While at the time I had no context to put them in, I realize now that they, like Herman's Hermits, belonged to the lineage that gave us "pure entertainers" like George Formby - guys who just wanted you to smile and didn't care if they looked cool or you were laughing at them.
(At least Freddie seems to have belonged to that lineage; in video clips the rest of the guys in the band sometimes look embarrassed.)
Was it rebel rock & roll? No. Were they nice melodic dancehall songs, played with a spiffy beat and incorporating contemporary sounds? I think so.
Anyhow, when I was 11 and 12, I quite liked both bands. I was probably who the records were intended for. "Leanin' on a Lamppost," "Mrs Brown," "I'm Telling You Now"... these songs perfectly captured the trials, tribulations, nascent lust and longing of early adolescence.
Plus, a mouse lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam.
Tim, you nailed it. There's a delightful segment among the surviving Hullaballoo episodes during which Peter Noone and Freddie Garrity were trading songs and shtick, laughing, and having a grand time, much to the enjoyment of the audience. Nope, no fiery rocking and no introspective tunes. Light fun: an alien concept nowadays to anyone over the age of 5.
There's this huge rip in the fabric in June of 1965, when the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and the Yardbirds' For Your Love both hit the charts. The Brits got significantly tougher, and that "second layer" of the first wave of British Invaders (the acts that weren't the Beatles and the Stones) was imperiled -- Freddie and the Dreamers never had another hit, neither did the Searchers nor Gerry and the Pacemakers. The Dave Clark 5 were a machine and managed to keep pumping into 1967; and Herman's Hermits were approximately as durable, last charting (just barely) in 1968 (their last memorable song was in 1967 -- There's a Kind of Hush). Even the Kinks submerged on the charts: after three Top 10 songs before June of '65, they fell off into also-ran territory (singles topping out between 13 and 36 on the Billboard Top 40, until Lola reached #9 in 1970).
I'm pretty sure the musicianship improved with the second wave of British Invaders... and I'm also pretty sure that the petals of innocence were being plucked from the flowers of youth, or something like that.
It could be that the comparison holds true mostly for guys of our generation who were growing from childhood to adolescence in that era, though. Funny how we all want to consider ourselves unique – and yet believe our personal experience represents the overall arc of everyone in our generation.
To wit, in this case: between 1964, when I started buying 45s, and late '66, when I started buying albums, I imagine that pop music was also making a journey from a singles/Top40 orientation to the beginning of the album era (the floodgates of which were kicked open by Sgt Pepper).
At least for me, the center of musical gravity moved in those years from 3-minute jewels, each taken on its own merits, to consideration of 40-minute collections – then 40-minute collections with a unity of purpose. That tracks right along with my own growing maturity from pre-pubescent to adolescent, and the drying and smoking of petals of innocence. (Or something like that.)
But again - is this notion that, between 1964 and 1967, 60s pop evolved from ditties to statements really valid, or is it a subjective interpretation of selectively remembered coincidental alignments of pop culture and my personal experience?
F'rinstance, I like your notion of a rip in the fabric in mid-1965, when pretty pop suddenly became a bit more dangerous, and "Satisfaction" and "For Your Love" make good illustrations. (For me there were several rips, and some which came later were much more extreme.) I also think you're right that the 2nd layer of the first invasion had a hard time coping afterward.
But I got interested in this singles-LP/pop-to-hardrock transition a few years ago, and made an elaborate chronology of British pop releases through those years. (Which I posted at the time, but the GDP has a short memory, so I'll drag it out here again.)
And what I found (at least in my subjective analysis) is that there were precursors, shots across the bow, much earlier than 1965. Releases which, in their arrangements, texture, and attitude, suggested the more adventurous music which was coming. The Beatles and The Stones had such releases, of course – but I'd suggest The Animals and The Zombies were predictive as well.
You mention The Dave Clark Five, who I think always rocked harder than mere pop would require. A machine indeed.
I was most interested in how rock & roll-inflected pop evolved over time, in phases (folk-rock, blues-rock) into several distinctive (and, at the time, overlapping) subgenres of the late 60s and early 70s: psychedelia, hard rock (some called it acid rock), and progressive rock.
(These are terms which were tentatively and inconsistently applied at the time, and it wasn't clear that these would become different strains. We've made it clearer in retrospect than it was then.)
So my list includes singles from 12/63 through 11/66 which to my taste suggest the harder, more ambitious rock which is coming. After 11/66, I ignore singles, considering that we've entered the era when LPs became the prime currency in Musicland.
The list also includes albums from '63 through '75 which (again, per my experience) chart this evolution. In '63 and '64, there are only a few albums which "qualify". In '65 and '66, the momentum grows – and from '67 on we're well and truly in an era Life magazine called "The New Rock." Longer hair, louder amps, hippies, drugs, long jams, politics and social rebellion, musical fusions...loss of innocence indeed.
The rule of the list is that once a band/artist enters the chronology by virtue of a release showing harder rock, psychedelic, or progressive tendencies, then all that artist's subsequent releases are also included. We'll see that some bands made the transition (and led it); others could only appear after the ground had been prepared.
The end of the era is fraught with as much confusion between the cultural and the personal as its beginning: did hippie music, hard rock, and progressive really pretty much run out of steam by early '75, or was I – now a senior in college and listening to other music – just moving on?
The usual narrative has punk and new wave burying the progrock dinosaurs by 1977, and I can accept that interpretation. The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Police were all active by then, punk was fixin' to midwive a roots and rockabilly revival, and most of the bands in my chronology were out of business, hiding out, or suffering in the market.
My list ends pretty arbitrarily with Physical Graffiti in early 1975 – but albums by the Stones, Genesis, ELP, Pink Floyd, Clapton, Yes, Fleetwood Mac, and others would emerge through the end of the 70s and beyond. (I would argue that Clapton, Stones, and Fleetwood Mac returned to pure pop in that period.)
For me personally, "classic" prog had a last blaze of glory with Yes's Going for the One in July '77 (though I paid little attention) – and had a stake driven through its heart by their monumentally bad Tormato in September '78.
