Haitian compas and cadence rampa take over the music scene in Martinique, Guadeloupe and elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles, displacing biguine and similar native genres, which continue to thrive in rural villages
Ray Boley sets up Canyon Records to record Navajo singer Ed Lee Natay; Canyon Records goes on to become the most influential label in Native American music
Ghanaian drummer Guy Warren moves to Liberia and then the United States, where he begins recording a series of radical fusions of African drumming with American jazz
Luambo Makiadi begins recording, and the first full-time Congolese orchestra, African Jazz forms; this is the beginning of a Congolese popular music sound
Bahamanianjunkanoo parades, annual celebrations of music and dance, begin to become more organized, eventually helping solidify the sound of junkanoo and move it towards popularization
The rise of the first sound systems dominated by future record producers like Sir Coxsone Dodd, King Edwards and Duke Reid; these parties are playing jump blues, R&B and other, mostly American, musicians
The founding of the Hanoi Conservatoire of Music leads to more formality and modernization in Vietnamesefolk music and the development of nhac dan toc cai bien
Tony Crombie & His Rockets, an English band, popularizes rock and roll in Iceland with a series of thirteen concerts; authorities don't approve and try to offer non-rock related activities for Icelandic youth
The films Al Hilal and Mughal-e-Azam are responsible for the blossoming of filmi qawwali, as well as its increasing secularization, leading to intense controversy
Native rock and roll musicians begin an Icelandic rock scene. Record companies require lyrics to be in Icelandic, though the youthful listeners prefer English language acts.