50 Fun Facts About 60s Rock

Which garage rock hit by the Kingsmen did the FBI investigate in the 1960s, hunting for obscene lyrics?

Louie Louie was cleared when the FBI laboratory ruled the slurred vocal impossible to interpret. The real words are a lovesick sailor's lament about getting home to his girl.

Which folk duo hit number one in 1966 after a producer secretly added electric guitar and drums to an acoustic track?

Simon & Garfunkel had drifted apart after a flop debut album when producer Tom Wilson remixed The Sound of Silence. Simon, playing small clubs in Denmark, learned of the hit from a copy of Billboard.

Which guitarist ended his set at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival by setting his instrument on fire?

Jimi Hendrix set the guitar alight at the end of a 45-minute set. The trick was born in London months earlier, when a journalist urged him to outdo the instrument-smashing stage show of the Who.

Which songwriter was booed at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival after plugging in an electric guitar?

Bob Dylan played his first concert with electric instruments that night, backed by members of a Chicago blues band. Witnesses have long disagreed over whether the crowd booed the amplifiers or the poor sound and short set.

Which Beatle did a 1969 rumor claim had died in a car crash and been replaced by a look-alike?

Paul McCartney was said to have been swapped for the winner of a look-alike contest, with clues hidden on album covers. The craze faded after Life magazine printed an interview with him that November.

Which band, cast by television producers for a 1966 NBC sitcom, later fought to play on their own records?

The Monkees sang over session musicians on their first two albums, the second issued without their knowledge. After a brief power struggle they gained full control over their recordings in 1967.

Which singer revived his career with a 1968 NBC television special, performing in a black leather suit?

Elvis Presley had been steered into films and kept off the road by his manager for years. The network wanted a Christmas special, but the director built a raw concert for a younger audience instead.

Which English singer's label rushed out Space Oddity in July 1969 to cash in on the Apollo 11 mission?

David Bowie's single came out five days before Apollo 11 launched. The BBC then stopped playing the song, about an astronaut adrift, until the crew were safely home.

Which London band got the distorted guitar sound of You Really Got Me from a speaker sliced with a razor blade?

The Kinks' lead guitarist cut up the speaker cone of his little Elpico amp out of frustration and loved the growl it made. The 1964 riff went on to shape heavy metal and punk.

Which Beatles album cover shows the band walking across a zebra crossing outside their London studio?

Abbey Road's cover was shot in ten minutes while a policeman held up the traffic. The building, then called EMI Studios, took the album's name in 1976.

Which Sunday night variety hour drew 73 million viewers for the Beatles' first live American TV performance in 1964?

The Ed Sullivan Show normally drew about 21 million viewers, so the audience more than tripled that night. It was a record for American television that stood for three years.

Which producer, often called the fifth Beatle, made comedy records before signing the band to Parlophone?

George Martin ran EMI's Parlophone label, where his acts included Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. He went on to work closely on every one of the Beatles' original albums.

Which string instrument did George Harrison play on Norwegian Wood in 1965, a first for a Western rock record?

The sitar first crossed Harrison's path in April 1965 on the set of the Beatles film Help!. John Lennon then asked him to add it to the song.

Which Rolling Stones founder drowned in his swimming pool in July 1969, weeks after leaving the band?

Brian Jones had been dismissed less than a month earlier from the group he helped to start. His Sussex farmhouse had once been the home of A. A. Milne, the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Which 1968 Beatles single ran for over seven minutes and ends with a singalong coda lasting four of them?

Hey Jude began as a song to comfort John Lennon's five-year-old son Julian while his parents were splitting up. It was the longest single to top the British charts up to that time.

Which Texas-born singer shot to fame at Monterey in 1967 fronting Big Brother and the Holding Company?

Janis Joplin grew up in the Gulf Coast town of Port Arthur. Her San Francisco band was little known before the festival, and the concert film that followed helped launch her as a star.

Which hard rock band, first billed as the New Yardbirds, did guitarist Jimmy Page put together in 1968?

Led Zeppelin had to drop the old name after a former bandmate sent a cease and desist letter. The new one is said to come from a joke that the group would go down like a lead balloon.

