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~The Sixties~ ~Music of the Decade~ |
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In 1960, Elvis returned to the music scene from the US Army, joining the other white male vocalists at the top of the charts; Bobby Darin, Neil Sedaka, Jerry Lee Lewis, Paul Anka, Del Shannon and Frankie Avalon.
America, however, was ready for a change. The Tamla Motown Record Company came on the scene, specializing in black rhythm and blues, aided in the emergence of female groups such as Gladys Knight and the Pips, Martha and the Vandellas, the Supremes, and Aretha Franklin, as well as some black men, including Smoky Robinson, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, and the Temptations.
Bob Dylan helped bring about a folk music revival, along with Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary. The Beach Boys began recording music that appealed to high schoolers.
The Beatles, from England, burst into popularity with innovative rock music that appealed to all ages. However, there was a major change in popular music in the mid-1960's, caused in part by the drug scene. Acid Rock, highly amplified and improvisational, and the more mellow psychedelic rock gained prominence. When the Beatles turned to acid rock, their audience narrowed to the young.
Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead grew out of the counterculture in 1967.
The musical phenomena of the decade was Woodstock, a three day music festival that drew 400,000 hippies and featured peace, love, and happiness...and LSD.
Folk music contributed to the counterculture. The modular synthesizer (aka moog synthesizer), developed in 1960 by Robert Moog and Donald Buchla, marked a major change in serious music. Innovative composers were already experimenting with electroacoustic music. Now they were able to go further with John Cage's 0'0 (Zero Silence) to be performed by anyone in anyway; Morton Subotnik's Silver Apples of the Moon; Robert Ashley's Wolfman. In 1967, Alvin Lucier, one of the co-founders of the Sonic Arts Union, created "Music for a Solo Performer," in which electrodes were attached to the performer's scalp. His alpha waves, controlled by his concentration, resonated from loudspeakers, accompanied by occasional percussion. Computers were used in music composition and sound synthesis, notably Max Mathews Music IV and Music V. By the end of the decade, popular music was also using synthesizers and other electronic devices. |
