Music Throughout the Ages

The sixties were about experimentation. Younger generations soon began to rebel against the conservative norms of the time, as well as disassociate themselves from mainstream liberalism, in particular they turned away from the high levels of materialism which was so common during the era. This created a counter-culture that eventually turned into a social revolution throughout much of the western world. In turn, music became an avenue to which revolutionary messages could be heard by millions of people, all at the same time.

Messages In Music

Simon & Garfunkel are an American singer-songwriter duo of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. They are well known for their close harmonies and sometimes unstable relationship. In 1963 they found prominence as part of the Greenwich Village folk music scene. Simon, who had finished college but dropped out of Brooklyn Law School, had—like Garfunkel—developed an interest in the folk scene. Simon showed Garfunkel a few songs that he had written in the folk style: “Sparrow”, “Bleecker Street”, and “He Was My Brother”—which was later dedicated to Andrew Goodman, a friend of both Simon and Garfunkel and a classmate of Simon’s at Queens College, who was one of three civil rights workers murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, on June 21, 1964.

While Simon was in England the summer of 1965, radio stations around Cocoa Beach and Gainesville, Florida, began to receive requests for a song from the album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. called “The Sounds of Silence”. The song also began to receive radio airplay in Boston. Seizing the chance, the duo’s U.S. producer, Tom Wilson, inspired by The Byrds’ hugely popular electric versions of Bob Dylan songs, used the studio band of Bob Dylan (who had collaborated with him on his landmark hit Like a Rolling Stone that year) to dub electric guitars, bass and drums onto the original “Sounds of Silence” track, and released it as a single, backed with “We’ve Got a Groovy Thing Goin’”. The dubbing turned folk into folk rock, the debut of a new genre for the Top 40, much to Simon’s surprise.

They released “I Am a Rock” as a single in the late spring of 1966, and the song reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, the third single (chronologically) by Simon & Garfunkel to reach the top 5 (after “The Sound of Silence” and “Homeward Bound”). “I Am a Rock” was the fifth and closing track on Side 2 of the record. With “The Sound of Silence” (the opening track), it bookends the rest of the material. This album quickly capitalized on the success of the new album’s title track as a #1 single, and itself rose to #21 on the Billboard charts.

Further hit singles came, including “Scarborough Fair/Canticle”, based on a traditional English ballad with an arrangement by Martin Carthy, and “Homeward Bound” (later U.S. #5), about life on the road while Simon was touring in England in 1965. More tracks from The Paul Simon Songbook were included with recent compositions on their October 10, 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, which refined the folk rock sound hastily released on Sounds of Silence.

That same year, Simon and Garfunkel contributed heavily to the soundtrack to Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate, which was released on January 21, 1968, and instantly rose to #1 as an album. According to a Variety article by Peter Bart in the May 15, 2005 issue, Nichols had become obsessed with Simon and Garfunkel’s music while shooting the film. Larry Turman, his producer, made a deal for Simon to write three new songs for the movie. By the time they were nearly finished editing the film, Simon had only written one new song. Nichols begged him for more but Simon, who was touring constantly, told him he didn’t have the time. He did play him a few notes of a new song he had been working on; “It’s not for the movie… it’s a song about times past — about Mrs. Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio and stuff.” Nichols advised Simon, “It’s now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt.”

As their albums became progressively more adventurous, The Graduate Original Soundtrack was immediately followed in March 1968 at the top of the charts by Bookends, which dealt with increasingly complex themes of old age and loss. It features the top-25 hit singles “A Hazy Shade of Winter”, “Fakin’ It”, “At the Zoo”, “America”, and a full version of “Mrs. Robinson”, the classic from the Graduate soundtrack, which became #1 as a single. At the March 1969 Grammy Awards, “Mrs. Robinson” was named Record of the Year, while Simon was also honored with the Grammy for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special.

