LA Rocks: A rock 'n' roll history of Los Angeles

We admit it: rock 'n' roll wasn’t born in Los Angeles. But we’re willing to wager it was raised here. LA’s famous studios nurtured the genre in its infancy. Sunset Boulevard has long been one of the nation’s top proving grounds for talent. And the city’s iconic venues — and thirst for cutting-edge entertainment — have ensured a wealth of support for rockers and their craft throughout the decades.

So when a recent visit to the GRAMMY Museum inspired us to dig deep into LA’s musical history, we already knew we’d prove it’s a great town for rock 'n' roll — but even we were surprised and fascinated by the rich collection of legends and lore we uncovered.

1950s

Rock 'n' roll took root in Los Angeles in the 1950s with the craggy guitars of country-rock performers such as Merle Haggard. The West Coast musicians preferred grittier songs than were coming out of Nashville, and their trademark twang became known as Bakersfield Sound. LA's music scene was also heavily influenced by Chicano rockers such as Ritchie Valens, who released the hit song "La Bamba" in 1958.

1960s

Surf rock emerged as the SoCal sound in the early '60s, and nobody epitomized the genre quite like the Beach Boys, who released their first single, “Surfin’,” in 1961. By the following year, their debut album, “Surfin’ Safari,” became a smash hit for Capitol Records, the powerhouse music label housed in the famous stack-of-records building near Hollywood and Vine.

By the middle of the decade, the tide had turned toward folk and psychedelic rock, and Hollywood clubs such as the famous Troubadour and Whisky a Go Go propelled performers such as The Byrds, The Doors, Joni Mitchell and Buffalo Springfield into the spotlight. Rock journalist Roy Trakin noted of the time, "The summer of 1966 on L.A.'s Sunset Strip was a time when many young musicians thought anything was possible. A teenager from the San Fernando Valley might wind up jamming with Jimi Hendrix while a 14-year-old hitchhiking on Sunset Boulevard could get picked up by Phil Spector's limousine."

Whisky a Go Go, Flickr/bORjAmATiC

1970s

Folk and country rock continued to dominate LA's music scene in the early 1970s, with Los Angeles-based The Eagles leading the charge. In 1976 the band released its iconic Hotel California, which featured the The Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows on the cover. The record ranks 37th in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The Rainbow Bar & Grill opened in 1972 and quickly became a hot Sunset Strip hangout for rock stars, including Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and John Lennon. In the mid- to late '70s, California punk arrived on the Sunset Strip and especially at Whisky a Go Go, which regularly hosted homegrown punk bands such as X, The Runaways and The Germs. National punk acts loved playing the Whisky, and in 1977 the Los Angeles Times noted, "The Ramones seem to be playing Los Angeles so much these days that it's hard to think of them as a New York band anymore."

Continued: 1980s–2000s