MUSI 2007 W12

The British Invasion and Psychedelia

• The phrase “British Invasion” is often used to describe the surge of popularity of UK acts in the US (and internationally) in the period around 1964-1966.

• Before that time there was virtually no presence at all of UK acts in US pop charts.

• There was no stylistic homogeneity between British Invasion acts. The term included Merseybeat groups (defined later), blues and R+B groups, pop groups, soul groups, etc.

• One thing they all had in common was that these tended to be UK artists who had been strongly influenced by US styles, and who sold versions of that music back to Americans.

• One irony here is that British Invasion groups often played an unintentional role in damaging the career of the US artists and styles that had influenced them.

• We’re going to look at two particular styles that were strongly represented in the early British Invasion: Merseybeat (centered on Liverpool and represented by early Beatles), and London electric blues (represented by Eric Clapton and The Bluesbreakers).

• Before doing this, we need to talk about two pre-1960s styles which were strongly influential on the first wave of British Invasion bands: electric Chicago blues, and Skiffle.

• Although there was a distinctive style of acoustic blues associated with Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, when people say “Chicago Blues” they usually mean the electric style which developed in the 1940s.

• In many ways, Chicago blues can be thought of as electrified delta blues. Although as musicians began to explore the unique sounds made available through amplification, the music changed to reflect those resources.

• Chess Records was founded in 1948, and became the leading label for electric Chicago blues.

• Listen to this example, and ask yourself: (i) how is it similar and different to the acoustic blues we’ve heard? (ii) what specific musical effects are made possible here only because the music is amplified/electric?

• Audio: Muddy Waters “Hoochie Coochie Man” (1952)

• Some answers to the questions on the last slide include...

• Heavy emphasis on the riff, and “four on the floor” rhythmic profile.

• Fairly loud bass (electric bass instead of upright acoustic).

• Distortion (on voice and harmonica, not just guitars).

• Ability to make new sound combinations as amplified quiet instruments can blend better with louder ones (notice, for example, how the harmonica dominates over the electric guitar).

• In general, Chicago artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf developed very macho, self-assertive personas, in part because these were already common in blues culture and in part because they suited the louder and more aggressive tone of the electric music. These personas, in turn, became very appealing to young British musicians (especially boys), who emulated this kind of machismo in the emerging rock culture.

• We’ll talk shortly about the influence of US blues on UK musicians in the 1960s, but first we need to look at a UK-based style that appeared in the 1950s: Skiffle.

• The word “skiffle” had been used in the US in the 1920s and 1930s to refer to dance music played on homemade or very simple folk instruments (washtub bass, jugs, spoons, etc). In the UK it came to refer to a movement of young musicians playing fast, enthusiastic versions of US folk songs more generally.

• The most prominent figure of UK skiffle was Lonnie Donegan.

• Audio: Lonnie Donegan “Rock Island Line” (1956).

• Although this performance is based on US folk songs, it doesn’t sound like any US artist up to that point. What are the major differences?

• Skiffle was appealing to young and/or amateur musicians because the instruments were inexpensive, it was cheerfully energetic, and you could play it with a minimum of training. (Having said that, professional musicians also frequently played skiffle once it became popular).

• As a result, many musicians who would become important UK rock figures in the 1960s began their careers in skiffle bands. Some examples include: The Beatles, Jimmy Page, Van Morrison, etc.

• In general, it was common for people in the UK to be fascinated with images and myths of the US. Skiffle is one example where US folk music caught the attention of UK artists, and was transformed when they tried to perform it. Another example is the electric blues scene that began to develop in London in the early 1960s. And unlike skiffle, British blues musicians in turn had a major influence on musical trends in the US.

• The London scene of the early 1960s evolved partly from interest in US blues culture, and also partly as a reaction against the poppier sounds coming from Liverpool at around the same time (to be looked at soon).

• Many British blues fans were purists and in a way elitists – they studied the history of the music extensively, they had large collections full of rare and obscure records, and they tended to favour performances which stuck as close as possible to the sound of older US artists. There was a generally anti-pop attitude, and an effort to appear serious and bohemian.

