10 Greatest Rock Music Frontmen Of The 60s

A fascinating figure who has only fairly recently received the credit he deserves, Roky Erickson could be said to have codified the ‘60s garage rock sound. His band, The 13th Floor Elevators, weren’t around for long, but what they lacked in longevity, they make up for in pioneering a sound that remains a key reference point for so many modern bands.

Their debut album, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, is truth in advertising. It’s 34 minutes of wild sounds that must have been mindblowing on its 1966 release. The opener and the band’s most famous track, "You're Gonna Miss Me", is perhaps the classic of the genre, with Erickson barrelling through the vocal track before blowing his lungs out on a harmonica solo.

Rock stardom was difficult for Erickson to handle, whose mental health issues were exacerbated by a prodigious drug intake, and by the end of the decade he was frequently in trouble with the law and placed in treatments that never proved to be too effective.

Before the end of his life, though, he had been rediscovered by new waves of alternative rockers, the subject of the excellent documentary You’re Gonna Miss Me, and touring again. At long last, he was rightly acknowledged as a mercurial genius.