By the start of the decade, the fire of the rock & roll revolution had begun to cool – Elvis, fresh out of the army, was on his way to Hollywood and formula pop; Little Richard was in the ministry; Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis were in trouble with the law; and Buddy Holly was dead at 22. The charts were dominated by the likes of Percy Faith, Connie Francis, Paul Anka, Fabian, and Chubby Checker’s “The Twist”.

         There were vibrant music scenes in other genres, of course- country saw the emergence of the star-crossed Patsy Cline and the crossover success of Ray Charles; jazz was no longer mainstream, but Coltrane was coming into his own; the folk music revival was peaking, featuring older artists like Pete Seeger and newer stars like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Then, in late ’62, two home grown American pop rock groups emerged, the east coast Four Seasons and the California born and bred Beach Boys, looking to completely dominate the charts; but then the President was killed and the whole culture shifted.

         The Beatles, looking and sounding completely fresh, though building on the roots of ’50s rock & rollers, first took Britain, then in early ’64 America, completely by storm. The rest of the British “invasion” followed with the likes of the Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the rest. Dylan, taking his cue from the Beatles and the Byrds, electrified, and the music and the culture just kept morphing- protest, psychedelia, full-blown counter-culture, culminating at Woodstock with the likes of Country Joe, Sly & the Family Stone, and Jimi Hendrix.

         There was one other dominant strain of music in the ’60s, a counterpoint to the newly emerged rock- the pop-soul sound coming out of Detroit, of Motown, the sweet music of the Miracles, the Supremes, and the Temptations, and the grittier R&B soul coming from the likes of Aretha Franklin and James Brown. There was plenty of room for it all.

         -Steve Williams (7/3/23) – Greatest Recording Artists Blog Post #24