169-627: Morrison Hotel is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Doors , released on February 9, 1970, by Elektra Records . After the use of brass and string arrangements recommended by producer Paul A. Rothchild on their previous album, The Soft Parade (1969), the Doors returned to their blues rock style and this album was largely seen as a return to form for the band. The group entered Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles in November 1969 to record
338-469: A lead guitar innovator. The album's instrumental tracks included two hit singles, "Memphis" and "Wham". In them, Mack, using "top-quality technique" and "pristine" phrasing, added "edgy, aggressive, loud, and fast" melodies and runs to the predominant chords-and-riffs pattern of early rock guitar. These tracks raised the bar for rock guitar proficiency, helped launch the electric guitar to the top of soloing instruments in rock, and served as prototypes for
507-464: A [vibrato arm]." Reportedly, the device was given its common nickname, " whammy bar ", in recognition of Mack's early demonstration of skill with it in "Wham!". While some of Mack's signature performance elements had appeared in early rock saxophone and keyboard solos, a seamless combination of all was essentially unheard in rock guitar before Mack. Rock historian Dave Stephens rates Mack's overall guitar sound "highly distinctive, dare I say, unique; in
676-452: A biography of Southern Rock guitar legend Duane Allman , guitarist and early Allman associate Mike Johnstone recalled the professional impact of Mack's rock guitar proficiency when he and Allman were starting out: Now, [in 1963], there was a popular song on the radio called 'Memphis'—an instrumental by Lonnie Mack. It was the best guitar-playing I'd ever heard. All the guitar-players were [saying] 'How could anyone ever play that good? That's
845-400: A brisk melodic blues solo within a rockabilly/ Memphis soul framework, augmented by a rock drum-beat. It represented a significant advance in rock guitar virtuosity, beyond both the prevailing chords-and-riffs standard of Chuck Berry and the "inherently simple" melodic solos of earlier rock guitar icons, e.g., Link Wray , Duane Eddy and Hank Marvin . Mack recalled that, upon recording
1014-509: A certain degree doesn't care if it's popular. — Bill Wyman in Vulture (2016) The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was also greatly influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists. The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered jazz music in
1183-421: A collaboration with his blues-rock disciple, guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan . Vaughan persuaded Mack to return to the studio, with Vaughan in production and backup roles, but Mack's return was postponed by a lengthy illness that Mack attributed to "so much drinkin' and carryin' on". In 1985, Mack staged a "full-fledged comeback" with the blues-rock album, Strike Like Lightning (co-produced by Vaughan and Mack),
1352-520: A drunken Morrison caused such a disturbance on a flight to Phoenix, Arizona, to see a Rolling Stones concert that he was charged with a new skyjacking law that carried up to a $ 10,000 fine and a ten-year prison sentence. Morrison Hotel' s back-to-basics approach largely stemmed from the group's dismay over the protracted sessions for The Soft Parade , which took nine months to record and cost $ 86,000 (equal to $ 714,534 today), far more expensive than any previous Doors record. The band had also been stung by
1521-476: A few years earlier, when his keyboardist, Denzil "Dumpy" Rice, who normally sang and played the Berry tune, missed a performance. Mack didn't know the tune's lyrics, but when the audience called for it, he improvised a highly embellished electric guitar instrumental grounded in Berry's melody. He made the instrumental a regular feature of his live act, calling it simply "Memphis". As recorded in 1963, "Memphis" featured
1690-514: A fondness for a good beat, a meaningful lyric with some wit, and the theme of youth, which holds an "eternal attraction" so objective "that all youth music partakes of sociology and the field report ." Writing in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), he said this sensibility is evident in the music of folk singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked , rapper LL Cool J , and synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys —"all kids working out their identities"—as much as it
1859-477: A foundation of simple syncopated rhythms in a 4 meter , with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies often originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian , as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s, and particularly from
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#17328517176422028-609: A frequent addition to the established rock format of guitars, bass, and drums in subsequent progressive rock. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy and science fiction. The Pretty Things ' SF Sorrow (1968), the Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), and the Who 's Tommy (1969) introduced
2197-520: A funny look afterward, to see your reaction." The cover photo was taken by Henry Diltz at the Morrison Hotel on South Hope Street in Downtown Los Angeles . The band were not given permission to photograph, so they did it while the clerk was called away from the desk. The band jumped right behind the windows and hit their places without shuffling as Diltz took the shot. The rear cover features
2366-433: A great honor to be able to [inspire other artists]. What you do in this business, your whole thing is givin' stuff away. But that makes you feel good, makes you feel like you've really done something." Mack was closely identified with the distinctive-looking Gibson Flying V guitar that first appeared in 1958. When he was seventeen, he bought the seventh Flying V off the first-year production line, naming it "Number 7". Mack
2535-612: A key feature of psychedelia. Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , including the controversial track " Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ", the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request , and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at
2704-568: A loud amplified sound, often centered on the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues , particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated . The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream , combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis. The other key focus for British blues
2873-572: A mainstream audience with hits including " Blowin' in the Wind " (1963) and " Masters of War " (1963), which brought " protest songs " to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences. Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals' " House of the Rising Sun " (1964), which
3042-485: A major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had moved away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia . By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple , and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible", as bands began recording rock-style albums. The genre
3211-429: A major influence on subsequent electronic rock . With the advent of punk rock and technological changes in the late 1970s, progressive rock was increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown. Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored top ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours. Some bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and
3380-410: A more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly blues, country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock. In 1966 Bob Dylan went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde . This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, such as Nashville Skyline , have been seen as creating the genre of country folk ,
3549-474: A multi-genre (but country-flavored) LP with a vocal emphasis. It included only one track showcasing his guitar virtuosity, "Asphalt Outlaw Hero". The Hills of Indiana attracted little attention. Mack had begun missing the fun of small-town performance venues early in his time with Elektra and soon soured on the fantasy of rock celebrity status. "[It had] a lot to do with how much value you put on money as opposed to what makes you happy. I wasn't happy. So one of
