Did Hippies Hurt or Help American Music?

[Mike Winter]

As far as Hippies helping American Music, as far as sound systems go, I think great strides were made by the Dead and Alembic in the early '70's. When you consider what The Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, etc. were using just a few years before, it's incredible to me how things changed for the better sound-wise...technically speaking, of course.

[David L. Donald]

Well I wouldn't call them hippies,
but Terry and Bill Hanley were the two
I most identify with PA system development
during this period.

Terry the hands on show operator.
Bill the design geek behind it.
Though Bill did work shows with his brother,
most notably Woodstock. These guys worked
with more hippie bands than anyone on the planet.

They developed the "Magic Stage'.
As well as efficiancies on horn, woofer and amp output.
They had no choice after Beatles tour 1.
They instantly realized that ALL existing systems
were not even close to adequate and so started
building their own from the ground up.

In a few short years they went from
sound systems that couldn't be heard
over the crowd noise; Beatles arrival tour
to handling a MILLION people and dozens of bands outdoors.

Went from 2 AC-15s on stage running clean,
to Clapton and Zep running 100w Marshalls on 11.
Then we get MC5, who set the standard for absurd stage levels.
Kick Out The Jams M.F.

To me that is pretty impressive.
I worked a few gigs with Bill and toured his workshop.
He offered me a job, but I was too busy.
I probably should have taken it.
It would have been great for the musician connections.
The guy would build anything from scratch.

I believe to some extent The Dead techs were drawing
on much of Bill's east coast work, to move to
another level on the west coast.

A tie-in between the two worlds was
Filmores East and West.

[Dan Tyack]

Hippies are my favorite audiences, apart from Sacred Steel church members. They actually are very similar in some ways. They not only listen to the music, but are there to take a journey: they show up to the show ready and willing to let you lead them to another spiritual plane.

I'm not that crazy about some of the jam bands out there, but you can't beat the jam band audience.

The part I don't like: being a little too close to people who have been camping at the festival and who think that a little patouli oil makes up for the lack of running water......

In terms of the original question.....

Hippies definitely contributed to music, but contributed to country music in particular. In the late 60s who else but people like the Byrds, Gram Parsons, and Emmy Lou were recording Louvin Brothers songs?

[Mike Winter]

[Chip Fossa]

GOD! WHAT IS A HIPPIE, anyway??????

It's a ridiculous media-made term.

I was "hippie". Still am. I'm semi-bald. I take a shower everyday. I still use Right Guard. I use Marcal toilet paper. I still believe in "make love, not war".

It's a mind set, for crying out loud. So there were a few folks who maybe put a damper on the progressive attitude in the beginning. Big deal.

Look at the bigger picture.

Outside of the beginning of "rock 'n roll" in the early
'50's, the 60's (hippiedom) just upped the bar by, I would estimate, 1000%. No music since, has so defined not only American music, but world music.
Everyone was into experimenting & blending different music modes. It was an extremely exciting and unique musical time. Nothing was left to chance. Anything was valid. And much of it took hold and worked. We could hardly wait for the next album or 45 to come out from our beloved musician/band idols.
Because we sort of knew that, they would be giving us the same quality, but a different sound, a different idea - moving ahead, as you should; being a musician.

We won't see quite another unique musico/politico renassaince such as we witnessed in the 60's ( 'hippies' - what a stupid, irreverant term) to such a fantastic, eye-popping era in our short and diminutive lives.

Wake up and count the music, artists, sticking-your-neck-out, and overall karma of goodwill to all.

I don't see much peace, love, and flowers-in-your-hair with rap "music". That's why it's called "rap". If you don't like me or what I'm saying, I'll give you a rap; upside the head.

[Dave Mudgett]

To my understanding, the term "hippie" was the tag given to the progressive upstarts in CA by beat generation progenitors. I think a lot of the beat generation people thought of the hippies as less intellectual and fairly naive. Older beats I knew initially looked at me that way. But even though my hair was long and I had many of the mannerisms of a hippie, I wasn't really one. I related much more to the intellectual mindset of the beats - politics, folk music, jazz, blues, experimental music in general, math, science, philosophy, literature, and general nonconformity - but came of age towards the end of the hippie era.

