“The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. Oh by the way, which one's Pink?”
In the mid 60’s Syd Barrett formed a psychedelic band, with fellow Englishmen Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason. Barrett on lead guitar, Waters on bass, Wright on keyboards, and Mason on drums. The name came from two of Barrett’s favorite American blues-men, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. They began experimenting with intense instrumentals of feedback, electronic screeches, and unusual, eerie sounds created by loud amplification, reverb, and such tricks as sliding ball bearings up and down guitar strings.
By 1966, heavily under the influence LSD and Barrett, the group began to incorporate light shows to add to the psychedelic effect of their live performances. In 1967 they signed with EMI records and released The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It is considered to be one of the best British psychedelic albums, second only to The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band album.
Sadly they would never even have a chance to recreate a similar masterpiece, solely because Barrett’s involvement in the band was in its final stages. Barrett was becoming heavily involved in mind-altering drugs like LSD and was showing alarming signs of mental instability. They tried to work out an arrangement where newly hired guitarist and close friend David Gilmour would perform live with the band while Barrett would make his contributions in the studio. This didn’t work. Syd Barrett left the group to pursue a solo career.
The band decided to continue on without Barrett and Waters stepped in as the dominant composer and writer. Using Barrett’s vision as an obvious blueprint, but adding a more formal, somber, and quasi-classical tone, their 1968 follow-up A Saucerful of Secrets, made the British Top Ten and proved the band was to continue on. For the next four years they would work on their sound, keeping it within the range of psychedlia, but reaching out to the uses experimental rock, and using such instruments as organs and horns.
They continued on in their journey of rock history with such classics as Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother, but never reaching that same plateau as they did with their debut. They later released Meddle in 1971which further showcased their development of albums as whole masterpieces instead of just individual songs.
Nothing, however, prepared Pink Floyd or their audience for
album contains an amazing combination of poetic lyrics and edgy music that make it an
music so they left the band and devoted their time to writing and the band,
They were making music at the same time as other extremely successful musicians like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Pink Floyd.
Abbey Road is heralded as one of the greatest rock ‘n roll albums ever. It grinds with hard rock and sways with soft guitar. The variety of the tracks provides something for everyone. It was created in 1969 at the famous Abbey Road studios. George Martin and Geoff Emerick, who had produced many other Beatles’ albums, contributed to this work. This album is one of the more famous albums of the Beatles, who are one of the most popular bands ever. Almost every piece of this album, even the cover, is art works in themselves.
The band consist of 8 members, Nathan East bassist/vocals, Andy Fairweather-Low, lead guitar/vocals, Steve Ferrone- drums, Chuck Leavell-key boardist, Ray Cooper- tambourines, Katie Kissoon and Tessa Niles- vocals, and Eric Clapton- composer, rock n roll guitarist, lead vocalist. The band members dressed in casual attire. The band members were professionals, they knew exactly how to orchestrate every chord, they collaborated with the lead singer and each other in ways that wasn’t so noticeable to the audience but they knew which chords to use for every song, the band was a top notch team. The tempo of the songs were a mixture of fast, slow, to a medium style beat. The texture of the songs was homophonic and well put together lyrics. The style of the music was from the 1960s-1970s which genres were rock, blues rock, psychedelic rock, hard rock, jazz and blues.
There possibly isn't an album in history that is as genre defining as Nirvana's Nevermind. Released in 1991, it single handedly was responsible for the birth of what became to be known as grunge and has gone on to sell over 10 million copies in the United States alone (Stuessy, Joe). It reached number 1 in 1991 and was the first album to bring Seattle grunge to the mainstream audience (Stuessy, Joe). Nevermind is a mix of slow, dark songs and fast paced grunge rock songs. With its grinding guitars, pounding drums, and lead singer, Kurt Cobain's distinctive voice, Nevermind found a distinctive way to fuse alternative punk with 70's rock (Nirvana, Nevermind).
Twenty-six years later it seems like such an incredible waste. Hendrix would be 53. With the exception of Charlie Christian and Robert Johnson, the other black geniuses of American music all had more time.
Mid 1967 an abandoned album ‘Smile’ was produced put was still bootlegged. Then produced ‘Smiley Smile’ which was an album which was almost identical as ‘Smile’. Off of ‘Smiley Smile’ the song ‘Heroes & Villains’ made top 20 Their Popularity was declining with the albums ‘Wild Honey’, ‘Friends’ and ‘20/20’ selling fewer and fewer copies and concert crowds thinned. 1968’s ‘Do it again’ was their last U.S Top 20 single for eight more years.
Beginning with the late 1960’s counterculture in San Francisco, music and drugs will forever be inter-linked. Hippie bands such as the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and Phish are associated with marijuana, mushrooms, and LSD. Modern electronic “rave” , or club music is associated with MDMA or Ecstasy. When one thinks of rock and roll, sex and drugs immediately come to mind. While the use of drugs is not essential for the creation or performance of all new music, it was certainly in important factor for the counterculture music of the late 1960’s. While some of the most important and influential music was made with the help of psychoactive drugs, it was often to the detriment of the artist. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and countless other tremendously talented artists had their lives cut short due to drug use. Drugs were most often good for the music, but deadly for the music makers.
When the word "Woodstock" is mentioned, what do you think of? Perhaps you think of the little yellow bird from the Peanuts cartoons, or maybe you think of a small town in New York. However, you also might know that Woodstock was the largest and most famous of all rock festivals.
Captain Trips first played with Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions who became the Warlocks in 1965 and later became the “seminal ‘60s rock & roll band the Grateful Dead” for which Garcia is most known(“Jerry Garcia_”). Grateful Dead is a name that was randomly chosen from an open copy of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Each single gives a fair representation of what the rest of the album is like. While the album is definitely more blues than psychedelic, many of the songs have a few psychedelic touches, like the sitar-like sound in “Dance The Night Away”. The most psychedelic songs on the album are the singles “SWLABR” and “Tales Of Brave Ulysses”; The lyrics to “SWLABR” make little sense, and discuss a woman who is like a bearded rainbow, “You’ve got that rainbow feel but the rainbow has a beard”. “The Tale Of Ulysses” lyrics don’t make much sense either; they just describe a fantastical land with mermaids and Aphrodite. While the instruments used aren’t specifically psychedelic, the wah-wah guitar, fuzz box, electric guitar, and drums work well together to give each song a rocky psychedelic
The album The Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd was an album that pushed the boundaries on multi-tracking and tape looping, as well as mixing in1973. The engineer, Alan Parsons, use many unusual techniques to help create the sound that we know and love. Which landed the album on the charts for 750 weeks. Dark side of the moon was first lead engineering job Alan had with Pink Floyd and only took a year to record.
While Stevie Ray was establishing himself, in the late 70’s as a Blues guitar master his talent allowed him to transcend this genre bringing Blues music back into relevance in the American music scene. With his astonishingly accomplished guitar playing, Stevie Ray Vaughan ignited the blues revival of the '80s. (Erlewine 2014) Recreating a time in American music history that rivaled blues greatest blue musicians of the 1940’s and 50’s. Veteran blues artists Etta James, B.B. King and Buddy Guy directly attributed the mid-'80s revival of their previously ebbing careers to Stevie Ray. Stevie Ray played the guitar with the passion of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie often paid homage to his inspiration by recording covers of music legend Jimi Hendrix. Third Rock from the Sun and At the end of Stevie’s life the Hendrix song Voodoo Chile (Slight return) were signature songs that considered iconic to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s live music performance.