The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers, at the time a record for an American television program. The Beatles went on to become the biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed by numerous British bands. By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of the American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, utilizing traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics. In the early sixties figures such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach a mainstream audience with hits including "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "Masters of War" (1963), which brought "protest songs" to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences.
Around 1963 JFK assassination happened; people say everyone remembers where they were at and what they were doing when that happened. On November 22, 1963, the youth and idealism of America in the 1960s faltered as its young President, John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Two days later, Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby during a prisoner transfer. After researching all the available evidence about Kennedy’s assassination, the Warren Commission officially ruled in 1964 that Oswald acted alone; a point still greatly contested by conspiracy theorists