The End of an Era? The Legacy of the 60s

The Band

• One of the most influential groups of the 60s. • Four Canadians and an American, they toured with the

rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins the US and Canada in the late 50s and early 60s, often in small rough country bars.

• 1966: began playing with Dylan in a house called Big Pink in Woodstock, NY, recording the famous Basement Tapes.

• First album Music from Big Pink was a revelation to many, it contained "The Weight" which has been covered many times.

• “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” from their second album, The Band, released in 1969. About the fall of Richmond, Virginia in the Civil War. Viewed from perspective of the losers

The Doors

• Formed in 1965. Lead singer and songwriter Jim Morrison and the organist/keyboardist Ray Manzarek had met at the UCLA (U California) film school.

• Name from Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, an influential book whose title was from a quote by William Blake.

• First album released in 1967, incl. n° 1 hit "Light My Fire" and “The End”.

The End

• Inspired by Sophocles tale of Oedipus and Freud’s Oedipus complex

• Reminds me of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood• Morrison like Dylan fascinated by Rimbaud• Notice use of drone (‘bourdon’) • More to explore: Rimbaud and Jim Morrison,

Wallace Fowlie, an American translator of Rimbaud.

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

• Another innovative band based in LA• Zappa was a brilliant iconoclastic musician,

composer and songwriter, influenced both by 20th century art music, esp. Varèse, Stravinsky and Webern, as well as American popular music, esp. doo wop, R & B, the blues and jazz.

Plastic People

• From 2nd album, Absolutely Free• Beginning is a parody of Lyndon Baines

Johnson (LBJ), who became president after Kennedy assassination Nov. 22, 1963

• Allusion to 1955 rock 'n' roll classic ‘Louie Louie

• Denounces the consumer society and conformism.

Aftershock

• ‘Plastic People’ directly inspired the Czech dissident band, The Plastic People of the Universe, a major actor in the Prague spring of 1968.

• Zappa’s music has had tremendous influence on jazz and popular music around the world

Velvet Underground

• Founded by Lou Reed and John Cale and managed by artist Andy Warhol,

• Influenced the punk movement of the 70s. "Heroin" from their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, released in 1967.

• Velvet Underground also inspired the Czech Velvet Revolution.

• More to explore: Patti Smith's memoirs Just Kids on the NYC scene in the 60s

The end of peace and love? Violence in the 60s

• Violence abroad, with the Vietnam War, • At home: riots in major American cities, the

assassination of JFK in 1963, of Malcolm X in 1965, as well as Martin Luther King & Robert Kennedy in 1968, the violence at the democrat convention in Chicago in 1968.

• Rise of radical movements like The Weathermen and The Black Panthers, and the ensuing repression by the federal government.

Woodstock

Woodstock

• Joni Mitchell• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Altamont Festival

• December 6, 1969, a free festival was organized at the Altamont Speedway in California, featuring The Rolling Stones and many other famous rock bands such as Santana and Jefferson Airplane. About 300,000 people attended.

• Security was handled by the Hell's Angels, responsible for much of the violence. 18-year old Meredith Hunter, who apparently pulled out a revolver, was stabbed to death by a Hell's Angel.

New Speedway Boogie

Kent State shootings

• Apr 30, 1970: President Richard Nixon announced the American invasion of Cambodia.

• Protest and demonstrations broke out all over the country, especially on college campuses.

• The Ohio National Guard shot a group of unarmed students at Kent State college, killing four and wounding nine.

• Provoked a strike involving four million students, closing down hundreds of colleges and high schools.

MC5: Radicalization & proto-punk

• MC5 (from Motor City Five), "garage" band from Michigan, formed in 1964, inspired by rock 'n' roll, R & B, & free jazz.

• Released their first album, recorded live, Kick Out the Jams, in 1969.

• Radical politics associated with John Sinclair who founded far-left White Panther party. MC5 was a hard rock band that anticipated the punk movement.

• Rage against the machine covered "Kick Out the Jams".

Kick Out the Jams

Songs about friendship

• At the end of a turbulent but exciting era, two enduring hit songs celebrated the value of friendship in times of trouble.

• Simon & Garfunkle's ‘Like a bridge over troubled water’

• Carole King's ‘You've got a friend’on her hugely successful Tapestry album, and which had also been made famous by James Taylor

You’ve Got a Friend

The 70s

• George Clinton would explore funk, major soul albums would be released, such as Marvin Gaye What's going on & Stevie Wonder's Talking book & Songs in the key of life.

• Joni Mitchell continued to release classic albums, and other woman singer songwriters like Carly Simon & Ricky Lee Jones had success.

• Disco would become a craze, while punk was in part a reaction against the hippie music of the 60s, but an extension of bands like The Velvet Underground.

• Jazz rock and fusion of the 70s came out of Miles Davis's great band of the late 60s.

The legacy of the 60s

• Rise of rap, building on The Last Poets, • Legacy of Motown: Michael Jackson (who started with

the Motown Jackson 5)... • Grunge music saw Neil Young as an inspiration. World

music grew out of the folk movement of the 60s (anticipated by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart..).

• Bruce Springsteen sprang out of Dylan, as did Tracy Chapman and Ani DiFranco.

• Amy Winehouse came out of the girls groups of the early 60s and Billie Holiday, adding her own sound.