Editing Folk rock (section)

===The Beatles and the British Invasion===
{{See also|British Invasion}}

{{quote box|width=23em|align=left|They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid. You could only do that with other musicians. Even if you're playing your own chords you had to have other people playing with you. That was obvious. And it started me thinking about other people.|—Bob Dylan reflecting on how the Beatles influenced his decision to record with an electric backing band<ref>{{cite book|author=Scaduto, Anthony.|author-link=Anthony Scaduto|page=175|year=1971|title=Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography|publisher=Grosset & Dunlap}}</ref>}}
Beginning in 1964 and lasting until roughly 1966, a wave of British [[Beat music|beat]] groups, including [[the Beatles]], [[the Rolling Stones]], [[the Dave Clark Five]], [[Gerry & the Pacemakers]], [[the Kinks]], and [[Herman's Hermits]] amongst others, dominated the U.S. music charts.<ref name="allmusic8">{{cite web|title=British Invasion Overview|website=[[AllMusic]]|url={{AllMusic|class=explore|id=style/d11929|pure_url=yes}}|access-date=9 April 2010}}</ref><ref name="inglis">{{cite book|author=Inglis, Ian.|page=[https://archive.org/details/beatlespopularmu0000unse/page/53 53]|year=2000|title=The Beatles, Popular Music and Society: A Thousand Voices|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=0-312-22236-X|url=https://archive.org/details/beatlespopularmu0000unse/page/53}}</ref> These groups were all heavily influenced by American [[Rock and roll|rock 'n' roll]], [[blues]], and [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]]—musical genres they had been introduced to via homegrown British rock 'n' roll singers, imported American [[Gramophone record|records]], and the music of the [[skiffle]] craze.<ref name="allmusic8"/><ref name="allmusic9">{{cite web|title=British Invasion Essay|website=[[AllMusic]]|url=https://www.allmusic.com/explore/essay/|access-date=10 April 2010|archive-date=13 November 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101113053923/http://allmusic.com/explore/essay|url-status=dead}}</ref> These UK groups, known collectively as the [[British Invasion]], reintroduced American youth culture to the broad potential of rock and [[pop music]] as a creative medium and to the wealth of musical culture to be found within the United States.

Of particular importance to the development of folk rock by the British Invasion were the subtle folk influences evident in such Beatles' compositions as "[[I'll Be Back (song)|I'll Be Back]]", "[[Things We Said Today]]", and "[[I'm a Loser]]",<ref name="turn4">{{cite book|author=Unterberger, Richie.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/turnturnturn00rich/page/88 88–90]|year=2002|title=Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution|publisher=Backbeat Books|isbn=0-87930-703-X|url=https://archive.org/details/turnturnturn00rich/page/88}}</ref> with the latter song being directly inspired by folk singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.<ref>{{cite book|author=MacDonald, Ian.|pages=97–98|year=1995|title=Revolution in the Head|publisher=Pimlico|isbn=0-7126-6208-1}}</ref> In the opinion of [[Roger McGuinn]] of the Byrds, writers who attempt to define the origins of folk rock "don't realise that the Beatles were responsible as far back as 1963". He cites "[[She Loves You]]" as one of the first examples where the Beatles introduced folk chord changes into rock music and so initiated the new genre.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Alexander|first=Phil|title=The 101 Greatest Beatles Songs|magazine=[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]]|date=July 2006|pages=92–93|display-authors=etal}}</ref> These songs were all influential in providing a template for successfully assimilating folk-based [[chord progression]]s and [[Melody (music)|melodies]] into pop music. This melding of folk and rock 'n' roll in the Beatles' music became even more explicit during 1965, with the release of "[[You've Got to Hide Your Love Away]]", a folk-derived song with introspective lyrics, again influenced by Dylan.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Frith|first1=Simon|first2=Will|last2=Straw|first3=John|last3=Street|page=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00frit/page/119 119]|year=2001|title=The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock|url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00frit|url-access=registration|series=[[Cambridge Companions to Music]]|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-55660-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=MacDonald, Ian.|page=118|year=1995|title=Revolution in the Head|publisher=Pimlico|isbn=0-7126-6208-1}}</ref> Although the Beatles themselves utilized folk as just one of many styles evident in their music, the underlying folk influences in a number of their songs would prove to be important to folk rock musicians attempting to blend their own folk influences with [[beat music]].