• The scene was especially influenced by electric Chicago blues and by acoustic delta blues. These influences were partly musical, and partly a matter of image – young British males could project many of their fantasies about power and sexuality onto myths about black Americans.

• However, no matter how much an artist tries to duplicate someone else’s style, it’s almost inevitable that they end up transforming it. One example of an artist who began as a strict copyist but then developed a significant new style of his own is Eric Clapton.

• Clapton was on the London scene from the early 1960s. He spent some time in The Yardbirds, but left because he felt they were straying from a “pure” blues sound. In 1965 he joined John Mayall’s Blues Breakers, and although he was only with them until 1966 it is here that his original style really began to come to the forefront (even though he joined the band because they were very traditional in their approach).

• So, listen to this and ask: how is Clapton’s guitar in this performance very different from most of what we’ve heard so far (not only in its sound, but also in the role it plays)?

• Audio: Eric Clapton with The Bluesbreakers “All Your Love” (1966).

• Clapton is maybe the first of the rock “guitar heroes” in the full sense. It was around this time that graffiti saying “Clapton is God” began springing up around London.

• Clapton’s sound is totally dependent on not only the electric guitar, but also the sound of his particular amplifier. Notice how the distortion increases sustain (provides compression), which lets him get much more expression out of techniques like vibrato, bending, and controlled feedback.

• Like Leo Fender in California, the British amplifier builder Jim Marshall worked closely with musicians like Clapton to develop gear that would meet their needs. In the case of Marshall, his amplifiers were increasingly specialized in making smooth and powerful distorted tones (which is ironic, since almost all amplifier design up to that point had been meant to avoid distortion). At this point it becomes obvious that “the instrument” is the guitar and the amplifier, rather than just the guitar.

• Probably the best-known group to emerge from the London blues scene was The Rolling Stones.

• They originally started as another band that sought to copy US blues and R+B. But when they began to diverge from that model, they innovated in several directions at once...

• DVD: Rolling Stones on the T.A.M.I. SHOW (1964)

• Image: While The Beatles were friendly and unthreatening, the Stones adopted a more decadent image. They didn’t hide their drug use or sexual activity, and consistently projected a tough and relatively unapproachable persona.

• Original Songwriting: Before the mid-1960s, it wasn’t considered particularly important for rock musicians to write their own material. But by the mid-1960s, rock musicians needed to do this in order to be taken seriously. Why is that? In any event, the Rolling Stones and The Beatles were leaders in this trend, although in both cases the motives were as much economic as anything else.

• Development of the “rock” sound: When the Stones began to diverge from R+B and blues copying, they were important to the development of a rock sound (as was Dylan, discussed last week). Listen to the following, and think about all the ways it does this, with special attention to: rhythm, lyrics, timbre, and formal structure:

• Audio: The Rolling Stones “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (1965)

• One important feature here is the use of a fuzz tone on the guitar. Along with the outboard reverb units we discussed a few weeks ago, this is one of the earliest examples of a guitar effect (and this song is one of the earliest examples of fuzz on a widely distributed record).

• One important question: how would we describe the mood or purpose/message of these lyrics? And how does that relate to the newly-emerging rock image and attitude?

• Along with London electric blues, the other most successful British Invasion style was Merseybeat, named after the Mersey river in Liverpool. It was also often just called Beat Music.

• Beat groups were influenced by blues and R+B, but were also especially interested in more pop-related styles, especially Brill Building pop and soul music. And although some of them had more streetwise images, for the most parts they had a friendlier, more cheerful image than the London groups. This is ironic, because in fact the Beat groups were generally from a more working-class background than the London groups.

• The defining group in this style was the early Beatles. They had evolved into the familiar version of the band by 1960-61, and were a phenomenon in the UK by 1963.

• However, for a long time Capitol US, which was an affiliate of their label EMI, would not release Beatles product in the US. Why might that be?

• In early 1964 they were finally released by Capitol in the US, and they made their first US visit. They were an immediate sensation, and Beatlemania was in full swing internationally.

• Throughout this early period (about 1961-1964), The Beatles were a great example of the Mersey Beat sound. And they were also one of the groups to make the crucial move towards writing their own material.

