The British Invasion in Rock 'n Roll

On December 17, 1963, a radio station in Washington DC risked to air a track from a relatively unknown British band – What they didn’t expect though was the level of hysteria that it would generate among the listeners that almost all of the music stores in the area would soon be flooded with requests for a record they didn’t have in stock! The song was I want to hold your hand and the band comprised of four longhaired lads from Liverpool who called themselves The Beatles. In less than a month since the song was played, it reached number one on the US Billboard Charts and the resulting Beatlemania had the band actually tour in America soon thereafter. The British Invasion in Rock & Roll had just begun and it was soon to become one of the largest and most popular movements in rock history.

Genesis

The initial wave of American Rock & Roll had brought about the whole “rockability” theme into contemporary music of the time. It had a tremendous and liberating impact on the post-war world – but mostly on the island nation across the Atlantic called Great Britain.

Britain at the time was well placed for receiving the Rock & Roll culture from the United States – they shared the common language and also had exposure to the American culture during the war. Although the initial commercial attempts in Britain were to directly replicate the sounds that were coming from across the ocean, by the early 1960’s, British bands had begun to combine Rock & Roll with a working class mentality to give a completely new and groundbreaking sound to the genre.

The Top Ones

Before long bands from England were dominating the rock and roll scene in the US and also throughout the world. The popularity of The Beatles generated such an unprecedented interest in British music that a number of other UK acts, including the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Animals, The Kinks and The Yardbirds subsequently made their own American debuts, successfully touring over the next couple of years. The Yardbirds is particularly of note here for starting the careers of three of the most famous guitarists in rock - Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Clapton would later go on to form Cream, Beck to form his own band and Page to form the legendary Led Zeppelin.

The Style of Play

There were two distinct musical styles that the Brits successfully utilized in "conquering" the Yank charts: first were the "beat" bands (The Beatles, The Hollies, Herman's Hermits, Freddie and the Dreamers), essentially the first pop-rock bands, playing pop songs with a big, relentless beat. Then there were the Rhythm & Blues bands (The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Kinks), who practiced a raw, guitar-driven variant on American blues. Later years would see pioneering bands such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath push the boundaries in creating Progressive/Psychedelic Rock, Modern Hard Rock & Heavy Metal genres.

Legacy

The influence of the British Invasion upon the subsequent development of rock music cannot be overstated. The British Invasion made standard the model of the self-contained rock group (as opposed to the solo rock performer backed by anonymous stage or session musicians). The sound of the British Invasion led directly to developments such as acid rock, heavy metal, and progressive rock, and would also be echoed in the punk rock, power pop and New Wave movements of the 1970s and 80s.

P.S. This is an article that I wrote for an internal publication aimed at rock-enthusiasts at my workplace.