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Frye Gaillard, writer in residence at the University of South Alabama, has written extensively on southern race relations, politics and culture. He is former Southern Editor at The Charlotte Observer, where he covered Charlotte’s landmark school desegregation controversy, the ill-fated ministry of televangelist Jim Bakker, the funeral of Elvis Presley, and the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
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Events and Readings
Click here for a list of upcoming events.
Now Available from NewSouth Books:
A HARD RAIN:
America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost.
“Masterful… Gaillard writes with determination to make the events of the 1960s relevant. He is a gifted storyteller, and I’m giving copies of this book to my sons and daughter to help them understand how we got to now.”
– Timothy J. McNulty, The Chicago Tribune
"...smart, readable ... at once personal and universal... An illuminating, you-are-there view of events on the ground in the turbulent 1960s."
– Kirkus
“With graceful prose and a storyteller's eye, Frye Gaillard captures the hope and tragedy of the 1960s, one of the pivotal decades in American history. Beginning with the idealism of the civil rights movement, and ending with the violence both at home and abroad brought about by the war in Vietnam, Gaillard offers a dimensioned portrait of a nation straining toward its highest ideals. Many published books report on some aspect of the history, but rare is the account that is as comprehensive and personal. A masterwork.”
– Morris Dees, Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder
"A totally absorbing read! Frye Gaillard takes us there and makes it all so real that we forget we're reading. Older readers will feel young, uncertain, and idealistic again. Younger readers will hope to find the courage of the 1960's--in politics, in artistic expression, in science--to improve the lot of all humankind on this precious earth. Gaillard's A Hard Rain is worthy of the best literary prizes our country can bestow."
– Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance
“A child of the Sixties and one of the leading civil-rights reporters of his generation, Frye Gaillard has given us a riveting tour along what he calls the fine line between history and journalism. As a reporter he has witnessed a great deal and interviewed many of the key figures of the decade that shaped America’s future while breaking its heart. As a scholar he has read widely and thought deeply about our nation’s halting pursuit of justice and mercy for all. A Hard Rain is essential reading for a time when an American president has willfully ignored the hard-earned lessons from our passage through the most tumultuous decade of social change since the Civil War.”
– Howell Raines, former New York Times Executive Editor, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“Frye Gaillard has written a sweeping and yet penetrating account of the 1960s, recalling not only the famous activists and leaders but also the musicians, artists and writers whose work helped shape that tumultuous era. It’s a deeply personal account as well — a story of a young man grappling with our nation’s dark history and seeking to propel it toward a more promising future. Rare is the book that combines the personal with the historical in such a powerful way.”
– Cynthia Tucker, Syndicated columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner
“There is a bittersweet pleasure in reading A Hard Rain, Frye Gaillard’s very personal account of the 1960s and the subtitle captures our ambivalence: Our Decade of Hope, Possibility and Innocence Lost. Gaillard’s graceful narrative may be about a past decade but he speaks to the present, for the lost opportunities and the moral and political failures of the 1960s have returned to haunt us today.”
– Dan Carter, Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina, author of The Politics of Rage
“The Sixties had it all – social movements and space exploration, once in a generation musicians and once in a lifetime martyrs, a Cold War and a hot one too. A Hard Rain ties it all together beautifully in poetic prose that makes the pain and pleasure, tragedy and triumph of these tumultuous years come alive. Whether you came of age during the Sixties like Gaillard or were born after it like me, A Hard Rain is the new starting point for anyone who wants to understand the most impactful decade of the 20th century.”
– Hasan Kwame Jeffries, author of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt, Associate Professor of U.S. history, Ohio State University
“Frye Gaillard has long been one of the South’s most imaginative popular historians, and his remarkable gift for combining history and memory has never been more apparent than in his new book on the 1960s, A Hard Rain. Of the many books that have tried to capture the spirit and meaning of this tumultuous decade, A Hard Rain is surely among the best. Gaillard’s mastery of the art of storytelling, along with his unerring accuracy in characterizing the era’s leading political and cultural figures, turns his personal reflections into compelling and insightful history.”
