The Road to Rock & Roll

After years of basic solo performances and simple acoustic albums, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was the subject of much controversy at Newport Folk Festival on Sunday July 25,1965. During his performance Dylan "went electric", by playing with an electric blues band in concertfor the first time. This seeming rejection of what had gone before made Dylan unpopular in parts of the folk community, alienating some fans, and is considered to have deeply affected both folk and rock 'n' roll.

[Jimi] Hendrix used right-handed guitars, turned upside-down for left-hand playing, and re-strung so that the heavier strings were in their standard position at the top of the neck. This had an important effect on his guitar sound: because of the slant of the Strat's bridge pickup, his lowest string had a bright sound while his highest string had a mellow sound, the opposite of the Stratocaster's intended design.

The first rock "power trio" may have been Buddy Holly and The Crickets, whose onstage sound relied on a driving rhythm section that underpinned Holly's guitar and voice. The power trio, at least in its blues-rock incarnation, is generally held to have developed out of Chicago-style blues bands such as Muddy Waters' trio. The prototypical power trios were exemplified by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, who popularized the format during the 1960s, and later punk and post-punk bands like the Jam or Nirvana.

All text adapted from Wikipedia entries for "Electric Dylan Controversy" (itself a good potential band name), "Jimi Hendrix," and "Power Trios."