Timeline of trends in music from the United States (1930-1970)
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1930s
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1930 in music
- Led by musicians like Sol Hoopii, Hawaiian steel guitar folk music's popularity in the United States becomes widespread, influencing country music, the country blues and other genres
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1931 in music
- Gene Autry's "Silver Haired Daddy of Mine" popularizes honky tonk music
- Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington have begun recording swing
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1932 in music
- Folklorists John and Alan Lomax begin their series of influential folk music recordings for the Library of Congress; most importantly, they record Woody Guthrie
- Thomas Dorsey's "Precious Lord" revolutionizes gospel music and founds a Chicago-based scene for the genre
- Western swing evolves, due to the work of Bob Wills and Milton Brown
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1933 in music
- Rumba begins to enter the American mainstream
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1934 in music
- John and Alan Lomax discover a precursor to rock and roll while recording gospel music in the South
- Bill Monroe's "Kentucky Waltz" begins popularizing bluegrass music
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1935 in music
- The unprecedented success of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller and Count Basie marks the peak of mainstream commercial emergence of swing, jazz and big band music
- Woody Guthrie writes The Dust Bowl Ballads, becoming the first in the American singer-songwriter tradition
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1936 in music
- Artists like Robert Johnson, Charley Patton and Son House innovate what comes to be known as Delta blues
- Close harmony brother duets are popular; these include the Delmore Brothers and Blue Sky Boys
- Roy Acuff leads the developing Nashville Sound in country music
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1937 in music
- The Golden Gate Quartet reaches the peak of their popularity; they are the first major gospel group
- Big bands dominate American popular music
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1938 in music
- Slovenian-American Frankie Yankovich begins his recording career; he will become the king of polka for most of the 20th century
- Boogie woogie breaks into the mainstream with the success of Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Pete Johnson
- Bill Monroe forms the Blue Grass Boys, creating a fusion of Appalachian folk music with blues, polka and other genres from around the world
- O. C. Cash founds SPEBSQSA, the barbershop harmony society; women's society follows shortly; barbershop quartets become a popular music staple, particularly in radio commercials
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1939 in music
- Plena becomes popular among the island's jibaro artists; this movement is spearheaded by Rafael Hernandez (El Canario)
- Dixieland jazz becomes a mainstream commercial force with the success of Lu Watters & the Yerba Buena Jazz Band
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1940s
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1940 in music
- Musicians like Bukka White help invent the Chicago blues
- The Almanac Singers (including the pioneering singer Pete Seeger) form, marking the beginning the of the popularization of folk music
- Béla Bartók moves to the United States from Hungary and begins composing many of his most famous works, which fuse Hungarian folk music and classical music
- ASCAP strike against broadcasters leads to period in which only public-domain music was broadcast. More significantly, it leads to the creation and rise of BMI. BMI's search for non-ASCAP music in turn created channels for the emergence in the U. S. of Latin and black music, setting the stage for the decline of Tin Pan Alley and the rise of R&B and rock-and-roll.
- The Almanac Singers begin playing Appalachian folk music in protest songs
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1941 in music
- Les Paul builds the first solid-body electric guitar
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1942 in music
- Bing Crosby releases "White Christmas", one of the most successful recordings in history
- A recording strike begins
- Louis Jordan's "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" is the first jump blues record
- T-Bone Walker adds jazz chords to the blues in "I Got a Break, Baby"
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1944 in music
- The 1942 recording strike ends
- This is the first year chart positions can be reliably calculated
- Al Dexter's chart success marks the mainstream acceptance of honky tonk country music
- The Andrews Sisters cover of "Rum and Coca Cola" (by Lord Invader) is the first American hit for calypso
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1945 in music
- Bebop emerges with the success of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie
- The jump blues, a fusion of jazz, early rock and roll and the blues, becomes popular, especially Louis Jordan
- Les Paul invents new studio techniques like echo delay and multi tracking
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1946 in music
- Artists like Cesar Concepción, Mon Rivera, Rafael Cortijo and Daniel Santos from Puerto Rico popularize plena internationally
- The emergence of Hank Williams and his blues country style.
