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.

“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.

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.

“Bad Time” was a №4 hit, certified by BMI as radio’s most-played song of 1975. Written by guitarist Mark Farner, the song was a departure from the trio’s hard rock roots. “It was kind of a different song,” Farner told Songfacts.

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.”

Nils Lofgren is best known for his solo work as a singer-songwriter and as a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and Neil Young’s band, Crazy Horse. But in 1968, Lofgren was 17, a struggling musician who’d left Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, MD, and headed for New York City.

Bob Seger mixed classic rock with a geography lesson in “Katmandu,” first released on his 1975 LP Beautiful Loser. The single reached №43. The song refers to the capital of Nepal, located in the Himalayan Mountain range. Seger wrote “Katmandu” to poke fun at the music business.

The Eternals were a doo wop group that formed in New York’s South Bronx. “Sometimes when we would sing in theaters they would say, ‘The Eternals, the only Hispanic, all-Puerto Rican group in the history of doo wop.’ And that made us proud,” lead singer Charlie Girona told NBC News.