Did Hippies Hurt or Help American Music?

Greg Simmons · Post by **Greg Simmons** » 1 Feb 2008 4:17 pm

...sure Jimbeaux, but with apologies to the late great Doug Sahm, we all know "You Can't Hide A Redneck (Under That Hippy Hair)"

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 1 Feb 2008 4:41 pm

Jimbeaux, you gotta use that on a cd cover (unless of course you already have, in which case I'm dreadfully out of touch and really have to get out to some conventions again, starting I hope with Dallas in March)!

Nagging doubts remain about the hygiene issue though, since you look rather clean! On that point, however, it is my observation that old freaks tend to shower rather frequently - perhaps because they're still trying to wash off the Woodstock mud.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 1 Feb 2008 4:44 pm

Bob Blair wrote:Jimbeaux, you gotta use that on a cd cover (unless of course you already have, in which case I'm dreadfully out of touch...

Ahem... how can I put this, dear Bob... some Forumites already have this photo in their collections...

.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 1 Feb 2008 4:51 pm

Steelin’ for Peace

Jimbeaux plays the sloppy, meandering (non-dynamic) solos, loud volume, distortion of the Hippie era. "a black mark of a time period" with "questionable fashion and personal hygiene, flexible mores, other-worldly (read "unproductive") intellectual pursuits, and the overall championing of mediocrity."

Not only is his tone Acceptable... it’s at the cutting edge of mediocrity! This could be really big!

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 1 Feb 2008 5:05 pm

Jim, that picture should be on the cover of your new country CD.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 1 Feb 2008 5:31 pm

You're right, Mike. It doesn't get much better than that!

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 1 Feb 2008 5:58 pm

Neo-classical guitarists.
Well i was listening to Segovia and Juilan bream in 1969.

The freedom to ADD classical to your rock comes
FROM the hippie ear's freedom to expand.

Jimi was rehearsing and writing with John MacGlaughlin when he died,
they planned an album together.

John's aggressive, very fast, and classically
influenced jazz attracted Jimi.

Soon there after John became an major influence.
He is INTENSLY practiced, he is also totally from the hippie era.

Santana was playing killer salsa influenced rock,
but moved forward into, jazzier elements
and did an album with John Macglaughlin to.

If you put Ygnui and the neo-clasical shredders together with John, during ANY time in the last 40 years,
he would out play them in their genre and then loeave them behind.

John lives in a house in Moroco, classic hippie.

Then you have the Oregon for instance,
a more acoustic post hippie intelligent music.

The freedom of the hippie era opened stylistic doors,
not just repeating the same old same old.

The recording techniques of the 80's were swamped by early versions of electro mechanical technology.
I found it pretty disheartening much of the time doing sessions then.
Plus the cocaine glut of that time,
made people take more short cuts,
from inattention too.

To single out the solely 60's as being a loss
from social experiments,and drug use is pretty myopic.
Both such things had been happening long before.

Russ Tkac · Post by **Russ Tkac** » 1 Feb 2008 6:09 pm

Jim, with that picture you could call your new CD "Cohen Broke"

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 1 Feb 2008 6:10 pm

"Imagine Whirled Peas"

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 1 Feb 2008 6:27 pm

"The cutting edge of mediocrity..."

HEAVY, Doug. Un-washedly, flea-infestedly, free-love-sharin', E-Z-Wider-rollin-papers-HEAVY.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 1 Feb 2008 6:32 pm

If memory serves Jimbeaux really does have that car too.

-----------------------------

One of my favorite musical moments was sitting down
to play 2 mandolins with R. Crumb.

Robert more or less codified the hippie days on paper,
but NEVER considered himself a hippie.
He sees himself more as a musicologist of
obscure 40-50's related string and jazz musics,
who happens to draw well too.
------------------------------

So many great and totally unique bands from that era.
The crap falls by the wayside, but the cream continues to float.

And they planted the seed for MOST of the music coming after.
The beat poets and jazz guys got together,
and sowed the seeds of RAP,
think Alan Ginsberg and assorted players,
or Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson.
BUT they still used real bands, not machines,
that didn't come in till the 80's and beyond.
------------------------------------------

Each generation has taken SOMETHING from the previous generation,
but more often than not,
because of the rebelling from the parents generation thing,
it SKIPS a generation and takes from 2-3 generations back still.
And adds THAT to the current technology AND social view point.
----------------------------------------

Matt in essence, for many here,
you said 'your childhood or teenage years sucked...'
Well they/we were there then, you weren't,
so very likely we are in a MUCH better position
to know about it. It wouldn't hurt you to listen
with a slightly more open mind. You might find
many things you missed in your anger.

If you choose to learn nothing from those of that period.
I see it as YOUR musical loss and no one else's.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 1 Feb 2008 6:32 pm

HEAVY, Doug. Un-washedly, flea-infestedly, free-love-sharin', E-Z-Wider-rollin-papers-HEAVY.

Nah, he ain't heavy. He's my brother.

(So on we go...)

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 1 Feb 2008 6:50 pm

Remember these? I had six VWs between 1966 and 1976, some better than others!
Back then every third or fourth car on the road was a VW! Great cars, lousy heaters.

