Music of California
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In the United States, California is commonly associated with the film, music, and arts industries; there are numerous world-famous Californian musicians. Hardcore punk, country, hip hop, and heavy metal have all appeared in California.
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1950s and 60s
Bakersfield Sound
Main article: Bakersfield Sound
In the 1950s and early 1960s, country music was dominated by the slick Nashville sound that stripped the genre of its gritty roots. The town of Bakersfield, California saw the rise of the Bakersfield sound as a reaction against Nashville, led by people like Buck Owens and future star Merle Haggard.
Surf rock
Main article: Surf rock
In the early 1960s, youth in southern California became enamored with surf rock groups, many instrumental, like The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, The Chantays, Royale Monarchs and The Surfaris. Surf rock is said to have been invented by Dick Dale with his 1961 (see 1961 in music) album "Let's Go Trippin'". Surf rock's popularity ended in the mid-1960s with the coming of psychedelic music.
Psychedelic rock
Main article: Psychedelic music
The late 1960s saw San Francisco and Hollywood rise as the center for psychedelic rock and a mecca for hippies. Haight-Ashbury became a countercultural capital, and bands like Jefferson Airplane, Loading Zone, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe and the Fish, Santana, The Charlatans, Big Brother & the Holding Company and the Grateful Dead helped to launch the blues- and folk-rock scene; other bands, like Moby Grape and The Flamin' Groovies used a more country-influenced sound, while Cold Blood incorporated R&B and Orkustra played a sort of freeform psychedelia. Of all these bands, the Grateful Dead were undoubtedly the longest-lasting of all. They continued recording and performing for several decades under the leadership of Jerry Garcia, experimenting with a wide variety of folk, country and bluegrass, and becoming a part of the jam band phenomenon.
Hollywood's Sunset Strip area produced bands like The Byrds, The Doors, Love, Buffalo Springfield, and The Seeds. The Byrds went on to become a major folk-rock act, helping to popularize some of Bob Dylan's compositions and eventually launching the careers of folk-rockers like David Crosby and country-rock fusionist Gram Parsons.
Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, both from Antelope Valley, started their aggressively experimental music careers during the late 1960s.
The band Iron Butterfly is another noted California psychedelic band, coming out of San Diego.
San Francisco psychedelic scene
This era began in about 1965, when The Matrix, the first folk club in San Francisco, opened; Jefferson Airplane, then a newly-formed and unknown band, performed that night. Later that year, a band known as The Warlocks became the Grateful Dead, performing at The Fillmore, which was to become a major musical venue in the area. Jefferson Airplane became the first San Francisco psychedelic band signed to a major label, followed soon after by Sopwith Camel. In 1966, the first acid test was held, and the use of the drug LSD became a more prominent part of psychedelic rock, and music in general. One of the first albums from the scene was Country Joe and the Fish's Electric Music for the Mind and Body (1967). A year later, the band Blue Cheer released Vincebus Eruptum, which launched a national hit with a cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues"; Blue Cheer is now regarded as a progenitor of heavy metal.
