Did Hippies Hurt or Help American Music?

[Brint Hannay]

We were fortunate indeed that there was a period of a few years in which the corporate culture sought only to profit from the subculture, before they got around to co-opting it and destroying it. Bear in mind that the only way people could get music widely heard was by getting a contract with a record label--no selling your self-made CD on the internet. But record companies were not yet (all) owned by giant soulless corporations of suits with profit maximizing as their only consideration--they had the now-quaint notion that, music being an art form, they should entrust decisions on product to people who could recognize and appreciate creativity, even very innovative creativity.

[Mike Winter]

Mark Eaton -- Yes! The Band was instrumental in turning the long, extended, psychedelic "jams" back into a rootsy, more "Americana" vibe, with an emphasis on songwriting and excellent musicianship. After hearing "Music From Big Pink," Clapton decided to change course. (How the Hawks got to that point is really beyond me. By all accounts, when they backed Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins, they were considered by many to be the premier live R&B bar band anywhere. Then they all of a sudden the became The Band...)

Quicksilver? They were awesome. They Hippie-fied those Bo Diddley classics. HappyTrails is a classic album that really captures the the "San Francisco" sound.

[David Doggett]

But, without assigning blame to EVERYONE of that generation, many of the ideals you mention have been "sold out" by some of its members who now run things. Perhaps parenthood will do that to anyone.

This is a common misconception. About 2/3 of the baby boomers were conservatives and right-wingers who never participated in the '60s anti-establishment social, political and cultural movements. They put Reagan and the Bushes into office. Few, if any of the 1/3 who were liberals and progressives actually flipped and became corporate money-grubbers and conservatives. I was an activist in the '60s and knew hundreds of others from all over the country. Since then I have never met a single one who "flipped." They went into the social service world, education, non-profits, etc., not into the corporate world.

[David L. Donald]

What Jimbeaux said!

Ok, get a gripo guys..
he NEVER said ONLY that kind of music
in the time period. He was not being alboslutist.

But YES that is when 'death metal'
and 'extreme negativist punk',
and Nirvana led depresion grundge all appeared.

[Webb Kline]

Boy, I got some mileage out of that one!

Funny how the reaction works both ways...

[David L. Donald]

Yep Webb LOL

Oh my gosh there was bad music SINCE the hippies...
And non-hippies made it...

Makes one think...
or close ones mind a notch tighter.

[Edward Meisse]

What Mr. Doggett said about 2/3 of boomers being conservative. As I was trying to say earlier and as someone else has alluded to from a different angle, the hippie spirit seems to be gaining popularity in successive generations. But people are not calling it that. Their not calling it that has to do with the (I think purposeful) misrepresentation of the era and the spirit of it over the years. My son would be embarrassed to be thought of or referred to as a hippie. But he is one.
I have learned to appreciate the music of my son's generation. You have to learn to see it in the spirit that it is experienced by the people it was written by and for. Personally, I do mourn the lack of jazz sophistication in the melodies and harmonies as well as total loss of any kind of lyrical subtlety (which began in the '50's). But perfectly good music can be made without those things.

[David L. Donald]

Interestingly Sam Andrews
of Big Brother And the Holding Company
the back up band for Janis Joplin when she first arrived,
now gets crap from his own band members for being
too jazz influenced.

Now Janis was CERTAINLY a 60's hippie icon,
and this band was in the classic mold of it's time.
It's still around, doing 'oldies', but they DID write them...
yet now done with a fresh hip voice.
No stagnancy here, also sidemen and women,
half their ages, but talented as all get out,
and taking their lead from the old farts.
LEARNING from them, happily.

Canned Heat is still doing the same classic blues,
But then the BLUES rarely is motivated to change.

So to say that 60's artists were not likely to progress,
or add anything further is totally a case by case thing.

Some people got their bag and keep it close their whole lives.
Others are COMPELLED to progress and expand.

There is so much good still emanating from the 60's music
and it's freedom to explore, it is IMPOSSIBLE not
to see it as a plus for all music after.

[Mike Perlowin]

Canned Heat is still doing the same classic blues, But then the BLUES rarely is motivated to change.

Speaking of Canned Heat, check out the second paragraph of this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canned_Heat

[Jason Odd]

Geez Mike, that old interview you did for me has changed how everyone sees the evolution of Canned Heat..

Back in 1970 people complained that Black Sabbath's debut lacked melody, they totally missed the point, I used to get called a hippy for listening to Back Sabbath when I went to metal parties, although I quite enjoyed the other guys playing Slayer and Napalm Death.. both of whom have been at it for well over 20 years.

[David L. Donald]

Well, well, 'deep waters run still'...
sic !

[Webb Kline]

I thought some of you guys might enjoy this. Thanks to the historian tendencies of our old bass player, I've managed to secure a compilation of bands and songs we covered from a 4 year period from 1970 to 1974. Jeff said he got this information from old set lists and that it is not complete. But, for anyone who is familiar with these songs, it shows just what a diverse lot we hippies were. It's really funny looking at this today and seeing some of these artists listed next to each other. One had to remember that there was no classic rock back then--this was what was being offered and listened to. Compare that with today's segregated genres and it seems we've closed our minds.