– Ray Arsenault, John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg; author of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice
“I’m swept away by how comprehensive this book is, by its anecdotal style, its readability, the range of topics, the ambition of the undertaking, and the emotionality and intellectual integrity of the author. I found it fascinating and great reading. There has been a lot of attention these last few years to the sixties, as any number of fiftieth anniversaries have been celebrated. But these have been like drum solos. I found Frye Gaillard’s book, with its mixture of personal and scholarly, with its weaving together of so many strands, to be symphonic. This is great work,”
– Malcolm Margolin, author, editor, founder of Heyday,a nonprofit publisher in Berkeley, CA and News from Native California; winner of the American Book Award
“Frye Gaillard’s A Hard Rain brings us back to the 1960’s, a remarkable era when the Civil Rights Movement struggled, in a time of racial strife and violence, to “save the soul of America”; when a young president’s idealism created the Peace Corps, and challenged his country to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade; when a sexual and cultural revolution swept over a new generation; and when the U.S. became embroiled in the increasingly unpopular and unwinnable War in Vietnam and an unfought war on poverty at home. Gaillard brings those who lived through those days back to a time of Kennedys and King, and those who did not to an understanding of a decade that continues to reach into and define our present moment.
– Theodore Shaw, Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
"Older readers will find this a sobering retrospective, and for those who didn’t live through the ’60s, it’s an enlightening picture of America at a historic juncture."
– Publisher's Weekly
"...an intensely personal yet thoroughly vetted and factual account of one of history’s most tumultuous interludes, a detailed, chronological, and illuminating look at pivotal events and influential people. Anyone alive during that time will read this and recall with wonder all that transpired during those 10 years. Anyone born since will experience awe for the overwhelming changes that were wrought during a time as productive as it was destructive."
– Booklist
“Must-have popular history… Gaillard’s storytelling skills … are on elegant display.”
– Dannye Romine Powell, The Charlotte Observer
“An excellent popular history of the 1960s…”
– Jim Auchmutey, The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Click Here to read an excerpt of A Hard Rain
A HARD RAIN:
America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost.
“Masterful… Gaillard writes with determination to make the events of the 1960s relevant. He is a gifted storyteller, and I’m giving copies of this book to my sons and daughter to help them understand how we got to now.”
– Timothy J. McNulty, The Chicago Tribune
"...smart, readable ... at once personal and universal... An illuminating, you-are-there view of events on the ground in the turbulent 1960s."
– Kirkus
“With graceful prose and a storyteller's eye, Frye Gaillard captures the hope and tragedy of the 1960s, one of the pivotal decades in American history. Beginning with the idealism of the civil rights movement, and ending with the violence both at home and abroad brought about by the war in Vietnam, Gaillard offers a dimensioned portrait of a nation straining toward its highest ideals. Many published books report on some aspect of the history, but rare is the account that is as comprehensive and personal. A masterwork.”
– Morris Dees, Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder
"A totally absorbing read! Frye Gaillard takes us there and makes it all so real that we forget we're reading. Older readers will feel young, uncertain, and idealistic again. Younger readers will hope to find the courage of the 1960's--in politics, in artistic expression, in science--to improve the lot of all humankind on this precious earth. Gaillard's A Hard Rain is worthy of the best literary prizes our country can bestow."
– Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance
“A child of the Sixties and one of the leading civil-rights reporters of his generation, Frye Gaillard has given us a riveting tour along what he calls the fine line between history and journalism. As a reporter he has witnessed a great deal and interviewed many of the key figures of the decade that shaped America’s future while breaking its heart. As a scholar he has read widely and thought deeply about our nation’s halting pursuit of justice and mercy for all. A Hard Rain is essential reading for a time when an American president has willfully ignored the hard-earned lessons from our passage through the most tumultuous decade of social change since the Civil War.”
– Howell Raines, former New York Times Executive Editor, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“Frye Gaillard has written a sweeping and yet penetrating account of the 1960s, recalling not only the famous activists and leaders but also the musicians, artists and writers whose work helped shape that tumultuous era. It’s a deeply personal account as well — a story of a young man grappling with our nation’s dark history and seeking to propel it toward a more promising future. Rare is the book that combines the personal with the historical in such a powerful way.”
