"Before Elvis, there was nothing," John Lennon once said. An overstatement, of course, but Elvis Presley's ascendance to superstardom in the mid-1950s kicked off a musical and social revolution whose impact has yet to abate. After the charming young …

These two brothers from Kentucky are the bridge between the assorted familial harmonizers of the country radio show era and the rock & roll of the '60s. Their sterling singing adapted well to the changing styles of four different decades. They were i…

Part good ol' boy, part rockabilly rebel, Buddy Holly was one of the most innovative and influential of 1950s rockers, both on his own and as a member of the Crickets, rock's first truly self-contained combo. Originally rooted in country music, Holly…

Roy Orbison, a seminal rock & roll singer who initially recorded for the legendary Sun Records, created some of the most enduring hits of the 1950s and '60s. His near-operatic voice and dark, broken-hearted songs influenced a generation of artists. H…

In the '60s and '70s, Canadian songsmith Gordon Lightfoot achieved the perfect marriage of folk and pop. His rich baritone was mellifluous enough to carry the elegantly catchy melodies of songs that possessed considerable substance beneath their unde…

Many would agree that without Chuck Berry, there would not have been rock 'n' roll. Berry's 1955 debut single, "Maybellene," was an energetic smash hit, and led to a slew of successful late-'50s songs. Influencing such future big names as the Beatles…

Bob Dylan began as a Woody Guthrie acolyte, imitating the dust-bowl balladeer as faithfully as a baby boomer from Hibbing, Minnesota, could. It wasn't long before he found his own voice, spearheading the early-1960s folk revival as well as the singer…

The kings of 1970s soft rock, Bread was led by singer/songwriters David Gates and James Griffin. The band's mellow, highly melodic style made it a mainstay on the Top 40 and AM radio throughout the decade, with huge hits such as "If" and "Baby, I'm A…

Not unlike his friend Bobby Darin, Dion Dimucci was a native New Yorker who started out as a rock & roller in the 1950s and went through a series of drastic stylistic changes. He began as a doo wop hitmaker with his group the Belmonts, turning out su…

In the late-1950s/early-'60s Neil Sedaka was part of the compositional Camelot that was New York's Brill Building songwriters stable, penning hits for Connie Francis, Tom Jones, and others. It wasn't long before he began recording his own composition…

Willie Nelson began working in a conventional Nashville style and had great success as the songwriter of Faron Young's hit "Hello Walls" and others, but he was initially unable to make it as a performer. In the 1970s, he and Waylon Jennings made hist…

Owing as much to 1950s wrestling bad guy Gorgeous George as he did to Elvis Presley, rock's original wildman didn't so much play rock & roll as he played Jerry Lee Lewis. A powerful honky-tonk pianist and singer, Lewis is that rare breed of star whos…

As John Denver, the former John Henry Deutschendorf was a ubiquitous icon of the 1970s. Although he had been a musician and songwriter in the 1960s, penning "Leaving on a Jet Plane" for Peter, Paul & Mary, Denver hit his stride in the '70s with earne…

Admired for both their infectious surfer music and their sophisticated, multi-tracked pop productions, the Beach Boys created a lasting impression on popular music through their complex harmonies and Brian Wilson's genius for composition and arrangem…

The Beatles just barely beat them to the punch, but in the 1960s the Hollies were still one of the very first (and most popular) British "beat" groups, heavily inspired by American R&B and '50s rock & roll. Like the Beatles, they soon delved into mor…

Rockabilly god Gene Vincent only had one major hit--the epochal "Be-Bop-A-Lula"--but he nevertheless helped to define the genre, with his hiccuping vocals, hard-edged tone, and the backing of his deservedly legendary band the Blue Caps. Many of Vince…

The Band began as the Hawks, backing up rockabilly cat Ronnie Hawkins. In the mid-1960s, they became Bob Dylan's ensemble of choice, aiding him in his epochal switch to an electric rock-based format. When they emerged as an independent recording enti…

Johnny Cash was part rockabilly rebel, part campfire storyteller, part outlaw in black. Cash made country and rockabilly history on the Sun label in the 1950s. During the '60s, the ruggedly charismatic Cash rose to superstardom, ending the decade wit…