{"id":14154,"date":"2018-10-30T04:19:41","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T04:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=14154"},"modified":"2018-10-31T04:21:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T04:21:47","slug":"the-soundtrack-of-the-sixties-demanded-respect-justice-and-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/the-soundtrack-of-the-sixties-demanded-respect-justice-and-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"The soundtrack of the Sixties demanded respect, justice and equality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael V. Drake<\/a>, The Ohio State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When Sly and the Family Stone released \u201cEveryday People<\/a>\u201d at the end of 1968, it was a rallying cry after a tumultuous year of assassinations, civil unrest and a seemingly interminable war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to live together,\u201d he sang, \u201cI am no better and neither are you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout history, artists and songwriters have expressed a longing for equality and justice through their music.<\/p>\n

Before the Civil War, African-American slaves gave voice to their oppression through protest songs camouflaged as Biblical spirituals<\/a>. In the 1930s, jazz singer Billie Holiday railed against the practice of lynching in \u201cStrange Fruit<\/a>.\u201d Woody Guthrie\u2019s folk ballads from the 1930s and 1940s<\/a> often commented on the plight of the working class.<\/p>\n

But perhaps in no other time in American history did popular music more clearly reflect the political and cultural moment than the soundtrack of the 1960s \u2013 one that exemplified a new and overt social consciousness.<\/p>\n

That decade, a palpable energy slowly burned and intensified through a succession of events<\/a>: the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

By the mid-1960s, frustration about the slow pace of change began to percolate with riots in multiple cities. Then, in 1968, two awful events occurred within months of each other: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Through it all, there was the music.<\/p>\n

Coming of age during this time in Northern California<\/a>, I had the opportunity to hear some of the era\u2019s soundtrack live \u2013 James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.<\/p>\n

At the same time, virtually everyone in the African-American community was directly connected in some way or another to the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

Every year, I revisit this era in an undergraduate class I teach<\/a> on music, civil rights and the Supreme Court. With this perspective as a backdrop, here are five songs, followed by a playlist<\/a> that I share with my students. <\/p>\n

While they offer a window into the awakening and reckoning of the times, the tracks have assumed a renewed relevance and resonance today.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlowin\u2019 in the Wind<\/a>,\u201d Bob Dylan, 1963<\/strong><\/p>\n

First made a hit by the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, the song signaled a new consciousness and became the most covered of all Dylan songs. <\/p>\n

The song asks a series of questions that appeal to the listener\u2019s moral compass, while the timeless imagery of the lyrics \u2013 cannonballs, doves, death, the sky \u2013 evoke a longing for peace and freedom that spoke to the era.<\/p>\n

As one critic noted<\/a> in 2010: <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere are songs that are more written by their times than by any individual in that time, a song that the times seem to call for, a song that is just gonna be a perfect strike rolled right down the middle of the lane, and the lane has already been grooved for the strike.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This song \u2013 along with others such as \u201cA Hard Rain\u2019s A-Gonna Fall\u201d and \u201cChimes of Freedom\u201d \u2013 are among the reasons Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize in Literature<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cA Change is Gonna Come<\/a>,\u201d Sam Cooke, 1964<\/strong><\/p>\n

During a 1963 tour in the South, Cooke and his band were refused lodging<\/a> at a hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana. <\/p>\n

African Americans routinely faced segregation and prejudice in the Jim Crow South, but this particular experience shook Cooke.<\/p>\n

So he put pen to paper and tackled a subject that represented a departure for Cooke, a crossover artist who made his name with a series of Top 40 hits.<\/p>\n

The lyrics reflect the anguish of being an extraordinary pop headliner who nonetheless needs to go through a side door.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Singer Sam Cooke stands next to a huge reproduction of his head on the roof of a Manhattan building.<\/span>
\n AP Photo<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Showcasing Cooke\u2019s gospel roots, it\u2019s a song that painfully and beautifully captures the edge between hope and despair. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long, a long time coming,\u201d he croons. \u201cBut I know a change is gonna come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam Cooke, in composing \u201cA Change is Gonna Come,\u201d was also inspired by Dylan\u2019s \u201cBlowin\u2019 in the Wind\u201d: According to Cooke\u2019s biographer<\/a>, upon hearing Dylan\u2019s song, Cooke \u201cwas almost ashamed to have not written something like that himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCome See About Me<\/a>,\u201d The Supremes, 1964<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was one of my favorites of their songs at the time \u2013 upbeat, fun and necessarily \u201cunpolitical.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Supremes\u2019 record label, Motown, played an important role bridging a cultural divide<\/a> during the civil rights era by catapulting black musicians to global stardom. <\/p>\n

The Supremes were the Motown act with arguably the broadest appeal, and they paved the way for other black artists to enjoy creative success as mainstream acts.<\/p>\n

Through their 20 top-10 hits and 17 appearances<\/a> from 1964 to 1969 on CBS\u2019 popular weekly live program \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show,\u201d the group had a regular presence in the living rooms of black and white families across the country. <\/p>\n

\u201cSay it Loud \u2013 I\u2019m Black And I\u2019m Proud<\/a>,\u201d James Brown, 1968<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Brown \u2013 the self-proclaimed<\/a> \u201chardest working man in show business\u201d \u2013 built his reputation as an entertainer par excellence with brilliant dance moves, meticulous staging and a cape routine.<\/p>\n

But with \u201cSay it Loud \u2013 I\u2019m Black And I\u2019m Proud,\u201d Brown seemed to be consciously delivering a starkly political statement about being black in America.<\/p>\n

The track\u2019s straightforward, unadorned lyrics allowed it to quickly become a black pride anthem<\/a> that promised \u201cwe won\u2019t quit movin\u2019 until we get what we deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRespect<\/a>,\u201d Aretha Franklin, 1967<\/strong><\/p>\n

If I could choose only one song to represent the era it would be \u201cRespect.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a cover of a track previously written and recorded by Otis Redding. But Franklin makes it wholly her own. From the opening lines, the Queen of Soul doesn\u2019t ask for respect; she demands it. <\/p>\n

The song became an anthem<\/a> for the black power and women\u2019s movements. <\/p>\n

As Franklin explained<\/a> in her 1999 autobiography: <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt was the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher \u2013 everyone wanted respect. It was also one of the battle cries of the civil rights movement. The song took on monumental significance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, these five songs can\u2019t possibly do the decade\u2019s music justice.<\/p>\n

Some other tracks that I share with my students and count among my favorites include Simon & Garfunkel\u2019s \u201cThe Sound of Silence<\/a>,\u201d Barry McGuire\u2019s \u201cEve of Destruction<\/a>\u201d and Lou Rawls\u2019 \u201cDead End Street<\/a>.\u201d\"The<\/p>\n