Turning Point

As the 1960s drew to their frenetic close, its music had reached an unavoidable turning point. When we look back at the music of that decade, it is truly mind blowing. Above all, it was the sheer number of great melodies, lyrics and songs. Obviously the Beatles and their output are synonymous with the time but there was a lot more besides. It is fair to say that the '60s style had been utterly saturated. There was therefore nowhere left to go with it and new directions were badly needed.
Of the ensuing genres which sprang out of that remarkable decade, the most obvious early form was the heavy metal arguably first prototyped by Jimmy Page with the New Yardbirds as they then were before their name change in late 1968 to the now legendary Led Zepellin. Out of this sprang a whole host of immitators from Deep Purple to Black Sabbath. Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic a musical shift was taking place which would transplant the musical centre from New York in the East to Los Angeles in the West. Springing out of the legacy of The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane and surprisingly, The Hollies, Crosby, Stills and Nash gave rise to a softer acoustic sound where intensely personal introspective lyrics reigned supreme. This movement would spawn James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne and would culminate in the biggest selling album of the 1970s with Hotel California by The Eagles. Back in Britain, Heavy Rock soon splintered to form Progressive Rock fronted by Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and the darlings of prog, Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I would argue that that Glam Rock sprang out of Prog Rock with David Bowie and Marc Bolan leading the way. Folk music had famously been given its impetus in this country by the Beatles signing up the unknown Mary Hopkins to their new Apple label. With Pentangle and Fairport Convention getting on board folk was a well established genre with a new impetus. I think punk rock grew out of the early pub rock of The Faces and, to a lesser extent, The Who. With apologies to any genres I may have inadvertently omitted, Motown had to evolve too and its legacy was undoubtedly disco. Disco was more of a phenomenon which, for a short period of about three years, dominated the music scene. If the Bee Gees were its white icons and Michael Jackson its Black male representative, there can be no doubt that Donna Summer was its queen. When "I feel love" first hit the charts in 1977, everything changed overnight. This one song was the template upon which the following three years would be based. Even if you play it today, it still has the wow factor. All songs which start a new genre have that. Communication Breakdown by Led Zepellin had the wow factor and you knew from the first few bars that something significant had happened.
Today is a sad day when I consider that Donna Summer has passed away at far too young an age and the music world is all the poorer for her passing but all the richer for her having been here.