And I suppose we could stretch things and consider The Wall, in Nov '79, the last outlier of what had been progressive rock.
In the 80s, hard rock would morph into various forms of metal, Genesis would go pop, Yes and King Crimson would rise from their ashes on new wings, and the Stones would go on and on and on.
But they were no longer the center of the rock world.
Right, so here's the list...
Early British Rockin' Singles: Pop Precursors Hinting at Shapes of Things to Come
12/63 • Dave Clark Five: Glad All Over
05/64 • Dave Clark Five: Bits and Pieces
06/64 • Yardbirds: Heart Full of Soul
06/64 • Animals: House of the Rising Sun
07/64 • Zombies: She's Not There
08/64 • Kinks: You Really Got Me
10/64 • Kinks: All Day and All of the Night
01/65 • Dave Clark Five: Any Way You Want It
02/65 • Yardbirds: For Your Love
05/65 • Rolling Stones: Satisfaction
07/65 • Animals: We Gotta Get Out of this Place
08/65 • Small Faces: Whatcha Gonna Do About It
09/65 • Rolling Stones: Hey You, Get Off of My Cloud
10/65 • Animals: It's My Life
10/65 • Beatles: Day Tripper
11/65 • Spencer Davis Group: Keep on Running
11/65 • Small Faces: I've Got Mine
01/66 • Small Faces: Sha-La-La-La-Lee
02/66 • Yardbirds: Shapes of Things
02/66 • Rolling Stones: 19th Nervous Breakdown
03/66 • Spencer Davis Group: Somebody Help Me
05/66 • Rolling Stones: Paint It Black
05/66 • Animals: Don't Bring Me Down
06/66 • Yardbirds: Over Under Sideways Down
06/66 • Beatles Paperback Writer/Rain
06/66 • Rolling Stones: Mother's Little Helper /Lady Jane
06/66 • Rolling Stones: Have You Seen Your Mother Baby
08/66 • Small Faces: All or Nothing
11/66 • Spencer Davis Group: Gimme Some Lovin'
Albums of the Invasion
03/63 • Beatles: Please Please Me (more rock than pop: Twist & Shout)
11/63 • Beatles: With the Beatles (more rock than pop: It Won't Be Long, Money)
04/64 • Stones: The Rolling Stones
06/64 • Animals: The Animals
07/64 • Beatles: A Hard Day's Night (harder than pop: A Hard Days' Night)
09/64 • Dave Clark Five: Glad All Over
10/64 • Kinks: The Kinks
01/65 • The Zombies: Begin Here/The Zombies
01/65 • Dave Clark Five: Coast to Coast
01/65 • Stones: The Rolling Stones No. 2
03/65 • Kinks: Kinda Kinks
05/65 • Animals: Animal Tracks
05/65 • Donovan: What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid
07/65 • Spencer Davis Group: Their First LP
08/65 • Dave Clark Five: I Like It Like That
08/65 • Yardbirds: For Your Love
08/65 • Beatles: Help! (harder than pop: Ticket to Ride)
09/65 • Stones: Out of Our Heads
10/65 • Donovan: Fairytale
11/65 • Kinks: Kink Kontroversy
12/65 • Beatles: Rubber Soul
12/65 • Who: My Generation
12/65 • Stones: December's Children
01/66 • Spencer Davis Group: The Second Album
04/66 • Stones: Aftermath
05/66 • Small Faces: Small Faces (Decca)
07/66 • Animals: Animalization
07/66 • Yardbirds: Roger the Engineer
08/66 • Beatles: Revolver (practically psychedelic, if not prog: She Said She Said, And Your Bird Can Sing)
09/66 • Spencer Davis Group: Autumn '66
09/66 • Donovan: Sunshine Superman
10/66 • Kinks: Face to Face
12/66 • Animals: Animalism
12/66 • Who: A Quick One
I Say We're Fully in a New Era...
12/66 • Cream: Fresh Cream
01/67 • Stones: Between the Buttons
03/67 • Donovan: Mellow Yellow
05/67 • Hendrix: Are You Experienced
06/67 • Small Faces: Small Faces (Immediate)
06/67 • Beatles: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
06/67 • Small Faces: From the Beginning
07/67 • Yardbirds: Little Games
08/67 • Pink Floyd: Piper at the Gates of Dawn
09/67 • Animals: Winds of Change
09/67 • Kinks: Something Else
10/67 • Ten Years After: Ten Years After
11/67 • Cream: Disraeli Gears
11/67 • Procol Harum: Procol Harum
11/67 • The Nice: The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack
11/67 • Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour
12/67 • Donovan: A Gift from a Flower to a Garden
12/67 • Hendrix: Axis, Bold as Love
12/67 • Traffic: Mr. Fantasy
12/67 • Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request
12/67 • Moody Blues: Days of Future Passed
12/67 • Who: Who Sell Out
02/68 • Fleetwood Mac: Fleetwood Mac
04/68 • Zombies: Odeyssey and Oracle
05/68 • Small Faces: Ogdens Nut Gone Flake
06/68 • Procol Harum: Shine on Brightly
06/68 • Crazy World of Arthur Brown: Crazy World of Arthur Brown
06/68 • Spencer Davis Group: With Their New Face On
06/68 • Pink Floyd: A Saucerful of Secrets
07/68 • Deep Purple: Shades of Deep Purple
07/68 • Cream: Wheels of Fire
07/68 • Moody Blues: In Search of Lost Chord
08/68 • Jeff Beck Group: Truth
08/68 • Fleetwood Mac: Mr. Wonderful
09/68 • Status Quo: Picturesque Matchstickable Messages
10/68 • Donovan: The Hurdy Gurdy Man
10/68 • Deep Purple: Book of Taliesyn
10/68 • Jethro Tull: This Was
10/68 • Traffic: Traffic
10/68 • Hendrix: Electric Ladyland
11/68 • Kinks: Village Green Preservation Society
11/68 • Free: Tons of Sobs
11/68 • The Nice: Ars Longa Vita Brevis
12/68 • Soft Machine: The Soft Machine
11/68 • Beatles: White Album
12/68 • Stones: Beggars Banquet
01/69 • Fleetwood Mac: English Rose