I agree with Dan about their musical contribution. I think a lot of hippies were looking for a simpler - and more real, down to earth - life. A lot of them started out in folk and bluegrass, and country was a natural progression. Blues, rock, jazz, soul, and funk mixed in, and laid the foundation for a lot of what happened later. But for me, the biggest contribution of the hippies was to point the way to bluegrass and country, and start me to focus a little more down to earth.

Don't get me going about patchouli oil. I think I developed an allergy to it early on.

[David L. Donald]

It was an extremely exciting and unique musical time. Nothing was left to chance. Anything was valid. And much of it took hold and worked.

Yep but I also add
EVERYTHING was left to chance. Everything was valid.

Prior to Hippie was hipster and Hip

Online Etymology Dictionary

Hippie
c.1965, Amer.Eng. (Haight-Ashbury slang),
from earlier hippie, 1953,
usually a disparaging variant of hipster (1941)
"person who is keenly aware of the new and stylish,"
from hip "up-to-date" (see hip (adj.)).


Depending on the conservatism of the dictionary we get :

American Heritage Dictionary

hip·pie also hip·py n. pl. hip·pies

A person who opposes and rejects many of the
conventional standards and customs of society,
especially one who advocates extreme liberalism
in sociopolitical attitudes and lifestyles.

and/or

Dictionary.com Unabridged
hip·pie –noun

a person, esp. of the late 1960s, who rejected established institutions and values
and sought spontaneity, direct personal relations
expressing love, and expanded consciousness,
often expressed externally in the wearing of casual,
folksy clothing and of beads, headbands, used garments, etc.

[Origin: 1950–55, Americanism; hip + -ie]

And
flower child –noun

(esp. in the 1960s) a young person, esp. a hippie,
rejecting conventional society and advocating love,
peace, and simple, idealistic values.

[Origin: 1965–70, Americanism; from the conventional image
of such people as carrying and distributing flowers]

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, ©

And

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source -

flower child n. Informal

A hippie, especially one advocating universal peace and love
as antidotes to social or political ills.

[From the custom of carrying or wearing flowers to symbolize peace and love.]

Seems the old guard saw the rejection,
and never bothered to see the positive aspects at all.

And STILL 40 years later resent that rejection
of some of their values,enough to reject ALL music
relating to ANYTHING hippie...

I suppose it must have hurt to have so many young people explicitly say,
we disagree with these core beliefs of yours, TOUGH!
On the otherhand what was gained over the years?
It appears MUCH.


Earliest origins of the terms

hip
Pronunciation adjective, hip·per, hip·pest, noun, verb, hipped, hip·ping. Slang.
–adjective

1. familiar with or informed about the latest ideas, styles, developments, etc.:
My parents aren't exactly hip, you know.

2. considered aware of or attuned to what is expected, esp. with a casual or knowing air; cool:
The guy was not at all hip—a total nerd.

3. in agreement or willing to cooperate; going along:
We explained our whole plan, and she was hip.
–noun

4. Also, hipness. the condition or state of being hip.

5. a hipster or hippie.
–verb (used with object)

6. to make or keep aware or informed.
Also, hep.

[Origin: 1900–05; earlier hep; of disputed orig.]

Random House Unabridged Dictionary,


Now HEP this is much older
and more troubling too...

hep (1)

"aware, up-to-date," first recorded 1908 in "Saturday Evening Post,"
but said to be underworld slang, of unknown origin.

Variously said to have been the name of
"a fabulous detective who operated in Cincinnati"
or a saloonkeeper in Chicago who
"never quite understood what was going on ...
(but) thought he did."

Taken up by jazz musicians by 1915;
hepcat "addict of swing music" is from 1938.

Online Etymology Dictionary

hep (2)
cry of those leading pogroms or attacks on Jews in Europe, 1839
(but in ref. to the riots of 1819 in Hamburg, etc.),

perhaps the cry of a goatherd,
or of a hunter urging on dogs,
but popularly said to be acronym of L.
Hierosolyma Est Perdita "Jerusalem is destroyed."

I MUCH prefer addicted to swing music...


So hippie's origins go back to Scot Joplin's days of early jazz,
it just got twisted again in the 60's by, of course, the media.

