10 Facts About 60s Music – EVERYTHING You Want to Know About This Music Decade

'I'd like to point out to everyone here, that this will be the biggest party of 1969 that we've had. Let's have a party and let's have a good time.' – said the announcer of the 'Altamont Speedway Free Festival' promisingly. But it turned out differently. Very different. However, it could have been so beautiful. The poster for the free concert at the Altamont Race Track in Tracy listed a great line-up. That Saturday, December 6, 1969, you could see Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, the folk rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the Grateful Dead at work. The icing on the cake was of course The Rolling Stones. The organization dreamed aloud of 'a kind of Woodstock West'. The '3 Days of Peace & Music' had been such a success in Bethel 4 months ago. And the hippies had been on their best behavior. That should also be possible in San Francisco. Especially with The Stones as the main act, then the world's biggest rock and roll band after The Beatles. The British were in top form, with ' Beggars Banquet ' (1968) under their belt and ' Let It Bleed ' (1969) in the pipeline. The timing worked out perfectly for Mick Jagger & co. The boys were under fire for the pricey tickets for their American '1969 Tour'. A free performance would silence their critics for a while. The preparations for the 'Altamont Free Concert' did not go smoothly. Only in the last 48 hours did the organization hastily choose the Altamont Raceway as the final location. And it turned out to be far from ideal. The stage was located at the bottom of a slope of the 308 meter high mountain pass. And The Stones used a fixed stage setup, which you couldn't just raise. Because there was now barely a 1 meter height difference between the band and the audience, a little security was certainly not an unnecessary luxury. The organization outsourced that task to Sonny Barger and his Hells Angels from the Californian Oakland chapter. The motorcycle gang received $500 worth of beer in exchange for their security services. Sounds a bit strange? During the iconic concert in Hyde Park after Brian Jones' death 5 months earlier, The Stones had also called in self-proclaimed British Hells Angels for security. And didn't it all go perfectly? Small side note: the British motorcycle riders only asked for a cup of tea for their manual services. That Saturday night things turned out differently. Shortly after Santana's enjoyable opening set, the atmosphere plummeted. The Angels soon became quite aggressively drunk on all the free beer. The audience of 300,000 people behaved equally rebellious and unpredictable because of the eagerly circulating drugs. The bikers drove the boisterous crowd away from the stage with sawn-off billiard cues and a loud chatter from their motorcycle chains. It became grim. Especially after one of the motorcycles fell to the ground in the commotion. When Marty Balin tried to intervene, a Hells Angel promptly knocked the Jefferson Airplane singer unconscious. The Grateful Dead refused to play after the incident. The Rolling Stones did that. And they should not have done that. When The Stones began their set at sunset, the scenario for total disaster was complete. Mick Jagger took a punch from an angry fan just seconds after stepping out of his helicopter. Angels happily hammered at festival goers. But fights also broke out among the peaceful hippies themselves. And thousands of intoxicated attendees threatened to climb the stage. When a fight broke out during “Sympathy for the Devil,” The Stones stopped playing. Once things calmed down, they reprized the song and transitioned into 'Under My Thumb'. At that moment there was a disturbance between some Angels and 18-year-old Meredith Hunter. An Angel forcibly drove him back. The African-American young man, fueled by methamphetamines, then returned with a gun from the jacket of his lime green suit. The Hells Angel Alan Passaro did not hesitate and fatally stabbed Hunter 2 times with his knife. 'The Day the Sixties Died' ultimately ended in 4 deaths. In addition to Meredith Hunter, there were also 3 fatal accidents. 2 festival visitors died in a car accident. 1 unfortunate LSD user drowned in an irrigation canal. If Woodstock was the cheerful pinnacle of flower power, Altamont was for many contemporaries 'The end of the hippie dream'. Alan Passaro acquitted by the jury. The jury members based their verdict of 'legal self-defense' on the filmed concert footage. A film crew followed The Stones that fall for what eventually became 'Gimme Shelter' (1970). One of the most shocking music documentaries ever. With behind one of the cameras: the then 25-year-old George Lucas. Haven't learned enough music facts yet? Also read 70s Music Facts 80s Music Facts 90s Music Facts 00s Music Facts

