and widely ignored by the musical establishment. Instead, they were correctly predicting the future. Without their ideas, today there would be no ambient, electronic, industrial or disco music.

USA: The Depression

Unfortunately, just when these rapid-fire set of events was picking up speed, the "Great Depression" destroyed the record industry. The record industry had hardly been affected by World War I, but suffered a devastating blow during the "Great Depression". As people stopped spending, record sales collapsed.

Needless to say, suddenly there was no interest anymore in new ideas. Nonetheless, it would be unfair to say that the 1930s did not witness important events for the future of popular music. For example, the "boogie" pianist Meade Lux Lewis cut Honky-tonk Train in 1929, a premonition of the boom of "boogie woogie" that would take place in Chicago and Kansas City after Pete Johnson's and Joe Turner's first records. Gene Autry's That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine (1931) popularized the "honky-tonk" style of country music, and Bill Monroe's Kentucky Waltz (1933) popularized the "bluegrass" style. In 1932 Thomas Dorsey's Precious Lord coined gospel music in Chicago. In the same year, Milton Brown and Bob Wills cut the first records of "western swing". Last but not least, Woody Guthrie wrote the Dust Bowl Ballads (1935) and became the first major singer-songwriter.

Two instruments debuted that were to become the staple of rock bands: George Beauchamp invented (1931) the electric guitar (the "Rickenbacker") and Laurens Hammond invented (1933) the Hammond organ. Also important for the future of rock media, in 1930 the first "fanzines" debuted: these were science fiction pulp magazines ("Comet" and "Time Traveller") that allowed sci-fi fans to communicate. They created an "underground" community.

While it is true that the market for records had collapsed (in 1933 only six million records were sold in the USA), recovery was on the way. In 1935 the radio program "Hit Parade" was launched, and soon Roy Acuff became the first star of Nashville, and in 1937 records by the "big bands" rejuvenated the scene. In 1939 the "Grand Ole Pry" moves to Nashville's "Ryman Auditorium" and was broadcasted by the national networks. In 1940 Disney's "Fantasia" introduced stereo sound. Interestingly, in 1939 the Panoram visual jukebox was invented, a device that played short films of records, i.e. the first music videos, an idea that would be shelved for about 40 years.

Black music, in particular, was on the rise in every sense of the word. A symbolic date is 1936, when bluesman Robert Johnson cut his first record. In 1939 Leo Mintz opened a record store in Cleveland, the "Record Rendezvous", that specialized in black music and was serving a white audience: black music found an audience beyond the ghetto. In those years a new style was born, that came to be called "jump blues" after Louis Jordan scored a hit with Choo Choo Ch'Boogie (1946). That was, de facto, the birth of rhythm'n'blues. Few people noticed it, but Carl Hogan played a powerful guitar riff on Jordan's Ain't That Just Like a Woman that, ten years later, would make Chuck Berry famous. Los Angeles bluesman T-Bone Walker absorbed jazz chords into the blues guitar, starting with I Got A Break Baby (1942) and culminating with Strolling With Bones (1950). White bluesman Johnny Otis assembled a combo for Harlem Nocturne (1945), that was basically a shrunk-down version of the big-bands of swing, and that would remain the epitome of all future rhythm'n'blues combos.

Another important strain of popular music had to do with folk music, which Guthrie had already associated with social awareness. In 1940 Pete Seeger went further: he formed the Almanac Singers to sing protest songs with communist overtones.

Surprisingly, World War II fostered an economic boom and, indirectly, helped the music industry develop in different directions. It was during the war that Bing Crosby's White Christmas (1942) became the best-selling song of all times (and would remain so for 50 years) It was during the war that the first "disc jockeys" followed the USA troops abroad. It was during the war, in 1941, that a radio station in Arkansas (KFFA) hired Sonny Boy Williamson to advertise groceries, the first case of mass exposure by blues singers. It was during the war that labels such as Savoy (1942) and King (1943) were formed to promote black music. It was during the war that Capitol was founded in Hollywood, the first major music company not to be based in New York (1942), and Mercury was founded in Chicago (1945). It was during the war that the "barbershop quartets" evolved from the slow, melancholy style of the Ink Spots to the casual, innovative style of Ravens, Orioles, Clovers. At the end of the war, the USA was electrified. War was over, the USA had won, peace reigned, and wealth was spreading. The new mood helped popular music too.

The 1940s witnessed progress both in the technique and in the style. As electric instruments spread, they affected the way musicians played. Around 1945 Les Paul (born Lester Polfus) invented "echo delay", "multi-tracking" and many other studio techniques that would be rediscovered years later by producers all over the world. In 1946 Muddy Waters cut the first records of Chicago's electric blues. And it was in 1947 that Billboard writer Jerry Wexler coined the term "rhythm'n'blues" for this new genre of blues. More labels were born to promote black music, such as Modern (1945), Specialty (1946) and Imperial (1946), all of them in Los Angeles. Atlantic was founded in New York to promote black music at the border between jazz, rhythm'n'blues and pop (1947). A label, in particular, was founded in Chicago's South Side by two Polish-born Jews to promote rhythm'n'blues: Aristocrat, better known as Chess (1947). Black music was "rocking" harder and harder, as Roy Brown stated in his hit Good Rockin' Tonight in Texas (1947), and Detroit rhythm'n'blues saxophonist Wild Bill Moore claimed in We're Gonna Rock We're Gonna Roll (1948) and in the follow-up, I Want To Rock And Roll (1949).

At the same time, after the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film company opened a recording business to sell their movie soundtracks (1946), the mainstream popular music was controlled by six "majors: Columbia, RCA Victor, Decca, Capitol, MGM, Mercury. A gap was being created between these six majors, that sold white music for white people, and the small independent labels that were sprouting up around the country. The first confrontation had taken place in 1941, when radio stations refused to accept the higher royalties requested by the ASCAP, that controlled most of the New York artists, and started BMI (Broadcast Music Inc), which mainly represented independent country and blues artists from the rest of the nation. Tin Pan Alley and the ASCAP were marketing adult white families, not black families and not young people. But the independent radio stations had more success among young white people, a market that was virtually unexplored.

1948 (when Pete Seeger formed the Weavers) saw the prodromes of the "folk revival", which would affect thousands of young singers and induce many of them to migrate to New York's Greenwich Village. Jazz and folk musicians shared the same clubs and lofts, and inevitably came to influence each other. The intellectuals of the Greenwich Village were listening to both. In 1948 Billboard introduced charts for "folk" and "race" records, the latter being a euphemism for "black people's records" (and renamed in 1949 "rhythm'n'blues"). In 1950 Elektra was founded in New York to promote both scenes, and Dutch electronics giant Philips entered the recording business.

1948 was also the year that Ed Sullivan started his variety show on national television (later renamed "Ed Sullivan Show"), a show that would hypnotize the youth of America. In the meantime (1949), Todd Storz of the KOWH radio station had the idea of a radio program devoted to the "Top 40" songs in the country.

In those years, two little-noticed technical events took place that would change the way music is distributed and consumed: Columbia introduced (1948) the 12-inch 33-1/3 RPM long-playing vinyl record, and the idea of the "album" was born, and RCA Victor introduced (1949) the 45 RPM vinyl record. In 1951 they would agree to split the record market: Victor selling 33 RPM long-playing records and Columbia selling 45 RPM records. (In a matter of months, Columbia converted its entire catalog of 78 RPM records to the 45 RPM format).

Another strain in popular music, "exotica", was created piecemeal starting from the late 1940s. First (1947) Korla Pandit (John Red), pretending to be an Indian guru and playing a Hammond organ, started a Hollywood-based tv program that, indirectly, publicized exotic sounds. Then (1948) Rodgers & Hammerstein's Tale Of The South Pacific became a Broadway hit. Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac (Zoila Chavarri), blessed with a five-octave range, was presented by her composer/arranger Moises Vivanco as an Inca princess when she recorded Voice Of the Xtabay (1950), arranged by Les Baxter. Finally, Les Baxter's Ritual Of The Savage (1951) incorporated exotic themes and a theremin in instrumental easy-listening music. Martin Denny's Exotica (1956) gave a name to the trend. His vibraphonist, Arthur Lyman, recorded Taboo (1958), the third classic of the genre.

Those were also the years of Carl Stalling's cartoon soundtracks. Stalling had started by scoring the first "Mickey Mouse" cartoons for Walt Disney in 1929, and had joined Warner Brothers in 1936. The 1940s were the golden decade of cartoon soundtracks, when composers such as Stalling had virtually unlimited free hand in assembling the most eccentric and awkward combination of sounds and samples.

The Avantgarde

The end of the decade and the beginning of the 1950s were also important for avantgarde classical music. Composers in both Europe and the USA experimented with techniques that, again, would not be fully understood until the end of the century. John Cage had already composed Imaginary Landscape N.1 for magnetic tape in 1939. When (1946) the city of Darmstadt in Germany set up a school for avantgarde composers, the magnetic tape became one of their "instruments". In 1946 New York jazz pianist Raymond Scott founded "Manhattan Research", the world's first electronic music studio, for which he built one of the first synthesizers. In 1948 Pierre Schaeffer created a laboratory for "musique concrete" (music made of noises, not notes) in Paris and performed a concerto for noises. Joseph Schillinger published "A Mathematical Basis of the Arts" (1949), in which he proposed that popular music could be composed by combining snippets of existing popular music. Needless to say, few people realized that, fifty years later, that process (renamed "sampling") would become widespread. Karlheinz Stockhausen joined the school of music at Darmstadt in 1951, and began composing "elektronische musik". In the same year, the French national radio set up a studio to record electronic music in Paris, and the West Deutsche Radio created a similar studio in Cologne (the NWDR). Across the ocean, John Cage was composing music for radio frequencies (1951), multi-media pieces that employed a computer (1952), and electronic collages of hundreds of random noises (1952), while (1952) electronic engineers Harry Olsen and Hebert Belar built the first synthesizer at RCA's Princeton Laboratories, the "Mark I".

It was just a matter of time before new genres based on electronic instruments appeared: Bruno Maderna's Musica su Due Dimensioni (1957) was the first "electroacoustic" composition, mixing traditional instruments and electronic tape, and John Cage's Cartridge Music (1960) was the first example of "live electronic music", which uses the electronic instrument "like" a traditional instrument (save that, obviously, the electronic instrument can play the sounds of all instruments as well as sounds that no acoustic instrument can play). A computer composed the Illiac Suite (1957), using software created by Lejaren Hiller.

Last, but not least, John Cage had introduced "chance" and non-musical gestures into the compositional process. The structure of Music Of Changes (1951) was determined by coin tosses and the patterns of the "I Ching". Water Music (1952) instructs the performers to also perform non-musical gestures.

While the middle-class of the USA was listening to the gracious, peaceful, pleasant music of pop crooners and harmony groups, a whole new world of sound was being created that would literally disintegrate that old world of ordered notes.

Rock'n'Roll 1951-57

The list of serious pretenders to the title of first rock'n'roll song (not just a title referencing the act of "rocking") begins with The Fat Man (1949), cut by Antoine "Fats" Domino, a New Orleans performer, which certainly sounded like a new kind of boogie. The man who is commonly credited with inventing the term "rock'n'roll" is a white Cleveland disc-jockey, Alan Freed, who in 1951 decided to speculate on the success of Leo Mintz's store and started a radio program, "Moondog Rock'n'Roll Party", that broadcasted black music to an audience of white teenagers. Other white disc-jockeys had done and were doing the same thing, but it was Freed's enthusiasm for black music that became contagious. That same year Ike Turner's Rocket 88 (1951) was definitely rock'n'roll (although an adaptation of Pete Johnson's instrumental Rocket 88 Boogie of 1949). And that same year Gunter Lee Carr cut the dance novelty We're Gonna Rock. Therefore, everybody was already "rocking". Alas, they were mostly black, i.e. distributed only locally.
The record industry was aware that a new music was being created by the blacks, and tried to exploit it with Bill Haley. His success proved that there was an audience for that music, and it was an audience desperate for anything that would play that music.

White people had the money, but black people were making the most exciting music. This created a niche for independent labels recording black artists for the white audience, but it could never become a mass market. The USA was still largely a racially-divided country. There was little chance that a black singer could become as popular as, say, Frank Sinatra. When Sam Phillips founded Sun Records in Memphis (Tennessee), he made the famous statement "If I could find a white man who sings with the Negro feel, I'd make a million dollars".

In 1952 a white singer, Bill Haley, formed the Comets, which can be considered the first rock'n'roll band. 1952 is also the year in which Bob Horn's "Bandstand" tv program (which in 1956 would become Dick Clark's "American Bandstand") began airing from Philadelphia every weekday afternoon, and the year in which Alan Freed (now more famous as "Moondog") organized the first rock'n'roll concert, the "Moondog Coronation Ball". And the year in which the first rock'n'roll song to enter the Billboard charts was Bill Haley's Crazy Man Crazy in 1953. At the same time, Sam Phillips was recording the first Elvis Presley record in his Sun studio, using two recorders to produce the effect of "slapback" audio delay that would become the typical sound of rockabilly.

Rock'n'roll was certainly not the only thing to happen to the USA music scene in those post-war years. The sentiment of euphoria was contagious. Hank Williams reached the top of the country charts in 1949, and turned country music into a serious art. Howling Wolf (out of Memphis) and Joe Turner (out of Kansas City) were popularizing the aggressive blues style of the "shouters". In 1952 Roscoe Gordon, a Memphis pianist, invented the "ska" beat with No More Doggin'. Charles Brown's Hard Times (1952) was the first hit by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to enter the charts, and marked the beginning of a new era for pop music. The Orioles' Crying in the Chapel (1953) was the first black hit to top the white pop charts. The following year saw the boom of a new kind of black vocal harmony, doo-wop, inaugurated by the Penguins' Earth Angel (1954) and by the Platters' Only You (1955).

Technical innovations laid the groundwork for further stylistic innovations. In 1952 Gibson introduced its solid-body electric guitar, invented by Les Paul a few years earlier, and the following year Leo Fender introduced the Stratocaster guitar (that he had invented in 1950). In the meantime, since 1951 the first juke-box machines that played 45 RPM records had begun to spread in every corner of the USA.

In 1954 all the record companies switched from 78 RPMs to 45 RPMs: the 78 RPM was dead, and the 45 RPM came to symbolize a new era of prosperity and fun. That same year a Japanese electronic company, TTK (later renamed Sony), introduced the last thing that was missing to turn popular music into a universal language: the world's first transistor radio. The new, cheaper gramophones and the portable radios caused a musical revolution of their own in the way people (especially young people) listened to music. The masses were now able to listen to music when they wanted and where they wanted.

Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock (1954), written in 1953 by James Myers and Max Freedman (both white) for a boogie group, was the first rock song used in a movie soundtrack. Bill Haley was the most unlikely "teen idol" (he was almost 30), and that song sounded like a novelty number, not a revolutionary anthem, but that was the song that turned rock'n'roll into a nation-wide phenomenon. Two films of 1955, "Rebel Without A Cause" and "Blackboard Jungle", established a new role model for teenagers: the rebellious loner and sometimes juvenile delinquent (not exactly the role model that their parents would have liked for them).

Musically, the real event of 1955 was Chuck Berry's first recording session. His songs were the first ones to have the guitar as "the" lead instrument, and introduced the descending pentatonic double-stops (the essence of rock guitar). His music was the meeting point of the guitar technique of T Bone Walker, the vocal technique of the "shouters" and the rhythm of boogie-woogie (with help from his pianist Johnnie Johnson). His songs also told a story that teenagers could relate to, that emphasized the generation gap, and hinted at taboo subjects such as adolescent love, notably in School Day (1957) and Sweet Little Sixteen (1958). He began the process of transforming the issues of a young generation into mythology. The riffs of his three masterpieces, Roll Over Beethoven (1956), Rock And Roll Music (1957) and the mythological Johnny B. Goode (1958), electrified millions of white kids. Last, but not least, his songs were... "his": Berry was the first major composer of rock'n'roll (not just an interpreter). But Berry was black, and blacks did not get the same airplay as white musicians. He remained a cult item.

In the same city and in the same year, another black musician, Chuck Berry's bassist Bo Diddley (born Otha Ellas Bates, raised Ellas McDaniel), invented the "hambone" rhythm (a syncopated boogie rhythm), that harked back to tribal Africa and gave songs such as I'm A Man (1955), the ominous Bo Diddley (1955) and Who Do You Love (1955) suspenseful, sinister and hypnotic quality. The album Bo Diddley (1957), Mona (1957), Love Is Strange (1957), written for Mickey (Baker) & Sylvia (Robinson), Dearest Darling (1958), typical of his devilish approach to the mystical, the proto-rap Say Man (1959), the novelty Road Runner (1960) coupled primordial energy and good-time humor. He also pioneered the blues-rock format with the four lengthy jams of Two Great Guitars (1964), a collaboration with Chuck Berry.

Rock'n'roll was certainly more closely related to rhythm'n'blues than to country music. Chicago rhythm'n'blues naturally morphed into rock'n'roll with black musicians such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.

If Berry invented the kind of rock'n'roll that will rule for the following 50 years, others laid the foundations for several strains of rock'n'roll. Perhaps the most influential on future generations was the kind of rock'n'roll that arose from gospel music. In New Orleans a singer and pianist named Esquerita (Eskew Reeder) coined a wild style of playing and singing that was popularized by New Orleans vocalist and pianist "Little" Richard Penniman. They performed like animals, and added another level of provocation: clothes and facial make-up that were obscene. Esquerita and Little Richard invented decadence-rock. Little Richard's frenzied songs of the time (mostly propelled by the drums of Earl Palmer) would remain the most hysterical specimens of rock'n'roll until punk-rock: Tutti Frutti (1955), Long Tall Sally (1956), Bumps Blackwell's Rip It Up (1956), Lucille (1957), Keep A-Knockin' (1957), Bumps Blackwell's Good Golly Miss Molly (1958). Larry Williams (also from New Orleans) was a Little Richard clone: Short Fat Fannie (1957), Bony Moronie (1957) and Dizzy Miss Lizzie (1958).

Sam Phillips' dream came true when he met Elvis Presley. Presley went on to become the first great swindle of rock'n'roll, and the prototype for the ones that would follow. Sam Phillips had found his man, equipped him with a masterful rhythm section (Bill Black on bass and Scotty Moore on guitar), and proceeded to market him as the juvenile delinquent that he was not. In a segregated society like the USA of the time, Presley became the ultimate white robber of black hits: Arthur Crudup's That's All Right Mama (1954), Roy Brown's Good Rockin' Tonight (1955), Junior Parker's Mystery Train (1955). He began to move towards "whiter" material with Carl Perkins' Blue Suede Shoes (1956), with Frederick "Shorty" Long on piano, Mae Axton's Heartbreak Hotel (1956), perhaps his vocal masterpiece, Leiber & Stoller's Hound Dog (1956), but his black soul still emerged in Otis Blackwell's diptych Don't Be Cruel (1956), his greatest hit, and All Shook Up (1957). Leiber & Stoller's Jailhouse Rock (1958), finally an irreverent boogie, was his swan song. Presley the rocker died there: he went on to croon and shout operatic melodies such as old Italian songs, and to specialize in seduction numbers such as Love Me Tender (1956, stolen from the soundtrack of "Rancho Notorious"), and Hugo (Peretti) & Luigi (Creatore)'s Can't Help Falling In Love (1961, a rewrite of Giovanni Martini's Plaisir d'Amour).

Presley's success was important in enabling hundreds of kids to play the music of the blacks. White rockers were finally tolerated, and even promoted by the "majors" (major label companies). These rockers (or, rather, Sam Phillips' production) defined "rockabilly", a style whose singer sang in a stuttering and hiccuping manner, accompanied by a small combo of slapping bass and frantic guitars, while the whole was captured using two recorders to produce an effect of "slapback" audio delay. Rockabilly songs were simulated bursts of lust.

Among early white rockers, Jerry Lee Lewis was, by far, the most faithful to the wild style of black rockers. James "Roy" Hall's Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (1957) and Otis Blackwell's Great Balls Of Fire (1957) coined a style of psychotic singing that will make the history of rock music (unlike Presley's, that will make the history of easy listening) and coined a manic style at the piano that was as ferocious as Berry's guitar riffs.

Other notable white rockers (all based in Memphis unless noted) were Carl Perkins, the stereotypical rockabilly singer, who wrote Blue Suede Shoes (1956) for Presley; Wayne "Buddy" Knox of the Rhythm Orchids, a Texan who wrote Party Doll (1956) for his friend Holly; Gene Vincent (Craddock) of the Blue Caps, an authentic rebel from Virginia who spew out Be Bop A Lula (1956), reminiscent of the Drifters' Money Honey, and formed the Blue Caps, one of the first rock bands; Louisiana's Dale Hawkins, whose swampy Suzie Q (1957) was derailed by James Burton's bluesy guitar solo; Johnny Burnette, a schoolmate of Elvis Presley whose trio recorded Tiny Bradshaw's Train Kept A-rolling with one of the first solos of distorted guitar (by Paul Burlison); Charlie Feathers, with a vocal style that was both nonsensical and virtuoso (Defrost Your Heart, 1955; Tongue Tied Jill, 1956); Albert "Sonny" Burgess of the Pacers, from Arkansas, one of the wildest (Red Headed Woman, 1956); Billy Lee Riley, leader of Sun's house band and one of the most sound-conscious (Ray Scott's Flying Saucers Rock'n'Roll, 1957, Billy Emerson's Red Hot); West Virginia's wildman and one-man band Hasil Adkins (She Said, 1955; The Hunch, 1957; Chicken Walk, 1962); and Ronnie Hawkins (Mary Lou, 1959). Wanda Jackson in Los Angeles was the "queen" of rockabilly (Honey Bop, 1956; Fujiyama Mama, 1958), and one of the very first white women to adopt a provocative, rebellious stance. The fact that their songs didn't climb the charts does not mean that they were any less talented than Presley. If nothing else, they mostly wrote the songs they sang.

There was also a brief "Latino rock" fad, with Ritchie Valens' Come On Let's Go (1958) and Chan Romero's Hippy Hippy Shake (1959), two of the most frantic rockabilly songs.

The limit of white rockers was their roots in country music. Their music was rarely as powerful and original as the music of black rockers. Black rockers who developed a unique style included Junior Parker, whose Mystery Train (1954) was the best wedding of country and blues, Richard Berry, a doo-wop performer who wrote Louie Louie (1956) for his Pharoahs (and sung it in Jamaican patois), Joe Turner, whose Shake Rattle And Roll (1957) would remain one of the most frenetic songs of all times, Screamin Jay Hawkins, from Cleveland (Ohio), who introduced voodoo into rock'n'roll with I Put A Spell On You (1956) and whose macabre stage antics virtually invented gothic-rock. Otis Blackwell, a black songwriter from New York, is one of the unsung heroes of the genre: he wrote Fever (1955) for Little Willie John, Don't Be Cruel (1956) and All Shook Up (1957) for Elvis Presley, and Great Balls Of Fire (1957) and Breathless (1958) for Jerry Lee Lewis. Jazz organist Bill Doggett bridged jump blues and rock'n'roll with the one instrumental track that mattered, Honky Tonk (1956), which actually emphasized guitar and sax.

Los Angeles-based Eddie Cochran was perhaps the greatest talent of the second white generation, but he died at 22. Summertime Blues (1958) and C'mon Everybody (1958), on which he overdubbed all instruments and vocals, were moving away from rockabilly.

Texas-based Buddy Holly was even more of an "enfant prodige": he also died at 22, but left behind an impressive corpus of songs. He radically altered the image of rock'n'roll: wearing glasses and a formal high-school outfit, he represented the exact opposite of the juvenile delinquent. His childish, naive optimism contrasted with the nasty, morbid world of the other rockers. His lyrics reached for the primal child in every teenager: they were made of onomatopoetic tongue-twisters and of "baby talk" (syllables, rather than words, silly repetitions, trifling rhymes). His vocal phrasing was a recital of exaggerated tones of voice, hiccupping from bass to falsetto, a nonsense lingo of guttural ejaculations and martial slogans. His music was catchy, but set to bizarre accompaniments (clapping, tom-toms, celesta), distilled from blues, tex-mex, folk, pop and country. That'll Be The Day (1957) and Peggy Sue (1957), a childish nursery-rhyme accompanied by one of the most famous drum beats in history, were his rockabilly masterpieces, but Words Of Love (1958), Everyday, It's So Easy and Well All Right already belonged to another genre, a form of jangling, melodic music straddling the line between folk and rock, and arranged in creative ways. In many ways, Holly was the first of rock's singer-songwriters. Last but not least, his Crickets forged the standard of the rock band: their line-up was two guitars, drums and bass; they wrote their own material, and the sound of their songs mainly relied on their playing (not on session musicians or orchestras).

Slowly but steadily, this new generation of white rockers overthrew two entrenched praxes of the recording industry. First, the guitar took over the piano. Second, singers began to sing their own songs. Since the beginning of the recording industry, professional songwriters had been writing the hits for pop singers to sing (and nameless players to accompany). Black rockers, instead, were writing most of the songs that they were singing. Pop songwriters were mainly pianists: they would compose a song on the piano, and then score the orchestral arrangements. Black rockers were composing on the guitar, just like bluesmen had been doing ever since, and knew too little about other instruments to arrange their compositions for an orchestra (they also used much simpler chords). Thus rock'n'roll became essentially a guitar-based genre. Thus the natural unit of delivery for rock'n'roll was the small combo, instead of the orchestra. Thus rock'n'roll emphasized the rhythm, not the harmony.

The guitar soon became integral part of the character: while pop singers only dealt with microphones, rockers were expected to swing a guitar in front of them (even though the majority of white rockers did not know how to play it).

"What" these singers sang also changed. Pop songwriters had always focused on universal values and feelings: each story was rehearsing the eternal themes (love, for example) of western literature. Black rockers came from a tradition that was more realist: the bluesmen sang about life in the plantation, in the jail, in the street, in the ghetto. Black rockers continued that tradition, except that they set their stories in a modern milieu that connected with the personal experiences of the white youth of the USA.

Rock'n'roll was, in many ways, the by-product of changes that were taking place within the USA society: mass education through a public school system (that put kids of the same community in daily contact with each other), the widespread diffusion of the radio, the juke-box and the 45 RPM record (that put kids from far-flung communities in daily contact), consumerism (that granted teenagers limited financial independence from their parents), increased racial integration (that allowed white kids to learn the more libertine customs of black people). The sexual revolution may have started before rock'n'roll, but certainly rock'n'roll became its soundtrack. The net effect of these developments was to favor a "clandestine" genre such as rock'n'roll was in the beginning. In 1955 the establishment applied the capitalistic rules of mass marketing to this new product, and sanctioned its existence. Rock'n'roll was, therefore, an almost inevitable synthesis of the USA civilization of the 1950s.

The tone of rock'n'roll was certainly different from the traditional tone of popular music. The sentimental, the tragic and the comic tones of popular music became (respectively) erotic, violent and sarcastic. That "was" a teenager's view of the world.

Rock'n'roll was revolutionary at several levels. It originated from small, independent labels (rather than big corporations). It ridiculed the stars and the sounds (and, indirectly, the lifestyle) of the establishment. It bridged the gap between the white public and the black public. It invented the notion of a rebellious youth. These were all destabilizing facts.

Puritans were right when they claimed that rockers (by appropriating the convulsions of strippers, the sensuality of perverts, and the "savagery" of blacks) were inciting male teenagers to become criminals and female teenagers to become prostitutes. It was their way to vent a generation's feeling of independence.

Through rock'n'roll, young people began searching for an identity, a process that would continue for decades, parallel to the evolution of rock music.

There had already been signs of discontent and dissent within the white capitalistic society (the beatniks in literature, for example), but they had not affected the masses. The "revolutionary" power of rock'n'roll far exceeded any political or cultural movement that had preceded it. Music became the terminal stage of an anelastic process: from social alienation to musical alienation to musical revolution to social revolution. Music became more than entertainment. Music became more than a universal language. Music became more than a message board. Music became a revolutionary tool for the youth of the USA.

Rock'n'roll spread to Britain, causing the first mass adoption of a USA musical style by the European masses. British rock hits included: Tommy Steele's Rock With the Cavemen (1956), Cliff Richard (Harry Webb)'s Move It (1958), written by his guitarist Ian Samwell, Marty Wilde's Bad Boy (1959), Frederick "Johnny Kidd" Heath's Shaking All Over (1960), and especially Billy Fury, who made the best album of British rockabilly, The Sound Of Fury (1960). These rockers laid the foundations for the British takeover of rock'n'roll.

The popularity of rock'n'roll caused the record industry to boom and allowed independent labels to flourish. Between 1955 and 1959, the USA market share of the four "majors" dropped from 78% to 44%, while the market share of independent record companies increased from 22% to 56%. The US market had increased from 213 million dollars to 603 million, and the market share of rock'n'roll increased from 15.7% to 42.7% in 1959. The excellent health of the recording industry was probably one reason why they kept experimenting with the format. In 1956 Elektra pioneered the "compilation" record, containing songs by different musicians, and in 1958 RCA introduced the first stereo long-playing records.

As musicians were allowed to make more and more bizarre records, they began to plunder the repertory of the rest of the world. In 1955 Pete Seeger released the first album of African music by a white musician, Bantu Choral Folk Songs, and in 1956 Martin Denny's Exotica created a new genre. Interest in Indian music (until then largely unknown in the west) was triggered by sarod player Ali Akbar Khan's 1955 concert in New York. Mexican composer Juan-Garcia Esquivel concocted super-kitschy lounge music, scoring odd melodies and counterpoints for exotic instruments and just about anything that had an unusual sound, from theremins to harpsichords. As a title of his best album goes, Other Worlds Other Sounds (1958).

Rock'n'roll was only the tip of the iceberg. Music was changing at every level. The Chordettes of Mr Sandman (1955) were the first "girl-group". Also in 1955, Ray Charles invented "soul" music with I Got A Woman, a secular adaptation of an old gospel.

The first Jamaican recording studio had opened in 1951 and recorded "mento" music, a fusion of European and African folk dance music. By fusing the mento rhythm and Memphis' rhythm'n'blues, a new genre, "ska" began to spread in the island.

So many parallel developments did not eclipse the traditional forms of popular music, which was still largely dependent on Broadway's musicals. For example, the best-selling album of 1955 was Doris Day's Love Me Or Leave Me, and the mega-seller of the following year was Rodgers' and Hammerstein's Oklahoma. The kids were still only a fraction of the market. Presley himself began to dominate the market only with his movie soundtracks (from 1957 on), and even he was eclipsed by the album of Leonard Bernstein's musical West Side Story (1962), that spent 54 weeks at the top of the charts (a record that no rock musician would ever beat).

While the youth of the USA danced at a faster rhythm and was being entertained by rebellious singers, classical music was experimenting with ever more unusual sounds. One of the most under-rated and eccentric geniuses of the 20th century, Moondog, who was a blind New York street performer, virtually invented every future genre of rock music between 1949 and 1956. Harry Revel's suite Music Out of the Moon (1947), issued as a set of three 78 R.P.M. records, was arranged by Les Baxter for cello, horn, choir and (mainly) a theremin played by Sam Hoffman, the man who had debuted the instrument in Miklos Rozsa's soundtracks for Lost Weekend (1945) and Spellbound (1945). Louis and Bebe Barron's soundtrack for the science-fiction film The Bells of Atlantis (1952), and later for the more famous Forbidden Planet (1956), employed only electronic instruments.

Avantgarde composers were experimenting with "tape music", computer music, noise, and new instruments such as the synthesizer and the sequencer. Indirectly, this process led to redefine avantgarde music: instead of an exclusive of seasoned (and mostly European) composers, it became a relatively grass-roots (and mostly USA) phenomenon. Sure, the composers were still educated at the most prestigious schools of music: but their stance towards composition/performance was moving away from the concert hall and towards the praxis of jazz music. The composers of this generation tried many (and wildly different) avenues of experimentation, from musique concrete to electroacoustic synthesis, but they shared a fundamental aesthetic belief in the power of "sound", as opposed to the traditional emphasis on harmony and melody.

Last but not least, in 1959 Ornette Coleman invented "free jazz". The impact of these ideas would not be felt for decades, but would eventually catch up with the music for guitar, bass and drums invented by Chuck Berry.

It didn't last. Soon, the puritanical element that was so pivotal in the USA society managed to kill the new genre. Actually, there were at least three forces working against rock'n'roll, despite its commercial success: a political force (the USA was coming out of Joseph McCarthy's "witch hunt" but unruly behavior was easily suspected of communism), a religious force (rock'n'roll, with its obvious references to sex, wasn't exactly the kind of music that church-goers desired for their children), and a racial force (rock'n'roll was clearly a black invention, in an age that was still obsessed with racial separation).

The impact of rock'n'roll could still be felt long after the last rocker retired or emigrated: the new pop idols promoted by Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" program (which was broadcast by 105 tv stations), were younger, and spoke to a younger audience. But the format went back to the melodic, romantic song of the vocal groups, and the guitar/bass/drums band was replaced by the string orchestra.

This was not true in Britain, where neither of those three forces was particularly strong, and where bluesmen and jazzmen were treated like living legends. Black music became very popular among white kids of the British middle-class at the same time that was being forgotten in the USA. In fact, two of the most influential phenomena of the 1950s originated from this passion for the Afro-American culture. London was the center of "trad" ("traditional jazz"), which spawned a generation of white musicians playing black music, notably Alexis Korner. Rock Island Line (1955), sung by Lonnie Donegan for trombonist Chris Barber's jazz combo, launched the fad of "skiffle", a sort of fast-paced, exuberant and melodic jug-music performed with cheap instruments. (In the 1920s, "skiffle" was used by USA record companies to refer to music performed by musicians who were too poor to buy instruments, thus using washboards, kazoos and jugs). Within a year, there were almost a thousand groups of skiffle bands in London alone, notably the Vipers (featuring the young Hank Marvin) of Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O (1956) and Streamline Train (1957).

Before the Flood 1957-1962
Pop restoration

The years between 1957 and 1965 can be considered the "dark age" of rock'n'roll. Many thought that rock'n'roll had simply died, an ephemeral, short-lived fad like many others. The wild, lascivious, insolent rocker was quickly replaced by a generation of polite, well-dressed, romantic "teen-idols" that ruled the airwaves till 1965. Paul Anka's Diana (1957), Pat Boone's Love Letters In The Sand (1957), Bobby Darin's Dream Lover (1959), Frankie Avalon's Why (1959), Fabian (Forte)'s I'm a Man (1959), Bobby Rydell's Wild One (1960), Rick Nelson's Hello Mary Lou (1961), Bobby Vee (Velline)'s Take Good Care Of My Baby (1961), and Neil Sedaka's Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (1962), and, among the girls, Brenda "Lee" Tarpley's I'm Sorry (1960), Connie "Francis" Franconero's My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own (1960) and Leslie Gore's It's My Party (1962), were emblematic. At best, rock'n'roll was fused with country music to yield a more "traditional" (and white) form of music for young people, as was the case with the Everly Brothers' Bye Bye Love (1957) and All I Have To Do Is Dream (1958), written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.

In 1958 Don Kirshner opened offices for songwriters and producers at the Brill Building of New York that would become the most powerful force in pop music. This event is symbolic of the return to the old order of the pop singer backed by an orchestra. But the songwriters employed by Kirshner (Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond) and by his competitors (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, Bert Berns and Jerry Ragovoy/Ragavoy, Kerome "Doc" Pomus and Mort Shuman) were of a caliber hitherto unseen in popular music. The impact of rock'n'roll was evident even on these conservative, pop songwriters: the focus of their lyrics was the teenager. King wrote (with lyricist Goffin) Will You Love Me Tomorrow (1960) for the Shirelles, Take Good Care Of My Baby (1961) and Run To Him (1961) for Booby Vee, Up On The Roof (1962) for the Drifters, A Natural Woman (1967) for Aretha Franklin, the dance novelty The Loco-Motion (1962) for Little Eva Boyd. Goffin also wrote Do You Know Where Are You Going To (1975) for Diana Ross. Mann & Weil wrote On Broadway (1963) for the Drifters, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (1964) for the Righteous Brothers, We`ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place (1965) for the Animals, Kicks (1966) for Paul Revere. Barry & Greenwich wrote Then He Kissed Me and Da Doo Ron Ron (1963) for the Crystals, Do Wah Diddy Diddy for Manfred Mann, Hanky Panky (1966) for Tommy James, Sugar Sugar (1969) for the Archies, River Deep Mountain High (1966) for Ike and Tina Turner. Gene Pitney wrote Hello Mary Lou (1961) for Rick Nelson and He's A Rebel (1962) for the Crystals. Bert Berns wrote Twist And Shout (1962) for the Isley Brothers (based on La Bamba), Cry To Me (1961) and Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (1964) for Solomon Burke, Hang On Sloopy (1964) for the Vibrations and later the McCoys. Jerry Ragovoy/Ragavoy wrote Time Is On My Side (1964) for Irma Thomas, as well as Ain't Nobody Home (1966) and Get It While You Can (1967) for Howard Tate. Berns and Ragovoy wrote Cry Baby (1963) for Garnet Mimms, and Piece Of My Heart (1967) for Emma Franklin and later Janis Joplin. Pomus & Shuman wrote A Teenager In Love (1959) for Dion, I'm a Man (1959) for Fabian, Viva Las Vegas for Elvis Presley, and This Magic Moment (1960) and Save The Last Dance For Me (1960) for the Drifters. Leiber & Stoller wrote Hard Times (1951) for Charles Brown, Hound Dog (1952) for Mama Thornton and then Presley, Jailhouse Rock (1957) for Elvis Presley, Kansas City (1952) for Willie Littlefield and later Wilbert Harrison, Lucky Lips (1953) for Ruth Brown, Love Potion Number Nine (1959) for the Clovers, There Goes My Baby (1959) for the Drifters, Stand By Me (1961) for Ben King, Searchin' (1957), Yakety Yak (1958) and Charlie Brown (1959) for the Coasters.

The success of these songwriting companies was, largely, a sign of the decline, demise and defeat of rock'n'roll (both the music and the culture).

However, like all "dark ages", the dark age of rock'n'roll hatched the embryos of the cultural revolution to come. For example, in 1957 Link Wray's instrumental Rumble invented the "fuzz-tone" guitar sound (not to mention the whole concept of the "power chord"); and in 1958 Eddie Cochran (the most talented of latter-day rockers) overdubbed all instruments and vocals on Summertime Blues and C'mon Everybody. These were impressive and influential achievements. The industry, however, was not paying attention anymore, and neither were the masses.

Rock'n'roll survived in dance-oriented songs such as Danny & The Juniors' At The Hop (1957) and Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay (1958); Freddie "Cannon" Picariello's Tallahassie Lassie (1959) and Palisades Park (1962). Tommy Roe continued Buddy Holly's legacy with the bubblegum refrains of Sheila (1960), Sweet Pea (1966) and Dizzy (1969).

There were also white rhythm'n'blues singers, whose songs, such as Dion DiMucci's Runaround Sue (1961), and Johnny "Rivers" Ramistella's Poor Side Of Town (1966), introduced new styles to rock singing, and there were serious purveyors of the "heartbreak", particularly Del Shannon (born Charles Westover), whose Runaway (1961) employed one of the early electronic sounds and whose Stranger In Town (1965) was sheer claustrophobia; Ray Peterson, displaying his four and a half octave voice in Jeff Barry's death song Tell Laura I Love Her (1960); and Lou Christie, the wailing falsetto of Two Faces Have I (1963) and Lightnin Strikes (1966).

Roy Orbison was the world's specialist of orchestral melodramas, the terrifying voice of Only The Lonely (1960), Crying (1961) and the driving Oh Pretty Woman (1964), one of the most famous bass riffs in the history of rock music. He would shift from falsetto to baritone to tenor within the same song while building to an anguished climax.

The late 1950s were the years of the novelty tunes, of the "dance crazes", of the vocal groups, of instrumental rock, of exotica, of soul music. Each of these phenomena contributed something to the renaissance of rock music, although at the time they were perceived as burying Chuck Berry's invention for good and forever.

"Novelties" could be particularly ingenious: The Tokens' The Lion Sleeps Tonight (1961), produced by the duo Hugo (Peretti) & Luigi (Creatore), and based on Pete Seeger's Wimoweh (1961) which was in turn based on Solomon Linda's Southafrican hit Mbube (1939), employed operatic soprano, Neapolitan choir, yodel and proto-electronics.

Dance crazes

Bobby Freeman's Do You Wanna Dance (1958) summarized the mood of young people after the deluge of rock'n'roll. The most famous of the "dance crazes", the twist, centered around New York's "Peppermint Lounge", was the closest thing to rock'n'roll to come out during the dark ages. The dance had no well-defined moves and it was openly erotic. Invented by the Midnighters' frontman Hank Ballard with The Twist (1958), covered by Chubby Checker who then continued with Let's Twist Again (1961), Limbo Rock (1962) and many others, the twist spawned Joey "Dee" (Dinicola) and the Starlites' Peppermint Twist (1961), by the house band of New York's Peppermint Lounge, Bobby Lewis' Tossin' And Turnin' (1961), King Curtis Ousley' Soul Twist (1962), Dee Dee Sharp's Mashed Potato Time (1962), and the Isley Brothers' Twist And Shout (1962). It quickly faded away after "Beatlemania" took over the USA, but it was important to blur the line between white and black music (Freeman and Ballard were black).

The hits of Virginia's producer Frank Guida, namely Gary U.S. Bonds' Dear Lady Twist (1962) and Jimmy Soul's If You Wanna Be Happy (1963), a cover of Hubert "Roaring Lion" Charles' Marry An Ugly Woman (1934), were marketed as "twist" but were actually calypso.

Philadelphia was an inexhaustible source of new dances, mainly devised by the songwriting duo of Kal Mann and Dave Appell, for example The Wah Watusi (1961), first recorded by the Vibrations.

Dance music was mutating into a genre of its own, thanks to a French invention. When the occupying German troops shut down Paris' dance halls (which were guilty of promoting Jewish and Black music), private clubs began playing dance records for their customers. "La Discotheque" opened in 1941 to play the jazz music that was banned in dance halls: since it could not hire jazz musicians, it was only playing records. At the end of the war, the phenomenon spread everywhere: after all, it was also cheaper to play a record than to hire a band, and dancers would rather listen to a set of different styles from different musicians than to a set played by the same band. In 1947 Paul Pacine opened the "Whiskey a Go-Go" in Paris. During the 1950s, Paris lived its own "dolce vita" and the "discotheques" were its headquarters. The idea moved to the USA in the 1960s: the first New York disco was the "Peppermint Lounge", opened in 1961, and the first California disco was the "Whiskey-A-Go-Go", which opened in 1965 on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. Live music would remain the main business for all these discos, but the seeds of a record-oriented club scene had been planted.

Instrumental rock 1958-60

Instrumental rock abandoned the sax-driven sound of rhythm'n'blues, best illustrated by Johnny Paris (Pocisk) and the Hurricanes' Red River Rock (1959), based on the country standard Red River Valley, and by Chuck Rio's Champs with Tequila (1958), and shifted the emphasis towards the guitar. Duane Eddy was the champion of the guitar-driven instrumental, with Cannonball (1958), Ramrod (1958) and Forty Miles Of Bad Road (1959), and began a trend towards more and more atmospheric music, such as Sleep Walk (1959), written and performed by the New York duo of guitarist Santo (Farina) and drummer Johnny (Farina), Walk Don't Run (1960), written by Johnny Smith and performed by Seattle's Ventures with an emphasis on tremolo guitar, and (in Britain) Apache (1960), written by Jerry Lordan and performed by the Shadows with an emphasis on Hank Marvin's twangy guitar (ex Vipers). Even the drums were employed as lead instrument, as was the case with Sandy Nelson's Teen Beat (1959) and Preston Epps's Bongo Rock (1959).

Prodromes of the flood

At the turn of the decade, a number of events announced what was about to happen. In 1959 two California teenagers, Frank Zappa and Donald Van Vliet, cut a record together. In 1960 Larry Parnes, Britain's most famous impresario, arranged a show for the Silver Beetles in Liverpool, and the following year the magazine "Mersey Beat" was founded in Liverpool by Bill Harry (and in the same year the Shirelles' Will You Love Me Tomorrow (by King & Goffin) coined the kind of romantic multi-part vocal harmonies that would make the Beatles rich and famous). A British producer, Joe Meek, began using the recording studio like an instrument for his space opera I Hear a New World (1960), a genre of orchestral and sometimes electronic extravaganzas that would peak with the space-age pop muzak of Attilio Mineo's Man in Space with Sounds (1962). In 1961 Bob Dylan arrived at New York's Greenwich Village. In 1961 Dick Dale used the term "surfing" to describe the instrumental rock'n'roll of Let's Go Trippin' (1961). In 1961 the British bluesman Alexis Korner formed the Blues Incorporated, that would include a rotating cast of young musicians such as Charlie Watts, John Surman, John McLaughlin, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Keith Richard, Eric Burdon, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, and spawned the similar combos of Cyril Davies, Graham Bond, Long John Baldry, and John Mayall. In 1962 a Seattle guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, began working as a session-man. In 1962 Robert Wyatt and others formed the Wilde Flowers, the beginning of the dynasty of the Canterbury school. The Tornado's instrumental Telstar (1962), architected by Meek and driven by Roger Lavern's organ, became the first British record to top the USA charts. These were all premonitions.

Los Angeles' producer Phil Spector invented a style of production named "wall of sound", best exemplified by the Crystals' He's A Rebel (1962, a Gene Pitney song that was sung by Darlene "Love" Wright and actually did not feature the group) and Da Doo Ron Ron (1963, by Barry & Greenwich), by Darlene Love's Christmas (1963, again Barry & Greenwich), perhaps Spector's noisiest production, by the Ronette's Be My Baby (1963, also Barry & Greenwich), by the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (1964, by Mann & Weil), the era's peak of pathos, by the Shangri-Las' Leader of the Pack (1964, again Barry & Greenwich), one of the most articulate stories, and by Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep Mountain High (1966, another Barry & Greenwich composition). Spector was the Wagner of teenage emotion (and, hidden between the lines of all that pandemonium, of teenage lust).

Surf music

Sure, in 1962, most pop hits were written and produced at the Brill Building, New York, the headquarters of pop music, and in 1963 almost 50% of USA recordings were made in Nashville, the headquarters of country music. But, within a year, the Beach Boys' Surfin' (released in december 1961) and Jan (Berry) and Dean (Torrence)'s Surf City (1963) made surf-music (and California) much more relevant.

Surf music was a harmless invention, but sometimes the most unlikely event turns out to be the spark that sets the world on fire. Surf bands were playing rock'n'roll, and they were playing it with new subtlety and vigor. They bridged rock'n'roll with pop music, and came up with a genre that had both a strong rhythmic element and a strong melodic element. The Beach Boys were still essentially a pop, vocal group, but played the kind of music that Chuck Berry had invented. Basically, they sang Four Freshmen harmonies over Chuck Berry rhythms. Songs such as the Trashmen's feverish and demented Surfin' Bird (1963) were even more unconventional, and so were albums such as Jan Berry's soundtrack for the film Ride The Wild Surf (1964). Instrumental surf bands were even more futuristic, playing something that did not relate to pop music at all, as immortalized by the Surfaris' Wipe Out (1963, written by Merrell Fankhauser) and by the Chantays' dual-guitar fantasia Pipeline (1963). Last but not least, surf music put California on the map of rock music, a fact that would have momentous consequences.

Trouble in Paradise 1961-1964
The Folk Revival

The most significant event of the USA music scene at the turn of the decade was the folk revival. Launched in 1958 by the Kingstone Trio's Tom Dooley, and celebrated in 1959 at the first Newport Folk Festival, the folk revival introduced a sense that music was meant to be more than mere entertainment. Within a few years, its boundaries had expanded dramatically. Joan Baez turned folk music into an austere form on Joan Baez(1961). Bob Gibson was one of the very early folk-singers who set to renovate the art of folk music. His best album, At The Gate Of Horn (1961), a live performance with Bob Camp, predates the intimate style of folk-rock by a few years. Ian (Tyson) and Sylvia (Fricker) were perhaps the most soulful, predating folk-rock with Ian's Four Strong Winds (1963) and Sylvia's You Were On My Mind (1964, the We Five's hit). Folk music evolved rapidly into something more profound and more complex, as proven by Lee Hazlewood's concept albums, Trouble Is A Lonesome Town (1963) and The N.S.V.I.P.'s (1965), that consist of bleak stories about misfits and losers.

Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger had invented the symbiosis between folk-singers and the Left. Between April 1962 (when Bob Dylan's Blowing In The Wind was released) and 1965 (when almost everybody was singing protest songs) that invention became the ruling paradigm for folk-singers around the country. Folk-singers became the voice of both the civil-rights movement and the peace movement. A song was expected to be a miniature political rally, its title a political slogan, its lyrics a political speech. The epicenter of this phenomenon was the Greenwich Village in New York. The so called "Greenwich movement" helped the folk-singer mutate into the singer-songwriter: politically-aware folk-singers were writing their own lyrics and music, and were placing the emphasis on the story, not on the melody. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, the agit-prop bard of Ain't Marching Anymore (1965) and The Ringing For Revolution (1966), Tom Paxton, whose first album Ramblin' Boy (1965) harked back to Woody Guthrie's style, and Buffy Saint-Marie, with the pacifist anthem Universal Soldier (1964), "marched" and "sat in" along with thousands of students. True to their non-violent ideals, they did not advocate violent resistance. Their songs were rebellious in a melancholy and desolate way. The Greenwich Movement was also important because it gave young people a "voice", and that voice was a musical one. Music became the vehicle for young people to vent their (political) frustration. It was a different kind of music, and a different kind of frustration, but the similarity with rock'n'roll was obvious. It was just a matter of time before the personal (rock'n'roll) and the public (protest song) would find a common ground.

Progressive folk

While the music of protest singers was not expected to be innovative, other folk musicians focused just on that: innovation. Davy Graham in Britain, who played the folk ballad She Moves Through the Fair (1963) as a raga and on Folk Blues and Beyond (1965) toyed with jazz and middle-eastern music, John Fahey on the West Coast, and Sandy Bull (12) on the East Coast played and composed pieces that fused folk, blues, jazz and Indian raga, while Joseph Spence in the Bahamas invented an intricate, polyphonic and polyrhythmic guitar style.

Bull's lengthy Blend, on his masterpiece Fantasias For Guitar & Banjo (1963), was light-years ahead of its time, as were the Inventions For Guitar And Banjo (1965), and later works such as Electric Blend, on E Pluribus Unum (1970), would confirm his status as one of the overlooked geniuses of the era.

His friend Djalma "Bola Sete" DeAndrade, a black Brazilian guitarist who had relocated to San Francisco in 1959, blended samba, jazz, USA folk music and European classical music in the effortless improvisations of The Solo Guitar (1965), Ocean (1972), Shambhala Moon (1982).

It was around this time that John Fahey, following the intuition of Pete Seeger's Goofing Off Suite (1955), invented "American primitivism", a new way of exploiting the folk and country tradition.

John Fahey is the man who introduced the stream of consciousness into folk music, and turned folk music into classical music, and then made it cross the boundaries of western and eastern music. The spiritual father of the "american primitive guitar", Fahey turned the guitar solo into a metaphysical exercise. Great San Bernardino Party (1966) and Requia (1967) introduced his surreal world of tragic and solemn visions; images penned by the guitar, rather than by the voice. His "western raga", as defined by his three instrumental masterpieces, A Raga Called Pat Part 3 & 4, on Voice Of The Turtle (1968), The Voice Of The Turtle, on America (1971), and the title-track from Fare Forward Voyagers (1973) weave a slow, hypnotic flow of tinkling sounds, a majestic tide of free-form melodic fragments. These lengthy meditations work at two levels: first they evoke wide landscapes and imposing nature, and then they resurrect the ghosts of all the people who roamed them. The dreams of the explorers, the anxiety of the adventurers, the hopes of the pioneers are joined together, but Fahey shuns the epic mode and prefers a form of domestic impressionism, which is tender and warm. His art is about the collective myths of mankind. His musical pilgrimage represents the odyssey of all the "Ulysseses" who traveled (walked, rode, sailed) towards the unknown.

The mysterious Daniel Robinson, better known as Robbie Basho, took up John Fahey's solo-guitar music, wed it to eastern mysticism (way before new-age music was invented), mixed in elements of middle-eastern, Indian, Latin and Japanese music (way before world-music was invented), and added experimentation derived from jazz improvisation (way before fusion was invented). Seal Of The Blue Lotus (1965), The Grail And the Lotus (1966) and Falconer's Arm (1967) are simply unique. Venus In Cancer (1969) and Song Of The Stallion (1971) are more than unique.

Egyptian-Nubian oud and tar virtuoso Hamza El Din concocted a mesmerizing sound on Al Oud (1965) and Escalay (1971), that displays the haunting interplay of the oud's gentle strings, the extended percussive range and overtones of the tar and his subdued vocals.

Ska

Theophilus Beckford cut the first "ska" record, Easy Snapping, in 1959, but Prince Buster (Cecil Campbell), owner of the sound system "Voice of the People", was the one who, around 1961, defined ska's somatic traits once and forever (he and his guitarist Jah Jerry).