– Cynthia Tucker, Syndicated columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner
“There is a bittersweet pleasure in reading A Hard Rain, Frye Gaillard’s very personal account of the 1960s and the subtitle captures our ambivalence: Our Decade of Hope, Possibility and Innocence Lost. Gaillard’s graceful narrative may be about a past decade but he speaks to the present, for the lost opportunities and the moral and political failures of the 1960s have returned to haunt us today.”
– Dan Carter, Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina, author of The Politics of Rage
“The Sixties had it all – social movements and space exploration, once in a generation musicians and once in a lifetime martyrs, a Cold War and a hot one too. A Hard Rain ties it all together beautifully in poetic prose that makes the pain and pleasure, tragedy and triumph of these tumultuous years come alive. Whether you came of age during the Sixties like Gaillard or were born after it like me, A Hard Rain is the new starting point for anyone who wants to understand the most impactful decade of the 20th century.”
– Hasan Kwame Jeffries, author of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt, Associate Professor of U.S. history, Ohio State University
“Frye Gaillard has long been one of the South’s most imaginative popular historians, and his remarkable gift for combining history and memory has never been more apparent than in his new book on the 1960s, A Hard Rain. Of the many books that have tried to capture the spirit and meaning of this tumultuous decade, A Hard Rain is surely among the best. Gaillard’s mastery of the art of storytelling, along with his unerring accuracy in characterizing the era’s leading political and cultural figures, turns his personal reflections into compelling and insightful history.”
– Ray Arsenault, John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg; author of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice
“I’m swept away by how comprehensive this book is, by its anecdotal style, its readability, the range of topics, the ambition of the undertaking, and the emotionality and intellectual integrity of the author. I found it fascinating and great reading. There has been a lot of attention these last few years to the sixties, as any number of fiftieth anniversaries have been celebrated. But these have been like drum solos. I found Frye Gaillard’s book, with its mixture of personal and scholarly, with its weaving together of so many strands, to be symphonic. This is great work,”
– Malcolm Margolin, author, editor, founder of Heyday,a nonprofit publisher in Berkeley, CA and News from Native California; winner of the American Book Award
“Frye Gaillard’s A Hard Rain brings us back to the 1960’s, a remarkable era when the Civil Rights Movement struggled, in a time of racial strife and violence, to “save the soul of America”; when a young president’s idealism created the Peace Corps, and challenged his country to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade; when a sexual and cultural revolution swept over a new generation; and when the U.S. became embroiled in the increasingly unpopular and unwinnable War in Vietnam and an unfought war on poverty at home. Gaillard brings those who lived through those days back to a time of Kennedys and King, and those who did not to an understanding of a decade that continues to reach into and define our present moment.
– Theodore Shaw, Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
"Older readers will find this a sobering retrospective, and for those who didn’t live through the ’60s, it’s an enlightening picture of America at a historic juncture."
– Publisher's Weekly
"...an intensely personal yet thoroughly vetted and factual account of one of history’s most tumultuous interludes, a detailed, chronological, and illuminating look at pivotal events and influential people. Anyone alive during that time will read this and recall with wonder all that transpired during those 10 years. Anyone born since will experience awe for the overwhelming changes that were wrought during a time as productive as it was destructive."
– Booklist
“Must-have popular history… Gaillard’s storytelling skills … are on elegant display.”
– Dannye Romine Powell, The Charlotte Observer
“An excellent popular history of the 1960s…”
– Jim Auchmutey, The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Click Here to read an excerpt of A Hard Rain
A Hard Rain Reader Soundtrack |
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A Hard Rain Readers’ Soundtrack – Listen to these songs on Spotify
(Compiled by Justine Burbank and Frye Gaillard)
My book on the 1960s, A Hard Rain, tells the story of protest, tragedy and hope. But one of its important subthemes is music, which, from the moment the decade began, was a defining thread in the story, the lifeblood of identity for a whole generation. These are some of the artists I write about:
In 1960, two young singers – one black, one white, born not very far apart in Mississippi – reminded us, even if we couldn’t quite put it into words, that music touched something deeper than the sources of our division. Elvis Presley reached number one on the national charts with “It’s Now or Never,” the biggest hit of his career, and Sam Cooke, improbably, made us care about the men working on a Southern “Chain Gang.” Roy Orbison, meanwhile, caught the spirit of young love with his soaring vocals on “Only the Lonely.” In 1961, Gene Pitney sang of teenaged alienation in “Town Without Pity,” a song that won a Golden Globe Award as the soundtrack of a movie by the same name. And Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” a song written by Willie Nelson, crossed over from the country charts to become a major pop hit. Cline, who would die two years later in a plane crash, was already a country music legend for breaking down barriers for women performers, including her protégé, Loretta Lynn.
