The950’s 2 Essay, Research Paper

The 1950’s in America were considered a true awakening of youth culture. If this is true then the 1960’s was a decade of discovery. It was a decade marred by social unrest, civil rights injustice, and violence abroad. These were some of the factors that lead to a revolution that attempted to bifurcate the fabric of American society. Teenagers were breaking away from the ideals that their parents held, and were attempting to create their own society. If they were to accomplish this they would turn the current system upside down. In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said his most famous words: “I have a dream.” (Constable, 144) He was not the only one who felt this way. For many, the 1960s was a decade in which their dreams about America might be fulfilled. For Martin Luther King Jr., this was a dream of a truly equal America; for John F. Kennedy, it was a dream of a young vigorous nation that would put a man on the moon; and for the hippie movement, it was one of love, peace, and freedom. (Constable, 34) The 1960s was a tumultuous decade of social and political upheaval. We are still confronting many social issues that were addressed in the 1960s today. In spite of the turmoil, there were some positive results, such as the civil rights revolution. However, many outcomes were negative: student antiwar protest movements, political assassinations, and ghetto riots excited American people and resulted in a lack of respect for authority and the law. One could look back on all of this it can be related to music and its change. While it did voice important concerns about civil rights, the Vietnam War, and the injustices of society. (Constable, 27-28)

It is important to first examine the change in music that was the fuel of the counterculture revolution. Rock n Roll was born in the 1950’s. It was this birth that allowed the counterculture to be born. Without the innovation of the Rock n’ Roll of the 1950’s the rock of the 1960’s would have never evolved. It became an outlet for the teenagers of the 1960’s to express themselves and voice their concerns about society.

Rock n’ Roll emerged from rhythm and blues, a music similar to jazz played by blacks. This kind of music started to attract white teenagers. Disc jockey Alan Freed was the one who introduced this music and later gave it the name of Rock n Roll. (Groliers, 1) Record companies distributed records played by whites but composed by blacks. Whites were frustrated because there weren t any white artists and they didn t want the blacks to be the stars until Bill Haley appeared with his “Rock Around the Clock”. This typifies the racial attitudes of the decade. It showed the segregated view of society that existed among the races. By teenagers acknowledging black music it was a move that started to separate the culture of the teenagers from their parents. (Constable, 71-72) In this decade, Elvis Presley introduced a music that was sexual suggestive and outraged dull adults. In time he changed the style of the music by adopting a country and western style and became a national hero. By the end of this decade and the start of the next, Rock n Roll started to decline because it was formula ridden and it was too sentimental. Teenage audiences transferred their allegiance to Folk music. In 1963 the renewal of Rock n Roll came when The Beatles started to play. (Frank, 13)The Beatles, for some the best rock group ever, were from Liverpool, England. Through the 60 s, The Beatles dominated the record industries and with their dominant instrumentation, which included: electric leads, rhythm, and bass guitar, drums and sometimes an electric organ, changed the name of Rock n Roll to just Rock.

During the 1960 s, many other styles of music arose from Rock like, Motown, Soul music, Jazz-rock , Folk-rock and others. Folk-Rock the most appreciated of this derivations and was first suggested by Bob Dylan. (Groliers, 1-2)This kind of music brought to folk music a hard beat and amplification; and to Rock, a new poetic style. California was one of the major centers of rock activity and experimentation during the decade. First it was characterize for its surfing music, a very joyful music that reflected the fun people had while surfing. The Beach Boys were the ones who introduced this kind of music. At the end of the century this happy kind of music changed to a more rebellious style that was designated the name of “hippie music”. Groups that played this music were Country Joe and The Mamas and The Papas. Along with this hippie ideas popularity of hallucinogenic drugs produced a psychedelic style of music called Acid Rock. By the end of the 60+s the distinctions between Rock n+ Roll and Rock were evident.(Groliers, 2)

The early instruments- saxophone, piano, amplified guitar, and drums had been changed to electric guitar and bass, amplified drums and other electronic devices. Not only did the instruments change but so did the ideas behind the music. For example, “to the lyrics of teenage love and adolescent concerns were added social commentary, glorification of drugs and free-association poetry”(Groliers, p.1). Groups like The Beach Boys , Crew Cuts , and The Everly Brothers were replaced by more imaginative, non-descriptive names groups like The Who , Jefferson Airplane , Big Brother and Holding Company . The Who , the most famous of these groups, were originally from England and were renowned because of their bizarre stage performances, they would destroy their instruments after their performance finished. “The Who” was one of the first rock groups.

Another musical effect had on society was the important aspect of the 1960’s that of the civil rights movement. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, and in 1965 they passed the Voting Rights act. (Constable, 153-55) The Civil Rights Movement did not just affect American minorities, but everyone who lived in the United States at the time. The momentum of the previous decade’s civil rights gains led by Reverend Martin Luther King carried over into the 1960s. The music affected the civil rights. Such music that followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were gospels. These people would sing these gospels while having protests to show that even religion says that everybody should be treated equally.

Besides the Civil Rights movement, there was another important movement during the 1960s: the Student Movement. Youthful Americans were outraged by the intolerance of their universities, racial inequality, social injustice, and the Vietnam War. The Student Movement led to the hippie culture. This movement marked another response to the decade as the young experimented with music, clothes, and drugs. These young people became known as hippies. Hippies preached mysticism, honesty, joy, and nonviolence. (Time 7 July 1967, 4-5) In 1969, they held the famous Woodstock Festival for peace in New York, a three-day concert that emphasized their beliefs.

One of the chief movements that came from the Student Movement was the antiwar protests during the Vietnam War. (Time 6 Jan. 1967, 22) Starting with teach-ins in 1965, the massive antiwar efforts centered on the colleges, with the students playing the lead roles. The teach-in approach was at first a gentle approach to the antiwar activity. But soon other types of protest grew to replace it. These demonstrations were one form of attempting to go beyond mere words and to “put direct pressure on those who were conducting policy in an apparent disdain for the will expressed by the voters” (Gitlin 30). In 1965, the United States started strategic bombings of North Vietnam, catalyzing the public opinion of what was happening in the region. These bombings helped sustain the antiwar protests and spawned new ones, “and the growing cost of American lives coming home in body bags only intensified public opposition to the war” (Rubin 54). The antiwar movement spread directly among the combat troops in Vietnam, who began to wear peace symbols and flash peace signs in movement salutes. Some units even organized their own demonstrations to link with the activity at home. Jimi Hendrix released a song titled If 6 was 9 that described his oppression: White collared conservative flashing down the street/Pointing their plastic finger at me/They re hoping soon my kind will drop and die…Go on Mr. business man/You can t dress like me. During Woodstock, the music festival in 69, Country Joe and the Fish sang lyrics that were both comical and intense: What are we fighting for?/Don t ask me, I don t give a damn/Next stop is Vietnam…Whoopee we re all gonna die. Jerry Rubin illustrated his anger in the government, in the book he wrote while spending time in jail. We Are Everywhere describes Rubin s hatred towards all authority admitting, heroin is the governments most powerful counter-revolutionary agent, a form of germ warfare. Since they can t get us back into their system, they try to destroy us through heroin (Gitlin 118). easy to side with the anti-war movement.

During the 1960s, music helped fuel the fire for three movements which were the Civil Rights movement, the Student Movement, and the Anti-War movement. The new style of rock and other forms of music helped spawn these movements.