The Wailers, featuring the young Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston, slowed down the beat in Simmer Down (1963). Millie Small's My Boy Lollipop (1964) was the first worldwide ska hit. The charismatic leaders of the ska movement were the Skatalites, a group of veteran ex-jazzmen, led by saxophonist Tommy McCook and featuring virtuoso trombonist Don Drummond and tenor saxophonist Rolando Alphonso, that formally existed only between 1964 and 1965 (Ball O' Fire, 1965; Phoenix City, 1966; the instrumental Guns Of Navarone, 1967), but ska's star was Desmond Dekker (Dacres), whose 007 Shanty Town (1967), Rudie Got Soul (1968) and Rude Boy Train (1968) fueled the mythology of the "rude boy", and whose Israelites (1968) launched the even faster "poppa-top". Ska music was relatively serene and optimist, a natural soundtrack to that age of peace and wealth, somewhat akin to the music of the "swinging London".

Jamaica had become an independent country in 1962, but social problems had multiplied. During the mid Sixties, ska music evolved into "rock steady", a languid style, named after Alton Ellis' hit Rock Steady (1966), that emphasized sociopolitical themes, adopted electric instruments, replaced the horns with the guitars, and promoted the bass to lead instrument (virtually obliterating the drums). In other words, ska mutated under the influence of soul music. Rock steady was identified with the crowd of young delinquents (the "rude boys") who mimicked the British "mods" and the USA "punks". Its generational anthems were Judge Dread (1967) by Prince Buster, John Holt's The Tide Is High (1966) by the Paragons, Rivers Of Babylon (1969) by the Melodians. The music took the back seat to the vocal harmonies. This helped bring about the supremacy of vocal groups: Wailers, Paragons, Maytals, Pioneers, Melodians, Heptones, etc.

The Flood 1964-1965
The Tunesmiths

The Beach Boys' idea of wedding the rhythm of rock'n'roll and the melodies of pop music was taken to its logical conclusion in Britain by the bands of the so-called "Mersey Sound". The most famous of them, the Beatles, became the object of the second great swindle of rock'n'roll. In 1963 "Beatlemania" hit Britain, and in 1964 it spread through the USA. They became even more famous than Presley, and sold records in quantities that had never been dreamed of before them.

Presley had proven that there was a market for rock'n'roll in the USA. Countless imitators proved that a similar market also existed in Europe, but they had to twist and reshape the sound and the lyrics. Britain had a tradition of importing forgotten bluesmen from the USA, and became the center of the European recording industry. European rock'n'roll was less interested in innuendos, more interested in dancing, and obliged to merge with the strong pop tradition. European rock'n'roll, from Italy to England, was much more melodic than the original. In fact, none of the most famous British, French and Italian rockers qualify as a "true" rocker: they were still pop singers. Johnny Kidd and the Pirates was the notable exception, particularly with Shakin' All Over (1960).

A clear difference between USA rock'n'roll and British rock'n'roll was that USA rock'n'roll had a relatively rural (Mid-western and Southern) origin, whereas British rock'n'roll was strongly urban and industrial from the very beginning. London, in particular, was experiencing a rebirth. Just like all other European capitals, the "swinging London" was awash in money and enthusiasm. But, unlike most European capitals, London (and all the other British industrial cities) had a vast reservoir of poor, alienated youth, the price that Britain paid for being the most industrialized country in Europe.

A more crucial difference was one that truly changed the way rock'n'roll was perceived by the public: the British had a stronger concept of the "group" as opposed to the "individual". The rocker had been a typical USA phenomenon: a musical transposition of the "loner", the misfit, the nomad that is frequently celebrated by USA novels and films. Britain had a different musical tradition, that was grounded on the orchestra: to them, a jazz or blues or rock "band" was simply a small-scale orchestra. Also, Britain had a different social background: the "gang" prevailed over the "hero". The names of the first rock bands were aping (often in a mocking way) the names of the gangs that operated in their territory. USA rock'n'roll had translated the sense of individual frustration into the cult of personality. British rock'n'roll translated the sense of collective frustration into the cult of the group. USA culture, particularly in the Midwest and in the South where rock'n'roll was born, emphasized identity, but British culture, particularly in the industrial cities, emphasized the loss of identity in favor of membership in a group.

When the London bands pared down the "trad" orchestra to a guitar-driven combo, British rhythm'n'blues was born (namely Rolling Stones and Yardbirds). When the Liverpool bands replaced the instruments of skiffle with drums, bass and electric guitar, skiffle mutated into a new genre, that was renamed "Mersey sound" (or "Merseybeat") in 1963 (Mersey being Liverpool's river). The Casanovas (later Big Three) were perhaps the first of the Merseybeat groups (or at least the first to play at the Cavern, in may 1960).

Just like Presley's success spawned a generation of rockers, the success of the Beatles spawned a generation of rock bands. As the Beatles were easily accepted by the mainstream (they conformed with the conventions of the white, conservative "teen idol" era), rock bands that imitated them were also tolerated.

True to their musical roots, the Beach Boys and the Beatles continued to produce melodic music, and became more and more sophisticated in their arrangements.

The Beach Boys had the idea first. Ballads such as Don't Worry Baby (1964) were a synthesis of Phil Spector's "wall of sound", Chuck Berry's teenage vignettes, doo-wop's stately four-part harmonies, as well as the cornerstone of a new form of pop music. That form was born with I Get Around (1964), the greatest of their car songs, Help Me Rhonda (1965), the most acrobatic of their multi-part vocal inventions, Barbara Ann (1965), the most anarchic of their geometric constructions, and Good Vibrations (1966), the first pop hit to employ electronic sounds. Brian Wilson, the genius behind the Beach Boys' sound, became the quintessential eccentric of melody, particularly on Pet Sounds (1966) and the "lost album" Smile (recorded in 1967, but released only in 2004). Brian Wilson created a unique role for himself when he quit playing: basically, he was a composer who had a band to perform his repertory. The Beach Boys became immaterial.

The Beatles, thanks to the creativity of their producer George Martin (who was for them what Brian Wilson was for the Beach Boys), popularized the new styles that were emerging from the underground. They began with effervescent party-tunes such as Love Me Do (1962), A Hard Day's Night (1964), I Feel Fine (1964) and Help (1965), but their melodic genius truly blossomed with the sophisticated slow ballads of Yesterday (1965), Michelle (1965), We Can Work It Out (1965) and Eleanor Rigby (1966), while Penny Lane (1967) topped everything else in terms of harmony. Heralded by the proto-psychedelic pastiche of Tomorrow Never Knows (1966) for sitar, organ drones and backward guitar, their best albums, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and Abbey Road (1969), were tours de force of studio arrangement that further enhanced their melodic talent by employing everything from the symphonic orchestra to tape loops. The double album The Beatles (1968) showed how neo-classical, psychedelic, music-hall, blues and folk music could coexist and complement each other in the ditty-oriented context of pop music.

Less famous but far more arduous were the vocal harmonies of the Hollies, whose creativity also peaked at the same time with Bus Stop (1966) and Carrie-Anne (1967), and the baroque album For Certain Because (1966).

The success of the Mersey Sound and of the girl-groups altered the panorama of pop music, forcing even the most conservative teen-idols to adopt a more lively style. Dusty Springfield's You Don't Have To Say You Love Me (1963), written by Pino Donaggio, Sandie Shaw (Goodrich)'s Girl Don't Come (1964), and Petula Clark's Downtown (1964), written by Tony Hatch, were truly "youthful". Marianne Faithful stood out as the symbol of the new generation for her wistful interpretations of the Rolling Stones' As Tears Go By (1964) and Jackie DeShannon's Come And Stay With Me (1964).

The Punks

Britain was not only the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles were mis-representing the British scene. The three great British bands of 1964 were rather the Kinks, the Animals and the Rolling Stones. Each of them defined a new style, that, decades later, still stands on its own.

The Rolling Stones were probably the most impressive agglomerate of talents to come together in Britain before the Soft Machine: decadent vocalist Mick Jagger (who distorted soul crooning and turned it into an animal instinct), guitarist Keith Richards (who took Chuck Berry's riffs into a new dimension of fractured harmony), multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones (who penned their baroque and psychedelic arrangements), and the phenomenal, funky rhythm section of bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts. Steeped in the blues, they redefined the rock performer, the rock concert and the rock song. They turned on the degree of vulgarity and provocation to levels that made Chuck Berry look silly.
Rock music would never be the same again after the Rolling Stones sang The Last Time (1965), i.e. the Staple Singers' 1958 hit, and Satisfaction (1965), which redefined the meaning of "anthemic" in music (lascivious, bluesy, dirty, thumping). And Aftermath (1966) went already beyond that model with the lengthy Going Home, the dulcimer-tinged ballad Lady Jane and the majestic crescendo of Out Of Time. Paint It Black (1966), Ruby Tuesday (1967) and She's A Rainbow (1967) introduced eastern elements and baroque arrangements (and Nicky Hopkins on piano), while Between The Buttons (1967) added a salvo of stylistic raids and the psychedelic vignette of All Sold Out. The sound hardened with Jumping Jack Flash (1968) and Street Fighting Man (1968), the whole band charging like rabid dogs, while Beggar's Banquet (1968) revisited their blues roots in a slower, almost ecstatic tone. Sympathy For The Devil (1968), which wed demonic tribalism and epic piano (Nicky Hopkins), and Gimme Shelter (1969), which abstracted the elements of the Stones' jamming style (an oneiric texture of post-psychedelic guitar counterpoint, pounding pseudo-voodoo rhythm section, profane gospel invocation), were post-modern meditations on their own sound.
The sound of Honky Tonk Women (1969) and Brown Sugar (1971) was the classic of the classics, exuberant and irreverent, visceral and incendiary, the ultimate bacchanal on Earth, while Sticky Fingers (1971) sounded like a pensive analysis of their blues roots and of their demonic mission. Exile On Main Street (1972) was the satori of this self-referential phase. Their songs, zooming in on a milieu of neurotics, psychopaths, prostitutes, punks and junkies, and arranged (mainly by Brian Jones) with harpsichord, marimba, violin, dulcimer, trumpet, xylophone and flute, revolutionized each of the classical instruments of rock music: the drums incorporated the lascivious tom-tom of tribal folk, the martial pace of military bands and the sophisticated swing of jazz; the guitar amplified the raw and ringing style of Chuck Berry; the bass orchestrated a depraved sound, the singing turned the sensual crooning of soul music into an animal howl, half sleazy lust and half call to arms; and the arrangements of keyboards, flutes and exotic instruments completely misinterpreted the intentions of the cultures from which they were borrowed. The revolution carried out by the Rolling Stones was thorough and radical. Indirectly, the Rolling Stones invented the fundamental axis of rock'n'roll: the sexy singer, sexual object and shaman, and the charismatic guitarist. For at least forty years that would remain the only constant in rock music (and one of the external features that set it apart from jazz, folk, classical music). The Stones represented a generational trauma.

The Kinks were purveyors of the melodic miniature, but with a much stronger emphasis on the riff than the Beatles ever dreamed of. Their style was sophisticated and full of wit, a fact which turned each song into a realistic vignette of middle-class life. A Well Respected Man (1966), Sunny Afternoon (1966), Dead End Street (1966), Waterloo Sunset (1967) and Autumn Almanac (1967) were still recycling Chuck Berry's trick, but with the mastery of a bard. They were by far the band most rooted in the British tradition, with a keen awareness of history and British values. In fact, the young Ray Davies sang about himself and his generation, and the adult Ray Davies would sing about the British nation, his goal consistently Homeric in creating myth out of public history and social memory. They also invented the most famous riff of all times, You Really Got Me (1964), thereby single-handedly invented garage-rock, hard-rock and heavy-metal. Their "hard" style was refined by All Day And All Of The Night (1964) and Till The End Of The Day (1965). See My Friends (1965) introduced Indian music into rock'n'roll. They also rank among the inventors of the concept album in rock music, thanks to their masterpiece Village Green Preservation Society (1968), and among the most prolific writers of rock operas ever.

The Animals, led by white shouter Eric Burdon and producer Mickie Most, were probably the most creative among the British bands that reinterpreted the blues tradition for the young punks of the 1960s. They turned rhythm'n'blues into the epic call to arms for masses of frustrated teenagers. In their hands, the blues became an anthemic sound of rebellion. Very few bands captured the spirit of the time as the Animals did.

These bands were not only producing original and exciting music. They were also advancing the process of identification of the fan with the star. The rocker was still a "hero", somewhat detached from the masses (sometimes a black singing about white kids, sometimes an adult singing about teenage life), while the singer of these new bands was a kid like everyone else, singing, basically, about his own life.

The genre of the generational anthem peaked with the Who. Few bands embodied the rebellious spirit of the young urban misfits like the Who, the most celebrated of the "mod" bands ("mods" were the urban thugs, organized in gangs). I Can't Explain (1965) and My Generation (1965) "were" pure rage and desperation. Those geysers of youthful energy also revealed the talent of the greatest songwriter of that generation, Pete Townshend. While the Who continued to wave the flag of the generational uprising with Magic Bus (1968) and We Won't Get Fooled Again (1971), Townshend proceeded to refine his compositional skills with ever more complex suites, such as A Quick One (1966) and Rael (1967), and eventually coined a whole new format with his influential rock operas, Tommy (1969) and Quadrophenia (1973). Throughout their career, the Who consistently reflected the mood of their generation. Their entire repertory can be view as the long and epic autobiography written by an entire generation. On the way to erect the myth of their generation, they also invented a music anchored to colossal guitar riffs, pounding drums and operatic vocals, which ten years later will be renamed "heavy-metal". While the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Kinks were rooted in the past (whether rhythm'n'blues or music hall), the Who invented a style that was the future of rock'n'roll.

It was only fitting that these bands emphasized the anthemic element of rock music. Their songs often sounded like a miniature anthem: a "generational" anthem. Other early purveyors of this genre where the Them, with the feverish Gloria (1965), and the Troggs, with a demonic version of Chip Taylor's Wild Thing (1966), two of the songs that became the epitome of garage-rock.

While they never became particularly famous, the Yardbirds were innovators of momentous importance. First and foremost, the Yardbirds are the band that established the supremacy of the guitar, granting dignity to the rock solo and pioneering the use of dissonant techniques such as feedback and fuzztone. They invented the "rave-up," i.e. the fast, wild, reckless blues spasm that would serve as the foundation of rock music for the rest of the decade. Roger The Engineer (Epic, 1966) was a tour de force of guitar and rhythm experimentation. Garage-rock, hard-rock, progressive-rock and acid-rock all owe their existence to the Yardbirds. It is not a coincidence that their three successive guitarists would start three of the most influential British bands of all times: Jeff Beck Group, Cream, Led Zeppelin.

Many more British artists were launched in those ebullient years. Milestone hits included: Dave Clark's Glad All Over (1963), the Searchers' Sugar And Spice (1963), written by Tony Hatch, Manfred Mann's 5-4-3-2-1 (1964), Spencer Davis' Gimme Some Loving (1966), written by the young Steve Winwood, the Bee Gees' Massachusetts (1967), the Tremeloes' Here Comes My Baby (1967), written by the young Cat Stevens, etc.

British bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Yardbirds capitalized on black music in a way that USA bands did not seem capable of doing. It was easier to sing like blacks in Britain than in the segregated USA. (Nonetheless, no white blues band of the time was fronted by a black singer).

The Garages

The contagion spread to the USA, where rock bands sprang up in every garage. The Kinks and the Who were the main influence on countless garage bands that had nowhere to perform at, and no crowd to perform for. Truth is, those bands already existed. What did not exist before the British Invasion was the mass market to support those bands. "Garage-rock" was born the night of may 1963 when the Kingsmen staged the first Louie Louie marathon (playing Richard Berry's 1956 song over and over again for one hour, sung by Jack Ely in an amateurish manner that simply made it more legendary). The Kingsmen shared the leadership of the Pacific North-west school with the Sonics, whose dynamite rock'n'roll peaked in 1964 (The Witch, Psycho and Strychnine), the Wailers, who had backed singer Rockin' Robin Roberts' first cover of Louie Louie (1960), and Paul Revere and the Raiders, who became famous in 1966 with two Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil hits (Kicks and Hungry). The Standells, formed in Los Angeles in 1961, became famous with Ed Cobb's Dirty Water (1966). These bands were born in the early 1960s, before their British counterparts even began recording. Their sound was raw and raunchy. Their attitude was vicious and insolent. They were the proto-punks. But certainly 1965 was the year that these "garage bands" became popular, that every kid wanted to be in a band. That was the year when Dick Clark's tv show "Where the Action Is" began airing from a different location every week. Each city developed its own scene, although few of the most virulent bands made it nationally. Chicago's alternative heroes were the McCoys, who unleashed the power chords of Hang On Sloopy (1965), the Shadows Of The Knight and the Amboy Dukes.

In New York, the Strangeloves concocted the tribal I Want Candy (1965), while keyboardist Felix Cavalieri's Young Rascals, fundamentally the same band as the Starlighters of Peppermint Twist (1960), recorded the frantic and rousing Good Lovin' (1966) in the style of a gospel jam.

The southern states were not immune to the revolution. The Gentrys' Keep On Dancing (1965), from Memphis, was one of the feverish anthems of the year; while out of Texas came Kenny and the Kasuals' Journey To Tyme (1965), one of the first instances of guitar fuzztone, the Sir Douglas Quintet's She's About A Mover (1965), and Sam the Sham & The Pharaos' Wooly Bully (1965).

California produced several of the amateurish, provocative alter-hits of 1966: Count Five's Psychotic Reaction (1966), Syndicate of Sound's Little Girl (1966), Music Machine's Point of No Return (1966) and Talk Talk (1967).

Ironically, it was a band of Mexican musicians, ? (Question Mark) And The Mysterians, who, with 96 Tears (1966), popularized the trademark sound of this age: the tinny organ (usually, a Farfisa organ) that provided both a drone in the background and rousing riffs for the chorus.

The Monks were formed by USA soldiers stationed in Germany. They played primitive and furious rock and roll, somewhere between the Kinks' You Really Got Me and the punk-rock of ten years later. Black Monk Time (Polydor, 1966) is one of the most formidable albums of the era.

Paradise Reborn 1963-1965

Across the ocean, the alternative to the British bands, that rediscovered and reshaped rhythm'n'blues, was the successor to rhythm'n'blues: soul music. The relationship between soul music and the British rebels was explicit: a soul record, Marvin Gaye's Can I Get A Witness (1963), became the anthem of the "mods". Wilson Pickett created an evil, ferocious kind of soul music with In The Midnight Hour (1964). Otis Redding's I've Been Lovin' You Too Long (1965) was soul music in which the instrumental backing had de facto replaced the gospel choir, and his Respect (1965) was a nod to the civil-rights movement.

The "Memphis sound" was very much the invention of instrumental bands that went almost unnoticed despite the fact that they provided the "music" for those stars. Outstanding among them were the Mg's, comprising keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and legendary guitarist Steve Cropper (who had been in the MG's predecessors, the Mar-Keys, and would co-write Wilson Pickett's In The Midnight Hour, Sam & Dave's Soul Man, Eddie Floyd's Knock On Wood, Otis Redding's The Dock of the Bay).

New Orleans had its own unique sound, which was best represented by pianist Allen Toussaint's light touch, but also encompassed Jimmy Reed's uplifting boogie.

Just like the trivial pop of the Beatles sold a lot more records than the bold rock'n'roll of the Who or the Rolling Stones, the kind of soul music that revolutionized the charts in the early 1960s was the catchy, mellow one. An enfant prodige, Stevie Wonder, ruled the scene throughout the 1960s, although his hits, from Contract Of Love (1962) to Uptight (1966), from A Place In The Sun (1966) to Yester-me Yester-day (1969), were old-fashioned pop ballads written by professional songwriters such as Ron Miller and Bryan Wells. His literate alter-ego was Smokey Robinson, a consummate poet and arranger, who wrote My Girl (1965) and Since I've Lost My Baby (1965) for the Temptations and Track Of My Tears (1965) for the Miracles. However, the audience perceived soul music as party music, as epitomized by the ultimate party song of the era, Dancing In The Street (1964), written by Marvin Gaye for the Vandellas.

Brian Holland, Lamond Dozier and Eddie Holland were the greatest tunesmiths of the era. In a few years, they produced an impressive number of melodic masterpieces: Can I Get A Witness (1963) for Marvin Gaye, Where Did Our Love Go (1964), Stop In The Name Of Love (1965), I Hear A Symphony (1965), My World Is Empty Without You (1965) and You Can't Hurry Love (1965) for the Supremes, Baby I Need Your Loving (1964), I Can't Help Myself (1965), Same Old Song (1965), Reach Out I'll Be There (1966) for the Four Tops. The H-D-H trio probably remains the greatest pop phenomenon of all times. These songs were a simplified form of soul music, but these were the kind of black music that white radio stations had no problem broadcasting. They were meant to dance at private parties, they complied with the conventions of the romantic ballad, they were sung by polite young people, and they implied no more than the usual stories of falling in love and heartbreak. There were none of the controversial elements of the Afro-American culture that had alarmed white parents when their children were listening to rhythm'n'blues.

Another Phil Spector production, the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Loving Feeling (1965), launched "blue-eyed soul", the version of soul music for white singers.

James Brown had clarified the relation between sexual lust and religious fervor with Please Please Please (1956). It took several years for the rest of soul music to catch up with his intuition, but eventually his monotonous and anti-virtuoso style created a new kind of music. With Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (1965) and Cold Sweat (1967) Brown coined a percussive style of soul, the predecessor of "funk". The deadly combination of psychotic falsetto, metallic guitar strumming, fractured bass lines, noisy horn section and pulsing polyrhythm was dance-music to the square. His visceral shrieks amid guttural lascivious wails (and lyrics full of sexual innuendos) invented a new vocal form. Sex Machine (1970), with Bootsy Collins on bass, was one of the songs that invented funk-music (and its piano figure virtually invented house-music).

The Counterculture 1965-66
The Greenwich Movement

The British bands changed the way rock'n'roll was played. At the same time, USA folk-singers were changing the way rock'n'roll was "consumed". The fusion of music and politics that occurred in the early 1960s had lasting effects on the very nature and purpose of rock music. Rock music became a primary vehicle for expressing dissent within the Establishment, and therefore one of the most relevant aspects of the "counterculture".

Even when the political element was not predominant, rock music came to adopt a stance that was "countercultural" in nature. Rock'n'roll had been discriminated against. Protest folk-singers had been discriminated against. There was a tradition that made rock music an "underground" phenomenon by nature.

The youth of the USA was still searching for an identity, the process that had begun with rock'n'roll. Underground music provided several ways to achieve that goal. Fans of underground music repudiated the passive kind of listening that was typical of pop music (humming the melodies that are played often on the radio, hailing the star that is publicized by the media) and adopted a more independent and critical judgment of music. They actually went the other way, preferring what was not famous, not publicized, not easy. They developed an alternative system of communication, "alternative" to the system of the mass media, alternative in the sense that it dealt with and promoted those phenomena that were ignored by the mass media. Being a minority became something to be proud of, not something to be ashamed of. They, discriminated against by the adult society, sympathized with all discriminated groups (blacks, foreigners) and considered them their peers. All of these attitudes had political overtones, which in some cases became explicit, and thus bridged alternative music and left-wing politics.

The revolution began with the folk-singers, who soon came to be identified as singer-songwriters. It all started with Bob Dylan, who would remain the leading persona of rock music throughout the decade.

Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmermann, was a lot more than a singer of protest songs. While that's how he started, he soon revealed a lyrical and musical talent that were far more developed than in any other folk-singer of his or any previous generation.
Bob Dylan was the single most influential musician of the 1960s. He started the fire. He turned music into a form of mass communication. He galvanized a generation through folk songs that became anthems. Then he embraced rock music and re-defined it as a genre of metaphysical, free-form compositions. Then he turned his back to rock music and delved into country-rock. The entire world of rock music followed his every step. When Dylan went electric, everybody went electric. When Dylan went country, everybody did. His legacy is monumental. Blowin' In The Wind (1962) created the epitome of the finger-pointing protest song. A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall (1962) coined a new kind of folk ballad, which was prophetic, visionary and apocalyptic, in the vein of poets such as William Blake. Mr Tambourine Man (1965) opened the season of psychedelic music. The album Highway 61 Revisited (1965), after his conversion to electric instruments, included Like A Rolling Stone, a somber six-minute portrait of a friend (a personal epic, not a generational one) and Desolation Row, a Dante-esque parade of tragicomic humanity, a metaphysical labyrinth of hidden meaning and universal mythology. Blonde On Blonde (1966), the first double-LP album ever, remains one of rock's all-time masterpieces: two lengthy, rambling, free-form, organ-driven elegies, Visions Of Johanna and Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands, and a bunch of arcanely haunting melodies (I Want You, Absolutely Sweet Marie, One Of Us Must Know) completely changed the landscape of rock music. Basement Tapes (1967) and John Wesley Harding (1967) closed that creative season. After sinking into the depths of country-rock, Dylan would resurrect a decade later with a new sound, the elegant fusion of folk-rock, tex-mex and gospel-soul expounded on Desire (1976) and Street Legal (1978); a feat repeated a decade later with another synthesis of styles, the one embraced on Empire Burlesque (1985) and Oh Mercy (1989). One decade later, Dylan would still be surprising the rock audience, this time with Time Out Of Mind (1997), perhaps in the attempt to prove that he is as immortal as humanly possible.

The transition from the folk-singer to the electric singer-songwriter created all sorts of artistic opportunities. Jesse Colin Young (1) made one of the most innovative albums of folk music, Young Blood (1965), backed by jazz musicians. Fred Neil was one of the most original artists of his era, and very few precedents can be found for his art. While Dylan descended from Guthrie, Neil descended from nobody: the music on Bleecker And McDougal (1965) is blues-tinged psychedelia ante-litteram. Tim Hardin wrote Reason To Believe (1965), If I Were A Carpenter (1967) and Hang On To A Dream, in a vein tinged with blues and jazz. Philip Sloan was the Los Angeles songwriter who penned Eve Of Destruction (1965) for Barry McGuire, the first protest song to climb the pop charts, as well as Johnny "Rivers" Ramistella's Secret Agent Man (1966). Richard Farina (who died at the age of 30) was the most literate of the group, as documented by Celebrations For A Gray Day (1965). Jackson Frank was a USA guitarist and folksinger who moved to England and familiarized with the crowd of the British folk-rock scene. He recorded only one album, Jackson C Frank (1965), in a style halfway between the erudite and the fairy tale.

Neil Diamond, a veteran of the Brill Building, grafted elements of soul (Solitary Man, 1967), gospel (Thank The Lord, 1967), country (Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon, 1967), and even reggae (Red Red Wine, 1967), onto the format of the folk-rock ballad. In his best songs, such as Cherry Cherry (1966) and I'm A Believer (1967), catchy refrains coexist with exciting guitar riffs and rousing arrangements. A romantic at heart, Diamond composed some of the most romantic melodies of all times, best epitomized by Song Sung Blue (1972).

Paul Simon was the poet who best captured the psyche of his generation. While Dylan was the spokesman of the peace marches and the campus sit-ins, Simon & Garfunkel represented the average, shy, introverted kid, lonely in his bedroom, distressed by post-puberal sensitivity. Simon did not write angry protest songs, but tender, fragile, ethereal, melancholy odes, notably Sounds Of Silence (1965), I Am A Rock (1966), Mrs Robinson (1968), Bridge Over Troubled Water (1969), The Boxer (1969). He employed the simplest and most recognizible of vehicles: vocal harmonies and the folk ballad. He fused them in an austere structure that had the magnificent translucence of the madrigal and the motet. On his own, Paul Simon (after breaking up with Art Garfunkel) shifted the emphasis on ethnic music, achieving a sublime fusion of western and African traditions on There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973), Heart And Bones (1983), and Graceland (1986).

The Scottish minstrel Philip Leitch, better known as Donovan, represented the quintessence of the hippy ideals. The sweet, mellow, bucolic ballads of Fairy Tale (1965) evoked a world of peace and love, of communes in the woods. His experiments with eastern music and jazz, mainly on Sunshine Superman (1966), predated acid-rock and progressive-rock. Donovan was Dylan's alter-ego: Dylan was the crude realist, Donovan was the daydreamer; Dylan belonged to a historical period, Donovan lived in a transcendent Eden; Dylan was the crusader vowed to epic missions, Donovan was the hermit overwhelmed by nature; Dylan was the visionary prophet, Donovan was a humble friar. He would continue blending hippy elegies, Franciscan canticles, acid trips and Tibetan mantras (best in Hurdy Gurdy Man, 1968).

Another Briton, Bert Jansch, recorded the melancholy and intimate Bert Jansch (1965).

Politically speaking, Dylan's counterpart on the West Coast was "Country" Joe McDonald, a legendary agit-prop performer during the heydays (1964) of Berkeley's student riots. Leading what was fundamentally an electric jug-band, he soon discovered San Francisco's hippies and LSD and managed to wed his political stance to acid-rock's visionary format on Electric Music For Mind And Body (1967) and I Feel Like I'm Fixin To Die (1967).

Folk-rock

In the meantime, the wedding of folk and rock led to the brief fad of "folk-rock". Folk-rock was not much of an artistic movement: it was the invention of two producers (Tom Wilson, the one who "electrified" Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel, and Terry Melcher, the one who "electrified" the Byrds). Folk-rock was a way to interpret the spirit (without reproducing the sound) of the Mersey-beat bands in a USA context. The "folk revival" had been a New York phenomenon, but folk-rock ended up being a California phenomenon as much as surf music. The Beau Brummels in San Francisco and the Byrds in Los Angeles pioneered the "jingle-jangle" sound, a frantic accompaniment of eletric guitars to a catchy folk melody (which was often sung in the multi-part harmony style of the Beach Boys).

As the band that co-developed (and popularized) folk-rock, acid-rock, raga-rock and country-rock, the Byrds were responsible more than anyone else for creating a USA sound (and, more specifically, a California sound) in the 1960s. Historically, they bridged the era of surf music (and Mersey-beat) with the era of acid-rock. In reality, there were three groups called Byrds: the folk-rock group, musically dominated by Gene Clark and best represented by I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better (1965) although best remembered for the Dylan covers; the psychedelic group, largely an invention of David Crosby; and the country-rock group. Their version of psychedelic-rock, as announced by Fifth Dimension (1966), one of the earliest psychedelic albums, and perfected by Younger Than Yesterday (1967), was more complex and erudite than the average, borrowing elements from free-jazz and Indian music (Eight Miles High invented raga-rock). The Byrds also equated the "acid" trip with space exploration, thereby coining a form of "space ballad". When David Crosby left and Gram Parsons joined, the sound took a turn towards country music. Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968) was still an eccentric hodgepodge of acid-rock, raga-rock, pop and country, but Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (1968) is one of the two albums credited with inventing country-rock. These three groups had in common two things: the name and Roger McGuinn's guitar.

Other California acts to emerge during the golden age of folk-rock were the Turtles, who delivered the more traditional melodies of Happy Together (1966) and Eleonore (1968), and the hippie duo Sonny (Salvatore Bono) & Cher (Sarkasian), that penned the sentimental I Got You Babe (1965) and the dramatic Bang Bang (1966). The Mamas & The Papas employed sophisticated vocal harmonies a` la Four Freshmen to fuel the celestial refrains of California Dreaming (1966), Go Where You Wanna Go (1966) and I Saw Her Again Last Night (1966), all written by their leader John Phillips, who also penned Scott McKenzie's ethereal hymn to flower-power San Francisco (1967).

The songs of these groups were celebrations of a new culture, the youth culture.

The New York bands of folk-rock were less obviously melodic. Loving Spoonful, in fact, were a jug-band, and their Do You Believe In Magic (1965) and Summer In The City (1966) placed more emphasis on the instrumental arrangements (the latter included noises of the city).

Los Angeles' folksinger Jackie DeShannon wrote The Great Imposter (1962) for the Fleetwoods, Come And Stay With Me (1964) for Marianne Faithful, Needles And Pins (1964) for the Searchers, and Bette Davis Eyes (1973) for Kim Carnes.

Bobby Fuller sang the anthemic I Fought The Law (1966), written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets.

Tim Buckley synthesized a new genre of music by fusing folk, blues, jazz, psychedelic rock and chamber music. Very few rock musicians ever achieved the monstrous intensity and lyrical tenderness of his work. Buckley's songs were journeys through the psyche of the singer. Buckley was therefore more interested in mirroring the emotions of the soul than in emphasizing a melody. A Buckley song is a stream of consciousness. Buckley changed the very idea of what a folk or rock song is supposed to be. Tim Buckley also boasted one of the most original voices ever, a combination of African melisma, Tibetan droning, jazz scat and acid-rock wailing, a combination that set a new standard for any future vocalist. He turned the voice into an instrument of the orchestra, not just a vehicle for words. If Goodbye And Hello (1967) was simply a poor man's version of Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, the six lengthy compositions of Happy Sad (1968), performed by a combo that was the folk-rock equivalent of the Modern Jazz Quartet, coined an ethereal folk-jazz style that had no precedents (except, possibly, Fred Neil). After the more conventional Blue Afternoon (1969), Buckley pushed his intuitions to the logical conclusion on Lorca (1970), one of rock's all-time masterpieces. Here the music leaves this world, and enters an oneiric and metaphysical landscape. Buckley sings as if in a coma. Melodies appear and disappear in an atmosphere of lugubrious suspense. Starsailor (1970) is perhaps his most formally perfect album.

Another Los Angeles band, the Buffalo Springfield, with their angular and almost neurotic guitar-based instrumental parts, heralded a new era for folk-rock. Neil Young's compositions propelled their second album, Buffalo Springfield Again (1967), into territories that were still unexplored.

Acid folk

Other musicians used folk-rock to feed the counterculture. The Fugs (3) were the quintessential satirical/political group of the Sixties, the foremost parodists of the Establishment and defenders of the counterculture. Their obscene, agit-prop vignettes updated a tradition that dated from Chuck Berry's early hits and predated Frank Zappa's operettas. Their use and abuse of cacophony and collage was way ahead of their time. In 1966, the year they recorded Virgin Forest on their second album, nobody else was even thinking of using the studio to create what was pure sonic folly. They would later transform into a surprisingly musical outfit, finding enough inspiration to sustain at least It Crawled Into My Hands (1968) and Tenderness Junction (1968).

Their fellow conspirators the Holy Modal Rounders would come into their own during the psychedelic season, coining a unique, drunk form of acid-folk on their two masterworks, Indian War Whoop (1967) and Moray Eels Eat (1969).

The only band that could compete with that tribe were the Godz, whose masterpiece is the spastic, cacophonous Contact High (1966).

An even more unconventional stance was adopted by the Nihilist Spasm Band, formed in 1965 in Ontario (Canada), which used to perform blues-jazz numbers on home-made instruments (kazoo, gut-bucket bass, found percussions, slide clarinet, etc). No Record (1968) is their classic album, displaying influences that range from New Orleans' spasm bands to Albert Ayler and Sun Ra.

The Los Angeles freaks

The supreme genius of counterculture was the Los Angeles composer, arranger, freak and jester Frank Zappa (169). Zappa was more than a brilliant and prolific composer. He was a new kind of composer, one who knew no stylistic barrier: he bridged rock and pop and rhythm'n'blues and jazz and classical music. And one who knew no rules of harmony: he would play anything that made sense to him, not to a certain tradition. Zappa co-invented the concept album (he even released a double album when most rock musicians were barely beginning to make LPs), the rock opera, progressive-rock. He was the first rock musician to consciously use the studio as an instrument. He did not just use the band or the orchestra as ensembles of instruments. In a post-modern vein, Zappa composed music using snippets of music inspired to pre-existing music: his unit of composition was not a "sound" but was an organized sound, that the listener could relate to an established genre. And he made no distinction between tv commercials, doo-wop, music-hall, classical ballets, jazz improvisation or dissonant music. A living musical encyclopedia, Zappa managed to excel in all of these genres. He could have been a giant in either of them. For better and for worse, his musical persona includes an odd aspect: a passion for satirical lyrics. He always seemed more comfortable wearing the clothes of the clown than rewriting the history of music. He always seemed to think of satire as his first and main art, and music as a sort of soundtrack to it. His satirical tone ranged from the childish joke to bitter sarcasm, and he tended to excel at the latter end of the spectrum. His favorite victim was hypocrisy, regardless of how it appears in society. His natural targets were televangelists, corporations, politicians, but also ordinary people, whether "dancing fools", "catholic girls" or "jewish princesses". He showed no mercy for the human species, and relentlessly exposed its vices and perversion. He made fun of virtually every race, people, profession, hobby, habit, job, ideology, religion, etc. on this planet. Most of his repertory is "political", but without actually being militant. Zappa was not a protester or an activist. He was merely a man who used his brain. It turned out that, in one of nature's most bizarre accidents, Zappa the satirical genius shared the same brain with Zappa the musical genius. Zappa debuted with three masterpieces that were eclectic cut-ups of popular styles turned upside down: the concept album Freak Out (1966), the rock operetta Absolutely Free (1967) and the anarchic collage of We're Only In It For The Money (1967). Zappa turned orchestral with Lumpy Gravy (1968) and then fine-tuned that idea with the six King Kong variations on Uncle Meat (1969) and with the 19-minute Music For Electric Violin And Low Budget Orchestra, off Jean-Luc Ponty's King Kong (1970). Zappa proved to be equally at ease playing melodic themes with a jazz band, on Hot Rats (1969) and especially on Burnt Weeny Sandwich (1970), that included the 22-minute Little House I Used to Live In, or deconstructing spastic free-jazz on the dadaistic masterpiece Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970). His self-indulgence knew no limit, but at least Waka/Jawaka (1972), Grand Wazoo (1973) and Orchestral Favourites (1979) found a magical balance between his pop, jazz and classical propensities. His lighter vein, perhaps best summarized on Roxy And Elsewhere (1974), always coexisted with his classical ambitions, as demonstrated on the Kent Nagano-conducted Zappa (1983) and on the Pierre Boulez-conducted Perfect Stranger (1984), and with his fluent jazz idiom, as immortalized on Jazz From Hell (1986).

Possibly the greatest rock musician of all times, and certainly one of the most original and influential geniuses of the 20th century, Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, completely erased all musical dogmas and simply reinvented music on his own terms.
Formally, his style blends Delta blues, free-jazz, cacophonous avantgarde and rock and roll, but what is unique about Van Vliet's music is the oblique, skewed, manic, unpredictable and demented structure of his compositions. The desert (where he grew up) could be a better key to understand his art than any of the influences that one can hear on his albums. Along the way, Van Vliet also created one of the most original styles of singing ever, one that, again, revolutionized centuries of vocal music. The gruff, abrasive, werewolf-grade, warbling of Van Vliet beat the bluesmen at their own game: it did more than express a state of mind, it redefined what a state of mind is. Van Vliet's singing is a force of nature.
Van Vliet, who had already cut a record with Frank Zappa in 1959, formed the Magic Band in 1964. Safe As Milk (1967) presented their dadaistic take on the blues, but Mirror Man (1971), recorded in 1967, is a better (albeit rawer) testament of the band in its prime, jamming aimlessly around a few trivial blues chords. After Strictly Personal (1968), a more "acid" album that was ruined by the producer, Van Vliet composed what is arguably rock music's main contribution to the history of music, Trout Mask Replica (1969). This masterpiece, that straddles the border between blues, jazz, rock and classical music, is a post-Cage-an study on tonality. He was also one of the wildest eccentrics of his time, and his music may simply be a one-to-one reflection of what was going on inside his blessedly deranged mind.
Unfortunately, Captain Beefheart and the music industry did not get along too well. Later, he managed to record at least two brilliant albums, Shiny Beast (1978) and Ice Cream For Crow (1982), but eventually disappeared from the music scenes and turned to painting. And the similarities between his songs and the art of painting became more obvious.
The distance between Captain Beefheart and the rest of rock music is the same distance that there was between Beethoven and the symphonists of his time.

Psychedelia 1965-68
The Synthesis

Between 1963 and 1966 rock music took three decisive breaks with the original nature of rock'n'roll: Bob Dylan introduced an explicit socio-political message; British bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Who (the heirs to the "juvenile delinquent" image of the 1950s) indulged in instrumental and vocal mayhem; the Beach Boys, the Beatles and the Byrds focused on studio techniques and eccentric arrangements. They embodied three different ways of using music as a vehicle: the profound bard, the street punk, the sound sculptor. The Rolling Stones and the Who personified an eternal and universal attribute of youth: rebellion. The Beach Boys and the Beatles were as removed as possible from their times (the Vietnam war, the civil-rights movement, the fear of the nuclear holocaust). Bob Dylan was all about his times. Dylan used music as a weapon, the Rolling Stones and the Who used it as an insult, while the Beach Boys and the Beatles were largely indifferent to the ideological turmoil.
The convergence of these three wildly different threads yielded the great season of psychedelic music, a music that reflected the spirit of the time, that experimented with studio sound and that embodied the frustration of the youth.
The synthesis of 1966 was fueled by hallucinogens, as if drugs were the natural meeting point of the bard, the punk and the sound sculptor. Most likely, it was a mere coincidence: drugs just happened to represent the unifying call to arms for that generation. It might as well have been something else. Drugs were conveniently available and stood for the opposite of what the hated Establishment stood for (war, bourgeois life, discipline, greed, organized religion, old-fashioned moral values).
If one has to pinpoint an event that materialized this historical synthesis, it would have to be may 1966, when Dylan's Blonde on Blonde came out, a double album (already a significant departure from the old format) that had ironically been recorded in Nashville (between october 1965 and march 1966). Until then, rock musicians had all operated within the boundaries of the three-minute melodic song of pop music. After that release, only mainstream commercial music would remain anchored to the traditional song format of Tin Pan Alley. Albums with lengthy, free-form "songs" began to flow out of London, New York and Los Angeles: the Fugs' second album with Virgin Forest (recorded in january and released in march, thus actually beating Dylan), Frank Zappa's double-album Freak Out (also recorded in january and released in july), the Rolling Stones' Aftermath (recorded in Los Angeles in march), the Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico (mostly recorded in april and may), the Who's A Quick One (recorded in the fall), the Doors' first album (recorded in the winter), Love's Da Capo (ditto), etc. Several of them had been recorded at the same time as Dylan's masterpiece, signaling a collective shift away from the pop song.

This shift in rock music (grafted onto the historical synthesis of the bard, the punk and the sound sculptor) coincided with the boom of "free jazz". Rock'n'roll had been born at the confluence of blues and country music, but after 1966 blues and country/folk became mere ingredients (two of the many) of a much more complex recipe. The lengthy "acid" jams of the Velvet Underground, of the Jefferson Airplane, of the Grateful Dead and of Pink Floyd, relied on a loose musical infrastructure that was no longer related to rhythm'n'blues (let alone country music). It was, on the other hand, very similar to the format of jazz music played in the lofts and the clubs that many psychedelic rock musicians attended, and that had rapidly become the second great pillar of the counterculture (the first one being the movement for civil-rights and pacifism). Basically, the indirect influence of free jazz became prominent in rock music during the psychedelic era, fueled its musical revolution and emancipated rock music from its blues foundations. Before 1966, rock music had been more part of the blues tradition than rockers wanted to admit. After 1966, rock music became more part of the jazz tradition than rock musicians wanted to admit.

San Francisco and the hippies

In 1965 San Francisco, whose scene had largely languished in the years of surf music and of the Greenwich Movement, suddenly became one of the most ebullient cities in the nation. The poets of the "Beat generation" moved here. The "Diggers" turned the Haight Ashbury district into a "living theater". Mario Savio founded the "Free Speech Movement" at the University of California at Berkeley, where sit-ins and marches were supported by the likes of Country Joe McDonald. There was excitement in the air. In the summer of 1965 a San Francisco band, the Charlatans, and their hippy fans took over the "Red Dog Saloon" in Virginia City (Nevada), and came up with the idea of playing a new kind of music for a new kind of audience. The Warlocks (later renamed Grateful Dead) got hired by Ken Kesey to play at his "acid tests" (LSD parties), where the band began performing lengthy instrumental jams, loosely based on country, blues and jazz. In october of that year, the Family Dog Production organized the first hippy party at the "Long Shoreman's Hall". Following the success of that "festival", avenues for San Francisco's new bands sprang up all around. They embodied the pacifist ideals that had been promoted by Bob Dylan, but with a far less political stance. Theirs was a philosophy of life ("peace and love" and drugs) that was in many ways the direct consequence of what Dylan had preached, but was also much closer to Buddhist philosophy. Hippies gathered not to march, but to celebrate, not to protest but to rejoice. The spiritual experience was preeminent over the political experience. This represented a dramatic change from the times of rock'n'roll, when the music was a (ultimately violent) act of rebellion.

Rock festivals were invented with the "Human Be-in" held in january 1967 at the Golden Gate Park (the "Gathering of the Tribes"). The hippy phenomenon was unique in that it became a mass movement that spread rapidly around the States (and the world) but it never had a leader. It was a messianic movement without a messiah.

Mostly, the music of the hippies was an evolution of folk-rock, renamed "acid-rock" because the original idea was that of providing a soundtrack to the LSD parties, a soundtrack that would reflect as closely as possible the effects of an LSD "trip". This music was, in many ways, the rock equivalent of abstract painting (Jackson Pollock), free-jazz (Ornette Coleman) and beat poetry (Allen Ginsberg). These phenomena had in common a loose structure in which form "was" the content and an attitude of disregard for century-old aesthetic values. In music this meant that improvisation was as important, and even more important, than composition. Acid-rock's main invention was the "jam", which, of course, had already been practiced by jazz and blues musicians. Acid-rock musicians jammed in a slightly different context: they placed more emphasis on the melody, less emphasis on the virtuoso performance. The most visible difference (besides the race of the musicians) was the lead role of the electric guitar. A more subtle difference was that the passionate, aching spirit of the blues was replaced by a transcendental, zen-like spirit. The archetype for acid-rock was actually recorded in Chicago, by the white bluesman Paul Butterfield: East-West (1966), a lengthy piece that fused Afro-American and Indian improvisation. From the instrumental point of view, acid-rock was still very much a descendant of rhythm'n'blues, but from the vocal point of view it was very much a descendant of folk and country music. The melodies and the harmonies were mostly inspired by the white tradition. 1966 was the year of the jam: Virgin Forest by the Fugs, Paul Butterfield's East-West, Up In Her Room by the Seeds, Going Home by the Rolling Stones, Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands by Bob Dylan, etc. In the following years rock musicians would record increasingly more complex and lengthier pieces.

Jefferson Airplane were one of the greatest rock bands of all times. They not only embodied the spirit and the sound of the hippy era more than anyone else but also counted on a formidable group of talents, that redefined singing (Grace Slick), harmonizing (Paul Kantner, Marty Balin), bass playing (Jack Casady), guitar counterpoint (Jorma Kaukonen) and drumming (Spencer Dryden) in rock music. Their early singles, Somebody To Love and White Rabbit, helped establish psychedelic-rock as a musical genre. The music of Jefferson Airplane were largely self-referential, and their career feels like a documentary of their generation. Surrealistic Pillow (1967) was a manifesto of the hippy generation. After Bathing At Baxter's (1967), one of the greatest artistic achievements of the psychedelic era, was the album that broke loose with the conventions of the song format and the pop arrangement. Volunteers (1969), their supreme masterpiece, fused the backward trend towards a return to the roots (both musical and moral) and the forward trend towards hard-line politics. Blows Against The Empire (1970) was a nostalgic look back to the ideals of the communes and a utopistic tribute to the space age. Sunfighter (1971) is an adult and solemn return to the song format and to nature. Their "marketing appeal" was precisely that they represented (and practiced) a new lifestyle. Unfortunately, few of their albums rank among rock's masterpieces because they were fundamentally limited by a song-oriented format that they rarely challenged (unlike, say, the Grateful Dead). Jefferson Airplane were partially accepted by the Establishment because they were still living in the world of pop music, because the folk and blues roots were still visible, because the melody was still the center of mass.

Others were reacting against all of the above. The Grateful Dead, considered by many as "the" greatest rock band of all times, were a monument of San Francisco's hippy civilization, and, in general, a monument of the psychedelic civilization of the 1960s. Their greatest invention was the lengthy, free-form, group jam, the rock equivalent of jazz improvisation. Unlike jazz, in which the jam channelled the angst of the Afro-american people, Grateful Dead's jam was the soundtrack for LSD "trips". But soon it came to represent an entire ideology of evasion from the Establishment, of artistic freedom, of alternative lifestyle. Contrary to their image of junkies and misfits, the Grateful Dead were one of the most erudite groups of all times, aware of the atonal compositions of the European avantgarde as well of the modal improvisation of free-jazz as well as the rhythms of other cultures. They managed to transform guitar feedback and odd meters into the rock equivalent of chamber instruments. The infinite ascending and descending scales of Jerry Garcia are among the most titanic enterprises ever attempted by rock music. The Grateful Dead never sold many records. Their preferred format was the live concert, not the record. They literally redefined what "popular music" is: the live concert shunned the laws of capitalism, removing the business plan from entertainment. Their recorded masterpieces, Anthem Of The Sun (1968), Aoxomoxoa (1969) and Live Dead (1969), are mere approximations of their art. Anthem Of The Sun was refined in studio using all sorts of effects and techniques. The band looked at Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Morton Subotnick (not Chuck Berry) for inspiration. The Dead's blues and country roots were horribly disfigured by hallucinogenic fits, thus disintegrating song structure and development. Each piece became an orgy of amoebic sound. Drums beat obsessive tempos to reproduce the pulsations of an LSD trip; electronics painted nightmarish and ecstatic soundscapes; keyboards moaned gloomy and mysterious, like ghosts imprisoned in catacombs; guitars pierced minds and released their dreams into the sky; voices floated serene over the maelstrom. Arrangements overflowed with tidbits of harpsichord, trumpet, celesta, etc. But overall the feeling was one of angst, enhanced by the jungle of dissonances and percussions. The lengthier improvisations sounded like chamber music for drunken junkies. (Credit producer Dave Hassinger for overdubbing different performances and creating a "multi-dimensional" feeling, an extreme version of Spector's "wall of sound"). Rhythm and melody had become pure accessories. Aoxomoxoa repaired part of the damage, by moving back towards the traditional song format. Live Dead reached for their true dimension with tracks such as Feedback, one lengthy monolithic "trip" by Garcia's guitar, and Dark Star, the Dead's terminal jam and the swan song of acid-rock. At the same time, though, their free-form jams were born out of a philosophy that was still profoundly rooted in the USA tradition. They were born at the border between the individualistic and libertarian culture of the Frontier and the communal and spiritual culture of the quakers. Despite being ostracized by the Establishment, the Grateful Dead expressed, better than any other musician of that age, the quintessence of the USA nation, and perhaps that was precisely the reason that their music resonated so well with the soul of the USA youth. It is not a coincidence that the Grateful Dead, along with the Byrds and Bob Dylan, led the movement towards country-rock, via Workingman's Dead (1970) and Jerry Garcia's solo album Garcia (1972). The band spent their adult years trying to transform the subcultural idiom of the hippies into a universal language that could reach out to every corner of the planet (not only the hippy communes). They succeeded with a form of intellectual muzak which interpreted the lysergic trip as a cathartic escape from daily reality and liberation from urban neuroses: Weather Report Suite (1975), Blues For Allah (1975), Shakedown Street (1978), Althea (1979). In practice, their art was a psychological research on the relationship between the altered states of the mind (psychedelic hallucinations) and the altered states of the psyche (industrial neuroses).

The early San Francisco bands had to cope with a record industry that completely misunderstood them. The big companies were dying to exploit the hippy phenomenon, but they balked at the odd music that these hippies were playing. Producers were paid specifically to destroy the original sound and to "normalize" the jams (in other words, to "Beatles-ize" acid-rock).

While previous music scenes around the world had revolved around a specific style (such as Mersey-beat or rhythm'n'blues or surf music), the San Francisco Bay became the place where anything was allowed. In fact, pretty much the only thing that was not allowed was to replicate someone else's sound. Originality was mandatory, talent was optional.

The album recorded in 1967 by the Charlatans, The Charlatans (1977), was not released for ten years, but the songs came out as a series of limited-edition singles in late 1966 and early 1967.

Kaleidoscope were among the most adventurous with the fusion of country, jazz, cajun, middle-eastern, Indian, flamenco, gypsy and South American music propounded on Side Trips (1967) and A Beacon From Mars (1968), the latter including Taxim (possibly raga-rock's all-time masterpiece).

Mike Bloomfield's Electric Flag debuted with Trip (Edsel, 1967), a bizarre mixture of electronics, noise, psychedelia, country, ragtime and blues.

Moby Grape embodied the casual and magical spirit of the acid jams on Grape Jam (1968), featuring Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper (both Dylan cohorts), and on Alexander Spence's solo album Oar (1969).

Quicksilver, one of the greatest jam bands of the acid-rock scene, bridged San Francisco's acid-rock, the garage sound of the Northwest and Chicago's rhythm and blues, particularly on Happy Trails (1969), whose lengthier tracks are bold pan-stylistic cavalcades that take blues as the starting point but aim for the inner self.