On August 15, 16, 17 and 18, 1969, the flower power era and counterculture reached their peak with the American music festival Woodstock. Nearly half a million young people then gathered for '3 Days of Peace & Music' in the town of Bethel on the hay fields of dairy farmer Max Yasgur. Jimi Hendrix was the world's highest-paid rock artist to close the 'Woodstock Music Art and Fair'. Due to numerous logistical delays, dull traffic and apocalyptic weather conditions on Sunday afternoon, the guitar virtuoso did not finally clamber onto the stage until Monday, August 17, around 9 a.m. Hendrix's mismastery of the American national anthem is known as one of the most iconic 60ies moments. Remarkable. Because only a tiny fraction of the audience saw how the guitarist with his Fender Stratocaster and effects pedals tore a whole load of supersonic missiles, bombs and gun bursts through the waving 'The Star-Spangled Banner'. At that time there were still about 25,000 brave survivors on the site. Somewhat optimistic estimators believe that the number of unwashed hippies still awake and present was 40,000. Other sources even mention 180,000 festival catchers. It will. As if anyone at that time had the strength, let alone the mental faculties, to count that filthy mess. The polls didn't look good. Hendrix had hardly rehearsed with his occasional band Gypsy Sun & Rainbows. The group was hastily put together after the split of The Jimi Hendrix Experience – the trio that Hendrix formed with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell until the disastrous show at the Denver Pop Festival on June 29, 1969. Mitch Mitchel, who was behind the drums again, said that the musical glue didn't really stick with the new musicians. In addition to new bassist Billy Cox, rhythm guitarist Larry Lee and percussionists Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez made their appearance on stage that morning. According to rumors, their band leader had already been awake for three days. But Jimi had his means for that. A former roadie during Jimi's British tours once said about his former boss: 'I'd get him ten hits of acid and he'd take seven and give me three. They say acid doesn't work two days in a row, but we found out if you double the dose it does.' - And who would dare doubt the words of Lemmy Kilmister, the later Motörhead frontman? The set meandered around aimlessly at first, but from the second half onwards Jimi suddenly had the thinned out audience at their grubby scruff, smeared with dried mud and other indefinable gunk that you might find in a festival space devoid of sanitary facilities. He would not let them go and gave them the revelation of their lives with his unparalleled interpretation of the American national anthem, which he rattled out of his white Strat like an unguided machine gun between the songs 'Stepping Stone' and 'Purple Haze'. The 'The Star-Spangled Banner' cover, drowning in squeaky feedback, had been a staple on Jimi Hendrix's set list since autumn 1968. But at Woodstock the artist pounded his guitar strings so much that you could hear nothing but a searing indictment of the Vietnam War in Jimi's furious interpretation. The guitar god himself kept it a modest 'It's not unorthodox, I thought it was beautiful.'

“The hippies were into soft drugs, we were into harder stuff.” – Was signed, Lou Reed . While an entire generation was putting flowers in their unwashed hair to the sounds of Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco" in 1967, there was a very different sound in New York City. In “I'm Waiting for the Man,” the singer waited on a Harlem street corner for his drug dealer with $26 in hand. 'Heroin' then clearly made prohibited stuff that man was selling. And what ' Venus in Furs ' got up to with her 'shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather' was so spicy that both Atlantic Records and Elektra refused to release the song. Ultimately, 'The Velvet Underground & Nico' was released on Verve Records more than a year after the recordings. The iconic cover art showed no group name. A bright yellow banana from Andy Warhol. “Peel slowly and see” ordered the stark white cover. When you removed the banana sticker from the cover, a second flesh-colored peeled copy appeared. Andy Warhol saw value in the university band of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker. The pop art pope introduced the quartet to a 'chanteuse', the German fashion model Nico. Her actual name was Christa Päffgen, but that of course sounds a little less mysterious for a genuine 'Femme Fatale'. The pop art artist not only provided the artwork. He also coughed up the money for the recording studio. The album lists Warhol as producer, but the 'Campbells' soup can painter had little part in the group's unique sound. John Cale's screeching viola, on the other hand. The celesta in the dreamy opening track 'Sunday Morning' gave no indication of the improvised chaos and feedback into which the record would degenerate 11 songs later with 'European Son'. As is often the case with timeless masterpieces, the world was not ready for 'The Velvet Underground & Nico'. Brian Eno made the legendary statement that the album barely sold 30,000 copies in the first years - but 'everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!' And don't blame that British ambient pioneer. Today, even a completely tone-deaf slipper animal praises this 1967 maligned debut album as one of the most influential and important albums ever. Or as a music magazine called 'Rolling Stone' wrote in 2003: 'the Banana Album (...) is the most prophetic rock album ever made.'

