Who is the Best?

The Best of the 60's? Depends on what years you are specifically referring to.


As for Rock, I'd easily say The Beatles from about 1967-1970, with The Rolling Stones in their prime closely behind them, and then Hendrix's dominating albums a slot under them. Another great mention would be Cream, who's first three albums are great and hard to ignore back when Clapton was in his prime.


For R&B, it's a toss up between the usual suspects from Motown that dominated the early 60's and the Soul sounds of Ray Charles. You can easily squeeze James Brown in this category if you prefer his early sounds over the heavy Funk elements of the later years in the closing of the decade (he didn't reach his prime till 1969 at least).

For Jazz, I have to go with Miles Davis or John Coltrane here in a toss up. Miles' Second Great Quintet lineup was truly phenomenal and this was the decade where he truly hit his prime as an innovative trumpet player. Everything Miles released in the early to mid 60's is worth every penny, but when he started trying to appeal to a younger audience and went Acid/Psychedelic Rock he started to lose his focus and a huge step. Coltrane is still the top dog when it comes to unique soloing and putting together solid masterpieces of albums, and unlike Davis, he died before he could truly embarrass himself with a horrible album.


For Folk music it's easily going to be between Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, and some of the other LA singer/songwriters that came out in the early years of the 60's.


The 60's hands down was the best era of music in my opinion. You can't really just put one band on the pedestal without going into all the other genres and the great things we received from each of them.