Mad River were also influenced by the blues on Mad River (1968) and Paradise Bar And Grill (1968).

Blue Cheer, on the other hand, played blues-rock with a vengeance: Vincebus Eruptum (1968) introduced a terrifying sound (deafening guitar and bass amplification), that challenged the whole "hippy" ideology and predated stoner-rock by 25 years.

Steppenwolf unleashed two of the hardest-hitting anthems of this loud and fast acid-rock: Born To Be Wild (1968), which contains the expression "heavy metal" that would come to identify a new genre, and Magic Carpet Ride (1968).

At the other end of the spectrum, Fifty Foot Hose, one of the most experimental bands of the 1960s, and one of the first to employ electronics and to bridge rock music and the avantgarde, recorded Cauldron (1968), challenging the placid atmosphere of acid-rock with the cacophonous and chaotic sound of their apocalyptic "freak-out" jams (Fantasy).

By the time these bands reached the recording studios, the golden age of acid-rock had already ended thanks to two highly-publicized events in the summer of 1967: the Monterey festival (that legitimized the format) and the Beatles' Sgt Pepper (that legitimized the sound). During that summer the "alternative" became "mainstream". The anti-commercial spirit of acid-rock became a contradiction in terms. The following year, the hippy bands embraced country-rock and returned to the traditional song format. That summer drew young people from all over the USA. The term "Summer of Love" became commonplace (although one can argue that the real "summer of love" had taken place one year earlier, unbeknownst to most of the media).

There was also a sociopolitical reason for the sudden demise of the hippy movement. Hippies had never truly represented the intellectual class. They had represented the average young man from the middle class, who was afraid of being drafted for the Vietnam war and dreamed of a world without nuclear weapons. Left-wing intellectuals had different priorities, and subscribed to the notion that some degree of urban guerrilla was necessary in order to change the Establishment. The hippies were only one of the facets of the counter-culture. In 1968 the tide turned, and violent protests became more popular than peaceful ones. The peace movement was hijacked by revolutionaries of a different caliber, and its soundtrack (acid-rock) became anachronistic.

New York and the new Boheme

Even during its heydays, San Francisco was not all of psychedelic-rock. Bands such as the Velvet Underground had little or nothing in common with the San Francisco bands. They represented the culture of "heroin" (which was a more sinister, neurotic, nihilistic culture) rather than the culture of LSD (which was bucolic, dreamy, utopistic). The Velvet Underground scavenged the narrow alleys of the bad parts of town, and scavenged the subconscious of the urban kid, for emotional scraps that were a barbaric by-product of the original spirit of rock'n'roll. Their goal was only marginally the sonic reproduction of the psychedelic experience. Their true goal was to provide a documentary of the decadent, disaffected, cynical mood that was spreading among the intelligentsia. These were not hippies, these were elitist musicians who were aware of the avantgarde movements: they began playing (in 1965) as part of Andy Warhol's multimedia show "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable". They originated the "pessimistic" strand of psychedelic music (as opposed to San Francisco's optimistic strand). The Velvet Underground probably remain the most influential band in the entire history of rock music. Above all else, they originated a spirit of making music (independent, nihilistic, subversive) that ten years later will be labeled "punk". Rock music as it is today was born the day the Velvet Underground entered a recording studio. The Velvet Underground And Nico (1967), recorded in the spring of 1966, includes an impressive number of masterpieces (mostly penned by Lou Reed and John Cale, and sung by Nico): the cold, spectral, autumnal odes of Femme Fatale, All Tomorrow's Parties and Black Angel's Death Song, the percussive boogie of Waiting For My Man, the orgasmic chaos of Heroin, the dissonant tribal music of European Son, the Indian raga imbued with decadent spleen of Venus In Furs. They are immersed in the dark, oppressive atmosphere of German expressionism and French existentialism, but they also exhaled an epic libido: each song was a sexual fetish, and a cathartic sadomaso release. It was difficult to find a precedent for the Velvet Underground's music, because these barbarians were educated to the classical lieder and to LaMonte Young's minimalism, while they borrowed very little from rock'n'roll and pop music. Although less impressive, White Light White Heat (1967) contains Sister Ray, which probably remains the ultimate, definitive masterpiece of rock music, an epic piece that rivals Beethoven's symphonies and John Coltrane's metaphysical improvisations. The Live (1974) album contains a few more uncontrolled jams in the style of Sister Ray, while the mellow ballads of Velvet Underground (1969), and Sweet Jane (1970), founded a decadent pop-song that would be influential on glam-rock. By hailing drug addiction and deviant sex, the Velvet Underground revealed a whole new category of hedonistic rituals. Their albums evoked a Dante-esque vision in which the border between hell and paradise was blurred. Those songs were also unique in the way they fused funeral elegy and triumphal anthem: they were terrible and seductive at the same time. Semiotically speaking, those songs constituted "signs" by means of which reality was encoded in sounds: the metropolis was reduced to an endlessly pulsing noise, daily life was reduced to an unconscious delirium, and everything, both public and private, was clouded in pure, Freudian libido. The Velvet Underground's hyper-realism was deformed by a mind constantly in the grip of drugs and perverted fantasies. At the same time, their music was a visionary chaos from whose fog the mirage of a better world could rise. Their music was always majestic, even when sinking into the depths of abjection.

The rest of the New York contingent pales in comparison with the Velvet Underground. The Blues Magoos released one of the earliest psychedelic albums, Psychedelic Lollipop (1966); and Mystic Tide released some of the earliest psychedelic anthems, notably Frustration (1966) and Psychedelic Journey (1966).

Psychedelic-rock would soon become as formulaic as any other genre. Few bands ventured outside the dogma, and those who did died in obscurity. For example, Devils' Anvil played a unique middle-eastern acid-rock, immortalized on Hard Rock From the Middle East (1967).

Tom Rapp's Pearls Before Swine were perhaps the greatest band venturing into psychedelic-folk during the 1960s. Their two masterpieces, One Nation Underground (1967) and especially Balaklava (1968) are mosaics of atmospheric songs that defy classification, evoking the hallucinated state of Dali's surrealism, lushly arranged, and influenced by both classical and jazz music. Each album is performed by a veritable "chamber ensemble": organ, harmonium, piano, harp, vibraphone, English horn, clarinet, celesta, banjo, sitar, flute...

Also typical of New York's artistic milieu were Cromagnon, who released one of the most radical, futuristic and frightening albums of the era, Orgasm (1968).

Bizarre and eclectic arrangements featured prominently on United States Of America (1968), the one and only album released by Joseph Byrd's United States Of America, a hodgepodge of sonic experiments that can be hardly called "songs". One of the most significant albums of that era, it is also one of the first albums on which a whole range of keyboards (not just piano or organ) paint most of the soundscape. There are hints of cut-up techniques, atmospheric jazz ballads and futuristic lounge-music: ideas that would be resumed three decades later. Byrd's surrealistic music-hall was the opposite of the Fugs' political theater. A better definition for this kind of music is the title of Byrd's solo album, American Metaphysical Circus (1969).

Los Angeles and acid-pop

Psychedelic-rock in Los Angeles clearly descended from the Byrds, but it rapidly split into several camps: the poppy, stereotyped novelty number, best represented by Strawberry Alarm Clock's Incense And Peppermint (1967); the wild, raw, bluesy rave-up, influenced by the Rolling Stones, whose archetype were the Seeds, violent, lascivious punks who cut the unpleasant albums Seeds (1966) and A Web Of Sound (1966); the lengthy, intoxicating guitar-driven improvisation, whose heroes were Iron Butterfly, the band that released an album titled Heavy (1967) before the term "heavy-metal" was coined, and concocted an exciting, feverish blues-psychedelic jam, the title-track from In A Gadda Da Vida (1968). The fragile and dreamy music of Part One (1966), the debut album by the West Coast Pop Art Band, was probably the closest thing to San Francisco's acid-rock that Los Angeles produced.

Love were representative of three different stages in psychedelic-rock: its roots in folk-rock, still evident on the naive Love (1966); its full-blown creative maturity, after digesting blues, jazz and raga, as on their masterpiece Da Capo (1967); its baroque apex, when, influenced (like everybody else) by the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, the band adopted the lush pop arrangements of Forever Changes (december 1967).

Of all creative bands in the history of rock music, the Doors may have been the most creative. Their first album, The Doors (1967), contains only masterpieces (Light My Fire, Break On Through, Crystal Ship, Soul Kitchen, End Of The Night, and the most suspenseful song in the history of popular music, The End) and, as a collection of songs, it remains virtually unmatched. Jim Morrison may well be the single most important rock frontman. He is the one who defined the rock vocalist as an artist, not just a singer. Ray Manzaker's style at the keyboards was at the vanguard of the fusion of classical, jazz, soul and rock music. The virulence of some of their riffs bridged the blues-rock era and the hard-rock era. Whether it was him, Manzarek or guitarist Bobbie Krieger or all of them, their songs exhibit a unique quality that has never been repeated. They are metaphysical while being psychological and while being physical (erotic and violent). They are the closest thing rock music has produced to William Shakespeare. Partly Freudian psychodrama and partly shamanic/messianic invocation, Doors songs were always more than "songs". The fact that they borrowed elements from blues, Bach and ragas was less relevant than the fact that they represented suicidal self-inflicted agonies. They continuously referenced death: sex, drugs and death made up the Doors' triune reality. Each one was ecstasy and annihilation. The supernatural quality of their hymns was not gothic, but rather imbued with the fatalism of the French symbolists. Death was the ultimate aspect of that trinity, as Morrison found out in 1971. The music spanned a broad range of styles, a fact best epitomized by the long instrumental break in Light My Fire, where Krieger's guitar intones a raga while Manzarek's organ weaves a Bach-ian fugue and both improvise jazz-like. The Doors made at least three more albums that proved their talent, Strange Days (1967), Waiting For The Sun (1968) and L.A. Woman (1971), but never managed to repeat the feat of their first album.
Jim Morrison represented a new kind of sexual persona. Elvis Presley's animal magnetism, which made him an idol of the teenagers of the 1950s, was largely a white impersonation of black (forbidden) sexuality. His moves and his voice were simulating black stereotypes. The teenagers who fell for his charade were mainly well-behaved children of the middle class. A decade later Morrison employed a completely different technique, that made Presley obsolete: Morrison's sexuality was demonic. Morrison placed his sexuality at a higher "forbidden" level. Morrison's act was also different from Presley's act in that it was not a travesty: it was real life. Presley only pretended to be a juvenile delinquent, whereas Morrison had all the intentions of being the (perverted and suicidal) character that he played. Morrison's audience was an audience of similarly deviated youths.

Technically speaking, Spirit were even more talented than the Doors. They recorded some of the most adventurous albums of the psychedelic era, frequently employing elements of jazz and classical music and pre-dating progressive-rock. Spirit (1968) and The Family That Plays Together (1969) toyed with an erudite fusion of blues, jazz, raga and rock, while Twelve Dreams Of Dr Sardonicous (1971) marked a move towards overwrought (and electronic) arrangements.

Psychedelic-rock was a bonanza for Los Angeles producers, because it gave them the excuse to indulge in all sorts of bizarre arrangements. Producer Ed Cobb contributed to psychedelic-rock via an artificial band, San Jose's the Chocolate Watchband, who are credited with his The Inner Mistique (1967). David Axelrod penned the Mass In F Minor (1968) by the Electric Prunes, the first "rock mass". But Music Emporium's Music Emporium (1968) was more sophisticated than anything the seasoned producers concocted.

Texas and the freak-out

The psychedelic school in Texas, on the other hand, was one of the most authentic and uncompromising. The Thirteenth Floor Elevators were among the earliest psychedelic bands: The Psychedelic Sound Of (1966) came out in the spring of 1966. Like the Seeds in Los Angeles, their ferocious sound harkened back to the Rolling Stones. Roky Erickson was the demonic front-man, but Tommy Hall was the real brain behind the project, both in terms of sound (thanks to his electric jug) and in terms of ideology (he merged psychedelic culture with Eastern philosophies and Western science).

Red Crayola were one of the greatest psychedelic bands of the 1960s and probably of all times. They played extremely wild and cacophonous music that was decades ahead of its time. They predated Germany's expressionistic rock (Faust) and the new wave of the USA (Pere Ubu). Their "freak outs" were closer to John Coltrane's free-jazz and to Jackson Pollock's abstract paintings than to rock'n'roll. Their leader, Mayo Thompson, was a composer who ranks among the greatest musicians of his time (classical, jazz, rock). His revolutionary compositional style had few stable coordinates. His pieces float not because they are ethereal but because melody and rhythm are left "loose". They are organisms that rely on supporting skeletons that are falling apart as they move. Thompson placed his art firmly in the iconoclastic tradition that Frank Zappa had just founded, and simply increased the amount and the speed of noise. Parable Of Arable Land (1967) is one of the milestones of rock music, a carousel of savage harmonic inventions/sabotages. God Bless (1968) was even closer (in spirit if not in sound) to the likes of Edgar Varese and John Cage. It is not a coincidence that Thompson was rediscovered by the new wave ten years later: his Soldier Talk (1979) could have well been the album of the Pere Ubu (the band he eventually joined).

Euphoria's A Gift From Euphoria (Capitol, 1969), on the other hand, offered an odd combination of orchestral pop ballads, country-rock, distorted psychedelia and sound effects.

The spreading of the disease

Another martyr of psychedelia, Jimi Hendrix, was one of the greatest icons of the 1960s. His death in 1970 still stands as one of the crucial events in the history of rock music, one of the dates that divide two eras. His work may be less important than his image, as too many of his albums were below average. Hendrix was, after all, one of the most exploited artists of all times (many more albums were released after his death than during his lifetime). Hendrix made only two amazing albums: the first and the third, Are You Experienced (1967) and Electric Ladyland (1968). His greatest achievement was to coin a new guitar style, a style that amounted to a declaration of war against western harmony. Born at the crossroad between Chicago's blues, Memphis soul and Charlie Christian's jazz improvisation, Hendrix's style was an excruciating torture of tonal music. His astral glissandos bridged the historical suffering of African slaves and the existential angst of European philosophers. A black man, Hendrix always used the blues as the basis for his improvisation, but then used the whole human body to play and distort the sound of the guitar. The guitar became a sacrificial totem for an entire generation. A cosmic hymn such as Third Stone From The Sun was fueled towards higher dimensions by the heroic guitar workout. The blues agony of jams such as Voodoo Chile was pushed to new psychological levels by the endless guitar pyrotechnics. Tracks such as 1983 flirted with free-jazz and avantgarde music to achieve a form of "sound painting". On the album Band Of Gypsys (1970) Hendrix was indulging in endless acrobatics. Hendrix's guitar opened new doors to experimental music. His lesson would be applied not only to guitar but also to keyboards and to whatever instrument would lead a rock song. His legacy as a guitarist is comparable to Beethoven's legacy as a symphonist.

Baroque arrangements (flute, clarinet, harpsichord) enhanced the compositions of the Chicago band H.P. Lovecraft, whose most accomplished album was II (1968).

Another Chicago band, the Amboy Dukes, laid the foundations for both heavy-metal and progressive-rock with the complex and energetic compositions of Journey To The Center Of The Mind (1968) and Marriage Of The Rocks (1970).

Ultimate Spinach were the most significant psychedelic band from Boston. They specialized in sophisticated suites such as Ballad Of The Hip Death Goddess, from Ultimate Spinach (1968) and Genesis Of Beauty, from Behold And See (1968). They, too, predated progressive-rock.

A Canadian band, L'Infonie, inspired by the cacophonous chaos of Captain Beefheart and Red Crayola, but also by Pierre Henry's musique concrete, by Sun Ra's cosmic jazz and Frank Zappa's dadaistic sketches, and obsessed with the digit "3", released Volume 3 (1969), performed by 33 musicians, Volume 33 (1971), and Volume 333 (1972).

Indirectly, psychedelic-rock also permeated melodic ("bubblegum") rock, as visible in American Breed's Bend Me Shape Me (1967), Steam's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye (1968), Ohio Express' Yummy Yummy Yummy (1968). In Michigan, Tommy James roared Mony Mony (1968) and moaned Crimson And Clover (1968).

Britain and the light show

British psychedelia was a very minor and very late phenomenon, with one notable exception: Pink Floyd. In the summer of 1966, Joel and Tony Brown, who had worked for LSD guru Timothy Leary in the USA, exported to London the "light show", which became immediately a major sensation. At the same time, upon returning from a journey to the USA, disc-jockey John Ravenscroft (better known as John "Peel") began broadcasting psychedelic music during his radio show "Perfumed Garden". In december 1966, the UFO Club was inaugurated to foster the new phenomenon. In april 1967, dozens of bands played at the "14 Hours Technicolour Dream", which was de facto the first rock festival. In august 1967, the whole of Europe joined in at St Tropez. The following year a hippy festival was held at the Isle of Wight, and more (larger and larger ones) would follow.

Creation were the first psychedelic band to cause a sensation, but it was Pink Floyd that soon became the reference point.

Pink Floyd devised a compromise between the free-form tonal jam, the noisy, cacophonous freak out, and the eccentric, melodic ditty. This amalgam and balance is inspired and nourished by Syd Barrett's gentle madness on their first two albums, which remain their masterpieces: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967), that includes the pulsating, visionary trips of Astronomy Domine and Interstellar Overdrive (the bridge between space-rock and cosmic music); and A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968), that contains the stately crescendo and wordless anthem of A Saucerful Of Secrets and the subliminal raga of Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. The ambitious Ummagumma (1969), a failed attempt at establishing their credentials as avantgarde composers, and the eponymous suite from Atom Heart Mother (1970), a failed attempt at merging rock band and symphonic orchestra, marked the end of the epic phase (Barrett had already departed). For better and for worse, Pink Floyd understood the limits and the implications of the genre, and kept reinventing themselves, slowly transforming psychedelic-rock (a music originally born for the hippies that had been banned by the Establishment) into a muzak for relaxation and meditation (aimed at the yuppies who are totally integrated in the Establishment). The other half of Atom Heart Mother (1970) already hinted at the band's preference for the languid, mellow, hypnotic ballad, albeit sabotaged by an orgy of sound effects. Echoes, the suite that takes up half of Meddle (1971), sterilized and anesthetized the space-rock of Interstellar Overdrive, and emphasized not the sound effects but meticulous studio production. The Pink Floyd did not hesitate to alter the letter and the spirit of psychedelic music. The delirious and cacophonous sound of their beginnings slowly mutated into a smooth and lush sound. Rather than just endorsing the stereotypes of easy-listening, Pink Floyd invented a whole new kind of easy-listening with Dark Side Of The Moon (1973) and Wish You Were Here (1975). A tactical move soon became a strategic move. In the end, Pink Floyd reshaped psychedelic music into a universal language, a language that fit the punk as well as the manager, just like, at about the same time, jazz-rock was "selling" the anguish of the Afro-American people to the white conformists. Roger Waters' existential pessimism and historical angst became the pillars of the band's latter-day melodramas, such as The Wall (1979). These monoliths of electronic and acoustic sounds, coupled with psychoanalytical lyrics, indulge in a funereal pomp that approaches the forms of the requiem and the oratorio.

Nobody could compete with Pink Floyd, in terms of both artistic achievement and influence. However, Tomorrow, featuring drummer John "Twink" Alder, recorded one of the most eccentric albums of that season, Tomorrow (1968), and Hapshash & The Coloured Coat did even better with Featuring The Human Host And The Heavy Metal Kids (1967).

The Incredible String Band was Scotland's premier hippy commune. Their album 5,000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (1967) introduced medieval and middle-eastern music into folk-rock. Their masterpiece, Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1968), is a hyper-creative stew of hypnotic exorcisms, magical and pagan rituals, Indian music, Donovan-esque lullabies, baroque music, all drenched in exotic instrumentation and psychedelic chanting. Following their example, an impressive number of British bands released an impressive number of inferior albums that relied on the fusion between psychedelia and folk: the Trees' The Garden of Jane Delawney (1970), Forest's Full Circle (1970), Dr Strangely Strange's Heavy Petting (1971), Clive's Original Band (C.O.B.)'s Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart (1972), etc.

Great Britain never had a counterculture movement in the early 1960s, a counterpart to Country Joe and the Fugs. It didn't have much of a pacifist movement, a Bob Dylan or a Free Speech Movement that could compare with the originals. There were no student riots in 1964, there was no need to create an alternative political world to fight the Establishment. Instead, it was the psychedelic movement that led to the development of an underground infrastructure (magazines, clubs, radio stations). In Britain, psychedelic music played the role that the Greenwich Movement had played in the USA.

Once that infrastructure was in place, the political wing of the movement was allowed to emerge.

The leading agit-prop band was the Deviants, which were born as the British version of the Fugs, but soon developed an even more iconoclastic and unpredictable sound via Ptooff (1967), their masterpiece, Disposable (1968), Deviants (1969) and Mick Farren's solo album Mona The Carnivorous Circus (1970).

Also following a cue from the Fugs, Edgar Broughton clearly represented the fusion of psychedelic and political elements on Wasa Wasa (1969).

Euro-psychedelia

However, one of the greatest of the European psychedelic bands was not British: Parson Sound, whose compositions would surface only 32 years later on Parson Sound (2001). Their main influences were minimalist composer Terry Riley, who at the time was inventing a musical aesthetic founded on repetition, and pop-art guru Andy Warhol, who, at the time, was experimenting with the droning music of the Velvet Underground. Renamed International Harvester, they later released Sov Gott Rose-Marie (Love, 1968), a wild fusion of psychedelia, minimalism, raga, folk, jazz and sounds of nature.

Their only competitors were Italy's Le Stelle di Mario Schifano, a musical event put together by decadent-futuristi pop artist Schifano the same way Andy Warhol put together the Velvet Underground. They composed a cacophonous suite Le Ultime Parole di Brandimarte, dall'Orlando Furioso (with the instructions "to be listened with the TV on and no volume"), off their only album Dedicato A (1967), one of the most experimental tracks of the time.

Brazil's Os Mutantes concocted a high-volume maelstrom of dissonant guitar, musique concrete, found sounds and pop melodies on albums such as Os Mutantes (1968) and especially Mutantes (1969).

The Outsiders in Holland were also notable, thanks to their CQ (1968). But Holland's most popular export was Shocking Blue's feverish Venus (1969).

The Czech band Plastic People of the Universe was the main psychedelic act of Eastern Europe (unreleased until 1978).

Last but not least, the open French ensemble of Les Maledictus Sound released one of the most psychedelic albums ever, Les Maledictus Sound (1968).

The classical avantgarde was, indirectly, helping the creative freedom of this era. The marriage between rock and classical music was fostered by rock composers such as Frank Zappa, but also by classical composers such as Pierre Henry, whose Rock Electronique (1963) employed electronic riff and rhythm, and whose rock mass, Messe Pour Le Temp Present (1967), that mixed symphonic, rock and electronic instruments. In 1964 Charles Dodge and James Randall started "computer music". In 1965 Terry Riley and Steve Reich were performing music based on repetition of simple patterns ("minimalism"), an idea that shared with psychedelic-rock the hypnotic and mystical qualities.

The age of the revivals 1966-69
Blues revival

When John Mayall released the album Bluesbreakers (1966), featuring the former Yardbirds guitarist Eric Clapton, he defined, once and for all, a genre of rhythm'n'blues played by white European musicians, the epitome of "blues-rock", which soon became one of the strongest undercurrents of British rock music. It also laid the foundations for progressive-rock: Hard Road (Decca, 1967), featuring new guitarist Peter Green, the lush jazz arrangements of the Bare Wires Suite (1968), the sophisticated lounge-music of the concept-album Blues From Laurel Canyon (1969) and of his masterpiece, Turning Point (1970), featuring guitarist Jon Mark and saxophonist Johnny Almond, the prelude to an ambitious Jazz-Blues Fusion (1972). Fleetwod Mac, Colosseum and Mark-Almond (formed by those cohorts) would be the logical consequences of Mayall's continuing experiment with the blues.

In the USA, the equivalent of John Mayall was Al Kooper, the keyboardist who had invented the sound of Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone and Blonde On Blonde, i.e. of rock music as we know it. He formed Blues Project, a band whose lead instruments were flute and organ and who concocted an atmospheric blend of blues, folk, pop and jazz on Projections (1967). Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield, who had played on Paul Butterfield's and Bob Dylan's masterpieces, and former Buffalo Springfield guitarist Stephen Stills joined together to form the first "super-group" and recorded the Supersession (1968), an album that marked the meeting of acid-rock, folk-rock and blues revival. Continuing to parallel Mayall's career, Kooper later gave the pop-jazz movement one of its most successful bands, the Blood Sweat & Tears.

Mayall and Kooper inspired countless groups on both sides of the Atlantic. Case in point, three seasoned British blues musicians (Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker) formed Cream, the first "power-trio". More than anyone else, it was Cream who changed the face of British rock music. They took the fusion of blues and rock to places where it had never been before. They employed a level of group improvisation that was worthy of jazz. In fact, their music had basically three layers: a pop melody, lengthy solos inspired by free jazz, and a propulsive rhythm'n'blues beat. They indulged in guitar distortions and dissonant solos that were shocking for an audience raised on the Beatles. Even the soul-jazz melodies of Sunshine Of Your Love (1967), off Disraeli Gears (1967), and White Room (1968), off the baroque and psychedelic Wheels Of Fire (1968), while not revolutionary, pointed towards a more sophisticated kind of "pop" than the childish refrains of Mersey-beat.

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac were one of the most creative and competent British bands of the blues revival. Black Magic Woman (1968), Albatross (1968), Man Of The World (1969) and The Green Mahalishi (1970) became well-respected standards.

Alvin Lee's Ten Years After offered a frenzied, loud, violent version of that blues-jazz fusion. The epileptic Going Home (1968), the hypnotic Hear Me Calling (1969) and the lugubrious No Title (1969) show the British progression from the Cream to hard-rock.

San Francisco itself attracted and harbored a sizeable blues community, which was influenced by the city's acid-rock: Janis Joplin, the most visceral vocalist of her time, whose wild antics were immortalized on Cheap Thrills (1968) but whose best album is probably the posthumous Pearl (1970); Steve Miller, who penned the hallucinations of Children Of the Future (1968) and Sailor (1968) before turning to commercial music; and Mexican guitarist Carlos Santana, whose major career ranged from Santana (1969), the album that found a common ground between Latin rhythm, blues guitar and psychedelic jamming and coined a new form of muzak for hippies, to, after his conversion to Buddhism and jazz, Caravanserai (1972) and especially the colossal live Lotus (1974), both works inspired by Miles Davis and John McLaughlin and featuring Michael Shrieve's monster drumming.

At about the same time two Los Angeles musicians began playing the blues in unconventional formats that mainly tried to capture the authentic spirit of the past: Taj Mahal produced albums that delve into the whole tradition of Afro-American music, such as De Ole Folks At Home (1969), possibly his masterpiece, Real Thing (1971) and Recycling The Blues (1972); and Ry Cooder would become famous with his thematic reconstructions of eras and styles (tex-mex, swing, rock'n'roll, etc), notably Paradise And Lunch (1974) and Paris Texas (1985).

A passionate and hoarse vocalist in the vein of the black shouters, Bob Seger wed that tradition with his blue-collar (Detroit) roots. Starting with the anthemic Heavy Music (1966) and Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (1967), Seger embraced the emotional attack of Wilson Pickett and James Brown, and sprinkled it with touches of soul, southern boogie, hard-rock and folk-rock. Focusing on the ordinary life of the everyman, he later proceeded to pen the pensive atmospheres of albums such as Beautiful Loser (1975) and Night Moves (1977).

Folk revival

The other side of the coin was the British folk revival. Folk-rock came to Britain much later than to the USA, but it absorbed the many facets of psychedelic-rock, blues and jazz. Pentangle, formed by two veteran guitarists of the folk scene, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, went beyond merely recycling traditional material. The lengthy suites Pentangling (1968), Jack Orion (1970) and Reflections (1971) contain more than a passing nod to jazz and classical music.

Fairport Convention included much heralded musicians, but only guitarist Richard Thompson would stand the test of time. They mostly played covers and traditionals. Their album Liege And Lief (1970), and its "grand folk suites" Matty Groves and Tam Lin, are typical of the pros (rock rhythm, virtuoso playing) and cons (sterile material) of the folk-revival movement. Sloth, from Full House (1970), and the folk-opera Babbacomb Lee (1972) were probably more significant achievements (precisely because they were less aligned with the folk revival).

Pentangle and Fairport Convention became the leading groups of British folk-rock. Dozens followed in their footsteps, but the movement mostly failed to produce real value. Shirley Collins, a pivotal figure since the beginning of the English folk revival movement, released the concept album Anthems In Eden (1969), arranged in an almost orchestral fashion, but using ancient instruments.

The most erudite contribution to reforming folk-rock came from former Them vocalist Van Morrison, who quickly established himself as the most significant musician of his generation. The lengthy, complex, hypnotic, dreamy jams of Astral Weeks (1968) coined an abstract, free-form song format that blended soul, jazz, folk and psychedelia and was performed with the austere intensity of chamber music. The psychedelic and jazz elements came to the foreground on Moondance (1970), which boasted lush, baroque arrangements. Perhaps sensing the end of an era, for a few years Morrison abandoned those bold experiments and retreated to bland rhythm'n'blues songs, with the notable exception of Listen To The Lion, off St Dominic's Preview (1972). Then Veedon Fleece (1974) applied the same treatment to a pastoral, nostalgic and elegiac mood. Morrison's vocal style continued to evolve towards a unique form of warbling that bridged Celtic bards and soul singers. On albums such as Into The Music (1979), A Common One (1980), A Beautiful Vision (1982) and Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart (1983) Morrison employed disparate musical elements to mold compositions that are profoundly personal and even philosophical, that are both arduous meditations and elaborate constructions, that are, ultimately, more similar to classical "suites" than to pop songs. His stately odes displayed an increasing affectation, often sounding like pretentious sermons, but born out of a painful convergence of spiritual self-flagellation, tortured confession, shamanic trance, James Joyce's stream of consciousness, John Donne's metaphysical poetry and and William Blake's visionary symbolism.

Neo-classical revival

During this era of "revival", British musicians mixed rock'n'roll even with classical music. Moody Blues were the prototype for much of Britain's "symphonic-rock", "techno-rock" and so forth. The mellotron, simulating the stately sound of the symphonic orchestra, and, in general a reliance on keyboards and flute rather than on guitar, and on four-part vocal harmonies rather than on rhythm'n'blues shouting, made Nights In White Satin (1967) the vanguard of rock inspired by classical music. Pomp and pretentiousness, but also meticulous productions that consciously employed studio overdubbing as an addition to the band, permeate the concept album In Search Of The Lost Chord (1968), a tribute to hippy mysticism and psychedelia, and the melodic fantasia On The Threshold Of A Dream (1969).

Procol Harum invented a sound based on two keyboards (the equivalent of coupling a church organ and a gospel organ) but used it only to dress up stately, elegant and classical-sounding arias such as A Whiter Shade Of Pale (1967), Homburg (1967), Conquistador (1967) and Salty Dog (1969). The five-movement suite In Held Twas In I (1968) showed their limits, not their strengths.

Nice introduced the idea of keyboard-driven arrangements of classical and jazz music. Rather than writing new songs, and sticking to the pop format, the Nice relied on standards of the classical and jazz repertory, but deformed them through psychedelic-style jamming. They placed emphasis on virtuoso performances (particularly by keyboardist Keith Emerson) and on lengthy solos. It was the same idea of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and of Cream, except that the lead-instrument was the organ.

The revival of all revivals

The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band was one of the greatest groups in the history of British rock, despite the fact that they were essentially a cross between the music-hall of the 1950s and the theatre of the absurd. Their songs were parodies of musical styles of the past, with lyrics that mocked various aspects of British life, but the eclectic collage of their repertory was, as a whole, much more than a mere parody. Albums such as Gorilla (1967) and Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse (1968) drew from every genre that came to hand, but in particular from everything that was "kitsch", running the gamut from operetta to doo-wop, from TV commercials to marching bands, from Broadway showtunes to big-band swing, from folk ballads to patriotic choruses; and employing a stunning variety of instruments and vocal registers. Their endeavor was, in fact, very similar to the post-modernist sabotage carried out in California by Frank Zappa. Miraculously, such a unhortodox cauldron of musical ingredients coalesced in songs that were concise and catchy. Tadpoles (1969) tried to sell to the masses that hidden pop appeal. The baroque clockwork mechanisms of Keynsham (1969) and Let's Make Up And Be Friendly (1972) were primed to detonate a random sequence of irresistible melodies and sound effects. Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead (1974), the first solo album by Bonzo Band leader Vivian Stanshall, was no less anarchic. They were the greatest nonsensical artists since Dada, the musical equivalent of Monty Python and, perhaps, the best arrangers of their age. Slush (1972) is their testament: someone laughing in heaven, surrounded by angelic violins and organ.

American re-alignment

In the USA the reaction to Dylan's political rock and to San Francisco's acid-rock was even stronger. The "realignment" involved just about every band, and marked a sudden change in sound and format. Rock music returned to the well-structured, short, melodic song, and rediscovered the tradition, both white (country) and black (blues).

In 1968 the "cosmic cowboy" Gram Parsons invented "country-rock", first with Safe At Home, by the International Submarine Band, and then with Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (1968), by the Byrds, two albums that interpreted Nashville material and that employed country instruments along with rock instruments and with a hippy attitude. Parsons continued the project with a new band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, that debuted with Gilded Palace Of Sin (1969).

Parsons' country-rock spawned countless imitators, notably Seatrain, the new name of Al Kooper's old band, Blues Project, whose albums Planned Obsolescence (1968) and Seatrain (1969) were far more accomplished than the average (thanks to violinist Richard Greene and guitarist Peter Rowan).

The Band, Dylan's backing band, invented "roots-rock" by fusing folk, gospel, country, and rock on the magnificent albums Music From Big Pink (1968) and The Band (1969). The well-crafted songs of these albums captured a private/domestic and rustic dimension that sounded like a paradox in the era of (urban) folk-rock and (public, communal) hippies. The Band recovered the humblest American styles: the Appalachian folk-singers, the gospel preachers of the southern denominations, the bluesmen, etc. At the same time, they soaked those styles in an austere composure, worthy of chamber music, and in a stately atmosphere, worthy of religious music. The interplay among drummer Levon Helm, bassist Rickie Danko, pianist Richard Manuel, keyboardist Garth Hudson and guitarist Robbie Robertson was unique in its balance of domestic and epic tones.

What the Band did for gospel, Creedence Clearwater Revival did for Louisiana's swamp-blues. They wed the rhythms of the "swamps" with the melodies of folk-rock, the fervor of religious music, the rebellious fever of rock'n'roll, and the existential angst of Bob Dylan. Their best albums, Bayou Country (1968), Green River (1969), Willy And The Poorboys (1969), and Cosmo's Factory (1970), which is possibly their masterpiece, achieved a classic form of roots-rock that was full of sinister premonitions, evoking voodoo gothic but projecting it into their age and times. Somehow this unlikely blend coalesced into simple, catchy songs that embodied the quintessence of American music: Proud Mary (1968), Bad Moon Rising (1969), Down On The Corner (1969), Run Thru The Jungle (1970), Looking Out My Backdoor (1970), Who'll Stop The Rain (1970), Have You Ever Seen The Rain (1971).

The Flamin' Groovies, who self-produced their debut EP, Sneakers (1968), years before indie-rock was born, released an album of virulent rock'n'roll and catchy refrains, Flamingo (1970), that would be influential on subsequent generations (the progenitor of power-pop).

The Shaggs were three sisters from New Hampshire who played two guitars and drums, and who recorded one of the most "incompetent" records in the history of music, Philosophy Of The World (1969). Their "do-it-yourself" style and the sincere, intimate tone of their songs predated "lo-fi" pop of the 1990s.

Another "super-group" led the move towards a softer sound: Crosby Stills Nash & Young, formed by two former Buffalo Springfield members, a former Byrds and a former Hollies, popularized intricate vocal harmonies, languid counterpoints and mellow rhythms. Deja Vu (1970) sounds like the laid-back, atmospheric and slightly psychedelic version of what the three had done with their previous bands. They virtually invented a new genre: the sunny, melancholy, thoughtful country/blues/soul that would be called "West Coast sound".

This style became popular worldwide, as proven by "soft" hits such as America's Horse With No Name (1972).

Ironically, just when rock music was beginning to "surrender", to give up to the pressure of the Establishment, to give up its revolutionary ethos, it also staged its definitive triumph. 1969 was the year of Woodstock in the USA (300,000 people attended the three-day festival) and of the Isle of Wight (150,000 people attended the largest festival ever in Europe). The world's music market was worth two billion dollars: yet again, rock music had caused a boom in the recording industry. Yet again, a music born to rebel against the Establishment had helped the Establishment post record earnings.

Soul explorations

At about the same time, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1967) and Ain't No Mountain High Enough (1967, written by Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson) and Norman Whitfield's I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1968) brought soul music to a sophisticated white audience. It wasn't anymore just party music, it was music with a dynamic and arrangements. Aretha Franklin's passionate interpretations, particularly A Natural Woman (1967, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King) and Chain of Fools (1967, written by Don Covay), bridged the world of soul and pop, the way the Beatles had bridged the world of rock and pop.

At the same time, under the influence of James Brown's abominable songs, the dance element of soul music was being brought out by the likes of Dyke (Arlester Christian) And The Blazers, whose Funky Broadway (1967) gave a genre its name, and San Francisco's Sly and The Family Stone, led by black hippie Sylvester "Sly" Stewart, whose Dance To The Music (1967) became the manifesto of that genre (and whose bassist Larry Graham is credited with inventing the "funk" bass lines), followed by the seminal album Stand (1969), with Everyday People and I Want To Take You Higher, Hot Fun In The Summertime (1969), Thank You (1970), the showcase for Graham's bass, Family Affair (1971), the first hit ever to use a drum-machine, and the sociological concept There's A Riot Going On (1971).

New Orleans gumbo

An unlikely contributor to the hippy civilization was the eclectic jazz and rhythm'n'blues pianist Dr John, heir to the glorious New Orleans tradition, who concocted Gris Gris (1968), an exuberant carnival of creole folklore that runs the gamut from orgiastic jams to swamp/voodoo blues, from African tribal rhythms to Mardi Gras-style fanfares. Dr John would later endorse the relaxed soul-funk-rock of the realignment, for example on In the Right Place (1973), and eventually land a career as a distinguished jazz musician, notably with the solo piano collection Plays Mac Rebennack (1981) extending all the way to the four-movement suite Hurricane Suite, off Sippiana (2005).

One of the most competent rhythm sections in the history of modern music (drummer Joseph "Ziggy" Modeliste and bassist George Porter), was the backbone of the Meters, which in many ways stood as the natural link between New Orleans' rhythm'n'blues and funk music. Formed by veteran keyboardist Art Neville, they virtually redefined the sound of black music on The Meters (1969). The Meters also recorded Wild Tchoupitoulas (1976), a collaboration with the tribe of black "Indiands" that supervised the Mardi Gras carnival. Later on, Art and family members formed the Neville Brothers, whose albums concocted the ultimate New Orleans gumbo (reggae, jazz, rap, soul, voodoo chants and African polyrhythms), particularly on Yellow Moon (1989).

Solo careers 1967-69Los Angeles eccentrics 1968-69

A number of the Los Angeles eccentrics set a new standard for melodic music, in particular for baroque, gothic and psychedelic arrangements. They expanded on the mid-1960s studio experiments of Brian Wilson (Beach Boys), George Martin (Beatles) and others.

The pioneering work of jazz and rock producer David Axelrod, integrating funk breakbeats, orchestral arrangements and psychedelic melodies, foreshadowed dance music of the late 1990s. He had already composed, arranged and produced the Electric Prunes' Mass In F Minor (1968) when he released his first solo albums, Song of Innocence (1968) and Songs of Experience (1969), both based on William Blake poems. Arranged for bass, drums and strings, their dark, depressed ambience predated trip-hop. Earth Rot (1970) was one of the first environmentalist albums (a suite in eight movements). A trilogy of albums each containing six long ballads each, Seriously Deep (1975), Strange Ladies (1977) and Marchin' (1980), rank among the best funk-jazz works of the day, highlighted by ghostly grooves and instrumental sophistication, while his "neo-classical" ambitions led to an ambitious Requiem: The Holocaust (1993) in four movements. Axelrod's breakbeats would be re-discovered and sampled by the leading disc-jockeys of the 1990s.

VanDyke Parks was instrumental in transforming light-hearted pop music into a form of austere chamber music. An orchestral arranger for psychedelic-rock, Parks debuted as a solo artist with Song Cycle (1968), whose impressionistic vignettes of ordinary life employed a cornucopia of sonic trivia and musical quotations, and sounded more like an apocalyptic fresco of the USA civilization than a pop album. Parks also led the vanguard of nostalgia-rock with Discover America (1972), a satirical tribute to calypso. Parks' concept albums resemble Frank Zappa's collage-operettas. He applied the cinematographic technique of "montage" to the format of kitsch music.

Jack Nitzsche, a veteran songwriter and arranger (instrumental in creating Phil Spector's "wall of sound"), gave one intriguing album of orchestral pop: St Giles Cripplegate (1972).

David Ackles an eclectic and depressed talent, could write a song about the most unpleasant subject and sing it in a tormented and macabre tone, as demonstrated on his early, unassuming albums, The Road To Cairo (1968) and Subway To The Country (1970). A quantum leap forward and an awe-inspiring fresco of USA life, American Gothic (1972) managed to bridge Kurt Weill's decadent orchestrations and Woody Guthrie's passionate story-telling.

Jimmy Webb was an odd blend of extremes, emotional like Leonard Cohen and trivial like Burt Bacharach. Since he was a kid, other pop artists turned his songs into hits: By The Time I Get To Phoenix (1966), Requiem 820 Latham (1967), Up Up And Away (1967), Wichita Lineman (1968), Galveston (1969), Where's the Playground Susie (1969), Met Her On A Plane (1971), Highwayman (1977), Watermark (1978). He saved his ambitions for Richard Harris' albums A Tramp Shining (1967), a suite for rock band, orchestra and choir that included MacArthur Park, and The Yard Went on Forever (1969), both composed and arranged by Webb, as well as for his own debut album Words And Music (1970).

Kim Fowley, who had already been producer and composer of a number of novelty hits between 1960 and 1964, and had invented the Runaways, vented his passion for decadent, sado-maso and Faustian themes on Outrageous (1968), one of the albums that predate glam-rock and punk-rock.

Larry Fischer, a Frank Zappa protege', was an insane street performer, immortalized on An Evening With Wild Man Fischer (1969), whose "songs" offered a mixture of autobiography, social commentary, free associations, sermons, nursery rhymes, and parody, mostly improvised and mostly unaccompanied.

A former member of the Kingston Trio and songwriter for the Monkees (Daydream Believer), John Stewart assembled at least one notable solo album, the moving California Bloodlines (1969).

Norman Greenbaum unleashed one of the greatest grooves in the history of music, Spirit In The Sky (1969).

Post-Greenwich 1967-71

One of the most erudite and sensitive songwriters of all times, Laura Nyro devoted her career to intimate, introverted, self-analyzing songs. Her intense, intricate phrasing was the sonic equivalent of a psychoanalytic session, testing the deep, deep recesses of her psyche. Nyro embodied both the city's musical melting-pot (folk, gospel, soul, blues, jazz, musical, classical) and the city's neuroses and alienation. Nyro's music was essentially tragic, and quintessentially urban. She was famous for being shy and reserved, and for mostly wearing black. She was only 17 when she recorded her debut album, More Than a New Discovery (1967). Her masterpiece, Eli And The Thirteenth Confession (1968), was a song cycle about a girl's transition from teenage to adulthood, relying on impeccable gospel-soul constructions. New York Tendaberry (1969) was less intense but more musical. Of all the vestals to parade on the stage of pop music, Nyro remains the most awe-inspiring.

Arlo Guthrie was briefly popular for the colloquial rant Alice's Restaurant (1967), that mixed Woody Allen comedy and Jack Kerouac chronicle, and for the quintessential "easy-rider" anthem Motorcycle Song (1968).

A veteran of the Greenwich Movemenet, Eric Andersen, is one of the men who can claim to have invented the modern singer-songwriter. In an era when most folksingers were either writing chronicles of daily life a` la Woody Guthrie or singing anti-Establishment anthems a` la Bob Dylan, Andersen displayed a fluent romantic vein. His art triumphed with Blue River (1972), that ranks among the masterpieces of the era. Stages, originally recorded in 1973 but only published eight years later, is equally stunning, as is the later Ghosts Upon The Road (1988).

David Peel was one of the most militant and underground folk-singers in the age of the student riots. He was a modern minstrel of the white lumperproletariat, who terrorized the Lower East Side with live performances at street corners, accompanied by random street musicians. This political bum was obviously mimicking street preachers, except that his religion was the marijuana, his Bible was rock'n'roll, and his mission was to expose the hypocrisy of the bourgeoise. His semi-improvised albums (or, better, public "happenings") followed in the footsteps of the Fugs' grotesque agit-prop cabaret and of Frank Zappa's satirical operettas. Peel's hysterical, sarcastic and insolent tone, and his spartan/spastic combo of guitar, harmonica and tambourine (which mainly contributed rhythm), and the naive enthusiasm of everybody involved (responsible for some of the most hair-rising backing vocals in the history of music), created a new kind of folk music. His masterpiece, Have A Marijuana (1969), a demented sabotage of protest songs, hillbilly, blues and square dances, was an epic insult to common-sense. Ahead of his time, Peel played folk music with the emphasis of punk-rock and the arrangements of lo-fi pop. And he played it with divine negligence.

The Velvet Underground's original drummer, Angus MacLise, released one of the most surreal albums of the late 1960s, The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda (1968), a mixture of raga, acid-rock and minimalism.

Bob Neuwirth, a staple of the Greenwich Movement of the 1960s, wrote songs for Janis Joplin (Mercedes Benz) and many others, but didn't release a single album during the best years of his life. He fulfilled his potential with the solemn, philosophical, mournful ballads of Back to the Front (1988).

German chanteuse Nico, who sang with the Velvet Underground in New York before returning to Europe, invented a style of singing that has little to do with rock music, a style that belongs to no particular place and no particular time, a style that may as well be medieval or romantic, Indian or Middle-eastern, a style that is mainly "enunciation", a style that sounds by turns like Greek chorus, Shakespearian monologue, Schubert-ian lied, Gregorian psalm, Elizabethan song, exotic chant. Her lugubrious litanies (which invented gothic rock more by accident than by design) sway between the lament of a buried alive and the stately invocation of a priestess. The staging of these funereal cries quoted from Goethe's metaphysical allegory "Faust", from Wedekind's expressionist drama "Lulu", from Brecht's epic theatre, from French noir cinema, from Dali's surreal paintings. She straddled the line between aristocratic and prostitute with the elegance of a ghost.
Her first masterpiece, Marble Index (1968), introduced gothic, archaic, exotic and neo-classical elements into rock music, but it could not be farther from being sensationalistic: Nico sang about a childhood trauma, in the grip of lacerating loneliness, monotonous, slow, too weak to soar, too weak to add emotional or melodic value to her godless liturgy. She sang, perhaps, about the childhood trauma of an entire (cursed, doomed) race. John Cale's arrangements (no percussions, emphasis on keyboards), whose delicate impressionism transformed each song into a chamber sonata, and Nico's androgynous look increased the shock.
Her second masterpiece, and one of the greatest albums of all times, Desert Shore (1971), went even further, evoking the desolation of an icy and empty universe, as if after a colossal catastrophe. Stronger doses of urban neurosis further depressed her voice, but also lifted the shamanic/prophetic tone to another dimension. The sense of ancient became more than a smell of death: a smell of the otherworld. The anemic, moribund, suspenseful atmospheres penned by her church-like harmonium and Cale's viola belonged to a catacomb. By now, it was more than fatalism: it was eternal angst. It was fear, both bleak and majestic, leading to a mental paralysis that was both childish and cosmic. Each song was an enigma, and the singer a sphinx. But she was also an explorer, albeit an explorer of the inner world. Nico's cadaveric, petrified voice wandered through the labyrinth of a wasted mind, scouring inner landscapes made of nightmares, visions and nameless shadows for the ultimate meaning. Or, better, Nico lived on another planet, and was the Homer who sang about the apocalypse of planet Earth, as viewed from up above.
Her rosary concluded with The End (1974), Drama Of Exile (1981) and Camera Obscura (1985) that tried to modernize her sound (the ultimate oxymoron).

Canada 1968-69

Besides being a professional poet, Leonard Cohen also created a body of musical work that proves him one of music's supreme poets. The fact that his lyrics are among the most accomplished in musical history is actually a mere footnote. What makes him such a great musician is the gentle and shy atmosphere that emanates from his folk ballads. Cohen watches life go by "like a bird on a wire", but turns the stories he sees into metaphysical visions of a Dante-esque world and into profound meditations on the human condition. His existential philosophy found in his colloquial style a vastly more effective medium than the convoluted prose of many of his century's philosophers. The Songs Of Leonard Cohen (1968) were drenched in infinite tenderness, barely whispered and discreetly arranged. Cohen's unique style triumphed in the fragile lullabies of Winter Lady (flute, harpsichord) and Sisters Of Mercy (rattles, accordion, xylophone), that sound like good-night songs for children. Turning from social tragedies to individual tragedies, Cohen merged the tone of the medieval minstrel (Donovan) and the tone of the visionary preacher (Dylan). Songs From A Room (1969) and Songs Of Love And Hate (1971) increased the dramatic emphasis, but fundamentally continued to swim upstream, against the prevailing attitudes, carving a niche for a kind of subdued, lo-fi, intimate, personal dirge. Thanks to that invention, Cohen can be considered one of the most influential singer-songwriters of all times.

The country-music element was stronger in the catchy and sorrowful ballads of Gordon Lightfoot, whose epic Canadian Railroad Trilogy (1968) was followed by simpler tunes such as Minstrel Of the Dawn (1970), If You Could Read My Mind (1970) and Sundown (1973), and would evolve in the solemn Summer Side Of Life (1971) and Carefree Highway (1973).

Joni Mitchell was not only the voice of the female revolution, but also one of the most innovative musicians of the era. Despite her hippy roots, she developed an aristocratic, austere, "adult" way of singing (often complemented by neo-classical piano playing), and used it to vivisect her own anxiety, while chronicling the psychological insecurity of her generation and of her sex. This ambitious program eventually wed her confessional style with fusion jazz and other non-rock idioms. Most of her art is autobiographical, dedicated to her own maturation and evolution, obsessed with the mission of finding a universal, historical meaning for her personal history. If Clouds (1969) and Ladies Of The Canyon (1970) were still folk-rock albums imbued with "West-Coast sound", Blue (1971) marked a monumental step forward: it injected the stream of consciousness into the folk ballad, and her voice became a finely-tuned instrument, capable of both colloquial and operatic deliveries. This introspective diary relied on piano-based compositions that were intense, convoluted and slightly neurotic. Another paranoid self-analysis, another formidable act of her autobiographical drama, For The Roses (1972) closed that era of experimentation. Court And Spark (1974) was a much lighter and softer work, although it showed her prowess at absorbing elements of soul and jazz. Self-indulgence triumphed again on Hejira (1976), her second masterpiece, and another stunning musical application of the stream of consciousness. Her subsequent ventures into jazz and electronic arrangements were presumptuous and unfocused, with the notable exception of Night Ride Home (1991).

Perhaps no other artist in the history of rock music has produced so many distinguished works in so many different styles and over so many years as Neil Young (27). The spectral landscape of Last Trip To Tulsa, off his debut album, Neil Young (1968), introduced a minstrel lost in an unexplored moral universe. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) elaborated on that theme and achieved a formidable synthesis of "voices" in stately, extended, psychedelic, hard-folk ballads such as Cowgirl In The Sand and Down By The River. The mellow and melodic folk-rock and country-rock of After The Gold Rush (1970) and Harvest (1972) lent musical credibility to the apocalyptic angst of Tonight's The Night (1975), recorded in 1973, and On The Beach (1974). The former, perhaps his masterpiece, was the ultimate testament of the post-hippy depression, an elegiac concept that sounded like a mass for the dead. The electrifying lyricism of Zuma (1975) and Like A Hurricane (1977), the anthemic hysteria of Rust Never Sleeps (1979), the social fresco of collapsing values Freedom (1989) and the obscure meditation of Sleeps With Angels (1994) continued his life-long moral crusade.
Neil Young constitutes with Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen the great triad of "moral" voices of USA popular music. As is the case with the other two, Young's art is, first and foremost, a fusion of music and words that identifies with his era's zeitgeist. Unlike the others, though, Young is unique in targeting the inner chaos of the individual that followed the outer chaos of society. While Dylan "transfers" his era's events into a metaphysical universe, and Springsteen relates the epic sense of ordinary life, Young carries out a more complex psychological operation that, basically, bridges the idealism of the hippy communes and the neuroses of the urban population. His voice, his lyrics, his melodies and his guitar style compose a message of suffering and redemption that, at its best, transcends in hallucination, mystical vision, philosophical enlightenment, while still grounded in a context that is fundamentally a hell on earth.
The various aspects of Young's career (the bucolic folk-singer, the liberal militant, the post-hippie moralist, the apocalyptic guru, the universal pessimist, the melancholy loner, the alienated rocker) are merely stages of a long calvary, which is both individual and collective.
Young did to the lyrical song what Dylan did to the protest song: just like Dylan wed the emphasis of Whitman's poetry and the optimism of Kennedy's era with the themes of public life, Young wed Emerson's humanism and the pessimism of the post-Kennedy era with the themes of private life.
On top of this, Young invented the distorted, cacophonous, nightmarish style of guitar playing that would influence the grunge generation.
Young is also unique in his schizophrenia, which runs at several levels. First and foremost, one has to deal with the live/studio dichotomy of his career. Charged with the sonic equivalent of a nuclear reaction, the "live" Young albums seem to come from a different artist, a musical terrorist, a true punk. Within the studio album, one has to deal with another dichotomy: the pretty, linear, smooth country-inspired ballad, and the ugly, noisy, acid-inspired jam. These two modes rarely coexist: they alternate, they compete for control of Young's career (and mind?), each studio album being dominated by either of the two.
As a matter of fact, his alter-ego may well be a more creative musician than Young is, as Dead Man (1996), a movie soundtrack which is a rare specimen of ambient psychedelic music, and Arc (1991), a collage of "found" segments from his live performances, further clarified his status as a crafter of sound as opposed to mere songwriter.