If granddad was a hipster that was up to date and informed,
if grandson was a hippie he should never be forgiven EVER.
My how things change.

When I was young I used to race a Beetlecat boat called Hepcat.

[Mike Winter]

[Randy Phelps]

Miles Davis and his band went into a coffee shop in a small town. They ate lunch when they were done with their meal the waitress said, "would y'all like dessert? We've got banana pudding, ice cream and pie, peach, cherry... the apple is gone?" Miles says, "The apple is gone? I'll have two pieces."

This made me rethink what Lefty Frizzell was on about.

Gary Snyder was the ultimate hippie... but he couldn't take the fashion show and went to japan instead.

[David L. Donald]

Miles,
cool cat for sure!

[David Doggett]

To my understanding, the term "hippie" was the tag given to the progressive upstarts in CA by beat generation progenitors. I think a lot of the beat generation people thought of the hippies as less intellectual and fairly naive.

That's where I thought it came from too. The older beats thought of the young upstarts as wannabe hipsters, thus the derogatory term "hippies." The hippies, either through ignorance or audacity, began using the term to describe themselves. Or maybe they didn't, but the media did. Whatever, it stuck. It's a pretty loose term though, and a lot of very different sorts of people fell under the umbrella.

[Jim Cohen]

I must confess that, with this picture alone, I've done significant damage both to hippies AND to American music in general. I'm really sorry.

[Dave Mudgett]

Jim, I think that picture should have been on the back cover of the Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense and Peppermints".

[Randy Phelps]

wouldn't it have been cool if they had called it incensed and peppered meants.

Sweet Home Alabama would never have been written.

[Mike Winter]

Do any of you have the 1967 album, "The Serpent Power?" It was some of the guys from San Francisco who were The Bedouins, and turned into the first incarnation of The Grass Roots. Bass player Dave Stenson lives here in the Portland area, bottom left in the picture below. A copy of that album just sold today for $71 on ebay. It's a collectors album of sorts.

[David L. Donald]

Looks like Amy Winehouse's grandmother on lead vocals; foreground right!

[Mike Winter]

[Randy Phelps]

Looks like Amy Winehouse's grandmother on lead vocals; foreground right!

it appears she was sampling a little serpent power..

[Jason Odd]

One of the main players in Serpent Power has a website where you can listen (for free) to his lost '70 acid folk-counry-rock album for Capitol (which they chose to sit on) and other tracks, some Serpent Power too.

Weirdly enough the album was reissued by Ace/Vanguard a while back, then deleted. Although I think the Akarma label in Italy has a version.

[Jason Odd]

any space rockers out there.. Hawkwind fans?

[Chip Fossa]

David L. - thanks for correcting what I meant to say. EVERYTHING was left to chance. And you certainly did your homework on "HIPPIE".

It's like this: there were many mountain and country, rural folk who had long hair, way before long hair and hippies came about.
So if these folks were ever spotted from a distance, guess what? "Look dere at dem hip-eyes".

Those hapless folks were probably looked down upon as the hippies were.

See my point? About a word or phrase which has such a stigma attached to it. Those country folk were just goin' into town to buy flour and a rasher of bacon, and the next thing they know, they're getting picked on for something they probably never had a clue as to "what's wrong with long hair(?)" (I can't afford a barber) and what in the h*&^% is a hippie?

This percieved scenario all over some stupid word. It's just amazing; how you can get labeled as this or that, and it's totally not true. They oughta revise that phrase, "Don't judge a book by it's cover", to, "Don't judge a cover by it's looks".

And Jimbeaux, yes, you is a hip-eye. Dis I know to be true

[Jim Cohen]

...And Jimbeaux, yes, you is a hip-eye. Dis I know to be true

And, is you a 'skin-head' Chipper? I jus' gots to know, so I can make a bunch of assumptions...

[Chip Fossa]

Jimbeaux,

E-up. I are; I'd be gettin' me some a-dem tatter-twos
when I be gettin' a-haid wit my mattress stuffins'.

If'n you node wud I be talkin'.

Bein' bald aint so bad. What you save in payin' fer the shampoo, ken put that in da gas tank.

[Mike Winter]

[Don Drummer]

Grahm Parsons was a hippie and a damn good one.