Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
1969 was an historic year for so many reasons.  Woodstock symbolizes so much
of it, yet there was so much more.  We are fortunate to have Bruce Pollock,
author of "By The Time We Got To Woodstock:The Great Rock-n-Roll Revolution
of 1969" with us.

Veteran journalist, lyricist, novelist, humorist, essayist,
columnist,editor, music historian, and record producer Bruce Pollock
is the author of ten books on music, including By the Time We Got to
Woodstock, Working Musicians, The Rock Song Index, Hipper Than Our
Kids, When Rock Was Young, When the Music Mattered,  and In Their Own
Words, as well as three novels. He is the founding co-Editor in Chief
of GUITAR: For The Practicing Musician, produced over 100 record
compilations for BMG and Sony/BMG Music and was the editor of 17
Volumes of Popular Music: An Annotated Index of American Popular Songs
(1983-1999). He is currently writing a mystery, a young adult novel, a
celebrity bio, and massive history of 100 years of music.

Leading our discussion is David Julian Gray.

David Julian Gray, aka <djg> is a musician, musicologist, media technologist
and long time host of the WELL music conference. In 1975, djg helped found
The Klezmorim, the band universally recognized as in fountainhead of modern
klezmer music. His research for The Klezmorim led to pioneering work in
computer aided musicology and audio restoration. He.s restored and
remastered recordings for Folk Lyric, Trikont records and the San Francisco
Opera and consulted on audio production around the world. David joined
National Public Radio (NPR) in 1996 to architect all digital production
work-flows and speaks frequently at broadcast and media conferences.  David
became a beta-tester for the Whole Earth .Lectronic Link in 1985 and
was the original co-host of the music conference (with Jim Stockford), a
role he.s served again since 2001.  Never abandoning his clarinet, djg leads
the group Klezcentricity and
(occasionally) performs as a guest soloist with klezmer and blues groups
internationally.

Thank you both for joining us.
  

    
So happy to be here I arrived at least six  hours early.
  

    
Welcome, Bruce - very happy to have you here... and hope you weren't waiting
long.
First, let me say I really appreciate _By The Time We Got to Woodstock_
and your framing of "1969" as the election of RIchard Nixon to the shootings
at Kent State - that makes a lot of sense.
I have always had a sense of 1969 - or that period from November '68
to May 1970 - as the nexus of the popular music we have all lived
since. The super-nova that everything just led up to and everything
*everything* has emanated from. 
The book certainly offers compelling evidence for this view.

Placing this incredible richness of releases, from "Nashville
Skyline" to "Bitches Brew" to the first singles from
funkadelic in the social mileu which saw the euphoria of
the mid-sixties come crashing so hard into Altamont - and
then Kent State exposes a paradox I never quite noticed before.
The social story you tell, and that many of us lived, ends
with comments like "the notion of the counter culture is a myth"
from Jann Wenner or Lennon's "The dream is over."
Yet, at least musically, it's clear that a world of possibility
was created by the super-nova - the dream was just beginning.

The book really tells both stories, one explicitly and
one implicit in the recounting of the music.

Is this something you see as well?
  

    
Right away we're jumping into the deep end.
I guess, with the end of 1969 and the Music as Counterculture era, the
music was then set free to be just music, not chained down by the
hopes and dreams, politics and mythology of a generation. Probably Bob
Dylan's point by going to country music (intuitive of course). And Paul
Simon's point about growing up. Also Paul McCartney's point about
growing up.
On the other hand, with the new delivery systems created to tap into
the market of idealistic youth born in the first wave of the Baby Boom,
music was also ripe to become business, instead of what was perceived
to be something purer (ie. the hopes and dreams, politics and mythology
of a generation).
So we had four or five years of peak musical experiences--as musicians
and as listeners--when the taste of the masses mirrored the elite
taste of the baby boom college-age youth.
By mid-1970 both the original audience and the surviving musicians
were burnt out from this historic co-mingling. But the business was
only beginning.

   This analysis may not completely deal with all the issues you
presented--but we've got a couple of weeks to plumb these depths.
  

    
I suppose the music being "free to be a business" (which, of course,
always was anyway) is one aspect of "the dream" being over - 

another odd paradox, a fact you bring up several times throughout the
narrative, is the insane idea of these peace and loving loving hippies
that The Hell's Angels were of them and the very model of what an
enlightended security force should be.
I was previously unaware there were other festivals (beside Altamont)
with this arrangement.

