“If you can remember anything about the sixties, you weren't really there.â€-Paul Kantner
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The British Invasion began in 1964, and peaked in 1965. Prior to then British musical acts had only achieved fleeting success in what was then a relatively insular market. The first major breakthrough was the success of Dame Vera Lynn when she became the first British act to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1952. Other acts in the intervening years had some success, most notably George Shearing, Lonnie Donegan, Petula Clark and The Tornadoes though with a fertile market in Rock and Roll it was natural that audiences would prefer their own country's works rather than a pale imitation. It gained a reputation as a center of illegal drug culture, especially with the use of marijuana. Circa 1967, its fame chiefly rested on the fact that it became the neighborhood of choice for a number of important psychedelic rock performers and groups of the mid-1960s. Acts like Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, who all lived a short distance from the famous intersection, not only immortalized the scene in song, but knew many within the community as friends and family. Its mystique was further enhanced by the 1967 Scott MacKenzie hit "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)", written by The Mamas & the Papas' John Phillips. Some said the song was a blatantly commercial pop song that climbed the charts much to locals' chagrin.Although San Francisco receives much of the credit for jumpstarting the psychedelic music scene, many other American cities contributed significantly to the new genre. Los Angeles boasted dozens of important psychedelic bands, including the Byrds, Love, Spirit, the United States of America, and the Doors, among others. New York City produced its share of psychedelic bands such as the Blues Magoos, the Blues Project, and the Third Bardo. The Detroit area gave rise to psychedelic bands the Amboy Dukes and the SRC. Texas (particularly Austin) is often cited for its contributions to psychedelic music, being home to the aforementioned 13th Floor Elevators, as well as Bubble Puppy, Shiva's Headband, Golden Dawn, the Zakary Thaks, Red Krayola, and many others. In the 1960s (from 1961 to 1971), Motown had 110 Top 10 hits and artists such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Jackson 5, and Gladys Knight & the Pips were all signed to Motown Records. By the late 1960s the label was billing itself as "The Sound of Young America", with its acts enjoying widespread popularity among black and white audiences alike. In the original and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and Canada around the mid-1960s. The sound was epitomized by tight vocal harmonies and a relatively "clean" (effects- and distortion-free) approach to electric instruments epitomized by the jangly sound of the Byrds' guitarist Roger McGuinn. The repertoire was drawn in part from folk sources, but even more from folk-influenced singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan.