Boomers Were Young Once and Liked Music

My son-in-law has very good taste in music, especially contemporary southern rock, New Orleans (his former home) jazz, contemporary country swing, and rhythm & blues. Consequently, I enjoy the sounds radiating from his super-duper, state-of-the-art, I-could-never-afford, surround sound complete with a turntable to play what many of the younger generation believe to be a new invention, vinyl records.

We often converse on melodic matters as I freely sip his bourbon for free. He has good taste in whiskey also, and for a poor retired pensioned professor like me, my access to it was a condition of my blessing his marriage to my daughter. Something came to me during one such discussion. I began to see rock & roll music as the Mississippi River. No, it was not a literal thing. I’m no longer taking acid. It was more a metaphorical idea than a vision, a thought that viewed rock & roll from its source when it became an actual musical form, or a curse from Satan in the minds of most parents—Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc.—in the late fifties to the current of particular sound flowing to into the 21^st century ocean of mediocrity. By my third whiskey, I began to better understand its longevity, creativity, innovation, and enjoyment, along with its evolution and why the first twenty years if its existence has continued to influence almost every band and performer currently attempting to play and record in the genre.

Every river has tributaries that keep it deep, alive, and flowing. As I mentioned before, this one was sourced from the early pioneers of simple repetitive melodies and hip-shaking rhythms. Arguably, their inspiration came from a hodge-podge of all that came before—blues, bebop jazz, gospel, country. What made it a new form arose in the way different performers called upon those roots and combined them. Buddy Holly had a sound that was nothing like Little Richards, and Elvis could sing a ballad beyond Chuck Berry’s reach. What they had in common was a three-chord progression and simple lyrics that generated something greater than the sum of these parts, especially with young people who needed a way to rebel against all things common to their parents. It worked. Simply put, it just worked and the world was transformed forever.

Within a short period of a few years and from this flood came what I might consider the first great tributary to our rock & roll river with a sound all its own, Motown rhythm and blues—the Temptations, the Supremes, the Drifters, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, the Platters etc. These were mostly black musicians working with a genius producer named Berry Gordy jr., among others. Although, the sound was intriguing, the compositions remained similar with the same overall thematic issues, primarily young love. Still, it made our river larger, stronger, and more influential to a much greater audience. And, most importantly Motown music was fun.

Two more hugely influential rivers rushed into this mighty waterway of sound that lifted the level above ordinary music and made rock & roll a social movement that influenced our social mores, politics, religion, and very lives for decades to come. Folk music expanded its reach through the iconic lyrics of Bob Dylan, along with the rise of innovative and experimental electric guitarists flowing into the main river like Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Leslie West, and Eric Clapton, among many others. In a way, these musicians became god-like to the Boomer generation and their synergistic playing paved the way for musicians to create a current in the river unlike anything that came before.

Probably because my thoughts are burdened by the recent death of one of the most prominent forces in the music of my generation, David Crosby, I’m remembering the advent of super groups that raised the quality level of this music during more than a decade of creativity and innovation. A super group earned its nom de guerre when the musicians who comprised it left other popular groups to form it. Crosby, Stiles, and Nash became the first. David Crosby left a very popular group called the Byrds and recruited Graham Nash from an English band named The Hollies. They joined their talents with Stephen Stills, one of those great sixties-era guitar players who had helped forge already a seminal band of folk and rock origins, Buffalo Springfield. If you’ve never heard of any of them, I’m linking you to examples here:

Stephen Stills – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQhCtyHpVB0

Graham Nash – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH90XfoH0hY

David Crosby – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Il9q397lL0

Crosby, Stills, and Nash, a live performance of one of the most iconic anti-war songs of any generation performed thirty years later at their induction to the Rock & Roll hall of fame.

Following CS&N, super groups formed rapidly such as Emerson, Lake, and Palmer who generated progressive sounds from jazz and classical influence:

From Traffic and Cream – Blind Faith

The era gave birth to other super groups as well, but not necessarily those that came from other popular rock bands to form. Some just appeared as if by the magic of the musical gods all on their own. My favorites were:

Chicago Transit Authority – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uAUoz7jimg

The Allman Brothers Band, who started a unique tributary of their own, Southern Rock –

and The Grateful Dead, who originated the term “Jam Band” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QlxSBquv5s

Given the dozens upon dozens of influential musicians and bands, this tiny essay is woefully incomplete regarding a musical history of the Boomer generation. It wasn’t meant to be a research paper. I’m simply trying to prove a point that all the rock music popularized after about 1975 has been generated by the influence of this unique river of musical genius that began and flowed through my youth. And, I could not end the argument without mentioning two more bands that, in my opinion, provided a stunning influence on all the rest.

One, The Band, because of their ability to draw on all previous forms of American music—blues, jazz, rock, country, and folk—to combine it into great rock & roll.

Two, the Beatles. Perhaps other than Bob Dylan whose influence reaches even into literary art with his winning of the Nobel Prize, they deserve the distinction of showing everyone else that rock & roll had almost limitless possibilities. My son-in-law had a valid point about the Beatles. Early Beatles created a lot of pubescent rock hits, which were all standard three-chord cliches. Thus, their popularity with thirteen-year-old girls getting their first periods. However, their importance and influence came with their willingness to experiment and expand with different sounds and different orchestral arrangements before anyone else as they matured over their years together. They opened rock up to melodic and thematic possibilities, which proved to really drive the sound evolution of many other bands, especially in arrangements and with instrumentation (sitar, clavichords, horn sections, string sections, synthesizers, etc.). 

Listen to the structural and vocal changes in this song and the emphasis on different sounds to propel mood.

Finally, take fifteen minutes out of your life and listen to this medley of songs that blends together seamlessly at the end of Abbey Road, which was their final album together (1970) and what most people agree was the finest musical album produced during the whole decade of the sixties, not everyone’s favorite of the decade, but the finest one done in critical and creative aspects.

Now, I’ve given you an afternoon of listening pleasure. For the oldest of us it will be nostalgic. For the young, it provides the opportunity to enjoy learning something about your grandparents who smoked dope at concerts and bought vinyl records before you were born.