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#17328517176423718-481: A multibillion-dollar industry and doubling its market while, as Christgau noted, suffering a significant "loss of cultural prestige". "Maybe the Bee Gees became more popular than the Beatles, but they were never more popular than Jesus ", he said. "Insofar as the music retained any mythic power, the myth was self-referential – there were lots of songs about the rock and roll life but very few about how rock could change
3887-570: A national phenomenon. It is often argued that the surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964, because most surf music hits were recorded and released between 1960 and 1965. By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like the Beatles , Gerry & the Pacemakers and
4056-576: A perfect rating of five stars out of five, and considered it to be the Doors' "most cohesive record," adding that aside "from the throwaway grunter", "Maggie M'Gill", all the other songs were "masterful—and the band swings tougher and easier than they ever had before." In more recent reviews, Thom Jurek of AllMusic expressed that the Doors employed blues and R&B "to some degree on all of their albums, but never as consistently, adeptly, or provocatively as they did on Morrison Hotel , with absolutely stunning results." Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine gave
4225-489: A photograph of the Hard Rock Café at nearby 300 East 5th Street. The building is now home to a convenience store. It has been vacant for years. However, a new development plan to restore the building was announced in 2018, which happened for the annual "Day of the Doors" fan event in 2019. In early 1983, thirteen years after the album's release, parts of Michael Jackson 's music video for the song " Beat It " were filmed inside
4394-456: A preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an end. Rock quickly spread out from its origins in the US, associated with the rapid Americanization that
4563-444: A prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, heralding the era of pomp or arena rock , which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festivals as major live venues in the 1990s. The instrumental strand of the genre resulted in albums like Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells (1973),
4732-446: A rigidly delineated musical definition." In the opinion of music journalist Robert Christgau , "the best rock jolts folk-art virtues—directness, utility, natural audience—into the present with shots of modern technology and modernist dissociation ". Rock and roll was conceived as an outlet for adolescent yearnings ... To make rock and roll is also an ideal way to explore intersections of sex, love, violence, and fun, to broadcast
4901-625: A rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s " classic rock " period, a few distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock , folk rock , country rock , Southern rock , raga rock , and jazz rock , which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock , influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene . New genres that emerged included progressive rock , which extended artistic elements, heavy metal , which emphasized an aggressive thick sound, and glam rock , which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In
5070-695: A route pursued by a number of largely acoustic folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group the Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival , both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder , Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George , and influenced
5239-427: A series of compilations. In the mid-1960s, however, Mack's commercial prospects were stymied by Fraternity's thin financial resources and, even more, by the arrival of the overwhelmingly popular British Invasion only two months after release of The Wham of that Memphis Man . "It looked like the guitar wizard was ready to bust out when the music world was turned on its ear. [In] February 1964, The Beatles appeared on
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5408-478: A slogan one only began to hear in 1972 or so, mobilized all those eager to believe that idealism had become passe, and once they were mobilized, it had. In popular music, embracing the '70s meant both an elitist withdrawal from the messy concert and counterculture scene and a profiteering pursuit of the lowest common denominator in FM radio and album rock . Rock saw greater commodification during this decade, turning into
5577-613: A then-perceived "peculiar running quality" at "a million notes per minute". By 1963, the year of "Memphis" and "Wham!", Mack's ability to rapidly "exploit the entire range" of the guitar with "top-quality technique" and "pristine" phrasing was considerably above the rock music standard. In "Memphis", "Wham!", "Chicken Pickin", "Suzie-Q", and other early-1960s instrumentals, he augmented rock guitar's then-prevailing chords-and-riffs accompaniment style with brisk leads combining melodies, runs, and "mature blues chops". His pattern of alternating between agile melodic leads and rhythmic chordal riffs
5746-486: A tour featuring guest appearances by Vaughan, Ry Cooder , Keith Richards , and Ronnie Wood , and a concert at Carnegie Hall with Albert Collins and Roy Buchanan . In 1986, Mack joined Buchanan and Dickey Betts for the Great American Guitar Assault Tour. He released three more albums over the next four years, including his last, in 1990, a blues-rock LP entitled Lonnie Mack Live! – Attack of
5915-460: A variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock . However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song, and concepts of "authenticity". Psychedelic music's LSD -inspired vibe began in
6084-522: A variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music , and rhythm and blues . Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more generally, noise ." The predominance of white, male, and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted, and rock has been seen as an appropriation of Black musical forms for
6253-475: A variety of sources, Mack similarly influenced guitarists Joe Bonamassa (blues rock), Eric Clapton (blues rock), Duane Allman (Southern rock), Gary Rossington (Southern rock), Steve Gaines (Southern rock), Dan Toler (Southern rock), Mike Bloomfield (blues rock), Jerry Garcia (psychedelic rock), Jimi Hendrix (psychedelic blues rock), Keith Richards (blues rock), Jimmy Page (blues rock), and Danny Gatton (blues rock; jazz rock). Mack said: "It's
6422-399: A whole different level. You had to really play now. [B]efore Lonnie, the sax guys did all of the lead work. He made the guitar the preeminent lead instrument. Mack's early-1960s guitar tracks are said to have set the stage for blues-rock guitar and Southern rock guitar, styles that first enjoyed broad popularity a few years later. From Legends of Rock Guitar (1997): [Mack] is essentially
6591-501: A young, white and largely male audience. As a result, it has also been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has usually been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it
6760-661: Is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues , rhythm and blues , and country music . Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk , and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock
6929-423: Is centered on the electric guitar , usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar , drums , and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4 time signature using a verse–chorus form , but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music , lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock
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7098-536: Is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. Four years later, Bill Haley 's " Rock Around the Clock " (1954) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry , Bo Diddley , Fats Domino , Little Richard , Jerry Lee Lewis , and Gene Vincent . Soon rock and roll
7267-464: Is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft . New styles had evolved to replace garage rock. Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts,