The Album ‘Bridge over Troubled Water” was at last released on January 26, 1970. Its title track, featuring Garfunkel’s soaring vocals, was a massive hit and one of the best-selling records of the decade, staying #1 on the charts for six weeks and remaining on the charts for far longer. The album includes three other top-twenty hits: “El Cóndor Pasa” (US #18), “Cecilia” (US #4), and “The Boxer”—which, finished in 1968, hit #7 on the charts the following year. But then women also wanted to be heard.

One Woman’s Voice

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943–October 4, 1970) was an American singer, songwriter, and music arranger, from Port Arthur, Texas. As a teenager, she befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by African-American blues artists Bessie Smith and Leadbelly, whom Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer.

Cultivating a rebellious manner, Joplin styled herself in part after her female blues heroines and, in part, after the Beat poets. Her very first song recorded on tape, at the home of a fellow student in December 1962, was “What Good Can Drinkin’ Do”. In 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, further accompanied by Margareta Kaukonen on typewriter (as percussion instrument). This session included seven tracks: “Typewriter Talk,” “Trouble In Mind,” “Kansas City Blues,” “Hesitation Blues,” “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out,” “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” and “Long Black Train Blues,” and was later released as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.

In 1966, Joplin’s bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the psychedelic band Big Brother and The Holding Company, a band that had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, British Columbia, the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.

Big Brother’s second album, Cheap Thrills, featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb. Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it was mostly “live,” only one track (”Ball and Chain”) was actually recorded live; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a cocktail glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song “Turtle Blues.” With the documentary film Monterey Pop released in late 1968, the album launched Joplin’s successful, albeit short, musical career. Cheap Thrills gave the band a breakthrough hit single, “Piece of My Heart,” which reached the number one spot on the Billboard charts eight weeks after its release, remaining for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release.

Time magazine called Joplin “probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement,” and Richard Goldstein, in Vogue magazine, wrote that Joplin was “the most staggering leading woman in rock… she slinks like tar, scowls like war… clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave… Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener.”

Joplin rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist. Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. Among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum Exhibition are Joplin’s scarf and necklaces, her 1965 Cabriolet Porsche with psychedelically designed painting, and an acid sheet designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Vocal R&B groups also began to take shape in the sixties. Laying the foundation for future singing groups to come.

The Temptations

The Temptations, (”The Tempts”) are a Grammy-winning vocal group that achieved fame as one of the most successful acts to record for Motown Records. Formed in Detroit, Michigan in 1960 as The Elgins, the Temptations have always featured at least five African American male vocalists/dancers.

The original group included members of two local Detroit vocal groups: The Distants, which featured second tenor/baritone Otis Williams, first tenor Elbridge “Al” Bryant and bass Melvin Franklin; and first tenor/falsetto Eddie Kendricks and second tenor/baritone Paul Williams (no relation to Otis) from The Primes. Among the most notable future Temptations were lead singers David Ruffin and Dennis Edwards.

Many songwriter and producer teams had been trying to craft a hit for the Temptations, including Berry Gordy, Mickey Stevenson, Clarence Paul, and Norman Whitfield. They tried to take the group in several different directions, all in order to find the perfect sound that would put them not only on the U.S. charts (both Pop & R&B), but in the Top 20 as well. One song “Isn’t She Pretty” had all five members signing lead (and mainly showcased the lead vocals of ‘Al’ Bryant); it was a precursor to the multi-lead songs the group would record in the late 60’s.

Miracles lead singer/songwriter/producer Smokey Robinson produced his first Temptations single, the Paul Williams-led “I Want a Love I Can See”, in 1963, and proved to have the best rapport with the group. n January 1964, Smokey Robinson and Miracles bandmate Bobby Rogers co-wrote and produced “The Way You Do the Things You Do” with Eddie Kendricks on lead. The single became the Temptations’ first Top 20 hit that April. “The Way You Do The Things You Do” and several pre-David Ruffin singles were compiled onto the group’s first album, Meet The Temptations, released in 1964. While traveling as part of Motown’s Motortown Revue later that year Robinson and another fellow Miracle, Ronnie White, wrote a song for the emotive Ruffin to sing lead on, which the group recorded in the fall of 1964. Released as a single on December 24, 1964, “My Girl”, became the Temptations’ first number-one pop hit in March 1965, and is their signature song to this day.