Texas 1967-69

Townes Van Zandt was a poet of intimate, gentle, tormented, emotional ballads. His mostly acoustic art borrowed elements from country, blues and tex-mex, and initiated the great Texas singer-songwriter school of the 1970s. Our Mother the Mountain (1969), his masterpiece, a parade of desolate vignettes that recast universal themes as private stories, The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (1972), his best-seller, and Flyin' Shoes (1978) were uniquely dramatic, poignant and focused.

Mickey Newbury was also part of the legion of Texas singer-songwriters that greatly expanded the format of country music, notably with his It Looks Like Rain (1969).

Britain 1967-69

A number of British singer-songwriters introduced new forms and praxes that would be influential on future generations.

One of the most eccentric characters of this generation was the Scottish composer Ivor Cutler, whose Ludo (Parlophone, 1967), a collection of 17 brief pieces for harmonium, bass and percussion, and Dandruff (Virgin, 1974), a collection of 45 pieces for harmonium, do not quite fit in any category.

In 1967 Scott Walker, who had been a pop star a` la Beatles (radio-friendly refrains for mass consumption, a marketing campaign focused on his cute looks), began crafting solo albums that wed easy-listening to philosophical meditations in lugubrious settings. Scott 4 (1969), in particular, created a new form of ballad, predating David Bowie, Julian Cope and trip-hop. His achievements continued with Climate of Hunter (1984), his bleakest album, and Tilt (1995), his most experimental work.

Before he died in 1974, Nick Drake managed to record only three albums, but that meagre repertory is enough to rank him among the most influential singer-songwriters of all times. He turned the tables on rock and folk music, projecting emotions outside in instead of inside out. If rock music had emphasized the emotional aspect of music in ever more creative ways, Drake did the opposite: his music seems to cancel out the emotional factor, his voice sounds neutral, anemic and indifferent, the arrangements are spectral and almost "silent". Silence is, indeed, the ultimate referent of Drake's "minimalism". Drake had little to say, and he said it using minimal means. Surprisingly (and this was Drake's great discovery), his almost voiceless whisper conveyed stronger emotions than most magniloquent music. Drake's lost, tenuous, taciturn manner scoured the terminal states of melancholy, angst and despair for a reason to live this life. There was something terrifying in those frail notes: Drake's music was the equivalent of a suicide letter. Drake fumbled blindfolded on the edge of the abyss, and his songs were the thoughts that accompanied him while waiting for the fall. The lyrical, elegiac and naive Five Leaves Left (1969) was already representative of the drama that developed via Bryter Layter (1970), mildly revitalized by soul and rhythm'n'blues spices, and that reached its climax with Pink Moon (1972), Drake's masterpiece and one of the most depressing albums of all times.

Roy Harper, the "sophisticated beggar", specialized in sprawling, delirious, epic-length pieces, first tested in McGoohan's Blues (1969), and particularly on Flat Baroque And Beserk (1970), that codified his mixture of Donovan's tenderness, Syd Barrett's lunacy and David Peel's sarcasm, while maintaining an intensely nostalgic view of England. The four lengthy suites of Stormcock (1971), possibly his masterpiece, featuring string arrangements, soared towards Tim Buckley's cosmic landscapes. Notable among his later logorrheas were The Game (1975), perhaps the most musical and certainly the hardest rocking, and One Of Those Days In England (1977).

Scottish guitarist and vocalist John Martyn was one of the most original advocates of a folk-rock-jazz fusion. As a vocalist, his free-form delivery could compete with Tim Buckley's. As a guitarist, his technique borrowed (in a creative way) from jazz and Indian music. His first naive attempt at fusing folk and jazz, on The Tumbler (1968), perhaps influenced by Donovan's albums of the previous year, and the appropriation of jazz orchestration within the format of the folk-rock song, first attempted on Stormbringer (1970) and The Road To Ruin (1970) and perhaps influenced by Van Morrison's contemporary album, opened the road to the first mature formulation of his art, Bless The Weather (1971). Vocal acrobatics, guitar overtones and jazz arrangements merged with sublime elegance on Solid Air (1973), his first masterpiece. Inside Out (1973), his second and supreme masterpiece, delved into eastern mysticism and further expanded song structures to approach the free-form jam. After Sunday's Child (1975), Martyn displayed his enormous talent only occasionally: Small Hours (1977), John Wayne (1986), Cooltide (1992). Mostly, he now gravitated towards Phil Collins' disco-soul and electronic new-age music.

Greek-born Cat Stevens coined a sound that was unusual in being, at the same time, pensive, ethnic, melodic and rhythmic. The philosophical ruminations, psychological studies and bittersweet parables of Tea For The Tillerman (1970) led to the elegiac and introverted ballads of Teaser And The Firecat (1971), that could be tenderly impressionistic as well as vividly epic. Mediterranean and Slavic influences emerged more clearly in the forceful, noisy melodramas of Catch Bull At Four (1972) and in the suite Foreigner (1973).

A few veterans of the early British Invasion managed to reinvent themselves in the age of progressive-rock.

Rod Stewart was the raucous, hoarse, smoky blues singer who turned heads in Jeff Beck's band before he joined the Faces. While the Faces struggled, Stewart took their ideas of soul-rock fusion and launched a solo career in a more commercial vein with Gasoline Alley (1970) and Every Picture Tells A Story (1971), collections of ballads that borrowed from folk, country, blues and soul. Stewart would later convert to glam-rock and to disco-music and to whatever fad happened to rule the charts.

With his solo albums recorded in California, Winds Of Change (1967) and particularly The Twain Shall Meet (1968), Eric Burdon continued his Homeric task of singing the feats of his generation, except that the focus became the hippy civilization of San Francisco. He adapted the anthemic form coined with the Animals to the loose, extended structures of acid-rock, and later successfully merged that lysergic inspiration with his passion for rhythm'n'blues on Love Is (1969) and at least one of the collaborations with the band War, The Black Man's Burdon (1970).

Former Cream bassist Jack Bruce displayed his songwriting skills on Songs For A Tailor (1969), an original attempt at creating a folk-rock song as austere as classical music and as atmospheric as jazz, and the prelude to his jazz career.

Electronics and rock 1968-70

The single event that would eventually revolutionize rock music down to the deepest fiber of its nature was the advent of electronic instruments. In 1966 the USA inventor Robert Moog began selling his "synthesizer", a new kind of instrument, the first instrument that could play more than one "voice" and even imitate the voices of all the other instruments. The avantgarde was quick to seize on the idea. Morton Subotnick, for example, published a free improvisation on synthesizer, Silver Apples of the Moon (1967), that was simply the classical equivalent of acid-rock.
Until then, electronic music had been a luxury that very few popular musicians could afford. Most synthesizers were owned by classical music centers or by large recording studios.

Despite the practical difficulties, a few visionary composers introduced electronic arrangements in popular music, following the success of the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations (1966). Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley virtually invented electronic pop with the goofy "electronic sonosyntheses" of The In Sound From Way Out (1966).

Canadian composer Mort Garson recorded Zodiac Cosmic Sounds (1967), a suite accompanied by Paul Beaver on electronic keyboards, The Wozard of Iz (1969), an electronic parody of the children's classic (featuring Bernie Krause on "environmental sounds"), Lucifer (United Artists, 1971), an exoteric opera/mass, his wildest hodgepodge of electronic sounds, and Music for Sensuous Lovers (1971), which features the Moog synthesizer and orgasmic moans by a porno star.

Ron Geesin, an eclectic British sound researcher who had already experimented with the collage on A Raise Of Eyebrows (1967), wed psychedelia and Dadaism on The Body (1970) and particularly Electrosound (1972), which expanded cosmic music and predated industrial music.

The man who is credited with turning "electronic music" into commercial music is Walter Carlos, whose Switched On Bach (1968) was the first electronic album to climb the charts, although his best one was Sonic Seasonings (1972), that predated ambient music by a few years.

In 1968 several rock bands also experimented with the new medium to enhance their creative chaos, notably the psychedelic bands United States Of America in New York and Fifty Foot Hose in San Francisco.

Lothar & The Hand People were perhaps the first rock band to use electronic instruments for more than mere background filling on their albums Presenting (1968) and Space Hymn (1969).

Legendary cult-band Silver Apples (2) were an experimental duo of electronic keyboards and vocals that predated new wave and synth-pop by almost a decade. The music on Silver Apples (1968) and Contact (1969) wed psychedelia and rock'n'roll while packing urban neurosis and existential angst.

In Boston, Beacon Street Union's member Peter Ivers applied electronic "modulations" to the already wildly eccentric arrangements of his religious concept Knight Of The Blue Communion (Epic, 1969), A surreal parade of jazz, psychedelic, pop, classical and vaudeville numbers featuring an opera singer.

The first musician to improvise live on a synthesizer was probably Annette Peacock, performing with Paul Bley's jazz combo.

Two veterans of electronic instruments formed another influential duo, simply named Beaver & Krause, whose Ragnarok Electronic Funk (1969) was another important milestone in the adoption of electronic instruments. On In A Wild Sanctuary (1970) they attempted a raga-classical-folk-psychedelic fusion, and on Gandharva (1971), recorded in San Francisco's cathedral with help from Gerry Mulligan and Bud Schank, they further expanded towards jazz.

In 1970 Robert Moog unveiled the Minimoog, the first portable synthesizer. That event made electronic music available to a much broader group of musicians. While still expensive, this toy could be moved from one stage to the other, and be therefore integrated into the rock ensemble.

David Borden formed in 1969 the electronic trio that would record Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company (1973), armed with the mini-Moog synthesizer and inspired by Terry Riley's minimalism and jazz improvisation.

In Sweden, Bo Hansson released Sagan Om Ringen (1970), a collection of twelve impressionistic vignettes that mixed folk, classical, jazz and pop and that predate synth-pop and new-age music.

In Britain, electronic music pioneers White Noise, the brainchild of USA-born David Vorhaus, concocted the ethereal space lullabies of An Electric Storm (1969).

Finally, the Tonto's Expanding Head Band recorded Zero Time (1971), the first collection of original pop melodies entirely played on synthesizers.

By that time, German bands had begun to shift the center of mass towards the electronic keyboards and would soon proceed to reinvent rock music.


Progressive-rock 1968-72

The "emigration" of rock music from the USA to Britain was not only beneficial but even pivotal for the development and propagation of the new genre.
First of all, rock music was digested by the British "fashion" industry, which transformed it into a well-publicized, iconic commodity, thus generating cash-cow phenomena such as the Beatles. In Britain rock music became "trendy" when in the USA it was still, mainly, an underground, cult (and occasionally taboo) phenomenon, boycotted by both the major record companies and the (puritan) middle-class audience. The British media made rock music fashionable. If rock music had remained the music of Dylan, Fugs, Zappa and Velvet Underground, it would have remained a cultural phenomenon with a huge impact, capable of producing artistic masterpieces and generating intellectual debates, but, most likely, it would have never captured the imagination of the masses the way it did during the late 1960s. In the USA, rock music had been perceived as a revolutionary event, very much related to a generation gap (between the "great" generation and the "hippy" generation) and to an ideological gap (between the Establishment and the underground). In Britain, rock music, while not reneging on those premises, morphed them so that they became popular icons, comparable to the miniskirt and the long hair, icons that could appeal not only to juvenile "delinquents" but also to the bourgeois masses. In other words, rock music in the USA was antagonistic, hostile, conflictual, whereas, in Britain, rock music made peace with society at large. Thus it became a commodity, destined to become, like cinema, one of the arts that exerted the strongest influence on the costume at the turn of the century.

The "British Invasion" also brought an artistic benefit to rock music. Since the beginning, British musicians were less "literal" in their interpretation of the rock'n'roll canon (less rooted in country and blues). Later on, British musicians began to graft onto the spirit of rock'n'roll the artistic, political and philosophical issues of European culture (just like it happened with cinema). Zappa and the Fugs had merely meant to lampoon the USA way of life; the Velvet Underground and the Jefferson Airplane had merely meant to hail hallucinogenic substances; and Bob Dylan had merely meant to fight political and social injustice; but British musicians did not have (or wanted) to deal with those issues and transfigured them into universal messages that related to the daily lives of people all over the (western) world. For USA musicians, rock was the medium, not the message. For British musicians, rock became the message.

The most notable effect of this processes of "de-contextualization" of rock music was the process that led to progressive-rock, whose goal was not to comment on the youth culture, but simply to offer technical innovation. Progressive-rock (rock music that was emancipated from the traditional song format, and mixed different techniques, genres and even rhythms within lengthy, brainy pieces of music) was obviously an evolution of the eccentricities of psychedelic-rock, but was no longer related to a social practice. The artist got decoupled from the audience, and the traditional role of the western artist (as distinct from its audience) was reintroduced. Rock music had been the diary of the youth of the USA. In Britain, it became the equivalent of an essay.

Similarly, folksingers began focusing on introverted themes, closer to the themes of modern poetry and philosophy. Musical satire was redirected towards the psychological nature of dadaism, surrealism and expressionism. And so forth.

Rock music flowed back to the USA as a completely mutated species. The original "grass-roots" phenomenon, raised in thousands of garages by illiterate kids, graduated to an intellectual discipline practiced by university alumni who belonged to artistic schools and movements. In other words, "high" art.


Last but not least, British rock internationalized rock'n'roll, a fundamentally USA phenomenon. The British musicians de-Americanized it so that it could transcend the USA society (unlike, for example, country music, that would remain closely related to the USA).

Technically speaking, one could claim that progressive-rock began in 1967 with Cream and Nice, i.e. with the groups that reacted to the simple, melodic, three-minute pop of the Beatles. But a more stringent definition, one that considers ambition and pretentiousness, would push the birth date to the Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow (1968) and the Who's Tommy (1969), respectively the first and the most famous rock operas. The prodromes of progressive-rock were also visible on the Zombies' Odyssey & Oracle (1968), and the Small Faces' Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (1968), which were concept albums released by members of the old guard.

Many of these bands had their roots in blues music. But, just like with psychedelic rock, progressive-rock was yet another case of rock music being redefined by the spirit of jazz music. Improvisation played a minor role in progressive-rock (and this was, after all, the dividing line between psychedelic-rock and progressive-rock) but the construction of songs and especially "suites" mirrored the elaborate, ornate, virtuoso-oriented and relatively free-form experiments of post-bop jazz music. Progressive-rock had too much "structure" to be related to free jazz, but it had enough "freedom" to be related to the progressive-jazz invented by Miles Davis and Charles Mingus, and, even earlier, Duke Ellington. Progressive-rock was the meeting of two minds: the European tradition of classical music imposing order on the USA tradition of jazz music.

The founding fathers

The bands that nurtured prog-rock through its early stages were Traffic, Jeff Beck, Family, Jethro Tull and Genesis; while King Crimson, Yes and Van Der Graaf Generator represent the genre at its apex.

Enfant prodige Steve Winwood, who had already penned (vocals, organ and composition) Spencer Davis Group's Gimme Some Loving (1966), a feverish gospel hymn, formed Traffic, which debuted with a quintessential psychedelic album, Mr Fantasy (1967), but soon became the leading force of the fusion style that merged folk, blues, soul and jazz. If their jams were never too exciting (reminiscent of lounge-music although in a clever way), they defined a kind of timbric counterpoint that basically changed the whole point of "jamming" (impressionistic instead of emotional) and turned it into the rock equivalent of chamber music. Dear Mr. Fantasy (1967) and Glad (1970) were their most successful "frescoes", but Winwood's collaboration with Eric Clapton, Blind Faith (1969), credited to Blind Faith, was perhaps better Traffic than Traffic ever were.

Possibly the most influential guitarist in the entire history of rock music, Jeff Beck was the man who (as a member of the yardbirds) divulged the science of distortion and feedback. The group that he formed with pianist Nicky Hopkins, bassist Ron Wood and vocalist Rod Stewart recorded Truth (1968), which virtually invented hard-rock one year before the Led Zeppelin. However, his masterpiece is probably the instrumental jazz-fusion tour de force of Blow By Blow (1975).

Jethro Tull revisited the blues and folk traditions focusing on the voice and the flute of Ian Anderson, who was inspired by medieval minstrels and by jazz great Roland Kirk. Stand Up (1969) is the album that defined their classy, eclectic, jazzy folk-rock. Aqualung (1971), on the other hand, indulged in hard-rock riffs and ponderous rhythms, reinventing the band in the age of Led Zeppelin.

Family probably produced the best amalgam of blues-rock, psychedelic-rock and progressive-rock, thus bridging three fundamental eras of British music. Boasting the hoarse shout of Roger Chapman, one of the greatest rock vocalists of all times, and a sophisticated guitar-saxophone-violin dynamics, the Family borrowed from rhythm'n'blues, the music-hall, classical music and San Francisco's acid-rock to arrange their masterpiece, Music In A Doll's House (1968). The conflation of dissonances, raga steps, soul horns, Hendrix-ian glissandos and orchestral flourishes created a merry-go-round of tuneful experiments. The songs on Family Entertainment (1969) were more cohesive and rocked "harder". The mood, that had been surreal and pastoral, turned tense and anguished. Their sound reached the baroque ecstasy of Fearless (1971), featuring new bassist/violinist John Wetton, Bandstand (1972) and It's Only A Movie (1973), albums that, while solidly grounded into rock'n'roll and rhythm'n'blues, and respectful of the song format, hardly relate to the rest of progressive-rock at all.


Genesis updated a classic genre of easy-listening, the sophisticated pop ballad, to the brainy arrangements and twisted dynamics of progressive-rock. The most theatrical of the prog-rock bands, Genesis matched their musical melodramas with a choreography centered on vocalist and mime Peter Gabriel. Trespass (1970) and Nursery Crime (1971) were the albums that codified their art: intellectual folk music that harked back to the repertory of fairy tales and myths, but dilated into non-linear narratives and arranged with the timbric grace of chamber music. Their reference point was the symphonic poem, which in fact is the target of the colossal and pedantic suites that followed, Supper Is Ready (1972) and Firth Of Fifth (1973). Genesis then turned towards melody with the monumental rock opera The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (1974), which stands as the summa (for better and for worse) of their career. Drummer Phil Collins would eventually turn the band into a machine of dance-pop muzak hits. By then, Gabriel would have already launched his solo career.

The release of In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969), the debut album by King Crimson, heralded the golden age of progressive-rock. The magniloquent, symphonic sound of Ian McDonald's mellotron enrolled them in the neo-classical movement of Nice, Moody Blues and Procol Harum, but the psychedelic overtones, the medieval visions, the gothic atmosphere and the romantic pathos of the title-track and Epitaph set them clearly apart. What guitarist Robert Fripp and bassist Greg Lake penned were majestic ballads, not transcriptions of classical music. Moonchild was an abstract, futuristic poem in which the melody was less important than the soundscape, and the violent, syncopated, distorted jam of 21st Century Schizoid Man invented a new way to put neurosis into music. In The Wake Of Poseydon (1970) further explored the same ideas, increasing the degree of melodrama and the amount of sound effects, and Formentera Lady (1971) was the definitive tour de force of the band. King Crimson had turned rock'n'roll upside down, repudiating the savage form while retaining the emotional content. When Yes drummer Bill Bruford and Family bassist John Wetton joined Fripp for a new, jazzier edition of the band, the sound veered towards harsh, strident, convoluted compositions such as Lark's Tongues In Aspic (1973) and brainy, cryptic, virtuoso albums such as Red (1974). King Crimson's third edition, featuring guitarist Adrian Belew and bassist Tony Levin, adopted an even more intellectual stance in compositions such as Sheltering Sky (1981). Robert Fripp never stopped recording stimulating music. Two collaborations with Brian Eno, notably No Pussyfooting (1973), several solo albums, notably Exposure (1979), the manifesto of his "frippertronics", two collaborations with Police's guitarist Andy Summers, notably I Advance Masked (1982), a collaboration with David Sylvian, The First Day (1993), were just the tip of the iceberg.

Van Der Graaf Generator were in many ways the most original of the early prog-rock bands. Their sound (already unique because driven by saxophone and keyboards, not guitars) could not be easily related to the archetypes of folk, blues, rock or jazz, despite the fact that it contained elements of them all. The emphasis of their lengthy compositions was on pathos and melodrama, just like in the case of King Crimson, but also on fear and vulnerability. The degree of angst was further increased by Peter Hammill's pessimistic, claustrophobic lyrics and by his agonizing vocals. The psychological tortures of The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other (1970), the touching and liturgic poems of H To He Who Am The Only One (1970), and the bleak, terrible, delirious visions of Pawn Hearts (1971) combined existentialist emptiness and gothic nightmare. Hammill and his cohorts had invented a whole new way to express the teen angst that had been the emotional fuel of rock'n'roll from the beginning.

Yes, possibly the most accomplished musicians of the progressive-rock generation, were also the ultimate in magniloquence and exhibitionism. Their sound was born out of the fusion of pop, rock, folk, jazz and classical music. They borrowed ideas from the Nice, from renaissance and baroque music, from Crosby Stills & Nash's vocal harmonies, from post-Davis funk-jazz, from psychedelic jamming, and from old-fashioned melodies. If the fusion was not unique, the glacial composure certainly was: Yes albums sounded more like scientific experiments than party music. The Yes Album (1971) introduced their schizophrenia: Yours Is No Disgrace and Starship Trooper went for strenuous instrumental bravura, while I've Seen All Good People revolved around a catchy refrain. The virtuoso performers (particularly drummer Bill Bruford and keyboardist Rick Wakeman) achieved a sublime degree of balance on Fragile (1971), whose Roundabout, South Side Of The Sky and Heart Of The Sunrise flowed like clockwork mechanisms. The apex of Yes' apparent contradiction (a style that was both frigid and romantic) was reached on Close To The Edge (1972), whose Close To The Edge and And I And You were lengthy, complex and densely chromatic fantasias, and the very definition of "art-rock". On the other hand, the four monumental suites of Tales From Topographic Oceans (1973) proved that extended compositions do require more than mere virtuosity.

Two line-ups that worked for John Mayall spawned two of the most creative bands of early prog-rock. Colosseum recorded Valentyne Suite (1969), whose title-track was a side-long phantasmagoria of jazz, blues, classical and hard-rock sounds, brightly chromatic and luxuriant, one of the masterpieces of British progressive-rock. Mark-Almond, the duo of former John Mayall's sidemen Jon Mark (guitar) and Johnny Almond (reeds), specialized in suites of a different kind, mellow and laid-back, centered on simple folk-jazz tunes, skirting lounge-music and easy-listening muzak, such as The City (1971), on their first album, and Sausalito Bay Suite (1972), on their second album.

Gothic, ethnic and folk variations

A number of progressive bands introduced Eastern music into their psychedelic and progressive sounds. For example, East Of Eden, with Mercator Projected (1969), and Ian "Lemmy Kilmister" Willis' Sam Gopal, with Escalator (1969).

However, no band achieved the degree of ethnic fusion that the Third Ear Band (102) achieved on Alchemy (1969), one of the albums that invented "world-music". An acoustic chamber ensemble of (essentially) tablas, oboe, viola and cello performed Indian, medieval, native North-American, gypsy, middle-eastern, minimalist, jazz, classical and folk music, all within the same song. The four suites on their second album, Third Ear Band (1970), pushed the idea even further: the ethnic sources are not recognizable anymore, and the music flows like a stream of consciousness, a spiritual experience, a daydream. De-contextualized, the "third ear" music is closer to Buddhism meditation than to western composition. The band was equally successful on Macbeth (1972), that added electric and electronic sounds to their ethnic stew.

Around 1970, following the success of Black Sabbath, a number of bands introduced gothic themes and atmospheres into innovative structures: High Tide II (1970) by High Tide, a classic of gothic-rock, a collection of violin-driven macabre dances that bridge acid-rock and hard-rock; Sacrifice (1970) by Black Widow, which wed Colosseum's jazz-classical suite with, again, gothic overtones; Death Walks Behind You (1970) by Atomic Rooster; Ceremony (1970) by Spooky Tooth, a rock mass arranged by avantgarde composer Pierre Henry, a bold concept that wed the aesthetics of art-rock with the vibrations of hard-rock; and Necromandus' Quicksand Dream (1990), recorded in 1973 but unreleased for 17 years.

The "progressive" spirit affected the folk revival as well. After all, Pentangle had already combined jazz and folk, and the Incredible String Band had already combined folk and acid-rock. Other bands proceeded to concoct similar folk-based fusions. While no band matched the importance of those pioneers, a few albums stand out: Fantasia Lindum (1971) by Amazing Blondel, inspired by medieval ballads and renaissance madrigals; Dando Shaft (1971) by Dando Shaft, which offered perhaps the most competent folk-jazz fusion; St Radigunds (1971) by Spirogyra, also inspired by folk and jazz; First Utterance (1971) by the premier psychedelic-folk band, Comus (1); and, best of all, Grave New World (1972) by the Strawbs, a psychedelic mass that blends western liturgy and Indian raga.

The second generation

Progressive bands multiplied in Britain during the early 1970s, but their albums had the tendency to recycle the same ideas over and over again, and frequently with unwarranted pomp. A few gems, though, could still be found: the baroque Quatermass (1970) by Quatermass; Galactic Zoo Dossier (1971) by Kingdom Come, an odd mixture of electronic keyboards, rhythm and blues and Arthur Brown's stage antics; Phantasmagoria (1972) by Curved Air, whose baroque suites were graced by violin (Darryl Way), synthesizer (Francis Monkman) and sensual female vocals; Argus (1972) by Wishbone Ash, whose energetic jams were propelled by a twin guitar attack.

The bass-drums-saxophone trio Back Door, led by bassist Colin Hodgkinson, was one of the most original instrumental jazz-rock units. Their Back Door (1972) indulged in brief, hectic instrumental jams at the border between jazz, funk, soul, blues and hard-rock.

Also original were: Jody Grind's four-movement suite One Step On (1969); Julian's Treatment's sci-fi concept A Time Before This (1970); Titus Groan's Titus Groan (1970), with the suite Hall Of Bright Carvings; Ben's Ben (1971), containing four jazz-rock jams; Dr Z's mystical Three Parts To My Soul (1971); Steamhammer's Speech (1972), with the suite Penumbra; Nektar's improvised electronic jazz-rock opera Journey To The Center Of The Eye (1972) and their melodic suite Remember the Future (1974).

Jade Warrior began as second-rate King Crimson copycats, distinguishing themselves only with the mystical and ethnic emphasis of Last Autumn's Dream (1972), but subsequently they developed a sound that was not narrative but pictorial in nature, while adopting electronic keyboards and focusing on jazz-rock as their main inspiration. Waves (1975) and Kites (1976), continuous suites that employ many instruments and many styles, took prog-rock to its formal zenith. Way Of The Sun (1978) was already a new genre: hyper-arranged new-age music. The band later converted to cosmic music with the bleak sonic imagery of Images Of Dune (1984) and the three celestial 1985 suites collected on At Peace.

Perhaps the boldest (or, at least, brainiest) fusion of jazz, rock and classical music was attempted by Gentle Giant, particularly on Three Friends (1972) and In A Glass House (1973).

Emerson Lake & Palmer, formed by former Nice keyboardist Keith Emerson, former King Crimson bassist Greg Lake and former Atomic Rooster drummer Carl Palmer a few months after the success of Crosby Stills & Nash, pushed progressive-rock towards technical excesses that, basically, obliterated whatever merit their jazz-classical fusion had. This art of obfuscating art worked best on the futuristic/mythological concept album Tarkus (1971), although their technological peak was perhaps Karn Evil 9 (1973). Their music, ever more pretentious and magniloquent, was founded on a fundamental misunderstanding of what "virtuoso" means.

The first three albums recorded by Roxy Music revolutionized progressive-rock and prepared the way to the new wave and to synth-pop. The styles of Pink Floyd (surreal soundscape), Soft Machine (jazz-rock), Traffic (chromatic jamming), Cream (virtuosity), Led Zeppelin (loudness and frenzy), King Crimson (emphasis and pathos) and the avantgarde (minimalism and cacophony) merged in the inventive bacchanals of their debut album, Roxy Music (1972), which includes the futuristic anthem Virginia Plain and several avant-rock pieces fueled by Brian Eno's electronics. Bryan Ferry's emphatic crooning soared unrestrained on For Your Pleasure (1973), that contains the hypnotic synth-dance Bogus Man; and attained a kitschy quality on Stranded (1973), whose ballads Mother Of Pearl and A Song For Europe wed the themes of European decadentism and existentialism with luxuriant arrangements and slick production. Love Is The Drug (1975) and subsequent albums would merely sell that idea in the discos.

Continental Europe

The contagion of progressive-rock spread throughout continental Europe: progressive-rock clearly appealed more to the "intellectual" audience of Europe than rock'n'roll ever did. Sweden's premier progressive-rock group was Samla Mammas Manna, which debuted with Samla Mammas Manna (1971). Algarnas Tradgard concocted the puzzling and oddly orchestrated suites of Framtiden Ar Ett Svavande Skepp Forankrat I Forntiden (1972), a meeting of prog-rock jamming, psychedelic freak-out and exotic chamber music.

Holland's most famous psychedelic and prog-rock band was Focus, whose Moving Waves (1972) contains the fast-paced novelty number Hocus Pocus and the colossal jam Eruption, their equivalent of the Colosseum's Valentyne Suite. But the most exciting song to emerge from Holland's booming scene was Shocking Blue's Venus (1969), a sexy, party rave-up that harked back to Creedence Clearwater Revival's feverish rhythms.

Italy

Italy hatched one of the most prolific schools of progressive-rock. Italy had no major rock tradition. The progressive school was an unintended consequence of two phenomena: a boom of classically-trained musicians and the 1968 student riots. In 1969, Italy was awash in young erudite musicians who wanted to change the world. They identified with the ideology of the hippies, but retained the language of Bach. Progressive-rock was born out of this contradiction. Notable albums include: the New Trolls' symphonic Concerto Grosso #1 (1971), Premiata Forneria Marconi's Storia di un Minuto (1972), Il Balletto di Bronzo's apocalyptic concept Ys (1972), mostly the brainchild of keyboardist Gianni Leone, Latte E Miele's Passio Secundum Mattheum (1972), Banco del Mutuo Soccorso's Darwin (1972), Pholas Dactylus' psychodrama Concerto Delle Menti (1973), Le Orme's Hammond-driven sci-fi saga Felona e Sorona (1973), Il Rovescio Della Medaglia's symphonic concept Contaminazione (1973), Museo Rosenbach's Zarathustra (1973), with the eponymous five-movement suite.
Predating all of these albums was Antonio Bartoccetti's project, Jacula, that concocted the gothic/decadent nightmare In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (1969).

A sub-genre of Italian prog-rock was Italian jazz-rock, well represented by albums such as Osanna's jazz-rock nightmare Palepoli (1973), Arti & Mestieri's chamber jazz-rock workout Tilt (1974), and Perigeo's Genealogia (1974). Walter Maioli's Aktuala added ethnic flavors to jazz improvisation on their Aktuala (1973).

The greatest of the jazz-rock bands was Area, fronted by vocalist Demetrio Stratos, one of the most original singers of his age, whose Arbeit Macht Frei (1973) merged agit-prop lyrics, jazz-rock jamming, raw electronics, Middle-eastern scales, and Stratos' psychotic warbling. While the group evolved towards the quirky free-jazz of Caution Radiation Area (1974) and Maledetti (1976), Demetrio Stratos recorded experimental albums entirely devoted to the human voice such as Metrodora (1976) and especially Cantare la Voce (1978).

The late years of Italian progressive-rock yielded Pierrot Lunaire's Gudrun (1976), the brainchild of Arturo Stalteri, Picchio Dal Pozzo's Picchio Dal Pozzo (1976), that ranks with the best of the Canterbury imitations, Corte dei Miracoli's Corte dei Miracoli (1976), a double-keyboards tour de force, La Bottega Dell'Arte's Dentro (1977), that matched the instrumental prowess with memorable melodies, and Locanda delle Fate's Forse le Lucciole Non Si Amano Piu` (1977), a refined work that stands as a sort of swan song of the entire movement. Goblin specialized in soundtracks for the horror films of director Dario Argento, particularly Profondo Rosso (1975) and Suspiria (1977).

France

The French landscape of British-style symphonic rock was less vital than the Italian one, but a handful of groups mined entirely new sub-genres.

Christian Vander's Magma debuted their sci-fi concept on the ambitious and naive Magma (1970), borrowing ideas from free-jazz and Gong, and perfected it on their first masterpiece, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh (1973), an eclectic and idiosyncratic rock opera that spans an amazing range of styles, from Verdi to Frank Zappa. Kohntarkosz (1974) was their most musical work, largely inspired by Mahavishnu Orchestra's jazz-rock; and Udu Wudu (1976) was a more electronic affair.

Red Noise penned Sarcelles-Locheres (1971), featuring the 19-minute instrumental suite Sarcelles C'est L'Avenir, a ludicrous combination of Fugs' dementia, Frank Zappa's satirical noise-pop and Soft Machine's jazz-rock.

Jean-Claude Vannier the arranger of Serge Gainsbourg's Historie De Melody Nelson (1971), composed another concept album, the all-instrumental L'Enfant Assassin des Mouches (1972), that ran the gamut from collages of found sounds to demented symphonic rock, from exuberantly old-fashioned fairground music to orchestral easy-listening music.

Vangelis led Aphrodite's Child, a group of Greek musicians residing in France, whose posthumous 666 (1970) is a unique collection of magical incantations, satanic invocations and psychedelic jamming. Vangelis pursued a career of stately, melodramatic (and increasingly electronic) instrumental suites, whose archetypes were L'Apocalypse Des Animaux (1973) and Heaven And Hell (1975). Specializing in orchestral apotheosis, Vangelis would be celebrated for his movie soundtracks. One of the pioneers and stars of new-age music, he would return to more ambitious pieces with Invisible Connections (1985) and The Mask (1985).

USA

In the USA, tremendous impetus to progressive-rock came from Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (1969), an album that combined soul rhythms and electronically-amplified rock instruments. Frank Zappa's Uncle Meat (1969) was rock's most competent (and irreverent) answer to Miles Davis. Veteran jazz arranger Quincy Jones was another pioneer of sorts, combining a jazz brass section and funk-rock rhythms on Walking In Space (1969).

Chicago attempted an explosive fusion of jazz horns and rock'n'roll guitar on Chicago Transit Authority (1969), Chicago II (1970) and Chicago III (1971), each of them a double album, characterized by wild and sometimes brutal creativity.

Ten Wheel Drive, formed by vocalist Genya Ravan (a Janis Joplin sound-alike), keyboardist Mike Zager and guitarist Aram Schefrin, were one of the first jazz-rock fusion groups with a horn section, debuting with Construction #1 (1969).

Insect Trust attempted a super-fusion of jazz, blues, country and acid-rock somewhere between Blues Project's sophisticated ballads and Captain Beefheart's demented jams on Insect Trust (1968), and veered towards free-jazz on their second album, Hoboken Saturday Night (1970).

Gil Scott-Heron, a poet and novelist who turned musician and predated rap music with his spoken-word pieces, championed a Miles Davis-inspired fusion of jazz, funk and rock (on top of his Phil Ochs-inspired agit-prop lyrics) on, for example, Pieces Of A Man (1971) and The Bottle (1973).

Two bands led by violinists were notable: Flock, whose Truth (1969) was one of the most accomplished jams of the time, led by Jerry Goodman (who later joined the Mahavishnu Orchestra); and It's A Beautiful Day, whose It's A Beautiful Day (1969) sprayed acid-rock with exotic perfumes.

Joy Of Cooking, one of the first bands led by female musicians (singer-songwriters Terry Garthwaite and Toni Brown) and one of the earliest to deal with feminist issues within popular music, released three delightful albums, Joy Of Cooking (1971), Closer to the Ground (1971) and Castles (1972), that experimented with elastic song structures over a laid-back, folk-jazz-blues fusion infrastructure.

So-called "progressive-rock" (basically, all rock music that is not mainly melodic) aimed at incorporating the styles invented by the jazz and classical avantgarde into the format of the electric and electronic rhythm-based ensemble (the rock band), a program that unconsciously drifted towards inter-disciplinary and total music, an ambition clearly visible in Frank Zappa's stylistic pastiches.

In 1970 Jimi Hendrix died and Syd Barrett retired. An era had ended. But their seeds were sprouting.

Canterbury 1968-73

The Canterbury school of British progressive-rock (one of the most significant movements in the history of rock music) was born in 1962 when Hugh Hopper, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Richard Sinclair and others formed the Wilde Flowers. Wyatt, Ayers, Hopper and their new friends Daevid Allen and Mike Ratledge formed the Soft Machine, whereas Sinclair and the others went on to form Caravan.

Soft Machine, one of the greatest rock bands of all times, started out with albums such as Volume Two (1969) that were inspired by psychedelic-rock with a touch of Dadaistic (i.e., nonsensical) aesthetics; but, after losing Allen and Ayers, they veered towards a personal interpretation of Miles Davis' jazz-rock on Three (1970), their masterpiece and one of the essential jazz, rock and classical albums of the 1970s. Minimalistic keyboards a` la Terry Riley and jazz horns highlight three of the four jams (particularly, Hopper's Facelift). The other one, The Moon In June, is Wyatt's first monumental achievement, blending a delicate melody, a melancholy atmosphere and deep humanity. The Moon In June will remain in the essential canon of music well after rock music has disappeared. A vastly revised line-up, heavily influenced by Ian Carr's and Keith Tippett's jazz ensembles, that in october 1969 added a four-piece jazz horn section (notably Elton Dean), continued the experiment in a colder, brainy, austere manner, for example with the four-movement suite Virtually (1971), on their fourth album, and the futuristic 1983 (1972), on their sixth album.

The other co-founders of the Canterbury school, Caravan, impersonated a simpler, lighter, mellower and catchier kind of jazz-rock than Soft Machine's. Their specialty were melodic fantasias that basically enhanced folk-like lullabies with jazzy rhythms and intricate instrumental counterpoint: Can't Be Long Now, on If I Could Do It All Over Again (1969), Nine Feet Underground (their masterpiece), that takes up half of In The Land Of Grey And Pink (1971), Nothing At All and The Love In Your Eye, off Waterloo Lily (1972).

Ian Carr's Nucleus, one of the most skilled combos in the world, were protagonists of Britain's jazz-rock scene for several years. The dreamy, romantic Song For The Bearded Lady, off We'll Talk About It Later (1970), the "orchestral" and electronic sound of Torso, which takes up half of Solar Plexus (1971), the elegant, baroque synthesis of their most flawless album, Belladonna (1972), relied on horn and keyboards arrangements, as well as on rhythms that were both slippery and solid.

Keith Tippett, who had assembled a formidable group of talents, delivered works such as Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening (1971) and the colossal Septober Energy (1971), performed by the 50-piece orchestra Centipede, that were more properly jazz.

Dave Stewart and Steve Hillage started another dynasty within the Canterbury school when they formed Egg, yet another overlooked band that played musical nonsense. The Symphony No.2, on Egg (1970), the classical-jazz-rock phantasmagoria Long Piece No.3 (their Valentyne Suite), on The Polite Force (1971), and the last, brainier jams on The Civil Surface (1974), such as Germ Patrol and Enneagram, packed enough ideas for two generations of musicians to explore.

Several of Canterbury's masterpieces were recorded in the early 1970s by former members of Soft Machine. Daevid Allen was only vaguely related to the school's main stylistic directions: Allen was, first and foremost, a hippie/freak who wed Frank Zappa's paradoxical aesthetics and San Francisco's communal ethos. His Gong, featuring guitarist Steve Hillage, saxophonist Didier Malherbe and keyboardist Tim Blake, concocted a "cosmic" version of acid-rock. Their masterpieces, which include at least Camembert Electrique (1971), the superb Flying Teapot (1973) and Angel's Egg (1973), are demented collages of nursery-rhyme melodies, circus horns, jazz rhythms, galactic keyboards, sensual/celestial wails, sardonic mantras, mock-heroic electronics, caricatural anthems. The whole exudes a sense of stately cacophony. This is psychedelia that is hallucinated but not catalectic. Flying Teapot (1973), in particular, still ranks as one of rock music's wildest flights of imagination.

Kevin Ayers became a lunatic singer-songwriter projecting the persona of an exotic, decadent dandy. Joy Of A Toy (1969), a collection of enchanting ditties, defined his nonchalant cross-breeding of music-hall, folk lullabies, world-music and even children's music. The existential melancholy that already surfaced on that work permeated his most eccentric album, Shooting At The Moon (1970), featuring avantgarde composer and keyboardist David Bedford, teenage guitarist Mike Oldfield even jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill. Here Ayers found an unlikely balance of harmonic nonsense and catchy refrains, while drenching his fairy tales into surrealism and expressionism. The 18-minute four-part suite The Confessions of Doctor Dream (1974) was his most ambitious and nightmarish work.

Robert Wyatt expanded on the intuitions of his The Moon In June on his first solo album, The End Of An Ear (1970). He invented a whole new language, with nods to both the tradition (pop, soul, folk, jazz) and the avantgarde (minimalism, electronics), both personal and public. The same fusion of private and public themes, but with an emphasis on his public (and communist) persona, characterize the two Matching Mole albums, Matching Mole (1972) and Little Red Record (1972), which are rare examples of brainy, agit-prop music that is actually touching, besides ranking among the most intense recordings of any jazz-rock quartet. His private persona erupted on Rock Bottom (1974), one of rock music's supreme masterpieces, a veritable transfiguration of both rock and jazz. Its pieces straddle the unlikely border between an intense religious hymn and a childish nursery rhyme. Along that imaginary line, Wyatt carved a deep trench of emotional outpouring, where happiness, sorrow, faith and resignation found a metaphysical unity. The astounding originality of that masterpiece, and its well-crafted flow of consciousness, were never matched by Wyatt's later releases. The last significant work of his career was Animals Film (1982). Wyatt concocted some of the most moving music of all times and at least one of the century's masterpieces. He was helped by being both a gifted drummer, heir to both the progressive-rock and the jazz-rock traditions, and a uniquely innovative vocalist, whose falsetto cry, loosely derived from wordless jazz singing, blended soul, Buddhism and psychedelia.

1984 (1973) by Hugh Hopper and Elton Dean's Elton Dean (1971) also rank among the most original and erudite works of British progressive-rock. Overall, Soft Machine alumni constitute a significant chunk of the prog-rock canon in Britain.

The Canterbury school continued to produce bands, talents and masterpieces throughout the mid 1970s. Richard Sinclair and Dave Stewart joined forces and formed Hatfield & The North (1), whose first album, Hatfield And The North (1974), was a competent appendix to Caravan. Then Dave Stewart and Alan Gowen formed a more keyboard-oriented band, the National Health, who were not shy to toy with dissonance, electronics and Frank Zappa's orchestral jazz-rock on the four lengthy jams of National Health (1978) and on their masterpiece Of Queues And Cures (1978).

When enfant prodige Mike Oldfield cut Tubular Bells (1973), an album-long suite of instrumental music, all played by himself gluing together the parts of dozens of instruments, he redefined what prog-rock was. In fact, "progressive-rock" became an obsolete term to refer to a music that crossed all stylistic borders. Oldfield's subsequent ventures into the suite, starting with Hergest Ridge (1974), never repeated the miracle of his first work, despite the fact that Ommadawn (1975) and Incantations (1978) were built on more and more ambitious foundations (and Oldfield would eventually downplay that format in favor of the pop song, particularly with 1982's Moonlight Shadow).

However, the second Canterbury generation was best represented by Henry Cow, founders of the "Rock In Opposition" political and musical movement. Featuring virtuosi such as guitarist Fred Frith, bassist John Greaves, percussionist Chris Cutler, keyboardist Tim Hodgkinson, and, later, oboe player Lindsay Cooper, they increased the intelligence quotient of progressive-rock. Leg End (1973), inspired by Soft Machine's jazz-rock and Frank Zappa's orchestral suites but also by free-jazz and by the dissonant avantgarde (Nine Funerals Of The Citizen King), was merely the appetizer for Unrest (1974) and its brainy, convoluted, arduous but also extravagant, whimsical and surreal jams/suites. The Henry Cow had found a magical balance between composition and improvisation. Further progress was displayed on Desperate Straights (1974), the first fruit of merging with multinational group Slapp Happy, featuring British keyboardist Anthony Moore, German vocalist Dagmar Krause and USA guitarist Peter Blegvad, whose Acnalbasac Noom (1973) had been an intriguing experiment of expressionist cabaret and rock music. Their second, and better, joint album, In Praise Of Learning (1975), was their artistic testament: the clownish fusion of the early years had mutated into an austere and erudite form of art. That idea was further explored by Frith, Cutler and Krause as the Art Bears on the abstract lieder of Hopes And Fears (1978) and Winter Songs (1979).

Other notable works by Canterbury veterans include L (1976) by Steve Hillage, who would later bridge hippy culture and rave culture on System 7 (1991), and Tim Blake's New Jerusalem (1978).

Kosmische Musik 1969-72

Fundamentally, British rock recycled USA rock for a different kind of audience: the Beatles recycled it for a pop-oriented audience, progressive-rock (in all its neo-classical and jazz variations) recycled it for an intellectual audience. German rock, instead, invented a different kind of rock music. In fact, many German bands were not playing "rock" music at all. There is no question that the great era of German avant-rock was inspired by psychedelic music, but the German interpretation of psychedelic music had little to do with reproducing the effects of drugs: German musicians saw a relationship between psychedelic experiments and the German electronic avantgarde (such as Karlheinz Stockhausen), a relationship that, in retrospect, was already obvious in USA's psychedelia, but that no one had articulated before.
In 1968 three young musicians, Conrad Schnitzler, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Klaus Schulze, founded the "Zodiak Free Arts Lab" in Berlin. This became the first venue for popular electronic music in Europe. That can be considered the moment when German musicians figured out that strategic relationship between psychedelic music and avantgarde music. The following year, Can debuted, playing rock music inspired by the classical avantgarde and by modern jazz. In 1970 Kluster (Cluster) began recording keyboards-based instrumental music that was inspired by the industrial society, with an emphasis on static drones (the prodromes of both industrial and ambient music). 1971 is the year when Tangerine Dream invented "kosmische musik", using synthesizers and sequencers instead of guitars and drums. The "trip" of acid-rock had turned into a "journey" into the cosmos. At the same time, Faust began recording songs that were, de facto, studio collages of rock music, electronic sounds and "concrete" noise.

1972 is the year that German musicians went spiritual: Popol Vuh released In Den Gaerten Pharaos, recorded inside a cathedral, and fusing electronic music and Eastern music (thus predating new-age music); and Deuter released Aum, a fusion of Eastern and Western religious music, of acoustic instruments and natural sounds. It was also the year that kosmische musik found its definitive format: the long, electronic suite. Tangerine Dream's Zeit, a double album that contained four side-long suites, and Klaus Schulze's Irrlicht, a cosmic symphony played with electronic instruments, were the archetype that would be copied for the next 30 years.

The last of the great German inventions also occurred in 1972: a band named Neu! began playing obsessively rhythmic music.

The full impact of these profound, multiple and interbreeding innovations would be felt only decades later, but it would change the whole meaning of the word "music". No other movement or school or current in the history of rock music, apart from the early rockers, influenced so many musicians for so many decades.

The early masters

Amon Duul II and Can are representative of the two main cultural backgrounds of German bands: the hippy communes and the avantgarde.

Amon Duul 0 were a free-jazz trio, formed in 1966 in Munich by guitarist and violinist Chris Karrer and by drummer Christian Burchard. Amon Duul (with no zero) were instead the musical expression of a commune that included both artists and political activists, and in particular Karrer. This early version of Amon Duul was perhaps the most politicized group of Germany's 1968 (the year of the student riots). A 48-hour session, improvised towards the end of the year, yielded enough material for three albums of tribal and chaotic jams, inspired to the concept of amateurish music proclaimed by leader Ulrich Leopold. Only the first one, Psychedelic Underground (1969), was authorized by the band. Towards the end of 1968, Karrer decided to leave the commune and start a rock band, which was named Amon Duul II (21). They were perhaps the most "teutonic" among the early German masters. Their sound was "gothic" in the most authentic (least sensational) sense of the word. Their cultural roots, not their self-indulgence, led them to gothic atmospheres. The title-track off their debut album, Phallus Dei (1969), is a long, wild, chaotic bacchanal that blends rock'n'roll, electronics, dissonances, psychedelic chanting, blues jamming, African percussions. They soon abandoned the most blasphemous and provocative stances, and their sound more clearly revealed the influence of Californian acid-rock. Their musical language kept evolving, soon incorporating more instruments and switching from improvisation to composition. The three multi-part suites that make up the bulk of Tanz Der Lemminge (1971), and particularly The Marilyn Monroe-Memorial-Church, are neither as dark nor as apocalyptic, although they maintain a degree of angst and perversion. Yeti (1970), another masterpiece notable for its Wagner-ian intensity and monumental undertaking, found a balance between noise and harmony, hard and soft rock, the gothic and the pastoral. Amon Duul II had mastered the fusion between rock'n'roll, avantgarde and world-music, using such fusion to pen long and dynamic post-psychedelic musical journeys that reinvented the form of the classical fantasia in the age of post-modernism.

More than any other band, Can, formed in Cologne by two classically-trained musicians, bassist Holger Czukay and pianist Irmin Schmidt (both alumni of Karlheinz Stockhausen), and by Globe Unity's free-jazz drummer Jaki Liebezeit, transformed progressive-rock into a science. By bridging electronic music, jazz music and rock music, Can accomplished the first organic study on rhythm and texture in rock music. Their hypnotic and glacial instrumental jams straddled the line between free-jazz, acid-rock and chamber music. While pursuing an erudite divertissement of Cage's aleatory music and Schoenberg's atonal music, while experimenting with the potentialities of electronically-manipulated instruments, while favoring subdued, fragmented, loose structures and sinister, menacing atmospheres, Can became masters of a new electro-acoustic form of music. Within the German school of the 1970s, Can were the ascetics. After Monster Movie (1969), a largely improvised and exuberant kaleidoscope of Pink Floyd-inspired and Velvet Underground-inspired psychedelic music, Can entered the labyrinthine fray of progressive-rock with their monumental Tago Mago (1971), a work blinded by Eastern mysticism and immersed in a jungle of collage techniques and sound effects (the demonic bacchanal of Halleluwa, the oneiric soundpainting of Aumgn) further complicated by the psychodramas of Japanese vocalist Kenji "Damo" Suzuki. After the bleak Ege Bamyasi (1972), that predates the languid, dejected tones of post-rock and trip-hop, Can dealt another blow to the rules of harmony with Future Days (1973), their most psychological work. Instrumental scores such as Bel Air are dense, amorphous, amoebic lattices of sounds, the musical equivalent of Monet frescoes, that metabolize jazz, funk, rock, Indian music and dissonance.

Canaxis 5 (1969), the first solo album released by Can's Holger Czukay (11), added another milestone to their career: the marriage of electronics and ethnic music, i.e. the birth of electronic world-music. Czukay would explore this theme two decades later, when pop-star David Sylvian lent a hand to the lengthy suites of Plight And Premonition (1988) and Flux And Mutability (1989), particularly Plight. Canaxis 5 also pioneered "sampling" by blending together loops of exotic music (the sources were from Japan, Australia, Vietnam).

