The Best Classic Rock Bands and Music

Listening to my brother & sister’s old vinyl 45’s as a little kid back in the 70’s was my intro to rock-n-roll. Even though the whole vinyl 45 RPM single thing was well before my time, at a certain point it sure beat the 70’s era rust belt radio I started out with ! For its time, retro radio had some rockers. Good old time rock and roll golden oldies like Wipeout, Wild Thing, Hawaii Five-O theme, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, In theYear 2525, Venus, Hold Your Head Up, Hot Rod Lincoln, Hocus Pocus, and Live & Let Die to name a few. Those were some of the radio rock songs that really started it all for me. It was a good place to start, but I knew there had to be more to it than just the radio, and boy was I right. That stack of 45’s they left behind was full of legendary rock artists that are still popular today, like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Rolling Stones, and others I’m sure I’ve forgotten about. I only remember a couple of LP’s left behind. A Three Dog Night greatest hits, and a various artists compilation album featuring Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Dr. John, Bachman Turner Overdrive, and more. All in all, my discovery of rock n roll couldn’t have come at a better time. No wonder I got hooked on it immediately ! Classic rock music definitely wasn't considered classic yet. As a matter of fact, it was still pretty young. It had just recently evolved into that damn rock n roll devil music that the grownups hated so much. I’m sure that’s part of why I thought it so cool too. Disco wasn’t quite dead yet, it was basically turning into pop. Same with R&B, but it also had a funk  / almost rock branch going on at the same time. Country was almost kinda rock for a minute there too, but not really. A lot of styles and genres were evolving, emerging and overlapping with each other, morphing into new variants, and pushing the envelope. Obviously things have progressed dramatically since then in all aspects. Even though some of it’s pretty cheesy by today’s standards, this was the infancy of rock n roll. This is where it all ultimately came from. I didn’t realize what an interesting time it was because as a kid, I didn’t know much about music yet, but it was some real evolution. Heavy metal was even just born. Luckily, I soon came to realize it, and I’m glad I got to grow up in the middle of it all. Man, it was really something !