Rock music continued to evolve in 1967, and with it, so did guitar riffs. As fuzz guitar pedals became more ubiquitous, the volume intensified to blistering levels. Guitar effects have as much to do with writing a riff as the notes one plays. With sound, guitarists react to what’s happening, inspiring them to play phrases they might otherwise not have imagined.
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So grab your earplugs, or don’t, and revisit four classic rock songs from 1967 defined by their iconic guitar riffs.
“Mr. Soul” by Buffalo Springfield
In “Mr. Soul”, Neil Young grapples with stardom. It’s a fitting grievance considering Young would eventually come to be known as the Godfather of Grunge. And in the 1990s, grunge rockers were equally uncomfortable with fame and the commercialization of their music scene. Young’s hostile riff drives Buffalo Springfield’s psych-rock tune and foreshadows where he’d go with Crazy Horse.
“Strange Brew” by Cream
Cream represented a high creative mark in Eric Clapton’s busy career. His heavy blues supergroup featuring Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker gave the guitarist a platform to transform his signature sound. And it wouldn’t be his last experiment with psychedelia. The following year, Clapton recorded the swirling guitar solo on The Beatles’ classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. The riff in “Strange Brew” follows a traditional 12-bar form. But with the amps cranked, Cream helped write the future history of rock music by fusing it with blues, jazz, and R&B.
“People Are Strange” by The Doors
Perhaps the tamest riff on this list, but no less iconic. Over a swinging cabaret groove, Robby Krieger’s famous riff lays an ideal soundtrack to a people-watching stroll around Laurel Canyon in the 1960s. Meanwhile, Ray Manzarek’s Vox Continental organ gives the song its wobbly vibe. Like a scene in a horror film where the normies are followed around the neighborhood by a band of just-risen-from-the-dead misfits. And if you’re walking around Los Angeles in the 1960s with Jim Morrison, and The Lizard King comments on how strange everyone seems, then you know you’ve entered the twilight zone.
“Manic Depression” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
This was the first Jimi Hendrix riff I learned to play on the guitar. I was 12 years old and wasn’t quite sure what was coming out of my speakers. Mitch Mitchell propels the song with a kind of unhinged jazz. The entire track is ferocious blues, a relentless force of fuzz, feedback, and deep groove. Many ballads are written in triple meter (three beats per measure). But this is no ballad. Instead, Hendrix plays his way out of despair, possessed by generations of pain that led to the blues in the first place.
Photo by Svenska Dagbladet/AFP via Getty Images
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