The cosmic couriers

Tangerine Dream, formed in Berlino by guitarist Edgar Froese, percussionist Klaus Schulze and keyboardist Conrad Schnitzler, were among the earliest conscious explorers of a new musical universe opened by electronic instruments. Tangerine Dream's music was born as a psychedelic journey in the heavens, and, aided by the new electronic keyboards, transformed into a contemplative survey of the universe. By borrowing from impressionistic painting, from ecclesiastic music, from the minimalist avantgarde, and from Eastern transcendental philosophy, Tangerine Dream invented "kosmische musik", one of the most influential genres of all times. Froese, percussionist Christopher Franke, a flutist and two keyboardists recorded the three improvised jams of Alpha Centauri (1971) that defined the genre, and the band pared down to a trio (Froese, Franke and keyboardist Peter Baumann) for Zeit (1972), their masterpiece and one of the most important albums of the time, a four-movement symphony which adopted a more electronic format and a looser concept of rhythm. With Atem (1973), perhaps their most formally accomplished album, they turned to a less intimidating vision of the cosmos, one that led to the lighter, baroque and melodic approach of Phaedra (1974), Rubycon (1975) and Ricochet (1976), and to the new-age sound of the 1980s, when Froese and Franke were joined first by Johannes Schmoelling (1980) and then by Paul Haslinger (1986).
Unlike the acid-rock it descended from, Tangerine Dream's "kosmische musik" was minor-key and devoid of climax. It simply floated, disregarding the traditional song format. Tangerine Dream introduced a new concept of "time" in rock music, whereby a group of notes can float forever, with no story development. Tangerine Dream removed the vocals from rock music, thereby showing how inessential they had become: instrumental music stopped being an eccentric novelty. The orchestral and choral textures created by the mellotron and the electronic pulses created by the sequencer opened new horizons to the whole art of "coloring" an atmosphere. They wed the trance-like approach of avantgarde music (Riley, Ligeti, Part) to a new culture of "color", that dignified even the most stubborn repetition of simple patterns. Tangerine Dream used the chromatic properties of electronic instruments to charge each sound with all sorts of fantastic and metaphysical meaning. Their journeys were both in the universe and in the mind, in time and in space. Those journeys, above all, were always chromatically resplendent, occasionally flamboyant, always vivid. Unlike so much acid-rock and free-jazz jamming that indulged in depressed tones and grey scales, Tangerine Dream painted music with the very essence of beauty. Unlike jazz and rock improvisers who decomposed music to a brainy soliloquy, Tangerine Dream elevated it to a stately condition. By renouncing the narrative element, Tangerine Dream turned music into a subgenre of painting. Their compositions are frescoes rather than symphonies.
It was also a new way to tell "fairy tales". Tangerine Dream invented folk music for the new millennium. Each of their "cosmic" pieces retells the story of Ulysses turned cosmic courier. Tangerine Dream's music is the perfect soundtrack for the mythology of the space age. They also pioneered the attitude of cybernauts, who explore an artificial space.
They were contemporaries with the moon landing. The world was caught in a collective dream of the infinite. Tangerine Dream gave that dream a sound. It wasn't merely the philosophical fear of what our mind cannot comprehend: it was instead a visionary approach to the fascinating mysteries that lie beyond what our mind can comprehend.
It was also a mystic experience. The imposing crescendos, the majestic notes hanging from the immense arches of cathedrals, evoked a sense of eternity. The religious, spiritual component came to be naturally linked to the exploration of the outer space, the way it had been for centuries linked to the exploration of the inner space.
Few groups in history have had such a revolutionary impact on the music of their time. For thirty years (from ambient to disco, from techno to new age music) popular music would simply apply their numerous intuitions in different contexts.

Despite having flooded the market with a lot of awful recordings, Klaus Schulze was one of the most significant, influential and original composers of the 1970s. During his first decade alone, Schulze pioneered a number of genres that would become popular during the following thirty years, from disco-music to ambient music. But, mainly, Schulze penned the first aesthetic of popular electronic music, an aesthetic that inherited from Indian raga the sense of tempo, from jazz the sense of spontaneity, and from late romantic symphonists the sense of magniloquence. In many ways, Irrlicht (1972) created both the archetype and the reference standard for "kosmische musik". Schulze's recipe included Bach-ian organ overtures, Tibetan-style droning, "Wagner-ian" polyphonic architectures, Pink Floyd-ian cosmic psychedelia, Gregorian liturgy, John Coltrane's metaphysical explorations, and perhaps even Michelangelo's "Sistine Chapel", and many other ingredients. The synthesis achieved by that electronic symphony was momentous and ground-breaking. Schulze sculpted/painted an ambience that sounded like a live recording of galactic life, but, rather than indulging in rendering cosmic events, he focused on the pathos that the unknown and the infinite elicit into the human soul. The symphony alternates moments of catalectic suspense, of apocalyptic chaos and of moving melody. Schulze sequenced them so as to maximize awe and angst. Like Tangerine Dream's Zeit, Schulze's Cyborg (1973) was a double album containing four side-long electronic suites, and, like many other German musicians, Schulze was introducing more rhythm into his visions. However, this new monolith maintained the "symphonic" quality of the previous one (enhanced by a huge chamber orchestra). While the lengthy, slowly-unraveling suite remained his favorite medium, Totem, on Picture Music (1973), and the inferior Voices Of Syn, on Blackdance (1974), continued the progression towards a more "accessible" format. The best results were to be found on Timewind (1975), which contains two of his most violent (or, better, "Wagner-ian") sonatas: Bayreuth Return and Wahnfried 1883. The explosive Floating, on Moondawn (1976), combined the usual battery of sequencers with manic percussions. Rhythm disappeared from Mirage (1977), one of the earliest albums of ambient music. Another stunning masterpiece, X (1978), summarized all his experiments. The four monumental suites paid homage to Teutonic culture like no one had done since Wagner. Having reached his baroque and romantic zenith, Schulze began wasting his talent in trivial new-age music. Audentity (1983) and Dresden Performance (1990) would be his last meaningful works.

Each and every other member of Tangerine Dream launched a solo career, but nobody was as successful as Schulze. Romance '76 (1976), by Peter Baumann and Aqua (1974), by Edgar Froese, were probably the best of the solo works of the others, while Chris Franke would not release a significant work till Babylon 5 (1995).

The soundtrack of industrial neurosis

Cluster, Kraftwerk, Neu and Faust had little or no interest in psychedelia, and even less interest in the universe. They were (morbidly) fascinated by the human psyche in the 20th century.

Originally, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Dieter Moebius and and Conrad Schnitzler formed Cluster, or, better, Ensemble Kluster, to play wildly dissonant and heavily electronic psychedelic music, collected on Klopfzeichen (1970) and Zwei Osterei (1971). Renamed Cluster (with producer Conrad Plank replacing Schnitzler), which is also the title of Cluster (1971), the trio began to indulge in velvety drones, distorted reverbs, cyclic repetitions and tonal poetry, thus aiming for a form of contemplation instead of Kluster's abstract painting. The musical continuum of Cluster II (1972) drew inspiration from Tangerine Dream's psychedelic/cosmic meditations, but without the emphasis on the "visual", sensational, chromatic, symphonic aspects that Schulze had gone on to develop in his solo career. Cluster's electronica was subtle and psychological, rather than emphatic and psychedelic. Sound effects were employed to create unnerving feelings, not the trancey ecstasy of the cosmic poems. Their focus was on the background cosmic radiation rather than on the explosion of a supernova. Zuckerzeit (1974), featuring Neu's Michael Rother, and Musik Von Harmonia (1974), credited to Harmonia but featuring the same trio as the previous one, veered towards lighter atmospheres and artificial rhythms. Continuing the transition, Cluster converted to Eno's ambient music with Sowiesoso (1976) and, after two collaborations with the British master, scored their best ambient work, Grosses Wasser (1979).

Kraftwerk influenced two separate (and often conflicting) groups of musicians: the hyper-abstract noise-makers and the hyper-hedonistic dance-pop crowd. Both industrial music and disco-music descend from Kraftwerk. They were not the first band to focus on the sound of the industrial society (Kluster did so a couple of years earlier) and they were not the first band to make music with electronic keyboards, but they were probably the first musicians to fuse those innovations with pop melody (for better and for worse). When they pursued that fusion, they de facto replaced conventional drumming with electronic rhythms, or, better, the essence of Afro-American civilization with the essence of European civilization. Each suite on Kraftwerk (1970) and Kraftwerk 2 (1971), which introduced the drum-machine (replacing Klaus Dinger) and probably remains their futuristic masterpiece (Kling Klang), was a harrowing, awe-inspiring fresco, worthy of abstract painting, of Morton Subotnick's electronic Dadaism, of surrealist poetry, but with the emphasis on the "man machine". Ralf & Florian (1973) refined the relationship between rhythm and melody, and Autobahn (1974) finally abandoned any intellectual pretense and laid the foundations for disco-pop. But now their operation of "black exploitation" was not all that different from what Presley and the Beatles had done: 1. take black music, 2. remove the provocative elements, 3. enhance it with modern technology, 4. and turn it into easy-listening music for the white masses.

Searching for a middle point between post-nuclear psychedelia and psycho-ambient "musique concrete", Faust coined one of the most powerful, dramatic and eccentric languages in modern music. Known for the spartan editions of their records and for the ascetic modesty of their members, Faust were, in a sense, the first "lo-fi" group. Technically, the ensemble's music pushed to the extreme an aesthetic of darkness, ugliness, fear, chaos, irrational, that stemmed from expressionism, surrealism, theater of the absurd, Brecht/Weill's cabaret, myth of the "supermensch", Wagner-ian melodrama, "musique concrete", all fused in a formal system that was as much metaphysical as grotesque. Influenced by Frank Zappa's collages, these teutonic vampires injected angst, like burning lava, into a sound that was deliberately fastidious, repulsive, incoherent. Demented, demonic, paranoid, acid and violent, their compositions constitute a puzzle of sonic boutades and hermetic puns. Their opus was a black mass that deteriorated into "happening". However, behind the surface, Faust's music hid a moving vision of the human condition, one of the most lyrical in the entire history of the century. The visions of hell on their debut album, Faust (1971), particularly Miss Fortune (with the age-defining lyrics "Are we supposed to be or not to be?"), represent one of the noblest testaments to modern alienation. That album was the soundtrack to something both horrible and tender that had just happened to humankind. So Far (1972) was a more conventional set of songs, and Tapes (1973) was a collage of small fragments. Faust's second masterpiece, IV (1973), or, better, its tour de force Krautrock, is a bleak, menacing, agonizing whirlwind of galactic magma that consume thermonuclear energy. If the Indian mystics wanted to become one with Brahman, Faust the atheists tried to become one with the Big Bang.

Formed by guitarist Michael Rother and percussionist Klaus Dinger, both veterans of Kraftwerk, Neu Neu! (1972) pushed to the limit the technique of iterative patterns and the impressionistic approach that were popular among contemporary cosmic musicians. Pieces such as Negativland are essentially continuums of rhythmic impulses propelled by Dinger's legendary "motorik beat" and by obsessive repetition of ferocious percussive patterns (occasionally bordering on jack-hammer noise). It was tribal drumming applied to the devastating neurosis of the post-industrial era. Fur Immer, on their second album, 2 (1973), offered the last glimpse into their personal and public hell. Neu! 75 (1975) was a much quieter and softer affair, downplaying the rhythmic element and incorporating a stronger melodic element. After the split, each musician continued Neu's mission. Both first solo album by Michael Rother, Flammende Herzen (1976), and Dusseldorf, on the first album LA Dusseldorf (1976) by Dinger's LA Dusseldorf resumed the nightmare. Neu's anti-romantic futurism and anguished hyper-realism of Wagner-ian intensity would be highly influential.

Spiritual music

Deuter and Popol Vuh turned hippy mysticism into a new musical genre.

Georg Deuter was a pioneer of world-music, and one of the earliest "hippy" musicians to blend western avantgarde and eastern spirituality. The marriage between modern, ancient and eastern cultures is embedded in the core elements of his music: respectively, electronic keyboards, flute melodies, and exotic percussions. Deuter presented his credentials in the four-movement suite Babylon, off his debut album D (1971), that quotes Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tangerine Dream, raga-rock and acid-rock. Aum (1972) was the first Indo-western mass: Hinduist liturgy is transfigured from the viewpoint of the classical avantgarde, while natural sounds and lush percussive textures enhance the ceremonial quality. Deuter continued his mission with a series of devotional albums inspired by his sojourn in India. The suites released on Haleakala Mystery (1978) and Ecstasy (1979) blend Tibetan mantras, "om"-like vocals, electronic drones, sounds of nature and discrete melodies to recreate the intimate ecstasy of the spiritual experience. Silence Is The Answer (1981), his masterpiece, summarizes his musical achievements on a monumental scale, although Deuter would later join the ranks of less profound new-age music with Nirvana Road (1984).

One of the most significant groups of all times, Florian Fricke's Popol Vuh absorbed Eastern spirituality within the format of western music. Fricke's work has been a constant exploration of the same theme: how to express the most personal, profound, austere spirituality by the means of western classical music, western sacred music and profane rock music. It was a marriage of East and West, and a marriage of past and present, made on Earth. In fact, it was made in Germany, and it bears the stigmata of German history. Almost inevitably, Fricke ended up denying the fundamental tenet of German music of his age: electronics. The humble, peaceful tones of acoustic instruments served his purpose better than the majestic complexity of synthesizers and sequencers. Despite the fact that Popol Vuh's debut album, Affenstunde (1971), was an all-electronic album (in fact, it was one of the first rock albums to employ the Moog synthesizer), the ethnic percussions, the natural sounds and the pastoral tone turned it into their first essay in abstract soundpainting, focusing on the ambience rather than on the pathos. Popol Vuh further detached themselves from the cliches of "kosmische musik" with In Den Gaerten Pharaos (1972), one of the most significant albums of the decade. Partially recorded inside a cathedral, its two suites evoke a quiet, intense spiritual experience, aiming for a communion with the forces of the universe, with infinite and with eternity. The sound is mostly inert and timeless: there is no melodic center, no rhythmic underpinning, no narrative development. Electronic instruments had never been employed in such a humble format, to travel "inside" rather than "outside". The transition from electronic to acoustic instruments, and from grandeur to humility, was completed with Hosianna Mantra (1973), one of the most significant works in the entire history of rock music. This Eastern-western meditation-mass for chamber ensemble, centered around the angelic wails of Korean soprano Djong Yun, carried out a sublime integration of Buddhist and Christian meditative/contemplative practices. This album also completed Popol Vuh's repudiation of rhythm: if Tangerine Dream had removed rhythm (i.e., Time) from its cosmic soundpainting, then Popol Vuh removed rhythm (i.e., Time) from its spiritual soundpainting. Building on that intuition, Seligpreisung (1973) began a mystic trilogy devoted to holy books, Einsjaeger & Siebenjaeger (1974) and Das Hohelieds Salomons (1975) being the other two parts. Letzte Tage Letzte Naechte (1976) marked an equally successful conversion to more conventional psychedelic-rock.

Eberhard Schoener, a classical violinist and conductor, who has staged several collaborations between rock musicians and symphony orchestras, endorsed Deuter's and Popol Vuh's spiritual stance on Meditation (1973) and his best electronic poems, Sky Music and Mountain Music.

German prog-rock

Compared with so many German giants who revolutionized the history of music, German progressive and psychedelic bands were hardly relevant. Nonetheless, many of those bands rank with the best British bands of the time.

Ash Ra Tempel, formed by guitarist Manuel Gottsching (and initially featuring Klaus Schulze on keyboards), practiced a more eartly form of cosmic psychedelia on Schwingungen (1972) and on their masterpiece, Freak'n'Roll, off the album Join Inn (1973), the ultimate synthesis of hippy culture and German expressionism, of Grateful Dead and teutonic sensibility. Manuel Gottsching formed the Cosmic Jokers (1974) with Schulze and then started a solo career with the ambitious Inventions For Electric Guitar (1975), which would be followed by more and more spiritual works for the new-age generation. On the other hand, the rhythmic patterns of his E2-E4 (1984), a one-hour piece for guitar and synthesizer recorded live at home in 1981, predated techno music.

The trio Limbus 3 (Odysseus Artnern, Bernd Henninger, Gerd Kraus) composed the free-form Cosmic Music Experience (1969), with the side-long New Atlantis. They later expanded to a quartet, Limbus 4, for Mandalas (1970), with the 20-minute Plasma.

Formed by Swiss percussionist Marcus "Mani" Neumeier (who had played with jazz musicians Irene Schweizer and the Globe Unity Orchestra), the Guru Guru Groove Band offered a surreal mixture of psychedelia, humour, improvisation and collage technique on their 20-minute juggernaut Der LSD Marsch (1970), off Ufo (1970).

Brainticket delivered the exotic-cosmic-erotic-electronic suite Brainticket Pts 1 and 2 on Cottonwood Hill (1971).

Malesch (1972), the debut album by Agitation Free, enhanced the recipe of acid-rock with frantic exotic dances (reminiscent of middle-eastern dervishes) and with avantgarde touches due to Michael Hoenig's synthesizer.

The electronic suites of Rot (1973) by Conrad Schnitzler, a founding member of both Cluster and Tangerine Dream, are closer to Morton Subotnick's avantgarde electronica than to cosmic music.

Gruppe Between, featuring keyboardist Peter Michael Hamel, contaminated "kosmische musik" with free-jazz, world-music, minimalism, and even the symphonic orchestra on Dharana (1974).

A myriad bands were born in the wake of the German boom. Yatha Sidhra's A Meditation Mass (1972) was a spiritual work in the vein of Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra. Kalacakra's Crawling To Lhasa (1971) and Dom's Edge of Time (1972) offered world-music a` la Third Ear Band. Gila's Gila (1971) indulged in mystic and medieval atmospheres.

More derivative progressive-rock was played by bands such as: Organisation (later evolved into Kraftwerk), whose Tone Float (1970) was one of the earliest examples of acid-jazz-raga fusion; and Eloy, whose symphonic arrangements and Pink Floyd-ian vocals would bloom on Ocean (1977). Progressive-rock cliches were also recycled on Anima's Stuermischer Himmel (1971), Golem's Orion Awakes (1973), Schicke, Fuehrs & Froehling's Symphonic Pictures (1976), etc.

The jazz school featured: Xhol, whose Electrip (1969) parallels Frank Zappa's developments in jazz-rock; Embryo, whose Opal (1970) was influenced by John Coltrane's mystic free-jazz; Dzyan (1), whose Time Machine (1973) contains four complex jams that offered an unusual hybrid of acid-rock, progressive-rock, world-music and Canterbury-ian jazz-rock; Passport, whose Looking Thru (1974) acknowledges the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Soft Machine; and Brainstorm' Smile a while (1972).

Perhaps the oddest experiment of the time was Zweistein, the project of German pop singer Suzanne Doucet (disguised under the moniker Jacques Dorian) that released only the triple-LP album Trip, Flipout, Meditation (1970), a post-psychedelic sound collage that drowned naive melodies under a thick layer of studio effects.

Meet the avantgarde

Former Gruppe Between keyboardist Peter Michael Hamel coined an instrumental, keyboard-based sound that is reminiscent of both Bach and Terry Riley with Aura (1972) and Colours Of Time (1980), the latter being his most imaginative work, whose magniloquence and austerity also permeate Nada (1980) and Bardo (1981) as well. Transition (1983), perhaps his most experimental work, ran the gamut from Bach to tribal music, from Tibetan trance to Riley's dervishes, and led to ever more ambitious works: the sonata Organum (1986) and two pieces for string orchestra dedicated to the concept of Time, Arrow Of Time and Cycle Of Time (1988).

The exotic element was central to the music of Stephan Micus, as was the entire cultural world of the Far East. Implosions (1977) is more than an erudite version of Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra. In pieces such as As I Crossed A Bridge Of Dreams, a gentle psalm for sitar, guitar and voice, Micus sets zen philosophy to hypnotic quasi-ambient music. That form of languid Eastern-western chamber music for small orchestra of ethnic instruments was further explored on Koan (1981) and Wings Over Water (1982), and articulated in more and more virtuoso combinations. Ocean (1986), Micus' definitive symphony of timbres, led to the more abstract soundscapes of Twilight Fields (1987), which is static music for droning instruments and found objects, and Music Of Stones (1989), which collects, literally, improvisations for resonating stones.

After disbanding Agitation Free, Michael Hoenig set a new standard for cosmic music with Departure From The Northern Wasteland (1978), a melodic fantasy that blends Tangerine Dream, and Terry Riley, and even predates ambient house.

Hard-rock 1969-73

Hard-rock signaled, in many ways, the end of the creative 1960s. In and around the cities of the counterculture, hard-rock became a way to affirm a less "confrontational", militant stance. Musically, hard-rock was the terminal point of an evolution of blues that had seen white, middle-class musicians reinvent the music of black, enslaved musicians as entertainment for the western youth. Hard-rock was still based on blues, like rock'n'roll had always been, but it was a faster, louder and stronger kind of music, that buried the suffering of the black people under thousands of decibels.
One can find the prodromes of hard-rock in bands such as Cream (England), Blue Cheer (California) and Guess Who (Canada), that already emphasized amplification and centered the song around the guitar riff. And they were certainly a major influence on the British bands that "invented" hard-rock.

However, Led Zeppelin, formed by ex-Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page and Alexis Korner's protege` Robert Plant, were, first and foremost, children of the blues. However, the jams of Led Zeppelin I (1969) introduced a hysterical approach to black music that even blacks had never dreamed of (culminating in the epileptic zenith of Communication Breakdown). Led Zeppelin's sound was an extension of electric blues that relied on three factors: a faster, almost frenzied, pace; a loud and scorching howl that almost parodied the black "shouters" and had psychotic overtones; and forceful guitar playing of great imagination with mystic overtones. The melodrama of songs such as Whole Lotta Love (1969) was continuously ruptured by guitar riffs and delirious vocals. Cream had played blues-rock as brain music: Led Zeppelin played blues-rock as body music. From Immigrant Song (1970) to In The Evening (1979), Led Zeppelin were mainly an idea of rock'n'roll for a new kind of audience. The secondary elements that had been percolating the early albums emerged vigorously on Led Zeppelin IV (1971): When The Levee Breaks was their most original (almost psychedelic) song inspired by the folk tradition, and Stairway To Heaven was the culmination of their "soft" and spiritual alter-ego.

Led Zeppelin became a handbook case of how a product finds a market without any need for marketing. The hippy generation had created a demand for free-form radio (as opposed to hit-oriented radio) and for arena-size concerts. Their music was completely different from the music that those radios and those arenas had been playing, but turned out to be the perfect music to maximize the commercial benefit of free-form radio and arena-size concerts.

Led Zeppelin's success had a powerful impact on the recording industry: it defined the long-playing album as rock's medium of choice. Led Zeppelin never had a major "hit" on the Billboard charts, but ruled the airwaves and the arenas. The recording industry followed the hint and began marketing albums rather than singles.

Detroit

Another source of hard vibrations was Detroit. Detroit hosted the headquarters of some of the most extremist elements of the counterculture (e.g., the White Panthers), but, more to the point, was the most industrial city of the USA. Just like the folksingers had been the natural voice of the intellectuals of the Greenwich Village, and surf-music had been the natural voice of California fun, Mersey-beat had been the natural voice of the "swinging London" and acid-rock had been the natural voice of San Francisco's hippies, a ferocious, noisy kind of rock'n'roll became the natural voice of Detroit's blue-collar workers and of their children. There had been few precedents for Detroit's wall of screams and riffs (Blue Cheer in California was the notable one). The humble Frost gave the city its manifesto with Rock And Roll Music (1969).

MC5, led by White Panther's leader John Sinclair and guitarist Wayne Kramer, represented the revolutionary wing of the student riots and used rock and roll as a powerful agit-prop device. Their sound embodied the rage and the sarcasm of the extremists, their lyrics defied all moral standards. Their live shows were wild, collective orgasms in which the band unleashed a monster and chaotic fury on the audience. Kick Out The Jams (1969) remains one of the most orgiastic, terrifying and visceral albums ever released, a grotesque bacchanal of atrocious, primitive musical skills, a formidable assault on reality, the rock'n'roll equivalent of a nuclear explosion, sounding as if free-jazz and acid-rock had been savagely mauled inside a particle accelerator. The fact that its follow-up, Back In The USA (1970), was so inferior is proof that the masterpiece was due to the spirit of an entire era and not to a particular group of musicians.

While no less savage, the Stooges came up with a more musical proposition. Stooges (1969) borrowed ideas from Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground and Doors (hard riffs, obscene antics, libidinous vocals, distorted guitars) and pushed them to the limit. We Will Fall was the Doors' The End plus the Velvet Underground's Venus In Furs. 1969, No Fun and I Wanna Be Your Dog were Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen plus the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction plus the Velvet Underground's Waiting For My Man. The sex appeal of Mick Jagger, the erotic guitar of Jimi Hendrix, the shamanic perdition of Jim Morrison, the degenerate rituals of Lou Reed, found in the Stooges a new vehicle for a new generation, that was no longer idealistic but merely frustrated. The Stooges embraced the image of the degenerate punk, and took it to a new level of realism, leaving behind the mythic overtones of the hippy era, and returning it to its original dimensions of defiance and vulgarity. Thus the Stooges achieved a historical synthesis of both musical styles and sociological meanings. Fun House (1970), whose TV Eye virtually invented voodoobilly, and whose 1970 virtually invented punk-rock, continued the saga, whereas Raw Power (1973) veered towards the kind of respectable glam-rock which would soon become the new career of their vocalist Iggy "Pop" Osterberg. Every bit of Stooges music was militant, although they never referred to politics. And every bit of it was pornographic: each note, each chord, each riff was a sexual innuendo. That mixture of abrasive guitars, raw vocals and solid rhythms was a sonic kamasutra.

MC5 and the Stooges had created a new kind of rock'n'roll, one founded on extreme violence.

From blues to hard-rock

In Britain, the "apolitical" form of hard-rock generated the same kind of hysterical reaction that Mersey-beat and progressive-rock had generated: dozens of bands adopted the new style with little or no variation between one and the other. Among the least predictable were: Free, featuring vocalist Paul Rodgers, and notable for the visceral blues-rock of All Right Now (1970) and Fire And Water (1970); Status Quo, whose background was into psychedelic and progressive rock; Thin Lizzy, another dual guitar line-up a` la Wishbone Ash; UFO, who pioneered pop-metal, Uriah Heep, purveyors of gothic and medieval atmospheres; Slade, who wed an image of working-class holligans with catchy anthems such as Cum On Feel The Noise (1973).

A bubblegum and glam version of hard-rock was concocted by songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and by producer Mickie Most, first with Sweet, for which they penned Blockbuster (1972) and Ballroom Blitz (1973), and then with Detroit-native Suzi Quatro, who sand Can The Can (1973) and Devil Gate Drive (1974).

Best were the two bands born on the ashes of the Small Faces: Humble Pie, featuring Peter Frampton, and Faces, featuring vocalist Rod Stewart and guitarist Ron Wood (both veterans of the Jeff Beck Group), whose A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse (1971) ranks among the most lively examples of white soul-rock.

Deep Purple, who began as late epigones of progressive-rock and neo-classical rock, faring best with the Concerto for Group and Orchestra (1970) and the psychological melodrama Child In Time (1970), joined the ranks of hard-rock with the supersonic boogie attacks of Machine Head (1972). Despite (or precisely because of) the highly simplified guitar technique of Ritchie Blackmore, the barbaric excesses of their lengthy performances became the stereotype of hard-rock.

Black Sabbath, a highly influential band, further deteriorated the degree of skills required for playing hard-rock, but their distorted and booming riffs, their monster grooves, their martial rhythms, their monotonous singing and their horror themes, that evoked the vision of a futuristic medieval universe, laid the foundations for black metal and doom-metal. Melody and any instrumental prowess were negligible components of their most typical works, Paranoid (1971) and Master Of Reality (1971). They were not the inventors of gothic music, but they were the first to turn it into a genre. Theirs was the ultimate attack on rockers, hippies, singer-songwriters and anyone who valued content over form.

Queen were the jokers of the hard-rock movement. They borrowed ideas from progressive-rock, from the music-hall (Killer Queen, 1974) and from gospel (Somebody to Love, 1976); applied fantastic production techniques on A Night At The Opera (1975), worthy of a Frank Zappa operetta; and would become the quitessence of "bombastic" rock with their 1977 anthems (We Are The Champions, We Will Rock You).

Bad Company, formed by Free's vocalist Paul Rodgers, borrowed from southern boogie and added a lascivious tone, for example on Bad Company (1974).

In the USA very few bands endorsed the violent sound of Detroit's bands. For the most part, USA hard-rock was the USA's counterpart of British hard-rock. And the blues component was, generally speaking, stronger. The leaders were: Mountain, the USA's equivalent of Cream, that wed blues, hard-rock and psychedelic-rock with the epic Nantucket Sleighride (1971) and on the baroque collection Flowers Of Evil (1971); James Gang, James Walsh's power-trio, whose Rides Again (1970) betrays the influence of progressive-rock; Grand Funk Railroad, vulgar and illiterate but masters of the "groove", and even militant on E Pluribus Funk (1971); Montrose, whose derivative classic is Montrose (1973); Bachman-Turner Overdrive, led by former Guess Who guitarist, influenced by the Who and southern boogie on albums such as Not Fragile (1974); Heart, who attempted a fusion of folk-rock and hard-rock before selling out with Heart (1985).

The sound of the revolution got therefore tamed very quickly, and hard-rock became mere entertainment for the masses.

Southern waltz
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
The southern states of the USA developed their own brand of "hard" vibrations, rooted in the boogie and honky-tonk traditions of the saloons, and capable of mixing country, blues and soul with rock'n'roll. "Southern rock", launched nationwide by ZZ Top and the Allman Brothers Band in 1970, became almost a genre in its own. Jacksonville (Florida) was its epicenter, its scene stirred by the hit Spooky (1967) of James Cobb's first band, Classic IV.

There was also a link with the psychedelic school of the 1960s, particularly visible on Take Me To The Mountain (1970) by Shiva's Headband, Mariani's Perpetuum Mobile (1970), and Josefus' Dead Man (1970).

Jacksonville's Allman Brothers Band, featuring two lead guitars (Duane Allman and Richard Betts), was the first major act since the Grateful Dead for whom the (improvised) live performance was more relevant than the (composed) studio album. Not surprisingly, they became the only band capable of competing with the Grateful Dead in terms of crowds. Their debut album, The Allman Brothers Band (1969), introduced a form of loose, guitar-intensive blues-rock ballad, a southern version of the Band's roots-rock, but it was the live albums, Live At Fillmore East (1971) and Eat A Peach (1972), that transformed those ballads into epic sonic excursions.

Adding two drummers to the twin lead-guitar format of the Allman Brothers Band, and blending this extended line-up with a more genuine rural spirit, the band of Nashivlle's bluegrass fiddler Charlie Daniels came to impersonate the middle-class of the Midwest, starting with Fire On The Mountain (1974).

Solid rhythms and searing guitars were also the main weapons in the arsenal of James Cobb's Atlanta Rhythm Section in Georgia, for example on Third Annual Pipe Dream (1974), the Marshall Tucker Band in South Carolina, for example on Searchin' For A Rainbow (1975), Wet Willie in Alabama, for example on Dixie Rock (1975); and many others. They mostly mixed hard-rock, boogie, country, soul and gospel, although each band had its own recipe and used different percentages for each ingredient.

The most original album of this era came from the obscure Hampton Grease Band Music To Eat (1971), an unlikely but effervescent blend of Frank Zappa's Absolutely Free, Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and the Allman Brothers Band's Eat A Peach.

The ultimate, definitive purveyors of southern boogie were ZZ Top, whose best album, Tres Hombres (1973), was a veritable encyclopedia of southern styles, highlighted by Billy Gibbons' guitar. Later into their career, ZZ Top veered towards heavy-metal (i.e., the sound invented by their descendants) and adopted devastating electronic rhythms, for example on Eliminator (1983), thereby delivering the same old brutal concept to the punk generation.

Bands such as Black Oak Arkansas, the original three-guitar boogie band, best heard on Keep The Faith (1972), and the Outlaws (whose 1975's jam Green Grass And High Tides may well be the most exciting of the genre) increased the doses of guitar riffs and heavy rhythms.

There were no protagonists (no solos and no virtuosi) in the group sound (also based on three guitars) of Florida's Lynyrd Skynyrd, the leaders of this second generation, fronted by Ronnie VanZant. Their objectives were down to earth: granitic riffs and earth-shaking rhythms to sing the macho (and self-destructing) lifestyle of the reactionary southern male. Second Helping (1974), which contains their anthem Sweet Home Alabama, was their best show of force, but their dreadful philosophy peaked with Street Survivors (1977), released as VanZant died in a plane crash.

Psychedelic madness 1970-74
Psychedelic minds

The boom of psychedelic music, and the psychological liberation brought about by the hippie generation, fostered the advent of a generation of musical originals.
One of the most luminous and idiosyncratic minds in the history of rock music, and one of its most durable myths, Syd Barrett was the eccentric and idealistic soul of early Pink Floyd. After leaving the band, he recorded two masterpieces of psychedelic folk music, The Madcap Laughs (1970) and the even better Barrett (1970). Barrett's ballads are inspired by (and sung in the tone of) fairy tales and nursery rhymes, but betray paranoia and loneliness. His voice is nonchalant to the extent that it is pointless to fight the agony. His mind broadcasts visions of another world, and it almost sounds like Alice In Wonderland reporting from the underworld, but this is Alice after realizing that she can't go back anymore, Alice paralyzed by fear and anguish. Musically, Barrett, blessed with the gift of spontaneity, has a simple way to organize a broad palette, that runs the gamut from spiritual (Baby Lemonade) to ragtime (Gigolo Aunt) from blues (Rats) to circus music and the music-hall. His most perfect melody, Love Song, and the definitive anthem of his naive melancholy madness, Waving My Arms In The Air soar over the Dali-esque landscape. Because they defined, once and for all, the relationship between the "eccentric" and the "private" in music (in a manner similar to surrealism and psychoanalysis), those two albums would exert an unparalleled influence on subsequent generations of singer-songwriters. Barrett, whose mental health was rapidly deteriorating, would never record again.

Another psychedelic oddball, John "Twink" Alder, ex-Tomorrow and ex-Pretty Things, assembled another formidable repertory of nonsense, Think Pink (1970). Twink and remnants of the Deviants formed the Pink Fairies, who recorded two of hard-rock's most original albums: Never Never Land (1971), with Uncle Harry's Last Freak-out, and Kings Of Oblivion (1974).

The third solitary iconoclast of British psychedelia was Fleetwood Mac's guitarist Peter Green, who released the all-instrumental The End Of The Game (1970) before retiring for almost a decade. Borrowing the format of the jam session from jazz music, but the atmosphere from Ernst's surrealistic paintings, horror soundtracks and voodoo rituals, Green indulged in sheer sound-painting. The hallucinated ramble of the guitar weaves colorful textures for mantra-like psalms. It is visceral, primordial music that echoes the eruption of volcanoes, ocean tides and the life-cycle of equatorial forest. Green's expansion of consciousness is one of both folly and ecstasy, one that would be better defined as epic terror.

Hawkwind pioneered "space-rock", a hybrid of hard-rock and acid-rock that united the sonic power of the former and the free improvisation of the latter (and Robert Calvert's sci-fi visions). In Search Of Space (1971) and Doremi Fasol Latido (1972), summarized on their Space Ritual (1973), refined the idea, but theirs was a cult phenomenon that focused mostly on live performance (somewhat similar to what had happened in the USA with the Grateful Dead) while boasting the frenzied, noisy attitude of the MC5. Hawkwind's gargantuan sound also represents a natural (no matter how demented) liaison between hippy culture and punk culture.

In the USA there were several cases of similar madness. Buffalo Springfield's bassist Bruce Palmer released The Cycle Is Complete (1971), perhaps the single most "stoned" work of the era, before disappearing for good from the music scenes.

David Crosby, the former Byrds who can claim to be inventor of acid-rock, raga-rock and space-rock, released only one solo album before falling victim to his drugs addiction, but that album, If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971), that absorbed his experience with the Jefferson Airplane and with Crosby Stills Nash & Young, remains one of the most touching documents of the post-hippy era. Several historical figures of San Francisco's acid-rock scene attended the sessions, including most of the Jefferson Airplane and of the Grateful Dead. The melancholy, dreamy, ecstatic psalms of this album are embedded into loose, shimmering, impressionist structures. Crosby travels to another universe, whispers, wails, babbles, agonizes, radiates "om"s, chats with mirages and ghosts, sinks into a mystic-psychedelic trance.

Merrell Fankhauser, raised in Los Angeles to surf music (he wrote the Surfaris' Wipe Out), formed Mu along with Captain Beefheart's guitarist Jeff Cotton. Their first album, Mu (1971), was a unique example of mystic/exotic/acid rock. Relocating to Hawaii, Fankhauser churned out one bizarre album after the other, eventually attaining musical nirvana with Message To The Universe (1986), a metaphysical rock opera.

Protest folksinger Buffy Saint-Marie sang the hallucinated Illuminations (1969), arranged with electronic sounds by composer Michael Czajkowski.

Ya Ho Wha 13 were formed in 1969 (also in Los Angeles) by a middle-aged beatnik called Jim Baker who believed himself a god and went by the nickname of Father Yod. On albums such as their masterpiece Penetration (1974) they delivered extreme psychedelic sound, that employed tribal drums and distorted guitars in a deliberately childish manner.

In Florida, Terry Brooks' Strange recorded albums of dissonant, free-form psychedelia, such as Raw Power (1976).

Japanese space-rock 1970-73

Psychedelic-rock had been imported into Japan by countless cover bands and by original bands such as the Jacks, whose Vacant World (1968) was an early classic. Japanese space-rock was born with Hadaka no Rallizes (also known as Les Rallizes Denudes), a band that drew inspiration from the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable light and sound shows and from Blue Cheer's heavily amplified sound. Despite the fact that no one would hear it for two decades, Japan remained an invaluable source of space-rock bands.

The Taj Mahal Travellers, led by avantgarde composer and violinist Takehisa Kosugi, played lengthy improvised jams for small ensemble (violin, harmonica, bass, tuba, trumpet, synthesizer, mandolin, percussions) that can be summarized in three principles: a Far-Eastern approach to music as a living organism, an intense electronic processing of instruments and voices, a semi-mathematical overlapping of frequencies. Basically: LaMonte Young on acid. Collected on July 15 1972 and August 1974, their music ranged from cosmic hisses to nightmarish distortions, from pow-wow bacchanals to Tibetan-style chanting and droning.

The Far East Family Band, fronted by guitarist and vocalist Fumio Miyashita and featuring the young keyboardist Masanori "Kitaro" Takahashi, was the successor to his Far Out, that had recorded the two lengthy Pink Floyd-ian suites of Far Out (1973). The new line-up excelled at quasi-cosmic trips such as Nipponjin on Nipponjin (1975) and the six-movement Parallel World on Parallel World (1976).

Lost Aaraaff's Lost Aaraaff (1971) was devoted to three improvised jams. Their young guitarist, Keiji Haino penned the eastern mass Ama No Gawa - Milky Way (1973). Then, inspired by free-jazz master Takayanagi Masayuki, Haino formed Fushitsusha to play improvised psychedelic jams. Starting with Live I (1989), 100 minutes of noise that ranked among the masterpieces of the psychedelic jam of all times, a bacchanal that vomited debris of Blue Cheer, MC5, Iron Butterfly, free-jazz, Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix, this prolific trio (originally a quartet) released monumental and dissolute works that seemed to know no limits. Fushitsusha (1991) and Hisou - Pathetique (1994) were among the follow-ups, but later releases such as The Wisdom Prepared (1998) and I Saw It (2000) were equally torrential. In the meantime, Haino was also busy with Nijiumu and Vajra. His solo albums included the galactic suites Affection (1992) and Execration (1993), as well as his boldest experiment, I Said This Is The Son Of Nihilism (1995). As the influences of LaMonte Young and Brian Eno increased, Haino arrived at Abandon All Words At A Stroke So That Prayer Can Come Spilling Out (2001), which contains a hypnotic piece for hurdy-gurdy and treated voice, and an industrial collage of metallic noises, distortions and ghostly vocals, as well as to C'est Parfait (2003), one live track for rhythm box and vocals of Wagnerian intensity, Yaranai Ga Dekinai Ni Natte Yuku (2006), a manic tour de force of solo overdubbed guitar and vocals. His collaborations included Animamima (2006), with a twenty-piece sitar orchestra.

The music of Maru Sankaku Shikaku, active between 1970 and 1973, was an ethnic, mystical experience, that embraced the hippy spirit of Taj Mahal Travelers and Third Ear Band.

The eclectic style of the Flower Traveling Band peaked with the five-part suite Satori (1971), a confluence of acid-rock, blues-rock, space-rock and hard-rock.

Re-alignment 1970-74

The re-alignment of rock music to the old values simply helped sustain the creative boom of the 1960s. A continuing revolution would have destabilized the (music) world. A "wise" restoration of traditional forms (such as blues, folk and country), instead, helped spread the new product and thus turn rock music into one of consumerism's most successful phenomena. The album, born as an "intellectual" alternative to the 45 RPM, simply became a more lucrative business for the recording companies, that could charge a much higher price for a little higher investment. The 1970s were, in many ways, another "dark age" for rock music, but this time the Establishment did not try to obliterate it: it absorbed it. Rock music became "mainstream" music. In 1971 the musical Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber opened on Broadway, using arrangements, rhythms and melodies inspired by alternative rock. A concert for Bangla Desh, attended by the stars of the counterculture such as Bob Dylan, became the most successful benefit event since the war, and began a tradition of rock stars acting like prominent political personalities. The popularity of rock music had no rivals. In 1973, the Watkins Glen festival (Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, Band) was attended by a crowd of 500,000 people. Television stations were devoting more airtime to rock music than any other genre, adding new programs such as "The Midnight Special" (anchored by Wolfman Jack and Helen Reddy). Rock's defeat became rock's triumph.

Country-rock 1970-72

Gram Parsons' great invention, country-rock, was briefly one of the USA's biggest fads.

Two acts played the role of liaison with San Francisco's acid-rock, Commander Cody, whose deranged bar-band was immortalized on Lost In The Ozone (1971), and the New Riders Of The Purple Sage, who evolved from the oniric style of New Riders Of The Purple Sage (1971) to the mock-heroic style of The Adventures of Panama Red (1973).

Steve Stills of the Buffalo Springfield and Chris Hillman of the Flying Burrito Bros formed a new band to record Manassas (1972), a veritable encyclopedia of USA music.

However, the leadership soon moved east, towards Nashville. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was one of the first country outfits to embrace rock and pop, for example on Uncle Charlie And His Dog Teddy (1970), featuring Jerry Jeff Walker (Paul Crosby)'s Mr Bojangles and Kenny Loggins' House at Pooh Corner, although they became famous with the live Nashville celebration of Will The Circle Be Unbroken (1972).

As the last vestiges of the hippy civilization were submerged by mandolins and banjos, the bands that originated from the Byrds and from the Buffalo Springfield became repetitive and predictable. The dynasty was continued by mediocre country-rockers such as Poco and Kenny Loggins & Jim Messina, until the Eagles (2), a super-group of sorts, featuring songwriters Don Henley and Glenn Frey, originally inspired by Crosby Stills & Nash, gave country-rock a more personal and universal meaning, from the melancholy western vignettes of Desperado (1972) to the robust hard-rock of Hotel California (1976).

The effect on the conservative (sometimes fascist) Nashville culture was beneficial, though. A number of country singers began to behave like hippies, particularly in Texas. In 1976 the album Wanted: The Outlaws, featuring Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser (a member of vocal trio Glaser Brothers) and Jessi Colter, gave them a name. It also became the first country album to be certified platinum. Willie Nelson had already broken the laws of the "Nashville sound" on his existential concept Yesterday's Wine (1971), Shotgun Willie (1973) and Phases & Stages (1974), another concept album. His art peaked with the mystical Far-West parable Red Headed Strangers (1975), the country equivalent of the rock opera, while he continued to have melodic hits such as Fred Rose's Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain (1975), On The Road Again (1980) and Always On My Mind (1982).

Waylon Jennings' contribution to the Nashville revolution was mainly Honky Tonk Heroes (1973), mostly written by Billy Joe Shaver. Shaver was also the author of Georgia on a Fast Train (1973) and I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal (1980).

Kris Kristofferson wrote Me And Bobby McGee (1969), Sunday Morning Coming Down (1969), Help Me Make It Through The Night (1970), and Silver Tongued Devil (1971).

A member of Kristofferson's band, bassist and organist Billy Swan, penned the catchy rockabilly-tinged I Can Help (1974).

Delbert McClinton was a volcanic shouter and harmonica player who mixed soul, jump blues and honky-tonk, and penned Shaky Ground (1970), Solid Gold Plated Fool (1975), Two More Bottles Of Wine (1978).

Yet another Texan, Jewish cowboy Richard "Kinky" Friedman, debuted an irreverent (often offensive) brand of country music, tinged with black humour, on Sold American (1973).

David-Allan Coe, born in Ohio, was perhaps the real "outlaw" of this generation (he did jail for murder), a bluesy singer and a morbid persona who emerged with The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy (1974), and succeeded in diverse styles such as the anthemic Take This Job And Shove It (1978) and the metaphysical The Ride (1983).

Another real outlaw (and also from Ohio) was Donald "Johnny Paycheck" Lytle, Nashville's honky-tonking bard of dark stories, such as in the 1966 triptych of The Lovin' Machine, Bobby Bare's Motel Time Again, Jukebox Charlie, before going through rehabilitation and becoming a star (Don't Take Her She's All I Got, 1971; David-Allan Coe's Take This Job And Shove It, 1978), despite renewed trouble with the justice.

Celtic revival 1971-74

One of the great themes of the folk revival was the rediscovery and revitalization of the Celtic tradition. Alan Stivell started the commercial phenomenon with Renaissance De L'Harpe Celtique (1971) and Chemins De Terre/ From Celtic Roots (1973), and achieved his masterpiece with Tir Na Nog/ Symphonie Celtique (1980). The Chieftains had begun in the early 1960s, but fame was bestowed on them by less authentic (and more creative) albums such as Chieftains (1973) and Bonaparte's Retreat (1977). Clannad introduced electronics and world-music into Celtic music, starting with Clannad (1974) and arriving at the lushly arranged and dreamy folk-pop music of Fuaim (1982), which sparked the solo career of the group's youngest member, Enya.

Soul 1970-72

At the turn of the decade, black artists such as Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder began producing artsy soul records that clearly violated the spirit of the genre. It was a way to "westernize" the most authentic African music. However, they coupled the sophisticated (and frequently orchestral) arrangements with erudite and sociopolitically-aware lyrics that rescued their songs from pop cliches.

Smokey Robinson's The Tears Of A Clown (1970), which fused vaudeville, classical music and soul music, is representative of the level of craftsmanship achieve by this generation of black artists. Marvin Gaye's album What's Going On (1971), possibly the best black pop album of all times, crowned that era. The skills in composition, scoring and studio production led to lengthy orchestral pop-dance-soul tracks, such as Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul (1969) and Shaft (1971), Curtis Mayfield's Superfly (1972), and Stevie Wonder's concept albums Music Of My Mind (1972), the first collection written, produced and played (mostly) by himself, and recorded when he was only 22 but already a star, Talking Book (1972), one of the most adventurous pop albums of the time in the use of electronic instruments, Innervisions (1973), a social fresco of symphonic proportions, and the monumental and ambitious Songs In The Key Of Life (1976). Clearly, these were the prodromes of the music that would be called "disco-music", as Barry White's Love's Theme (1973) proved.

Roots-rock 1971-73

Hot Tuna, formed by remnants of Jefferson Airplane (Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady), dispensed an unorthodox form of roots-rock, a bluesier and lighter version of the Band, on effervescent albums such as Burgers (1972).

Ranking among the most original and humorous innovators of roots-rock, Little Feat revisited blues, gospel, country, boogie, soul, funk, rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll on albums such as Sailin' Shoes (1972), Dixie Chicken (1973) and Feats Don't Fail Me Now (1974), and sabotaged them with bizarre instrumental parts.

The operation carried out by the Doobie Brothers in the Bay Area was similar in spirit to the Creedence Clearwater Revival, because they, too, composed a soundtrack for the USA's blues-collar class without copying any of the pre-existing genres but rather coining a modern language (that the average USA citizen could immediately identify with) out of those archaic languages. They inherited the vocal harmonies of their Californian forebears, but then proceeded to drench them into an eclectic stew of soul, country, gospel, boogie, funk and jazz. But, ultimately, the secret of Listen To The Music (1972), China Groove (1973), Black Water (1974) and Take Me In Your Arms (1975) was an easy-going laid-back attitude.

The J. Geils Band in Boston offered an ironic take on rhythm'n'blues (shouter Peter Wolf on vocals, Jerome "Jay" Geils on guitar, Seth Justman on organ, Dick "Magic Dick" Salwitz on harmonica), starting with the wild Bloodshot (1973) via the hard-rock of Monkey Island (1977) to the effervescent party-music of Freeze Frame (1981).

Quite unique were the Dixie Dregs, from Georgia, led by virtuoso guitarist Steve Morse. They played a mixture of jazz-rock and southern-boogie that bridged the Allman Brothers Band and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, bluegrass and heavy metal, particularly on their second all-instrumental album What If (1978).

Progressive bluegrass 1971-75

The "progressive bluegrass" movement (a brainchild of John Fahey) that blossomed during the first half of the 1970s represented an artistic alternative to country-rock. While country-rock was focusing on the conventions of the country ballad, a number of country-related musicians explored more adventurous formats.

John Fahey's "primitivism" infected a naive soul such as Leo Kottke, a virtuoso guitarist whose 6 & 12 String Guitar (1972), Greenhouse (1972) and My Feet Are Smiling (1973) contain breath-taking instrumental excursions into the childish imagination of an ordinary simpleton. His domestic and rural storytelling (with or without words) indulge in the speed and intricacy of ragtime and bluegrass but also the pity and tenderness of folk music.

Among fiercely independent, eccentric and isolated contributors to the canon of progressive folk music, two characters stand out. John Hartford penned the southern vignettes of Aereo-plain (1971) and Mark Twang (1976), which are both caricatural and emphatic. Norman Blake assembled an ensemble of masterful players to perform chamber music for bluegrass string band on The Fields Of November (1974).

The best disciple of Holy Modal Rounders' acid-folk was Michael Hurley, a bizarre folk-singer who masterminded two demented masterpieces such as Have Moicy (1975) and Long Journey (1976), both disfigured by his quavering growl and haphazard guitar picking, and his cohort Jeffrey Frederick, whose Spiders In The Moonlight (1977) is no less heretical.

In 1976 David Grisman coined "jazzgrass", a fusion of jazz and bluegrass. Grisman had experimented with jazz and country on Earth Opera's The Great American Eagle Tragedy (1969), mostly arranged by Peter Rowan, and on the historical session of Muleskinner (1974), featuring both Rowan and Greene of Seatrain. The David Grisman Quintet (1977), featuring guitarist Tony Rice, was the album that Stephane Grappelli in person played on Hot Dawg (1979) and Grisman perfected his line-up on Quintet '80 (1980): Darol Anger on violin, Mike Marshall on mandolin, Mark O'Connor on guitar, and Bob Wasserman on stand-up bass. Each of these musicians would continue Grisman's mission. Mark O'Connor's Markology (1979) and Tony Rice's Acoustics (1979) were the first albums to implement the master's vision. The others would follow in the 1980s.

In the tradition of John Fahey's avantgarde folk music, Eugene Chadbourne was a free improviser whose roots were in rural white music but whose technique borrowed from jazz and extreme rock guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia. Chadbourne added to the mix a surreal sense of humour and an appreciation of the USA avantgarde (Edgar Varese, Frank Zappa). Chadbourne was also unique for having been an avantgarde composer in the classical tradition, a jazz improviser, a folk musician and the member of a rock band (Shockabilly). Unfortunately, the prolific Chadbourne has produced too many mediocre albums, but at least Solo Acoustic Guitar (1975) and Collected Symphonies (1985) rise above the average.

Nostalgia 1972-76

Nostalgia is a recursive phenomenon in popular music. Every so many years, the clock is set back a few years, and the sounds that were just beginning to be forgotten are brought back, dressed in flashy new clothes.

The blues revival continued with Roy Buchanan's stylized blues, particularly on his debut album, Roy Buchanan (1972), and Bonnie Raitt, an immensely talented bottleneck guitarist and raspy, husky contralto, arguably the greatest blues-woman since Janis Joplin. who matured with Give It Up (1972). However, more original artists took the blues to places where it had never been.

Ry Cooder had pioneered the musical reconstruction of past eras. Others exploited that idea in several guises.

NRBQ (New Rhythm And Blues Quartet) rode the nostalgia movement without sacrificing a very personal, irreverent, eccentric approach to the pop, blues, jazz, and country traditions, best demonstrated on Scraps (1972).

Manhattan Transfer, a USA institution of four-part close harmony since they scored with Coming Out (1976), transformed from novelty act of the nostalgia movement to chamber performers with Extensions (1979).

The eccentric and eclectic Leon Redbone, armed with his baritone croon and yodel and his nostalgic orchestrations (heavy on the strings and horns), devoted his career to injecting new life into the blues, jazz, vaudeville, ragtime and folk traditions of the roaring 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, starting with On The Track (1976).

The Roches were a trio of female folksingers who made a career of simple tunes enhanced with old-fashioned vocal harmonies (in the tradition of barbershop quartets and doo-wop) on albums such as Roches (1979).