7436-544: Is in the music of Chuck Berry , the Ramones , and the Replacements . The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music , with country and western . Debate surrounds
7605-411: Is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development. According to Simon Frith , rock was "something more than pop, something more than rock and roll" and "[r]ock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with
7774-399: Is termed as a rock band or a rock group. Furthermore, it typically consists of between three (the power trio ) and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer, and often keyboard player or another instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on
7943-402: Is the Band." Lonnie Mack Lonnie McIntosh (July 18, 1941 – April 21, 2016), known as Lonnie Mack , was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was influential in the development of blues rock music and rock guitar soloing . Mack emerged in 1963 with his breakthrough LP, The Wham of that Memphis Man . It earned him lasting renown as both a blue-eyed soul singer and
8112-640: The Billboard album chart in March during a 27-week stay. Additionally, it became the band's highest-charting studio album in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at No. 12. Dave Marsh , the editor of Creem magazine, called the album "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far", while Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus praised it as "possibly
8281-530: The Billboard 100 chart. The cover photo was taken by Henry Diltz . On March 1, 1969, Jim Morrison performed while intoxicated at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Coconut Grove, Florida , in front of a crowd of nearly 12,000; he was charged for his performance and behavior with indecent exposure, on April 4. The incident negatively reflected on the band's publicity, sparking a "March for Decency" at
8450-528: The Billboard Hot 100 . The British Invasion greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to adopt a British influence, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the United States and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It
8619-519: The American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, using traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics . In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach
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#17328517176428788-722: The Ed Sullivan Show, and Mack's [recording] career withered on the vine." Although his recording career had stalled out, Mack stayed busy as a performer, criss-crossing the country with one-night stands. "The '60s, man, we was full of piss and vinegar, nothing bothered us. We had bennies , like the truckers had [and] we just stayed on the road all the time." During that time, "[we] performed with just about everybody, [from] Jimi Hendrix [to] The Everly Brothers , Chuck Berry , and Dick and Dee Dee ." He also took on session work with James Brown , Freddie King , Joe Simon , Albert Washington, and other R&B/soul artists. In 1968, at
8957-560: The Fillmore West , and the Cow Palace . He opened for the Doors and Crosby, Stills & Nash and shared the stage with Johnny Winter , Elvin Bishop and other popular rock and blues artists of the time. It was the hippie era, however, and Mack's rustic, blue-collar persona made for a rough fit with commercial rock's target demographic. John Morthland wrote: "[All] the superior chops in
9126-566: The Jesuit -operated Fairfield University . In his 1981 retrospective review, Robert Christgau rated Morrison Hotel "B+" on an A+ to F scale. He expressed his preference of the A side ( Hard Rock Café ) over the B side ( Morrison Hotel ), both lyrically and musically. He noted that the "band is rocking tighter than it ever has, Robbie Krieger's phrasing keeps things moving, and Morrison's gliding vocal presence–arty and self-absorbed though it may be–provides focus." The Rolling Stone Album Guide gave
9295-470: The Miami Orange Bowl . Consequently, twenty-five dates on the band's next tour were cancelled, and their records were blacklisted from radio airplay, resulting in the band abandoning the rest of their potential tour, costing what John Densmore characterized as "a million dollars in gigs." Nevertheless, the band gradually regained momentum by playing concerts throughout the rest of the year, including
9464-608: The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival ; they played alongside John Lennon , among others, who later said, "supposedly the Doors were top of the bill." In July, the Doors released their fourth album, The Soft Parade , a heavily orchestrated affair that augmented the band's sound with horns and strings. Around early 1969, Morrison traded in his stage leathers for more conventional attire, grew a beard and gained weight as he attempted to live down his "Lizard King" image; however, his worsening alcoholism often undermined his efforts. In November,
9633-422: The garage rock / post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. Rock has also embodied and served as
9802-417: The protest song , rock music has been associated with political activism , as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex, and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity . At the same time, it has been commercially highly successful, leading to accusations of selling out . A good definition of rock, in fact, is that it's popular music that to
9971-529: The (music) business." In 1971, with his Elektra contract completed, Mack went home to southern Indiana, where, for more than a decade, he was a roadhouse performer, sideman , and low-profile country/bluegrass recording artist. During this period, he also owned and operated a nightclub in Covington, Kentucky, and an outdoor country music venue in Friendship, Indiana. In 1974, his composition "Watch Out for Lucy"
10140-454: The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray , and Scotty Moore . The use of distortion , pioneered by Western swing guitarists such as Junior Barnard and Eldon Shamblin was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s. The use of power chords , pioneered by Francisco Tárrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos in
10309-736: The 1980 Doors biography No One Here Gets Out Alive , it was during the Morrison Hotel sessions that Morrison and Courson had a violent argument after she drank his bottle of liquor so he could not drink it, with engineer Bruce Botnick recalling: "So here were the two of them, completely out of their minds and crying. He started shaking her violently. I think he was putting me on. She was crying out of control, telling him he shouldn't drink anymore and that's why she drank it. And I'm cleaning up and I said, 'Hey man, it's pretty late.' He looked up, stopped shaking her, said, 'Yeah, right', hugged her and they walked out arm in arm ... he'd always give you
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#173285171764210478-457: The 1980s, but his debut album (released October 1963) is widely considered the centerpiece of his career. It became a perennial critics' favorite: He recorded many additional sides for Fraternity between 1963 and 1967, but few, if any, were broadly released or strongly promoted, and none charted. Three decades later, Ace Records (UK) packaged the entirety of Mack's Fraternity output (previously released, unreleased, alternate takes, and demos) in
10647-461: The 19th century and later on by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s. Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become
10816-444: The 2006 remastered album, with Morrison repeating the phrase "Money beats soul" over and over again. The sessions only took off on the second day, when distinguished blues guitarist Lonnie Mack (also signed to Elektra Records) joined in on bass and former Lovin' Spoonful bandleader John Sebastian (appearing under the pseudonym G. Puglese due to the constraint of his Reprise Records recording contract) joined in on harmonica. Over
10985-410: The 2007 Rhino Records CD 40th Anniversary Edition liner notes with Bruce Botnick 's and David Fricke 's accompanying essays, which may differ from other sources. The Doors Additional musicians Technical Sales figures based on certification alone. Shipments figures based on certification alone. Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. Rock music Rock