01/69 • Traffic: Last Exit
01/69 • Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin I
03/69 • Cream: Goodbye
03/69 • Genesis: From Genesis to Revelation
04/69 • Moody Blues: Threshold of a Dream
04/69 • Humble Pie: As Safe As Yesterday Is
04/69 • Soft Machine: Volume Two
04/69 • Colosseum: Those Who Are About to Die Salute You
??/69 • The Nice: The Nice (UK) / Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It (US)
07/69 • Ten Years After: Ssssh
06/69 • Procol Harum: A Salty Dog
06/69 • Jeff Beck Group: Beck-Ola
06/69 • Deep Purple: Deep Purple
07/69 • Yes: Yes
08/69 • Blind Faith: Blind Faith
08/69 • Jethro Tull: Stand Up
08/69 • Humble Pie: Town and Country
08/69 • Donovan: Barabajangal
09/69 • Beatles: Abbey Road
09/69 • Status Quo: Spare Parts
10/69 • Free: Free
10/69 • Kinks: Arthur (Decline & Fall of the British Empire)
10/69 • King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
10/69 • Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin II
10/69 • Pink Floyd: Umma Gumma
11/69 • Small Faces: Autumn Stone
11/69 • The Who:Tommy
11/69 • Fleetwood Mac: Then Play On
11/69 • Colosseum: Valentyne Suite
11/69 • Moody Blues: To Our Children's Children's Children
11/69 • Ten Years After: Stonedhenge
12/69 • Deep Purple: Concerto for Band and Orchestra
12/69 • Stones: Let it Bleed
02/70 • Black Sabbath: Black Sabbbath
02/70 • Humble Pie: Humble Pie
03/70 • Ten Years After: Cricklewood Green
04/70 • Hendrix: Band of Gypsys
04/70 • Jethro Tull: Benefit
05/70 • Beatles: Let it Be
05/70 • Who: Live at Leeds
05/70 • King Crimson: In the Wake of Poseidon
05/70 • Screaming Lord Sutch: Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends
06/70 • Donovan: Open Road
06/70 • Soft Machine: Third
06/70 • Free: Fire and Water
06/70 • The Nice: Five Bridges
06/70 • Deep Purple: In Rock
06/70 • Yes: Time and a Word
06/70 • Uriah Heep: Very 'eavy, Very 'umble
??/70 • Colosseum: Daughter of Time
07/70 • Traffic: John Barleycorn Must Die
07/70 • Procol Harum: Home
08/70 • Eric Clapton: Eric Clapton
08/70 • Status Quo: Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon
08/70 • Moody Blues: A Question of Balance
09/70 • Fleetwood Mac: Kiln House
09/70 • Black Sabbath: Paranoid
10/70 • Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin III
10/70 • Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother
10/70 • Genesis: Trespass
11/70 • ELP: Emerson Lake & Palmer
11/70 • Kinks: Lola Versus Powerman & the Moneygoround, Pt 1
11/70 • Ten Years After: Watt
12/70 • Derek & the Dominos: Layla
12/70 • King Crimson: Lizard
12/70 • Wishbone Ash: Wishbone Ash
12/70 • Free: Highway
01/71 • The Nice: Elegy
02/71 • Uriah Heep: Salisbury
02/71 • Yes: The Yes Album
03/71 • Jethro Tull: Agualung
03/71 • Humble Pie: Rock On
04/71 • Stones: Sticky Fingers
06/71 • ELP: Tarkus
??/71 • Humble Pie: Rockin' the Fillmore
07/71 • Traffic: Welcome to the Canteen
07/71 • Donovan: HMS Donovan
07/71 • Deep Purple: Fireball
07/71 • Procol Harum: Broken Barricades
07/71 • Moody Blues: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
07/71 • Black Sabbath: Master of Reality
07/71 • Who: Who's Next
09/71 • Fleetwood Mac: Future Games
09/71 • Wishbone Ash: Pilgrimage
10/71 • Ten Years After: A Space In Time
10/71 • Jeff Beck: Rough & Ready
10/71 • Pink Floyd: Meddle
11/71 • ELP: Pictures at an Exhibition
11/71 • Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV (ZOSO)
11/71 • Kinks: Muswell Hillbillies
11/71 • Status Quo: Dog of Two Head
11/71 • Soft Machine: Fourth
11/71 • Traffic: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
11/71 • Yes: Fragile
12/71 • King Crimson: Islands
12/71 • Genesis: Nursery Crymes
02/72 • Soft Machine: 5
03/72 • Deep Purple: Machine Head
03/72 • Fleetwood Mac: Bare Trees
03/72 • Procol Harum: Live with Edmonton Symphony
03/72 • Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick
04/72 • Wishbone Ash: Argus
05/72 • Uriah Heep: Demons & Wizards
05/72 • Stones: Exile on Main Street
05/72 • Humble Pie: Smokin'
06/72 • Free: Free at Last
06/72 • Pink Floyd: Obscured by Clouds
06/72 • Ten Years After: Rock & Roll Music to the World
07/72 • ELP: Trilogy
08/72 • Kinks: Everybody's in Show-Biz
09/72 • Yes: Close to the Edge
09/72 • Black Sabbath: Volume 4
10/72 • Genesis: Foxtrot
11/72 • Uriah Heep: The Magician's Birthday
11/72 • Moody Blues: Seventh Sojourn
12/72 • Status Quo: Piledriver
01/73 • Fleetwood Mac: Penguin
01/73 • Deep Purple: Who Do We Think We Are
01/73 • Free: Heartbreaker
01/73 • Traffic: Shootout at the Fantasy Factory
03/73 • Donovan: Cosmic Wheels
03/73 • King Crimson: Larks Tongues in Aspic
03/73 • Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
03/73 • Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy
04/73 • Procol Harum: Grand Hotel
04/73 • Soft Machine: Six
05/73 • Wishbone Ash: Wishbone Four
06/73 • Kinks: The Great Lost Kinks Album
06/73 • Fleetwood Mac: Mystery to Me
??/73 • Humble Pie: Eat It
07/73 • Jethro Tull: A Passion Play
08/73 • Stones: Goats Head Soup
09/73 • Uriah Heep: Sweet Freedom
09/73 • Status Quo: Hello!