In 1962, twenty-one-year-old Bob Dylan was writing some of his most memorable songs of social commentary, including “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and “A Hard Rain’s A’Gonna Fall.” (The latter, of course, inspired the title for the book.) Also from the realm of folk music commentary, Peter, Paul and Mary had their first major hit with Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer.” That same year, in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a black singer-songwriter named Arthur Alexander launched a musical movement in that city, an enduring collaboration between black and white musicians, with his recording of “You Better Move On.” As the years went by, Alexander earned a singular distinction, becoming the only songwriter whose compositions were recorded by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. (The Stones’ version of “You Better Move On” is included in this soundtrack.)
In 1963, the year that Dylan released his first album, Joan Baez came to Miles College near Birmingham, Alabama at a time of civil rights protests in that city. There, she recorded a live version of “We Shall Overcome,” the greatest civil rights anthem of the decade, and in August, she sang it at the March on Washington where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.” The following year, with a voice as pure as the empathy her music embodied, Baez had an international hit with Phil Ochs’ “There But for Fortune.” 1964 was a watershed for music. The Beatles launched a “British invasion” of America with appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and a series of concerts that featured such hits as “Love Me Do,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The sweet sounds of Motown burst upon the scene with the Four Tops’ “Baby, I Need Your Lovin’” and, later, the Temptations’ “My Girl.” But it was also a year for social commentary. Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” helped sustain the spirits of civil rights workers who risked their lives during Freedom Summer in Mississippi. Nina Simone, a North Carolinian by birth, recorded “Mississippi Goddam,” an angry, hard-hitting anthem that was banned in many parts of the South. Dylan wrote “The Times They Are A’Changin’,” and Johnny Cash released a whole album of American Indian protest songs, one of which, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” reached number 2 on the country music charts.
In 1965, Odetta, a black folk singer from Birmingham, recorded Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” The Byrds, a folk-rock group, scored a number one hit with Pete Seeger’s “Turn, Turn, Turn,” the lyrics borrowed from the Book of Ecclesiastes. Barry McGuire explored the depths of social despair with “The Eve of Destruction,” and three Hollywood soundtracks helped stamp a musical interplay of innocence and love against a gathering backdrop of darkness and war. Critical reviews were mixed but audiences thrilled to Julie Andrews’ performance in “The Sound of Music,” released in the spring of 1965. In April the ominous comedy, “Dr. Strangelove,” was a nominee for four Academy Awards, and we encountered again the startling irony of the final scene – a nuclear explosion (actual film of a nuclear test in the South Pacific) while Vera Lynn sang a romantic 1930s ballad, “We’ll Meet Again,” which became a hit during World War II. And finally in December, “Dr. Zhivago” was released to theaters, its sound track anchored by the haunting love song, “Lara’s Theme.”
Oddly, in 1966 the most popular song of the year was “Ballad of the Green Berets,” a pro-war anthem about Vietnam, sung by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler. Music critics were impressed by the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” the band’s biggest hit, and by the Righteous Brothers blue-eyed “Soul and Inspiration.” In Muscle Shoals, Alabamian Percy Sledge recorded “When a Man Loves a Woman,” backed by an all-white band at a time of growing racial division. “We were like brothers,” Sledge remembered. His fellow Alabamian, Wilson Pickett, said much the same after his Muscle Shoals R&B hit, “Land of a Thousand Dances.” In 1967, attention returned to California where a white girl from Texas, Janis Joplin, stole the show at the Monterrey Pop Festival with her passionate renditions of rhythm and blues. That same year, Joplin decided to cover the Grammy-winning “Piece of My Heart,” recorded by Aretha Franklin’s older sister, Erma. Linda Ronstadt burst onto the scene as lead singer for the LA-based Stone Poneys and their country-folk hit “Different Drum,” while in Nashville the Grand Ole Opry’s George Hamilton IV introduced the nation to songwriter Joni Mitchell with a top-ten country version of her composition, “Urge for Going.” And Charley Pride emerged as the first African-American country star since DeFord Bailey in the 1920s.