1. Johnny Rivers--Rockin' Pnuemonia
2. ELP--Take a Pebble, Tarkus Medly
3. Stevie Wonder--I Wish, Susperstition
4. Hendrix Experience--Fire, Foxy Lady, Wind Cries Mary, Little Miss Lover
5. The Beatles--Help, Back in the USSR, I Am The Walrus, Rocky Raccoon, 8 Days a Week, Get Back
6. Johnny Cash--Boy Named Sue, One Piece at a Time
7. Cream-Sunshine of Your Love, White Room
8. The Byrds--Tambourine Man, Eight Miles High
9. Jethro Tull-Cross Eyed Mary, Locomotive Breath, Aqualung
10. Cat Momma and the All Night News Boys-Good Old Rock & Roll
11. The Nazz-Hello It's Me, Open Your Eyes
12. Led Zeppelin-Good Times Bad Times,Livin' Lovin Maid, Whole Lotta Love, Immigrant Song
13. Yes-Roundabout, Every Little Thing
14. Tommy James and the Shondells-Crimson & Clover
15. Steppenwolf-Pusher, Sookie Sookie, Magic Carpet Ride, Born To Be Wild
16. Seatrain-13 Questions, Song of Job, Oh My Love, Home To You, Broken Morning
17. The Allman Bros.-One Way Out, Whipping Post, Not My Cross To Bear
18. America-Horse With No Name
19. Miles Davis-Exerpt from Friday Miles
20. Crosby, Stills and Nash-OHIO, Suite Judy Blue Eyes
21. King Crimson--21st Century Schizoid Man
22. Santana-Black Magic Woman
23. Flying Burrito Bros--Don't Let Your Deal Go Down, 6 Days on the Road
24. Blood, Sweat & Tears--Spinning Wheel, You've Made Me So Very Happy
25. Frank Zappa-Toads of the Short Forest, My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama
26. Blodwyn Pig-See My Way
27. Commander Cody--Hot Rod Lincoln
28. Savoy Brown-Savoy Boogie
29. The Grass Roots-Live For Today
30. Grand Funk Railroad-Are You Ready, Mean Mistreater, Time Machine, I'm Your Captain
31. The Rolling Stones--Brown Sugar, Wild Horses
32. 3 Dog Night-Eli's Coming, Celebrate
33. Sam & Dave--Hold On, I'm Coming
34. Jefferson Airplane--White Rabbit,
35. Procul Harem--Simple Sister
36. The Doors-Love Me Two Times, Light My Fire
37. Uriah Heep-Salisbury, Easy Livin'
38. J. Geils Band-Serves You Right to Suffer
39. The Band-The Weight
40. Wilson Pickett--Midnight Hour
41. Otis Redding--Sittin on the Dock
42. Derek and the Dominoes--Layla
43. New Riders-I Don't Know You, Henry, Glendale Train
44. Deep Purple-Hush, Speed King, Highway Star, Smoke On The Water, Woman From Tokyo
45. Moody Blues-Tuesday Afternoon, Knights in White Satin
46. James Gang--Funk 49
47. Chicago-25 or 6 to 4, Color My World
48. Captain Beefheart-(From Rainbow Trout Mask Replica Album (My all time favortite album name)-China Pig
49. Zeagar and Evans-The Year 2525
50. The Amboy Dukes-Journey to the Center of the Mind

[/list]

[Charlie McDonald]

Hey, it was fun if you were there. I'm glad I was.

Imagine hearing for the first time 'Something happenin' here...' amid your busy college life.
Buffalo Springfield in context was amazing. It was a time.

I'd say it began with White Rabbit.

[Stu Schulman]

Hey Punk where ya goin' with that flower in your hand?....I'm going to the Love In I'm gonna sit and play my bongos in the dirt!

[Randy Phelps]

No one person in any generation is responsible for that generation. Broad generalities paint only a beige picture of what a time was like.

50% of folks in any generation are conservative and 50% are liberal. If you watch presidential elections it is rare for a candidate to get 60% of the vote... so, if a person wanted to conclude that the 60's were much more 'wide open' than now, it just doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. There are nuances that are different and different enough that they change the mood, but the substance doesn't vary all that much.

It is true that the last 15 years have had grunge and death metal etc etc etc... but it has also brought us Vince Gill, Jim Lauderdale, and a whole indie movement that has broadened the palette to a huge degree. There are country rock movements in Boston, 50's country revival acts in SF... home recording allows all kinds of experimentation and what will lead to the eventual return to local music (painful as that will be for a few who had grown accustomed to the false economy of the major labels.)

Pitting one era against another is an interesting exercise... but it is only an exercise.. the reality of our world and our lives is limited to the influence of the artists we choose to listen to and expose ourselves to.

