MUSIC
KEITH RICHARDS, A MASTER OF THE UNEXPECTED YET COMPELLING INSIGHT, OBSERVED THAT MUSIC RANKED – IN ORDER OF ITS PERVASIVENESS IN HUMAN ACTIVITY – THIRD, AFTER ONLY FOOD AND SEX . FOR MY GENERATION MUSIC WAS THE PLATFORM, THE GLUE THAT HELD US TOGETHER. IT SPOKE TO US, INSPIRED US. EVEN WHEN THE ALL THE PROMISES SEEMED TO FALL APART, WHILE SOME DISTANCED THEMSELVES AND OTHERS MOURNED THE PASSING, EVEN THAT WAS CHRONICLED THROUGH “THE MUSIC.” BELOW IN NO ORDER ARE LINKS TO A VAST ARRAY OF MUSIC. USE THE “SEARCH” BAR TO FIND MORE.
Jim Morrison at London’s Roundhouse 1968
“Jim Morrison, seemed the perfect subject for the Granada show. He had a reputation as an angry young man, and some called him the “American Mick Jagger.” As the show began, Morrison came out dressed in his normal costume (WARDROBE) of black leather trousers and jacket and white shirt. He seemed to me somewhat puffy-faced. […]
Jimi Hendrix ARE YOU EXPERIENCED 1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70tF-9Uf-Mk&feature=youtube_gdata_player “The next day the first thing we do is buy a stereo and a copy of Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced? To be “experienced” – I am at the time certain about what this means – is to understand purple haze, amplified feedback, and the extension of time. From the album cover Hendrix, flanked […]
Blue Cheer SUMMERTIME BLUES 1968
For FULL SCREEN click below “Some months earlier, Jon visited me in the flat I was then renting in Kensington Court. I’d shown him some of my writing, which he said was good. This was a great compliment to me. Before he left I’d also shown Jon some photographs I had taken in California. They […]
The Beatles BACK IN THE U.S.S.R 1968
For FULL SCREEN click below. John answers the door. He is wearing jeans, a black shirt, and tennis shoes. He turns and leads us into a cluttered living room, piles of records scattered about the floor. John kneels down and puts on the first track of The Beatles’ new record. The sound of screeching jet […]
The Rolling Stones “GET OFF OF MY CLOUD” 1967
“Photograph Mick Jagger? Why, I remember in college, driving down the California highways in my VW bus, hair just beginning to grow over my collar, an Indian brass bell and hawk feather hanging off the rearview mirror, and the dashboard painted light purple polka dots, the color I was into then, singing at the very […]
Gil Scott-Heron THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED 1971
The 60s didn’t end. Streams don’t dematerialize as they merge with a larger river. But it did seem our engagement with the idealistic and the political had come to an end. We, almost literally, abandoned the field. We abandoned the field out of out of exhaustion, excess, despair, weakness. Who knows? But nature abhors a […]
Jackson Browne (Joan Baez) BEFORE THE DELUGE
“On the brave and crazy wings of youth,” Jackson Browne later sang about what, by then, seemed brave and crazy, we set out to try and fulfill the vast promises we collectively imagined. Sometimes, as Brown also sang, this was political and sometimes it was a journey back to nature. If it seemed daunting, no […]
Bob Dylan LIKE A ROLLING STONE 1965
http://youtu.be/hk3mAX5xdxo “I walk into a restaurant where a group of five jocks sit in a booth. Silence at first. Stares. Then, in a stage whisper, one of them asks, “Hey. What’s that? A boy or a girl?” Gales of laughter. They slap each other on the back. (High fives weren’t invented yet). Dylan snarls: You […]
Bob Dylan MASTERS OF WAR 1963
For FULLSCREEN click control below-right of video. Please add any comments below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtLNEUsdmf0&feature=youtube_gdata_player “Dylan hit a nerve for me, opened a door into a trove of barely distant memories when I was a grade-schooler and would be told to huddle under my desk in case of attack. I had grown up with Fail-Safe and Dr. […]
Roy Orbison
For FULLSCREEN click control below-right of video. Please add any comments below. The video on this page is a link from YouTube. Copyright © remains with the rights holder.
