Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded. David Hepworth. Henry Holt & Co., 2016

David Hepworth’s theses is that 1971 was the most important year in the history of rock/pop music. It was the year of innovations in how albums were made. It was a year of great albums made that still endure today, like ‘Tapestry’, ‘Led Zeppelin IV’, ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’, ‘Sticky Fingers’, ‘Blue’, ‘Pearl’, ‘Madman Across the Water’, ‘Harvest’, and, of course, ‘American Pie’. It was, actually, the year that albums became more important than 45 rpm singles. It was the year the Beatles were no more. The technology of making music and recording it changed. Arena rock started, as opposed to playing in clubs and halls.

Each chapter is one month in the year 1971. He doesn’t just tell us what was released by who; he goes deeper into the rock scene, covering things like Mick Jagger’s wedding, various rock stars battles with drugs and alcohol, and what producers and managers were doing. Some of the people he covers really never went anywhere. Being British, it’s seen through a British lens, but there is plenty about the American scene.

Was 1971 the most important year in rock history? I don’t know. I was surprised to find that ‘Blue’ and ‘Tapestry’ came out in ’71; they were such a seminal part of my teens (I could sing every word of both those albums) that I would have sworn they came out earlier. Likewise, I would have sworn Elton John, Rod Stewart, and Van Morrison became really big before that point. But he’s got the dates correct; that music was just so important to me that it colors my memories of the era.

It’s an interesting book- I read it in two evenings- but oddly unstirring. Hepworth is a reporter, not an ad man, and he gives us just the facts, ma’am. But the facts showed me what was below the surface of the music I came of age to. 

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- Amazon will give me a few cents. 

This in no way influenced my review.  

Hippie, by Barry Miles. Bounty Books, 2013 (first printing 2003)

 

Barry Miles knows about what he’s written about here; he lived it. From the Beat culture of the 50s to New Wave and Punk, he was there. The title is misleading in a way; while it’s about hippie culture, it is also about the Beats, Black Power activists, the start of Gay Pride, and musicians- lots and lots about the musicians; people I tend to think of as separate entities from the peace, love, pot, and granola hippies. Of course not all hippies were dropping out; many *were* activists; there is no hard line that says “This is a hippie and this is not”. But it’s more a history of the era in general than about the entire hippie movement.

I found it very interesting; while I lived through the era I was just a little too young (and too much of a book nerd) to participate in much of it. This book illuminated things that I saw from the edge looking in. The book is visually very appealing; there are very few pages that don’t have images on them. Photos, album covers, and posters are all part of the imagery. It’s like a coffee table book, but with smaller dimensions.

The book doesn’t beautify the hippie scene. He writes about both the good (peace demonstrations, the Diggers, wild fashion, hopes for a more egalitarian future, Woodstock, activism) and the bad (hard drugs like meth and heroin, the Hell’s Angels moving in on the scene, Altamont, Manson, Kent State). It’s a very even handed approach. Now, I think I need to go listen to some 60s music.  

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- from Amazon, they will give me a few cents. This in no way influenced my review. 

Another Little Piece of My Heart, by Richard Goldstein. Bloomsbury 2015

In 1966, twenty-two year old Goldstein walked into the Village Voice and invented the job he wanted: rock critic. During his time doing this, he had some amazing adventures and met a lot of the great rock innovators. He became friends with Janis Joplin, was a passenger in a car driven by a completely stoned Dennis Wilson (who at one point in the trip said “Whoa! The road is doing these weird things.”), and had the Velvet Underground play at his wedding. But in this time of social upheaval, music came to seem less important than politics and protests. His beat changed to protests, he became friends with Abbie Hoffman, and hung with the Black Panthers. Later he became a chronicler of pop culture, and then a worker for gay rights.

The book really only spans a few years, but so much happened during that time- the core of the hippie subculture came and went. Music went from being all about the music to selling out to commercial interests. The drug scene went from happy, smiling potheads to bikers selling the hard, injectable stuff. The innocence was lost.

The book is a personal memoir, but Goldstein’s life is inextricably meshed with so much of the history of the time that you cannot tease them apart. He changed as the times did. 

I loved reading this book; I was born in 1954 so I was too young to appreciate much of what was happening in the world even though I was aware of it. This was a nice trip back through time, viewed through a critical eye. 

 The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something, Amazon will give me a few cents. This in no way altered my review.