11154-472: The Banshees , Ultravox , and Simple Minds , showed the influence of progressive rock, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences. In the late 1960s, jazz-rock emerged as a distinct subgenre out of the blues-rock, psychedelic, and progressive rock scenes, mixing the power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational elements of jazz. AllMusic states that the term jazz-rock "may refer to
11323-609: The Beatles, demonstrating "to the rock generation in general that an album could be a major standalone statement without hit singles", such as on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like the Mamas & the Papas and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including
11492-596: The Byrds ' shift from folk to folk rock from 1965. The psychedelic lifestyle, which revolved around hallucinogenic drugs, had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were Big Brother and the Holding Company , the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane . The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's lead guitarist, Jimi Hendrix did extended distorted, feedback-filled jams which became
11661-431: The Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which became a major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage of many folk purists, with his " Like a Rolling Stone " becoming a US hit single. According to Ritchie Unterberger , Dylan (even before his adoption of electric instruments) influenced rock musicians like
11830-578: The Dominos , followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues rock into the mainstream. Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie , formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac , who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre. In the late 1960s Jeff Beck , also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band,
11999-451: The Gates of Dawn . Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Doors ' self-titled debut album . These trends peaked in the 1969 Woodstock festival , which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts. Sgt. Pepper was later regarded as the greatest album of all time and a starting point for the album era , during which rock music transitioned from
12168-456: The Great American Guitar Assault Tour with Buchanan and Dickey Betts . In 1990, he released another well-received blues rock album, Lonnie Mack Live! Attack of the Killer V , then retired from recording. He continued to perform, mostly in small venues, until 2004. Shortly before Mack's birth, his family moved from Appalachian (eastern) Kentucky to Dearborn County , Indiana , on the banks of
12337-464: The Jeff Beck Group . The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page , who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin . Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs. In America, blues rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack , but the genre began to take off in
12506-498: The Joint " (1949), also covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952; and " Rocket 88 " by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm ), recorded by Sam Phillips for Chess Records in 1951. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music (then termed " race music ") for a multi-racial audience, and
12675-524: The Killer V! . Then, worn from the constant touring required to sell records, he ended his recording career. However, he continued to play the roadhouse and festival circuits at his own pace through 2004. On March 12, 1963, at the end of a recording session backing the Charmaines , Mack was offered the remaining twenty minutes of studio-rental time. He recorded an energetic instrumental take-off on Chuck Berry 's " Memphis, Tennessee ". He had improvised it
12844-499: The Lovin' Spoonful and Simon and Garfunkel , with the latter's acoustic " The Sounds of Silence " (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits. These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention . In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments. This British folk-rock
13013-562: The Ohio River. One of five children, he was born to parents Robert and Sarah Sizemore McIntosh on July 18, 1941, in West Harrison , Indiana, near Cincinnati, Ohio. He was raised on a series of nearby sharecropping farms. Using a floor-model radio powered by a truck battery, his family routinely listened to the Grand Ole Opry country music show. Continuing to listen after the rest of
13182-476: The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds , were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music. Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in
13351-573: The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers , Herman's Hermits and the Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including 1950s rock and roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and surf music, initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like the Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast , and particularly those from London like
13520-650: The Seeds ) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers , the Remains , and the Fifth Estate ). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound. The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by
13689-528: The UK, and performances with Chuck Berry. Still in 1963, Mack released "Wham!", a gospel-esque guitar rave-up. It reached No. 24 on Billboard's Pop chart in September. Although "Memphis" was the bigger hit, many associate the faster-paced "Wham!" (and the lesser-known, but still faster "Chicken-Pickin" from 1964) with the guitar style he pioneered. From Legends of Rock Guitar : [In Wham! , Mack] can be heard using
13858-676: The US was becoming dominated by lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances were developing a style more strongly influenced by blues-rock pioneers, and were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts; this influence would go on to shape the future of rock music through the British Invasion . The first four years of the 1960s has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible. While early rock and roll, particularly through
14027-604: The USSR and South Africa from 1955 to 1957, influencing the globalisation of rock. Johnny O'Keefe 's 1958 record " Wild One " was one of the earliest Australian rock and roll hits. By the late 1950s, as well as in the American-influenced Western world, rock was popular in communist states such as Yugoslavia, and the USSR, as well as in regions such as South America. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, American blues music and blues rock artists, who had been surpassed by
14196-722: The Wailers and " Louie Louie " by the Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen (Minneapolis) and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached
14365-527: The advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era, the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared entirely from music at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the various dance crazes of the early 1960s, started by Chubby Checker 's record " The Twist " (1960). Some music historians have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including
14534-566: The album which is divided into two separately titled sides, namely: "Hard Rock Café" and "Morrison Hotel". Blues rock guitar pioneer Lonnie Mack and Ray Neapolitan also contributed to the album as session bassists. The album reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 , and performed better overseas than the preceding album (it was the group's highest-charting studio album in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at No. 12). The accompanying "You Make Me Real" / "Roadhouse Blues" single peaked at No. 50 in May 1970 on
14703-621: The area's casket and whiskey factories." At 15, he was performing on local TV with his band, the Twilighters. He played guitar on several low-circulation recordings in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s he became a session guitarist with Fraternity Records , a small Cincinnati label. In 1963, he recorded two hit singles for Fraternity, the proto-blues-rock guitar instrumentals "Memphis" and "Wham!". He soon recorded additional tunes to flesh out his debut album, The Wham of that Memphis Man . Mack made some notable recordings later, particularly in