10/73 • Genesis: Selling England by the Pound
10/73 • Who: Quadrophenia
11/73 • Donovan: Essence to Essence
11/73 • Kinks: Preservation Acts 1 & 2
11/73 • ELP: Brain Salad Surgery
11/73 • Soft Machine: Seven
12/73 • Black Sabbath: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
12/73 • Yes: Tales From Topographic Oceans
03/74 • Deep Purple: Burn
03/74 • King Crimson: Starless and Bible Black
04/74 • Procol Harum: Exotic Birds and Fruit
05/74 • Status Quo: Quo
06/74 • Kinks: Soap Opera
06/74 • Uriah Heep: Wonderworld
??/74 • Humble Pie: Thunderbox
07/74 • Eric Clapton: 461 Ocean Blvd
09/74 • Fleetwood Mac: Heroes Are Hard to Find
09/74 • Traffic: When the Eagle Flies
10/74 • Wishbone Ash: There's the Rub
10/74 • Jethro Tull: War Child
10/74 • Stones: It's Only Rock & Roll
11/74 • Donovan: 7-Tease
11/74 • Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
11/74 • King Crimson: Red
11/74 • Deep Purple: Stormbringer
12/74 • Yes: Relayer
01/75 • Kinks: Schoolboys in Disgrace
02/75 • Status Quo: On the Level
02/75 • Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti
Proteus, found your list of singles 1963 to 66 fascinating..just shows how teenagers both sides of the pond were so in tune with each other as to what was new and forward looking at the same time in the 60's.
I am a compulsive hoarder...searched through my box of old sheet music and play lists from this era.
found we used to play every one of those on your list plus many more that only made it in UK...
Of course we all had many Chuck Berry numbers in our play list.
This reads like the story of my musical life.When I first heard The Beatles, I was hooked, but when I brought home Glad All Over, I thought that music (life) was making a cataclysmic shift to the hard, and the list reads (in my mind) like a twisty, jagged journey through and to the cool.
dave, you're right - especially in that era when British music was having such an impact here. This list is bound to reflect that, especially since it was intended to track only British music.
Just as you were playing music that only made it in the UK, we would have been hearing a lot of homegrown music that may not have made it there. That could be an interesting discussion: I'm guessing that any forward-looking/harder rocking national hit in the US would have crossed the water (say Paul Revere & the Raiders, The Rascals, Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons, for instance), but the US is so big that there were regional hits everywhere, and I wonder if those broke loose.
Shadows of Knight, Swingin' Medallions, Standells, The Trashmen, and herds of garage bands all over the country - I wonder if you were aware of those at the time.
bob, yep. Again, the US side of the equation would be fun to balance - like the way surf hit around the same time as the early Brit invasion, and, a few years later, the impact of new California sounds (folk rock, psychedelia) during 1966-67: The Doors, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, The Dead, Canned Heat, Moby Grape, Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer...
The homegrown rockin'blues infusion of Janis, Electric Flag, Bloomfield-Kooper, Johnny Winter, and not much later the reprocessed roots of The Band, the Allmans, etc.
And later, Michigan garage rock turned harder yet - Amboy Dukes, Mitch Ryder, Grand Funk Railroad.
Lots of rips in the fabric during those years, when I'd hear something and think 'whoa - I didn't music could DO that.'
Probably the most jarring such moments for me, though, were the twin slaps of Are You Experienced and Disraeli Gears, the dislocation In the Court of the Crimson King caused, and hearing "Roundabout" on the radio in 1972. Those were all occasions of hearing music so new to my ear that I couldn't have imagined it - music that seemed to come from the future or an alien place, music that seemed to have no connection to anything I'd heard before. (And I know Experienced and Gears were blues-based, but at 13 I didn't catch that!)
Proteus said, "Probably the most jarring such moments for me, though, were the twin slaps of Are You Experienced and Disraeli Gears, the dislocation In the Court of the Crimson King"
These three hit me upside the head at the same time. At the time, my little band of 13 year olds was struggling to get the Beatle stuff down and WHAM! Jimi and Cream, and then King Crimson. Thinking back, it all seems like a lot to absorb in such a short period of time but we just sucked it up like candy. That amount of mindbending would probably kill me today.
It wasn't only all our listeners' earminds that got slapped though --- those same seeds had massive ripple effects on the music made by other already established bands and artists. In the same way that Rubber Soul/Revolver begat Pet Sounds which begat Sgt. Pepper which begat Smile, it's well documented that Hendrix and Cream impacted many other musicians to search for new sounds and extend their musical forms. Jefferson Airplane had a (relatively) big hit with Surrealistic Pillow in early 1967, but seeing Cream and Hendrix live caused Jack and Jorma in particular to push the envelope, and JA's next effort, After Bathing At Baxter's, was a MUCH more adventurous outing. Moby Grape's first album (released at nearly the same time as Sgt. Pepper) garnered both radio airplay and critical acclaim for its solid songwriting, great vocal harmonies and tasty virtuoso playing, but the impact of Sgt. Pepper caused the Grape to incorporate strings, sound effects, backwards and processed sounds, musique concrete, 1920's jazz, the Blood Sweat and Tears horn section, and Arthur Godfrey into their next release Wow/Grape Jam --- which also tipped its hat to the extended blues-based jams of Cream by including the "Grape Jam" disc (which featured Mike Bloomfield, another progenitor of extended blues-rock playing with his work on Butterfield's "East-West," on piano. Motown added fuzzboxes and psychedelic-flavored guitars to their formula (Cloud Nine), and even Miles Davis acknowledged Hendrix (and Sly Stone) as major influences in pushing him into the world of electric jazz fusion, which spawned a whole new musical movement on its own.
Those are only a few examples --- I'm sure everybody who was paying attention to popular music at that time can think of many more.
Facebook
Twitter
I liked Freddie and the Dreamers.
