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1960s Music Journalism History

The Byrds Talk to Hit Parader Magazine

The sounds of the the British Invasion transformed American rock music in 1965 by taking it back to its roots.

Folk-rock came into being as the first iteration of the new music introduced by the Beatles , Rolling Stones and other UK bands. The band who first popularized it through hit records was the Byrds. Inspired by A Hard Days Night the band released Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and the album of the same name.

Teen magazines like 16 tended to bury the Byrds and Dylan in a sea of Beatles, Hermits, and Raiders.

December 1965 16 Magazine

But Hit Parader, more focused on music than adorableness, produced some of the first insightful writing about the rise of folk-rock. Starting with Dylan’s set with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, Hit Parader played a key role in bringing the music to a new generation. They began to label it “folk-rock.”

But the musically eclectic Byrds rejected all forms of labels. Including, as they called it, “rock-folk.” Let’s be glad that term didn’t catch on.

From the November 1965 Hit Parader, a glimpse of the Byrds at the peak of their popularity:

Top 10 Byrds Songs
The Byrds (Keystone, Hulton Archive, Getty Images)

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