In 1968 Judy Collins had a top-ten hit in the U.S. and Canada with Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” An Alabama songwriter named Dick Holler, responding to the assassination of Robert Kennedy, wrote “Abraham, Martin and John,” an epitaph to idealism recorded by one-time rock ‘n’ roll star Dion, who was battling through an addition to drugs. The Beatles dominated the international scene with “Hey Jude,” written and sung by Paul McCartney, and with John Lennon’s topical B-side “Revolution.”
The decade ended with a creative burst. In the summer of 1969, Johnny Cash launched a national television show that brought folk and country musicians together in the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. With folk music identified most often with the political left, and country music with the opposite end of the spectrum, Cash sought to bridge that gap. Music, he believed, belonged to us all. For Cash personally, one of the high points came when he recorded a duet with Bob Dylan on one of his favorite Dylan songs, “Girl from the North Country.” Merle Haggard confounded social critics with back-to-back releases of “Mama’s Hungry Eyes,” a populist, left-leaning lament about the anguish of life in the migrant labor fields of California, and “Okie from Muskogee,” his conservative ode to old-fashioned patriotism. As the war raged on in Vietnam, Credence Clearwater’s “Bad Moon Rising,” became a favorite among the troops, and with racial tension still boiling over in the nation’s inner cities, Elvis Presley released “In the Ghetto,” a song of empathy written by country singer Mac Davis. On a lighter note, B.J. Thomas's "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" anchored the soundtrack for one of the year's most popular movies, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," a western comedy starting Paul Newman and Robert Redford. And the Rolling Stones traveled to Muscle Shoals, AL to record “Wild Horses” and two other tracks, following the lead of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, among other great artists who embraced the Muscle Shoals sound. (Rolling Stone named Franklin's version of "Do Right Woman," written by Dan Penn and Chips Moman, two of Muscle Shoals' most gifted musicians, as one of the 500 greatest records ever made.)
Finally, most memorably, there was Woodstock. In August, more than 400,000 music fans descended upon Max Yaegur’s dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains for an all-star lineup of rock ‘n’ roll. Many historians have argued that the musical highpoint came on the final day of the festival with Jimi Hendrix’s electric guitar solo of “The Stars Spangled Banner.” When critics questioned the unorthodox rendition, Hendrix’s reply was simple. “I didn’t think it was unorthodox,” he said. “I thought it was beautiful.”
-- Frye Gaillard
(Compiled by Justine Burbank and Frye Gaillard)
My book on the 1960s, A Hard Rain, tells the story of protest, tragedy and hope. But one of its important subthemes is music, which, from the moment the decade began, was a defining thread in the story, the lifeblood of identity for a whole generation. These are some of the artists I write about:
In 1960, two young singers – one black, one white, born not very far apart in Mississippi – reminded us, even if we couldn’t quite put it into words, that music touched something deeper than the sources of our division. Elvis Presley reached number one on the national charts with “It’s Now or Never,” the biggest hit of his career, and Sam Cooke, improbably, made us care about the men working on a Southern “Chain Gang.” Roy Orbison, meanwhile, caught the spirit of young love with his soaring vocals on “Only the Lonely.” In 1961, Gene Pitney sang of teenaged alienation in “Town Without Pity,” a song that won a Golden Globe Award as the soundtrack of a movie by the same name. And Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” a song written by Willie Nelson, crossed over from the country charts to become a major pop hit. Cline, who would die two years later in a plane crash, was already a country music legend for breaking down barriers for women performers, including her protégé, Loretta Lynn.
In 1962, twenty-one-year-old Bob Dylan was writing some of his most memorable songs of social commentary, including “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and “A Hard Rain’s A’Gonna Fall.” (The latter, of course, inspired the title for the book.) Also from the realm of folk music commentary, Peter, Paul and Mary had their first major hit with Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer.” That same year, in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a black singer-songwriter named Arthur Alexander launched a musical movement in that city, an enduring collaboration between black and white musicians, with his recording of “You Better Move On.” As the years went by, Alexander earned a singular distinction, becoming the only songwriter whose compositions were recorded by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. (The Stones’ version of “You Better Move On” is included in this soundtrack.)