It is a good point that we are marketed to and have had different music shoved down our throat and that the industry is and has been corrupt.... these were constants even in 1968. Then as now, it is our challenge to eschew things that don't sound good and pursue those that do. Different era, same challenge.

[Dave Mudgett]

Amen, Randy. That is so true.

If we, as people in a society, would spend a quarter the time just focusing on the good things we want to do that we now waste fighting with each other over questionable labels, it would be a major change in the right direction. Don't think there isn't a cost to all this bickering.

On the labels - if you look at a picture of some long-haired guy in hippie-style clothes in the late 60s or early 70s, do not assume he is a hippie - whatever exactly a "hippie" was. That was just a hair/clothes style which had a fairly loose correlation to some type of cultural identity. Nor should one assume that a guy with a flattop haircut and a uniform was some type of fascist. These overarching generalizations just don't hold water.

On the notion that late-60s or early 70s counterculture types were somehow uniformly "true" to that culture, I disagree. In my experience, plenty of them "flipped" - I watched people that I knew become everything from insurance salesmen to defense system engineers to fundamentalist preachers. Times change, the world changes, and people change. Nothing we say or do will stop this.

All my opinions, of course.

Matt - you can stream practically any style of music on www.pandora.com . It'll let you try it for a while, then you need to register with an email address, birth year, gender, and zip code, but it's free. I never bothered registering, but one of the places I hang out has it running all the time. If you set it up for a particular artist or band, it will play that mixed in with other bands of similar style. It's pretty interesting. This is a result of something called the Musical Genome Project - http://www.pandora.com/mgp

[Doug Beaumier]

Dave, I went to that site and typed in Buddy Emmons... and "Bluemmons" started playing! Pretty cool.

[David L. Donald]

Randy and Dave M.
Right on!
It never was a cut and dried as some think.

Webb, great list, I noted that I had played
EVERYTHING on that list every single one.
Pretty unusual.

Dems was da daze !

[P Gleespen]

Webb, great list, I noted that I had played
EVERYTHING on that list every single one.

That IS a great list Webb. If you take out the "country"ish stuff, you've got pretty much the playlist from the one rock station that was in town when I was growing up. (without the Miles, the R&B and Beefheart, of course!...and you'd have to add in lots of AC/DC, Bob Seeger and Van Halen...)

That list pretty much defines "classic rock" now, or at least what I think of as classic rock.

It's funny to me how many of those songs are burned into my psyche from listening to the radio before I started buying records. I didn't particularly like a lot of them, but there was NOTHING else to listen to on the radio! Now, when I see those songs it kind of reminds me of being a kid.

Once I discovered that there was a whole other world of music out there, I pretty much stopped listening to the radio, but I certainly remember all that stuff! A lot of it still holds up pretty well too.

[Theresa Galbraith]

Past, Present & Future!

[Dave Mudgett]

If you want to listen to "hippie" music for days and weeks and months on end for free, try this site with tons of downloadable material. Zappa, Quicksilver, John Cipollina without Quicksilver, Airplane, Dead, NRPS, Cody, It's a Beautiful Day, Santana, miscellaneous San Fransisco nights, Electric Flag, Mike Bloomfield, Butterfield, The Band, Cream, Hendrix, Poco, Buffalo Springfield, and more than I can list here. Of course it doesn't end there - Danny Gatton, Roy Buchanan, and more blues, jazz, bluegrass, you name it. It's nuts - studio outtakes, live shows, and on and on. I could sit here and listen for months and never stop if I was so inclined.

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/sugaree/

Thanks to Dave Mason for refreshing my memory on this.

[David L. Donald]

Great site... BUT
sadly the WHOLE thing is WMA files.
No joy what so ever except for very old versions.

I can not get a WMA file reading program that
will not BREAK my Mac for other things
and require 4-5 hours re-installation of system.

And this is the ONLY program that causes
this much disruption.

I REALLY suspect it is deliberate to try
and force you onto a Microsoft platform.

[Jerry Gleason]

David, Flip4Mac is working fine for me on several Macs. It allows WMA files to be played with Quicktime player, either as a standalone or in a web browser.

I don't think Microsoft sells anything for Mac users to play WMA files. I believe the free version of Windows Media Player for Mac is no longer available.

[David L. Donald]

Flip4Mac is the culpret
with my OS for running the generation of Protools
my hardware will use,
it no question BREAKS THE SYSTEM
no doubts done it twice.

10.3.9 is the last system I can run,
or pay around $25,000 US to upgrade.
of switch to MOTU completely for around $6,000US.
Since my french divorce forced me
to miss 2 Digidesign upgrade cycles.

C'est la vie, c'est la merde.

[P Gleespen]

Hmm, that's too bad.

Have you tried it from THIS page:
http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/

That page allows you to stream it, instead of downloading .wmas.

Just a thought. It runs no problem from my mac with OSX 10.4...

...listening to the Campbell Brothers right now. Not Hippy, but sweet nonetheless!