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"August 1969: Musical madness and misadventures in mud": This week's newspaper column


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August 1969: Musical madness and misadventures in mud

I recently examined a 1969 daily schedule for a local radio station, WTLS, and noted the different genres that were blocked out for different hours. Types of music that were heard included country, easy listening, popular (Top 40) and rock, all in one day’s programming.

Such a close-to-home smorgasbord of music seems to underline an assertion I usually include whenever I speak to civic clubs, other organizations or schools about guitars: The most creative half-dozen years in the history of popular music were 1967-1973.

However, the point needs to be made that the musical diversity of those times was accompanied by paradigm shifts in sociological and cultural behavior. Thanks to the advent of illicit drugs (particularly hallucinogens) as well as birth control pills, the lifestyles of many Americans underwent sometimes-dramatic changes that altered the course of many facets of this nation’s history.

Such cultural phenomena were epitomized by two radically different events on opposite sides of the country two weekends in a row in early August of 1969. “Longhairs” were still a rarity in this neck of the woods, and those events seemed to reinforce the disdain of stereotypical bubbas.

Since being released from prison in March of 1967, a ex-con and would-be singer/songwriter named Charles Manson had developed a violent, drug-fueled cult (the membership of which included numerous naïve young females).

The hallucinogens Manson was ingesting warped his perspective about certain song lyrics, particularly on tunes found on the Beatles’ “white album,” released in late 1968.

Manson interpreted  the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” as urging him to instigate a race war from which he would emerge as a ruler of a new world. On the nights of August 8-9, he set his demented plan into motion, dispatching several of his followers on a murderous rampage at two different Los Angeles residences, slaughtering seven people.

Madness. So much for the so-called “dawning of the age of Aquarius”…

A week later, the legendary Woodstock music festival was presented on a farm near Bethel, New York, a rural community in the southern portion of the state. Hyped as “Three Days of Peace and Music,” it also turned into a gargantuan and logistically-bereft mud wallow (thanks to numerous cloudbursts) beset by shortages of food, medical facilities, and portable toilets.

Ultimately, the National Guard and other government organizations had to be called in to assist. The notion that military assistance was provided to hundreds of thousands of members what singer Janis Joplin pronounced to be “a whole new minority group” was incredibly ironic, particularly since the Vietnam War was raging.

Idealistic commune members in attendance also made food for the concertgoers, with one spokesperson gamely announcing from the stage, “There is always a little bit of heaven in a disaster area!”

The 1970 Woodstock documentary is iconic as well, since there was some incredibly good music generated at the event.  Every Baby Boomer who’s seen the film probably has a favorite performance, and more than one band was said to have “broken out” on a national basis thanks to the movie.

There were also tons of trash left behind.

More than one concert that drew from the Woodstock legend had been staged in the ensuing half-century, but the so-called official “Woodstock 50” event was canceled a couple of weeks ago. Seems no municipality wanted the hassle of dealing with an event that was probably going to be gargantuan, if what happened in Max Yasgur’s alfalfa field half a century ago was any indication of what to expect. Can’t say that I blame ‘em.

Many books and movies about the madness of the cult of Charles Manson have been proffered over the last 50 years. Woodstock has been chronicled with additional albums and videos (VHS and DVD formats) of concert footage.

One wonders what average fans who attended Woodstock are up to now, and how the event impacted their lives, being as how the festival was a landmark cultural and musical event.

On the other hand, Charles Manson and his minions validated the dark side of so-called alternate/non-traditional lifestyles. The less they’re remembered—except as cautionary examples—the better.

 

 

 

 

 

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