After the success of “My Girl”, Ruffin sang lead on the next three Temptations singles: “It’s Growing”, “Since I Lost My Baby” and “My Baby”, all of which made it to the Top 20 in 1965. Norman Whitfield had requested the opportunity to write for the group. In 1966, he was given the opportunity- should Robinson’s “Get Ready” fail to chart in the Top 20, the next song would be his.

“Get Ready” missed the mark, and Whitfield’s “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” was released. The song did well, and Whitfield was made the group’s main producer. He began pushing the group away from Robinson’s ballad-based production towards a harder-edged and brass-heavy soul sound reminiscent of the work of James Brown.

Nearly all of the pre-1968 Whitfield-produced Temptations singles featured David Ruffin on lead vocals, including the R&B number-one/pop Top 10 hits “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep” and “(I Know) I’m Losing You”. Other important singles from this period included the incredibly popular, “You’re My Everything”, on which Kendricks and Ruffin share lead vocals, and “All I Need”, produced by Whitfield’s protégé Frank Wilson.

Barrett Strong (who sang Motown’s very first hit, 1960’s “Money (That’s What I Want)”) began working with Whitfield and Penzabene on Temptations material. Two of Whitfield/Strong/Penzabene’s collaborations, “I Wish It Would Rain” and “I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)”, became hits in 1968.

Between 1964 and 1968, the Temptations went from unknown hopefuls to international stars. The group appeared frequently on television shows such as American Bandstand and The Ed Sullivan Show, and catered to middle America with a pop standards album (The Temptations in a Mellow Mood, 1967) and performances at the Copacabana in New York City and other such supper clubs.

Dennis Edwards, formerly of the Contours, was hired to replace David Ruffin in 1968. Dennis Edwards’ addition to the Temptations coincided with producer Norman Whitfield’s adoption of a new sound for the group. In the fall of 1968, Whitfield began producing psychedelic-based material for the Temptations, derived primarily from the sound of funk band Sly & the Family Stone.

This new style, which debuted with the Top 10 hit single “Cloud Nine” in October 1968, was a marked departure from the David Ruffin-era ballads. The instrumentation was funkier, the beat was hard-driving, and all five Temptations traded lead vocals, similar to Sly & the Family Stone. “Cloud Nine”, the centerpiece of the group’s landmark ‘Cloud Nine’ LP, was a Top 10 hit and won Motown its first Grammy Award, for Best R&B Vocal Group Performance of 1969.

Eddie Kendricks was uncomfortable with the psychedelic soul material the group was now performing, preferring the ballad material from the earlier days. Kendricks rekindled his friendship with David Ruffin, who persuaded him to quit the Temptations and go solo. Before Kendricks officially left the Temptations, he and Paul Williams recorded the lead vocals for “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)”, a lush, wistful ballad that became Kendricks’ Temptations swan song. Released as a single in January 1971, “Just My Imagination” began steadily climbing the U.S. pop singles chart.

The group’s repertoire has included, at various times during its five-decade career, R&B, doo-wop, funk, disco, soul, and adult contemporary music. The group, known for its recognizable choreography, distinct harmonies, and onstage suits, has been said to be as influential to soul as the Beatles are to rock. Having sold an estimated 22 million albums by 1982, The Temptations are one of the most successful groups in music history and were the definitive male vocal group of the 1960s.

In addition, they have the second-longest tenure on Motown (behind Stevie Wonder), as they were with the label for a total of 40 years: 16 years from 1961 to 1977, and 24 more from 1980 to 2004 (from 1977 to 1980, they were signed to Atlantic Records). As of 2007, the Temptations continue to perform and record for Universal Records with only one original member, founder Otis Williams, in its lineup.