I suppose the idea was the power of this Aquarian Age, not just would,
but already *had* transformed the Angels into a peace and love loving
criminal motorcycle gang ...
  

    
Yes, the Angels were adopted in the mid-sixties by the acid-taking
literati at Stanford (Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsburg, et al). They were pals
of the Grateful Dead. In England, they stood guard at Hyde Park when
Jagger and the Stones performed there for free after the death of Brian
Jones. In Toronto, another motorcycle group, escorted John Lennon and
his pickup band to the Toronto Peace Festival in September. I think the
Angels, like everyone else, got caught up in the uniquely bad vibes
surrounding Altamont (not to mention the guy with the gun).

In reference to the music becoming more of a business in the 70s: what
was removed from the equation at that point was the left wing idealism
the original folk music civil rights crowd brought to it, through the
60s, making it just another example of an underground movement finally
cresting at the top of the charts, at which point it gave way to the
next underground movement. But as a child of the Baby Boom, the
dead-since-1969 music of the revolution didn't entirely move out of the
way until '75 or so, when punk rock started fomenting in England and
NYC.  
  

    
Bruce - you've got a great quote in the book from Phil Ochs:

        "I recently came to the conclusion that Colonel Parker 
        knows more about organizing America than Angela Davis 
        or SDS."

Ochs was making an attempt to rationalize his response to
a creative drought (which ultimately drove him to suicide), 
but its a good point.
I don't think rock necessarily became more professional, or
business oriented after 1969 - or those in the business became
necessarily craftier (although the revenue skyrocketed and
attracted more sharks) - but there did seem to be a sense
of community and common purpose that quickly dissipated after
1969 ... I don't know if Altamont and its ilk where causes
or symptoms ... likely the latter ...
  

    
We're visible on the web now. If you have friends who might enjoy this
please remind them of the shortcut of  g inkwell.vue  to checkout the
conference.  Or if they are off-WELL, send them the external reading
link to pass around, blog, tweet, etc -
http://tinyurl.com/inkwell-pollock

If you are reading without being a member of The WELL you may send
questions along to inkwell @ well.com for inclusion in the
conversation. 
  

    
Howdy Bruce.  I'm looking forward to reading your new book, which
deals with a subject close to my
born-20-years-too-late-to-have-been-a-part-of-it heart.

Just out of curiosity, in your opinion, have there been any
developments in popular or underground music that at least come close
to that of the '60s in terms of its sheer creativity and also its
socio-cultural-political impact?  And what are your views on the
viability of this lightning striking again anytime soon?
  

    
quote by (djg):
"The super-nova that everything just led up to and everything
*everything* has emanated from."

And WHAT A SUPER-NOVA!!!
  

    
To Oilers 1972,
    I think the operative quote here comes from Pete Townshend: "Won't
get fooled again." Future generations, as early as 1969, were moving
music out of the political realm (perhaps for its own good). After the
war (and the draft) ended, it's been hard to mobilize people in the
streets, where rock bands could hoist their chalice.
   England in the 70s at the time of the Clash comes close, but that
was their scene and their politics. The punk rock scenes of the 70s in
New York and the 80s in California, the 90s in Seattle, produced a lot
of great angry music during a time of repression, and since they never
did achieve any kind of mass influence, aside from Nirvana, punk is
still regarded favorably by critics.
   Since the end of the 60s there's been a ton of great music, but
none of it shared as much and used as much for life-changing
motivation, as during that 65-69 period.
   Then again, since so much of this is a matter of age, I'd like to
hear from people of different ages stating their case.
  

    
To DJG:
    Once the political will of the counter culture was broken, the
whole backstory of the music became subject to ridicule. To be a
"folkie" in the 70s (or 80s or 90s or 00s) was to be hopelessly
"granola, a person apt to break into a chorus of "Kumbaya" at the drop
of a peace sign.
    Meanwhile, divide and conquer was the prevailing motto, as new
generations entered the picture, and new business models sliced up the
pie. 
  

    
>>> Just out of curiosity, in your opinion, have there been any
developments in popular or underground music that at least come close
to that of the '60s in terms of its sheer creativity and also its
socio-cultural-political impact? <<<

I realize <oilers1972> asked this of Bruce, but since Bruce threw it
open to the crowd...

