Overview
Objectives
- Identify several artists and types of rock that became popular soon after the British Invasion
- Recall why garage bands, TV rock, the American blues revival, and folk music gained commercial viability in the middle of the 1960s
- Examine how rock music began to diversify following the British Invasion
Introduction
The British Invasion bands began their careers by playing American music such as rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and electric blues. Their reinterpretations of American rockabilly and rhythm and blues brought a fresh sound to American listeners, who had spent most of the early 1960s enveloped by Phil Spector’s wall of sound, the songs of teen idols, or the pop tunes of the Brill Building formula.
As British bands absorbed the sounds of American rock and roll and its predecessors, they also forced American rock bands to reconsider their own sounds and approaches to music. Some artists in the mid-1960s held tight to older ideas and formulas, sometimes with great success. For example, songwriting duo Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller continued to pen hits during the 1960s, such as "Chapel of Love ♫," recorded by the Dixie Cups, and "Leader of the Pack ♫," recorded by the Shangri-Las. At the same time, new types of bands gained popularity in the American market, demonstrating that garage bands, folk rock, and blues revival groups could be a formidable presence on the American record charts. In this lesson, we will consider several artists and types of rock that became popular soon after the British Invasion. As we will see, many American musicians were inspired by British groups’ love for American genres, which spawned a number of interesting imitations of the music of the British Invasion.
The Monkees' Micky "Dolenz almost got the part of The Fonz on Happy Days. He was beaten out by Henry Winkler."