- Artists like B.B. King, T-Bone Walker and Howlin' Wolf plug in, resulting in the electric blues
- Mahalia Jackson's "Move on Up a Little Higher" is the first million-selling gospel recording
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1947 in music
- Dizzy Gillespie joins forces with several Cuban musicians in New York City; Gillespie's Carnegie Hall performance gives "Latin jazz" instant critical acclaim
- Gabby Pahinui begins recording; this is the beginning of slack-key guitar's peak of popularity
- Billboard magazine writer Jerry Wexler first uses the term rhythm and blues to describe the electric blues
- Tito Puente forms the Picadilly Boys, the biggest group of the mambo craze
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1948 in music
- 331/3 RPM LPs introduced
- Perez Prado's recordings of popular mambo songs in Mexico, popularizing them across the US and Latin America
- Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs form the Foggy Mountain Boys and begin the peak of popularity for bluegrass
- Iry LeJeune's "La valse du pont d'amour" sparks a renewal of traditional Cajun music
- Gospel music begins a golden age, and enjoys its peak of mainstream popularity
- Frankie Yankovic's "Just Because" is the first million-selling polka single
- Popular female duos help invent música norteña, the first popular Mexican-American genre
- Pete Seeger forms The Weavers and leads an Appalachian folk roots revival
- Miles Davis begins his Birth of the Cool recordings, launching the cool jazz genre
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1949 in music
- Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats releases "Rocket 88", one of the first rock and roll recordings, alongside Fats Domino's "The Fat Man"
- Musicians like Professor Longhair popularize New Orleans-style rhythm & blues
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1950s
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1950 in music
- Israel "Cachao" López popularizes Cuban mambo in the US
- The peak of Chicago blues, exemplified by musicians like Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red
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1951 in music
- The Bakersfield sound in country music develops in Bakersfield, California as a reaction against the dominant Nashville sound - artists like Buck Owens and Wynn Stewart begin their career
- Piano Red ("The Wrong Yo Yo", "Just Right Bounce", "Laying the Boogie") is the first blues singer in history to appear on the pop charts
- Cool jazz is formed as a fusion of jazz and bossa nova
- Ray Boley sets up Canyon Records to record Navajo singer Ed Lee Natay; Canyon Records goes on to become the most influential label in Native American music
- Alan Freed begins broadcsting black R&B to white teenagers on his radio show, Moondog Rock'n'Roll Party
- Howlin' Wolf and Joe Turner begin popularizing a "shouting" style of blues singing
- Doo wop has many of its earliest hits, including "My Reverie" by The Larks, "I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night" by The Mello-Moods, "Glory of Love" by The Five Keys, "Shouldn't I Know" by The Cardinals and "It Ain't the Meat" by The Swallows
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1952 in music
- Les Paul invents the first solid body electric guitar, the Gibson
- In Memphis, Tennessee, Roscoe Gordon records "No More Doggin'", the origin of the rhythm of ska music
- Hard bop emerges with recordings by Miles Davis (Miles Ahead), Sonny Rollins (Way Out West) and J.J. Johnson (Blue Trombone)
- Bill Haley's pioneering recordings ("Rocket 88") mark the beginning of rockabilly as a distinct genre and commercial force
- The Weavers are forced to disband after being accused of Communism
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1953 in music
- Ghanaian drummer Guy Warren moves to Liberia and then the United States, where he begins recording a series of radical fusions of African drumming with American jazz musicians
- The Orioles' "Cryin' in the Chapel" is the first record by a black group to be a #1 pop hit; other doo wop recordings by black groups like The Spaniels, The Moonglows and The Flamingoes, promoted by Alan Freed, are also hits
- Elvis Presley makes his first recordings
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1954 in music
- Bill Haley and his Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", beginning the first rock and roll craze among mainstream listeners; many consider this the end of Tin Pan Alley's dominance of pop music, as well as the first use of pop in a film soundtrack
- Doo wop is at its peak of popularity, while hits like The Crows' "Gee" emblematic of a new style, uptempo doo wop
