The Steel Guitar Forum

Did Hippies Hurt or Help American Music?

Help.

I can barely belive that I am biting on this bait.

For what it's worth, any post that postulates the notion that an entire era of Americana can be characterized as either contributory or "not" to anything probably sheds more light upon the bias of the poster than anything else.

I was born in 1944 and was in northern California (and SF) during the so-called "hippie" years. There is no way that I could have then or now made the sort of generalizations that would be necessary to answer the question that was posed by saying anything other than, "Where you stand on this as an issue most likely depends on where you sit".

Trying to pidgeon hole folks who lived and played music during that era is pointless. Some were clearly undisciplined and othere were serious musicians. Wait, does that sound a bit like today?

Perhaps the original post was posed with no bias or otherwise ridgid point of view. If that was the case, the subsequent responses by the original poster have done little to substantiate that point.

The Hippie era music was far superior in both creativity and complexity than anything on pop radio today and all the young people know it. Thats why my nieces and nephews listen to "Traffic" and "Cream" rather than "Green Day". Sly And The Family Stone would make mince meat out of any of the pop acts today. Same with Creedance.

Larry Miller wrote:This particular hippie, contributed much IMHO

Whoa! I was thinking of Bruce today! I cannot believe you just posted this. He was absolutely the best bass player of the 1960's, in my very humble opinion. I had the Buffalo Springfield's "Questions" on in the car today, marvelling at Bruce's bass lines. He was just out of this world. Died poor a couple of years ago in Small town Ontario. What a musician, what a story. It is a shame he's not better known. This is, of course, for another thread.

I called a vegetable and it responded to me.....now what?

What the hippies did was rescue music from Corporate America. At least for a while.

Rock music originally sprang from the people. The early artists, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, all these people were, in the purest sense of the word, folk singers. Their music sprang from the soil.

But within a couple of years, the big moneyed interests saw the opportunity for quick buck, and the created such bland corporate goody two shoes singers as Frankie Avalon and Fabian. The next few years saw rock music not just controlled by corporations, but emasculated and robbed of all it’s vitality.

The Hippies brought that vitality back. Yes, there were self indulgent bands, that took endless out of tune guitar solos, But there were also such band as Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds, The Electric Flag, The Buffalo Springfield, Country Joe and the Fish, etc. and from England, The Beatles, the Stones, the Who, and countless others that wrote and played real music.

It was a very good time to be a young guitar player. It was a wonderful scene and I’m grateful to have been part of it, and if being old now is the price of having been young then, I say it’s a bargain.

hippies smell

If you ever saw Quicksilver Messenger Service perform at the height of their powers in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, this question would never come up...

Amen, Mssrs. Perlowin and Cohen.

Let's add Ry Cooder and Clarence White as examples of what the 1960's produced musically.

I'd like to point out another particularly unkempt, unwashed person from history who had a modicum of positive influence on our lives today: John the Baptist.

Matt, I sincerely hope that your children, in their dotage, don't hold their own parents in the great disdain you apparently harbor for yours.

Amen Herb..........
I agree with Doug.........
By "hippie" do you mean anyone who "colored outside the lines?"
Ya mean no-count nare-do-wells like like William Smith Monroe, JR Cash, Huddie William Ledbetter, William John Clifton Haley, Jr...........
What a little bundle of joy this youngster is!
edited........

Yeah, what IS a Hippie, anyway? Sideburns below the ear lobe? Smokin' a doobie now and then? Having disdain for the current administration? Jamming? Liking patchoulie oil? Reading Kerouac? Hanging with Neal Casady? Taking the dreaded lysergic? Missing a shower now and then? Preferring reefer over alcohol? Liking The Dead over Rascal Flatts? Saying no to Mom and Dad? Reading the Flying Furry Freak Brothers? Going to the Fillmore? Refusing to serve in a Selective Service for an unjust cause? Preferring music that has soul over computer generated "Pro-Tools perfected pitch-corrected pablum"? There is no doubt about the importance of the influence on modern American music that the sixties had. It's irrefutable.

The Hippies made the musical conservatives irrelavent.

Ridiculous question, period.

Chris,

I believe Steve Stills played the bass on Questions. Bruce had been deported by that time. He still was a great bass player. Stills played all the bass parts on the first CSN album too.

Russ

We're doomed.

Forgive me for saying so but I get the distinct sense that this has more to do with how you feel about yourself and your parents than with hippies, music, personal hygiene, etc. But,sucker that I am, I will bite. In "conservative" academic circles the extension of tonality is generally considered a good thing - an indicator of evolving musical taste, understanding, and the ability of composers to express themselves with an ever expanding tonal "palette". You can make a good case for crediting the jazz world for extending tonality but I have to say that I can make a great case for Jimi Hendrix being the biggest single contributor to the "cause" of the extension of tonality in the history of the human race. Might I surmise that you would consider Hendrix to have been a hippie? It seems clear to me that the tonality of contemporary music would be far less evolved and comparatively sterile if not for them damn hippies.

Chris,

I believe Steve Stills played the bass on Questions. Bruce had been deported by that time. He still was a great bass player. Stills played all the bass parts on the first CSN album too.

Russ

from liner notes and printed reviews, Jim Messina played the bass on Questions. Bruce was busted on January 26th 1968 on the way home from the show at Campus Hall UC Irvine, and was deported. Questions was recorded February 16th. Perhaps Bruce was working on Questions at the time of his departure, maybe a demo even. There was a demo of Special Care done between 3 Jan and 20 Jan 1968 (while Bruce was still there), which begs the "question", did Jim Messina model the bass lines after Bruce's demo? I know Carol Kay for sure didn't do it

i knew this thread was gonna go far & i'm glad it has"nt been closed

Mike P, you done summed it up fer me cause that's just where i was at

It was a very good time to be a young guitar player. It was a wonderful scene and I’m grateful to have been part of it, and if being old now is the price of having been young then, I say it’s a bargain.

i loved Mr Natural, AngelFood Mc Spade, the Furry Freak bros, & all the bands i worked w: as a roadie & the ones i caught w: 'em

great times indeed !

come on' all you Ol' hippies & be counted for !

We're doomed

could be, thus all the more reason to...

As Mr. Natural told Flakey Foont when asked about the meaning of it all, "It's like Diddy Wah Diddy... If you don't know, don't mess with it."

Let me clarify it further: It's that sense of cosmic boredom... the mind-trap of duality.

Knowhutahmean Vern?

Does that reveal anything about what I was doing in 1967?

Gee, doesn't it seem that the posts from all of us old hippies are a lot less cynical than Matt's original?

My copy of Last Time Around credits Bruce with Bass on Questions, Special Care, and On The Way Home. Listening to these bass lines, it is easy to see it is not Jim Messina. Stills' style is modelled after Bruce, so it's sometime hard to decipher. Some of Stills' work on CSN is very Bruce-like. But the intricate triad work and decending lines on these BS songs are so Bruce.