3 of the Best First No. 1 Hits in 60s Folk Music
The article highlights three 1960s folk-pop songs that became their performers’ first Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles: Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Leaving On A Jet Plane”, The Mamas and the Papas’ “Monday, Monday”, and The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man”. It presents them as notable examples because folk music produced relatively few chart-topping singles, while each song helped define its artist’s commercial peak.
“Leaving On A Jet Plane”, written by John Denver at age 23, remains Peter, Paul and Mary’s biggest hit; Denver said its subject was simply the experience of departure rather than the Vietnam War. “Monday, Monday” was The Mamas and the Papas’ only Hot 100 number one, despite singer Denny Doherty initially dismissing it as an unremarkable song about a weekday. The Byrds’ debut single, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, was also their first number one; Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the song himself and later rejected suggestions that its imagery concerned drugs.
- Three 1960s folk-pop songs became first number-one hits.
- Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit was written by John Denver.
- The Byrds topped the chart with Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”.
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Folk music became a major part of popular music in the 1960s, often combining acoustic instruments, close vocal harmonies and songs with roots in traditional styles. As the decade went on, some performers brought these sounds into the mainstream charts, sometimes mixing them with rock and pop.
Peter, Paul and Mary were a US folk trio known for polished harmony singing, while The Mamas and the Papas blended folk influences with California pop. The Byrds were an American band whose electric version of Bob Dylan’s songwriting helped establish folk rock, a style linking folk lyrics and melodies with rock arrangements.
The Billboard Hot 100 is the main US singles chart, and reaching number one is widely treated as a major commercial milestone. These songs matter because they show how a genre more often associated with albums, live performance and protest-era culture also produced a small number of large mainstream singles.