1960–1965: Precursors and influences The first mention of LSD on a rock record was
the Gamblers' 1960 surf instrumental "LSD 25". Music critic
Richie Unterberger says that attempts to "pin down" the first psychedelic record are "nearly as elusive as trying to name the first rock & roll record". Some of the "far-fetched claims" include the instrumental "
Telstar" (produced by
Joe Meek for
the Tornados in 1962) and
the Dave Clark Five's "massively reverb-laden" "
Any Way You Want It" (1964). A 1962 single by
the Ventures, "
The 2000 Pound Bee", issued forth the buzz of a distorted, "fuzztone" guitar, and the quest into "the possibilities of heavy, transistorised distortion" and other effects, like improved reverb and echo, began in earnest on London's fertile rock 'n' roll scene. By 1964 fuzztone could be heard on singles by
P.J. Proby, According to
AllMusic, the emergence of psychedelic rock in the mid-1960s resulted from British groups who made up the
British Invasion of the US market and
folk rock bands seeking to broaden "the sonic possibilities of their music". In the
British folk scene, blues, drugs, jazz and Eastern influences blended in the early 1960s work of
Davy Graham, who adopted modal guitar tunings to transpose Indian ragas and Celtic reels. Graham was highly influential on Scottish folk virtuoso
Bert Jansch and other pioneering guitarists across a spectrum of styles and genres in the mid-1960s. His nineteen-minute "The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party" "anticipated elements of psychedelia with its nervy improvisations and odd guitar tunings". His 1963 album
Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo explores various styles and "could also be accurately described as one of the very first psychedelic records". In 1965, New York band
the Fugs would make mention of LSD on their song "
I Couldn't Get High". Additionally,
the Kinks provided the first example of sustained Indian-style drone in rock when they used open-tuned guitars to mimic the
tambura on "
See My Friends" (July 1965), which became a top 10 hit in the UK. on tour, July 1965 The Beatles' "
Norwegian Wood" from the December 1965 album
Rubber Soul marked the first released recording on which a member of a Western rock group played the sitar.
The Yardbirds had experimented with the instrument earlier, alongside the
tabla, during recording sessions for "
Heart Full of Soul" in April 1965, but dissatisfied with the results, guitarist
Jeff Beck ultimately opted for a
fuzz-driven electric guitar instead. Norwegian Wood sparked a craze for the sitar and other Indian instrumentation – a trend that fueled the growth of
raga rock as the India exotic became part of the essence of psychedelic rock. Music historian George Case recognises
Rubber Soul as the first of two Beatles albums that "marked the authentic beginning of the psychedelic era", while music critic
Robert Christgau similarly wrote that "Psychedelia starts here". San Francisco historian
Charles Perry recalled the album being "the soundtrack of the
Haight-Ashbury,
Berkeley and the whole circuit", as pre-hippie youths suspected that the songs were inspired by drugs. , San Francisco (pictured in 2010) Although psychedelia was introduced in Los Angeles through the Byrds, according to Shaw, San Francisco emerged as the movement's capital on the West Coast. Several California-based folk acts followed the Byrds into folk rock, bringing their psychedelic influences with them, to produce the "
San Francisco Sound". Music historian Simon Philo writes that although some commentators would state that the centre of influence had moved from London to California by 1967, it was British acts like the Beatles and
the Rolling Stones that helped inspire and "nourish" the new American music in the mid-1960s, especially in the formative San Francisco scene. The music scene there developed in the city's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in 1965 at basement shows organised by
Chet Helms of the
Family Dog; and as
Jefferson Airplane founder
Marty Balin and investors opened
The Matrix nightclub that summer and began booking his and other local bands such as the
Grateful Dead,
the Steve Miller Band and
Country Joe & the Fish. Helms and
San Francisco Mime Troupe manager
Bill Graham in the fall of 1965 organised larger scale multi-media community events/benefits featuring the Airplane,
the Diggers and Allen Ginsberg. By early 1966 Graham had secured booking at
The Fillmore, and Helms at the
Avalon Ballroom, where in-house
psychedelic-themed light shows replicated the visual effects of the psychedelic experience. Graham became a major figure in the growth of psychedelic rock, attracting most of the major psychedelic rock bands of the day to The Fillmore. which included extensive use of fuzz tone and harmonic feedback. The song's lyrics, which Unterberger describes as "stream-of-consciousness", have been interpreted as pro-environmental or anti-war. On "Eight Miles High",
Roger McGuinn's
12-string Rickenbacker guitar provided a psychedelic interpretation of
