5 Bands Formed in 1964 That Shaped Rock ‘N’ Roll as We Know It

Beatlemania encouraged musicians around the world to form groups, and the article highlights five acts whose roots date to 1964 and whose later work helped shape rock and its offshoots. Their influence ranged from loud, forceful rock to Southern rock, folk-rock, shock rock and proto-punk.

The Who took shape under that name in early winter 1964, while Lynyrd Skynyrd’s earliest line-up formed in Jacksonville that year, five years before adopting its best-known name. The Band grew out of Ronnie Hawkins’s backing group before working with Bob Dylan; Alice Cooper began as a Beatles parody act called The Earwigs; and Lou Reed and John Cale first played together as The Primitives before forming the Velvet Underground in 1965.