By 1967 everyone was tripping and hugging. It was the 'Summer of Love'. 100,000 hippies settled in Haight-Ashbury, a neighborhood in San Francisco. At the same time, rock music became captivated by exotic influences and all kinds of hallucinogens such as LSD, magic mushrooms and mescaline. The Beatles sang 'All You Need Is Love' and 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'. But John Lennon has always denied that the much-discussed song from 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ' referred to LSD. The inspiration was a drawing that his 4-year-old son Julian made of his school friend Lucy. For the lyrics, The Beatles borrowed from Lewis Caroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. George Harrison gave the song an intriguing sound with his tanpura, a fretless lute from India. Maybe Lennon just played it smart? A year earlier, several radio stations refused to play The Byrds' 'Eight Miles High' because it had a slightly overt drug smell. Both songs are still considered the quintessential classics of psychedelic rock music today. By the summer of 1967 you were stumbling over drugs, sitars and tablas in the charts. Jim Morrison swallowed acid at night on the beach of Isla Vista, stared at the lights of an oil rig looming on the horizon and wrote follow-up 'The Crystal Ship' for The Doors. Just looking at the LP covers of Pink Floyd's 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn' (1967) and 'A Saucerful of Secrets' (1968) was enough to trip yourself. Listeners put their lips to the sky when they heard 'Purple Haze'. However, Jimi Hendrix declared that the psychedelic rollercoaster was nothing more than a love song. Of course, Jimi. And 'Spanish Castle Magic' is certainly about medieval castles in Andalusia. Who made no secret of their main source of inspiration was Jefferson Airplane. Frontwoman Grace Slick also leafed through 'Alice in Wonderland'. And suddenly it dawned on the singer that there were suspiciously many drug references in it. And especially for a children's book from 1865. A hookah smoking caterpillar? Eating mushrooms? Shrink and then grow huge again after a slice of cake? All pretty trippy stuff. Not to mention those crazy tea parties and that White Rabbit over there. As a young musician in San Francisco, Grace Slick was not averse to a bit of forbidden stuff. After a dose of LSD and hours of listening to Miles Davis' 'Sketches of Spain', she wrote 'White Rabbit' for her then band The Great Society at the end of 1965. The psychedelic song was then given a second life on Jefferson Airplane's ultimate acid record 'Surrealistic Pillow' (1967). “One pill makes you larger / And one pill makes you smaller,” it sounded right away in the opening verse. The song was released in June 1967. And the counterculture couldn't imagine a better soundtrack for their 'Summer of Love' and 'Woodstock' two years later. Before she became a figurehead of the hippie movement, Grace Slick went to school with Tricia Nixon. Daughter of, yes, President Nixon. When a Finch College reunion took place at the White House in 1969, the singer tried to stir 600 mg of LSD into Nixon's tea. The plan was narrowly foiled by security staff. Yes, something happened in those 60ies!

In January 1959, 29-year-old Berry Gordy started a record label in Detroit. He doesn't have to search long for the name. It will be 'Motown Records'. A contraction of 'Motor' and 'Town'. Finally, the office is called 'Motor City', a nickname that Detroit owes to the hundreds of car manufacturers who set up their factories here at the beginning of the 20th century. Berry Gordy has already had a pretty full life. Boxed as a featherweight, served in the Korean War. Had a record store, including a failed business in 3-D glasses. Been on the Lincoln-Mercury assembly line. But music always tickled my fancy. As a songwriter, he contributed to Jackie Wilson's 'Reet Petite' in 1957. The single unexpectedly raised so much money that Gordy was able to finance Motown Records with it. A family loan of $800 took care of the rest. Motown Records was a modest label. But that certainly did not stop this African-American record company from challenging the big names in the music industry in the Billboard Hot 100. Throughout the 60s, Gordy catapulted no fewer than 79 records into the American top 10! But there was also no escape from the impressive volley of 'Motown' hits on other continents. The former car factory worker ran his successful business like a well-oiled machine. And he had a well-filled address book, not to forget. Smokey Robinson and The Miracles provided Motown's first million-dollar success with 'Shop Around' in 1960. With Gordy's excellent nose for talent, new Soul and R&B stars such as Diana Ross and The Supremes, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Commodores and The Jackson 5 soon joined the Detroit label. It was special that almost all those hits came from the same songwriting team. Brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Hozier were hitmakers without equal. The Holland-Dozier-Holland trio signed, among other things, 'Stop! In the Name of Love ' and ' Where Did Our Love Go ' by The Supremes and Marvin Gaye's ' How Sweet It Is '. The musical driving force behind 'The Sound of Young America' were The Funk Brothers. This ever-changing house band included top musicians such as keyboardist Earl Van Dyke, legendary studio bassist James Jamerson, The Beatles-acclaimed drum prodigy Benny 'Papa Zita' Benjamin and guitarist Jim Messina - who was called 'The White Brother with Soul' by his black colleagues. Motown would not mention the names of the session musicians in the credits for the first time until 1971, on Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On'. But it is certain that The Funk Brothers were featured on more 60s hits than Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys combined. Moreover, the Motown musicians sometimes dared to secretly work for competing record labels.

