Richie Unterberger - Jingle Jangle Morning: Folk-Rock in the 1960s

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Jingle Jangle Morning: The Birth and Heyday of 1960s Folk-Rock

[Special Combined/Updated Ebook Edition of the
Books First Published in Two Volumes As
Turn! Turn! Turn! and Eight Miles High ]

Onstage and backstage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan gave his first electric rock concert, eliciting both jeers and cheers from the audience and defining a generational divide between purist folkies and newborn folk-rockers.

The forces that shaped the generation of 1960s folk-rockers: the slow growth in urban popularity of folk music in the first half of the twentieth century; the explosion of rock n roll in the mid-50s; the birth of the folk revival as early rock tapered off; the folk boom of the early 1960s; the first topical and protest songs by young performers such as Bob Dylan; the very first, nearly unknown experiments with mixing folk and electric rock.

In 1964, The British Invasion makes young folk musicians rethink their careers, eagerly buy electric instruments, and form rock bands. The nucleus of the Lovin Spoonful takes shape in New York City; the Byrds form in Los Angeles; British Invasion bands like the Animals and Searchers marry rock arrangements with folk songs; Dylan abandons topical songwriting for adventurous personal material.

In early 1965, the Byrds record Dylans Mr. Tambourine Man and become a Hollywood sensation on Sunset Strip; Dylan makes his first electric recordings for Bringing It All Back Home ; the Lovin Spoonful and the Fugs form; folk singer-songwriters Richard Faria and Fred Neil make their first electric recordings; Dylan tours England and meets Donovan; Dylan returns to the States to find the Byrds version of Mr. Tambourine Man soaring to #1.

The Byrds Mr. Tambourine Man and debut album ignite the folk-rock boom; Sonny & Cher and the Turtles make commercial folk-rock-pop hits; Dylan records Like a Rolling Stone and starts touring with an electric band; the Lovin Spoonful, Simon & Garfunkel, and the Mamas & the Papas record their first hits; debate rages among fans and the media about mixing folk with rock; the Beatles explore folk-rock with Rubber Soul ; the Byrds cover of Pete Seegers Turn! Turn! Turn! lands them another #1 hit at the end of 1965.

Media debate over folk-rock and protest pop peaks in early 1966; scores of folk-rock singer-songwriters record enduring music in New York and Los Angeles; folk-rock sprouts in multiple directions; the Mamas & the Papas, the Lovin Spoonful, and Simon & Garfunkel become superstars; new singer-songwriters like Tim Hardin and Janis Ian and a newly electrified Judy Collins emerge; the Elektra, Vanguard, and Verve labels all scamper to adapt from folk music to the new folk-rock sound; Love and Buffalo Springfield record their debut albums; the Byrds evolve folk-rock into psychedelia with Eight Miles High.

Folk-rock goes global as Donovan plugs in and becomes a Transatlantic superstar with Sunshine Superman; garage bands across America make folk-rock and folk-rock-influenced records in the mid-60s; musicians ranging from British Invasion bands to celebrity pop singers to traditional folkies try recording folk-rock; overlooked groups like the Blue Things record great folk-rock far from Hollywood and Greenwich Village; ambitious folk-rock records like Eight Miles High and Societys Child fight media censorship, as the establishment fights back; Dylan peaks in mid-1966 with Blonde on Blonde and a world tour with future members of the Band, but retreats after a motorcycle accident; folk-rocks first golden age comes to a close, setting the stage for new offshoots that will help shape rock for the rest of the 1960s.

A guide to the characters in Eight Miles High who also played key roles in folk-rocks earlier, mid-60s evolution, as portrayed in this books predecessor, Turn! Turn! Turn!: The 60s Folk-Rock Revolution .

The Byrds, folk-rocks greatest group, push folk-rocks boundaries in 1966 with the Eight Miles High single and the Fifth Dimension album. Their integration of Indian, jazz, and country influences on both original material and covers of traditional and contemporary folk-based songs helps set the stage for the experimentation and expansion that will characterize folk-rock throughout the rest of the 1960s.

Folk-rock seeps into the psychedelic age with the explosion of acid rock in San Francisco. The San Francisco sound is spearheaded by bands such as Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Country Joe & the Fish, and the Grateful Dead, all of whom boast ex-folkies in their lineups and draw upon folk and folk-rock for much of their inspiration.

In Los Angeles, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Love continue catapulting folk-rock into unimagined territory with psychedelic experimentation. Cult acts like Skip Spence, Dino Valenti, and the Holy Modal Rounders make warped acid folk records that wrap roots folk around bizarre, visionary lyrics and odd instrumentation, setting them far apart from traditional folk arrangements.

The singer-songwriter movement is born, leading folk-rock into more laidback, introspective territory. Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Tim Buckley, and Gordon Lightfoot emerge as important recording artists; Phil Ochs, Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, and other veterans produce some of their best work; Judy Collins and Tom Rush continue to boost singer-songwriters as song interpreters; and Dion, John Stewart, and Bobby Darin catch up with the changing times.

British folk-rock begins to develop its own identity as the Pentangle takes inspiration from specifically British sources, adding rhythmic arrangements that draw from rock, folk, blues, jazz, and pop. Donovan is joined by the Incredible String Band and others in coloring psychedelia with a peculiarly Celtic folk flair. Fairport Convention and the Strawbs put a spin on the genre by merging West Coast-influenced harmonized folk-rock with a more British sensibility.

Bob Dylan emerges from hibernation at the end of 1967 with his plaintive, countrified John Wesley Harding album. Psychedelia gives way to country-rock as Dylan, the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco, and others strip back to basics and emphasize their country roots. Others follow Dylan to record in Nashville, while Dylan himself delves even deeper into country on 1969s Nashville Skyline .

Veterans from Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds form Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, folk-rocks first supergroup. Folk-rock superstars Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel, and James Taylor see out the 60s with sounds that stray further still from their folk roots. The record business gets slicker and more corporate as the singer-songwriter boom brings in more money, while the artists manage to balance commercialism with social consciousness and rebellion.

Enigmatic British singer-songwriters like Nick Drake, Roy Harper, and Al Stewart make their first important recordings, giving a new hue to the American-dominated singer-songwriter movement. Britain hosts the last major, and most traditionally based, branch of folk-rock to flower in the 1960s as Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and others electrify specifically English traditional folk songs.

Folk and folk-rock audiences merge and metamorphose in the interim between the 1965 Newport Folk Festival (where Dylan was so stormily received) and the end of the 1960s, when massive crowds attend events such as Woodstock to see and hear folk-rock and hard rock performers mix freely.

A look at the enduring influence of 1960s folk-rock, from the 1970s to the early twenty-first century, as the originators matured, died, or survived to preserve the form and help keep the folk-rock wheel turning.