{{Listen |filename=Beatles loser.ogg|title=I'm a Loser|description=The subtle folk influences evident in such Beatles' songs as "[[I'm a Loser]]" were important in demonstrating how folk-based [[chord progression]]s and [[Melody (music)|melodies]] could be to assimilated into pop music.|filename2=Beatles hide your love away.ogg|title2=You've Got to Hide Your Love Away|description2=The use of folk influences in the Beatles' music became even more explicit during 1965, with the release of "[[You've Got to Hide Your Love Away]]".}}

The effect that the music of these British bands, and the Beatles in particular, had on young Americans was immediate; almost overnight, folk—along with many other forms of homegrown music—became passé for a large proportion of America's youth, who instead turned their attention to the influx of British acts.<ref name="allmusic9" /><ref name="turn2">{{cite book|title=Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution|author=Unterberger, Richie.|publisher=Backbeat Books|year=2002|isbn=0-87930-703-X|pages=[https://archive.org/details/turnturnturn00rich/page/63 63–66]|url=https://archive.org/details/turnturnturn00rich/page/63}}</ref> The influence of these acts also impacted on the collegiate folk and urban folk communities, with many young musicians quickly losing interest in folk music and instead embracing the rock 'n' roll derived repertoire of the British Invasion.<ref name="turn2" /> Future members of many folk rock acts, including the Byrds, [[Jefferson Airplane]], the Lovin' Spoonful, [[the Mamas & the Papas]], and Buffalo Springfield, all turned their backs on traditional folk music during 1964 and 1965 as a direct result of the influence of the Beatles and the other British Invasion bands. Author and music historian [[Richie Unterberger]] has noted that the Beatles' impact on American popular culture effectively sounded the death knell for the [[American folk music revival]].<ref name="turn2" />

In addition to The Beatles, the two British groups that were arguably the most influential on the development of folk rock were [[the Animals]] and [[The Searchers (band)|the Searchers]]. The Animals released a rock interpretation of the traditional folk song "[[The House of the Rising Sun]]" in the U.S. in August 1964. The song reached number 1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 singles chart and stayed there for three weeks, selling over a million copies in just five weeks in the U.S.<ref>{{cite web|title=House of the Rising Sun – The History and the Song|date=28 July 2006 |publisher=[[BBC]]|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A12460772|access-date=2 May 2010}}</ref> The band's [[arrangement]] of "The House of the Rising Sun", which transmuted the song from an [[Acoustic guitar|acoustic]] folk lament to a full-bore [[Electric instrument|electric]] rock song, would go on to influence many folk rock acts but none more so than Dylan himself, who cited it as a key factor in his decision to record and perform with an electric rock band in 1965.<ref name="turn3">{{cite book|author=Unterberger, Richie.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/turnturnturn00rich/page/93 93–96]|year=2002|title=Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution|publisher=Backbeat Books|isbn=0-87930-703-X|url=https://archive.org/details/turnturnturn00rich/page/93}}</ref>

====Electric Twelve-String Guitar in Folk Music====
The Searchers were influential in popularizing the jangly sound of the [[Electric guitar|electric]] [[twelve-string guitar]].<ref name="Brinn (Searchers)">{{cite web|last1=Brinn|first1=David|title=The Searchers Still on 'Needles and Pins'|url=http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Culture/The-Searchers-still-on-needles-and-pins-462767|website=The Jerusalem Post|access-date=26 February 2018|date=30 July 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=chj91X0dWzUC&pg=PA160|page=160|author=Scott Schinder|title=Icons of Rock|publisher=ABC-CLIO|date= 30 December 2007|isbn=9780313338458}}</ref> Many musicians in the collegiate and urban folk movements were already familiar with acoustic twelve-string guitars via the music of folk and blues singer Lead Belly. However, the Searchers' use of amplified twelve-strings provided another example of how conventional folk elements could be incorporated into rock music to produce new and exciting sounds. The Beatles' [[lead guitar]]ist, [[George Harrison]], also influenced this trend towards jangly guitars in folk rock with his use of a [[Rickenbacker]] twelve-string guitar on the Beatles' mid-1960s recordings. This relatively clean, jangly sound—without [[Distortion (music)|distortion]] or other [[Effects unit|guitar effects]]—became a cornerstone of folk rock instrumentation and was used in many American folk rock [[Gramophone record|records]] made during 1965 and 1966.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}}