Mike Shefrin · Post by **Mike Shefrin** » 1 Feb 2008 7:03 pm

This thread is really FAR OUT MAN!

Webb Kline · Post by **Webb Kline** » 1 Feb 2008 7:41 pm

WE used to have a VeeDub Bus like that for our band. We rolled it on its side one night on the way home from a Yes concert. We got out, pushed it back on its wheels and kept on truckin'.

Greg Simmons · Post by **Greg Simmons** » 1 Feb 2008 7:52 pm

this 'lil Bug down the road from my place in the Mojave could use a little TLC

Dave Harmonson · Post by **Dave Harmonson** » 1 Feb 2008 8:32 pm

OK I guess I'll chime in, too. It was hippie types that got me interested in country music, telecasters and steel guitars. Although, you would think first of Jefferson Airplane, Jimi, Janis, Santana, and so on, there was also a kind of counter country scene with The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Gram Parsons and others. I was a '69 highschool grad and more into folk music in my highschool days. Peter, Paul and Mary, Judy Collins, Simon and Garfunkel, etc. When I started to meet other musicians, I found some who were into Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. When I really gave it a listen it got me or I got it, I'm not sure. I remember Merle's live in Meskogie album sent me over the top. I had to get a
tele. Then I started listening to Clarence White and I was totally addicted. The first steel I sat down at was a Fender 1000 owned by one of those hippie types. It took a couple more years before I had my own.
Some of the first steel playing I really listened to was from Fraternity of Man "Don't Bogart that Joint". It don't get much more hippie than that. I believe that was the one and only Red Rhodes. Another of my early favorites was "Drug Store Truck Driving Man" on Dr. Byrds And Mr. Hyde. Although not credited I'm pretty sure that was Red Rhodes as well. Together with Clarence on guitar that track sends me. Far Out and Outa Sight.
One thing I miss from that era was the mixing of genres. A show in the park could have a rock band a bluegrass band and a country band and people would like all of them. In the early to mid 70's we had a really cool independant radio station that played all kinds of different music. There are still some real good stations here now, but they will designate a block of time, usually two to three hours of one type of music. Like a Bluegrass show a Jazz hour or blues. The old station would mix everything and anything at any given time. You might hear B.B. King followed by Poco or Mose Allison. Now days it seems people have been pigeon holed into one thing at a time.
Anyhow I'll send a big Peace Out to all you other old hippies out there. Make Love Not War.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 1 Feb 2008 10:10 pm

And pigeon holing time frames into convenient sociological niches,
to back up a personal points of view,
whether that actually WAS so when it happened...
it is PERCEIVED NOW to have happen.

20/20 hindsight with rose colored glasses.

Jim Robbins · Post by **Jim Robbins** » 1 Feb 2008 11:07 pm

"Will the circle be unbroken" didn't hurt.

But I never figured out why VW bugs were associated with peace & love. We drove a borrowed one during a stint in Portland. That was the only car I ever nicknamed -- called it the "Deathtrap".

Oh, yeah, & getting back to the topic of hippies, pedal steel and North American music -- could there be any connection between sliding around, long sustain, thick chords, just digging in with that bar and ... herbal essences?

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 1 Feb 2008 11:37 pm

And weren't the vent windows on those VW's(and other cars, too)HANDY??

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 2 Feb 2008 12:17 am

OK Jim, point taken. Sell me one in Dallas!

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 2 Feb 2008 1:16 am

Jimbeaux, let me add my approval to that cd cover
you gotta do it man !
just too groovy !

yep ! i'm glad Jeff Beck got mentioned cause he was there from day 1 & still innovating today !

believe it or not it's Buddy's black album that turned me on first
& then i heard, " you better think twice " by Poco & that definitly got me stirred up
(& that long jam tune about gettin vd or the crabs was dyno)

btw: what's great about this forum, it's probably the only place left here on earth where veterans & peacenicks cohabitate

just too Kool !

Mike Winter · Post by **Mike Winter** » 2 Feb 2008 2:41 am

Vent windows rule...it's a shame they discontinued them.

We just played a gig tonight at one of the local watering holes. The dance floor was packed when we played, "The Weight," "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Streets of Baltimore,"Lonesome LA Cowboy" and "Peaceful Easy Feeling."

Gotta love the stuff from back then.

Larry Miller · Post by **Larry Miller** » 2 Feb 2008 5:31 am

....and then came Charlie..

John De Maille · Post by **John De Maille** » 2 Feb 2008 1:44 pm

I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but, when I started to get into "country music", most of the pickers in the clubs were really less than mediocre musicians, if that. Nobody played, or wanted to play, any correct chords to most of the tunes. They left out the relative minors, augmented, and diminished chords, calling them on many occasion "off chords". It was really confusing and often depressing to be subjected to that. Not that I was a chord wiz or anything, but, I tried to introduce a more musical flavor to the pot. More often than not, I was told "WE don't play it that way". 1-4-5 with an added 7th, now and then. Not even a 2 chord! It amazed me. Now, I'm not saying that the "newer" generation of pickers changed the country music world, but, I think they have added more technique and depth to the genre. It's not that the old tunes were bad, it's just that the old R&R's who transgressed into country, added more finesse and flow to tunes that were being played blandly with no musical sweetness. Of course, this is strictly my opinion from past experiences.