The Supremes

The Supremes were an American female singing group that formed in Detroid, Michigan in 1959. The group signed as a quartet with Motown in 1961 but carried on as a trio in 1962 with members Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard.

In 1958, Florence Ballard—a junior-high student who lived in the Detroit Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects—met Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, two members of a Detroit male singing group known as The Primes. Since Ballard sang, as did Paul Williams’ girlfriend Betty McGlown, the Primes’ manager Milton Jenkins decided to create a sister group called The Primettes. Ballard recruited her best friend Mary Wilson, who in turn recruited classmate Diana Ross. The Primettes began by performing songs by artists such as Ray Charles and The Drifters at sock hops, social clubs, and talent shows around the Detroit area.

Between 1961 and 1963, The Supremes released eight singles, none of which charted in the Top 40 positions of the Billboard Hot 100. Jokingly referred to as the “no-hit Supremes” around Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A. offices, the group attempted to compensate for their lack of hits by taking on any work available at the studio, including providing hand claps and singing backup for Motown artists such as Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. During these years, all three members took turns singing lead: Wilson favored soft ballads; Ballard the soulful, hard-driving songs; and Ross more mainstream pop songs.

In late 1963, Berry Gordy made Diane Ross, now going by Diana, the official lead singer of the group, because he felt her distinctive, nasal quality would help the group cross over to white audiences. The Supremes recorded the single “Where Did Our Love Go” in the spring of 1964. In August 1964, while traveling as part of Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars tour, “Where Did Our Love Go” reached number one on the US pop charts, much to the surprise and delight of the group.It was also their first song to appear on the UK pop charts, where it reached number three.

“Where Did Our Love Go” was followed by four more US number-one hits: “Baby Love”—also a number-one hit in the UK—”Come See About Me”, “Stop! In the Name of Love” and “Back in My Arms Again”.”Baby Love” was nominated for the 1965 Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording, and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” was awarded the 1966 Grammy for Best Pop single.

The Supremes became the first black female performers of the rock era to embrace a more feminine image. Much of this was accomplished at the behest of Motown chief Berry Gordy and Maxine Powell, who ran Motown’s in-house finishing school and Artist Development department. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Ross sang in a thin, calm voice, and her vocal styling was matched by having the girls embellish their own femininity instead of imitating the qualities of male groups. Instead of the plain appearances and basic dance routines, The Supremes’ on-stage appearance featured high-fashion gowns and wigs, detailed makeup, and graceful choreography created by Motown choreographer Cholly Atkins.

Gordy wanted The Supremes, like all of his performers, to be equally appealing to black and white audiences, and he also sought to erase the image of black performers as being unrefined or lacking class. The Supremes were international stars by 1965. They toured the world, becoming almost as popular abroad as they were in the US. By the end of 1966, their number-one hits included “I Hear a Symphony”, “You Can’t Hurry Love”, and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”; and their 1966 album The Supremes A’ Go-Go became the first album by an all-female group to reach number one on the US Billboard 200.

The Supremes were among the first black musical acts to become a complete and sustained crossover success. The black rock and roll musicians of the 1950s saw many of their hit tunes covered by white musicians, with the covers achieving more fame and sales success than the originals. Partially because of Diana Ross’ pop-friendly voice, The Supremes became extremely popular with international mainstream audiences. The group broke down racial barriers, becoming one of the first black musical acts to appear regularly on television programs such as Hullabaloo, The Hollywood Palace, The Della Reese Show, and, most notably, The Ed Sullivan Show; between December 1964 and December 1969, Sullivan featured The Supremes 14 times. The group’s crossover success helped pave the way for the mainstream success of label mates such as The Temptations, The Four Tops and The Jackson 5.

Three of their songs – “Where Did Our Love Go” and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (both 1999) and “Stop! In the Name of Love” (2001) – have been named to the Grammy Hall of Fame. The group’ songs “Stop! In the Name of Love” and “You Can’t Hurry Love” are among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and entered into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed the group at number 97 on their list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”.