In 1963, the year that Dylan released his first album, Joan Baez came to Miles College near Birmingham, Alabama at a time of civil rights protests in that city. There, she recorded a live version of “We Shall Overcome,” the greatest civil rights anthem of the decade, and in August, she sang it at the March on Washington where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.” The following year, with a voice as pure as the empathy her music embodied, Baez had an international hit with Phil Ochs’ “There But for Fortune.” 1964 was a watershed for music. The Beatles launched a “British invasion” of America with appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and a series of concerts that featured such hits as “Love Me Do,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The sweet sounds of Motown burst upon the scene with the Four Tops’ “Baby, I Need Your Lovin’” and, later, the Temptations’ “My Girl.” But it was also a year for social commentary. Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” helped sustain the spirits of civil rights workers who risked their lives during Freedom Summer in Mississippi. Nina Simone, a North Carolinian by birth, recorded “Mississippi Goddam,” an angry, hard-hitting anthem that was banned in many parts of the South. Dylan wrote “The Times They Are A’Changin’,” and Johnny Cash released a whole album of American Indian protest songs, one of which, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” reached number 2 on the country music charts.
In 1965, Odetta, a black folk singer from Birmingham, recorded Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” The Byrds, a folk-rock group, scored a number one hit with Pete Seeger’s “Turn, Turn, Turn,” the lyrics borrowed from the Book of Ecclesiastes. Barry McGuire explored the depths of social despair with “The Eve of Destruction,” and three Hollywood soundtracks helped stamp a musical interplay of innocence and love against a gathering backdrop of darkness and war. Critical reviews were mixed but audiences thrilled to Julie Andrews’ performance in “The Sound of Music,” released in the spring of 1965. In April the ominous comedy, “Dr. Strangelove,” was a nominee for four Academy Awards, and we encountered again the startling irony of the final scene – a nuclear explosion (actual film of a nuclear test in the South Pacific) while Vera Lynn sang a romantic 1930s ballad, “We’ll Meet Again,” which became a hit during World War II. And finally in December, “Dr. Zhivago” was released to theaters, its sound track anchored by the haunting love song, “Lara’s Theme.”
Oddly, in 1966 the most popular song of the year was “Ballad of the Green Berets,” a pro-war anthem about Vietnam, sung by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler. Music critics were impressed by the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” the band’s biggest hit, and by the Righteous Brothers blue-eyed “Soul and Inspiration.” In Muscle Shoals, Alabamian Percy Sledge recorded “When a Man Loves a Woman,” backed by an all-white band at a time of growing racial division. “We were like brothers,” Sledge remembered. His fellow Alabamian, Wilson Pickett, said much the same after his Muscle Shoals R&B hit, “Land of a Thousand Dances.” In 1967, attention returned to California where a white girl from Texas, Janis Joplin, stole the show at the Monterrey Pop Festival with her passionate renditions of rhythm and blues. That same year, Joplin decided to cover the Grammy-winning “Piece of My Heart,” recorded by Aretha Franklin’s older sister, Erma. Linda Ronstadt burst onto the scene as lead singer for the LA-based Stone Poneys and their country-folk hit “Different Drum,” while in Nashville the Grand Ole Opry’s George Hamilton IV introduced the nation to songwriter Joni Mitchell with a top-ten country version of her composition, “Urge for Going.” And Charley Pride emerged as the first African-American country star since DeFord Bailey in the 1920s.
In 1968 Judy Collins had a top-ten hit in the U.S. and Canada with Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” An Alabama songwriter named Dick Holler, responding to the assassination of Robert Kennedy, wrote “Abraham, Martin and John,” an epitaph to idealism recorded by one-time rock ‘n’ roll star Dion, who was battling through an addition to drugs. The Beatles dominated the international scene with “Hey Jude,” written and sung by Paul McCartney, and with John Lennon’s topical B-side “Revolution.”
The decade ended with a creative burst. In the summer of 1969, