Victor Maymudes and Bob Dylan (photo by Lisa Law)

The imagination of the western world was captured by the ideas and music of a "counter-culture still  known till this day as "hippies" It was the  "dawning of the Age of Aquarius", it was the Trips Festival then it was The Summer of Love It was the time before granola was sold in  bulk at Safeway... Yogurt was  another culture that few had ever heard of...the time of Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth Catalogue, Buckey Fuller and Spaceship Earth...Odetta, Dylan, the Ashgrove, the Birds and Beatles, Kepler's Book Store and the Grateful Dead in Silicon Valley, Cosmic Cowboys in Austin, and Space Cowboys in Los Angles, the Filmore in San Francisco, folk singers in New York, it was Woodstock and the British Invasion

The fifties has set the stage for rebellion. The youth of post war America, whose identity was characterized by bras, flat-top military haircuts, girdles, bobby socks, and backyard bomb shelters was ready to explode. Then came the payola scandals in Rock n’ Roll.

As the decade came to a close the noose around the young culture was drawn tighter.

Elvis was drafted into the army, Chuck Berry and Allan Freed, the man who coined the word Rock N’ Roll, were both put into prison, Little Richard had become a preacher, Eddie Cochran had died in a auto wreck and then "The day the music died"...Buddy Holley died in a plane crash with The Big Bopper and Riche Vallens.   FLASHBACK on the day the music died..

Whole Earth Catalogue and herbal tea.
Tie-dies and long hair
Psychedelics and all natural,
Free love and skinny dippin’,
Mini skirts and bra burnin’
Tune in, turn on and drop out.
Black lights and strobe lights
Green Peace and Black Panthers
Mother Earth News and Indians
LSD and the CIA @ Stanford U.
Timothy Leary and Ram Das
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters
Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady
Rainbow gatherings and pop festivals
Flower power and peace signs
Acid rock and the British Invasion
Beads and sandals
Peter Max and Yellow Submarines
DEAD A-HEAD

Billboard Magazine reports on the new movement of "folknicks", a young Bob Dylan is playing his first concerts... the times they

are a changin’. Some saw rock n’ roll as dead, while Polaris missiles are being fired, satellites launched, Doo-Wop music and the

twist set the beat...Dion, Pat Boone’s "White Sport Coats and Pink Carnations" are the order of the day...underground Bohemian

ripples are beginning to cause waves. A producer named Spector starts a record label and Dick Clark’s "Caravan of Stars" is

setting a stage. In Europe a British Invasion is a seedling growing in Liverpool England. Kennedy is inaugurated. John Glenn orbits

Earth and Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring. Janis Joplin is still in Texas and the CIA is experimenting with LSD at Stanford University in Silicon Valley...Jerry Garcia is teaching bluegrass guitar at Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park where Joan Baez and

Steve Jobs are hanging out...

Flowers are beginning to be worn around San Francisco and around Stanford University inner space is opening up as is outer space. Elvis is

on the charts again. Then in 1963, the year before the Beatles blitz America an American President is shot in the streets of a Texas town.

The Beach Boys and Motown is how America defines Rock N’ Roll, but underground something more than a "fad" was bubbling...the "folk"

movement and their "hootenannies" were singing of radical political beliefs...soon, things would change again forever.

Before the decade of the sixties was half over the Beatles would invade America and America would invade Vietnam, while Ken Kesey and his merry Pranksters loaded in a psychedelic painted 1939 International Harverster  school bus and blasted out of their minds and high on the times went on the road, Jack Kerouack and Neal Cassady style.  We remember the beat writers like Allen Ginsberg, William Borroughs, Kerouack and Cassady...Ramblin' Jack Elliott brings us Woody Gutherie's and Odetta is singing in New York...

 

In Los Angeles a band called the Byrds had formed and the Warren Commission declares that Oswald acted alone. Steven Stills says,

"Something is happenin’ here, what it is isn’t exactly clear"

The establishment and the revolutionaries, war and peace. Between the generations there is a gap, ever wideing and escalating. Joan Baez speaks forth and rock becomes art and a statement made by an entire counter culture, from the old world across the sea to the new.

The SUMMER OF LOVE 1967, began early in the year with a "Human Be-in" staged in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, it was called a "Gathering of the Tribes", all the National press coverage marked a beginning. The Oracle

June the Monterey Pop Festival took a counter culture and their music to the world, that same month the Beatles released, SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND and there was a huge paradigm shift of the youth...psychedelic went around the world...rock music was changing and creating a new nation. After the Summer of Love America’s youth would never be the same.  Otis Redding dies.  The year will introduce us to Country Joe and the Fish, the Avalon Ballroom, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis Joplin...Spirit, The Grateful Dead, The Standells, Beau Brummels, Quicksilver Messenger Service.  Haight-Ashbury and the flowers in the hair.  Alan Watts, Jerry Rubin, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert.  The Diggers, a Haight-Ashbury collective of street-theater...OSLEY STANLEY THE BEAR.

 

Sam Andrews founding member of Big Brother and the Holding Company Peter Albin founding member of Big Brother and the Holding Company

It was 45 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play They've been going in and out of style But they're guaranteed to raise a smile So may I introduce to you The act you've known for all these years Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band We're Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band We hope you will enjoy the show Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Sit back and let the evening go Sgt. Pepper's lonely, Sgt. Pepper's lonely Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band It's wonderful to be here It's certainly a thrill You're such a lovely audience We'd like to take you home with us We'd love to take you home I don't really want to stop the show But I thought that you might like to know That the singer's going to sing a song And he wants you all to sing along So let me introduce to you The one and only Billy Shears And Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sal Valentino founding member of the Beau Brummels     Mindy with David Freiberg who played with the Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver and Jefferson Starship

"Turn on, tune in, drop out."  The Age of Aquarius is dawning in 1967...the Merry Pranksters are staging large parties...the

Warlocks play, they become the Grateful Dead.  In a Western-style dance hall, the Red Dog Saloon the Charlatans are playing

on Acid, they become the Family Dog.  Bill Graham and the Avalon, a new psychedelic rock and roll is born.  The Fillmore and

the dance-hall scene breaks out...Golden Gate Park, Allen Ginsburg, Gary Snyder, Stewart Brand, early days of the

CYBERCULTURE and Silicon Valley...

"In The Year 2525" topped the charts as Senator Ted Kennedy drives off a bridge at Chappaquiddick. Richard Nixon is

inaugurated as a nation begins a "bum trip". A young fan is killed at Altamont while the Rolling Stones rock n’ roll, and

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" ask, "Who are those guys"...Jerry Garcia forms the New Riders of the Purple Sage...

 

1969

It's the end of the 60tys decade and we have first original Woodstock poster THE WOODSTOCK MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL.

Confirming that the counter culture was alive. Man lands on the moon while Arlo Guthrie, Crosby, Stills,
Nash and Young, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Country Joe and the Fish

and many others gather on a farm in upstate New York.  For the times they are a changin'...

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