Development of a counterculture (1963-1974)

In the late 1950s the US Beatnik counterculture was associated with the wider anti-war movement building against the threat of the atomic bomb, notably CND in Britain. Both were associated with the jazz scene and with the growing folk song movement.

Bob Dylan and folk rock

The folk scene had strong links between Britain and America. In both countries, there were folk music lovers who liked acoustic instruments, traditional songs, and blues music with a social message. This genre was pioneered by Woody Guthrie. Bob Dylan came to the fore in this movement, and his hits with Blowin' in the Wind and Masters of War brought "protest songs" to a wider public.

The Byrds, with hits such as Mr. Tambourine Man, helped to start the trend of Folk rock, and helped to stimulate the development of Psychedelic rock. Dylan's own contribution continued, with his "Like a Rolling Stone" becoming a US hit single. Neil Young's lyrical inventiveness and wailing electric guitar attack created a variation of folk rock. Other folk rock artists include Simon & Garfunkel, The Mamas & the Papas, Joni Mitchell and The Band.

In Britain, Fairport Convention began applying rock techniques to traditional British folk songs, followed by groups such as Steeleye Span, Lindisfarne, Pentangle, and Trees. The same approach was donea in Brittany by Alan Stivell.

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelia began in the folk scene, with the Holy Modal Rounders introducing the term in 1964. With a background including folk and jug band music, The Grateful Dead fell in with Ken Kesey's LSD fuelled Merry Pranksters, playing at their Acid Tests then providing an electric Acid rock soundtrack to their Trips Festival of January 1966 , together with Big Brother & the Holding Company.

The Fillmore was a regular venue for groups like another former jug band, Country Joe and the Fish, and the Jefferson Airplane. Elsewhere, The Byrds had a hit with Eight Miles High and the 13th Floor Elevators titled their album The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. The music increasingly became associated with opposition to the Vietnam War.

In Britain, Pink Floyd had been developing psychedelic rock since 1965 in the underground culture scene. In 1966 the band Soft Machine was formed. Donovan had a folk music-influenced hit with Sunshine Superman, one of the early psychedelic pop records. In August 1966 The Beatles' Revolver album, featuring psychedelia in Tomorrow Never Knows and in Yellow Submarine. The Beach Boys responded in the U.S. with Pet Sounds. From a blues rock background, the British supergroup Cream debuted in December, and Jimi Hendrix became popular in Britain before returning to the US.

January 1967 brought the first album from The Doors. As the year went by many other pioneering groups got records out, with Pink Floyd's Arnold Layne in March only hinting at their live sound. The Beatles' groundbreaking album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in June, and by the end of the year Pink Floyd's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Cream's Disraeli Gears.

The culmination of rock and roll as a socially-unifying force was seen in the rock festivals of the late '60s, the most famous of which was Woodstock which began as a three-day arts and music festival and turned into a "happening", as hundreds of thousands of youthful fans converged on the site.

Progressive rock

The music itself broadened past the guitar-bass-drum format; while some bands had used saxophones and keyboards before, now acts like The Beach Boys and The Beatles (and others following their lead) experimented with new instruments including wind sections, string sections, and full orchestration. Many bands moved well beyond three-minute tunes into new and diverse forms; increasingly sophisticated chord structures, previously limited to jazz and orchestrated pop music, were heard.

Dabbling heavily in classical, jazz, electronic, and experimental music resulted in what would be called progressive rock (or, in its German wing, krautrock). Progressive rock could be lush and beautiful or atonal and dissonant, highly complex or minimalist, sometimes all within the same song. At times it was hardly recognizable as rock at all. Some notable practitioners include Electric Light Orchestra, Pavlov's Dog, King Crimson, Caravan, Jethro Tull, Genesis, Gentle Giant, The Nice, Yes, Gong, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Soft Machine, Steve Hillage, Barclay James Harvest, Magma, Can, Pink Floyd, Rush and Faust.

German prog

In the mid-1960s, American and British rock entered Germany, especially British progressive rock bands. At the time, the musical avant-garde in Germany were playing a kind of electronic classical music, and they adapted the then-revolutionary electronic instruments for a progressive-psychedelic rock sound. By the early 1970s, the scene, now known as krautrock, had begun to peak with the incorporation of jazz (Can) and Asian music (Popol Vuh). This sound, and later pioneers like Neu! and Kraftwerk, influenced the development of techno and other related genres.

Italian prog

In Italy progressive rock had a great success in the 1970s and some bands played prog at the same level of the more famous American groups and went in tour in the States. Some Italian progressive rock bands were Premiata Forneria Marconi, Le Orme, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso and Area International Popular Group

Birth of heavy metal

A second wave of British bands and artists gained great popularity during this period. These bands were typically more steeped in American blues music than their more pop-oriented predecessors, but their performances took a highly amplified, often spectacular form. Guitar-driven acts such as Cream and Led Zeppelin were early examples of this blues-rock form as well as heavier rock bands including Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. All are cited as having a huge influence on what would come to be known as heavy metal. Several sources for the actual term exist. Noted rock critic Lester Bangs is generally accepted as being the first journalist to use the label in print. The phrase was also used in Steppenwolf's signature tune, "Born To Be Wild." (ref: "heavy metal thunder").