- Chachachá becomes an American craze, bringing charanga bands to New York City
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1955 in music
- The Weavers return to folk music after years of being blacklisted; their concert at Carnegie Hall helps to re-establish folk music's popular acceptance
- The Louvin Brothers mainstream stardom is established, and they become the most popular of the close harmony acts
- Bo Diddley popularizes the Bo Diddley beat
- The Chordettes and The Chantels are the first girl groups
- Tejano music arises out of Mexican-American communities in South Texas
- Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman" is perhaps the earliest example of secularized gospel music, or soul
- Pete Seeger's Bantu Choral Folk Songs is the first recording of black folk by a white artist
- Chuck Berry begins recording, establishing the guitar as the focal point of rock, and introducing descending pentatonic double-stops
- Art Blakely and Horace Silver form a band (Art Blakely & the Jazz Messengers) which sets the stage for the hard bop revolution
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1956 in music
- Hard bop jazz's mainstream success begins with Max Roach (Max Roach Plus Four), Sonny Rollins (Saxophone Colossus), Clifford Brown (At Basin Street), Jimmy Smith (The Champ) and Horace Silver ("Senor Blue")
- Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" begins his period as the most famous American musician and teen idol, and begins the peak of popularity for rockabilly
- Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers' "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" marks the beginning of white teen pop sensations singing doo wop
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1957 in music
- The chart success of Johnny Cash ("Home of the Blues", "There You Go"), Ferlin Husky ("Gone", "A Falling Star"), George Hamilton IV ("Only One Love") and Marty Robbins ("Knee Deep in the Blues", "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)") mark the beginning of the Nashville sound's domination of country music
- Link Wray's "Rumble" is the first record using the "fuzz tone" sound
- Cuban bolero becomes popular, leaving a lasting influence on the Nashville Sound with its slow meter (2/4)
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1958 in music
- Cuban bolero music is briefly popular, and leaves a long-standing influence on the Nashville Sound
- The Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" helps to jumpstart a revival in folk music
- The 'Five' Royales' "The Slummer the Slum", which uses guitar feedback and distortion
- Musicians like Eddie Cochrane lead the instrumental rock boom
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1959 in music
- Recordings by Ornette Coleman (The Shape of Jazz to Come), Sun Ra (The Nubians of Plutonia), John Coltrane (Giant Steps), Cecil Taylor (Stereo Drive, Love for Sale) and Eric Dolphy (Hot & Cool Latin) mark a mainstream resurgence in jazz, which has morphed into hard bop, avant-garde jazz and fusion -- most important is Kind of Blue by Miles Davis
- The Drifters' "There Goes My Baby" is one of the first American pop songs with a Latin rhythm
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1960s
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1960 in music
- Soul music develops out of gospel with recordings like "Cathy's Clown" (The Everly Brothers) and "Chain Gang" (Sam Cooke)
- Elvis Presley's His Hand in Mine is released; this is often considered the start of contemporary gospel music
- The twist is the most popular dance craze of the era
- The Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" invents a new form of harmonic, multi-part singing that becomes standard in girl groups of the decade
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1961 in music
- Patsy Cline's (and the Nashville sound in country music) popularity peaks with country singles like "Crazy" and "I Fall to Pieces"
- The Supremes sign to Motown; they (and Motown) will become the dominant force in R&B and soul for the rest of the decade
- Dick Dale's "Let's Go Tripping" is a local hit in southern California; it is one of the pivotal recordings in the early development of surf rock
- Mexican immigrants in the Los Angeles area have established a thriving mariachi scene
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1962 in music
- European popularity of American blues continues to grow with the first American Folk-Blues Festival
- Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar and American jazz musician Bud Shank collaborate on Improvisations and Theme From Pather Panchali, marking the beginning of Indian fusions with American jazz