Long before Phil Spector (1939 – 2021) was accused of the manslaughter of 80ies 'sword-and-sorcery' actress Lana Clarkson in 2009, the music world was buzzing with the wildest rumors about the man. He is said to have fired a gun while drunk, dressed as a surgeon, while John Lennon was in his studio recording his cover album 'Rock 'N' Roll' (1975). The ex-Beatle answered that crazy antics with a dry: 'Listen Phil, if you're goin' to kill me, kill me. But don't fuck with me ears. I need 'em.' Leonard Cohen described the tense collaboration for ' Death of a Ladies Man ' (1977) as 'you were slipping over bullets and biting into revolvers in your hamburger.' - And the Ramones also knew what it felt like to look down the barrel of Spector's impressive collection of barkers during the tumultuous ' End of the Century ' sessions. Why did all these artists want to work in the studio with Phil Spector? Because the infamous music producer invented the 'Wall of Sound' in the 60s! The eccentric American mastered the production techniques in his 'Gold Star Studios' in Hollywood. The bottom line was that it gave the recorded songs a truly unique, rich orchestral sound. With all kinds of clever studio tricks, he, his sound man Larry Levine and the session musicians of 'The Wrecking Crew' conjured up a massive wall of sound that even effortlessly stood up on a dilapidated pub jukebox or a shabby portable radio. A perfect example of this revolutionary 'Spector Sound' is 'River Deep – Mountain High' by Ike & Tina Turner. The producer packed no fewer than 21 session musicians (including 4 drummers alone!) and just as many backing singers into his studio for the song. Ike Turner, meanwhile, received $20,000 in compensation to stay far away. Apparently Phil Spector didn't have a gun collection in 1966. Or did even he fear the loose hands of Tina Turner's aggressive husband? Anyway. The 'Wall of Sound became an incredible success. Boudewijn de Groot brought the production technique to the Low Countries in 1967 on 'Verdronken Vlinder'. In the 1970s, Swedish sound engineer Michael B. Tretow enthusiastically created a sound wall of dozens of instrument tracks and overdubs of vocal lines for ABBA's world hits. Although not everyone was convinced of Spector's studio magic. Paul McCartney hated the bombast and exuberant cut-and-paste that the music producer unleashed on the 'Let It Be' tapes. Macca even cited Spector's orchestral mismastery of 'The Long and Winding Road' as one of his top 6 reasons for leaving The Beatles.

While British rock bands were still actively plotting their conquest of the United States, there was certainly no shortage of their own music across the Atlantic Ocean. SURF was born in the late 1950s as instrumental rock and roll in Southern California. Dick Dale turned up the 'Spring Reverb' of his 'Fender Showman' amplifier wide and pinged very exotic scales from the strings of his left-handed gold-colored Stratocaster, called 'The Beast', with incredible speed and precision. Just listen to those wonderful crashing waves that 'The King of Surf Guitar' and his Del-Tones unleashed on songs like 'Let's Go Trippin'', 'Jungle Fever', 'Surf Beat', and of course 'Misirlou', revived 32 years later for Quentin Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction' (1994). The Beach Boys then gave the instrumental music genre a voice with their harmonious singing. The group included brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson – supplemented by their cousin Mike Love and his schoolmate Al Jardine. Californian beach life in the early 60's was ridiculously simple as the songs ' Surfin' Safari ', ' Surfin' U.S.A. ' and 'Surfer Girl' on the radio. By the way, drummer Dennis Wilson was the only one of the 5 Beach Boys who could actually stand on a surfboard. When the British flooded the American market, the surf hype quickly dried up. Fortunately, The Beach Boys made progress even without the waves. With 'Pet Sounds' (1966), they made one of the best and most influential music albums ever, 2 years after Brian Wilson wrote his last surf song. 2 years after the groundbreaking concept album, Dennis Wilson picked up 2 hitchhikers during a car ride in Malibu in April 1968. When he spotted the duo again a few days later, this time he took them to his home at 14400 Sunset Boulevard. There he learned that they were hanging out with a guru who had just been released after a 12-year prison sentence. Charles Manson. When the drummer came home later that night after a recording session, he found the American cult leader with a crowd of followers in his driveway. In the following