All Right Now: One Fan's Discretionary History of Rock 'n' Roll in the 1960s & 1970s (Part 1)

Beatles, British Invasion, pop, soul.

While I suppose that, in a pinch, I might be able to credibly pass as a self-taught scholar of rock 'n' roll, a learned disciple possessed of a tireless zeal for rock in all its impatient, impudent, impetuous permutations (a zeal that, in the eyes of any slow, run-of-the-mill dullard who is perversely unmoved by the eternal charm of music, could be peevishly seen as excessive), I am devoid of any credentials in the field of musical studies, and therefore I can make no claim of being a so-called expert. What follows is my own survey of the music that meant the most to me when I was young (and still means as much to me now that I am old): an informal overview by an unabashedly ardent listener, a casual gathering of opinions and observations from one fan.

For most of the time that I have been a dweller on this spinning globe, arriving by way of my birth at an RAF base in the North West of England, a few months after Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in Westminster Abbey, listening to music has been the prevailing activity in my life. I have taken up many other pursuits, all interesting in their own way, but none of them, apart from writing, has ever held my interest as much, or turned out to be as constant, as steadfast, and as immutable, as my unfailing allegiance to music. Although I relish nearly all forms of musical expression, from Antonio Vivaldi to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms to Igor Stravinsky to Ella Fitzgerald to Hank Williams to Frank Sinatra to Miles Davis to Jacques Brel to Carlos Montoya to Ravi Shankar, it is rock 'n' roll, particularly as created, recorded, performed, and broadcast during what I regard as its prime years in the 1960s and 1970s, that has become, for this devout fan, a permanent mind-set, proving to be, within the variable context of my own haphazard, up-and-down experience, a perpetual source of both continual pleasure and bottomless inspiration. In short, rock 'n' roll has affected me more markedly than anything else that I have ever encountered.

Having begun my life's journey midway through the 20th century, in 1953 (when World War II and its dreadful rigors had been over for less than a decade, and still cast a palpable shadow across mankind), I grew up listening, for hours each day, to the rock 'n' roll that was widely dispensed on radio (Top 40 on AM in the 1960s, freeform and AOR on FM in the 1970s) and records (singles at 45 rpm, LPs at 33 ⅓ rpm). Because of my own origin (born in a town close to Liverpool and the River Mersey), it was the exuberant music of The Beatles that first caught, and firmly held, my fancy. I was strongly pulled toward the British beat, having a native affinity for the fresh sounds that were bursting out from Merseyside and other regions of the United Kingdom in the early 1960s, sounds that enticed me into a warm, lasting dedication to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr themselves, and also to the many other British musicians (collectively referred to as the British Invasion in the United States) who quickly came after them. It seemed that everywhere in Britain, clusters of lean, enterprising young men, prompted into action by seeing what The Beatles had achieved, ran a comb through their long hair, picked up guitars and drumsticks, and gamely went forth on the same hopeful path.

What would I (and millions of others) have done without The Beatles? I struggle to imagine an answer to that question. I would have had much shorter hair, for one thing, and I certainly would have listened to fewer records. Their songs have been a ceaseless font of ineffable delight, enchanting me, enlivening me, and elevating me, making themselves dependably essential to my private moments of happiness, for almost sixty years. Whenever I am listless, or unsteady, or downcast, or out of sorts, I find that renewing my acquaintance with any of their recordings, all of which have a restorative familiarity as a result of innumerable hearings, always lifts me and puts me to rights, just as they did when I first met them, long, long ago. To give but one demonstration of how the music of The Beatles retains a rare, unerring power to transmit an affirmative surge of pure amiability: as soon as my ears receive the bright, resounding chord, smartly played by George Harrison on his Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar, that gleefully unleashes the glorious rush of "A Hard Day’s Night," I instantly feel more alive.

As I have already stated, being born near Liverpool is the probable reason that I became so fervently attached to the music of Merseyside. The Beatles may have been the best of the bunch, the local lads who aimed the highest and went the furthest, but there were many other Liverpudlian combos, and I loved them all. Gerry and The Pacemakers had hits with "How Do You Do It?," "I Like It," "You'll Never Walk Alone," "I'm the One," and "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying." Their greatest song, "Ferry Cross the Mersey," written by Gerry Marsden for a film in which he and the band starred, was a humble, heartfelt hymn to Liverpool and its plucky inhabitants. Merseyside was also home to The Searchers ("Sweets for My Sweet," "Sugar and Spice," "Needles and Pins," "Don't Throw Your Love Away," "When You Walk in the Room"), Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas ("Do You Want to Know a Secret?," "Bad to Me," "I'll Keep You Satisfied," "Little Children"), The Swinging Blue Jeans ("Hippy Hippy Shake," "You're No Good"), The Merseybeats ("It's Love That Really Counts," "I Think of You"), The Fourmost ("Hello Little Girl," "A Little Loving"), and The Mojos ("Everything's Alright").