The answer is, of course. Instantly I'm thinking of the 1930s, when
jazz became a serious art form at the same time the American song
reached its zenith. And the socio-cultural-political impact? Much more
so than in the 1920s, jazz in the 1930s brought black and white
musicians together, even on stage. That was something entirely new in
American culture, and it set the stage, if you will, for the great
developments in integration that followed in the 1940s and '50s. 

And that's just the 1930s in America. I don't doubt at all that across
time -- well, since the Middle Ages, say -- there have been dozens of
periods of musical creativity and importance around the world that
matched that of the 1960s. 
  

    
Yeah, I would also point to the same period for the same reasons. 
Those are the two big periods I listen to, and it's quite likely that
the period between 1900 and 1925 was amazing too, but much of it was
never recorded and what recordings we have are mostly too primitive for
my ears.  An incredible collision of cultures during that era.
  

    
     It seems like the history of music is rife with genres emerging
from underground (or bad neighborhoods) that appealed to the young and
thereby threatened the parents and the status quo. I'm thinking of
ragtime, even before jazz.
     Aside from that age-old parent-child struggle, I'm wondering if
political rage was ever so specifically present in the popular music of
its time than in the 60s--from the protest music of early Dylan to
folk/rock to acid rock, underground and at the top of the charts?
    I don't have the name of the group in front of me right now, but
there was a kind of Peter, Paul & Mary prototype during the Civil War
Era, whose songs got banned while inspiring abolitionists everywhere. 
Thought there might be a book in it. The last one written about them
was in something like 1912.
 
  

    
The remarks thus far suggest a kind of cultural soup to me.  I'm 70
years old and have wondered over the years about music as a cause or as
an effect of or even much of a connection to the broader culture.  I
can see the various clashes in the music scene but can't see them as
necessarily either a product of or an influence on the underlying
culture.  

If this sound a bit too skeptical, I should admit to having the view
that even historians have a hard time convincing me of their views on
cause and effect.  I tend to suspect that the problem is an answer
looking for the right questions.  

That said, I have enjoyed much of the music over the period with the
growing limitation of my high frequency hearing in recent years and
enjoy the current discussion.
  

    
I definitely think there's a cause and effect when it comes to
musicians influencing other musicians. In the early to mid 60s this
resulted in folk musicians singing protest songs at civil rights and
anti-war rallies. By the mid to late 60s the audience for such rallies
and such songs was so big it entered the mainstream. And since the
earlier audiences were comprised of so many would be and soon to be
musicians, this made the left-leaning musician class huge (on a par
with the left leaning college teacher class and with just as far
reaching an impact). Combine this with a massive number of folk singing
college age kids worried about being drafted, and you've got a pretty
significant cause and a similarly significant effect.
    Since the end of the 60s, I don't really see this very much. Of
course, the draft has long since ended.
  

    
Just as Mr. Pollock as "expanded" 1969 to mean Nov 1968 to May 1970 -
stevebj's "1930s" must include the mid to late 1920's - that's when
jazz really started to become an art form - and also... I humbly posit, when
it was at its most subversive.
To speak directly to steve's post - what was *most* subversive about jazz
was how it broke long held racial barriers in American society.

To address <robertflink>'s post - music is often a catalyst for
social change - this must go back to pre-history.
Part of its power is that it communicates at a pre-verbal level - when
words with meaning and social resonance are added to that - the power of the
words is usually just riding on the power of the music itself.

We can't ignor that is big part of what gave the musics which reached
that "super-nova" status in 1969 their power was the demographic bulge that
is the "baby-boom"

Check out the chart in the link below... that wave comes crashing
ca 1969 ... interesting ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birthratechart_stretch.PNG
  

    
     I utilized a similar (although easier to read) chart when doing
my book. If you accept the notion that most people's involvement with
music starts in the teen years and peaks during the college years
(hence the cliche "music was so much better when I was 21") the
earliest boomers were around 17 when Dylan broke through in '63 (and
the Urban Folk Scare started). They got out of college around '67
(although many of them dropped out for a few years along the way,
postponing that crucial date). So 1969 found them still clinging to the
shards of their youth.
   But the Boom kept growing and I think some years in the 50s even
surpassed the output of the 40s. So you had even bigger numbers to
support rock's business model of the 70s, illuminated by their older
brothers' and sisters' record collections. However, once the war and
the draft ended, and things continued drifting toward the right, their
shared experiences, political, economic, social and musical, were so
different that it's impossible to say anything categorically about
'Baby Boom Music Fans.'
   It's really the ones who were born up to around 1952, say, who
comprise the demographic driving this book.
    Which is why I'd like to hear from people born in the late-50s and
60s and later, who might address the impact of music on their
particular culture and politics more directly.
  