free jazz and
Indian raga, channelling Coltrane and Shankar, respectively. The song's lyrics were widely taken to refer to drug use, although the Byrds denied it at the time. "Eight Miles High" peaked at number 14 in the US and reached the top 30 in the UK. In April 1966, British band
the Pretty Things released "
Come See Me" backed with "
£. s. d.", the b-side used the abbreviation for
Pounds, Shillings, and Pence as a double entendre for the drug
LSD, which led to the song being banned by the
BBC for drug references. In June 1966,
Frank Zappa's
the Mothers of Invention released the album
Freak Out! which originally made use of the word "psychedelic" on the track "
Help, I'm a Rock (Third Movement: It Can't Happen Here)" though later censored by their label
Verve Records.
Donovan's July 1966 single "
Sunshine Superman" became one of the first psychedelic rock singles to top the Billboard charts in the US. Influenced by
Aldous Huxley’s
The Doors of Perception, and with lyrics referencing LSD, it contributed to bringing psychedelia to the mainstream. Contributing to psychedelia's emergence into the pop mainstream was the release of the Beach Boys'
Pet Sounds (May 1966) and the Beatles'
Revolver (August 1966).
Pet Sounds contained many elements that would be incorporated into psychedelia, with its artful experiments, psychedelic lyrics based on emotional longings and self-doubts, elaborate sound effects and new sounds on both conventional and unconventional instruments. The album track "
I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" contained the first use of theremin sounds on a rock record. Scholar Philip Auslander says that even though psychedelic music is not normally associated with the Beach Boys, the "odd directions" and experiments in
Pet Sounds "put it all on the map. ... basically that sort of opened the door – not for groups to be formed or to start to make music, but certainly to become as visible as say Jefferson Airplane or somebody like that." Subsequently, the Beach Boys' October 1966 single "
Good Vibrations" was another early pop song to incorporate psychedelic lyrics and sounds. The single's success prompted an unexpected revival in theremins and increased the awareness of
analog synthesizers. As psychedelia gained prominence, Beach Boys-style harmonies would be ingrained into the newer psychedelic pop.
1967–1969: Continued development Peak era event held at San Francisco's
Avalon Ballroom in January 1967. The headline acts included
the Grateful Dead,
Big Brother and the Holding Company and
Moby Grape. In 1967, psychedelic rock received widespread media attention and a larger audience beyond local psychedelic communities. From 1967 to 1968, it was the prevailing sound of rock music, either in the more whimsical British variant, or the harder American West Coast acid rock. Music historian David Simonelli says the genre's commercial peak lasted "a brief year", with San Francisco and London recognised as the two key cultural centres. Compared with the American form, British psychedelic music was often more arty in its experimentation, and it tended to stick within pop song structures. Music journalist Mark Prendergast writes that it was only in US garage-band psychedelia that the often whimsical traits of UK psychedelic music were found. He says that aside from the work of the Byrds, Love and
the Doors, there were three categories of US psychedelia: the "acid jams" of the San Francisco bands, who favoured albums over singles; pop psychedelia typified by groups such as the Beach Boys and
Buffalo Springfield; and the "wigged-out" music of bands following in the example of the Beatles and the Yardbirds, such as
the Electric Prunes,
the Nazz,
the Chocolate Watchband and
the Seeds. The Doors'
self-titled debut album (January 1967) is notable for possessing a darker sound and subject matter than many contemporary psychedelic albums, which would become very influential to the later
gothic rock movement. Aided by the No. 1 single, "
Light My Fire", the album became very successful, reaching number 2 on the
Billboard chart. In February 1967, the Beatles released the double A-side single "
Strawberry Fields Forever" / "
Penny Lane", which
Ian MacDonald says launched both the "English pop-pastoral mood" typified by bands such as
Pink Floyd,
Family,
Traffic and
Fairport Convention, and English psychedelia's LSD-inspired preoccupation with "nostalgia for the innocent vision of a child". The
Mellotron parts on "Strawberry Fields Forever" remain the most celebrated example of the instrument on a pop or rock recording. According to Simonelli, the two songs heralded the Beatles' brand of
Romanticism as a central tenet of psychedelic rock. 's song "
White Rabbit", which describes the surreal world of
Alice in Wonderland Jefferson Airplane's
Surrealistic Pillow (February 1967) was one of the first albums to come out of San Francisco that sold well enough to bring national attention to the city's music scene. The LP tracks "
White Rabbit" and "
Somebody to Love" subsequently became top 10 hits in the US.