Which Los Angeles band took its name from the title of an Aldous Huxley book on psychedelic experience?

The Doors borrowed their name from The Doors of Perception, a title Huxley had himself taken from a line by the poet William Blake.

Which 1969 rock opera tells of a deaf, dumb and blind boy who becomes a spiritual leader?

Tommy gained its best-known song late in the sessions, when Pinball Wizard was written to win a kind review from a critic who loved pinball.

Which pop artist managed the Velvet Underground and designed the banana on the cover of their 1967 debut album?

Andy Warhol made the band the house act at his studio, the Factory, and helped pay for the recording sessions. Early copies of the sleeve let buyers peel the banana's skin off as a sticker.

Which group guarded the stage at the Rolling Stones' free Altamont concert, which ended in a fatal stabbing?

Hells Angels were asked to ring the low stage and, by some accounts, were paid with $500 worth of beer. Meredith Hunter, 18, was killed in a scuffle with them during the Stones' set.

Which 1966 Beach Boys album did Brian Wilson create as his answer to the Beatles' Rubber Soul?

Pet Sounds closes with Wilson's own dogs barking as a train goes by. He had told his wife he would make the greatest rock album ever, after Rubber Soul struck him as a record with no filler.

Which 1966 Beach Boys single took seven months and four Hollywood studios to record?

Good Vibrations used up more than 90 hours of tape over about 20 sessions, when most pop singles took two days. Its eerie whistling line comes from an Electro-Theremin, played by the instrument's inventor.

Which guitarist of the Yardbirds and Cream was hailed as God in graffiti sprayed on a London wall in the 1960s?

Eric Clapton earned the tribute from an unknown admirer in Islington after his spells with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. His nickname Slowhand was a pun on the slow handclaps he drew while changing a broken string.

Which English band topped the British and American charts in 1964 with The House of the Rising Sun?

The Animals recorded the song in a single take in May 1964. A traditional folk ballad played by an electric band, it has been described as the first folk rock hit.

Which Los Angeles band popularized folk rock in 1965 with a jangling twelve-string cover of Mr. Tambourine Man?

The Byrds mostly just sang on their debut single: only Roger McGuinn played, on a Rickenbacker, beside the hired Los Angeles session players known as the Wrecking Crew.

Which band led by John Fogerty sang of bayous and the Mississippi despite coming from the San Francisco Bay Area?

Creedence Clearwater Revival knew the South mostly second-hand: its members met at junior high in El Cerrito, California. They spent years as the Golliwogs, a name they hated from the start.

Which singer quit the Great Society in 1966 for Jefferson Airplane, taking White Rabbit and Somebody to Love with her?

Grace Slick was asked to join when the Airplane's first singer left to raise her child. She said she switched because the new band was run in a professional manner, unlike her old one.

Which San Francisco band, first called the Warlocks, became the house band at Ken Kesey's Acid Tests in 1965?

Grateful Dead was a phrase Jerry Garcia picked out of a dictionary after the band learned that another group called the Warlocks had already put out a record.

Which London band released The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, then lost songwriter Syd Barrett to mental illness?

Pink Floyd got its name from two bluesmen in Barrett's record collection, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Barrett left the group in 1968 as his mental health declined.

Which 1969 film starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper made a lasting anthem of Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild?

Easy Rider tied the song to bikers for good, even though its words never mention a motorcycle. Steppenwolf had taken their own name from a Hermann Hesse novel.

Which San Francisco neighborhood was the heart of the 1967 Summer of Love and its psychedelic rock scene?

Haight-Ashbury was home ground for bands such as Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company. That October, residents staged a mock funeral in a local park to mark the death of the hippie.

Which drummer of the Who had a bass drum packed with gunpowder for a 1967 American television appearance?

Keith Moon bribed a stagehand on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, who used about ten times the standard charge. Offstage, his favourite stunt was blowing up hotel toilets with fireworks.

Which band did guitarist Peter Green form in London in 1967, naming it after his chosen drummer and bassist?

