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Episode 1: The Precursors: Welcome to Rock N Roll Archaeology! This is a reboot of Episode One: The Precursors, originally released October 15, 2015. We updated and improved it some, and re-released it on November 4, 2020. We begin in Times Square, late summer of 1945. The war is over. First up, the Baby Boom and a newly-discovered demographic, the white American teenager. This new cohort is huge, with unprecedented economic clout. Young, restless and affluent, and they want to get beyond the timid, conformist popular culture of 1950s America. “Race Records” (an outdated term for rhythm and blues records by African American musicians) become hugely popular with white teenagers. Drawn from the well of sorrow that is the Black American experience, this music has the edge and urgency--the authenticity--these kids are seeking. We meet our first hero - the musical genius Ray Charles - and our first anti-hero, the frenetic, fatally flawed DJ Alan Freed. We shine a light on two grassroo by Rock N Roll Archaeologyratings:
Length:
89 minutes
Released:
Oct 25, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
We start our tale of Paradise Lost in Buena Vista Park, San Francisco, in the fall of 1967. Hippie, the Devoted Son of Mass Media, is dead, and the San Francisco Diggers are conducting the funeral. From the funky streets of the Haight we head east a couple miles to the Fillmore West, and meet a complicated man, concert promoter Bill Graham. It was during these early years in San Francisco that Bill created the rock concert experience. Then a brief trip to Texas, where Janis Joplin cleans up and then heads back; to San Francisco to find her family. We get to know Janis a little better, and talk about her early work with Big Brother and the Holding Company--and what happened when Janis left Big Brother. We’ll spend a little more time on the Big Picture. Politically, culturally, in pretty much every way, 1968 was a pivotal year, in America and around the world. Then across the Bay, to the lands that lie East of Eden. We’ll meet two very different acts, that interestingly enough, have similar stories: Sly and the Family Stone, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. We close it out with a short meditation on the aftermath of the Summer of Love. We still dream it and dance to it.
Released:
Oct 25, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (37)
- 66 min listen