The impeccable compositions of the McGarrigle Sisters, notably the ones on Kate And Anna McGarrigle (1976) and Dancer With Bruised Knees (1977), marked a return to the folk roots that had been forgotten during the post-hippy years.

In 1973 George Lucas' film American Graffiti launched the nostalgic revival nation-wide, but this time the target was the music of the white middle-class of the 1950s and 1960s.

Power-pop 1972-73

Abba were the reigning champions of pop during the 1970s. They began with effervescent vocal harmonies coupled with catchy upbeat refrains, notably Waterloo (1974) and Fernando (1976), but then proved to excel also in the discos, with Dancing Queen (1977), Gimme Gimme Gimme (1979) and the formidable Lay All Your Love On Me (1981), and finally ventured into the romantic melodrama with Knowing Me Knowing You (1977) and Winner Takes It All (1980). Supertrouper (1981) returned them to their naive-pop glory, and, after Abba disbanded, their leaders and songwriters managed to top all of this with a superb exotic pastiche, Murray Head's One Night In Bangkok (1985).

Throughout the ages of hard-rock, progressive-rock, punk-rock and the new wave, Alex Chilton was the prophet of power-pop, of unadulterated melody, of four-part vocal harmonies, of jingle-jangle guitars, of hard-rock riffs, and of crystal-clear production. He had already pocketed a hit with the Box Tops, Wayne Carson Thompson's The Letter (1967), when he joined the Big Star. Their Radio City (1974) is the quintessential power-pop album, on which the Beatles' vocal harmonies, the Byrds' jingle-jangle and the Who's power riffs become terms of the same equation. Third, recorded in 1974 but released only four years later, was harder and bleaker. Chilton's retro` ideology eventually came to permeate the new wave and exerted a huge influence on Brit-pop of the 1990s.

The Raspeberries, who debuted in 1972, were also highly derivative of the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

In terms of records sold, the biggest sensation of the early 1970s was the Osmonds, a quintet of (white) Mormon children that competed with the (black) Jackson Five, starting with One Bad Apple (1971).

Reggae 1967-76

The word "reggae" was coined around 1960 in Jamaica to identify a "ragged" style of dance music, that still had its roots in New Orleans rhythm'n'blues. However, reggae soon acquired the lament-like style of chanting and emphasized the syncopated beat. It also made explicit the relationship with the underworld of the "Rastafarians" (adepts of a millenary African faith, revived Marcus Garvey who advocated a mass emigration back to Africa), both in the lyrics and in the appropriation of the African nyah-bingi drumming style (a style that mimics the heartbeat with its pattern of "thump-thump, pause, thump-thump"). Compared with rock music, reggae music basically inverted the role of bass and guitar: the former was the lead, the latter beat the typical hiccupping pattern. The paradox of reggae, of course, is that this music "unique to Jamaica" is actually not Jamaican at all, having its foundations in the USA and Africa.

An independent label, Island, distributed Jamaican records in the UK throughout the 1960s, but reggae became popular in the UK only when Prince Buster's Al Capone (1967) started a brief "dance craze". Jamaican music was very much a ghetto phenomenon, associated with gang-style violence, but Jimmy Cliff's Wonderful World Beautiful People (1969) wed reggae with the "peace and love" philosophy of the hippies, an association that would not die away. In the USA, Neil Diamond's Red Red Wine (1967) was the first reggae hit by a pop musician. Shortly afterwards, Johnny Nash's Hold Me Tight (1968) propelled reggae onto the charts. Do The Reggay (1968) by Toots (Hibbert) And The Maytals was the record that gave the music its name. Fredrick Toots Hibbert's vocal style was actually closer to gospel, as proven by subsequent hits (54-46, 1967; Monkey Man, 1969; Pressure Drop, 1970).

A little noticed event would have far-reaching consequences: in 1967, the Jamaican disc-jockey Rudolph "Ruddy" Redwood had begun recording instrumental versions of reggae hits. The success of his dance club was entirely due to that idea. Duke Reid, who was now the owner of the Trojan label, was the first one to capitalize on the idea: he began releasing singles with two sides: the original song and, on the back, the instrumental remix. This phenomenon elevated the status of dozens of recording engineers.

Reggae music was mainly popularized by Bob Marley (1), first as the co-leader of the Wailers, the band that promoted the image of the urban guerrilla with Rude Boy (1966) and that cut the first album of reggae music, Best Of The Wailers (1970); and later as the political and religious (rasta) guru of the movement, a stance that would transform him into a star, particularly after his conversion to pop-soul melody with ballads such as Stir It Up (1972), I Shot The Sheriff (1973) and No Woman No Cry (1974).

Among the reggae vocal groups, the Abyssinians' Satta Massa Gana (1971) were representative of the mood of the era.

In 1972 reggae became a staple of western radio stations thanks to the film The Harder They Come and to Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now (1972).

Dub

More and more studio engineers were re-mixing B-sides of reggae 45 RPM singles, dropping out the vocals and emphasizing the instrumental texture of the song. The purpose was to allow disc-jockeys to "toast" over the record. Engineers became more and more skilled at refining the instrumental textures, especially when they began to employ sophisticated studio devices. Eventually, "dub" became an art on its own. The first dub singles appeared in 1971, but the man generally credited with "inventing" the genre is Osbourne Ruddock, better known as King Tubby, a recording engineer who in 1970 had accidentally discovered the appeal of stripping a song of its vocal track, and who engineered the first dub record, Carl Patterson's Psalm Of Dub (1971). When he got together with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, Blackboard Jungle (1973) was born: the first stereo "dub" album. It was a Copernican revolution: the engineer and the producer had become more important than the composer. It also marked the terminal point of the "slowing down" of Jamaican music, a process that had led from ska to reggae to rock steady. Compared with the original, dub was like a slow-motion version. a collaboration with melodica player Augustus Pablo, aka Horace Swaby, led to another seminal work, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (1976).

Rainford Hugh Perry, better known as Lee "Scratch" Perry, who had nursed the Wailers, pretty much set the reference standard for generations to come with Double Seven (1974), the first reggae album that overdubbed synthesizers, Revolution Dub (1975) and Super Ape (1976), one of the genre's masterpieces.

Melodica virtuoso Augustus Pablo penned the instrumental albums This Is Augustus Pablo (1973) and East of the River Nile (1977), two of the most atmospheric works of the genre.

Talk-over

"Rapping" originated from the complementary tradition of the "talk-over". The disc-jockeys of the sound systems used to accompany the dance tracks with impromptu melodic and spoken-word vocals, often simply to add enthusiasm to the dance. This eventually became an art in itself. U-Roy (Edwart Beckford) was possibly the first great talk-over artist, the man who turned dub into a highly-effective vehicle for agit-prop messages (Dynamic Fashion Way, 1969; Runaway Girl, 1976; Wake the Town, Wear You to the Ball). Other pioneers of rapping were Dennis "Alcapone" Smith, with Forever Version (1971), Prince Jazzbo and I Roy. Big Youth (Manley Buchanan) upped the ante with his wild sociopolitical raps (S-90 Skank, 1972; The Killer, 1973; House Of Dread Locks, 1975; Every Nigger Is A Star, 1976), most effectively on Dreadlocks Dread (1975). Originally, the technique of these "toaster" consisted in remixing other people's songs, removing the original vocals, emphasizing the rhythmic base, and overdubbing their own rhyming stories on the resulting track.

The golden age of Reggae

As reggae became a world attraction, styles multiplied and inbred with the USA genres.

Burning Spear, the project of Rastafarian visionary Winston Rodney, unleashed the supercharged Marcus Garvey (1976), perhaps the highest artistic achievements of reggae music.

Joseph Hill's vocal trio Culture were equally passionate, and the title-track from Two Sevens Clash (1977) became the anthem of the rasta-punks and coined "rockers reggae".

Ijahman Levi (Trevor Sutherland) was perhaps the most spiritual vocalist of his generation. His songs were religious hymns (Jah Heavy Lord, 1975; I'm A Levi, 1978; Are We A Warrior, 1978).

Ex-Wailers Peter Tosh, or Winston Hubert McIntosh, crossed over into rock territory with Legalize It (1976).

Other popular classics include Junior Marvin's Police And Thieves (1976) and Gregory Isaacs' Love Is Overdue (1974).

Salsa 1973-78

In 1973 the North-American son was renamed "salsa" for a tv special (by Izzy Sanabria of Fania Records, the equivalent of Motown for Latin music). In Puerto Rico salsa is also known as "guaguanco", a term that originally referred to a kind of rumba dance. Larry Harlow's orchestra rediscovered the fusion of charanga violins and conjunto trumpets (with the addition of electric instruments) on his milestone recording Salsa (1974) with vocalist Junior Gonzalez. The 1976 concert "Salsa" organized in New York by the label Fania launched the fad nation-wide. In the 1970s, the main centers for salsa were New York, Miami, and Colombia.

Ruben Blades, who had become Willie Colon's main composer after El Cazangero (1975), contaminated salsa with rock'n'roll and political issues on Siembra (1978), that contains Pedro Navaja and became the best-selling salsa album of all times.

In Venezuela, Angel Canales coined a jazzy trombone-driven kind of salsa on Angel Canales And Sabor (1976), while Cuban-born Roberto Torres was the defender of the tradition, and in New York veterans of Eddie Palmieri's orchestra formed Libre to play a more aggressive and jazzy kind of salsa, documented on Con Salsa Con Ritmo (1976).

The "voice" of salsa was Hector Lavoe', Colon's vocalist, whose best album was Comedia (1978), featuring the anthemic El Cantante, written by Blades and arranged by Colon.

The new sound of salsa owed to people like ubiquitous Puertorican trumpeter Luis "Perico" Ortiz and producer Louie Ramirez, whose album A Different Shade Of Black (1976) is credited with crossing over to pop music.

Other notable salsa hits of the 1970s were: Jose "Cheo" Feliciano's El Raton (1964), the first big hit of salsa when revived in 1974, Celia Cruz's Quimbara (1974), Eddie Palmieri's Vamonos Pal Monte (1976), Lloraras (1975), by Venezuelan combo Dimension Latina, featuring vocalist Oscar D'Leon, who later formed Salsa Mayor. But salsa was becoming a very vague term, as New York's group Tipica 73 proved on albums such as La Candela (1975), which is really a mixture of Latin dance rhythms.

New York's singer Henry Fiol used a traditional Cuban conjunto, Saoco, to sing the urban songs of Siempre Sere Guajiro (1976).

In the 1970s, a new dance was added to the Latin recipe: the Dominican Republic's merengue, yet another by-product of the Cuban habanera. The origins of the meringue actually go back centuries (it was already mentioned in writings of 1875), and the style can be said to have existed since at least the 1930s, and popularized by Angel Viloria in the 1950s. Wilfrido Vargas, whose El Barbarazo (1978) was considered a watershed event, Johnny Ventura, Cuco Valoy, Jossie Esteban, July Mateo, Francisco Ulloa were among the trend-setters of the 1980s.

During the 1960s, Trinidad coined a mixture of calypso and soul ("soul-calypso") that during the 1970s targeted the discos. Its was pioneered by Garfield "Lord Shorty" Blackman's Soul Calypso Music (1973), Winston "Mighty Shadow" Bailey' Bass Man (1974), Cecil "Maestro" Hume's Savage (1976), and Aldwyn "Lord Kitchener" Roberts ' Sugar Bum Bum (1978), the first world-wide hit of soca. Winston "Mighty Shadow" Bailey's If I Coulda I Woulda I Shoulda (1979) and Austin "Blue Boy" Lyons's Soca In The Shaolin Temple (1981) solidified the genre's appeal to disco-goers.

Calypso itself was torn between the revolutionary pressure coming from David Rudder, whose The Hammer (1986) was influenced by pop and soul, and the conservative attitude of Leroy "Black Stalin" Calliste, whose Caribbean Man (1979) harked back to the classics.

Colombia's Grupo Niche, led by guiro player Jairo Varela, played big-band multi-vocal salsa on Querer Es Poder (1981).

Afro-rock 1970-76

In the 1960s the soul and rock music of the USA spread in Ghana, and in 1971 the "Soul to Soul" festival helped bridge the worlds of USA black popular music and of Ghana's highlife, thus returning the supremacy to guitar-based bands: Nana Kwame Ampadu's African Brothers International Band, that cut Ebi Tie Ye (1967), Okukuseku, Noble Kings, Ashanti Brothers, Nana Ampadu, City Boys, Hi-Life International. In Nigeria, the most influential highlife bands included: Rex Lawson's Mayors Dance Band, Celestine Ukwu's Philosophers National, Osita Osadere's Soundmakers International, Oriental Brothers International Band, Orlando Owoh's Omimah Band, Oliver Akanite de Coque's Expo '76 Ogene Super Sounds. The fad of Afro-rock started with a group from Ghana based in London, Osibisa, formed by Teddy Osei, that struck gold with Music for Gong Gong (1970) and Sunshine Day (1976). Highlife was then quickly corrupted by rock, reggae and hip-hop. Notable albums of the 1970s included Party Time With CeeKay (1973) by Charles Kofi Mann and The Kusum Beat (1976) by Alfred Benjamin Crentsil's Sweet Talks. In Nigeria, Nico Mbarga's Sweet Mother (1976) was a turning point in the fusion of highlife and makossa. In the 1980s Ghanian acts George Darko and the Lumba Brothers (Charles "Daddy Lumba" Fosu and Nana "Lover Boy" Acheampong) who had emigrated to Germany launched a brief local fad, "burgher highlife".

Nigeria, the most populous country of the African continent, was soon at the vanguard of world-music.

Nigerian saxophonist, pianist and vocalist Fela Anikulapo Kuti coined a new style of music (Afro-beat) by combining James Brown's funk music, highlife and jazz. In 1966 he joined the Highlife Jazz Band. In 1968, after visiting the USA and being influenced by the "black power" movement, he also added sociopolitical lyrics. Persecuted by the Nigerian government, he became the voice of the oppressed. At his best, Kuti concocts lengthy improvised jams of bebop saxophone lines, Frank Zappa-esque horn fanfares, call-and-response vocals, and wild polyrhythms led by Tony Allen's spectacular drumming. His recordings include: London Scene (1970), still very derivative of James Brown, Gentleman (1973), one of his most popular albums, Zombie (1977), Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense (1987), Overtake Don Overtake Overtake (1990).

Nigeria (particularly the Yoruba region) is also the homeland of juju music, the African equivalent of USA's folk-rock: tribal polyrhythm wed to electric guitars. In the 1920s juju music was born (like the blues) as a music of the rural poor, but in 1958 Isaiah Kehinde Dairo began to transform it into an urban phenomenon, and in 1960 he introduced accordion into the ensemble.

Ebenezer Obey further modernized juju by drawing on highlife, and his lengthy jams (underpinning a spiritual longing) turned it into an exercise in trance, for example on Mo Tun Gbe De (1973).

On the surface, the intricate dance suites of Nigerian juju vocalist and guitarist "King" Sunny Ade` simply wed African percussion, call-and-response singing and western-style arrangements of guitars and synthesizers. But, often, the roles of guitarists and percussionists were swapped, as the latter drove the melody and the former drove the rhythm. The production emphasized the techniques of Jamaican dub, and sonic details often harked back to other ethnic traditions, such as the twang of country music. Ade`'s stylistic mixture reached maturity on Juju Music (1982).

Later, juju fused with other styles (both African and western) in the work of Dele Abiodun, who came of age with Beginning Of A New Era (1981), and Segun Adewale's Superstars International, that reached their best synthesis on Endurance (1982).

The Yoruba region's "fuji" music is closely related to Islam, although its origins are purely African. It is performed by ensembles of vocalists and percussionists. During the 1970s, the style was popularized by Sikiru "Barrister" Ayinde, Ayinya Kollington and child prodigy Salawa Abeni.

In the meantime, Cameroon's saxophonist Manu Dibango, who became famous thanks to the proto-disco groove of Soul Makossa (1972), fused African rhythms and melodies with reggae, notably on Gone Clear (1979), and funk, notably on Waka Juju (1982).

Dibango started a vogue for makossa (basically, highlife with a steady rhythm), that from Cameroon spread to nearby countries. In Ivory Coast, singer-songwriter Tou-Kone Daouda fused soukous and makossa on Mon Coeur Balance (1978). Nandipo (1974) combined western and African instruments and confronted sociopolitical issues.

Joseph Shabalala's Ladysmith Black Mambazo was a South African vocal group that specializes in the a-cappella harmonies called "mbube" (and its more refined version "isicathamiya") that originated in the golden mines of South Africa. The early albums, such as Ukusindiswa and Umthombo Wamanzi (1982), focused on call-and-response structures.

Possibly the greatest of the South-African groaners (sarcastic singers in a croaking/growling/roaring register), Simon "Mahlathini" Nkabinde created an exuberant brand of mbaqanga music on albums such as Putting on the Light (1975), backed by female singers the Mahotella Queens (heirs to the "smodern" tradition, a sort of Tamla soul adapted to Zulu's polyphonic choirs) and boasting the rock instrumental arrangements of producer, saxophonist and pennywhistle player West Nkosi (leader of the Makgona Tsohle Band with Marks Mankwane on guitar).

White singer-songwriter Johnny Clegg collaborated with South African black musician Sipho Mchunu to form Juluka, whose Scatterlings (1983) was South Africa's version of folk-rock, and then formed Savuka to craft the more cosmopolitan mix of Third World Child (1987).

Singer-songwriters 1970-74
The New York archetype 1970-72

For mysterious reasons, James Taylor, of all people, became the prototype for the erudite and creative singer-songwriter of the 1970s. Despite occasional (and half-hearted) nods to jazz and rhythm'n'blues, Taylor did not introduce significant innovations, and even his best album, Sweet Baby James (1970), hardly compares with the masterpieces of the era.

Ditto for veteran songwriter Carole King, whose solo album Tapestry (1971) was hailed as a revolution when, in fact, was still a collection of melodic pop songs.

Even more over-rated was Carly Simon, whose No Secrets (1972) propelled her to the top of the musical and the feminist movement.

On the other hand, Phoebe "Snow" Laub was the "real thing", a folk-jazz-blues contralto who seasoned the ballads of Phoebe Snow (1974) with scat and melisma.

Detroit's gospel singer Laura Lee explored the female condition on Women's Love Rights (1971), alternating singing and rap monologues. The idea was taken up in New York by Millie Jackson, who blended angry raps and erotic whispers on the concept album Caught Up (1974), a dramatic analysis of adultery (produced by Brad Shapiro).

Don McLean contributed to the renewal with the nine-minute saga American Pie (1971). Jim Croce excelled both at novelties, such as You Don't Mess Around with Jim (1972) and Bad Bad Leroy Brown (1973), and at pensive ballads, such as Time In A Bottle (1973) and I Got A Name (1973), written by Charles Fox. Harry Chapin crafted lengthy narratives, such as Taxi (1972) and Cats In The Cradle (1973).

Unbeknown to everybody, New York's songwriter Chip Taylor (Wes Voight), who had written the classics Wild Thing (1964) for the Troggs and Angel Of The Morning (1968) for Merilee Rush, invented "alt-country" before the term was coined with his albums Gasoline (1972) and especially Last Chance (1973).

Even less known at the time, Gary Higgins matched the intensity of David Crosby's psychedelic folk music with his lonely Red Hash (1973).

Chicago had its own school, best represented by John Prine, an odd hybrid, sincerely polemic in the tradition of Phil Ochs while sincerely honky-tonk in the tradition of Hank Williams. His debut album, John Prine (1971), was a powerful indictment of social ills via vignettes of blue-collar life. Steve Goodman penned the epic City Of New Orleans (1971).

The USA heartland, though, would always remain under the influence of country music. John "Denver" (Deutschendorf), who sang stately, epic odes to domestic, rural, nostalgic USA (Take Me Home Country Roads, 1971), was the best of the musicians who tried to harmonize country, rock and pop.

L.A. Renewal 1970-72
However, the innovations that would impact future generations took place west, not east.

Randy Newman revealed his prodigious talent on Twelve Songs (1970), a cycle of vignettes about life in the city, that boasted catchy melodies as well as eclectic arrangements. Both his existential pessimism and his orchestral skills peaked on another concept album, Sail Away (1972), while Good Old Boys (1974) displayed a dexterity at cross-breeding musical genres that was matched only by Tom Waits. Newman was a master of the short story, but the reason of his success lied in his uncanny fusion of popular styles, from Broadway show-tunes to Tin Pan Alley pop ballads to swing big-bands to rhythm'n'blues to tropical music to Salvation Army fanfares. His moral testament might well be the rock opera Faust (1995) that provides a corrosive commentary on the relationship between humans and their God.

Harry Nilsson ventured on a similar (but far less adventurous) route with the sardonic drunkard of Nilsson Schmilsson (1971).

Shawn Phillips was a bold follower of Tim Buckley and Van Morrison, and one of the most daring vocalists of the era. The lengthy, free-form compositions of Contribution (1970), Second Contribution (1970) and Collaboration (1971) mixed folk, rock, psychedelia, jazz, classical and Indian music. The latter two (his best) also featured orchestral arrangements by Paul Buckmaster that enhanced the impressionistic power of Phillips' music.

Among followers of Joni Mitchell, the most original was perhaps Linda Perhacs, who recorded only the intimate and surreal Parallelograms (1970).

Veterans of the folk-rock scene were instrumental in creating the sound that would become the quintessential USA sound.

Former Byrds singer Gene Clark vented his need for simplicity in the delicate lullabies of White Light (1971).

The "cosmic cowboy" Gram Parsons, after his stints with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, composed enough ballads for two albums, G.P. (1972) and especially Grievous Angel (1973), both featuring veteran James Burton on guitar, that consolidated the legend of a "poet maudit" who lived fast and died young (in 1973).

Emmylou Harris, the angelic soprano who accompanied Gram Parsons' urban nightmares, belonged to a new batch of country-pop singers (Linda Ronstadt, Maria Muldaur, Kim Carnes) who bridged the world of Nashville and the world of rock music. Harris was typical of the way these female singers were appropriating the rock repertory, although her best work would come much later in her career, notably Red Dirt Girl (2000).

In his solo career, former Byrds guitarist Roger McGuinn transformed the guitar-based sound of his old band into a semiotic discipline (his 12-string Rickenbaker being a primary "icon"), into a baroque art of crystal-clear sound, stately melody and tamed rock'n'roll rhythm. Roger McGuinn (1973) and especially Cardiff Rose (1976) defined the classic sound of the post-hippie synthesis.

Jackson Browne was far more significant than James Taylor in modernizing the trade. The atmosphere of his first album, Jackson Browne (1972), harks back to sacred hymns not to country-rock ballads, and the arrangements sounded like chamber music for piano, violin and guitar. The religious feeling increased on For Everyman (1973), that introduced his long, tormented meditations on life. Browne reached his bleak and cryptic zenith on Late For The Sky (1974), whose profound sermons have definitely left behind the style of folk-rock. His symbolic and universal parables were beginning to resemble philosophical essays. His major season ended with Pretender (1976), that marked the transition towards a more lively sound, but also proved his skills at crafting a new post-hippy ethos out of personal pain, bitterness and nostalgia.

One of the greatest and most distinctive musical geniuses of the 20th century, Tom Waits was apparently a "barbarian" but in reality an erudite post-modern artist. As far as the juxtaposition of primitive and intellectual art goes, he was a worthy disciple of Captain Beefheart. Never as in their cases was McLuhan wrong: the medium is definitely not the message. His albums are galleries (or full-fledged operas) of misfits, eccentrics and losers. Below the surface, they are also parables of fall and redemption set in the age of urban decay. In a sense, his opus is a compendium of urban cacophony.
His first major artistic achievement was the trilogy of Small Change (1976), Foreign Affairs (1977) and Blue Valentine (1978). The bittersweet vignettes of these albums formed the musical equivalent of Balzac's "comedie humaine" transposed to the lowlives of urban USA. Waits wed a very personal idiom, made up of free associations in the style of beat poetry, with an eclectic idea of what a "song" is, one that draws from diverse traditions of white and black popular music (swing, blues, gospel, lounge-music, vaudeville, Broadway show-tunes, bebop, religious hymns, marching bands, operetta, western soundtracks). What kept the whole together is Waits' voice, which was also the most unlikely element of cohesion, being the musical equivalent of the stench of a skunk. But his voice was more than a mere vehicle to sings his lyrics. His voice quickly became the "sound" of his music. Waits boasted one of the most flexible, expressive and, yes, touching voices in the history of popular music. Especially when coupled with the "pretty" arrangements of established genres, that voice became the perfect tool to depict the inner, anarchic "ugliness" of the individual within the organized "beauty" of society. The unitary and coherent qualities of his songs emanated out of a psychic landscape that was lugubrious and arcane, and in which the singer played the archetypical role of the visionary misfit.
The process of identification by the pop star with the masses of nomads, derelicts, bums and tramps reached a new stage with Swordfishtrombones (1983) and Rain Dogs (1985), his two masterpieces. Here Waits turned to theatre, thus enhancing the narrative content, while at the same time the acquisition of ever more refined arrangement techniques transformed his degenerate bacchanal into baroque elegance. Waits left the dark alleys of the junkies and climbed on the Broadway stages. The urban hobo became an elitist composer. In one of the most surprising mutations in the history of genetics, the most barbaric of songwriters turned out to be the most neo-traditional of composers.
Waits' syncretic art continued to flourish on Franks Wild Years (1987) and Bone Machine (1992), bordering on stylistic self-indulgence. Alice (2002), one of his most idyllic and ethereal works, was an absolute oddity in his repertoire of oddities.
Waits did not belong to any of the schools and movements of his age. Waits was unique in his being a misfit at heart, not a trendy one.

The South 1968-1971

Generally speaking, southern musicians were less interested in the "message" and more interested in the "sound".

A picturesque character who was a living encyclopedia of cajun, ranchera, rockabilly, rhythm'n'blues, western swing, Doug Sahm invented "roots-rock" before they invented the term. The psychedelic Honkey Blues (1968) and the tex-mex Mendocino (1969) established his persona of eccentric Bohemian chicano.

Joe South, who had composed Down In The Boondocks (1965) for Billy Joe Royal, Hush (1967) for Deep Purple, recorded the bleak soul-tinged Introspect (1968), on which he both sang and played several instruments, containing Games People Play and Rose Garden.

Veteran Oklahoman multi-instrumentalist Leon Russell also dealt with a broad range of styles, from the gospel-tinged Asylum Choir (1968) to the country-soul-jazz balladry of Shelter People (1971)

Few musicians have been so influential and so unknown as J.J. Cale, also from Oklahoma. His "laid-back" style became the standard of reference for most mainstream music, but JJ Cale was never mainstream himself. The ultimate independent, Cale was never much part of the music scene. His albums, beginning with the quintessential Naturally (1971), feature a subtle and subdued production, that leaves the voice and the guitar in the middle of the mix. The result is dreamy and hypnotic, and would be imitated by countless musicians.

Eccentrics 1970-1976

No question that Todd Rundgren is one of the most innovative pop and rock musicians of all times. If too many of his projects lacked artistic inspiration to match his ambition, the ones that did work remain milestones. To start with, Rundgren played all instruments by himself on Something/Anything (1972), the first case of "do it yourself" production. On this monumental endeavor he mixed all sorts of genres, from soul to pop, from hard-rock to country-rock, from funk to gospel, from rhythm'n'blues to folk-rock. The identity crisis becomes his identity on the equally superficial A Wizard/True Star (1973). However, this album emphasized the pop-soul melodic element, and the propensity for the format of the baroquely-produced collage/suite. Todd (1974) completed the assimilation of electronics and of hard-rock, while setting his chameleon-like musical persona on the stage of an imaginary music-hall. His next step was to invent a sort of futuristic heavy-metal music with the lengthy suites of Utopia (1974), a mixture of progressive-rock, techno-rock and shimmering studio sound. Rundgren was obsessed by a sort of titanic challenge that led him to continuously restart his career (he also produced the first video-disc and the first interactive album), but also condemned him to frequent failures. A living musical encyclopedia, Rundgren has few rivals when it comes to being "eclectic".

One of the most creative women in the history of music, and one of the first female composers of popular music, a pioneer of rap, live electronic music and synth-pop, Annette Peacock married jazz bassist Gary Peacock at 19 (in 1960) and was therefore exposed to the bohemian milieu of Greenwich Village's free-jazz lofts. The quintessential hippy, she was introduced to LSD by Timothy Leary in person, collaborated with surrealist painter Salvador Dali, and frequently shocked the establishment with her unconventional and uncompromising attitude. When she left Peacock for another jazz musician, Paul Bley (they married in 1966), she was given a chance to compose, sing and play (one of the first Moog synthesizers). Her compositions constitute the bulk of the albums that the Bley combo recorded in 1966-68 and the bulk of Annette and Paul Bley's "Synthesizer Show" albums (four of them recorded between 1970 and 1971), notably Dual Unity (1971) and Improvisie (1971). Peacock's first solo album, I'm The One (1972), a collection of jazz-blues ballads that were transfigured by dark and intimate premonitions, introduced her tormented stream of consciousness and her virtuoso vocal performance. She reached her artistic peak with the sensual and ethereal ballads of Sky-skating (1982), composed between 1972 and 1978, and the introverted lieder of I Have No Feelings (1986). Using her vocals in the convoluted, acrobatic fashion of progressive-rock, with minimal, sparse, discordant accompaniment (entirely played by herself) and disorienting dynamic, Peacock carved austere, stately forms that overflowed with pain and angst. The brainy blues/raps of Abstract-Contact (1988), propelled by dance rhythms, shifted the center of mass towards a more conventional format, but the slow, melancholy, skeletal love ballads of An Acrobat's Heart (2000) reaffirmed her commitment to self-flagellation.

Loudon Wainwright, misanthropic hobo and farcical comedian, fused wit and social commentary in a corrosive folk-rock style on Album III (1972).

Swamp Dogg, the brainchild of black producer Jerry Williams, toyed with psychedelic soul on Total Distruction To Your Mind (1970), an eccentric, satiric and sometimes erotic message-oriented commedy that borrowed from both Sly Stone and Frank Zappa. His Straight From My Heart (1971) was the first 12" 45 single. Presents The Brand New ZZ Hill (1972), a soul opera in three acts, crowned his zaniness with a demented feast of gags.

Jimmy Buffett, a hybrid of singer-songwriter, comedian, romantic individualist, eccentric and drunkard, who shines in the nostalgic and ironic vignettes of A White Sport Coat & A Pink Crustacean (1973).

The solemn meditations of Bruce Cockburn, at least from Sunwheel Dance (1972) to his zenith, In the Falling Dark (1976), were typical of the era's concerns with the meaning of life (in this case interpreted through a Christian metaphysics).

Maryland's Mark Tucker debuted with a limited-edition LP, Batstew (1975), that mixed poppy tunes and field recordings, sounding as demented as Wild Man Fischer against a backdrop of electronic sounds. After a long period of insanity, he crafted an avantgarde concept albums, In The Sack (1983), credited to T. Storm Hunter, highlighted by two psychedelic-jazz instrumentals, Shelly and Can't Make Love.

Britain 1970-72
The former Cream to enjoy popular success was Eric Clapton, despite the fact that his music was always highly derivative of other musicians (particularly J.J. Cale).

Pete Townshend was never as effective as he had been with the Who, despite focusing on his favorite format, the concept album and the rock opera with Who Came First (1972), White City (1985), Iron Man (1989), Psychoderelict (1993).

Vashti Bunyan composed Just Another Diamond Day (1970), a cycle of psalms drenched in eastern mysticism in the idyllic tone of early Donovan.

Van Der Graaf Generator's vocalist Peter Hammill expanded on that band's tense progressive-rock with his solo work. The nightmarish psychodramas of albums such as Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night (1973), that pioneered the fusion of chamber music and folk music, and especially Nadir's Big Chance (1975), that pioneered punk-rock, carry out morbid explorations of the subconscious.

The founder of Slapp Happy, singer-songwriter Anthony Moore proved his worth as an avantgarde composer with Pieces From The Cloudland Ballroom (1971), on which he overdubbed and looped three vocalists, a percussionist and himself over three extended compositions, but on Out (1976), unreleased for two decades, the songs were already taking on the surreal quality that would lead to Flying Doesn't Help (1979), an album in the vein of Syd Barrett's psychedelic-folk.

Far from being merely Fairport Convention's guitarist, Richard Thompson revealed a philosophical persona via a set of pensive, pessimistic and occasionally macabre ballads that sound more like religious psalms than folk-rock songs. He delivered them with a mixture of neo-classical composure and eccentric nonsense on Henry The Human Fly (1972) and especially I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight (1974). Then he absorbed sufism and proceeded to chisel out the stately, funereal elegies of Pour Down Like Silver (1975), and thus achieved the transcendental bleakness of his masterpiece, Shoot Out The Lights (1982), in which expressionist fear and existential suspense are sustained by erudite lyrics. Thompson would still sink into utter desolation, on the shiver-inducing Hand Of Kindness (1983), but mostly would maintain an emotional balance that translated into the mature elegance of Amnesia (1988) and Rumor And Sigh (1991)

Hawkwind's lyricist, Robert Calvert, composed two surreal concept albums, Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters (1974) and Lucky Leif and the Longships (1975), both arranged by Brian Eno.

John Cale, the Velvet Underground's psychedelic viola, was at heart a European intellectual, and his solo career showed how he had synthesized existentialism, expressionism and decadentism, although it failed to capitalize on his in-depth knowledge of the European and USA avantgarde. The Academy In Peril (1972) set his poems to scores for solo instrument, chamber ensemble or symphonic orchestra, but the neo-classical ambition obscured his downcast vision of the state and nature of humankind that came to the forefront on the humbler Fear (1974). This, his most poignant collection, secretes a uniform sense of tragedy out of a varied palette of moods and sounds: stately, hypnotic, distorted, macabre, surreal, atonal... He blended Syd Barrett, Jim Morrison (Doors), Neil Young, Brian Eno and Kevin Ayers, but also added a unique element of detachment. The stark, gloomy psychodramas of Music For A New Society (1982) confirmed his status as a black messiah of urban alienation. But Cale often indulged in pointless albums of pop ballads that overall detract from his merits. His adult and autumnal music was better served by the collaborations: Songs For 'Drella (1990), with Lou Reed, Wrong Way Up (1990), with Brian Eno, and especially Last Day On Earth (1995), with Bob Newirth. Even the concept of forging a new kind of romantic ballad from the marriage of rock music and classical music worked much better on the Nico albums that Cale arranged rather than on his own albums.

Kevin Coyne proved his talent on only one album, but it was a massive achievement: Marjory Razorblade (1973), a survey of ordinary life undertaken by an awful narrating voice, halfway between Captain Beefheart's drunken moaning and Syd Barrett's ecstatic candor, and accompanied by archaic and spartan instrumental manners that hark back to the bluesmen of the Delta and to pub folk songs.

On the commercial front, Paul McCartney remained true to the Beatles' cult of unadulterated melody. The media loved John Lennon for his public stands and his marriage with Yoko Ono, but his music was the quintessence of incompetent pretentiousness (when it wasn't reduced to trivial nursery rhymes). George Harrison was, surprisingly, the most creative of the three Beatles songwriters: Wonderwall (1968) and Electronic Sounds (1969) were pure avantgarde, and the triple-album All Things Must Pass (1970) was an ambitious hodgepodge of Donovan-esque raga-psychedelic folk-rock.

One of the greatest melodic tunesmiths of the 1970s, Elton John, born Reginald Dwight, coined a style of piano-based pop ballad that bridged gospel hymns and renaissance motets. The album-oriented approach of Tumbleweed Connection (1970) was soon abandoned for the catchy, romantic hits of his "glam" phase: Tiny Dancer (1971), Rocket Man (1972), Daniel (1973), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973), Don't Go Breaking My Heart (1976), etc. The double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) alone constituted an erudite compendium of pop music disguised as lightweight passtime.

Realism 1973-74

If James Taylor, Carole King and Carly Simon did little to emancipate the artist, they certainly did a lot to bring her/him closer to the audience. The identification of the star with the public was fostered by a new generation of singer-songwriters who were much more aware of the issues and the mood of their era.

Bruce Springsteen is the epitome of "epic". After Dylan and before the Ramones, he was one of the few musicians capable of transforming the mood of an entire generation into a "sound". If the rules to judge the significance of an artist are that a) he be indifferent to fads and trends; b) that his lyrics dig deep into his era and resonate with the souls of millions of people; c) that each record be, de facto, a concept album; d) that each song send shivers down the spine even without a catchy melody; then Springsteen is one of the greatest of all times.
Musically, Springsteen coined the model of the singer-songwriter of the 1980s, bridging the gap between the bluesman of the 1930s, the black shouter of the 1940s, the rocker of the 1950s, the folk-singer of the 1960s, the punk of the 1970s.
In many ways, Springsteen was the true heir to Woody Guthrie (Bob Dylan was never a populist). He sang about the dreams and the fears of ordinary white USA citizens. But he was also the heir to the blues, in an era in which the black nation was abandoning it for dance music.
Over the years, Springsteen grew up to become the eloquent spokesman of middle-class and blue-collar USA. His declamations combine populist demagogy, patriotic passion and prophetic vision in a way that is quintessentially USA. The alienated enthusiasm of his early days mutated first into a nostalgic glorification of the past and eventually into resigned grief. Dreams turned into memories, and exuberance turned into frustration. As the promised land faded away, Springsteen led the exodus from the international utopias to the virtues of ordinary people.
Springsteen conveyed all of this in energetic and intense performances that changed the whole meaning of the word "concert". His concert is a collective sacrificial ceremony that pours naked life into artistic form. Whether shouting or whispering, Springsteen "was" the voice of millions of USA citizens for which the "American dream" never materialized. His songs are the national anthems of that submerged nation. The stylistic fusion of The Wild The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle (1973), recalled both Van Morrison and Taj Mahal, while Born To Run (1975) introduced his torrential "wall of sound". The River (1980) summed everything up: pathos, epos and eros. Populist lyrics, granitic group sound, tender confessions, catchy refrains, hard-rock riffs, massive boogie grooves, rock'n'roll spasms, acoustic ballads: Springsteen and his band were the ultimate manufacturers of good vibrations. Sorrow and pessimism prevailed on subsequent albums (on which Springsteen frequently preferred the acoustic format), with the notable exception of Born In The USA (1984), another super-charged set of anthemic songs.

Springsteen towers over his generation, but he was not alone.

Elliott Murphy penned Aquashow (1973) that mixed Dylan's Blonde On Blonde with the decadent themes of glam-rock.

Billy Joel exhausted his artistic ambitions with the desolate fresco of Piano Man (1973) and later devoted his career to more commercial fare that borrowed from rock'n'roll (It's Still Rock And Roll To Me), Broadway show-tunes (New York State Of Mind), Tamla's party-music (Tell Her All About It, Uptown Girl), vocal harmony groups of the 1950s (The Longest Time), and old-fashioned pop ballads (This Is The Time).

Dan Fogelberg lived with the contradiction of being an urban (Los Angeles-based) country songwriter, penning soft ballads such as Power of Gold (1978) and a concept album like Innocent Age (1981) about the childhood traumas.

Brazil

Brazil lived under military dictatorship from 1964 until 1985. Despite the political repression (that forced many musicians into exile), Brazil experienced rapid economic growth that created a relatively wealthy middle-class. Brazil's economic boom mirrored the economic boom of a few years earlier in Western Europe, minus the political freedom.

If bossanova was the reactionary sound of the 1960s, "Tropicalismo" was the idealistic movement of the decade. It introduced foreign elements into Brazilian music (both jazz and rock) and it replaced the traditional instruments with modern instruments such as the electric guitar. The birth date of tropicalismo was the 1967 festival of the Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB): Caetano Veloso's Alegria Alegria and Gilberto Gil's Domingo no Parque defied the conventions of Brazilian music and were interpreted as a challenge to the dictatorship. Tropicalismo soon spread to poetry, the visual arts, theater and cinema, and, in turn, musical tropicalismo absorbed elements from the other arts. Veloso's and Gil's album Tropicalia ou Panis et Circensis (1968) became a dividing line in Brazilian culture. The three queens of Brazilian pop music were also influential in publicizing the new generation of songwriters: Gal Costa (a sort of Brazilian hippy), Maria Bethania (a sort of Brazilian androgynous husky Edith Piaf) and Elis Regina (perhaps the most gifted).

Caetano Veloso, the most literate and daring of the tropicalista, whose music debuted on Gal Costa's Domingo (1967), expanded the horizons of Brazilian music by turning it into a highly personal experience. Alegria Alegria (1967) and Tropicalia (1967) virtually defined tropicalismo. Caetano Veloso (1968) and Transa (1972) introduced an austere, vulnerable and introverted voice who was not afraid to experiment with the sound of the anglosaxon music of the (psychedelic) era. Muito (1978), the lush, eclectic albums Estrangeiro (1989) and Livro (1998) were experimental works that continued to upgrade Veloso's stylistic hybrid.

On his own, Gilberto Gil concocted a pop-samba-jazz-rock fusion on Expresso 2222 (1972).

The other great poet of the movement, Milton Nascimento, coined a hybrid style that combined elements of pop, samba and jazz with progressive-rock arrangements and erudite lyrics. His fluid and energetic vocal style peaked with the double-album Clube Da Esquina (1972) and its cycle of sophisticated ballads, and lent itself naturally to jazz, as proven by Milagre Dos Peixes (1973), the ultimate manifestation of his soundpainting (percussion, piano, strings, guitar, falsetto vocals, jungle sounds), Minas (1975), Geraes (1976) and collaborations with Airto Moreira, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.

Egberto Gismonti, fused European classical music, jazz-rock and Brazilian choro on albums such as Sonho 70 (1970), Academia De Dancas (1974), and Dance Das Cabecas (1977).

Chico Buarque, an outspoken critic of the dictatorship, composed hit songs, starting with Morte e Vida Severina (1965) and A Banda (1966), and albums, notably Construcao (1971), that best represented the zeitgeist of the age. A writer and a playwright, he also composed Opera do Malandro (1978), based on John Gay's Three-Penny Opera.

Italy

Italy had a prolific school of singer-songwriters (or, better, "cantautori"), who began to emerge in the years following the student riots of 1968, a sort of sociocultural divide for post-war Italy. Lucio Battisti's melancholy soul-pop ballads (co-written with lyricist Giulio "Mogol" Rapetti) pretty much defined the post-1968 era: Il Paradiso (1969), Un'Avventura (1969), Acqua Azzurra Acqua Chiara (1969), Mi Ritorni In Mente (1969), Emozioni (1970), Pensieri e Parole (1971) and Il Mio Canto Libero (1972). Fabrizio DeAndre` was an epic bard, capable of bridging the French "chansonniers" of the 1950s and the Greenwich Movement of the 1960s, who crafted the pessimist Dante-esque journey in the metropolitan hell Tutti Morimmo A Stento (1968), the socio-religious parables of La Buona Novella (1970), and the philosophical exotica of Creuza de Ma' (1982), a collaboration with former PFM's Mauro Pagani. Francesco Guccini was an articulate sociopolitical chronicler who portrayed his generation's mood on Radici (1972). Alan Sorrenti crafted the free-form psychedelic concept Aria (1972), with a lengthy title-track in the vein of Tim Buckley, perhaps the most innovative piece of the Italian "cantautori". Something similar was achieved by Juri Camisasca's La Finestra Dentro (1973). Claudio Rocchi had predated both with transcendent and psychedelic title-track of Volo Magico N.1 (1971).
Franco Battiato ventured into avantgarde music with Fetus (1972), Pollution (1973), perhaps his zenith, Sulle Corde Di Aries (1973), Clic (1974), that mix electronics, found sounds, collage techniques, rock instruments and catchy arias, thus bridging Italy's melodic tradition and Germany's Kraftwerk-ian expressionism in a visionary whole.
Paolo Conte, who had already written some of Italy's most memorable melodies (such as Azzurro, 1968), coined an understated style of crooning halfway between Leonard Cohen and Louis Armstrong, as well as an elegant style of arrangement that mixed freely Latin and African-American cliches. Albums such as Paolo Conte (1984) portrayed a unique philosopher-chronicler-bard.

Japan

In the 1970s, a few Japanese singer-songwriters began experimenting with new formats. The trend yielded albums such as Kan Mikami's Bang (1974), heavy on electronics and free-jazz, and Kazuki Tomokawa's Sakura No Kuni No Chiru Naka O (1980), with a 15-minute Wagnerian tour de force.

Decadence 1969-76

As usual, the "dark age" of the early 1970s, mainly characterized by a general re-alignment to the diktat of mainstream pop music, was breeding the symptoms of a new musical revolution. In 1971 Johnny Thunders formed the New York Dolls, a band of transvestites, and John Cale (of the Velvet Underground's fame) recorded Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers, while Alice Cooper went on stage with his "horror shock" show. In London, Malcom McLaren opened a boutique that became a center for the non-conformist youth. The following year, 1972, was the year of David Bowie's glam-rock, but, more importantly, Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell formed the Neon Boys, while Big Star coined power-pop. Finally, unbeknownst to the masses, in august 1974 a new band debuted at the CBGB's in New York: the Ramones. The future was brewing, no matter how flat and bland the present looked.

Decadence-rock 1969-75

Rock'n'roll had always had an element of decadence, amorality and obscenity. In the 1950s it caused its collapse and quasi-extinction. In the 1960s it fell victim to the general political and moral re-alignment to old-fashioned values. But it never completely disappeared. Jim Morrison, Lou Reed and Kim Fowley kept the outrageous alive in rock'n'roll, as did the Rolling Stones in Britain. In fact, between 1968, when the Cockettes, a hippie-decadent musical theater troupe of drag queens, debuted in San Francisco, and 1974, when the Rocky Horror Picture Show was released, that aspect of rock music became a mass product. Britain called it "glam-rock", and began its genealogy with Marc Bolan's T.Rex. With albums such as Unicorn (1969), Marc Bolan played the role of trait d'union between Donovan and David Bowie, between the hippy culture and the glam culture. His fairy-tale lyrics and his tribal boogies belonged to a different age, but T.Rex's Ride A White Swan (1970) is the song that opened the golden age of glam-rock, and Electric Warrior (1971) was the album that wed this genre to hard-rock, a crucial intuition.

However, it was David Bowie who brought glam-rock to its commercial (if not artistic) peak. While his musical skills are dubious at best, there is no question that Bowie performed a Copernican revolution, turning marketing into the essence of his art. All great phenomena (and swindles) of popular music, from Elvis Presley to the Beatles, had been, first and foremost, marketing phenomena, but Bowie transformed that marketing phenomenon into an art on its own.
Bowie was, in many ways, the heir, no matter how perverted, of Andy Warhol's pop art and of the underground culture of the 1960s. He adopted some of the most blaspheme issues and turned them upside down to make them precisely what they had been designed to fight: a commodity. Bowie embodied the quintessence of artificial art, raising futility to paradigm and focusing on exhibition rather than on content. Bowie made irrelevant the relevant and relevant the irrelevant. Each element of his art is the emblem of a true artistic movement; however, the ensemble of those emblems constitutes no more than a puzzle, no matter how intriguing, of symbols, a roll of incoherent images projected against the wall at twice the speed, a dictionary of terms rather than a poem, and, in the best of hypotheses, a documentary of the cultural fads of his era.
After years of apprenticeship, that had only yielded one hit, Space Oddity (1968), futuristically arranged by Paul Buckmaster, Bowie was reborn as the sophisticated ultra-pathetic dandy of Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust (1972), whose main musical features were Mick Ronson's orchestral arrangements and Rick Wakeman's keyboards. What caused sensation was the show, not the music.
Then Bowie began his nomadic artistic life, an endless series of transformations: hard-rock, soul, disco-music and so forth. Following the naive foray into avantgarde of Station to Station (1976), Brian Eno helped him design the "Berlin trilogy", for which Bowie adopted an electronic and expressionistic stance, in sync with the "new wave" of those years: Low (1977), Heroes (1977), which is the best of the three, and Lodger (1979), which is vastly inferior. The songs on these albums were becoming increasingly abstract. They still relied on atmosphere rather than on content, but the atmosphere was apocalyptic rather than sensationalistic.

Meanwhile, In the U.S.A. Alice Cooper was the prophet of bad taste. Alice Cooper became the first star of horror-shock rock, relying on the most truculent and ridiculous show of the era. But Cooper had been a disciple of Frank Zappa's satirical operettas, mainly on Pretties For You (1969), and later became, first and foremost, a terrific craftsman of "teenage anthems" in the tradition of Chuck Berry. Epically defiant, Under My Wheels (1971) and School's Out (1972) represent the authentic, subversive spirit of rock'n'roll, while albums such as Love It To Death (1971) continued to recycle and borrow themes from the vaudeville, Broadway showtunes, horror movies, and the Grand Guignol.

In Los Angeles the Sparks set up a futuristic music-hall that borrowed from pop, soul, hard-rock and progressive-rock. But it was hardly outrageous at all: albums such as Kimono My House (1974) were pure entertainment.

The true decadents of New York, rediscovered by David Bowie, were Lou Reed (ex Velvet Underground) and Iggy "Pop" Osterberg (ex Stooges). Iggy Pop's The Idiot (1977) converted the monster to harsh electronic landscapes, the same metamorphosis carried out by Bowie's Low.

Lou Reed became one of the most significant voices of the 1970s and 1980s. From the very beginning, the decadence of urban life was the central theme of his work. His approach wed the Velvet Underground's psychedelic depression with new expressionistic overtones, that become explicit on his first major artistic success, Berlin (1973). His early albums were devoted to a bleak analysis of the corrosive power of vice. Reed sang with almost no emotion, and his albums had the feeling of reportages. Reed's monotonous voice and light boogie rhythm virtually created a new kind of singer-songwriter, one who can be simultaneously a detached observer and an involved protagonist. Metal Machine Music (1975) represented an odd parenthesis, but one that, in retrospect, announced industrial music and noise music. A double album of pure cacophony, it stands as the most unremitting sonic experience of the first 20 years of rock music. Inevitably, he was adopted as a sort of guru by the punk generation, and his Street Hassle (1978) reflects that meeting of two generations. Blue Mask (1982) and Legendary Hearts (1983) signaled adulthood, as Reed switched his focus from the basements of the junkies to the neighborhoods of the middle class. A humbler, gentler Reed began to sing about domestic and suburban issues. The ultimate extroverted became an introverted, anti-heroic and populist chronicler of the middle age. New York (1989) was, in fact, his masterpiece. In a sense, that album ended the pilgrimage that Reed had begun in Berlin. It ended his moral odyssey in his own city. It closed the circle. And, musically, it did so by quoting the roots of USA popular music, from folk to jazz to gospel to blues to country. The mournful tone of these albums found an application within the private sphere with two albums that are, de facto, requiems: one for Andy Warhol, Songs For 'Drella (1990), a collaboration with John Cale, and one for his friends who died of cancer, Magic And Loss (1992). They compose the modern equivalent of a Medieval fresco of the years of the plague.

In many ways, glam-rock and decadent rock in general were instrumental in bringing about the punk revolution.

In England Mott The Hoople predated punk-rock with Mott (1973), and Bill Nelson's Be Bop Deluxe predated new wave by fusing Hendrix's guitar neurosis and Eno's electronic paranoia, particularly on Futurama (1975).

In the USA, Johnny Thunders and his cohorts of tranvestites, the New York Dolls, played furious and catchy rock'n'roll on their debut album, New York Dolls (1973). Their trash aesthetic descended from the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground, but their frantic pace descended from the rockers of the 1950s and from the surf bands of the early 1960s, while their anthemic melodies came from the Who and the Animals. But what made them dangerous were the fire power (all instruments were played like automatic weapons) and the attitude (not exactly consistent with the prevailing mood of re-alignment). Thunders went on to form the Heartbreakers, who were, basically, an updated version of the New York Dolls for the punk generation. The songs on L.A.M.F. (1977) were slogans, and the album as a whole was a personal diary.

The Dictators were the clearest link with the Ramones. Their album Go Girl Crazy (1975) was a blaspheme totem of junk culture. The band recycled rock'n'roll, surf music, folk-rock and Mersey-beat, but they played it in fast and loud manner of hard-rock, and added a demented, spastic attitude that transformed Frank Zappa's or the Fugs' satirical rock into a terrorist attack.

Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers played hypnotic rock'n'roll, a splendid recreation of the Velvet Underground sound which, released a few years later on Modern Lovers (1976), would introduce the punk generation to urban neurosis.

In Canada, Edgar Breau's Simply Saucer, that only released a single, played a mixture of free jazz, Pink Floyd, Stooges and the Velvet Underground. Cyborgs Revisited collects the unreleased material of 1974-75.

In Los Angeles, Kim Fowley invented the Runaways in 1975. They were quintessential Los Angeles teenage girls (including Joan Jett and Lita Ford) and musically incompetent. Fowley turned them into a glam sensation, trained them to play hard-rock and provided them with bubblegum-pop refrains. Queens Of Noise (1977) remains their quintessential outrage.

Heavy metal 1972-76

In 1968, Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild had coined the expression "heavy metal". Heavy-metal soon became the USA term referring to hard-rock.