• Audio: The Beatles “Please Please Me” (1963).

• Elements of the Beat sound here include: folk influence (from skiffle), catchy melody, concise pop song form, very jangly guitar sounds and emphasis on cymbals in the drum kit (a bright sound overall), simple lyrics with a typically pop romance theme, and yet at the same time a certain degree of toughness in the sound (volume, distortion).

• By 1966, The Beatles were becoming tired of playing for huge audiences, and were also experiencing some public relations problems (especially when Lennon remarked that The Beatles had become “more popular than Jesus”). So in that year they decided to retire from live performance, and to mostly limit their activity to the recording studio.

• This allowed them to make recordings which could not possibly have been played live given the technology of the day. Up to that point, records were usually thought of as “records” of a live performance – the idea that the record is more like sculpture (an art form that isn’t about live performance but is more about slowly building up an object over a long period of time) was somewhat radical.

• Doing this allowed the Beatles to become leaders in two experimental branches of rock music: “art rock” (where rock tries to be more like classical music), and psychedelic rock (where experimentation is crucial).

• Although The Beatles are usually portrayed as the leading rock experimentalists of the mid-1960s, they did have peers and competition. And interestingly, for a while one of their biggest friendly rivalries was with The Beach Boys.

• Brian Wilson, the leader of The Beach Boys, became increasingly interested in radical studio experiments in the mid-1960s. Like The Beatles, he began to make records that didn’t sound at all like anything that could be played live, but were more like classical music in their textural complexity.

• Audio: The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” (1966).

• This song took at least five months to record, and includes dozens of unusual fragments (e.g., fuzz bass, clarinet, cello, and a theremin-like electronic instrument).

• It is also a good example of what we could call sectional form, which relates it closely to certain classical music forms.

• Question: what details are “psychedelic” in this record?

• The early psychedelic style was most strongly associated with the hippie counterculture centered in the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood of San Francisco. An important psychedelic scene also developed just a little later in London.

• In the 1950s, interest slowly began to grow in psychedelic drugs, partly because students were being exposed to them in government tests. The new psychedelic sensibility became the basis for a subculture by around 1965. The peak of public visibility for the movement was the “Summer Of Love” in 1967.

• Although drugs had been part of popular culture for a long time, psychedelic rock (also called “acid rock”) was the first style of music which actively sought to depict a particular drug experience, and/or to enhance it.

• Let’s listen to a few examples of psychedelic rock, and talk about the particular features which relate to the psychedelic drug experience.

• Audio: Jefferson Airplane “White Rabbit” (1967).

• Discuss psychedelic features.

• Audio: The Grateful Dead “Dark Star” (1969).

• Again, discuss psychedelic features.

• In general, psychedelic rock often included such features as...

• An interest in “Eastern” musical devices (extended improvisation, drones, scales outside of the Western major/minor). This was both for sonic and for philosophical reasons.

• Extensive experimentation with sound, either finding brand new sounds or finding ways to make old ones unfamiliar.

• Emphasis on long group improvisations (especially in the case of The Grateful Dead).

• Lyrical references to childhood literature.

• Psychedelic rock was often called “head music,” not only because of the meaning of “head” as a drug person, but also because it was often listened to while sitting down, and/or alone, in a manner more like classical music.

• This is one way that psychedelic rock and “art rock” overlapped. In many cases, with groups like The Beatles, the psychedelic elements and the “art” elements were difficult to distinguish, or were one and the same. (Although not all “art rock” bands were psychedelic).

• In general, “art rock” was a phrase that was used to indicate that some rock music was trying to be more like classical music. Some specific ideas that often went with this...

• That it was music for listening rather than dancing.

• That is was experimental, about finding new ideas.

• That it was complex and difficult to compose and/or perform.

• That it deserved to be taken “seriously.”

• Because the Beatles became interested in studio experimentation and in psychedelia at the same time (around 1965-1966), and because they were already extremely famous, they became important popularizers for both trends (art rock and psychedelic rock).

• Audio: The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” (1966).

• Discuss exactly how this was made, and why it couldn’t have been played live.