weeks, a whole collection of female followers of 'The Manson Family' moved in with the recently divorced Beach Boy. The musician paid for their costs of up to 100,000 dollars - including a pricey medical bill for the treatment of some intimate discomfort. Wilson even introduced Charles Manson to the show business world and paid for his studio time without batting an eyelid. Because yes. After plotting gruesome mass murders, the infamous Manson still dreamed of a music career in the summer of 1968. The Beach Boys even recorded one of Manson's songs. His 'Cease to Excist' was released a few months later in December 1968 as 'Never Learn Not To Love', the B-side of the single 'Bluebirds over the Mountain'. Manson was not credited as co-author. Well, a stack of dollar bills and a motorcycle. Meanwhile, Dennis Wilson slowly but surely learned that his new partner and his 'Manson Family' might not be the ideal company after all. Manson once pulled a knife in the recording studio if the producer did not agree to his proposals. The girls had meanwhile helped both Wilson's Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz to the Philistines. The musician wisely moved out of his rental home and left almost all of his belongings with the cult members. Charles Manson didn't like that sudden rejection. He showed the Beach Boy a bullet with the cold words: 'It's a bullet. Every time you look at it, I want you to think how nice it is your kids are still safe.' The following summer, Charles Manson orchestrated the horrific 'Tate / LaBianca' murders. Afterwards, Denis Wilson never dared to talk about his relationship with the criminal who was sentenced to life. In the following years, the Beach Boy sought refuge in alcohol, cocaine and heroin. On December 28, 1983, Wilson failed to surface after a drunken dive from his sailing yacht in Marina del Rey harbor. The musician had just turned 39 years old.

Following The Beatles, British bands such as The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Animals, The Zombies, Herman's Hermits, Small Faces and The Who conquered North America in the mid-1960s. And also the rest of the world. But solo artists such as Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and Donovan were also inescapable in the charts. Their music suddenly became so ubiquitous that journalists wrote about the 'British Invasion'. Meanwhile, the fashion designers of 'Swinging London' made sure everyone looked incredibly stylish. Mary Quant conjured up women's legs in the miniskirt and brightly colored tights. Men walking casually in their 'Beatle boots' following The Fab Four. Everyone wanted Brian Jones' wardrobe and haircut. Jean Shrimpton, Pattie Boyd and Twiggy graced magazine covers as the world's first supermodels. The British Motor Corporation's Mini boldly tore through the streets. Michael Caine was the coolest actor in the world. And the icing on the cake was England winning the World Cup in 1966. In short: the British fashion, music and film culture of the 'Swinging Sixties' dictated how the entire world behaved and immediately composed the excellent soundtrack. What could the Americans say against so many waving Union Jacks? Well. They invented The Monkees. ' Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer! ' - You obviously know that song from 'Shrek' (2001). The song was just one of dozens of hits that the American quartet scored between 1967 and 1970. But actually The Monkees were a made-up band. The idea came from two TV makers in 1965. After seeing the films 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help!', Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider came up with America's answer to The Beatles. 'Madness!! Auditions. Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers for acting roles in new TV series. Running parts for 4 insane boys, ages 17–21. Because spirited Ben Frank's types. Have courage to work. Must come down for interview.' - 437 candidates responded to the 'Screen Gems' casting ad. Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones looked good and could sing. Their musical motor skills deteriorated. That's why an army of professional songwriters and session musicians did the dirty work in the studio. Eventually the boys learned to play their instruments. The Monkees themselves were heard for the first time on their third album 'Headquarters' (1967). Yet they never got rid of the 'fake band' label. Critics even scornfully dismissed them as 'The Prefab Four'. Although those 75 million records sold will probably ease the pain somewhat. Just like knowing that their great idol John Lennon was a fan.