More than anyone else, it was Blue Oyster Cult that defined the new genre. By assimilating an encyclopedic repertory of sonic graffiti (rock'n'roll, swing, Mersey-beat, blues-rock, psychedelia, hard-rock, southern boogie, honky-tonk) and mixing it with the sound of Who, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, this emanation of a decadent New York milieu (personified by their inventor, producer and composer Sandy Pearlman), became the flag-bearer of a new apolitical hard-rocking sound. References to satanic cults and to gothic/sci-fi B-movies on Blue Oyster Cult (1972) and Tyranny and Mutation (1973) were carefully wrapped in a lattice of crude riffs and menacing rhythms. An increasingly theatrical and magniloquent approach, and a corresponding simplification of song structures, began with Secret Treaties (1974), Agents of Fortune (1976).

Aerosmith well represented the link between heavy-metal and the wild and depraved brand of rhythm'n'blues promoted by urban punks such as the Rolling Stones and the Stooges, the reference points for vocalist Steve Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry. Aerosmith's true spirit on Toys In The Attic (1975) and Rocks (1976) was actually quite different from the loud and truculent cliche' created by British hard-rock and pursued by B.O.C. Even ten years later, when they rejuvenated themselves on Pump (1989), Aerosmith were more interested in drama, narrative and atmosphere than in "heavy" postures.

Kiss were the exact opposite. They did indulge in all the stereotypes of the genre, emphasizing monster grooves, loud guitars, satanic voices and sexist lyrics. Kiss (1974) took Alice Cooper's glam-rock and made it even less credible, emphasizing every possible aspect of their macabre and obscene antics. Their "songs" were brutal and monochord, relying on the repetition of very simple ideas. The refrains were as trivial as bubblegum music, but truculent beyond Black Sabbath.

The Australian band AC/DC was one of the greatest heavy-metal bands of all times, and one of the most authentic acts of rock'n'roll. They embodied the wild, rebellious essence of rock music like few other bands before punk-rock. They were the opposite of the intellectual singer-songwriter or the brainy progressive-rock or the decadent glam-rock of the 1970s: they were not the brain and not the heart but the guts of rock'n'roll. Hoarse and feverish vocals (first Bon Scott and then Brian Johnson), and Angus Young's dirty, bluesy guitar licks (a combination already tested by Free in Britain) propelled the anthemic It's A Long Way To The Top (1975), Problem Child (1976), Whole Lotta Rosie (1977), You Shook Me (1980) all the way to the frenzied Heat Seeker (1988). Albums such as Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap (1976), Highway To Hell (1979) and Back In Black (1980) were shots of unbridled hedonism.

Journey, formed by three California veterans, played competent but uninspired pop-metal with progressive-rock overtones. Neil Schon's shimmering guitar riffs propelled the energetic and feverish instrumental jams of Journey (1975).

But Boston were the archetype of pop-metal, and their album Boston (1976) would remain one of the all-time best-sellers.

Rush re-invented the power-trio, which so far had been modeled on Cream. Albums such as the sci-fi concept 2112 (1976) offered a synthesis of Yes, Black Sabbath, King Crimson and Led Zeppelin. The use of synthesizers and the conversion to a more conventional format led to the pop-metal of Permanent Waves (1980).

Southern rock was another source of inspiration for the early bands of heavy-metal. Lynyrd Skynyrd's heirs, Florida's Molly Hatchett, rediscovered the three-guitar sound, particularly on their second album, Flirtin' With Disaster (1979); while the Allman Brother's sound (two guitars, two drums) was resurrected by 38 Special and hardened on their fourth album, Wild Eyed Southern Boys (1984).

These bands largely defined the horizons of heavy-metal for the 1970s, until the new wave refounded the whole genre and gave it the impulse to become truly a mass phenomenon.

Sound 1973-78
Borderline 1974-78

In the second half of the 1970s, Brian Eno, Larry Fast, Mickey Hart, Stomu Yamashta and many other musicians blurred the lines between rock and avantgarde.

Brian Eno, ex-keyboardist for Roxy Music, changed the course of rock music at least three times. The experiment of fusing pop and electronics on Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy (1974) changed the very notion of what a "pop song" is. Eno took cheap melodies (the kind that are used at the music-hall, on tv commercials, by nursery rhymes) and added a strong rhythmic base and counterpoint of synthesizer. The result was similar to the novelty numbers and the "bubblegum" music of the early 1960s, but it had the charisma of sheer post-modernist genius. Eno had invented meta-pop music: avantgarde music that employs elements of pop music. He continued the experiment on Another Green World (1975), but then changed its perspective on Before And After Science (1977). Here Eno's catchy ditties acquired a sinister quality. The album felt more like a surreal fresco, the vision of humankind turned into robots. The melodies could be renaissance madrigals, and the rhythm could be used by disco-music, but the whole did not sound like renaissance music or dance music at all: it sounded like the end of civilization. A learned practitioner of musique concrete, Cage's aleatory music, LaMonte Young's minimalism, Karlheinz Stockhausen's electronic music, Eno had an ambitious program of "music for non-musicians" that was the equivalent of Schoenberg's "Theory of Harmony". If Schoenberg had argued in favor of a new way of composing (serialism), Eno basically proposed to abolish composition altogether, focusing instead on "sound". After toying with Philip Glass' repetition and droning on No Pussyfooting (1973), a collaboration with King Crimson's guitarist Robert Fripp, Eno had begun to implement his program on Discreet Music (1975), which was hardly music, and it was hardly "his" music: the composer only set it in motion. What the listener heard was not what the composer wrote. The impressionistic vignettes of Music For Films (1978) bridged the gap between theory (his "discreet" music) and practice (his futuristic pop music). Eno's "discreet" music evolved via two collaborations with the German group Cluster (in 1977 and 1978). Music For Airports (1978) presented the result: "ambient music", a music made of static drones and languid notes, a music that hardly changes at all, that hardly betrays any feeling at all, music that is meant "not" to be listened to, the avantgarde equivalent of supermarket muzak. This was his third revolution. And it would become one of the most abused genres of the 1990s. On Land (1982), Apollo (1983) and Thursday Afternoon (1985) offered a psychological version of ambient music. On the way to becoming one of the most influential composers of the century, Eno had also become one of the most influential producers in rock music. In particular, he sculpted the techno-ethnic-funk that reinvented Talking Heads' career in 1979-80. Most likely, it will take a few more decades before the music scene absorbs all of Eno's intuitions.

Larry Fast, aka Synergy, specialized in massive synthesizer-based arrangements, as preached on his Electronic Realizations For Rock Orchestra (1975). Perhaps inspired by Mahler's late romantic symphonies and by Gershwin's jazzy orchestrations, Fast frescoed the futuristic soundscapes of Cords (1978) and Metropolitan Suite (1985), emphasizing frantic movement and dense noise.

The music on Patrick Moraz (1976), by Swiss-born and former Yes keyboardist Patrick Moraz, was similar in scope, although less ambitious. And another milestone in orchestral progressive-rock was Jasun Martz's The Pillory (1978).


Japanese monster-percussionist Stomu Yamashta caused a brief sensation with the solo percussion album Red Buddha (1972), with the jazz-rock band Come to The Edge, that recorded Floating Music (1972), with the multi-media show The Man From The East (1973), but his exotic jazz-rock fusion is better documented by Go (1976), the super-group formed with keyboardists Klaus Schulze and Steve Winwood, percussionist Michael Shrieve and guitarist Al DiMeola.

Legendary Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart reinvented himself as one of the most brilliant ideologues and mentors of world-music with albums that are dazzling displays of percussions-based music. The album by the Diga Rhythm Band, Diga (1976), was one of the first mature fusions of jazz and Indian music, one of the milestones of world-music. After Yamantaka (1982), a collaboration with Henry Wolff and Nancy Hennings on Tibetan bells, and Dafos (1983), another excursion into jazz, Hart would find a new audience (the new-age audience) with At The Edge (1990), that incorporates natural sounds, the orchestral Mystery Box (1996) and the more conventional Supralingua (1998).

Former Slapp Happy and Henry Cow guitarist Peter Blegvad recorded the jazz nonsense lieder of Kew Rone (1976) and the deviant pop muzak of King Strut (1990).

Techno-rock 1973-76

Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra virtually invented "high-tech pop", the idea of arranging catchy refrains with walls of keyboards, lush orchestral arrangements, neo-classical pomp and seductive lyrics. The four lengthy orchestral suites of II (1973) acted as the laboratory to distill the songs of Eldorado (1975), their melodic zenith. That album, and the more trivial Face the Music (1975) and A New World Record (1976), led to the tour de force of Out of the Blue (1977) the same way the Beatles' Sgt Pepper led to the White Album.

Supertramp were even more original in blending Yes' pomp-rock, Led Zeppelin's hard-rock, Beach Boys' vocal harmonies, EL&P's neo-classical rock, disco-music and catchy pop refrains. thanks to double-keyboard and horns attack, Breakfast In America (1979) ranks among the most original pop albums of the 1970s.

Alan Parsons Project, led by a keyboardist who had worked as a sound engineer on the Beatles' Abbey Road and the Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of the Moon, specialized in lushly-arranged, quasi-symphonic, concept albums such as Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976) and I Robot (1977), although success would come with the more electronic and more easy-listening sound of Pyramid (1978) and later works.

Emblematic of the importance of sound were hits such as Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street (1978), featuring a soaring saxophone solo by Raf Ravenscroft and melodramatic orchestral arrangements.

In the USA, keyboard-driven pop yielded some of the greatest hits of the era. Kansas approached Yes' pomp-rock from a more intimate and melodic angle thanks to a neo-classical line-up heavy on violin and keyboards, particularly on Kansas (1974). However, after the elegant Magnum Opus Suite (1976), they became stars of the soft-pop ballad. Suite Madame Blue (1975), turned Styx into the quintessential "pomp-rock" band, a style they refined on The Grand Illusion (1977), their commercial break-through. Pavlov's Dog were the most serious purveyors of progressive-rock in the USA, using mellotron and violin to craft the atmospheric Pampered Menial (1975).

New Zealand's Split Enz, formed by vocalist and keyboardist Tim Finn, released an eccentric hybrid of glam-rock and techno-pop, Mental Notes (1975), before guitarist and vocalist Neil Finn joined the band and turned it into the pop machine of Bold As Brass (1977), I See Red (1978), I Got You (1979), History Never Repeats (1981) and Dirty Creature (1982).

The value of production 1973-78

Both progressive-rock and pop-jazz of the 1970s had emphasized the "sound" over melody, rhythm and harmony. The "sound" was mostly due to the interplay of timbres and to the producer's work. From Phil Spector's hits to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds to the Beatles' Sgt Pepper to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, the ultimate value of a piece of music had consistently been shifting from the genuine ingredients of rock'n'roll towards the deception of the recording studio and of arrangement. Significant advances (and lower costs) in the recording technique led to a generation of musicians whose main goal was to compose "sound" rather than songs.

Despite the erudite lyrics, Steely Dan, formed by pianist Donald Fagen and bassist Walter Becker, invented the stereotype for the elastic, sleek, undemanding pop-jazz-soul fusion that would become the lounge-music of the uninvolved yuppie generation. Countdown To Ecstasy (1973) and Pretzel Logic (1974) are perhaps the best examples of that "clean" sound, which was mainly a miracle of production, and of the elegant, technically impeccable performance.

Hall & Oates became masters of the genre that was born out of blue-eyed soul when studio high-tech allowed to pen mellow, languid, romantic ballads set in lush arrangements, dance beats and spacey keyboards. Their hits trace that evolution, from Sara Smile (1975) and Rich Girl (1976) to Kiss On My List (1981) and Maneater (1982). Despite the awful muzak produced as Hall & Oates, Daryl Hall's solo albums, Sacred Songs (1980), recorded in 1976, Three Hearts In The Happy Ending Machine (1986) and Soul Alone (1993) were art-rock experiments.

Relocated to San Francisco, and re-shaped by guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac became a sophisticated vocal and percussive group, heir to folk-rock and to Brian Wilson's baroque arrangements, aware of the new wave and of Pink Floyd's artificial studio sound, and, from this unlikely fusion, they managed to concoct two of the all-time best-sellers and production masterpieces: Rumours (1977) and Tusk (1979), for which Buckingham composed some of the most memorable melodies of the time.

Toto were emblematic of the value of production in keyboard-driven melodic rock. Toto IV (1982) was perhaps their most accomplished "production".

Jim Steinman has one main claim to fame: he has coined a production style that makes Phil Spector's "wall of sound" seem shy. Steinman's productions are the quintessential of magniloquent, tragic, titanic, desperate. His singers bleed his lyrics. His keyboards are the thunders of the apocalypse. His melodies are religious psalms. Meat Loaf (Marvin Lee Aday)'s Bat Out of Hell (1977), that Steinman wrote and produced, began as a joke (a hysterical and emphatic exaggeration of rock'n'roll cliches), but actually reinvented the spirit of rock'n'roll, as did his solo Bad For Good (1981). Steinman was moving towards pure melodrama: Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse For The Heart (1983) and Tanz der Vampire (1988) proved what he could do. His extravagant orchestrations and his ideology of sonic overkill triumphed on Original Sin (1989), credited to Pandora's Box, the masterpiece of his symphonic sound, and one of rock's masterpieces of all times. Steinman composed a metaphysical concept that mimicks Broadway musicals and that alternates Zappa-esque parody and street pathos. This was brutal, colossal music of manic crescendos, of punishing rhythms of delirious choirs.

Prog-rock 1974-80

The "Canterbury" sound was still alive and well in Britain, although mutating into a new form of easy-listening and jazz-rock.

Camel evoked the styles of Colosseum, Yes and King Crimson on The Snow Goose (1975) and Rain Dances (1977), whose romantic spirit was emphasized by meticulous arrangements relying on electronic keyboards.

Brand X, formed by Genesis drummer Phil Collins, played smooth, classy, laid-back, soulful and all-instrumental jazz-rock on Unorthodox Behaviour (1976) and Moroccan Roll (1977).

Feels Good To Me (1977) by Bill Bruford was emblematic of how close British progressive-rock had moved to jazz music.

One of the most original bands of the 1970s, Simon Jeffes' Penguin Cafè Orchestra played ethnic music with the elegance of a chamber ensemble and the decadent languor of the cafe`-concerto. In the age of punk-rock, the nostalgic and aristocratic combo of cello, violin, ukulele and guitar that recorded Music From The Penguin Cafe (1976) was a grotesque oxymoron. The vignettes, harking back to the styles of baroque and renaissance music, explored the Caribbean islands, Africa and the Mediterranean. The repetitive patterns favored by minimalist composers added a surreal quality to each of these sketches. These postcards from exotic lands left the impression of imaginary memories, that, together, formed a collective imaginary memory of some enchanted eden, a shelter from the hectic tensions of the industrial society. The Orchestra carried out a revival, but it was reconstructing an era, not just a sound, and an era that never existed, an era that was an eternal state of the subconscious. Penguin Cafè (1981), Broadcasting From Home (1984) and Signs Of Life (1987) increased the number of old-fashioned instruments (viola, bass, accordion, piano, harmonium, organ, pianola, penny whistle, trombone and so forth) and flirted more often with the avantgarde, while retaining that stylized and austere composure.

The French-speaking countries remained throughout the late 1970s and 1980s an unending source of prog-rock ensembles.

Richard Pinhas' Heldon practiced a rock'n'roll for guitar and synthesizer that had few or no antecedents. While still naive, Electronique Guerilla (1974) was their manifesto. It's Always Rock And Roll (1975), that contains Cocaine Blues, and Agneta Nilsson (1976), that contains Perspective, were their mature statements, cauldrons of hard-rock, free-jazz and sheer noise where Nice, King Crimson, Morton Subotnick, Silver Apples, Jimi Hendrix and Hawkwind shared the same orbit. The lengthy and sensational jams of their last albums, such as Interface (1978), Stand By (1979) and Bolero (1979), refined the concept to manic levels.

French keyboardist Cyrille Verdeaux assembled a few key members of Gong (Steve Hillage, Tim Blake, Didier Malherbe) to record the Clearlight Symphony (1974), released under the moniker Clearlight, a lush electronic and symphonic work. The fourth Clearlight album, Visions (1978), featured a small orchestra comprising rock, Indian and jazz musicians. This work displayed the influence of Eastern music that would become prominent on Verdeaux's solo releases, peaking with the seven-hour Kundalini Opera, recorded between 1982 and 1999.

Gilbert Artmann was an eccentric who started two projects: Lard Free (1973), a Heldon-like electronic-rock, and Urban Sax, a 27-saxophone horn section indulging in minimalist repetition that debuted with the shocking I (1978).

Thierry "Ilitch" Muller created albums of minimalist repetition for organ and treated guitar, such as the main track on Periodikmindtrouble (1978), and of electronic, electric and acoustic collages, plus noise and vocals, such as 10 Suicides (1980).

What Walter Carlos had done for electronic pop music, Jean-Michel Jarre did for electronic dance music. Oxygene (1976) and Equinoxe (1978) merely overlapped and contrasted a catchy melody, a steady beat and a synthesizer, while the electronic poems of Le Chant Magnetique (1981) explored melodic electronica at a more abstract level. Live performance of his hits involved colossal multimedia shows that eventually became more relevant than his music.

Univers Zero, from Belgium, began in the wake blended Frank Zappa and jazz-rock with neoclassical elements and attitudes on Univers Zero (1977), also known as 1313, but Heresie (1979) veered towards gothic atmospheres and discordant, industrial textures. Focusing on orchestration and production rather than on melody and harmony, Ceux Du Dehors (1982) and Uzed (1984) arrived at a smooth, stately, stylish and occasionally titanic flow of ideas. Capable of quoting and mixing stereotypes from atonal music as well as jazz-rock, minimalism as well as Eastern music, classical fantasias as well as requiems, the multiple tours de force of Heatwave (1986) rank among prog-rock's greatest achievements. Cinematic and suspenseful, elegant and dramatic, Daniel Denis' compositions for strings, woodwinds and keyboards coined a new kind of chamber music and jazz fusion.

Art Zoyd were even more classical. While they never completely disposed of their original influence (Magma's and Henry Cow's jazz-rock), their broad orchestral palette painted a luxuriant, symphonic sound performed with the austere posture of the classical avantgarde. Symphonie Pour Le Jour Ou Bruleront Les Cites (1976), which transposed Stravinsky's style into rock music, the austere and expressionistic Generations Sans Futur (1980), an eclectic pastiche of abstract chamber music and free jazz, and Phase IV (1982), that injected minimalist and dissonant techniques into chamber music, displayed a remarkable gift for dense and dramatic textures, which would surface again on the soundtrack Metropolis (2002).

Belgium's Aksak Maboul were perhaps the most eclectic followers of Henry Cow. A Dadaistic sense of humour made Un Peu De L'Amour Des Bandits (1980) a delightful jazz-rock spoof. Ferdinand Richard's Etron Fou Leloublan were similarly bless on their Les Poumons Gonfles (1982).

The semi-classical music of Geographies (1986) set Hector Zazou apart from everyone else. He had already delivered an original prog-rock work, Traite De Mechanique Populaire (1979), as a member of ZNR.

Shub-Niggurath were disciples of Art Zoyd and Univers Zero.

Two Swedish groups pioneered an original folk-jazz-classical fusion: Ragnarok on Ragnarok (1976), and Kebnekajse in Balladen om Bjorbar och Natmelor, off their III (1975).

Finch, from Holland, crafted the four lengthy instrumental jams of Glory Of The Inner Force (1975) and the two fluent melodramas of Beyond Expression (1976), A Passion Condensed and Beyond the Bizarre.

Supergroups 1975-80

In Britain, the season of art-rock peaked with the supergroups of the late 1970s.

10cc, formed by veteran songwriter Graham Gouldman (who wrote several Yardbirds and Hollies hits) and veteran multi-instrumentalists Lol Creme and Kevin Godley, served mocking kitsch arranged with demented gusto and cartoonish wit, occasionally reminiscent of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, best represented by the high-tech tour de force The Original Soundtrack (1975), whose glittering sound was the result of a veritable studio collage.

Former 10cc's Godley & Creme launched a separate career with the triple-album rock opera Consequences (1976), that used a new technique to produce symphonic, choral and natural sounds, the first in a series of pretentiously bizarre albums.

Foreigner, formed by former Spooky Tooth's guitarist Mick Jones and by former King Crimson's keyboardist Ian McDonald, played a poppier, slickly-arranged version of Bad Company's boogie-rock on albums such as Double Vision (1978).

UK consisted of keyboardist and former Roxy Music violinist Eddie Jobson , former Nucleus guitarist Allan Holdsworth, former King Crimson bassist John Wetton and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford. UK (1978) featured the suite In The Dead Of The Night. Wetton joined a new supergroup, Asia (1), that featured former EL&P drummer Carl Palmer, former Yes guitarist Steve Howe and former Buggles keyboardist Geoff Downes, but Asia (1982) offered a mixture of heavy and soft rock. While technically impeccable, the songs of these supergroups displayed little emotion and sounded a little dated, as far as progressive-rock went.

Sky, formed by classical guitarist John Williams and featuring former Curved Air keyboardist Francis Monkman, played pretentious progressive-rock for the masses, although lengthy suites such as Where Opposites Meet (1979) and FIFO (1980), both written by Monkman, harked back to the early days of the genre.


The auteurs 1975-82
Female creativity 1975-79

Joni Mitchell had opened the floodgates, and the early 1970s had brought a number of female intellectuals to the forefront. The second half of the 1970s witnessed the definitive emancipation of women in rock music.

Terry Garthwaite, one of the first feminists of rock music, continued Joy Of Cooking's folk-jazz-blues fusion on Terry (1975) and subsequent albums.

Joan Armatrading, born in the Caribbean islands but residing in Britain, fused folk, rhythm'n'blues, gospel and reggae on Joan Armatrading (1976), while retaining the austere and introspective manner of Joni Mitchell.

Significant artistic growth took place as well among country singer-songwriters. The most impressive talent was probably Nanci Griffith, who, on early albums such as There's a Light Beyond These Woods (1978) and especially Poet in My Window (1982) betrayed a tender, romantic soul while setting her stories of personal loss and failure in an oppressive universe, worthy of Kafka's novels.

By far the most gifted and magnetic female singer-songwriter since Joni Mitchell was Rickie Lee Jones, a protege` of Tom Waits whose husky and sensual voice penned one of the boldest attempts at the degraded moral landscape of urban USA: her debut album, Rickie Lee Jones (1979). Fluctuating between sobriety and intoxication (both physical and spiritual), Jones managed to be both visionary and romantic while singing about the alienated and neurotic life in the city. Meanwhile, the backing band tinged her ballads with nocturnal rhythm'n'blues and jazz, coining an intellectual variant of late-hours lounge-music. Singer and band acted "classy" while being deliberately sloppy. Intricate psychodramas and surreal suspense also rule on Pirates (1981), while Flying Cowboys (1989) is the best of her lighter collections. New heights were reached with Traffic from Paradise (1993), her most abstract, psychedelic, unfocused and cryptic work.

Texas 1975-80

Townes Van Zandt had unwittingly started a school of singer-songwriters in Texas. For a while, that school was one of the most prolific and intriguing of the planet. They were inevitably closer to the "roots" (country, blues, folk, tex-mex, etc) and to the format of the ballad, but enhanced that tradition with a stronger sense of the human condition.

One of the towering figures of the Texas school, Guy Clark, was also one of the least prolific. Old Number One (1975) introduced a laconic and romantic country balladeer who injected archaic feelings into his strong narrative scaffolding.

Other Texan honky-tonking singer-songwriters were: George "Butch" Hancock, who perhaps displayed the strongest Woody Guthrie influence on the bleak acoustic ballads of West Texas Waltzes & Dust-Blown Tractor Tunes (1978); Joe Ely, whose Honky Tonk Masquerade (1978) coined a blue-collar rock that is a visceral version of Gram Parsons' country-rock; Terry Allen, whose Juarez (1975) was a bold narrative concept and whose Lubbock (1979) was a formal tour de force encompassing blues, tex-mex, honky-tonk and rock'n'roll; Rodney Crowell, specializing in harrowing stories and lugubrious meditations, particularly on Ain't Living Long Like This (1978) and Keys to the Highway (1989); T-Bone Burnett, whose Truth Decay (1980) was a gem of bluesy roots-rock, and Richard Dobson, who reached maturity with the populist concept Save The World (1982).

Nashville in the Seventies
Among Nashville honky-tonk singers of the era the most virulent was perhaps Gary Stewart, established by Drinkin' Thing (1974) and She's Actin' Single (1975).

Among country songwriters, Eddie Rabbitt was probably the most popular (if not original) of the decade, penning Pure Love (1974), Drinkin' My Baby (1976), Every Which Way But Loose (1979), Drivin' My Life Away (1980), I Love A Rainy Night (1981).

Mel Tillis, who had written several hits including Kenny Rogers' Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town (1969), assembled one of the most respected bands in Nashville, the Statesiders, and became a star on his own with Ken McDuffie's Good Woman Blues (1976), Coca Cola Cowboy (1979), Southern Rain (1980).

Influenced by country-rock and by the outlaws, Los Angeles-based songwriter Steve Young penned Seven Bridges Road (1969), Lonesome On'ry and Mean (1973) and Montgomery in the Rain (1977).

Ronnie Milsap, who had 35 number one singles, was the star of country-pop in the 1970s: Eddie Rabbitt's Pure Love (1973), Don Gibson's A Legend in My Time (1974), Day Dreams About Night Things (1975), It Was Almost like a Song (1977), Kye Fleming's Smoky Mountain Rain (1980), Any Day Now (1982), etc.

Crystal Gayle joined the ranks of the Nashville divas with Ed Bruce's Restless (1972), Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue (1977), perhaps the quintessential country-pop crossover, and Talking In Your Sleep (1978). Barbara Mandrell came a few years later with her shameless covers of soul hits and the country songs written for her by Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan and produced by Tom Collins: Sleeping Single in a Double Bed (1978), Years (1979), I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool (1981). Anne Murray's career at the border between country and pop peaked with You Needed Me (1979).

Other Nashville hits of the 1970s were: Johnny Russell's Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer (1973), the Bellamy Brothers' Spiders And Snakes (1974) and Let Your Love Flow (1976), Donna Fargo (Yvonne Vaughn)'s Happiest Girl In The Whole USA (1972).

San Francisco-based Asleep At The Wheel resurrected western swing.

Populism 1976-82

A melancholy vein, one of defeat and hopelessness, dominates the songs of the post-Vietnam years.

A cynical chronicler of urban paroxysm and social grotesques, Warren Zevon injected the rowdy posture of the Frontier's desperado into the stereotype of the intellectual singer-songwriter. Warren Zevon (1976) downplayed the elegiac and emphasized the epic, which, after all, is the authentic spirit of folk music. His casual and irreverent tone and his violent sound (country-rock and blues-rock detonated by southern boogie and garnished with operatic or soul melodies) had more in common with punk-rock than with the Los Angeles masters. His cinematic ballads sang about the subconscious of the wild USA hero, harking back to Sam Peckinpah's cinema and even further back to the hard-boiled thriller. Alas, that exuberant inspiration died out after Excitable Boy (1978).

Rick Danko recorded the best album the Band never did after their first two: Rick Danko (1977).

Steve Forbert, whose sparse acoustic Alive on Arrival (1978) was largely an autobiographical concept, and Willie Nile, whose debut album, Willie Nile (1980) contained mostly Byrds imitations and heralded the folk-rock revival of the 1980s, were typical of the search for the "new Dylan", that continued unhindered throughout the 1970s.

John Hiatt improved over the eclectic style of Leon Russell (country, soul, gospel, rock and blues) by adding reggae and rhythm'n'blues to Slug Line (1979). Stolen Moments (1990) turned that hybrid into a highly personal and touching act. Walk On (1995) opened new stylistic avenues, at the border between jazz, pop and blues.

An authentic "blue-collar hero" of the Midwest, John "Coughar" Mellencamp coupled the charisma of James Dean (the rebel with no cause) and the populist mythology of rural USA with a forceful rhythm'n'blues sound and a rowdy shout. If Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen could be his closest reference models, Mellencamp had a knack for the anthemic tone that set him apart, as evidenced in Hurts So Good (1982) and Authority Song (1983). At the same time, he connected with the desolate lives of the heartland, as he proved majestically with Scarecrow (1985), the album featuring Rain On The Scarecrow and R.O.C.K. In The USA, and with Paper In Fire (1987).

Former Eagles singer-songwriter Don Henley perfected an art of mournful Dylan-esque sermons until he delivered one of the most gripping social frescoes of the 1980s, The End Of Innocence (1989).

On his own, former Steely Dan pianist Donald Fagen released even more creative and original collections, proving that he was more than a cocktail-lounge entertainer: Nightfly (1982), a Pete Townshend-like recollection of his roots, and Kamakiriad (1993).

Huey "Lewis" Cregg bridged the old-fashioned bar-band and modern blue-collar rock on hits such as Working For A Living (1982), I Want A New Drug (1983) and Power Of Love (1985), each packed with a hurricane of quasi-jazz saxophones, blues harmonica, boogie guitars and gospel organs.

On the commercial front, Bryan Adams split his career between heartfelt torch ballads (Straight From The Heart, 1983) and lush, riff-driven rockers (Run To You, 1984).

Robbie Robertson began his solo career at 44 but struck a chord: Robbie Robertson (1987) presented him as the heroic spokesman of the collective subconscious, and Storyville (1991) is a concept album that reads like a tribute to New Orleans at the turn of the century. Each album is a dense textural pastiche that is worth it for its sheer sonic appeal.

Bridging the gap 1977

With the sinister odes of 1977 solo album, former Genesis' vocalist Peter Gabriel
metamorphosed into a tormented and angst-ridden poet of the post-industrial neuroses, capable of delivering harrowing visions of the psychological holocaust in tightly crafted musical formats. The electronic ballads of III (1980), that explore urban fear and despair, the eerie soundscape of Birdy (1985), the sinister futurism of So (1986) fueled his cosmic melancholy at different levels. The high-tech fusion of electronics, funk rhythms, rock instruments and ethnic sources that he had perfected over the source of those albums imploded on Passion (1989), a sonic mural of psycho-ambient music that reneged on his own technical innovations and withdrew to an archaic world and to the spartan format of chamber music, ideally bridging past and future, first world and third world, the personal and the public.

Marianne Faithful, one of the British teen idols of the mid-1960s, had to wait until the late 1970s to achieve artistic independence with Broken English (1979), an album that smells of expressionistic cabaret, a collection of gloomy lieder sung in a desperate voice (reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich).

Another British sensation, Kate Bush, was certainly an influential and intelligent figure, but was also a typical compromise of the 1970s, only half-heartedly experimental, continuously flirting with the pop charts. She helped redefine the singer-songwriter in the era of the new wave, but then the new wave had already made that figure obsolete. Her main contributions were in the vocal department: a four-octave range that mauled folk, opera and world-music, often in a shrill register halfway between a childish scream and a soprano howl. Her arrangements were not as revolutionary as advertised, borrowing as they did from Joni Mitchell and Peter Gabriel, but they did introduce electronics into a folk-rock format and crafted claustrophobic atmospheres. Kick Inside (1978), a terrifying personal diary, and The Dreaming (1982), the ultimate testament of her eccentric, lush, futuristic sound, represented the two poles of her work. The Freudian travelogue of Hounds Of Love (1985), fueled by even denser orchestration, ended twenty years later with the philosophical meditation of Aerial (2005), mostly hushed by intimate chamber textures.

Disco-music 1975-80
Funk 1974-78

The foundations of funk music had been laid in the second half of the 1960s by James Brown, the MG's, Sly & The Family Stone, the Meters, Dyke & The Blazers, etc. The syncopated polyrhythm, the groovy bass line, the metallic guitar timbre, the falsetto wail were all introduced in the 1960s. However, funk music had to wait until the age of re-alignment before it became a genre on its own. the white Detroit band Rare Earth, with Dino Fekaris' I Just Want To Celebrate (1971), War, the old group founded in Los Angeles by British vocalist Eric Burdon, with Spill The Wine (1970) and The World Is A Ghetto (1972), and the Jackson Five (featuring the young Michael Jackson), with I Want You Back (1970), ABC (1970), The Love You Save (1970) and Berry Gordy's I'll Be There (1970), took it to the top of the charts, while starting a dance mania that had not been seen since the twist of the early 1960s. Discos opened just to play funk music.

War, one of the few multi-racial groups, were the most innovative of the commercial funk groups with their lengthy fantasies: a Cuban-tinged Fidel's Fantasy on War (1971), the infectious dance ditty The World Is A Ghetto and the proto-disco jam City Country City on The World Is A Ghetto (1972). They further promited the Latin-funk fusion with The Cisco Kid (1972) and especially Low Rider (1975).

By far the most creative artist (and cult figure) of early funk music was George Clinton, whose bands, Parliament and Funkadelic, featuring keyboardist Bernie Worrell (who in 1978 pioneered the synthesized bass lines) and James Brown's bassist William "Bootsy" Collins, adopted the ethos of the psychedelic counterculture, the satirical attitude of the freaks, a sound that mixed jazz, soul, Jimi Hendrix and acid-rock, and lyrics that bordered on porno, horror and science fiction. Their eccentric vaudeville had no rivals: Funkadelic's Funkadelic (1970), Maggot Brain (1971) and the gargantuan One Nation Under A Groove (1978), as well as Parliament's Clones of Dr Funkenstein (1976), the visionary Mothership Connection (1976), the superb Funkentelechy Vs The Placebo Syndrome (1977) and the surreal Motor-Booty Affair (1978), made Clinton the Frank Zappa of funk music.

Funk music was the soundtrack of the mid 1970s, embraced by combos such as: Ronald Bell's Kool And The Gang, the most faithful to Sly Stone's model, from Funky Stuff (1973) to Celebration (1980); the vocal trio Labelle, featuring Patti LaBelle (Holt) and Nona Hendryx, who blended rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll and adopted a glam image for Bob Crewe's and Kenny Nolan's Lady Marmalade (1974); the Commodores, led by tenor saxophonist Lionel Ritchie, with the electronic instrumental Machine Gun (1974); drummer Maurice White's jazz-soul-rock fusion concept Earth Wind And Fire, with Shining Star (1975) and Serpentine Fire (1977), Philip Bailey's effeminate falsetto, Larry Dunn's sleek keyboards, and a Stax-like horn section; the percussive Ohio Players, with Fire (1974) and Love Rollercoaster (1975); Harry Wayne Casey's and Richard Finch's exuberant K.C. And The Sunshine Band, from That's The Way I Like It (1975) to Baby Give It Up (1983), the quintessential "Miami sound"; Larry Graham's Graham Central Station, with The Jam (1976), the sound of funk music to come; Larry Blackmon's Cameo, the only veterans to dominate in two decades, from Funk Funk (1977) to Word Up (1986); and, in Britain, the Average White Band, with the instrumental Pick Up The Pieces (1974). Ex-Labelle vocalist Nona Hendryx fused funk, soul and hard-rock on her Nona Hendryx (1977). Tina Turner, Ike's wife who had been the sexy pillar of their revue, capitalized on a tiger-like vocal style with the solid funk-boogie groove of Nutbush City Limits (1973). Betty Davis (Miles' wife), was sexually aggressive and vocally gruff on Betty Davis (1973), featuring Sly Stone's rhythm section and the Pointer Sisters, and pioneered a look that bridged the psychedelic era and the disco era.

Miami's percussive and Latin-tinged soul was best represented by White songwriters-producers Richard Finch and Harry Casey, who penned George McCrae's Rock Your Baby (1974) and formed the KC and the Sunshine Band, one of the most frequent chart-toppers of the era with Get Down Tonight (1975), That's The Way I Like It (1975), Shake Your Booty (1976), I'm Your Boogie Man (1977), Please Don't Go (1979), Baby Give It Up (1983).

Another Zappa-esque visionary, August Darnell, formed the comic and exotic Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band (1976) and penned the trilogy credited to Kid Creole And The Coconuts, whose best installment was the tropical musical and satirical odyssey Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places (1981). Both ventures envisioned a chaotic collage-like multi-ethnic format that was equally at ease with swing, cha-cha, soul, salsa, calypso, reggae, rock.

Lipps Inc, the solo project of Steven Greenberg, marked the transition to fully electronic funk music with Funkytown (1980).

Disco-music 1974-78

Funk music opened the doors to the disco subculture. There was a reaction, particularly among New York's gays, to rock music's domination of the airwaves. People still wanted to dance, but the counterculture had demonized dance music. Funk music served an audience that was tired of guitar solos and boogie rhythms. Black people used to organize dance parties. Persecuted by the public opinion and by puritan sects, gays had created social islands within the metropolis. Their night clubs were as segregated as the black churches in the 1950s. Gays took the same idea of the black dance parties and used the same music for their parties, that were staged in those private clubs, soon to be known as "discos". Discos became so successful that they transformed rapidly from marginalized, discriminated and underground phenomenon to a chic craze for the yuppies. Far from being agents of the Establishment, gays adopted several trademarks of the hippy culture (free-form dancing, psychedelic lights, colorful costumes, hallucinogens). New York's gay community rediscovered a new facet of human psychology, that had been well known to ancient cultures: depersonalization due to collective ecstasy enabled and fostered freedom of expression. The cathartic and regenerative function of disco-music accounted for the lightning speed with which it spread around the world.

While funk music was booming, three events added impetus to the discos. Orchestral soul reached a new apex with Barry White's scores and sexy postures: the languid sensual ballads Can't Get Enough Of Your Love (1974) and You're The First The Last My Everything (1974), as well as the Love Unlimited Orchestra's instrumental Love's Theme (1973), off their Rhapsody in White (1974). That same year, Kraftwerk's Autobahn became the first hit single entirely played on electronic instruments and boasting an electronic rhythm. Finally, in 1975 Robert Moog introduced the Polymoog, the first commercial polyphonic synthesizer, which greatly reduced the cost of producing electronic music.

The first articles on "disco music" appeared in 1972, and the invention is credited to a Cameroon-born and Paris-based jazz saxophonist, Manu Dibango, who in that year released Soul Makossa (1972), an exciting mixture of funk-jazz saxophone lines and hypnotic African beats. Other pioneers of the concept, such as the Equals, a racially mixed British band fronted by Guyana's vocalist Eddy Grant, with Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys (1970) and War with City Country City (1972), exhibited the same multi-racial and cosmopolitan foundations. The catalyst, though, was the black homosexual audience, particularly in New York. A little later, Philadelphia's veteran soul producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff wrote Love Is The Message (1973) for MFSB (its core being the human rhythm machine of drummer Earl Young and bassist Ron Baker), the blueprint for the early disco hits. Another pioneering record was released by the Hues Corporation, Wally Holmes' Rock The Boat (1974).

However, Italian-born German keyboardist and producer Giorgio Moroder, who had been manufacturing dance singles since the late 1960s, is the man who can be credited with wedding Kraftwerk's robotic music (a very European and elitist artifact) with soul/funk music (a very USA and grass-roots genre). Moroder understood the power of electronic keyboards both for "singing" the melody and for "beating" the rhythm. His first experiment was USA soul diva Donna Summer: her Love To Love You Baby (1975) co-invented disco-music and launched the idea of the extended "disco mix", while I Feel Love (1976) basically marked the birth of synth-pop. Moroder's production masterworks were his own solo albums, notably From Here To Eternity (1977). A similar style was being refined in France by Jean-Marc Cerrone, particularly with the two lengthy electronic suites Love In C Minor (1977), one of the first side-length tracks that was merely the extended version of one song, and Supernature (1978).

Other German stars of the disco years include Silver Convention, the brainchild of producers Silvester Levay and Michael Kunze, with Fly Robin Fly (1975) and Get Up And Boogie (1976), and Boney M, the brainchild of producer Frank Farian, with Baby Do You Wanna Bump (1975) and Rasputin (1978).

Van McCoy's The Hustle (1975) set the standard in Manhattan, centering the harmony around the hypnotic beat of the rhythm section. The fad of the 12" singles began when Walter Gibbons released an 11-minute version of Double Exposure's Ten Percent (1976). Black and gay disc-jockeys resurrected old, obscure rhythm'n'blues songs, added a pulsing beat and extended their duration (a technique imported from Jamaica) in order to make people dance for as long as possible. Disco-music became a producer's music, and a studio-oriented music, propelled by artificial instruments, the exact opposite of rock music, which emphasized the live experience and was played with electric instruments. The difference was more than just technical: rock music was a macho, straight, aggressive happening, whereas disco-music was a sensual, effeminate, languid affair.

The Bee Gees, the veteran Australian brothers led by songwriter Barry Gibb, who had been stars of the Sixties (A Message To You, 1968), converted to keyboards-oriented funk music with Jive Talking (1975) and You Should Be Dancing (1976), and then scored the soundtrack for the film Saturday Night Fever (1977), that, thanks to Staying Alive and Night Fever, launched a world-wide fad for disco-music.

The Trammps were among the first soul groups to benefit from the new fad, thanks to Disco Inferno (1977), written by veteran Philadelphia keyboardist Ron Kersey.

Chic (a quintet led by black virtuoso bassist Bernard Edwards and guitarist Nile Rodgers) promoted the most abused stereotype: minimalist funk rhythm propelled by machine-like drumming (Tony Thompson) and embellished with strings and female singers. Their classic formulation of the dogma can be found in Dance Dance Dance (1977), Le Freak (1978) and Good Times (1979), three anthems of the sociopolitical decadence of the era. Rodgers went on to become one of the most distinctive producers of dance music.

The female aspect was much more relevant in disco-music than it had ever been in rock music. Several of the early disco singles were sung by women, establishing a primacy that would endure through the years.

The female gay iconography owed a lot to Jamaican model Grace Jones, whose glacial, androgynous, futuristic, panther-like looks and monotonous vocals redefined the concept of elegance for the disco masses. I Need A Man (1977) was the hit that created the cult. She represented the terminal point of a disease that had spread from the Lulu of the expressionists to Marlene Dietrich to decadence-rock.

The prototypical "disco divas" were Gloria Gaynour, who pioneered the extended mix with the Isaac Hayes cover Never Can Say Goodbye (1974), largely the invention of Tony Bongiovi, a former Motown producer who in New York fused the lush orchestral arrangements of Philadelphia-style soul music and the upbeat energetic Motown style (with drummer Alan Schwartzberg setting the standard of the relentless high-hat cymbal propulsion) and whose I Will Survive (1979), composed by Dino Fekaris, remains one of the era's quintessential anthems, and Thelma Huston, whose greatest hit was a cover of Kenny Gamble's and Leon Huff's Don't Leave Me This Way (1977), but also veterans like Shirley Goodman (of Shirley & Lee), who sang Shame Shame Shame (1975), a song composed by another veteran, Sylvia Robinson (of Mickey & Sylvia).

Far from being mere "bubblegum" hits, many of these productions employed top-notch instrumentalists from both the rhythm'n'blues and the jazz scene. The production system was, in fact, very similar to the Motown or Philly hit factories, with the advantage that New York offered readily-available jazz musicians.

At the end of 1976 Blondie bridged the gap between disco-music and punk-rock, the two genres that were advancing dramatically on western civilization. In 1977 the film "Saturday Night Fever", by promoting disco-music beyond gays and blacks, launched the disco fever around the world. Millions of kids stopped dreaming of becoming guitarists and started dreaming of becoming acrobatic dancers. Those who were not punks, were disco addicts.

At the same time that disco-music was becoming a mass-market phenomenon, a few clubs kept setting the standard for innovation. In 1977 the disco "Warehouse" opened in Chicago and Frankie Knuckles became its resident disc-jockey, and in 1978 the disco "Paradise Garage" for black gays opened in New York and its founder Larry Levan became the first superstar disc-jockey.

The sound of disco-music began to change after (1978) Dave Smith (of Sequential Circuits) introduced the "Prophet-5", the world's first microprocessor-based musical instrument, thus ushering in the age of digital synthesizers, which replaced the voltage-controlled (analog) synthesizers. The year before Roland had introduced the first rhythm machine for the masses, and in 1978 Roland introduced the MC-4 sequencer, the first sequencer for the masses. Sequencing, drum-machines and the new synthesizers came to characterize the sound of the disco era.

As white (and often European) producers began to compose suites inspired by classical music and easy-listening music, employing batteries of drum-machines, string sections and horn solos, disco-music became less and less "black" and more and more "white".

The golden era of disco music basically ended in 1979, the year of the anthems, notably the Village People's YMCA (1979), produced by Jacques Morali, and Sister (Debbie) Sledge's We Are Family (1979), written by Chic's Edwards and Rodgers, which both celebrated the disco community from the inside. Just like the self-celebrations of the hippy civilization announced the commercialization of psychedelic-rock, the self-celebrations of gay civilization announced the "commodization" of disco-music.

This was evident, for example, in the gospel-infected singles crafted by producer Richard Perry for the Pointer Sisters, that would become increasingly upbeat, from He's So Shy (1980) all the way to I'm So Excited (1982), Jump (1984), Neutron Dance (1984).

Symbolically, disco-music returned to Africa with Discolypso (1979), an electronic calypso-tinged dance sung by Sierra Leone's Mack Bunny (Cecil MacCormack), and later with Rikiatou (1982) and African Typic Collection (1983), dancefloor makossa numbers by Cameroon's Sam Fan Thomas.

The kings of pop 1975-79

The 1970s were the decade in which pop music turned black, as the charts traditionally defined as "white music" came to be dominated by black singers. Basically, soul music took over pop music.

Michael Jackson, who became independent in 1979 under the tutelage of rhythm'n'blues and veteran jazz producer Quincy Jones, released the greatest album of all times (if sales define greatness), Thriller (1982). Like its predecessor, Off The Wall (1979), and its successor, Bad (1987), this trivial collage of pop-soul cliches and dance beats, elegantly and masterly orchestrated by Jones employing state-of-the-art technology, was complemented by the deliberate construction of a surreal persona, a sort of fairy-tale figure, half child and half man, tenderly insecure and slightly hysterical, sex-neutral, race-neutral and age-neutral, readily identified by his mask, his costumes and his moves.

Minneapolis' multi-instrumentalist Prince Nelson was Jackson's intellectual counterpart. This licentious androgyne, specializing in quasi-porno ballads, not only wrote his songs but even played all or most of the instruments. His favorite format was the concept album, not the hit single. His fusion of pop, soul and rock was driven by sheer libido. Prince basically transformed the moaning and screaming of copulation into a style of singing, a neurotic, delirious falsetto that continuously referenced sexual pleasure. If the fundamental elements remained the same throughout the decade, the emphasis shifted from the purely self-celebratory 1999 (1982) to the epic Purple Rain (1984) to the self-indulgently baroque Around The World (1985) to the semiotic, post-modern clockwork of Sign Of The Times (1987). Each album was both an erotic and a stylistic tour de force. His career as a whole was both a lascivious act and a pop encyclopedia.
Prince's songwriting skills, also displayed in the Bangles' Manic Monday (1986) and Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares (1990), belonged to a white tradition that harks back to the Brill Building and runs through Brian Wilson and Todd Rundgren.

A similar funk-rock-pop hybrid was concocted by Rick James on Come Get It (1978), who then perfected the idea for Street Songs (1981).

Another black singer and songwriter, Lionel Richie, was the master of the sentimental ballad, first with the Commodores, mainly Three Times A Lady (1978) and Still (1979), and then solo, for example Lady (1980), Endless Love (1981), All Night Long (1983), Say You Say Me (1985), and the humanitarian anthem We Are The World (1986).

Lionel Ritchie's solo hits All Night Long (1983) and Say You Say Me (1985) continued the ballad format he had coined with the Commodores' Three Times A Lady (1978) and Still (1979).

Others black competitor in the romantic-ballad genre were Billy Ocean, Teddy Pendergrass and singer-songwriter-producer Luther Vandross.

At the turn of the decade, soul music was buried under the ever growing technological sophistication of hip-hop and the noise of techno, but still managed to produce talents worthy of the classics, notably Anita Baker, who set a new standard for the classy romantic ballads with Angel (1983), Sweet Love (1985), Giving You The Best I Got (1988) and Body And Soul (1994).

Luther Vandross' Never Too Much (1981) and Bobby Womack' The Poet (1981) were influential albums for the future of the pop-soul ballad.

Among white pop fluff, Bette Midler sang Amanda McBroom's The Rose (1977), and Barry Manilow, Bette Midler's arranger, sang his own Mandy (1974). Both became household names and the latter became the only artist after Frank Sinatra to have five albums at once in the Billboard charts (1978). Olivia Newton-John was, by far, the best-selling white artist of the decade, thanks not so much to her lame country-pop hits (starting with Let Me Be There in 1974), but to John Farrar's nostalgic duets You're The One That I Want (1978) and Summer Nights (1978) for the movie Grease and to the mega-hit Physical (1981), composed by Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick, and produced by John Farrar, for another movie soundtrack. Debby Boone had the other massive hit of the time, Joe Brooks' You Light Up My Life (1978), also from a movie soundtrack. These hits by Olivia Newton-John and Debby Boone were the first hits since the Sixties to truly dominate the charts after a long period in which hits came and went rather rapidly.

The New Wave
New York's new Boheme

1976 was a watershed year: the music industry was revitalized by the emergence of "independent" labels and the music scene was revitalized by the emergence of new genres. The two phenomena fed into each other and spiraled out of control. In a matter of months, a veritable revolution changed the way music was produced, played and heard. The old rock stars were forgotten and new rock stars began setting new trends. As far as white popular music goes, it was a sort of Renaissance after a few years of burgeoisie icons (think: Bowie), conservative sounds (country-rock, southern boogie) and exploitation of minorities (funk, reggae).

During the 1970s alternative rock had survived in niches that were highly intellectual, namely German rock and progressive-rock (particularly the Canterbury school). They were all but invisible to the masses.

1976 was the year when most of those barriers (between "low" and "high" rock, between "intellectual" and "populist", between "conservative" and "progressive", between "star" and "anti-star") became not only obsolete but meaningless. Something similar had happened in 1966, when rock music as we know it was born through the revolutionary records of Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Doors, Velvet Underground, etc. But in 1976 rock music had a powerful ally: the record industry itself, that an army of amateurish entrepreneurs rescued from the virtual monopoly of the "major" labels.

The creative explosion was indeed very similar to the exuberance of the mid Sixties. However, the mood was completely different. The Sixties were, ultimately, an optimistic age. The young generation thought it could change (and own) the world. In 1976, only the most utopian of teenagers could fathom an ideal world in which peace and honesty triumph. The USA had washed itself of the Vietnam war and the Watergate scandal, but those wounds were still open. People, and especially young people, were skeptic of authorities, of society, of the world. Clearly, only money mattered. Clearly, there was a powerful force acting on the USA society and forcing everybody to behave in a uniform way (the "USA way of life"). Clearly, most actors in society and politics were corrupt. It was not a dictatorship: it was worse than a dictatorship, because there was no dictator to fight against. Young generations felt powerless, and not only because they "were" powerless but also because they came to realize that there was no other way.

The oil crisis was still hurting. In the Sixties, USA citizens had lived relatively sheltered from international events, their wealth guaranteed by the sheer isolation of the North American continent. Oil shrank the world: suddenly a war in a distant country had a direct effect on the oil pump round the corner, and on the USA economy as a whole. Certainties about the present and the future were shattered.

In the meantime, decade after decade an enemy from the inside had been growing unchecked: urban violence. In 1976 the USA had already become the most dangerous country in the West, with a murder rate that was tens of times higher than Europe's or Japan's. In the Sixties the main threat to urban peace had been the civil riots. In the Seventies all sorts of misfits (and mostly white) became the protagonists of a hidden civil war.

The "collective consciousness" was frustrated to the point that it was difficult to have any dream, let alone a dream of "peace and love". Idealism was dying. Materialism was rampant. The Sixties had been the age of the eccentric, of the bizarre, of the unusual. The Sixties had been the age of social commitment and political participation. The early Seventies had been a time of "restoration", of return to normal life, of mediocrity, uniformity and sociopolitical indifference. The counterculture had been defeated by the Establishment. The revolution had been lost.

No wonder the teenagers of the Seventies grew up in a far less exciting environment. Their only prospect was to follow a predetermined path to a degree and a career. Their grandfathers had fought Hitler. Their fathers were the ubiquitous "baby boomers". They, the generation of the Seventies, were nothing.

This set of circumstances created an existential mood that was mostly unconscious and subdued but was widespread among teenagers around the USA. This "teenage depression" was a form of boredom, breeding violence and nihilism.

The rock musicians of 1976 were venting that feeling of boredom. Their raw and unpleasant sound was related to the garage bands of the early Sixties (they did share the frustration, after all, if not the rebellion).

New York was the capital of this "new wave" of musicians. Clubs such as the CBGB's and the Max's Kansas City were their meccas. Radio stations picked up the trend. Magazines such as Creem and Trouser Press began spreading the gospel.

