With little input from the Beatles other than the use of their music, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road: A Rock Spectacle’ debuted off-Broadway at New York’s Beacon Theater on Nov. 17, 1974. Produced by Robert Stigwood and directed by Tom O’Horgan, the musical included 29 songs, primarily from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road albums.

When San Francisco’s Big Brother & the Holding Company released “Piece of My Heart” in 1967, the song’s highlights were Sam Andrew’s wailing, distorted guitar solos, which would help define acid rock, and blues belter Janis Joplin’s spinechilling wail.

The raw sound of Dave Davies’ lead guitar on “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks has been called the blueprint for the power chords of heavy metal and punk rock. Written by Ray Davies, the song topped the British charts and introduced the Kinks to America, where it was a №7 hit. But the song that revolutionized rock was recorded in a variety of styles before the raucous single was released in September 1964.

The Bottom Line was an intimate Greenwich Village club that hosted major rock, jazz, and blues artists. The 400-seat club was a launch pad for young musicians like Bruce Springsteen, who appeared in 1975. Lou Reed, Johnny Winter, Billy Joel, Carly Simon, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, and Van Morrison performed here.

“People Got to Be Free” was released by the Rascals in the summer of 1968 during Civil Rights Movement protests. Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati were inspired to write what became an anthem for racial tolerance after they were threatened during a tour of the South.

“All Things Must Pass,” the title song of George Harrison’s 1970 triple album, was inspired by Timothy Leary’s poem All Things Pass, an adaptation of the Tao Te Ching. The Beatles rehearsed the song in January 1969 but did not include it on the Let It Be album. Billy Preston was the first to release the song, as “All Things (Must) Pass,” in 1970.

Rock Quiz: 1000 Questions Classic Rock Challenge! Book Excerpt

Lou Reed was a member of the Velvet Underground until the downtown band broke up in 1970. “Walk on the Wild Side” was included on Reed’s second solo album, 1972’s Transformer.

Beatlemania in Australia reached its peak in June 1964 when the Fab Four staged a three-week tour of the country. Hundreds of rock groups sprouted as a result, formed by teens who hoped to emulate their heroes from Liverpool.

In the early 1960s, Archie Bell & the Drells were a struggling Houston vocal group performing their brand of Texas funk at local talent shows. In 1964, the group recorded a demo of a song called “Tighten Up.” Although they often performed the song live, the demo was soon forgotten.

Steppenwolf, fronted by singer John Kay, was a favorite of Bill Graham, the mercurial producer who brought Fillmore East to New York’s East Village in 1968. The band’s success with hits like “Born to Be Wild” and “Magic Carpet Ride” quickly won them headliner status.

Enjoy this excerpt from Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever on the anniversary of the rock mecca’s opening in New York City.

Exciting news from the Guess Who website: Burton Cummings & Randy Bachman tour together as The Guess Who for the first time in 23 years!

“Birthday” was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and appeared on the Beatles’ 1968 White Album. The raw rocker only took one day to compose and record at Abbey Road Studios. “We thought, ‘Why not make something up?’ So we got a riff going and arranged it around this riff,” McCartney recalled in Many Years From Now.

“Little Red Corvette” became Prince’s first song to crack the Top 10 pop chart at No. 6 in 1983. It reached No. 28 hit on the R&B chart. The song uses car metaphors to describe a one-night stand with a woman. Dez Dickerson and Lisa Coleman performed backing vocals.

Rock Quiz: 1000 Questions Classic Rock Challenge! Book Excerpt

Rick Allmen opened the Café Bizarre in 1957, one of the first Beat Generation clubs in Greenwich Village. Odetta was the opening night headliner. Jazz acts followed and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg had readings there. Larry Love, the Singing Canary, landed his first paid engagement at the Bizarre in 1962. Love later changed his name to Tiny Tim.

Janis Ian was 14 when she wrote her 1967 hit single “Society’s Child,” a controversial song about how social pressure doomed an interracial romance. “I was sitting on a bus in East Orange, NJ, where I was living with my parents, and I saw it happening around me,” Ian told Songwriter Universe.

Rock Quiz: 1000 Questions Classic Rock Challenge! Book Excerpt

“Ariel” was a №26 hit for Dean Friedman in 1977. It opens with the lyric, “Way on the other side of the Hudson / Deep in the bosom of suburbia.”