While at the time I had no context to put them in, I realize now that they, like Herman's Hermits, belonged to the lineage that gave us "pure entertainers" like George Formby - guys who just wanted you to smile and didn't care if they looked cool or you were laughing at them.
(At least Freddie seems to have belonged to that lineage; in video clips the rest of the guys in the band sometimes look embarrassed.)
Was it rebel rock & roll? No. Were they nice melodic dancehall songs, played with a spiffy beat and incorporating contemporary sounds? I think so.
Anyhow, when I was 11 and 12, I quite liked both bands. I was probably who the records were intended for. "Leanin' on a Lamppost," "Mrs Brown," "I'm Telling You Now"... these songs perfectly captured the trials, tribulations, nascent lust and longing of early adolescence.
Plus, a mouse lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam.
Tim, you nailed it. There's a delightful segment among the surviving Hullaballoo episodes during which Peter Noone and Freddie Garrity were trading songs and shtick, laughing, and having a grand time, much to the enjoyment of the audience. Nope, no fiery rocking and no introspective tunes. Light fun: an alien concept nowadays to anyone over the age of 5.
There's this huge rip in the fabric in June of 1965, when the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and the Yardbirds' For Your Love both hit the charts. The Brits got significantly tougher, and that "second layer" of the first wave of British Invaders (the acts that weren't the Beatles and the Stones) was imperiled -- Freddie and the Dreamers never had another hit, neither did the Searchers nor Gerry and the Pacemakers. The Dave Clark 5 were a machine and managed to keep pumping into 1967; and Herman's Hermits were approximately as durable, last charting (just barely) in 1968 (their last memorable song was in 1967 -- There's a Kind of Hush). Even the Kinks submerged on the charts: after three Top 10 songs before June of '65, they fell off into also-ran territory (singles topping out between 13 and 36 on the Billboard Top 40, until Lola reached #9 in 1970).
I'm pretty sure the musicianship improved with the second wave of British Invaders... and I'm also pretty sure that the petals of innocence were being plucked from the flowers of youth, or something like that.
Paul/FF909
Florid - but roughly accurate - metaphor, Paul.
It could be that the comparison holds true mostly for guys of our generation who were growing from childhood to adolescence in that era, though. Funny how we all want to consider ourselves unique – and yet believe our personal experience represents the overall arc of everyone in our generation.
To wit, in this case: between 1964, when I started buying 45s, and late '66, when I started buying albums, I imagine that pop music was also making a journey from a singles/Top40 orientation to the beginning of the album era (the floodgates of which were kicked open by Sgt Pepper).
At least for me, the center of musical gravity moved in those years from 3-minute jewels, each taken on its own merits, to consideration of 40-minute collections – then 40-minute collections with a unity of purpose. That tracks right along with my own growing maturity from pre-pubescent to adolescent, and the drying and smoking of petals of innocence. (Or something like that.)
But again - is this notion that, between 1964 and 1967, 60s pop evolved from ditties to statements really valid, or is it a subjective interpretation of selectively remembered coincidental alignments of pop culture and my personal experience?
F'rinstance, I like your notion of a rip in the fabric in mid-1965, when pretty pop suddenly became a bit more dangerous, and "Satisfaction" and "For Your Love" make good illustrations. (For me there were several rips, and some which came later were much more extreme.) I also think you're right that the 2nd layer of the first invasion had a hard time coping afterward.
But I got interested in this singles-LP/pop-to-hardrock transition a few years ago, and made an elaborate chronology of British pop releases through those years. (Which I posted at the time, but the GDP has a short memory, so I'll drag it out here again.)
And what I found (at least in my subjective analysis) is that there were precursors, shots across the bow, much earlier than 1965. Releases which, in their arrangements, texture, and attitude, suggested the more adventurous music which was coming. The Beatles and The Stones had such releases, of course – but I'd suggest The Animals and The Zombies were predictive as well.
You mention The Dave Clark Five, who I think always rocked harder than mere pop would require. A machine indeed.
I was most interested in how rock & roll-inflected pop evolved over time, in phases (folk-rock, blues-rock) into several distinctive (and, at the time, overlapping) subgenres of the late 60s and early 70s: psychedelia, hard rock (some called it acid rock), and progressive rock.
(These are terms which were tentatively and inconsistently applied at the time, and it wasn't clear that these would become different strains. We've made it clearer in retrospect than it was then.)
So my list includes singles from 12/63 through 11/66 which to my taste suggest the harder, more ambitious rock which is coming. After 11/66, I ignore singles, considering that we've entered the era when LPs became the prime currency in Musicland.
The list also includes albums from '63 through '75 which (again, per my experience) chart this evolution. In '63 and '64, there are only a few albums which "qualify". In '65 and '66, the momentum grows – and from '67 on we're well and truly in an era Life magazine called "The New Rock." Longer hair, louder amps, hippies, drugs, long jams, politics and social rebellion, musical fusions...loss of innocence indeed.
The rule of the list is that once a band/artist enters the chronology by virtue of a release showing harder rock, psychedelic, or progressive tendencies, then all that artist's subsequent releases are also included. We'll see that some bands made the transition (and led it); others could only appear after the ground had been prepared.
The end of the era is fraught with as much confusion between the cultural and the personal as its beginning: did hippie music, hard rock, and progressive really pretty much run out of steam by early '75, or was I – now a senior in college and listening to other music – just moving on?
The usual narrative has punk and new wave burying the progrock dinosaurs by 1977, and I can accept that interpretation. The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Police were all active by then, punk was fixin' to midwive a roots and rockabilly revival, and most of the bands in my chronology were out of business, hiding out, or suffering in the market.
My list ends pretty arbitrarily with Physical Graffiti in early 1975 – but albums by the Stones, Genesis, ELP, Pink Floyd, Clapton, Yes, Fleetwood Mac, and others would emerge through the end of the 70s and beyond. (I would argue that Clapton, Stones, and Fleetwood Mac returned to pure pop in that period.)
For me personally, "classic" prog had a last blaze of glory with Yes's Going for the One in July '77 (though I paid little attention) – and had a stake driven through its heart by their monumentally bad Tormato in September '78.