They came to be called "punks" even if many of them were college kids. As it grew and snowballed around the country and eventually around the world, the punk phenomenon of the Seventies mirrored the hippie phenomenon of the Sixties, but the "punks" were almost the opposite of the "hippies". Even the costumes and the haircuts were completely different. The "punk" was a street animal, not a pacifist. Their language was vulgar, not sweet. They were constantly in search of extreme excitement, not of lysergic ecstasy or transcendental meditation. Last but not least, they were not social: there were no marches, no movement, no sit-ins. A punk's way of life "was" his form of protest. They were closer in spirit to the English "mods", to the motto "live fast die young". Their idols were Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Iggy Stooge, Johnny Thunders: the "maudits" of rock music.

Manhattan became the stage for a generation of musicians who lived like the "beatniks" and the "bohemians" of the Fifties: The "prophets" of the punk generation were Richard "Hell" Myers, Patti Smith, Television. They played rock and roll with a twist, both in the lyrics and in the music, they put their heart in it and they tried to reach out to their generation. They were not stars: they were everykids.

The most authentic reincarnation of the spirit of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Jim Morrison, poetess and rocker Patti Smith was first out of the blocks. The songs of Horses (1975) were little more than free-form accompaniments of Smith's poems, but Radio Ethiopia (1976), her masterpiece, and Easter (1978) added epileptic rock'n'roll numbers and introduced a wild, visceral, feverish manner of screaming her lyrics, halfway between a medieval witch and a gospel preacher. That hysterical and emphatic register soared over a boogie bacchanal in crescendo while broadcasting epic confessions of frustration and alienation that rediscovered Chuck Berry's old trick of transforming the issues of a generation into the stuff of mythology.

Richard "Hell" Myers can be considered the prophet of the new wave. He transformed New York's decadent rock from a lifestyle into an ideology and a philosophy. He didn't give it a sound (the Ramones would) but he gave it an ethos: the punk ethos. Myers formed the Neon Boys in 1971, featuring Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd on guitars, but their morbid and unfriendly music never escaped the underground (unlike his friend Johnny Thunders' band, the New York Dolls). The Voidoids, which he formed with titanic guitarist Robert Quine, did. Their sarcastic and desperate Blank Generation (1976) played the role of the manifesto for the newborn punk generation. Quine's abrasive, dissonant riffs, and Hell's visceral, neurotic whine defined a new sound. His songs, that mixed free-association babbling and Dylan-esque visionary lyrics, charged the world with explosive doses of ferocious nihilism and existential angst.

Richard Hell was also instrumental in starting Television. Tom Verlaine's and Richard Lloyd's band that originated from the Neon Boys. The music on Marquee Moon (1977), Television's debut album, defined the aesthetic of the new wave: acid, macabre and mystical overtones poisoned the melody, while group jamming that recalled John Coltrane's free-jazz expanded the song format. The agonizing rituals of Marquee Moon and Torn Curtain bridged the existential and the metaphysical the same way it was done by the Velvet Underground and the Doors. Verlaine and Lloyd reinvented the role of the electric guitar in rock music, the way the sitar was played in Indian ragas, the way John Cale played the viola in the Velvet Underground, the way Ray Manzarek played the organ in the Doors and the way Neil Young played... the guitar. The funereal litanies of Adventure (1978), and, 14 years after the fact, the even more disturbed sound of Television (1992), remained the fundamental coordinates of New York's new wave.

Richard Lloyd continued to preach Television's transcendental power-rock on Alchemy (1979), Field Of Fire (1985) and The Cover Doesn't Matter (2001).

Tom Verlaine went on to become one of the most profound bards of the "blank generation", the antidote to the commercial sell-out of the new wave that was rapidly defusing the movement. His albums, particularly Tom Verlaine (1979), Dreamtime (1981), Words From The Front (1982), and the baroque Warm and Cool (1992), were essays of controlled improvisation, each song sculpted from irregular rhythms, discordant riffs and fragmented melodies. They were concertos for tremolos and vibratos, that ventured into spectral, hallucinated, oneiric atmospheres with almost religious intensity.

These prophets opened the floodgate. Soon, the everykid felt free to express herself or himself, and the level of eccentricity skyrocketed. Maudit poets, teenage punks, obsessed prophets and decadent transvestites made up a bizarre bestiary of histrionic performers.

But the band that was going to have the greatest impact worldwide was the most unlikely one: the Ramones, who simply played inept rock'n'roll at supersonic speed. Their frenzy was not exactly intellectual, and certainly had no artistic ambition, but was exactly what legions of frustrated kids had been waiting for. Inspired by New York Dolls and Dictators, Ramones (1976), a rapid-fire collection of brief songs that were intentionally demented and clownish, invented the most significant genre of the last quarter century of the 20th century. Blitzkrieg Bop stands as the anthem that woke up a slumbering generation. Rocket To Russia (1977), their masterpiece, was the ultimate item of "junk art": a ridiculous catalog of rockabilly, surf music, Mersey-beat and bubblegum music, but charged with the violence of the slums. Teenage Lobotomy and Rockaway Beach were as irresistible as devoid of instrumental or vocal skills. A few more classics followed, although Do You Remember Rock And Roll Radio (1980) and Bop Til You Drop (1987) flirted with heavy-metal and missed the exuberant recklessness of their early days. Their lifestyle was rude and barbaric, their philosophy was a simple "I Don't Care" and their slogan was "gabba-gabba-hey": this was the revolution that changed the face of western civilization. Perhaps the title of their album, The End Of The Century (1980), was appropriate.

The Vietnam war had fueled the idealism of the Sixties. The punk phenomenon coincided with the end of the Vietnam war, as if the end of the war had defused the anger of the USA youth. Those years basically witnessed a return to the "juvenile delinquent" of the 1950s and the demise of the sociopolitical intellectual of the Sixties. The other issue that had emboldened the youth of the Sixties, the civil rights for the racially discriminated black community, had also largely deflated. Indirectly that may account for the much reduced influence of black music on the music of the punk generation.

No wave

Within a couple of years the phenomenon reached its artistic zenith; which was also its emotional nadir. Music had become even less "entertaining" and musicians had become even less "entertainers". Brian Eno compiled an anthology titled No New York (1978), that stands as a documentary of that "negative" generation. Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, DNA and Mars were playing schizophrenic, paranoid, claustrophobic music. It had the fury and the conciseness of punk-rock, but it was played with sub-human skills and a demented frenzy. The songs were two minutes of ugly outbursts of atonal guitars, psychotic howling and spastic drumming. This "no wave" was the ultimate reaction against the conventions of song-oriented music. Its theme was loneliness and destitution. These were kids who were screaming to be heard. This was the generation that was dying of lack of attention and of affection. They grabbed a microphone and screamed. The silence of the "I" in the noise of the metropolis; or the noise of the "I" in the silence of the metropolis.

Teenage Jesus And The Jerks were the poster children of the no wave. Their songs were barely one-minute long, but packed beastly instincts. Lydia Lunch, their 17-year old "vocalist", was given only a few seconds to scream them, and didn't even try to do a professional job. Guitars were strummed and drums were beaten with a casual, annoyed, detached contempt. Their music was the left-over of whatever musical inspiration had bled out during a suicide attempt. Despite the obvious nihilism embedded in their manners, their anti-musical primitivism was a vehicle to express teenage angst. It was different from Chuch Berry's or Bob Dylan's vehicles for the simple fact that teenage angst had mutated into something a lot uglier. Their declared "bad taste" expressed a desperate sense of loneliness and indifference. Lydia Lunch went on to elaborate on that intuition. While apparently reacting to the whole idea of elitist art, Lunch affirmed the role of an "auteur" who was even more creative, original and personal than the singer-songwriter or progressive musicians whose goals were creativity, originality, etc.
Queen Of Siam (1980), her first solo albums, featuring Billy Ver Planck's orchestra on a set of inept pop parodies, displayed her capricious attitude and her contempt for "high art" (and she impersonated a childish chanteuse that was obviously at odds with morality). It was post-modernism turned upside down. A series of bands and albums followed, notably 13.13 (1982). Lunch became known for songs that were fits of alienation, neurosis, claustrophobia, paranoia. Lunch's nightmares were the nightmares of a street girl who grew up too quickly and was terrified by life. Her decadent antics were set aside in the lengthy psychodrama The Agony Is The Ecstasy (1982), possibly her masterpiece, a cosmic and Freudian suite, a still life of the wasteland, that, musically speaking, harked back to acid-rock. That unholy liturgy led to the dejected litanies of In Limbo (1984), another slow, languid, apathetic, hallucinated torture and self-flagellation by a sinner who relished her stay in a Dante-esque hell.
Later in her career, Lunch focused on the spoken word, drawn to music mainly via collaborations and for theatrical purposes: Stinkfist (1983), Drumming (1984) and Meltdown Oratorio (1987), with her partner Clint "Foetus" Ruin, The Drowning Of Lucy Hamilton, with ex-Mars' Lucy Hamilton, Naked In Garden Hills (1989), with Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, Shotgun Wedding (1991), with ex-Birthday Party's Rowland Howard, etc. Her vulgar, sordid, degenerate and lascivious vocals had a unique, "negative" appeal on that generation of composers. She delved again into her depressing universe of dejected, meaningless lives on Smoke In The Shadows (2004), that resurrected the cadaver of her nocturnal languid smoky kitschy lounge noir jazz, as well as the spectre of her lifeless voice, scavenging emotions in an existential junkyard devastated by nihilism. At the same time she successfully updated her cliche to the age of rap.
Throughout her career, her sensual moaning and demonic wailing coined a new art of vocal music, and, at the same time, reinvented the stereotype of the rock hero (heroine). Lunch stands as one of the great histrionic shamans of rock music, but a completely different kind than her predecessors Jim Morrison and Patti Smith.

Mars, who released only one EP in 1980, played the ultimate "wall of noise". Their songs were the musical equivalent of nerve gas, of nuclear radiation, of volcanic lava colliding with ocean waves. It wasn't just improvised distortion: it was anarchic cacophony. The vocalist vomited undecipherable phonemes while the instruments were horribly being skinned and banged. It was the soundtrack of the apocalypse, a documentary of the extreme convulsions of a dying race. But their brief, disconnected spasms were painful meditations on post-industrial civilization.

Arto Lindsay's atonal guitar and Ikue Mori's tribal drumming gave DNA the quality of utter nausea. Their dadaistic maelstroms were reminiscent of the worst nightmares concocted by Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa.

With these musicians, the regression from Woodstock's "public" music towards the "private" sphere reached the dimension of the narrow, dark rooms where abandoned teenagers performed terrible rituals of moral self-flagellation. The "no wave" was a catalog of the depressions and frustrations of the modern individual, a terrifying fresco of pathetic monsters. The "no wave" showed the subconscious of the new wave.

Not included in Brian Eno's compilation were several other bands that mined New York's basements and lofts. Among them, Jeff Lohn's Theoretical Girls, that released only a single and featured the young Glenn Branca.


London's burning

The effervescence of New York's underground scene was contagious and spread to England with a 1976 tour of the Ramones that was artfully manipulated to start a fad (after the "100 Club Festival" of september 1976 that turned British punk-rock into a national phenomenon). In the USA the punk subculture was a combination of subterranean record industry and of teenage angst. In Britain it became a combination of fashion and of unemployment. Music in London had been a component of fashion since the times of the Swinging London (read: Rolling Stones). Punk-rock was first and foremost a fad that took over the Kingdom by storm. However, the social component was even stronger than in the USA: it was not only a generic malaise, it was a specific catastrophe. The iron rule of prime minister Margaret Thatcher had salvaged Britain from sliding into the Third World, but had caused devastation in the social fabric of the industrial cities, where unemployment and poverty reached unprecedented levels and racial tensions were brooding.

Add the pre-existing "hooligan" phenomenon and a passion for drinking and fighting, and "punk" came to mean something much more serious than the Ramones ever intended: it basically ignited an explosive mixture of social and economic problems.

The difference between UK and USA was both quality and quantity: the USA had many more teenagers that were truly frustrated and identified with the new wave and punk-rock, whereas the UK had fewer punks that were truly punks but those who were... were extremely violent. In the USA the masses ignored the phenomenon: it was definitely not cool to be a punk. In the UK the masses loved the phenomenon: it soon became cool to dress like a punk. Therefore, in a few months London alone had many more punk bands than the entire USA. In a few months both the underground and the mainstream press were afloat in reportages about the punk scene, mirroring closely what had happened in the "swinging London" and in Liverpool with the Mersey-beat.

The real punks had enough loathing for society in their lungs to scream above the fad. They were cynical, ferocious, anarchic, brutal, amoral and illiterate. They were often described as the new "barbarians", mainly because they were. Their live performances were the musical equivalent of throwing up in a toilet. They hated everybody and everything. It wasn't anger, it wasn't depression: it was sheer loathing. They wanted the fight and they never missed a chance to get in trouble.

Their music was the ultimate in simplicity: just scream a refrain as loud and possible and as fast as possible. Arrangements became an embarrassing trait of the bourgeois society. Cute melodies were off-limits. Maniacal attitudes were welcome. Songs shrank and shrank: basically, the title was most of the song. It was the ultimate in "generational anthem": the song was a motto, a slogan and little else.

Malcom McLaren was the manager who virtually invented punk-rock in Britain. He invented both the sound, when he launched the Sex Pistols (the Ramones on heroin and valium), and the look (Richard Hell transposed in the London slums), thanks to his London boutique.

Rock'n'roll had always had a fascination with the juvenile delinquent, but the Sex Pistols certainly brought it to a whole new dimension. They seemed to exist only to wreak havoc, generate scandal and elicit outrage. Johnny "Rotten" Lydon screamed like a hostile, rabid beast, while his cohorts unleashed a primal, feral fury. They were not as gifted as the Rolling Stones, but they were their equivalent in the new "swinging London" of the 1970s. Anarchy In The UK (1976) and God Save The Queen (1977) had clear political overtones, although their album, Never Mind The Bollocks (1977), was more genuinely "anthemic" in the tradition of Rolling Stones, Who and Animals. They lasted only one year, but it was enough to feed a punk frenzy throughout the kingdom.

The Damned had actually been the first punks out of the blocks. Their Damned Damned Damned (1977) was the quintessence of British punk-rock, even though with Black Album (1980) they converted to melodic hard-rock.

After the Sex Pistols, came the Clash, by far the most intellectual and among the first punk bands to take aim at social issues. They "were" the epitome of "anthemic". White Riot, Complete Control, Clash City Rockers and London's Burning channeled the rage of the lumperproletariat into simple, melodic, riff-driven and noisy rave-ups. The Clash (1977), one of the greatest punk-rock albums of all times, was a vehement call to arms. Unlike the Ramones, the Clash were aware of the sociopolitical status of their country. Unlike the Ramones, the Clash could relate private angst and public life. Joe "Strummer" Mellors and Mick Jones were also capable musicians, and they proved it on London Calling (1979), a milestone recording that was the exact opposite of what punk-rock was meant to be: far from being illiterate and nihilistic, the sermons on this album were a musical encyclopedia (drawing from country, rock, rhythm'n'blues, boogie, funk, ska, calypso, etc) and relied heavily on melody. Sandinista (1980) forsook the "punk" and kept only the "rock" of the equation. A sprawling artistic and political statement, it summarized 25 years of music, from Chuck Berry to Bob Dylan to George Clinton to Bob Marley. It was also one of the earliest wide-scale appropriations of third-world music by western musicians. Completing the 180-degree U-turn, Combat Rock (1982) sold that sound to the discos. The band had coined a distinctive sound, equally appealing to the rockers and to the dancers, that Mick Jones would continue to explore on his Big Audio Dynamite (B.A.D.) project.

Billy "Idol" Broad's Generation X, were also unique in that they did pay attention to melody: their songs were actually hummable and Generation X (1978) was actually musical. The Buzzcocks were even more melodic (beating the Ramones at their own game) and virtually invented punk-pop with Orgasm Addict (1977) and Boredom (1977), as did the vastly under-rated Vibrators, whose Pure Mania (1977) was one of the real classics of British punk-rock.

The vast majority of British punk bands, including Sham 69, and the Adverts, with Crossing the Red Sea (1978), merely copied the Sex Pistols,

Time would tell that there was more to British punk-rock than barbaric anti-social aggression. In fact, many punks were more literate than the average of rock music, coming from a leftist background and promoting a neo-socialist agenda. Many of them, far from being nihilistic and anarchic as the press (and their publicists) depicted them, actually believed that they could change the world. And most punks (even the angriest ones) were fundamentally poking fun at the British establishment, in a tradition of satirical writers and music-hall comedians that goes back centuries. At heart punk was even, in its own peculiar way, very puritan.

Australia

While the focus was on London, there were other important scenes. The Australian scene was closely related to the British scene, but the results were different, as Radio Birdman and the Saints (two of the greatest punk bands of all times) opted for the raw and wild style of Stooges and MC5 rather than the Sex Pistol's primal assault. Radio Birdman unleashed a rock'n'roll orgy on Radios Appear (1977) while Living Eyes (1978) adopted a more atmospheric approach. The Saints debuted with the only album that can compete with the Ramones' demented style, I'm Stranded (1976), but then veered towards a hysterical form of rhythm'n'blues with Eternally Yours (1978).

Art-punk

Wire, Fall and Swell Maps were the artsy bands of early punk-rock. Wire evolved rapidly from the demented and decadent punk-rock of Pink Flag (1977) to the surreal atmosphere of Chairs Missing (1978), which betrayed Brian Eno's influence and incorporated the synthesizer. That anathema instrument, the very nemesis of punk-rock, became prominent on 154 (1979), an exercise in bleak soundscapes, drenched in psychedelic nightmares and industrial alienation. A-Z (1980), the first solo album by Wire's keyboardist Colin Newman, expanded on those ideas with an apocalyptic cycle of menacing dirges, and achieved a demented intensity that was the musical equivalent of expressionism.

Mark Smith's Fall were punks, but the emphasis of albums such as Live At Witch Trials (1979) and Hex Enduction Hour (1982) was on noise and anarchy, not on violence and sarcasm. They mostly saved their energy for brutal raids on harmony, of the kind pioneered by Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu. Even the much more accessible sound of This Nation's Saving Grace (1985) and Frenz Experiment (1988), when Smith compromised with traditional formulas, still contained substantial doses of mental insanity.

One of the most inventive bands of the British new wave, despite lasting only a few months, the Swell Maps bridged the worlds of punk-rock, acid-rock, avantgarde music and pop music. Led by brothers Nikki Sudden and Paul "Epic Soundtracks" Godley, the band applied psychedelic chaos and catchy refrains to a magma of free-jazz improvisation, demented dissonances, killer riffs, found objects, Stooge-ian distortions, industrial bacchanals. A Trip To Marineville (1979) was a monument to anarchic nonsense.

John Langford's Mekons were also employing skewed rhythms and intoxicated harmonies, but they were an old-fashioned pub-band of incorrigible drunkards, disguised as punk-rockers. The shamelessly incompetent rock'n'roll of Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strnen (1979) turned them into icons of the independent/alternative scene, but they found their true mission with a populist, sarcastic country-rock, for example on Fear And Whiskey (1985).

The Slits were the first female punk band, a predecessor of the riot-grrrrls, and Slits (1980) was one of the first feminist albums since Joy Of Cooking.

Birthday Party, which also came from Australia, were absolutely unique in their dissonant, awkward and deranged approach to punk-rock. Prayers On Fire (1981) and Junkyard (1982) offered grotesquely dislocated blues and fake jazz, while vocalist Nick Cave tested human hearing with absurd vocal performances worthy of Captain Beefheart.

Funk-punk fission

Britain was coming out of a decade of progressive experiments. Punk-rock was largely born as a reaction against the excessive cerebral/militant approach of those experiments, but displayed from the early days the influence of the very school it was reacting against (one of punk's many inherent contradictions). Quite a few punk musicians toyed with jazz and funk. They rediscovered the "savage" essence of jazz, which is, after all, African music, and the vibrant feeling of funk's syncopated rhythm. Jazz and funk were, in other words, closer to the punk spirit than any punk would ever want to admit. The founders of jazz and funk had been "punks" themselves, although in a wildly different world (one in which the "punk" would be hanged from a tree or banned from society, not one in which the punk became a celebrity).

The landscape of bands that focused on jazz and funk was far less homogeneous but far more creative than the landscape of straightforward punk-rock.

The band that legitimized this hyper-fusion of genres was the Pop Group and rarely has a name been more misleading. The Pop Group was the quintessential experimental (and agit-prop) combo, integrating elements of jazz, funk, rock, dub and classical music. Their music was revolutionary in word and in spirit. Y (1979), one of the most intense, touching and vibrant albums in the history of rock music, was the outcome of the Pop Group's quest for a catastrophic balance between primitivism and futurism: the new wave's futuristic ambitions got transformed into a regression to prehistoric barbarism. At the same time, the band's furious stylistic fusion led to a a nuclear magma of violent funk syncopation, monster dub lines, savage African rhythms (Bruce Smith), dissonant saxophone (Gareth Sager), and visceral shouts and cries (Mark Stewart). The lyrics celebrated the unlikely wedding of punk nihilism and militant slogans. Both the method and the medium were permeated by an anarchic and subversive spirit. In fact, Stewart's declamation was closer to Brecht's theater than to "singing". Another dose of lava-like anger was poured into the funk-rock foundations by the anthemic rants of For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder (1980). Both albums sounded like assortments of mental disorders. A sound so revolutionary (in both senses of the word) had not been heard since the heydays of the Canterbury school.

When the Pop Group broke up, saxophonist Gareth Sager and drummer Bruce Smith joined keyboardist Mark Springer and Don Cherry's daughter, Neneh, to form Rip Rig & Panic, a band that offered a lighter version of the Pop Group's afro-funk-soul-jazz-punk hyper-fusion. Reaching back to the 1940s and 1950s, they delivered a spectacular revision of big-band swing and rhythm'n'blues on God (1981), in a frenzy of dancing and plagiarism. The equally feverish I Am Cold (1982) and Attitude (1983) mitigated the volcanic exuberance of the group with increased jazz and ethnic elements.

Mark Stewart associated with Tackhead and continued the original program of dynamiting the song structure, albeit in a hip-hop framework.

Other groups that experimented with funk and jazz were the Gang Of Four, whose Entertainment (1979) was as deranged a work as Pop Group's debut album, and their offshoot Shriekback; A Certain Ratio, one of the most sophisticated, a hybrid of Joy Division and Talking Heads, even though their best material may be on the 1980 singles rather than on the pretentious album To Each (1981); Ludus, Glaxo Babies, Shock Headed Peters, Slab, Stump.

The last salvo in this tradition was the eclectic and atmospheric Bird Wood Cage (1988), by Wolfgang Press.

They had in common an odd balance of primitivism and futurism: their music was, at the same time, reaching back to African tribal music and arching forward to envision the soundtrack for the post-industrial world, a harrowing fresco of human society after the nuclear apocalypse.

Punk never dies

The second wave of British punk bands, that came out when the originals had already disbanded or changed style, simply increased the original level of violence: GBH, whose explosive City Baby Attacked By Rats (1982) sounds like the British version of the Dead Kennedys, UK Subs, Neurotics, whose Beggars Can Be Choosers (1983) still embodied the spirit of 1977, Nihilistics, New Model Army, whose Vengenace (1984) was one of the best political albums of the age, and, in Ireland, the great Stiff Little Fingers, whose furious, anthemic, loud and fast Inflammable Material (1979) may have been the most influential of them all on future generations.

Anarchists

A significant branch of punk-rock was devoted to anarchism. They were agit-prop bands that sang about revolution and terrorism, the ideal children of MC5. The moral leaders of the movement, Crass, frequently didactic and rarely musical but sincerely and tragically gripping on Stations Of The Crass (1980), and Discharge, whose Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing (1982) erupts with a blind destructive fury that predates grindcore, produced some of the most radical sounds of the time.

The most creative extremists were probably two bands that debuted around 1981: Rudimentari Peni, who released Death Church (1983) and Cacophony (1987), a 30-song musical aberration that sounds like a concerted effort by Captain Beefheart, Sonic Youth and Clash; and the Subhumans, whose The Day The Country Died (1983) served one of the scariest batch of angry rants.

The whole thing lasted a few years. The first wave was dead after a few months, but punk-rock kept producing ever new bands that took over and prolonged the agony of a genre that was not meant to last. It lasted longer than any other genre in the history of rock music.


The Blank Generation
Akron 1976-80

The "blank generation" came out of a moral vacuum. While punks roamed the suburban landscape, blue-collar workers were feeling the pinch of an economic revolution: human society had left the industrial age and entered the post-industrial age, the age in which services (such as software) prevail over manufacturing.

Computers now rule the world, from Wall Street to Boeing. The assembly line took away a bit of the personality of the worker, but that was nothing: the new service-based economy takes away the worker completely, physically. In the post-industrial society the individual is even less of a "person". The individual is merely a cog in a huge organism of interconnected parts that works at the beat of a gigantic network of computers. This highly sophisticated economy treats the individual as a number, as a statistic. The goal is no longer to create a robot that behaves like a human being, but to create a human being that behaves like a robot: robots are efficient and lead to manageable and profitable businesses, whereas humans are inefficient and difficult to manage.

This work condition merely reinforces the uniformity of the "American way of life". There is little one can change without ending up a bum. Society is no longer the association of individuals: the individual is a member of society, meaning that society determines what the individual does and thinks. Inevitably, this reduces the scale of the individual life. The individual "matters" less. The process that began when human beings moved from the rural society to the urban society continues with a further level of shrinking of personal identity.

At the same time, the very concept of human race is changing. Progress in medicine allows weak humans to survive beyond their biological limits. Organ transplants point to a future in which humans will be assembled out in a hospital. Progress in genetics shed light on how to engineer life. Human life is ever less magic, and ever more mathematic.

It is not surprising that films and cartoons project the vision of a human race that is becoming increasingly weak, ugly, illiterate and barbaric, and more and more similar to the machines that used to serve us.

This vision changes the emotional landscape. In the Sixties that landscape was sculpted mainly by the fear of the nuclear holocaust. That fear is now replaced by the vision of a radical mutation in the nature of the human being. We will not be exterminated: we will become monsters.

The "blank generation" agonizes within that vision. There is an alienated metropolis where faceless beings study, work and die. There is a future of machines and of moral apocalypse. There is a present of neuroses and fears.

The soundtrack for that generation is depressed, disconnected, unpleasant, even noisy.

The music that emerges from the "new wave" is one of the most philosophical forms of rock and roll since its inception. It has a depth that is almost the very opposite of punk-rock, although punk-rock is, after all, a complementary phenomenon.

It may not be a coincidence that Ohio, one of the most industrial states, ended up leading the charge. The school started in Akron by bands such as the Mirrors, the Electric Eels, and the Pagans became the most influential outside of New York.

Pere Ubu, one of the greatest (and most creative) bands of all times, featuring David Thomas, one of the greatest (and most eccentric) vocalists of all times, The Modern Dance (1978), one of the most important recordings in the history of rock music, was, first and foremost, the fresco of a civilization on the verge of collapse. It was also the soundtrack of a nervous breakdown, both individual and collective. Pere Ubu released deafening bacchanals of cryptic slogans, agonizing vocals, discordant strumming, electronic distortions and primordial pulsations. The "modern dance" was the grotesque dance of bodies possessed by the spasms of industrial alienation and post-industrial lethargy. The visceral rhythmic charge of ancestral tribal music was transposed to the ambience and to the cadence of the factory. Songs were orchestrated with free-form interludes, "concrete" and electronic clumps of sound, and sudden flarings of noise, aiming to evoke the cyclic motion, the steaming gusts and the menacing rumbling of the machines, as well as the inorganic bawling of the mob of workers and the apathetic decay of their minds. Thomas' demented vibrato and somnambulant weeping, that seemed to mock the emphatic style of agit-prop, increased the feeling of madness. His fervent babbling (running the gamut from Frank Sinatra-style crooning to Marvin Gaye's falsetto to Howling Wolf's roar to Captain Beefheart's delirium) painted the portrait of a tormented psyche. Meanwhile, Allen Ravenstine reinvented the role of keyboards in rock music, bringing about a revolution comparable to the one begun by Brian Eno a few years earlier. His anti-sensationalist style relied on atmosphere rather than technique, and favored "dirty", unorthodox sounds over melody. The most structured songs founded a new type of absurd lied. The least structured songs bordered on chamber music for broken cookware, discordant synth lines and psychedelic overdose. This is folk music for the industrial age, an extreme synthesis of the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd and local heroes the Stooges.
A gothic tone began to emerge on Dub Housing (1978), but was soon drenched in hallucinations on two stately masterpieces, New Picnic Time (1979) and Art Of Walking (1980), which benefited from the addition of Red Crayola's Mayo Thompson. The group's pataphysical dementia and sonic jungle became even less rational, while Thomas' inarticulate whines and garbled visions became even less focused. The brutal and orgiastic rock'n'roll of yore was tempered by an ethereal and even serene contemplation of life. Anaemic and rarefied compositions simply floated, without reaching closure. Pere Ubu explored a soundscape that was closer to abstract painting than to rock'n'roll.
This process of implosion led to the fragile music of The Song Of The Bailing Man (1983), with Anton Fier on drums. The Tenement Year (1988), with John Kirkpatrick on accordion and Chris Cutler (ex-Henry Cow) on drums, sounded like an appendix to David Thomas' solo albums, which had made the group largely irrelevant. Instead, the group was reborn as a more commercial unit on Cloudland (1989), ready to sell the "modern dance" as background music.

Devo, whose Are We Not Men (1978) proclaimed the advent of "de-volution" (the opposite process of Darwin's evolution) while rehashing psychedelic-rock and garage-rock, Human Switchboard, Styrenes, whose Drano In Your Veins (1975) had been one of the earliest independent singles of the new wave and whose posthumous Girl Crazy (1982) is worthy of Pere Ubu, Tin Huey, will be the most influential in the early years of the new wave. The Waitresses continued that tradition into the 1980s with one of the school's masterpieces, Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful (1982), that applied the same rules of idiosyncrasy and creativity to vaudeville-pop. Tin Huey's multi-instrumentalist Ralph Carney formed the Swollen Monkeys, who released the equally bizarre After Birth Of The Cool (1981).

These groups incorporated the frenzy of punk-rock, especially the Dead Boys on Young Loud And Snotty (1977), but the atmosphere mattered more than the sheer violence. Their violence was, in fact, more internal than external, indirect rather than direct, psychological rather than physical. They depicted a wasteland populated with psychotic characters. Their songs were Freudian nightmares.

California 1974-81

Something similar was happening in California, and specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area which is the home of the Silicon Valley. An ideal line joined Ohio's industrial landscape and California's computer-driven economy. The Silicon Valley was the quintessence of everything that was happening to the collective subconscious of the "blank generation".

On top of it, California had been one of the cradles of experimental rock since the heyday of Frank Zappa. During the 1970s, freaks turned into punks and hippies switched from LSD to heroin, but the creativity kept flowing. Interactions with other forms of art were at a peak. Avantgarde clubs of all kinds spread all around San Francisco. California's new wave was more experimental, but the underlying theme remained the somewhat hallucinated and neurotic representation of a catastrophic present/future, of a horrible mutation of the human race.

Their music was even less related to punk-rock and to New York's intellectuals. California's new wave exhibited an amateurish tone that was unique. The "visual" aspect often prevailed. The Residents, Chrome and Tuxedomoon formed the San Francisco triad that created the third pole of the new wave, along with New York and Akron.

Perhaps the quintessential independent musicians of the 1970s, the Residents
performed in android costumes and never revealed their faces or identities. They debuted in 1972, during the dark age that followed the demise of the hippie movement and the collapse of acid-rock. They composed their most innovative works between 1974 and 1976, when the new wave wasn't even born yet, but their isolation from the music scene remained absolute until the new wave allowed them to emerge as new prophets of a way to make, perform and conceive music. "Obscure" and cryptic, their pieces were part of a multimedia show whose antics transposed the music-hall into the new wave and whose sound emphasized a collage-style approach to composition. Meet The Residents (1974) gave "devolution" a sound. Inspired by Dada, surrealism and Frank Zappa, the Residents assembled fragments and debris of junk culture (commercials, orchestral easy-listening, cartoon soundtracks, pop muzak, exotica, marching-band fanfares) and proceeded to sculpt a sonic montage that was deliberately amateurish but also provided a chilling documentary of the western civilization, albeit disguised as a grotesque parody of its consumerism. Where Zappa was actually a virtuoso of composition and direction, a heroic implementer of sloppy ideas, the Residents were sloppy implementers of heroic ideas. Glacial, distorted, monotonous voices soared over instruments that merged chamber and atonal pretenses with puerile rhythms and clumsy melodies. Not Available (1978), conceived too in 1974 but released several years later, one of the milestone recordings of the era, was their most sophisticated work of art. Its suites virtually coined a new form of avantgarde music out of symphonic primitivism and cacophonous world-music. Despite the gargantuan display of sounds, they offered a bleak and terrifying vision of humankind. That vision was expressed in a more programmatic format with the futuristic ballet Six Things To A Cycle (1976), and reached its poetic apex with Eskimo (1979), which was basically an experiment of "musique concrete" set in the Arctic but also a touching tribute to ancestral humanity, to its epic struggle in hostile environments. This time the Residents looked to expressionism, and to theatre, for crafting a work that was less chaotic than their early collages as well as more "ambient" in Brian Eno's vein. Mark Of The Mole (1981), the first installment of a three-part sci-fi fantasy, and the fairy tales of Census Taker (1985) and God In Three Persons (1988), continued their ventures into a musical realm that no other band dared approach. Big Bubble (1985), the third part of the trilogy, was one of the most thrilling post-modernist experiments on the human voice of the time.

Chrome were the ultimate space-rock band, drenched both in hippy culture and in new wave culture, with an additional touch of art-rock. Helios Creed's superhuman guitar explorations and keyboardist Tom "Damon Edge" Weisse's sci-fi visions bridged Grateful Dead and Todd Rundgren on the rock opera Alien Soundtracks (1977), which stand as swan songs of San Francisco's acid-rock as well as manifestos of the new wave, while Half Machine Lip Moves (1979) twisted psychedelia towards the sonic massacres of Stooges and MC5, while acknowledging Neu's percussive nightmares and Throbbing Gristle's industrial implosions. Each piece became a terrifying shock wave, a stormy, tribal and hyper-distorted slab of moral apocalypse.

Tuxedomoon, formed by multi-instrumentalists Steve Brown, Blaine Reininger and Peter "Principle" Dachert, were the most erudite of the group. They were also natural descendants of progressive-rock, as demonstrated on Half Mute (1980), that scored pieces for keyboards, saxophone and violin besides the rock trio. The languid, seductive and stately demeanor of those avantgarde chamber lieder absorbed the spirit of both decadentism and surrealism. Their eclectic inspiration turned Suite En Sous-sol (1982) into a stylistic tour de force, running the gamut from chamber music (for unusual combinations of instruments) to disco-pop to world-music to raga-rock to psychedelic-rock to renaissance music etc. Later, on works such as Holy Wars (1985), settled on a form of neo-classical fusion/dance music that harked back to Canterbury's surreal, depressed and elegant jazz-rock.

An even more radical approach, that seemed to wed Jimi Hendrix and Morton Subotnick, was attempted by the likes of Factrix, whose Scheintot (1981) and California Babylon (1982) built massive walls of distortion and set in motion wildly dissonant and chaotic porno-macabre-psychedelic nightmares, Nervous Gender, whose album Music from Hell (1982) relied on excruciating synthesizer dissonances and uncontrolled cacophony, and MX-80 Sound, whose Out Of The Tunnel (1980) contained abrasive torments delivered with the fury of heavy-metal.

Monte Cazazza and, in Los Angeles, Non (Boyd Rice), who conducted the noisiest experiments of the era, and John Duncan, influenced and were influenced by Throbbing Gristle's industrial music.

The Los Angeles Free Music Society, formed around Tom Recchion in 1972, was a collective of underground artists loosely inspired by Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart (but also all jazz and classical avantgarde movements). Le Forte Four, who released four lunatic electronic-folk albums starting with Bikini Tennis Shoes (1974), Doo-Dooettes (two albums), Smegma (one album) and Airway (one album) were some of the performers devoted to free improvisation, abstract cacophony and demented chanting.

Zoogz Rift was one of the most original figures of the time, although hard to classify. The quintessential "idiot savant", a natural heir to Captain Beefheart and Salvador Dali, Robert Pawlikowski displayed his eclectic albeit demented musical talent on Idiots On The Miniature Golf Course (1979) and Amputees In Limbo (1982). His aesthetic of indiscriminate chaos and parody shone on the instrumental jams of Ipecac (1984) and Water (1987), that borrow ideas from Frank Zappa and Tom Waits and raid oldies as well as world-music. Unabated wit helped rise Nonentity (1988) to the occasion of a blaspheme revisitation of the USA civilization.

Barnes & Barnes were even less serious, and their albums, particularly Voobaha (1980), were demented parodies of genres and lifestyles in a Frank Zappa-esque vein.

San Francisco became the stage for all sorts of musical experiments. Rhythm And Noise, the brainchild of Naut Humon (Mark Sprague), played noise and electronic music that fused Karlheinz Stockhausen's manipulations of found sounds, Morton Subotnick's electronic fantasies, Throbbing Gristle's industrial music and Foetus' infernal symphonies. The most intense moments on Contents Under Notice (1984) and Chasms Accord (1985) recall Klaus Schulze's cosmic music applied to a black hole, while slabs of expressionistic violence collide with factory cadences and electronic dissonances.

Slava Ranko released only one album, Arctic Hysteria (1981), that quotes John Cage, Brian Eno, minimalism, Indian music

Norman Salant's post-modernist jams on Saxophone Demonstrations (1981) spanned minimalism, jazz, disco and ambient music.

The Clubfoot Orchestra specialized in instrumental scores that trapped the warm soul of folk music into the icy structures of chamber music, as on Wild Beasts (1986).

Like the Lounge Lizards on the other coast, the Longshoremen concocted jazz scores that were musical oxymorons, but more demented and primitive, particularly on Grr Huh Yeah (1985).

The Ophelias engaged in a kind of surreal, futuristic music-hall that recalled both the United States Of America and Tuxedomoon, best on Ophelias (1987).

Manhattan 1977

The same spirit of the "blank generation" took hold of Manhattan when Suicide began spinning their tales of unbearable neurosis. The archetypical duo of keyboards (Martin Rev) and vocals (Alan Vega), they reinvented the line-up of the rock band, with the electronic keyboards replacing rhythm section and lead instrument. Suicide (1977), one of the milestones of the new wave, grafted the infinite modulations of minimalism onto a feverish rockabilly beat, thus coining "psychobilly". Vega's moribund vocals chased ghosts through an urban angst that was a close relative of the Velvet Underground's. Suicide sang about the individual and collective apocalypse, depicting lonely aching souls in a gothic landscape overflowing with fear, paranoia and claustrophobia. The pauses, the reverbs, the monotonous tones, the icy electronics were all functional to bleak visions of the future. Alan Vega Martin Rev (1980) used the same elements to concoct cybernetic ballads for the discos. The electronic shaman Alan Vega continued the futuristic and decadent program of Suicide on albums such as Alan Vega (1980) and Collision Drive (1982) that offer cadaveric angst at infernal pace. Singing in his wavering voice, reminiscent of a Lou Reed devoid of any emotion, over a robotic rockabilly cadence, Vega staged a formidable assault on the rocker's stereotype.

The Feelies were among the bands that focused on translating the emotional tension of the "blank generation" into a new song format. Formed in New Jersey by Glenn Mercer and Bill Million, they were a quiet and shy outfit, that rarely behaved like a rock band, thus predating the snobby attitude of college-pop. Crazy Rhythms (1980), featuring Anton Fier on drums, was a unique album, imbued with a controlled frenzy that employed psychedelic guitars, trance-like vocals, repetition of patterns and hypnotic beats. The resulting sound was hermetic, almost extraterrestrial, despite being rock music all right. Songs shared an ascetic and a geometric quality that recalled Zen meditation rather than punk-rock. The mood was halfway between ecstatic transcendence and detached decadence. Even the laid-back folk-rock and country-rock of Good Earth (1986), now featuring Stan Demeski on drums, had an hallucinated feeling, as if the band was performing traditional Earth music on the Moon. The eclectic Only Life (1988) failed to clarify their true substance: it merely increased the sophistication of the game.

Etc 1977-80

Human Sexual Response (later Concussion Ensemble) in Boston, Gizmos in Indiana, Reds in Pennsylvania, Debris in Oklahoma and Oho in Pennsylvania are among the overlooked legends of the time.

American Graffiti
New York

American Graffiti is the title of George Lucas' film that in 1973 launched a phenomenon in the USA: a revival of the Fifties and the Sixties. There was something innocent and magic in those decades that went lost in the Vietnam War and the oil crisis of the Seventies. The rediscovery of those decades is also a rediscovery of the roots of rock and roll. After the fall of alternative rock, Seventies music had become largely corporate-driven. Genres that had been created as rebellion to the Establishment were rapidly becoming mainstream. The music of the Fifties and the early Sixties sounded more authentic.

Broadway and Hollywood focused on the Billboard charts, on the one-hit wonders that went lost after the deluge of 1966-67. Thousands of kids playing in their garages and basements focused on the bands that were playing in garages and basements in the Sixties. The second half of the Seventies saw a revival of the whole spectrum: rockabilly, surf music, folk-rock, psychedelia, even horror soundtracks. It was as if an archeological frenzy was shaking the musical fabric of the nation. It was like the youth of the Seventies was out to decipher the graffiti of previous "teen" civilizations of the USA.

First and foremost, punks discovered the evil soul that had been hidden for two decades inside rockabilly. Rockabilly's epileptic rhythm fit well with punk's outrageous looks. Furthermore, punks pushed the envelope of that rhythm, wed it to the tones of horror soundtracks and turned it into something bleak and gloomy and deranged. Bent to the mood of the times, it became more than a genre: it became a perverted hypnotic ritual whose hiccups and reverbs had an overtly sexual and macabre meaning. New York was, again, the epicenter. Suicide invented "psychobilly". The Cramps invented "voodoobilly" with Songs The Lord Taught Us (1980), a collection of macabre, manic, ebullient rockabilly numbers that emphasized the beastly instincts: a tribal and feverish rhythm, a tone of voice that bordered on shamanic and zombie-like, a catacomb echo dampening the sound. Disguised as mere B-series parody, Cramps' voodoobilly offered another poignant fresco of urban alienation and another effective fresco of junk culture. Turning to morbid and porno themes with A Date With Elvis (1986), Stay Sick (1990) and Look Mom No Head (1992), the Cramps devoted themselves to recreating the subculture of horror movies and high-school fantasies over and over again, elevating the most degenerate themes to the status of archetypes and semiotic signs.

The Fleshtones went beyond genre-bending: they turned rockabilly, garage-rock, surf music and horror soundtracks upside down in what was basically an exercise in post-modernist art. Led by keyboardist Peter Zaremba, they injected punk effervescence and irreverence into structures that were meant for pure party time. Their anthemic American Beat (1979) could be the most representative song of the "Sixties revival". Roman Gods (1981), an album that stands as a tribute to the subconscious of an era, coupled the verve of punk-rock with martial and solemn tones in both instrumental tracks and catchy tunes. The music on albums such as Hexbreaker (1983), which played down the rebel attitude in favor of Phil Spector's "wall of sound", and Fleshtones Vs Reality (1987) managed to be both visceral and epigonic, to project both frustration and nostalgy.

Another post-modernist attack to the tradition was carried out by the Raybeats, formed by former members of the Contortions and possibly the least conventional of all revival bands. The brilliant musicians gave new meaning to the classic sounds of rockabilly guitar, Farfisa organ and "yakety" saxophone. The instrumental tracks on Guitar Beat (1981) were lattices of atonal, tribal and discordant sounds that simulated conventional Sixties songs. An erudite appendix to that skewed program was Escape (1981), recorded by Raybeats guitarist Jody Harris and Richard Hell's guitarist Robert Quine and set to disco rhythms.

Of course, the charts featured much more conventional bands, notably the Stray Cats, whose funny and nostalgic restoration of post-war atmospheres (doo-wop, rockabilly, honky-tonk, dance-hall orchestras, swing big-bands) fueled a "rockabilly craze" that brought two minutes of fame to sincere worshippers of the genre like the Panther Burns and the Zantees.

By far the wildest rock'n'roll animal of the era was Von Lmo. Alas, he was also one of the least friendly to the record industry. Future Language (1981) and the posthumous Cosmic Interception (which collects material from the early 1980s) feature ferocious space-rock jams that borrow the energy of Hawkwind, the loudness of Blue Cheer, the fury of MC5 and the free format of Albert Ayler, propelling anthemic melodies and distorted heavy-metal guitar.

Garage-rock

However, the emphasis shifted rapidly towards garage-rock, the wild and raw sound of amateurish rock'n'roll: in Washington the Slickee Boys, whose Cybernetic Dreams Of Pi (1983) was a precursor of the psychedelic retro` sound, in New Jersey the Dramarama, in Ohio the Romantics and, indirectly, the Pretenders, whose Learning To Crawl (1984) announced the strong post-feminist persona of Chrissie Hynde and displayed a forceful guitar-rock tinged with ska and blues. The Wipers in Oregon, led by Greg Sage, poet of the agony and heroic guitarist, revitalized garage-rock of the Pacific Northwest with anthems such as Youth Of America (1981) and albums such as the excoriating Is This Real (1979) and especially the existential Over The Edge (1983).

Boston, whose scene had been revitalized by the Modern Lovers, boasted one of the most prolific and creative schools, particularly the Real Kids, whose Real Kids (1978) was mainly influenced by early Rolling Stones, and the DMZ, who later became the Lyres.

Power-pop

In the process, rock music rediscovered melody and it didn't take long before power-pop, the ultimate "feel good" genre, was rampant again.

Chicago can be credited with rejuvenating the genre, first with the loud, melodic rock of Cheap Trick and then with the sophisticated retro` sound of the Shoes and with generic "revivalists" like the Service. The Shoes tower over the rest of the pack, thanks to albums such as Black Vinyl Shoes (1977) and Present Tense (1979) that are musical encyclopedias of Mersey-beat choruses, surf harmonies, jingle-jangle guitars, enhanced with the occasional hard-rock riff.

Boston, again, had the most successful and influential bands, the Cars, plus diligent bar-bands such as Neighborhoods.

The slick and sparkling sound of Ric Ocasek's Cars stood almost at the opposite end of the new wave's ethos: catchy melodies (that were almost lullabies and nursery rhymes compared with punk-rock), electronic arrangements (often bordering on baroque), frigid and slightly neurotic vocals, and loud, insistent, staccato keyboards created a version of early Roxy Music for the new wave, and slowly approached the highly synthetic sound of Heartbeat City (1984).

Another antithesis of the new wave was Jonathan Richman, who had contributed to start the fire with the Modern Lovers but veered towards the opposite end of the spectrum with Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers (1977). While not precisely "pop", Richman was in many ways the ultimate remnant of the Sixties: a childish bard of his virulent generation who sang in a spartan folk style about ordinary events, a timid albeit witty observer of teenage life, a cross between Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry.

In Kansas the Embarrassment were as good and as overlooked as the Shoes. Death Travels West (1983) is their humble classic.

The Moberlys brought the California-style revival to Seattle.

California 1976

In California, Dave Alvin's Blasters led the way to a more personal re-interpretation of the Fifties, but, de facto, also launched a new form of populist, grass-roots music. Blasters (1981) and Non Fiction (1983) were more than mere homages to the naive lifestyle of the past: they were sincere rootsy vignettes that captured the USA soul the same way the Band had done it a decade earlier.

Inevitably the specter of Gram Parsons reappeared: Rank And File, featuring former punks Alejandro Escovedo (ex-Nuns), Chip Kinman and Tony Kinman (ex-Dils), recorded the manifesto of "cow-punk", Sundown (1982), or country-rock for the punk generation.

Power-pop found fertile soil in California, the state that was most distant (physically and psychologically) from New York's disturbed new wave. By the end of the Seventies, Los Angeles had become the capital of power-pop.

Tom Petty, Jules Shear and, in Berkeley, Greg Kihn were the "theoreticians" of power-pop, skilled songwriters that used melody and a repertory of cliches to paint their generation's mood.

The classy retro` sound of Tom Petty linked the Sixties revival with a populist stance and, therefore, with the mood of ordinary, adult USA citizens. The songs on Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1976) and You're Gonna Get It (1978) mimic faithfully the Byrds, the Who and the Rolling Stones. Each of them could have been on an original album of those Sixties heroes. Petty's nasal, Dylan-ian whine gave the revival movement its spokesman. The crystal-clear production emphasized the impeccable skills of the band, in contrast with the sloppiness of much punk-rock of the era. Petty reached his melodic and atmospheric apex on Damn The Torpedoes (1979), whose songs are powerful mini-dramas, and then ventured into the collective subconscious of the USA on albums such as Southern Accents (1985) and Full Moon Fever (1989) that reflected the mood of quiet despair of the working-class and vented heart-felt pessimism. Petty joined Springsteen and Mellencamp as a chronicler of inner struggles and defeats, and as an emblem of redemption.

Among the purveyors of power-pop who thrived in Los Angeles at the turn of the decade were Peter Case's Plimsouls, whose Plimsouls (1981) was an inspired revisitation of folk-rock and Mersey-beat, Paul Collins' Beat, possibly the best power-pop band of its time, the 20/20, another power-pop outfit, the Last, a modern-day Farfisa band, and the Redd Kross, whose Neurotica (1987) offered furious rock'n'roll and catchy melodies. The Go-Go's revived the tradition of the girl-groups, specializing in teenage anthems with a punk-rock exuberance, particularly on Beauty And The Beast (1981), and the Bangles took that spirit into the charts.

The sound of these bands was often modeled after the Flamin' Groovies, whose saga was continued by the Phantom Movers formed by their former songwriter, Roy Loney, whose best album was Out After Dark (1979).


British GraffitiPub-rock 1976-79

America had the garages, the basements, the small suburban clubs. Britain had the pubs. Britain's renaissance originated from the musicians who had been playing rhythm and blues and rockabilly in the pubs. The story was not all too different from what happened in the Sixties, when blues clubs kept alive the flame that the "teen idols" and Merseybeat almost killed. In the Seventies something similar happened again. While the charts were ruled by decadent stars like David Bowie and countless mainstream pop singers, the clubs were staging rhythm and blues amateurs who were playing far more exciting music. Punk-rock changed the face of the industry and, indirectly, helped these musicians get out of the pubs.

From the punk civilization there emerged a new kind of singer-songwriter, solidly anchored to the roots of rock'n'roll and aware of social issues.

Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, and Tom Robinson, not to mention the demented Ian Dury and the even more demented Wreckless Eric, were the bards who launched a more sincere and vibrant approach to rock and roll. The bizarre acts of Renaldo And The Loaf and of Snakefinger found contract and fame in California, but belong to this generation.

Each of these minds worked on a different frequency, though. Nick Lowe was the theoretician of power-pop and American roots-rock, as evidenced already on Jesus Of Cool (1978), while Graham Parker was fundamentally a disciple of Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison and Neil Young, as revealed by Squeezing Out Sparks (1979). Despite being announced as a "gangster" at the time of his fibrillating debut, Look Sharp (1979), Joe Jackson was the most eclectic and erudite of them all, and he proved it by taking on calypso, gospel, soul, jazz and, last but not least, classical, in a series of works that include symphonic works and that peaked with the lieder of Heaven And Hell (1998).

The most celebrated (and possibly over-rated) musician to emerge from this generation was Elvis Costello. The quintessential "angry young man" of the new wave, in 1977 Costello matched a Buddy Holly-ian "look and feel" with a slightly neurotic delivery and a vast spectrum of styles (the anthemic Less Than Zero, romantic ballad Alison, eccentric reggae Watching The Detectives). The early singles (add the erotic twist of Chelsea and the angry rant of Radio Radio in 1978) led to the competent and varied pub-rock of This Year's Model (1978) and to the Sixties camouflage of Armed Forces (1979). These albums were typical of Costello's ambiguity: subtly attacking the Establishment while openly endorsing its soundtrack. It wasn't a caricature, it was a full-hearted endorsement of Tin Pan Alley's aesthetic (or lack thereof), lounge soul, easy-listening orchestras, etc. Slowly but steadily, Costello's retro` ideology moved to the back and his passion for sophisticated arrangements came to the forefront, to the point of arranging an entire collection of songs with a string quartet.

While pessimism and disillusion prevailed in the lyrics of these working-class heroes, they set the foundations for the rebirth of optimism.

Success favored the Dire Straits, a band that rediscovered J.J. Cale's laid-back style, Duan Eddy's twang and Bob Dylan's nasal delivery, in soulful hits such as Sultans Of Swing (1978), Tunnel Of Love (1979), Twisting By The Pool (1983), Money For Nothing (1985).

Britain's Sixties revival was particularly sympathetic towards the "mods", the real rebels of the Sixties. Groups such as Eddie And The Hot Rods and Paul Weller's Jam, whose In The City (1977) harked back to the Who and the Small Faces, devoted their career to recreating that musical universe. The Television Personalities' And Don't The Kids Just Love It (1981) evoked the mods and Carnaby Street, before they became the vehicle for Dan Treacy's bleak spleen on Painted Word (1984).

The Soft Boys went beyond mere recreation of an era: they created a new era of their own. When the talents of visionary vocalist Robyn Hitchcock