Folk rock came into being when Bob Dylan employed an electric backing band during the Newport Festival in 1965, and progressed as The Byrds succesfully melded it with the sounds of the British invasion.
Bands such as Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Poco followed in their wake, the echoes of whom can still be heard today in the music of R.E.M.
The Byrds own songwriting tended to veer towards the psychedelic, so ex-Byrd Gram Parsons took the music in a different direction with the Flying Burrito Brothers, creating country rock, a style which was not merely electrified country music but dealt with issues from the 1960's counter-culture.
Following Parsons' death in 1973 the sound was picked up by The Eagles, who jettisoned rebellion and moved toward a mainstream soft rock sound.
It was left to Bruce Springsteen to recapture the genre's gritty texture with his brand of hard-hitting blue collar rock, followed by Steve Earle, who has brought it right back to it's roots by powerfully melding a country sound with protest from the folk tradition.

{back}      {next}     {back to modern rock}