And I suppose we could stretch things and consider The Wall, in Nov '79, the last outlier of what had been progressive rock.
In the 80s, hard rock would morph into various forms of metal, Genesis would go pop, Yes and King Crimson would rise from their ashes on new wings, and the Stones would go on and on and on.
But they were no longer the center of the rock world.
Right, so here's the list...
Early British Rockin' Singles: Pop Precursors Hinting at Shapes of Things to Come
12/63 • Dave Clark Five: Glad All Over
05/64 • Dave Clark Five: Bits and Pieces
06/64 • Yardbirds: Heart Full of Soul 06/64 • Animals: House of the Rising Sun
07/64 • Zombies: She's Not There
08/64 • Kinks: You Really Got Me
10/64 • Kinks: All Day and All of the Night
01/65 • Dave Clark Five: Any Way You Want It
02/65 • Yardbirds: For Your Love
05/65 • Rolling Stones: Satisfaction
07/65 • Animals: We Gotta Get Out of this Place
08/65 • Small Faces: Whatcha Gonna Do About It
09/65 • Rolling Stones: Hey You, Get Off of My Cloud
10/65 • Animals: It's My Life
10/65 • Beatles: Day Tripper
11/65 • Spencer Davis Group: Keep on Running
11/65 • Small Faces: I've Got Mine
01/66 • Small Faces: Sha-La-La-La-Lee
02/66 • Yardbirds: Shapes of Things
02/66 • Rolling Stones: 19th Nervous Breakdown
03/66 • Spencer Davis Group: Somebody Help Me
05/66 • Rolling Stones: Paint It Black
05/66 • Animals: Don't Bring Me Down
06/66 • Yardbirds: Over Under Sideways Down
06/66 • Beatles Paperback Writer/Rain
06/66 • Rolling Stones: Mother's Little Helper /Lady Jane
06/66 • Rolling Stones: Have You Seen Your Mother Baby
08/66 • Small Faces: All or Nothing
11/66 • Spencer Davis Group: Gimme Some Lovin'
Albums of the Invasion
03/63 • Beatles: Please Please Me (more rock than pop: Twist & Shout)
11/63 • Beatles: With the Beatles (more rock than pop: It Won't Be Long, Money)
04/64 • Stones: The Rolling Stones
06/64 • Animals: The Animals
07/64 • Beatles: A Hard Day's Night (harder than pop: A Hard Days' Night)
09/64 • Dave Clark Five: Glad All Over
10/64 • Kinks: The Kinks
01/65 • The Zombies: Begin Here/The Zombies
01/65 • Dave Clark Five: Coast to Coast
01/65 • Stones: The Rolling Stones No. 2
03/65 • Kinks: Kinda Kinks
05/65 • Animals: Animal Tracks
05/65 • Donovan: What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid
07/65 • Spencer Davis Group: Their First LP
08/65 • Dave Clark Five: I Like It Like That
08/65 • Yardbirds: For Your Love
08/65 • Beatles: Help! (harder than pop: Ticket to Ride)
09/65 • Stones: Out of Our Heads
10/65 • Donovan: Fairytale
11/65 • Kinks: Kink Kontroversy
12/65 • Beatles: Rubber Soul
12/65 • Who: My Generation
12/65 • Stones: December's Children
01/66 • Spencer Davis Group: The Second Album
04/66 • Stones: Aftermath
05/66 • Small Faces: Small Faces (Decca)
07/66 • Animals: Animalization
07/66 • Yardbirds: Roger the Engineer
08/66 • Beatles: Revolver (practically psychedelic, if not prog: She Said She Said, And Your Bird Can Sing)
09/66 • Spencer Davis Group: Autumn '66
09/66 • Donovan: Sunshine Superman
10/66 • Kinks: Face to Face
12/66 • Animals: Animalism
12/66 • Who: A Quick One
I Say We're Fully in a New Era...
12/66 • Cream: Fresh Cream
01/67 • Stones: Between the Buttons
03/67 • Donovan: Mellow Yellow
05/67 • Hendrix: Are You Experienced
06/67 • Small Faces: Small Faces (Immediate)
06/67 • Beatles: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
06/67 • Small Faces: From the Beginning
07/67 • Yardbirds: Little Games
08/67 • Pink Floyd: Piper at the Gates of Dawn
09/67 • Animals: Winds of Change
09/67 • Kinks: Something Else
10/67 • Ten Years After: Ten Years After
11/67 • Cream: Disraeli Gears
11/67 • Procol Harum: Procol Harum
11/67 • The Nice: The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack
11/67 • Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour
12/67 • Donovan: A Gift from a Flower to a Garden
12/67 • Hendrix: Axis, Bold as Love
12/67 • Traffic: Mr. Fantasy
12/67 • Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request
12/67 • Moody Blues: Days of Future Passed
12/67 • Who: Who Sell Out
02/68 • Fleetwood Mac: Fleetwood Mac
04/68 • Zombies: Odeyssey and Oracle
05/68 • Small Faces: Ogdens Nut Gone Flake
06/68 • Procol Harum: Shine on Brightly
06/68 • Crazy World of Arthur Brown: Crazy World of Arthur Brown
06/68 • Spencer Davis Group: With Their New Face On
06/68 • Pink Floyd: A Saucerful of Secrets
07/68 • Deep Purple: Shades of Deep Purple
07/68 • Cream: Wheels of Fire
07/68 • Moody Blues: In Search of Lost Chord
08/68 • Jeff Beck Group: Truth
08/68 • Fleetwood Mac: Mr. Wonderful
09/68 • Status Quo: Picturesque Matchstickable Messages
10/68 • Donovan: The Hurdy Gurdy Man
10/68 • Deep Purple: Book of Taliesyn
10/68 • Jethro Tull: This Was
10/68 • Traffic: Traffic
10/68 • Hendrix: Electric Ladyland
11/68 • Kinks: Village Green Preservation Society
11/68 • Free: Tons of Sobs
11/68 • The Nice: Ars Longa Vita Brevis
12/68 • Soft Machine: The Soft Machine
11/68 • Beatles: White Album
12/68 • Stones: Beggars Banquet
01/69 • Fleetwood Mac: English Rose