- The Tornadoes' "Telstar" is the first single from a British band to hit international charts, and is sometimes considered the beginning of the British Invasion
- Dick Dale and others popularize surf rock; The Beach Boys' Surfin' is especially notable
- Phil Spector invents the Wall of Sound production technique
- Reverend James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir of Nutley release Peace Be Still, which introduced choir-based gospel to mainstream America
- The Dillards begin their bluegrass career and will help to bring a sophisticated Appalachian sound to mainstream America
- Girl groups like The Shirelles ("Soldier Boy") and The Crystals ("There's No Other (Like My Baby)") dominate the charts, alongside other pop vocalists like Chubby Checker ("The Twist"), The Four Seasons ("Big Girls Don't Cry") and Roy Orbison ("Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)")
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1963 in music
- Davy Graham and Sandy Bull make influential recordings that fused Indian music with rock, jazz and other American genres
- The Bakersfield sound in country music begins its mainstream success with Merle Haggard's "Sing a Sad Song"
- Girl groups (The Crystals ("Then He Kissed Me"), The Ronettes ("Be My Baby"), The Chiffons ("He's So Fine") and Lesley Gore ("It's My Party", "Judy's Turn to Cry")) reach their peak of popularity and innovation
- Surf rock bands like (The Surfaris ("Wipe Out"), Jan & Dean ("Surf City"), The Trashmen ("Surfin' Bird") and The Chantays ("Pipeline")) stretch the boundaries of surf music
- Kyu Sakamoto became the first Asian to top the US Charts with the song sung entirely in Japanese, "Sukiyaki".
- The Kingsmen's hour-long performance of a single song repeatedly, "Louie, Louie", is perhaps the beginning of garage rock
- Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder" is the first major hard bop hit
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1964 in music
- The Beatles (A Hard Day's Night, ...Introducing the Beatles, Meet the Beatles) continue to dominate the charts, along with The Beach Boys ("I Get Around"), The Zombies ("She's Not There"), The Kinks ("You Really Got Me") and The Animals (The Animals, "The House of the Rising Sun"). Their chart success heralds the arrival of the British Invasion
- Blue-eyed soul artists like the Righteous Brothers, Mitch Ryder and the Rascals are popular
- Jesse Colin Young's The Soul of a City Boy fuses Appalachian folk and country music with jazz
- Ray Repp begins recording; this is usually considered the beginning of Christian Contemporary Music (CCM)
- Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" introduces a new form of hard-edged soul
- Tony Scott, a jazz musician, records Music for Zen Meditation, commonly considered the first example of New Age music
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1965 in music
- The Beatles endure the heights of Beatlemania while the British Invasion peaks
- Many of the bands that are later important in psychedelia begin performing, including Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and The Byrds; Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", often considered the first psychedelic recording, is released
- Recordings by Robbie Basho ("Seal of the Blue Lotus"), The Byrds ("Eight Miles High") and The Kinks ("Till the End of the Day"), along with George Harrison's sitar on "Norwegian Wood", are the beginning of major mainstream success for rock influenced by Indian music
- Garage bands begin to appear across the United States, especially in cities like Seattle and Detroit
- James Brown begins adding more complex percussion to soul music, beginning the evolution of funk
- The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" is the beginning of blue-eyed soul
- Charanga bands lose their American following
- Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long" is an innovative soul recording, on which the instrumental backing has fully replaced the choir of gospel
- Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" is one of the first successful singles to be longer than three minutes in duration; the accompanying album, Highway 61 Revisited, is also arguably the first successful fusion of rock and folk, alongside this year's cover of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" by The Byrds
- Country Joe McDonald releases the first "rag babies"
- The Warlocks (who eventually become the Grateful Dead) play at San Francisco-area acid tests, laying the roots for their jam band style
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1966 in music
