From Motown to Woodstock, the 1960s proved to be a pendulum of wide-ranging shifts in musical taste and talent.

As the 1950s ushered in the wide variety of genres on offer to a diversifying nation, 1960s America picked up the torch and carried on.

Hot off the press in 1960 was the formation of the Motown Record Corporation. This would be the vessel that would launch the careers of numerous soul artists. Legendary talents like Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson got their start with Motown.

Folk rock is another genre that would be born from the 1960s. Folk rock realized its great rise and fall in the decade. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Peter, Paul & Mary, and The Grateful Dead are just a few of the folk rock singer-songwriters to emerge from this era. The sound was a “more vocals, less effects” style of music that incorporated narrative lyrics with rock overtones. Most popular in the mid-1960s and declining in popularity in the early to mid-1970s, many of the artists associated with this type of music were part of the ‘make love not war’ movement.

In 1964, the United States would experience the British Invasion when a group of four ‘moptops’ from Liverpool, England, took the US by storm. Before long, the Beatles were performing to fill crowds of screaming teenage women. I want to hold your hand it hit number one in the United States in February 1964. The group broke up in 1970 and began successful solo careers. The Fab Four ventured into uncharted musical territory with each new album, implementing various genres into their unique style of sound. They had a huge impact on modern music and were also cultural innovators.

As drug use skyrocketed in the 1960s, new offshoots of rock & roll music began to appear on the scene. Acid and psychedelic rock grew out of a drug culture that would eventually lead to the heavy metal genre that would become so prominent in the next decade. The counterculture had begun and from that counterculture the greatest musical phenomena of the decade would occur.

Woodstockit was basically a three-day music festival that took place in August 1969. It was said to be a gathering celebrating the concept of love, peace, and tranquility. It was actually an LSD festival that drew more than 400,000 hippies to a farm in upstate New York. Various musical genres were represented at the event, including; folk rock, acid rock and even some Motown were included in the lineup. Amidst the impressive lineup of artists at the concert were: Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie, Sly & the Family Stone and Creedence Clearwater Rival. Woodstock it is one of the seminal events that changed the face of rock and roll and would, in part, be the catalyst for ushering in the heavy metal sound of the 1970s.

Last but not least would be the bubblegum pop rock style that grew in popularity in the late 1960s. Bands like Tommy James and the Shondells, The Lemon Pipers and Herman’s Hermits were all on the charts. Teenyboppers from all over the country sang the lyrics to hits like, Hanky ​​Panky, green tambourine, andDelicious, Delicious, Delicious.

Most of the emphasis had shifted to the younger generation coming out of the 1950s, where this trend had begun to take effect. Teenagers tuned in to the radio, bought records, and attended concerts more than any other age group, so they became the mainstream that record companies catered to.

Although the older generation (and I use that term loosely to include everyone else outside of the teens and 20s age group) still found “their” music dominating the small screen with the popularity of variety shows. Greats like Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra were still riding high among the older crowd.

The 1960s turned out to be a cultural revolution, and it was no more evident than in the styles of music that emerged from this era. Sex, drugs and rock & roll replaced the now more seemingly innocent James Dean-like rebellion of the 1950s.

A violent and turbulent time in American history, but a time of self-expression and musical freedom gave way to a more accommodating philosophy that would ensue over the next decade. American music was now very global, and artists from many other countries came to the United States to donate their talents to a nation that was accepting of all styles of music. It really was the dawn of the ‘Age of Aquarius’.