14872-405: The band's third album . Although Morrison Hotel contains no major hit singles, it features some of the band's most popular songs, including " Roadhouse Blues " and " Peace Frog ", which would go on to become staples of classic rock radio. "Roadhouse Blues" took two days to record (November 4–5, 1969) with Paul Rothchild striving for perfection. Several takes from these sessions were included on
15041-444: The best album yet from the Doors" and "good, hard, evil rock ... and one of the best albums released this decade". Bruce Harris of Jazz & Pop lauded it as "one of the major musical events of Rock '70". On the other hand, Rolling Stone critic Lester Bangs was mixed, who praised some of the tracks, especially the "powerful blast of raw funk " opener "Roadhouse Blues" and "the buoyant catchiness" of "Land Ho!", but found
15210-482: The best-feeling moments I ever had was when that L.A. sign was in my rear-view mirror and I was free again." On another occasion, Mack said: "Seems like every time I get close to really making it, to climbing to the top of the mountain, that's when I pull out. I just pull up and run." Upon Mack's death in 2016, music historian Dick Shurman observed that Mack's temperament "wasn't suited to stardom. I think he'd rather have been hunting and fishing. He didn't like cities or
15379-575: The biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands. During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with Peter and Gordon , the Animals, Manfred Mann , Petula Clark , Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders , Herman's Hermits, the Rolling Stones, the Troggs , and Donovan all having one or more number one singles. Other major acts that were part of
15548-456: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become
15717-402: The chordal licks of early rock guitar greats, but he infuses his breaks with string bends, pentatonic runs, and mature blues chops, all of which eventually became trademarks of Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield and Stevie Ray Vaughan...A tight chordal riff laid over a fast boogie-woogie rhythm sets the tone for the cut, which contains guitar breaks, vibrato arm highlights, echoey single-note lines, and
15886-527: The chronological significance of Lonnie Mack for the world of rock guitar is that much more remarkable. Southern rock ( Allman Brothers ) lead guitarist Warren Haynes expressed a similar assessment: Guitar players, true musicians, and real music fans realize that Lonnie was the Jimi Hendrix of his time. Between the era of Chuck Berry and the era of Hendrix there were a handful of guitar players like Lonnie Mack who were making ground-breaking music that paved
16055-406: The course of the session, keyboardist Ray Manzarek switched from his Wurlitzer electric piano to a tack piano . The hook of "Peace Frog" is a distorted G5 chord played three times by Krieger, followed by a brief percussive wah-wah effect. Morrison, who took the words from a notebook entitled Abortion Stories , begins nearly every line with the word "blood", often referring to "Blood in
16224-460: The critical reception to the record. On Morrison Hotel , there is a slight steer toward blues , which would be fully explored by the band on their next album L.A. Woman . Morrison Hotel was recorded between November 1969 and January 1970, with the exception of "Indian Summer", which was recorded on August 19, 1966 for The Doors , while "Waiting for the Sun" actually originated during the sessions for
16393-424: The delights and limitations of the regional , and to deal with the depredations and benefits of mass culture itself. — Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, sex, rebellion against " The Establishment ", social concerns, and life styles. These themes were inherited from
16562-451: The early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts. The vibrant Canterbury scene saw acts following Soft Machine from psychedelia, through jazz influences, toward more expansive hard rock, including Caravan , Hatfield and the North , Gong , and National Health . The French group Magma around drummer Christian Vander almost single-handedly created
16731-455: The early 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): The decade is, of course, an arbitrary schema itself—time doesn't just execute a neat turn toward the future every ten years. But like a lot of artificial concepts—money, say—the category does take on a reality of its own once people figure out how to put it to work. "The '60s are over,"
16900-436: The early rock era only Link Wray and Duane Eddy could match him for instant recognition." Although notable commercial success was periodic and fleeting, Mack's early-1960s recordings became rock guitar trendsetters. They raised the bar for rock guitar proficiency, helped propel the electric guitar to the top of soloing instruments in rock, and served as prototypes for the genres of blues rock and Southern rock. Interviewed for
17069-457: The early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies. By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts. " I Want to Hold Your Hand " was the Beatles' first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 , spending seven weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on
17238-510: The electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek , and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector . The instrumental rock and roll of performers such as Duane Eddy , Link Wray and the Ventures was further developed by Dick Dale , who added distinctive "wet" reverb , rapid alternate picking, and Middle Eastern and Mexican influences. He produced
17407-458: The end, his "influence and standing among musicians far exceeded his (commercial) success." In 1954, at age 13, Mack dropped out of school after a fight with a teacher. Large and mature-looking for his age, he obtained a counterfeit ID and began performing professionally in bars around Cincinnati with a band led by drummer Hoot Smith. As a 14-year-old professional electric guitarist in 1955, he "was earning $ 300. per week—more than most workers in
17576-425: The entire range of white and black Southern roots music genres made him "as difficult to market as he was to describe." He enjoyed periods of significant commercial success as a rock artist in the 1960s and 1980s, but was mostly absent from the rock spotlight for two long stretches of his career (1971–1984 and 1991–2004), during which he continued to perform, mostly in small venues, as a roots-rock "cult figure". In
17745-568: The example set by the Beatles ' 1965 LP Rubber Soul in particular, other British rock acts released rock albums intended as artistic statements in 1966, including the Rolling Stones ' Aftermath , the Beatles' own Revolver , and the Who 's A Quick One , as well as American acts in the Beach Boys ( Pet Sounds ) and Bob Dylan ( Blonde on Blonde ). Garage rock was a raw form of rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in
17914-463: The family had retired for the night, Mack became a fan of rhythm and blues and traditional black gospel music. He began playing guitar at the age of seven, after trading his bicycle for a Lone Ranger model acoustic guitar. His mother taught him basic chords, and he was soon playing bluegrass guitar in the family band. Mack recalled that when he was "seven or eight years old" an uncle from Texas introduced him to blues guitar and that when he
18083-491: The first record, and worldwide hit, for the Virgin Records label, which became a mainstay of the genre. Instrumental rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk , Tangerine Dream , Can , Focus (band) and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy " krautrock ", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music ), would be
18252-451: The folk scene. The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas. The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to audiences in this period, such as guitar feedback , the Indian sitar and backmasking sound effects . Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed
18421-503: The format of rock operas and opened the door to concept albums , often telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme. King Crimson 's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King , which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron , with jazz and symphonic music , is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in