The Hollies psychedelic B-side "All the World Is Love" (February 1967) was released as the flipside to the hit single "
On a Carousel". A major figure in the development of British psychedelia was the American promoter and record producer
Joe Boyd, who moved to London in 1966. He co-founded venues including the UFO Club, produced Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne", and went on to manage folk and folk rock acts including
Nick Drake, the
Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention. Psychedelic rock's popularity accelerated following the release of the Beatles' album ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (May 1967) and the staging of the Monterey Pop Festival in June. Sgt. Pepper'' was the first commercially successful work that critics recognised as a landmark aspect of psychedelia, and the Beatles' mass appeal meant that the record was played virtually everywhere. The album was highly influential on bands in the US psychedelic rock scene and its elevation of the LP format benefited the San Francisco bands. Among many changes brought about by its success, artists sought to imitate its psychedelic effects and devoted more time to creating their albums; the counterculture was scrutinised by musicians; and acts adopted its non-conformist sentiments. ,
Marty Balin, and
Paul Kantner of
Jefferson Airplane performing at the
Fantasy Fair, early June 1967 The 1967
Summer of Love saw a huge number of young people from across America and the world travel to Haight-Ashbury, boosting the area's population from 15,000 to around 100,000. It was prefaced by the
Human Be-In event in January and reached its peak at the Monterey Pop Festival in June, the latter helping to make major American stars of
Janis Joplin, lead singer of
Big Brother and the Holding Company,
Jimi Hendrix, and
the Who. Several established British acts joined the psychedelic revolution, including
Eric Burdon (previously of
the Animals) and the Who, whose
The Who Sell Out (December 1967) included the psychedelic-influenced "
I Can See for Miles" and "
Armenia City in the Sky". Other major
British Invasion acts who absorbed psychedelia in 1967 include the Hollies with the album
Butterfly, and
The Rolling Stones album
Their Satanic Majesties Request. The Incredible String Band's
The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (July 1967) developed their folk music into a pastoral form of psychedelia. Many famous established recording artists from the early rock era also fell under psychedelia and recorded psychedelic-inspired tracks, including
Del Shannon's "Color Flashing Hair",
Bobby Vee's "I May Be Gone",
The Four Seasons' "
Watch the Flowers Grow",
Roy Orbison's "Southbound Jericho Parkway" and
The Everly Brothers' "Mary Jane". on stage at
Gröna Lund in Stockholm, Sweden in May 1967According to author Edward Macan, there ultimately existed three distinct branches of British psychedelic music. The first, dominated by
Cream, the Yardbirds and Hendrix, was founded on a heavy, electric adaptation of the blues played by the Rolling Stones, adding elements such as the Who's
power chord style and feedback. The second, considerably more complex form drew strongly from
jazz sources and was typified by Traffic,
Colosseum,
If, and
Canterbury scene bands such as
Soft Machine and
Caravan. The third branch, represented by
the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd,
Procol Harum and
the Nice, was influenced by the later music of the Beatles. Several of the post-
Sgt. Pepper English psychedelic groups developed the Beatles' classical influences further than either the Beatles or contemporaneous West Coast psychedelic bands. Among such groups,
the Pretty Things abandoned their R&B roots to create
S.F. Sorrow (December 1968), one of the earliest examples of a
rock opera.