    
Only a data point, but I'd date the birth of the folk scare several
years earlier. The New Lost City Ramblers formed in '59, Joan Baez and
Bob Gibson at Newport that same year, and her first album was the next
year, Doc Watson's folkie debut at Carnegie Hall with Clarence Ashley
was what? 1961? Dylan's first album was '62, and I think that would be
the point at which the thing became an established fact, although I
remember things being pretty intense before that, at least in New York.
  

    
I'd date it earlier than that.   The Almanacs and the Weavers sowed the
seeds in the late 40s and early 50s, and their bastard children, the
Kingston Trio, blew the lid off in 1957.   And everybody who hadn't gotten a
guitar when Elvis hit, went out and did so immediately.   Then, as our
tastes matured, we went for the real stuff.
  

    
>To address <robertflink>'s post - music is often a catalyst for
social change - this must go back to pre-history. Part of its power is
that it communicates at a pre-verbal level - when words with meaning
and social resonance are added to that - the power of the words is
usually just riding on the power of the music itself.<

I agree but music may be one catalyst among many. Others may include
technical change, education, media developments, new ideas, etc..  How
these mix and match is difficult to tease out.  As an engineer, I may
be disposed to make more of technology than it deserves and, perhaps
how a musician might.

Words riding on the power of music is a strong point, non-the-less.  I
tend to associate music with poetry and rhetoric, all of which are
powerful and more so when combined in interesting ways
  

    
Thanks Ed and rik; of course the part of the Folk Boom I encountered,
Sundays in Washington Square Park, circa 1964, was populated by beatnik
fingerpickers older than me who were deep into researching the roots
while I wandered from crowd to crowd in search of long-haired girls in
the image of Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie and especially Maria D'amato,
later Muldaur of the Even Dozen Jug Band. As Van Ronk once told me,
"New York City was somewhat late on the scene, but its attitude was the
typically New York one of anything worth doing was worth overdoing."
  

    
To robertflink,
   You really hit on something in your comment about technology,
especially as it regards music and musicians. Sometimes the addition of
a certain piece of equipment in the studio causes a total revolution
in sound that later on we bedroom analysts attribute to something
utterly beside the point.
  

    
I gotta wonder. I can see where post-1969 the music was increasingly 
separate from politics, and some of that is certainly due to the 
fracturing of that politics (and a waning of political involvement on the 
part of many people). But I don't think that "politics" ever separated 
from music--rather, I would think it more accurate to say that by 1969 the 
ways to make money from music had (happily for the musicians making it) 
enormously outgrown politics.

Even having said that, we may remember a lot of political images twined 
with music from the late fifties through most of the sixties, but if we 
look at pop charts, most of what charted is just ... product--not 
political or connected to politics at all.

I guess I'm taking a lot of words to say that I think that the political 
ferment and new music were both in the news for a while, but I'm not 
convinced that one caused the other, or that political movements have 
become separate from music, even (or especially) now.
  

    
Ari,
    I think the turning point came when Pete Townshend whacked Abby
Hoffman off the stage at Woodstock with his guitar. But, especially in
1969, in Berkeley for instance, musicians were intertwined with the
political struggles whether they wanted to be or not (free concerts to
raise money, for instance). Even in the movie Gimme Shelter, a woman is
going around collecting for the Black Panthers.
   As far as hit songs, those for the most part are never indicative
of the totality of an artist's work--it's usually their most
inoffensive stuff. In 1969, most of the artists represented their
(liberal) politics merely by being long-haired dope-smoking rock
artists (therefore under attack from Nixon at the top and Reagan in
California).
    These days long hair and dope smoking isn't found to be a criminal
offense. You can even swear on SNL and pluck a chicken on the local
news. A lot of artists like Springsteen (who was 20 in 1969) and Bono,
et al, appeared at concerts after 9/11, but I don't think the
audience's taste for political sentiment has really progressed past
Townshend.