18590-537: The former Hard Rock Café on 5th Street. Upon its release, Morrison Hotel was seen by many as a comeback for the Doors following the mixed critical reception of The Soft Parade . Although the accompanying "You Make Me Real" / "Roadhouse Blues" single only peaked at No. 50 in May 1970 despite strong FM radio play of the latter song, the album was immediately certified gold by RIAA in February 1970 (the band's fifth consecutive big album certification) before reaching No. 4 on
18759-454: The height of the blues-rock era, Elektra Records bought out Mack's dormant Fraternity recording contract and moved him to Los Angeles to record three albums. In November 1968, the newly founded Rolling Stone magazine published a rave review of Mack's discontinued 1963 debut album, persuading Elektra to re-issue it. He was soon performing in major rock venues, including the Fillmore East ,
18928-453: The impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues , including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds . British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early 1960s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly , who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson . Increasingly they adopted
19097-460: The invasion included the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five . The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols , that had dominated the American charts in
19266-511: The label were R&B oriented white rock bands that made use of jazzy horn sections, like Electric Flag , Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago , to become some of the most commercially successful acts of the later 1960s and the early 1970s. British acts to emerge in the same period from the blues scene, to make use of the tonal and improvisational aspects of jazz, included Nucleus and the Graham Bond and John Mayall spin-off Colosseum . From
19435-446: The late 1950s and 1960s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino and Chubby Checker and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters. Following
19604-618: The late 1960s. According to The New York Times , Mack's guitar style was "a seminal influence on a long list of British and American" rock guitar soloists. Those who have claimed Mack as a major or significant influence include Stevie Ray Vaughan (blues rock), Jeff Beck (blues rock, jazz-rock), Neil Young (hard rock; country-tinged folk rock), Ted Nugent (hard rock), Dickey Betts (Southern rock), Warren Haynes (Southern rock), Ray Benson (Western swing), Bootsy Collins (funk), Adrian Belew (impressionist rock), Wayne Perkins (multi-genre), and Tyler Morris (multi-genre). According to
19773-586: The lead guitar styles of blues rock and Southern rock that soon followed. Shortly after the album's release, however, the British Invasion hit American shores, and Mack's recording career "withered on the vine". He regularly toured small venues until 1968, when Rolling Stone magazine rediscovered him, and Elektra Records signed him to a three-album contract. He was soon performing in major venues, but his multi-genre Elektra albums downplayed his lead guitar and blues rock appeal and record sales were modest. During this period, he became increasingly unhappy with
19942-410: The loudest, wildest, most electrified fusion bands from the jazz camp, but most often it describes performers coming from the rock side of the equation." Jazz-rock "...generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late '60s and early '70s", including the singer-songwriter movement. Many early US rock and roll musicians had begun in jazz and carried some of these elements into
20111-476: The many recordings which have been suggested as "the first rock and roll record ". Contenders include " Strange Things Happening Every Day " by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1944); " That's All Right " by Arthur Crudup (1946), which was later covered by Elvis Presley in 1954; " The House of Blue Lights " by Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack (1946); Wynonie Harris ' " Good Rocking Tonight " (1948); Goree Carter 's "Rock Awhile" (1949); Jimmy Preston 's " Rock
20280-669: The mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins , Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley . Hispanic and Latino American movements in rock and roll, which would eventually lead to the success of Latin rock and Chicano rock within the US, began to rise in the Southwest ; with rock and roll standard musician Ritchie Valens and even those within other heritage genres, such as Al Hurricane along with his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby as they began combining rock and roll with country- western within traditional New Mexico music . In addition,
20449-603: The mid-1960s the Left Banke , the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords , wind , and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum 's " A Whiter Shade of Pale " (1967), with its Bach -inspired introduction. The Moody Blues used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed (1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesizers. Classical orchestration, keyboards, and synthesizers were
20618-479: The mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in the suburban family garage. Garage rock songs often revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" and unfair social circumstances being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery tended to be more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. They ranged from crude one-chord music (like
20787-435: The mid-1960s as acts developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield (whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat , the early Jefferson Airplane , Janis Joplin , Johnny Winter , the J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix with his power trios , the Jimi Hendrix Experience (which included two British members, and
20956-401: The mid-1960s onwards, rock music often used the verse–chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to
21125-517: The missing guitar link between the twangy, multi-string riffing of rockabilly and the bluesy, string-pushing players of the mid-sixties. He also made the crucial bridge between the black blues and white hillbilly music via his lead work...In all, it is not an exaggeration to say that Lonnie Mack was well ahead of his time in 1963. His bluesy solos predated the pioneering blues-rock guitar work of Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Mike Bloomfield by nearly two years. [Since] they are considered "before their time",
21294-433: The music business. He left Elektra in 1971, and for the next fourteen years he functioned as a low-profile multi-genre recording artist, roadhouse performer, sideman, and music-venue proprietor. In 1985, Mack resurfaced with a successful blues rock LP, Strike Like Lightning , a promotional tour featuring celebrity guitarist sit-ins, and a Carnegie Hall concert with Roy Buchanan and Albert Collins . In 1986, he went on
21463-485: The new bar. That's how good you have to be now.' Another player of that era observed: "Lonnie Mack made the other guitar-slingers of the day – Duane Eddy , Dick Dale , the Ventures – sound tame by comparison. Only Travis Wammack and Link Wray came close." Mack's "edgy, aggressive, loud, and fast" blues guitar sound is also credited with a key role in the electric guitar's rise to the top of soloing instruments in rock. Blues critic Shawn Hagood wrote: His playing
21632-461: The new music genre zeuhl with their first albums in the early 1970s. Greater commercial success was enjoyed by Pink Floyd, who also moved away from psychedelia after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), seen as a masterpiece of the genre, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. There was an emphasis on instrumental virtuosity, with Yes showcasing
21801-591: The new music. In Britain the subgenre of blues rock, and many of its leading figures, like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Eric Clapton -fronted band Cream , had emerged from the British jazz scene. Often highlighted as the first true jazz-rock recording is the only album by the relatively obscure New York–based the Free Spirits with Out of Sight and Sound (1966). The first group of bands to self-consciously use