01/69 • Traffic: Last Exit
01/69 • Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin I
03/69 • Cream: Goodbye
03/69 • Genesis: From Genesis to Revelation
04/69 • Moody Blues: Threshold of a Dream
04/69 • Humble Pie: As Safe As Yesterday Is
04/69 • Soft Machine: Volume Two
04/69 • Colosseum: Those Who Are About to Die Salute You
??/69 • The Nice: The Nice (UK) / Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It (US)
07/69 • Ten Years After: Ssssh
06/69 • Procol Harum: A Salty Dog
06/69 • Jeff Beck Group: Beck-Ola
06/69 • Deep Purple: Deep Purple
07/69 • Yes: Yes
08/69 • Blind Faith: Blind Faith
08/69 • Jethro Tull: Stand Up
08/69 • Humble Pie: Town and Country
08/69 • Donovan: Barabajangal
09/69 • Beatles: Abbey Road
09/69 • Status Quo: Spare Parts
10/69 • Free: Free
10/69 • Kinks: Arthur (Decline & Fall of the British Empire)
10/69 • King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
10/69 • Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin II
10/69 • Pink Floyd: Umma Gumma
11/69 • Small Faces: Autumn Stone
11/69 • The Who:Tommy
11/69 • Fleetwood Mac: Then Play On
11/69 • Colosseum: Valentyne Suite
11/69 • Moody Blues: To Our Children's Children's Children
11/69 • Ten Years After: Stonedhenge
12/69 • Deep Purple: Concerto for Band and Orchestra
12/69 • Stones: Let it Bleed
02/70 • Black Sabbath: Black Sabbbath
02/70 • Humble Pie: Humble Pie
03/70 • Ten Years After: Cricklewood Green
04/70 • Hendrix: Band of Gypsys
04/70 • Jethro Tull: Benefit
05/70 • Beatles: Let it Be
05/70 • Who: Live at Leeds
05/70 • King Crimson: In the Wake of Poseidon
05/70 • Screaming Lord Sutch: Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends
06/70 • Donovan: Open Road
06/70 • Soft Machine: Third
06/70 • Free: Fire and Water
06/70 • The Nice: Five Bridges
06/70 • Deep Purple: In Rock
06/70 • Yes: Time and a Word
06/70 • Uriah Heep: Very 'eavy, Very 'umble
??/70 • Colosseum: Daughter of Time
07/70 • Traffic: John Barleycorn Must Die
07/70 • Procol Harum: Home
08/70 • Eric Clapton: Eric Clapton
08/70 • Status Quo: Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon
08/70 • Moody Blues: A Question of Balance
09/70 • Fleetwood Mac: Kiln House
09/70 • Black Sabbath: Paranoid
10/70 • Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin III
10/70 • Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother
10/70 • Genesis: Trespass
11/70 • ELP: Emerson Lake & Palmer
11/70 • Kinks: Lola Versus Powerman & the Moneygoround, Pt 1
11/70 • Ten Years After: Watt
12/70 • Derek & the Dominos: Layla
12/70 • King Crimson: Lizard
12/70 • Wishbone Ash: Wishbone Ash
12/70 • Free: Highway
01/71 • The Nice: Elegy
02/71 • Uriah Heep: Salisbury
02/71 • Yes: The Yes Album
03/71 • Jethro Tull: Agualung
03/71 • Humble Pie: Rock On
04/71 • Stones: Sticky Fingers
06/71 • ELP: Tarkus
??/71 • Humble Pie: Rockin' the Fillmore
07/71 • Traffic: Welcome to the Canteen
07/71 • Donovan: HMS Donovan
07/71 • Deep Purple: Fireball
07/71 • Procol Harum: Broken Barricades
07/71 • Moody Blues: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
07/71 • Black Sabbath: Master of Reality
07/71 • Who: Who's Next
09/71 • Fleetwood Mac: Future Games
09/71 • Wishbone Ash: Pilgrimage
10/71 • Ten Years After: A Space In Time
10/71 • Jeff Beck: Rough & Ready
10/71 • Pink Floyd: Meddle
11/71 • ELP: Pictures at an Exhibition
11/71 • Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV (ZOSO)
11/71 • Kinks: Muswell Hillbillies
11/71 • Status Quo: Dog of Two Head
11/71 • Soft Machine: Fourth
11/71 • Traffic: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
11/71 • Yes: Fragile
12/71 • King Crimson: Islands
12/71 • Genesis: Nursery Crymes
02/72 • Soft Machine: 5
03/72 • Deep Purple: Machine Head
03/72 • Fleetwood Mac: Bare Trees
03/72 • Procol Harum: Live with Edmonton Symphony
03/72 • Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick
04/72 • Wishbone Ash: Argus
05/72 • Uriah Heep: Demons & Wizards
05/72 • Stones: Exile on Main Street
05/72 • Humble Pie: Smokin'
06/72 • Free: Free at Last
06/72 • Pink Floyd: Obscured by Clouds
06/72 • Ten Years After: Rock & Roll Music to the World
07/72 • ELP: Trilogy
08/72 • Kinks: Everybody's in Show-Biz
09/72 • Yes: Close to the Edge
09/72 • Black Sabbath: Volume 4
10/72 • Genesis: Foxtrot
11/72 • Uriah Heep: The Magician's Birthday
11/72 • Moody Blues: Seventh Sojourn
12/72 • Status Quo: Piledriver
01/73 • Fleetwood Mac: Penguin
01/73 • Deep Purple: Who Do We Think We Are
01/73 • Free: Heartbreaker
01/73 • Traffic: Shootout at the Fantasy Factory
03/73 • Donovan: Cosmic Wheels
03/73 • King Crimson: Larks Tongues in Aspic
03/73 • Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
03/73 • Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy
04/73 • Procol Harum: Grand Hotel
04/73 • Soft Machine: Six
05/73 • Wishbone Ash: Wishbone Four
06/73 • Kinks: The Great Lost Kinks Album
06/73 • Fleetwood Mac: Mystery to Me
??/73 • Humble Pie: Eat It
07/73 • Jethro Tull: A Passion Play
08/73 • Stones: Goats Head Soup
09/73 • Uriah Heep: Sweet Freedom
09/73 • Status Quo: Hello!