- Early psychedelia from The Who (A Quick One) and The Moody Blues (The Magnificient Moodies) is popular, along with bands that begin to merge these more progressive sounds with pop, like The Beatles (Revolver), Shadows of Knight (Gloria), The Troggs (Wild Thing), The Mamas & the Papas (If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears) and, most influentially, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, including "Good Vibrations", one of the innovative songs of the era
- Pete Seeger's "Guantanamera" popularizes Cuban guajira internationally
- San Francisco becomes the mecca for hippies and psychedelic rock, where bands like Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane launch the "Summer of Love"
- Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention release Freak Out! the first rock double album
- Long jams are found on several popular singles, including Bob Dylan's "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands", The Seeds' "Up in Her Room", Rolling Stones' "Going Home" and The Fugs' "Virgin Forest"; the last is an innovative mixture of collage techniques with rock and early world music
- Holy Modal Rounders are the most well-known exponents of a new style called acid-folk
- Pop-oriented R&B and soul groups like The Supremes (I Hear a Symphony, Supremes A' Go-Go) and The Lovin' Spoonful (Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful) are extremely popular
- Tommy McLain's "Sweet Dreams" reaches the Top Ten, making it the biggest hit for swamp pop's era of mainstream acceptance
- Jefferson Airplane's Takes Off and 13th Floor Elevators' Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators are the first albums marketed as "psychedelic"
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1967 in music
- The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, arguably the pinnacle of psychedelic music -- other psychedelic bands like The Doors (The Doors), The Who (The Who Sell Out) and Jefferson Airplane (Surrealistic Pillow) also release pivotal albums; the whole scene is aided by the blockbuster Monterey Pop Festival
- Hits like Joe Cuba's "Bang! Bang!" marks the peak of boogaloo music, which is a fusion of soul and mambo
- DJ Kool Herc moves to New York City, part of a wave of Jamaican immigrants that bring dub to the US; in the Bronx, it will evolve into hip hop
- Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe release El Malo on Fania Records, which launches the label and the developing genre of salsa music
- Early punk artists like The Velvet Underground (The Velvet Underground & Nico, White Light/White Heat) and Iggy Pop begin their careers
- Larry Graham, bassist with Sly & the Family Stone, revolutionizes funk bass lines
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1968 in music
- Hard-edged psychedelia is popular - artists like Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Who, Iron Butterfly and Steppenwolf sell well
- The Band's Music From Big Pink establishes a country--folk- rock fusion
- Edward Hawkins Singers have a major international hit with "Oh Happy Day", and Reverend James Cleveland founds the annual Gospel Music Workshop of America
- Hair debuts on Broadway; it is the first rock musical
- Blue Cheer begins recording, and become legends of the American proto-heavy metal scene
- Redbone is the first Native American band to fuse rock music with native musical traditions,
- Seiichi Tanaka's San Francisco Taiko Dojo is the first modern taiko group in North America
- Gram Parsons and the International Submarine Band make some of the first recordings of modern country rock, while Creedence Clearwater Revival invents a similar fusion of rock, country and Louisiana blues
- A group of drag queen performing artists called The Cockettes debut in San Francisco, beginning the glam rock style
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1969 in music
- folk-oriented psychedelia dominates music with releases from The Doors (The Soft Parade), The Beatles (Abbey Road), The Fifth Dimension (The Age of Aquarius), Youngbloods (Elephant Mountain) and Crosby, Stills & Nash (Déjà Vu) selling extremely well and the blockbuster Woodstock music festival held in Bethel, New York
- King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King and Frank Zappa's Uncle Meat begin the golden age of progressive rock
- Neil Young creates a new style of dissonant guitar-playing as part of the popular harmonic folk-rock of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
- Larry Norman's Upon This Rock is commonly considered the first Christian rock album
- Miles Davis' Bitches Brew is the first fusion of soul, funk and jazz
- The release of The Stooges' debut album The Stooges is arguably the earliest trace of punk rock; along with MC 5's Kick Out The Jams, a hard-edged Detroit-based sound arises