21970-427: The pitch selectively. He typically cradled the arm in the fourth finger of his picking hand, toggling it while continuing to pick. He often fanned it rapidly to the tempo of his simultaneous tremolo picking , to produce a machine-gunned, single-note, "shuddering" sound. Neil Young considers Mack a vibrato arm pioneer: "Did I do that first? No. You've got to look at guys like Lonnie Mack. He showed everybody how to use
22139-465: The psychedelic rock and the Canterbury scenes came Soft Machine, who, it has been suggested, produced one of the artistically successfully fusions of the two genres. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed fusion came from the jazz side of the equation, with Miles Davis , particularly influenced by the work of Hendrix, incorporating rock instrumentation into his sound for the album Bitches Brew (1970). It
22308-412: The record three stars out of five; he praised Morrison's vocals as "cleaner and clearer" than before, and hailed particularly "Peace Frog" as one of the greatest songs in the Doors catalogue. Morrison Hotel holds currently a 78/100 approval rating based on 5 critic reviews on Metacritic . Details are taken from the 1970 Elektra Records album and may differ from other sources. Details are taken from
22477-628: The regional hit " Let's Go Trippin ' " in 1961 and launched the surf music craze, following up with songs like " Misirlou " (1962). Like Dale and his Del-Tones , most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs , the Challengers , and Eddie & the Showmen . The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with " Pipeline " in 1963 and probably the best-known surf tune
22646-609: The remainder of the album to be uneven and unsatisfying. During this period, the de facto blacklisting continued to persist in more socially conservative markets, particularly the Deep South ; consequently, the band's 1970 American tour itinerary was largely confined to the Northeast , West Coast and more progressive Midwestern cities amid ongoing (albeit more sporadic) cancellations, including planned concerts in Salt Lake City and at
22815-459: The repetitive string-pushing licks that eventually became so prevalent in Jeff Beck's guitar style. Mack's early guitar recordings remain closely identified with the dawn of virtuoso blues-rock guitar. Music critic Bill Millar: "The term ‘influential’ is applied to almost anyone these days but there's still a case for saying that the massively popular blues-rock guitar genre can be traced way back to
22984-400: The rise of rock and roll in the US, found new popularity in the UK, visiting with successful tours. Lonnie Donegan 's 1955 hit " Rock Island Line " was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon 's Quarrymen (later the Beatles ), moved on to play rock and roll. While former rock and roll market in
23153-475: The romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere". In the new millennium, the term rock has occasionally been used as a blanket term including forms like pop music, reggae music , soul music , and even hip hop , which it has been influenced with but often contrasted through much of its history. Christgau has used the term broadly to refer to popular and semipopular music that caters to his sensibility as "a rock-and-roller", including
23322-517: The same era, and by percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ , and the synthesizer. The basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation (prominent lead guitar, second chordal instrument, bass, and drums). A group of musicians performing rock music
23491-555: The second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave , post-punk and eventually alternative rock . From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge , Britpop , and indie rock . Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk , electronic rock , rap rock , and rap metal . Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including
23660-543: The singles format to albums and achieved cultural legitimacy in the mainstream. Led by the Beatles in the mid-1960s, rock musicians advanced the LP as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, initiating a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. Progressive rock, a term sometimes used interchangeably with art rock , moved beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From
23829-413: The skills of both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Rick Wakeman , while Emerson, Lake & Palmer were a supergroup who produced some of the genre's most technically demanding work. Jethro Tull and Genesis both pursued very different, but distinctly English, brands of music. Renaissance , formed in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, evolved into a high-concept band featuring
23998-568: The streets", which is perhaps "addressing the civic unrest then gripping the nation". A brief musical interlude is next, followed by a guitar solo, and a spoken word verse ("Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding / Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind"). The song ends with a final chord as it segues into the next track, "Blue Sunday". "The Spy" and "Queen of the Highway" celebrate Morrison's intense but troubled relationship with longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson . Originally "The Spy"
24167-460: The strength, power and emotional passion of Lonnie Mack." While still a child, Mack learned fleet-fingered bluegrass and country guitar styles while playing at home in his "family band". By his late teens, Mack had expanded his six-string repertoire to include blues, rockabilly, and the percussive chordal riffing of early rock's Chuck Berry . In the early 1960s, using a bluegrass-style flatpicking technique, he innovated rock guitar solos with
24336-483: The stuff I did there." At that point in his career, Mack took a break from performing and recording. According to Robbie Krieger , lead guitarist of Elektra label-mate the Doors, Mack was seen during this period "selling Bibles out of the back of his car." He also worked for Elektra's A&R department, helping to recruit new talent. In 1971, with one album left to complete his contract with Elektra, Mack moved to Nashville . There, he recorded The Hills of Indiana ,
24505-610: The three-octave voice of Annie Haslam . Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market. The American brand of progressive rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa , Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears , to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston , Foreigner , Kansas , Journey , and Styx . These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO , all demonstrated
24674-662: The tune, "It didn't mean a thing to me. I left to go on the road. We hit every roadhouse between Cincinnati and Miami, but we didn't have time to listen to the radio, so I didn't know what was going on [until] we were backing Chubby Checker one night. [T]he disc jockey came runnin' up to me, saying, 'You got the No. 1 record on our station!'" By late June, "Memphis" had risen to No. 4 on Billboard 's R&B chart and No. 5 on Billboard's pop chart. According to The Book of Golden Discs , it sold over one million copies. The popularity of "Memphis" led to bookings at larger venues, at least one tour in
24843-409: The vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the U.K., the hippie movement and the wider Western counterculture movement that spread out from San Francisco in the U.S. in the 1960s, the latter of which continues to this day. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the goth , punk, and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of
25012-712: The way for the [lead guitar] Revolution. People like Dickey Betts and Stevie Ray Vaughan would tell you that without Lonnie they wouldn't be who they were. That goes for all of us. Mack's 1963 debut album has been called "the first of the guitar hero records" for its introduction of flashy, technically challenging melodies and runs to rock guitar solos . As such, it is said to have begun rock guitar's "modern" era. In 1980, "Memphis" (1963) led Guitar World magazine's list of rock guitar's top-five "landmark" recordings, ahead of entire albums by Jimi Hendrix , Eric Clapton , Elvin Bishop , and Mike Bloomfield , whose own blues-infused solos exemplified rock's lead guitar "revolution" of
