Music of California
Charles Fletcher Lummis, himself an immigrant to California, recorded many kinds of Spanish and Native American folk music for the Southwest Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.
California was an important part of the American folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, led by the San Francisco Bay Area group the Kingston Trio.
The Trio's success inspired many pop-folk groups (recognizable by the performance of traditional or traditional-sounding music and use of acoustic rather than electric guitars), including California-based The Limeliters.
In the early 1960s, youth in southern California became enamored with surf rock groups, many instrumental, like the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, the Chantays, Royale Monarchs, the Honeys, the Bel-Airs, the Challengers, and the Surfaris.
Haight-Ashbury became a countercultural capital, and bands like Jefferson Airplane, Loading Zone, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Ace of Cups, Country Joe and the Fish, Santana, the Charlatans, Big Brother & the Holding Company, and the Grateful Dead helped to launch the blues- and folk-rock scene; other bands, like Moby Grape and the Flamin' Groovies used a more country-influenced sound, while Cold Blood and Sons of Champlin incorporated R&B and Orkustra played a sort of free-form psychedelia.
They continued recording and performing for several decades under the leadership of Jerry Garcia, experimenting with a wide variety of folk, country, and bluegrass, and becoming a part of the jam band phenomenon.
This period also saw a number of difficult-to-classify acts arising who did not sell many records, but proved to be very influential on things to come, such as Kim Fowley, Captain Beefheart, Sparks, and Fanny, all from Los Angeles, who had been active in the 1960s but reached their artistic peaks during this era.
Los Angeles' original late 1970s punk scene received less press attention than their counterparts in New York or London, but it included cult bands the Screamers, the Germs, the Weirdos, the Dils, the Bags, 45 Grave (founded by Paul B. Cutler), Nervous Gender, and X.
Other Los Angeles-area punk and hardcore groups of the era include Wasted Youth, T.S.O.L., L7, Los Illegals, the Plugz, Cruzados, the Brat, the Controllers, the Hollywood Squares, Super Heroines, the Pandoras, the Droogs, Catholic Discipline, the Mau-Mau's, VOM, Dr. Know (featuring former child star Brandon Cruz), Legal Weapon, Claw Hammer, the Mentors (originally from Seattle), along with future underground stars NOFX.
In the Los Angeles South Bay, American hardcore punk was born with bands like Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Minutemen and Youth Brigade, who formed in the mid-1970s to early 1980s.
The famous movie about the hardcore scene, The Decline of Western Civilization, was shot in this area, largely in an abandoned church in Hermosa called the Creative Craft Center.
Also of note is the band Bad Religion, who hailed from the western San Fernando Valley and were only marginally associated with hardcore punk rock from the South Bay area.
had a reputation for being aggressive and sometimes violent, while Uniform Choice became known as a prominent straight edge band from the West Coast, Love Canal from Huntington Beach was the complete opposite bringing a more humorous version of hardcore punk to the scene.
Crime and the Nuns were first, followed by Chrome, the Mutants, the Units, the Contractions, Angst, the Sleepers, Pop-O-Pies, Frightwig, Crucifix, Negative Trend, the Avengers, Toiling Midgets, Flipper and Romeo Void.
The Paisley Underground scene would arise out of Los Angeles in the mid-1980s around Redd Kross, The Three O'Clock (originally The Salvation Army), the Bangles, the Dream Syndicate, the Long Ryders, Rain Parade, Opal, Mazzy Star, and others.
Derived from New York City, hip hop drew upon primarily East Coast influences, though early 1970s black nationalist poets the Watts Prophets were also notable.
Among the most popular electro hop groups was the World Class Wrecking Cru, which included future star Dr. Dre, DJ Yela, and others and also featured singer Michel'le, an early pioneer in combining soulful R&B singing with hip-hop beats.
The main gangsta rap and west coast hip hop cities were Long Beach, San Francisco, Oakland, Vallejo, Pittsburg Sacramento, Richmond, East Palo Alto, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Fresno, Compton, and Inglewood.
Called "The Golden Age of Hip hop", the 1990s saw the rise of such legendary rappers as 2Pac, Cypress Hill, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Kid Frost, Snoop Dogg, Yo-Yo.
The lack of leadership helped put New York, Atlanta, and New Orleans on the top of the hip hop charts, leaving local would-be legends and underground MC's (emcees) to work under self-financed productions.
The Bay Area's thriving underground rap scene has produced literally hundreds of artists, some of the better known being Andre Nickatina, the Coup, Michael Franti, the Conscious Daughters, Paris, Blackalicious, Ya Boy, and San Quinn.
San Francisco was very impressive in hip hop, boasting west coast legends Rappin' 4-Tay, RBL Posse, Andre Nickatina, JT The Bigga Figga, Cougnut, and more.
The 2000s brought the emergence of Ariel Pink, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Or, the Whale, the Aislers Set, the Botticellis, Scissors for Lefty, Deerhoof, Icebird, The Dodos, the Quails, the Curtains, I the Mighty, La Plebe, Erase Errata, the Phantom Limbs, the Donnas, Hunx and His Punx, Shannon and the Clams, Sic Alps, and the Union Trade from the San Francisco Bay Area and the Quarter After, Scarling., Best Coast, Warpaint, Autolux, Two Tears, Giant Drag, Brian Jonestown Massacre, HEALTH, Fool's Gold, No Age, Foot Village, the Warlocks, Silver Daggers, Tearist, Mika Miko, and Ty Segall from Los Angeles.
[14] These bands were influenced by acts like Fugazi and The Nation of Ulysses, while also helping propagate an offshoot of hardcore that "grafted spastic intensity to willfully experimental dissonance and dynamics".
[15] The label also featured releases by non-San Diego bands that included Mohinder[12] (from Cupertino, California), Angel Hair and its subsequent related project The VSS[12] (from Boulder, Colorado), groups that have also been associated with this sound.
[12] This group, founded by former members of Pitchfork, was known, according to Steve Huey, for their lengthy and multisectioned compositions based on the innovations brought by the releases on Dischord, incorporating elements such as "odd time signatures played an important role on its development in spite of the band's music not resembling the sound such term would later signify.
As metalcore became the popular subgenre of hardcore in the late 1990s to early 2000s, bands such as Avenged Sevenfold, As I Lay Dying, Atreyu, Confide, Dayseeker, Deadseraphim, Death By Stereo, Bleeding Through, Eighteen Visions, In Fear and Faith, In This Moment, Of Mice & Men, Phinehas, Stick to Your Guns, and Throwdown made their mark in Southern California.
Notable Desert Rock style acts include Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Sleep, Truckfighters, Eagles of Death Metal, Fatso Jetson, and Fu Manchu.
Other California jazz musicians include Larry Bunker, Buddy Collette, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Chico Hamilton, Charles Mingus, Britt Woodman, Teddy Edwards, Vi Redd, Leroy Vinnegar, Gerald Wilson, Hampton Hawes, Billy Higgins, Mary Stallings, Butch Morris, David Murray, Joanne Brackeen, Gretchen Parlato, Bobby Hutcherson, Willie Jones III, Joshua Redman, Kamasi Washington, and Yellowjackets.
The Monterey Pop Festival, held in 1967, is perhaps the most famous concert in California's history; the show launched the international careers of performers like Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Otis Redding, and Janis Joplin.