Fleetwood Mac was named to tempt bassist John McVie, who at first kept his steady job with John Mayall. The early blues line-up later topped the UK chart with the instrumental Albatross.

Which 1963 surf instrumental by the Surfaris opens with a cracking noise, a manic laugh and a famous drum solo?

Wipe Out was written almost on the spot when the band needed a B-side. The opening crack imitates a surfboard breaking, and the title is surfing slang for a painful fall.

Which Chicago bluesman's song Rollin' Stone gave the Rolling Stones their name in 1962?

A Muddy Waters LP happened to be lying nearby when a journalist asked what the new group was called, and one of its track titles supplied the answer. Their first billed show was at London's Marquee Club that July.

Which British band, fronted by flute player Ian Anderson, is named after an eighteenth-century pioneer of farming?

Jethro Tull got the name from a history enthusiast on their booking agent's staff, who kept supplying new aliases for the struggling group. Anderson had been playing the flute for only a few weeks.

Which California band filled a whole album side in 1968 with the seventeen-minute In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida?

Iron Butterfly's title is a slurred phrase about the Garden of Eden, written down just as the drummer heard it from the tipsy singer. Radio stations played a cut lasting under three minutes.

Which Liverpool venue, opened for jazz in a fruit warehouse's basement, hosted the Beatles 292 times before 1964?

The Cavern Club was modelled on the cellar jazz haunts of Paris, in a basement that had been a wartime air raid shelter. The Beatles played their last set there in August 1963.

Which band featuring guitarist Robert Fripp released a 1969 debut often called the first true progressive rock album?

King Crimson had played to a vast Hyde Park crowd that July as support for the Rolling Stones. The album that followed mixed rock with jazz, classical and symphonic music.

Which English band's 1968 album Odessey and Oracle has a misspelled title thanks to its cover designer?

The Zombies tried to pass the spelling off as deliberate. They had already split up by the time the album's Time of the Season became a surprise American hit in 1969.

Which Texas band, featuring an amplified whiskey jug, was the first to call its own music psychedelic rock?

The 13th Floor Elevators printed the term on a business card in January 1966, and it was probably coined by their jug player, Tommy Hall.

Which future solo star sang lead on Truth, the Jeff Beck Group's 1968 album hailed as an early heavy metal record?

Rod Stewart reached a wide audience for the first time through the album, as did his bandmate Ronnie Wood, who played bass. It climbed to number 15 on the American albums chart.

Which keyboard instrument produced the flute sound that opens the Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever?

The Mellotron plays a strip of recorded tape for every key pressed. The Moody Blues bought theirs second-hand from a working men's club in Birmingham.

Which teenage singer powered the Spencer Davis Group's Gimme Some Lovin' before forming Traffic in 1967?

Steve Winwood joined the group in 1963 alongside his older brother Muff, who played bass. He co-wrote Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm a Man before leaving in April 1967.

Which Detroit band recorded its 1969 debut album Kick Out the Jams live at the Grande Ballroom?

The MC5 taped the album over two nights in October 1968. A Detroit department store chain refused to stock it, and the row grew until the shops dropped every album on the band's record label.

Which London band's Glad All Over knocked the Beatles off the top of the UK chart in January 1964?

The Dave Clark Five were promoted as the Tottenham Sound, north London's loud answer to Merseybeat. The band was named after its drummer, who also led the group and produced its records.

Which guitarist, billed as the King of the Surf Guitar, recorded the 1962 Misirlou later used in Pulp Fiction?

Dick Dale was left-handed and played a right-handed guitar upside down without restringing it. He worked with Leo Fender on the first 100-watt guitar amplifier.

Which Michigan singer fronted the Stooges on their 1969 debut album, later hailed as a forerunner of punk rock?

Iggy Pop was credited on that first album as Iggy Stooge. The nickname dated from his days drumming in a high school band called the Iguanas.

Which New York ballpark hosted the Beatles in August 1965 before 55,600 fans, their biggest crowd yet?

Shea Stadium put the band in the visiting baseball team's locker room after a helicopter ride from Manhattan. A fifty-minute documentary of the concert captured the build-up as well as the show.