25181-524: The work of the Beach Boys , formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen . The Beach Boys first chart hit, " Surfin ' " in 1961 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze
25350-533: The work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970). Reflecting on this change of trends in rock music over the past few years, Christgau wrote in his June 1970 "Consumer Guide" column that this "new orthodoxy" and "cultural lag" abandoned improvisatory, studio-ornamented productions in favor of an emphasis on "tight, spare instrumentation" and song composition: "Its referents are '50s rock, country music, and rhythm-and-blues, and its key inspiration
25519-401: The world couldn't hide the fact that chubby, country Mack probably had more in common with Kentucky truck drivers than he did with the new rock audience." In addition, after two multi-genre Elektra albums (both recorded in 1969) that downplayed his blues-rock strengths, including his guitar, Mack himself was dissatisfied: "My music wasn't working that good then. I ain’t really happy with a lot of
25688-404: The world, except as a new brand of painkiller ... In the '70s the powerful took over, as rock industrialists capitalized on the national mood to reduce potent music to an often reactionary species of entertainment—and to transmute rock's popular base from the audience to market." Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from what some saw as the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to
25857-570: Was John Mayall ; his band, the Bluesbreakers , included Eric Clapton (after Clapton's departure from the Yardbirds) and later Peter Green . Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States. Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith , and Derek and
26026-676: Was 1963's " Wipe Out ", by the Surfaris , which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965. Surf rock was also popular in Europe during this time, with the British group the Shadows scoring hits in the early 1960s with instrumentals such as " Apache " (1960) and " Kon-Tiki " (1961), while Swedish surf group the Spotnicks saw success in both Sweden and Britain. Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal pop music, particularly
26195-473: Was a major influence on subsequent rock-influenced jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock , Chick Corea and Weather Report . The genre began to fade in the late 1970s, as a mellower form of fusion began to take its audience, but acts like Steely Dan , Frank Zappa and Joni Mitchell recorded significant jazz-influenced albums in this period, and it has continued to be a major influence on rock music. Reflecting on developments that occurred in rock music in
26364-419: Was about ten years of age, an "old black man" named Wayne Clark introduced him to " Robert Johnson style guitar". He soon taught himself to merge finger-picking country guitar with acoustic blues-picking, to produce a hybrid style which, Mack said, "sounded like rockabilly , but before rockabilly". His musical influences remained diverse as he refined his playing and singing styles. In his pre-teen years, Mack
26533-520: Was called "Spy in the House of Love", as shown on the Master Reel Control File, a line borrowed from A Spy in the House of Love , a novel by Anaïs Nin published in 1954. Both songs are tinged with ambivalence; on "The Spy," Morrison cautions, "I know your deepest, secret fears", while on "Queen of the Highway" he sardonically concludes, "I hope it can continue a little while longer". According to
26702-424: Was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers , but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock ), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream. By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of
26871-531: Was faster, louder, more aggressive than anything people were used to hearing. He essentially paved the way for the electric guitar to become a soloing instrument in rock music. A true blues-rock pioneer, the genre would not have been the same – indeed, much of rock music might not have been the same – without his innovative way of treating the electric guitar as a lead soloing instrument in rock – edgy, aggressive, loud and fast. Former Elektra A&R executive James Webber agrees: Lonnie took rock guitar playing to
27040-561: Was founded in Britain), and Band of Gypsys , whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues rock bands from the southern states, like the Allman Brothers Band , Lynyrd Skynyrd , and ZZ Top , incorporated country elements into their style to produce the distinctive genre Southern rock . Early blues rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be
27209-706: Was mentored by blind singer-guitarist Ralph Trotto, a country - gospel performer. Mack would skip school to play music with Trotto at the latter's house. Mack cited country picker Merle Travis , blues guitarist T-Bone Walker , R&B guitarist Robert Ward , and pop/jazz guitarist Les Paul as significant guitar influences. Significant vocal influences included R&B singers Jimmy Reed , Ray Charles , Bobby "Blue" Bland , and Hank Ballard , country singer George Jones , traditional black gospel singer Archie Brownlee , and soul music singer Wilson Pickett . Mack recorded tunes associated with most of these artists. Mack's career-long pattern of switching and mixing within
27378-651: Was recorded by both Dobie Gray and Bobby Penn . Gray managed to get to no. 107 on the US Hot 100 Bubbling Under chart in September, and Penn got to no. 56 on the Cash Box Country Top 75 in October. In 1977, Mack was shot during an altercation with an off-duty police officer. The experience inspired Mack's tune, "Cincinnati Jail", a rowdy, guitar-and-vocal rock number that he favored in live performances later in his career. In 1983, Mack relocated to Austin, Texas , for
27547-413: Was soon emulated by Jeff Beck and later by Stevie Ray Vaughan, among others. Mack enhanced his guitar sound with vibrato effects. In his early recordings, he used a 1950s-era Magnatone amplifier to produce a constant, electronically generated, watery-sounding vibrato, in the style of R&B guitarist Robert Ward . Throughout his career, he also used a manually-operated Bigsby vibrato arm to bend
27716-515: Was taken up by bands including Pentangle , Steeleye Span and the Albion Band , which in turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band , Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel , to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s. Folk-rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in
27885-606: Was taking place globally in the aftermath of the Second World War . Cliff Richard is credited with one of the first rock and roll hits outside of North America with " Move It " (1959), effectively ushering in the sound of British rock . Several artists, most prominently Tommy Steele from the UK, found success with covers of major American rock and roll hits before the recordings could spread internationally, often translating them into local languages where appropriate. Steele in particular toured Britain, Scandinavia, Australia,
28054-439: Was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation and the Beatles " I'm a Loser " (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with the Byrds ' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man " which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the café-based folk scene in Los Angeles,
28223-430: Was the major force in American record sales and crooners , such as Eddie Fisher , Perry Como , and Patti Page , who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed. Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in
28392-450: Was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s. Rock musicians in the mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated
28561-399: Was viscerally attracted to the arrow-like shape of the guitar. Mack played "Number 7" almost exclusively throughout his career. The title of Mack's final album, Attack of the Killer V , was a reference to his guitar. Early in his career, Mack added a Bigsby vibrato bar to the guitar. It required mounting a steel crossbeam approximately six inches below the apex of the "V", giving the guitar
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