Pop Music Muse 3/25/2022: The “Meat and Potatoes” of Rock

Let’s talk about what I call the meat and potatoes of rock and roll—a style that permeated the sixties. We’ll call it garage band rock: music made by groups of band musicians who often rehearsed in their garage and often created a hit or two locally, regionally, and if lucky nationally. Instruments needed? A couple of guitars, a bass, maybe a sax, and some keyboards, usually an organ. Add to that some aggressive or unsophisticated lyrics along with a basic simple chord structure, and you have a composition that defines the youth culture from the late fifties up to about 1968. The best example is by a group known as The Kingsmen in 1963.

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