10/73 • Genesis: Selling England by the Pound
10/73 • Who: Quadrophenia
11/73 • Donovan: Essence to Essence
11/73 • Kinks: Preservation Acts 1 & 2
11/73 • ELP: Brain Salad Surgery
11/73 • Soft Machine: Seven
12/73 • Black Sabbath: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
12/73 • Yes: Tales From Topographic Oceans
03/74 • Deep Purple: Burn
03/74 • King Crimson: Starless and Bible Black
04/74 • Procol Harum: Exotic Birds and Fruit
05/74 • Status Quo: Quo
06/74 • Kinks: Soap Opera
06/74 • Uriah Heep: Wonderworld
??/74 • Humble Pie: Thunderbox
07/74 • Eric Clapton: 461 Ocean Blvd
09/74 • Fleetwood Mac: Heroes Are Hard to Find
09/74 • Traffic: When the Eagle Flies
10/74 • Wishbone Ash: There's the Rub
10/74 • Jethro Tull: War Child
10/74 • Stones: It's Only Rock & Roll
11/74 • Donovan: 7-Tease
11/74 • Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
11/74 • King Crimson: Red
11/74 • Deep Purple: Stormbringer
12/74 • Yes: Relayer
01/75 • Kinks: Schoolboys in Disgrace
02/75 • Status Quo: On the Level
02/75 • Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti
Proteus, found your list of singles 1963 to 66 fascinating..just shows how teenagers both sides of the pond were so in tune with each other as to what was new and forward looking at the same time in the 60's.
I am a compulsive hoarder...searched through my box of old sheet music and play lists from this era.
found we used to play every one of those on your list plus many more that only made it in UK...
Of course we all had many Chuck Berry numbers in our play list.
davedee
1963 to 66
This reads like the story of my musical life.When I first heard The Beatles, I was hooked, but when I brought home Glad All Over, I thought that music (life) was making a cataclysmic shift to the hard, and the list reads (in my mind) like a twisty, jagged journey through and to the cool.
dave, you're right - especially in that era when British music was having such an impact here. This list is bound to reflect that, especially since it was intended to track only British music.
Just as you were playing music that only made it in the UK, we would have been hearing a lot of homegrown music that may not have made it there. That could be an interesting discussion: I'm guessing that any forward-looking/harder rocking national hit in the US would have crossed the water (say Paul Revere & the Raiders, The Rascals, Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons, for instance), but the US is so big that there were regional hits everywhere, and I wonder if those broke loose.
Shadows of Knight, Swingin' Medallions, Standells, The Trashmen, and herds of garage bands all over the country - I wonder if you were aware of those at the time.
bob, yep. Again, the US side of the equation would be fun to balance - like the way surf hit around the same time as the early Brit invasion, and, a few years later, the impact of new California sounds (folk rock, psychedelia) during 1966-67: The Doors, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, The Dead, Canned Heat, Moby Grape, Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer...
The homegrown rockin'blues infusion of Janis, Electric Flag, Bloomfield-Kooper, Johnny Winter, and not much later the reprocessed roots of The Band, the Allmans, etc.
And later, Michigan garage rock turned harder yet - Amboy Dukes, Mitch Ryder, Grand Funk Railroad.
Lots of rips in the fabric during those years, when I'd hear something and think 'whoa - I didn't music could DO that.'
Probably the most jarring such moments for me, though, were the twin slaps of Are You Experienced and Disraeli Gears, the dislocation In the Court of the Crimson King caused, and hearing "Roundabout" on the radio in 1972. Those were all occasions of hearing music so new to my ear that I couldn't have imagined it - music that seemed to come from the future or an alien place, music that seemed to have no connection to anything I'd heard before. (And I know Experienced and Gears were blues-based, but at 13 I didn't catch that!)
Proteus said, "Probably the most jarring such moments for me, though, were the twin slaps of Are You Experienced and Disraeli Gears, the dislocation In the Court of the Crimson King"
These three hit me upside the head at the same time. At the time, my little band of 13 year olds was struggling to get the Beatle stuff down and WHAM! Jimi and Cream, and then King Crimson. Thinking back, it all seems like a lot to absorb in such a short period of time but we just sucked it up like candy. That amount of mindbending would probably kill me today.
It wasn't only all our listeners' earminds that got slapped though --- those same seeds had massive ripple effects on the music made by other already established bands and artists. In the same way that Rubber Soul/Revolver begat Pet Sounds which begat Sgt. Pepper which begat Smile, it's well documented that Hendrix and Cream impacted many other musicians to search for new sounds and extend their musical forms. Jefferson Airplane had a (relatively) big hit with Surrealistic Pillow in early 1967, but seeing Cream and Hendrix live caused Jack and Jorma in particular to push the envelope, and JA's next effort, After Bathing At Baxter's, was a MUCH more adventurous outing. Moby Grape's first album (released at nearly the same time as Sgt. Pepper) garnered both radio airplay and critical acclaim for its solid songwriting, great vocal harmonies and tasty virtuoso playing, but the impact of Sgt. Pepper caused the Grape to incorporate strings, sound effects, backwards and processed sounds, musique concrete, 1920's jazz, the Blood Sweat and Tears horn section, and Arthur Godfrey into their next release Wow/Grape Jam --- which also tipped its hat to the extended blues-based jams of Cream by including the "Grape Jam" disc (which featured Mike Bloomfield, another progenitor of extended blues-rock playing with his work on Butterfield's "East-West," on piano. Motown added fuzzboxes and psychedelic-flavored guitars to their formula (Cloud Nine), and even Miles Davis acknowledged Hendrix (and Sly Stone) as major influences in pushing him into the world of electric jazz fusion, which spawned a whole new musical movement on its own.
Those are only a few examples --- I'm sure everybody who was paying attention to popular music at that time can think of many more.