From nearby Manchester came The Hollies ("Stay," "Just One Look," "Here I Go Again," "I'm Alive," "Look Through Any Window," "I Can't Let Go," "Bus Stop," "Stop Stop Stop," "On a Carousel," "Carrie Anne," "Jennifer Eccles"), Herman's Hermits ("I'm into Something Good," "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat," "Silhouettes," "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter," "Wonderful World," "I'm Henry VIII, I Am," "Just a Little Bit Better," "A Must to Avoid," "Listen People," "Dandy," "There's a Kind of a Hush"), Freddie and The Dreamers ("If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody," "I'm Telling You Now," "You Were Made for Me"), and Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders ("Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um," "The Game of Love"). After The Mindbenders parted company with Wayne Fontana, they had hits of their own with "A Groovy Kind of Love" and "Ashes to Ashes." Graham Gouldman, a busy songwriter who furnished a stream of sprightly hits to The Hollies, Herman's Hermits, and other British bands, also came from Manchester. (Later, in 1972, Graham Gouldman joined with Eric Stewart of The Mindbenders to form 10cc.)

Twenty miles away from Manchester, in Blackburn, The Four Pennies formed, going on to have a hit with "Juliet." Birmingham, a city in the Midlands of England, was another hot spot of British rock 'n' roll in the early 1960s, sending out the sounds of The Applejacks ("Tell Me When," "Like Dreamers Do," "I Go to Sleep"), The Rockin' Berries (He's in Town," "Poor Man's Son"), The Fortunes ("You've Got Your Troubles," "Here It Comes Again," "This Golden Ring"), and The Moody Blues ("Go Now"). Dave Berry, from Sheffield, in Yorkshire, had hits with "Memphis, Tennessee," "The Crying Game," and "Little Things." Brian Poole and The Tremeloes came together in Dagenham, Essex, and signed with Decca Records, where they recorded their hits, "Twist and Shout," "Do You Love Me," "Candy Man," and "Someone, Someone." (When Brian Poole quit, The Tremeloes carried on with "Here Comes My Baby," "Silence Is Golden," and "Even the Bad Times Are Good.") Unit 4+2 came from Herefordshire, hitting big with "Concrete and Clay." Lulu and The Luvvers, from Glasgow, Scotland, announced themselves with "Shout." Rock 'n' roll was thriving all around the United Kingdom, and there was more to come.

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On February 7, 1964, The Beatles flew out of Heathrow Airport in London on their first visit to the United States, where they performed to a television audience of 73 million on The Ed Sullivan Show. Over the next year, they toured in America and other parts of the world, handily confirming their triumph. Also coming out of Britain, right behind John, Paul, George, and Ringo, were The Rolling Stones (a bluesy quintet of raffish, untamed Londoners, sporting even longer hair than The Beatles, who shot to the top with "Not Fade Away," "It's All Over Now," "The Last Time," "[I Can't Get No] Satisfaction," and "Get Off of My Cloud"), The Kinks ("You Really Got Me," "All Day and All of the Night," "Tired of Waiting for You," "Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy," "Set Me Free"), The Animals ("House of the Rising Sun," "I'm Crying," "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," "It's My Life,"), The Dave Clark Five ("Glad All Over," "Bits and Pieces," "Can't You See That She's Mine," "Catch Us If You Can"), Manfred Mann ("5-4-3-2-1," "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," "Sha La La," "Come Tomorrow"), Them ("Baby Please Don't Go"/"Gloria," "Here Comes the Night"), The Nashville Teens ("Tobacco Road," "Google Eye"), The Zombies ("She's Not There," "Tell Her No"), and Georgie Fame ("Yeh, Yeh," "Get Away").