International variants The US and UK were the major centres of psychedelic music, but in the late 1960s scenes developed across the world, including continental Europe, Australasia, Asia and south and Central America. In the later 1960s psychedelic scenes developed in a large number of countries in continental Europe, including the Netherlands with bands like
The Outsiders, Denmark, where it was pioneered by
Steppeulvene, Yugoslavia, with bands like
Kameleoni,
Dogovor iz 1804.,
Pop Mašina and the foundation of the
Zodiak Free Arts Lab in
Berlin by
Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and
Conrad Schnitzler, which helped bands like
Tangerine Dream and
Amon Düül achieve cult status. A thriving psychedelic music scene in
Cambodia, influenced by psychedelic rock and soul broadcast by US forces radio in Vietnam, was pioneered by artists such as
Sinn Sisamouth and
Ros Serey Sothea. In South Korea,
Shin Jung-Hyeon, often considered the godfather of Korean rock, played psychedelic-influenced music for the American soldiers stationed in the country. Following Shin Jung-Hyeon, the band
San Ul Lim (Mountain Echo) often combined psychedelic rock with a more folk sound. In Turkey,
Anatolian rock artist
Erkin Koray blended classic Turkish music and Middle Eastern themes into his psychedelic-driven rock, helping to found the Turkish rock scene with artists such as
Cem Karaca,
Mogollar,
Barış Manço and Erkin Koray. In Brazil, the
Tropicalia movement merged
Brazilian and
African rhythms with psychedelic rock. Musicians who were part of the movement include
Caetano Veloso,
Gilberto Gil,
Os Mutantes,
Gal Costa,
Tom Zé, and the poet/lyricist
Torquato Neto, all of whom participated in the 1968 album
Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis, which served as a musical manifesto.
1969–1971: Decline in 1969 By the end of the 1960s, psychedelic rock was in retreat. Psychedelic trends climaxed in the 1969
Woodstock Festival, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. LSD had been made illegal in the United Kingdom in September 1966 and in California in October; by 1967, it was outlawed throughout the United States. In 1969, the murders of
Sharon Tate and
Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by
Charles Manson and his
cult of followers, claiming to have been
inspired by The Beatles' songs such as "
Helter Skelter", has been seen as contributing to an anti-hippie backlash. At the end of the same year, the
Altamont Free Concert in California, headlined by the Rolling Stones, became notorious for the fatal stabbing of black teenager
Meredith Hunter by
Hells Angels security guards.
George Clinton's ensembles
Funkadelic and
Parliament and their various spin-offs took psychedelia and funk to create their own unique style, producing over forty singles, including three in the US top ten, and three platinum albums.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys,
Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones,
Peter Green and
Danny Kirwan of
Fleetwood Mac,
Skip Spence of
Jefferson Airplane and
Moby Grape, and
Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd suffered permanent brain damage from the use of hallucinogens, with their departures helping to shift the focus of the respective bands of which they had been leading figures. Some groups, such as the Beatles, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, broke up. Hendrix died in London in September 1970, shortly after recording
Band of Gypsys (1970), Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in October 1970 and they were closely followed by
Jim Morrison of
the Doors, who died in Paris in July 1971. By this point, many surviving acts had moved away from psychedelia into either more back-to-basics "
roots rock", traditional-based, pastoral or whimsical folk, the wider experimentation of progressive rock, or riff-based heavy rock. Record executive
Mike Curb was instrumental in having musicians who were promoting drug use dropped from or forced out of
MGM Records, where Curb was employed in 1970, replacing them with acts not known for drug use but were known for their conservative appeal, most prominently
the Osmonds. ==Revivals and successors==