Beat music in the U.S., and subsequent appearance on
The Ed Sullivan Show, marked the start of the
British Invasion. They had 20 #1
Billboard Hot 100 hits. In the late 1950s, a flourishing culture of groups began to emerge, often out of the declining
skiffle scene, in major urban centres in the UK like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London. This was particularly true in Liverpool, where it has been estimated that there were around 350 different bands active, often playing ballrooms, concert halls and clubs. Beat bands were heavily influenced by American bands of the era, such as
Buddy Holly and the Crickets (from which group
the Beatles derived their name), After the national success of the Beatles in Britain from 1962, a number of Liverpool performers were able to follow them into the charts, including
Gerry and the Pacemakers,
the Searchers, and
Cilla Black. Among the most successful beat acts from Birmingham were
The Spencer Davis Group and
the Moody Blues. From London, the term
Tottenham Sound was largely based around
the Dave Clark Five, but other London bands that benefited from the beat boom of this era included
the Rolling Stones and
the Yardbirds. The first non-
Liverpool, non-
Brian Epstein-managed band to break through in the UK were
Freddie and the Dreamers, who were based in Manchester, as were
Herman's Hermits and
the Hollies. The beat movement provided most of the bands responsible for the
British Invasion of the American pop charts in the period after 1964, and furnished the model for many important developments in pop and rock music.
British Invasion in 1975 The
British Invasion is a term used mainly in the United States to describe the large number of
rock and roll,
beat and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the U.S. from 1964 to 1966. After first running a story on 10 December 1963,
CBS Evening News with
Walter Cronkite on 7 February 1964 ran a story about
the Beatles' United States arrival in which the correspondent said "The British Invasion this time goes by the code name
Beatlemania". A few days later they
appeared on
The Ed Sullivan Show. Seventy five per cent of Americans watching television that night viewed their appearance thus "launching" The Dave Clark Five followed the Beatles the very next week on
The Ed Sullivan Show, and appeared on the Sullivan show more than any other British band, 18 times. During the next two years,
the Dave Clark Five,
the Animals,
Petula Clark,
Manfred Mann,
Peter and Gordon,
Freddie and the Dreamers,
Wayne Fontana and
the Mindbenders,
Herman's Hermits,
the Rolling Stones (had 8 #1
Billboard Hot 100 hits in the 1960s and 1970s),
the Troggs, and
Donovan would have one or more number one singles. Other acts that were part of the invasion included
the Who, and
the Kinks. British Invasion acts influenced fashion, haircuts and manners of the 1960s of what was to be known as
The Counterculture. In particular the Beatles movie ''
A Hard Day's Night'' and fashions from
Carnaby Street led American media to proclaim England as the centre of the music and fashion world.
Folk rock British folk musicians of the early 60s were heavily influenced by American revival artists like
Woody Guthrie,
Pete Seeger and later
Bob Dylan and
Joan Baez. This led indirectly to the subgenre of British
progressive folk music, pioneered by performers like the Scottish
Incredible String Band from 1967 and the distinctive
folk baroque guitar style of players like
Davy Graham,
Martin Carthy,
John Renbourn and
Bert Jansch. Many progressive folk performers continued to retain a traditional element in their music, including Jansch and Renbourn, who with
Jacqui McShee,
Danny Thompson, and
Terry Cox, formed
Pentangle in 1967. There was a brief flowering of British progressive folk in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with groups like the
Third Ear Band and
Quintessence following the eastern Indian musical and more abstract work by group such as
Comus,
Dando Shaft,
Trees,
Spirogyra,
Forest, and
Jan Dukes De Grey, but commercial success was elusive for these bands and most had broken off, or moved in very different directions, by about 1973. From about 1967 there were also a number British bands, like
Fairport Convention, who were directly influenced by American acts like the
Byrds to play folk music on electric instruments.
British psychedelia Psychedelic music is inspired or influenced by
psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of
hallucinogenic
drugs. It particularly grew out of blues-rock and
progressive folk music and drew on non-Western sources such as Indian music's
ragas and
sitars as well as studio effects and long instrumental passages and surreal lyrics. It emerged during the mid-1960s among
progressive folk bands in Britain and the United States and rapidly moved into rock and pop music being taken up by acts including the Beatles, the Yardbirds,
Cream and
Pink Floyd.
Psychedelic rock bridged the transition from early
blues-rock to
progressive rock,
art rock,
experimental rock,
hard rock and eventually
heavy metal that would become major genres in the 1970s. ==Pop music==