On the American side, The Beau Brummels were one of the first bands to take up the sound (and the look) of The Beatles. The four singles released by The Beau Brummels between December of 1964 and September of 1965 ("Laugh, Laugh," "Just a Little," "You Tell Me Why," and "Don't Talk to Strangers," all recorded in their hometown of San Francisco) fostered the growth of a feasible American counterpart to the British Invasion. Stepping forward with The Beau Brummels were The Beach Boys (five clean-cut Californians with clean-cut songs that extolled the carefree virtues of summer, surfboards, hot rods, and bikinis), The Byrds (a flock of shaggy hipsters purveying earnest folk rock at Ciro's Le Disc, a nightclub on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood), The Lovin' Spoonful (four cheerful bohemians who made their start at the Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village), and Bob Dylan (a willful, contrary musician from Hibbing, Minnesota, whose boldly oblique songs, such as "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Maggie's Farm," and "Gates of Eden" were objects of endless conjecture). In 1965, rock 'n' roll was gaining a foothold, showing itself to be more than just a teenage craze.

As 1965 passed into 1966, another wave of musicians grasped their chance, with each new release by each new band steering rock 'n' roll in a new direction. In the United Kingdom, The Yardbirds ("For Your Love," "Heart Full of Soul," "Shapes of Things"), The Spencer Davis Group ("Keep on Running," "Somebody Help Me," "Gimme Some Lovin'"), The Who ("I Can't Explain," "My Generation," "Substitute"), Small Faces ("Sha-La-La-La-Lee," "All or Nothing," "My Mind's Eye"), The Troggs ("Wild Thing," "With a Girl Like You," "I Can't Control Myself"), and The Easybeats ("Friday on My Mind") all scored hits, while in the United States, The Turtles ("It Ain't Me Babe," "You Baby"), The McCoys (Hang On Sloopy," "Fever"), We Five ("You Were on My Mind," "Let's Get Together"), Simon & Garfunkel ("The Sound of Silence," "Homeward Bound," "I Am a Rock"), The Standells ("Dirty Water," "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White"), The Mamas and The Papas ("California Dreamin'," "Monday, Monday," "I Saw Her Again"), Paul Revere and The Raiders ("Kicks," "Hungry," "Good Thing"), The Young Rascals ("Good Lovin'," "You Better Run"), The Association ("Along Comes Mary," "Cherish"), The Outsiders ("Time Won't Let Me"), The Leaves ("Hey Joe"), and The Music Machine ("Talk Talk") also did well for themselves.

Meanwhile, The Beatles were under stress and at a crossroads. By August, 1966, they had released seven LPs, twelve EPs, thirteen singles, and two films (A Hard Day's Night and Help!). They had been watched on countless televisions and heard on countless radios. They had exhibited themselves to frenzied audiences on four continents, performing in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, the United States, and Canada. Their stature within the field of rock 'n' roll (and within the much wider prospect of public acceptance) was unprecedented and unequaled. Over several years, Beatlemania had increased alarmingly, in a wild, primitive manner, swelling out of control and taking on the unwieldy proportions of a secular religion. It was not surprising that The Beatles, as a foursome, would tire of the whole situation, and would finally choose, during the summer of 1966, to escape the most burdensome demands of their furious, unrelenting fame, agreeing with one accord to discontinue their live performances (but not their recordings) after they had finished an American tour.

Alongside the breathtaking rise of rock 'n' roll, the 1960s also brought the heyday of pop (Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Marianne Faithfull, Billie Davis, Twinkle, Peter & Gordon, Chad & Jeremy, The Seekers, The Walker Brothers, P. J. Proby, Tom Jones, Crispian St. Peters, The Scaffold, Amen Corner, The Love Affair, Mary Hopkin, Barry Ryan, Gene Pitney, Lesley Gore, The Righteous Brothers, Jackie DeShannon, Sonny & Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Neil Diamond, The Monkees, The 5th Dimension, Spanky & Our Gang, Harpers Bizarre, The Cowsills, The Lemon Pipers) and the pinnacle of soul (The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Martha and The Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Impressions, Fontella Bass, James Brown, Ike & Tina Turner, Lee Dorsey, Aretha Franklin, Booker T. and The M.G.'s, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, Issac Hayes). Rock was in ascension, but pop and soul were flourishing, too, and hits of every kind climbed into the crowded heights of the Top 40 (whose agreeably fluid precincts also had room for random helpings of jazz and country). New music poured out week after week, flowing without pause and pleading for a hearing.