folk rock

Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers such as Bob Dylan and the Byrds—several of whose members had earlier played in folk ensembles—attempted to blend the sounds of rock with their pre-existing folk repertoire, adopting the use of electric instrumentation and drums in a way previously discouraged in the U.S. folk community. The term "folk rock" was initially used in the U.S. music press in June 1965 to describe the Byrds' music.

Although British rock band the Animals had released an electric version of "The House of the Rising Sun" in the U.S. in August 1964 —which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and stayed there for three weeks, selling over a million copies in just five weeks in the U.S., and inspiring Dylan to record with an electric band—it was ultimately the commercial success of the Byrds' cover version of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and their debut album of the same name, along with Dylan's own recordings with rock instrumentation—on the albums Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), and Blonde on Blonde (1966)—that encouraged other folk acts, such as Simon & Garfunkel, to use electric backing on their records, and led to the formation of groups such as Buffalo Springfield. Dylan's controversial appearance at the Newport Folk Festival on 25 July 1965, where he was backed by an electric band, was also a pivotal moment in the development of the genre.