Folk-Rock

Folk-rock melds folk's lyrical urgency and topicality with the rhythm and noise of rock. Jangle pop architects the Byrds kickstarted folk-rock's mid-'60s heyday by applying the intensity of rock to folk material by Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. Dylan's own incendiary electric performances with the Band in '66 also pushed the merge of the two genres.

As the '60s wore on, folk-rock took on a variety of guises, from the urban lushness of Simon and Garfunkel to the California sprawl of the Mamas and the Papas and the ragged tension of Neil Young, each of whom sought to expand on the standard set by the Byrds and Dylan only a few years before. The folk-rock tradition continued into the '80s, as the second wave of jangle pop bands like R.E.M. and cult favorites Toad the Wet Sprocket revisited the folk-rock of the Byrds.