One band dominated the 60ies like no other. In fact. These 4 guys from Liverpool are still the most influential music group ever today. By 1964, The Beatles reigned supreme. That spring, 73 million home viewers watched “The Ed Sullivan Show” wrap. The American music landscape would never be the same after that historic February 9, 1964. How insanely popular was the British quartet? Well. Less than two months later, The Beatles occupied the entire Top 5 of the American Billboard Hot 100. You read that correctly. In the week of April 4, 19964, The Fab Four were at number 1 with 'Can't Buy Me Love'. Followed by 'Twist and Shout', 'She Loves You', 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' and 'Please Please Me'. The Beatles dominated the entire decade. But 1964 was without a doubt the 'Year of the Beatles'. 'The Beatlemania' reached its boiling point when 'A Hard Day's Night' was released. The film showed 36 hours in the lives of the foursome. And immediately became an incredible commercial and critical success. Ringo Star loosely shook the title from the sleeve of his suit jacket: 'Once when we were working all day and then into the night and came out thinking it was still day and said, 'It's been a hard day', and looked around and noticed it was dark, '...'s night!' - Then John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the film song of the same name in one night. In a fit of sacrilege, the American film distributor wanted to have the boys' dialogues overdubbed. He feared that the American public would not understand the Liverpudlian accents. Paul furiously gave the man other ideas. A year later, The Beatles became the first rock group ever to fill a sports stadium. 56,000 fans screamed as the band landed in the helicopter at Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965. The following year in San Francisco on August 29, they played the final concert of their '1966 World Tour'. Future performances were no longer possible. The four musicians were exhausted from the constant pack of hysterical teenage girls following them everywhere they went. Furthermore, the audience screamed so loudly that The Beatles could no longer hear their instruments on stage. The band retreated to the studio. Bob Dylan had given them their first joint during their first North American tour. Now more impressive stuff crept into 'Abbey Road Studios'. In addition to all kinds of mind-expanding substances, George Harrison's passion for American folk, soul and Indian culture also left its mark on the impressive succession of masterful studio albums that had already started with 'Rubber Soul' (1965). The “Silent Beatle” pinged a sitar for “Norwegian Wood” and smuggled a swarmandal on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” On January 30, 1969, The Beatles made their unexpected return to the stage. Or rather: on the roof of the 'Apple Corps' building. The unannounced 'Rooftop Concert' also became their last live performance. Because when 'Let It Be' was released on May 8, 1970 after quite some delay, the most famous group in music history was already gone.

In the turbulent times, folk became the music genre par excellence for the protesting young people. American folk music made a comeback in the 1960s. The barefoot Joan Baez took the world by storm with her crystal-clear soprano voice and socially moving songs. Peter, Paul, and Mary warned about the fruits of the 'Lemon Tree' and reflected on their innocent childhoods in 'Puff, the Magic Dragon'. As the decade progressed, folkies traded their acoustic instruments and simple chord progressions for electric guitars and more challenging compositions. Folk became folk rock. In the case of Bob Dylan, the whole political protest was also allowed to gather dust in the attic with his acoustic guitar. Bob Dylan was always a special bird. Students fell in love with the mysterious curly haired man from Duluth, born Robert Allen Zimmerman. With songs such as 'Blowin' in the Wind', 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' and 'The Times They Are a-Changin'', the folk singer captured the turbulent spirit of the times like no other. Although quite nasal and sung quite out of tune from his nose. But the 'Hammond's Folly' won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 and not 'The Voice'. A stubborn guy, too. In early 1963, Bob Dylan was still a noble unknown outside the New York folk world. But his appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” would change that. After all, this was the American entertainment program where Elvis Presley suddenly became a national celebrity, Buddy Holly and his impeccably dressed The Crickets performed 'Peggy Sue' and Chubby Checker performed 'The Twist'. In short: an audience of millions assured. But just before the broadcast, the 21-year-old singer was told on May 12, 1963 that he could not perform his 'Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues'. On closer inspection, TV channel CBS found the lyrics of the satirical protest song to be a bit too sensitive. The song mocked the right-wing radical John Birch Society and their anti-communist hysteria. Dylan didn't just let himself be fooled. With the words 'No; this is what I want to do. If I can't play my song, I'd rather not appear on the show.' Dylan single-handedly thwarted his national breakthrough. Not that the folk singer needed the whole “Ed Sullivan Show.” That same year, the whole world knew who Bob Dylan was. When Dylan suddenly appeared on stage at the Newport Folk Festival with a Sunburst Fender Stratocaster on July 25, 1965, some of his rabid folk supporters reacted furiously. Especially after he squeezed out 'Like a Rolling Stone'. But that wouldn't matter to Dylan. The cries of “Judas!” slid off his leather jacket like water off a duck. He then made the masterpieces ' Highway 61 Revisited ' (1965) and ' Blonde on Blonde ' (1966). The infamous electric guitar with which Dylan changed the American music landscape forever went under the hammer at Christie's in 2013. With a yield of 1 million, it was the most expensive guitar ever auctioned.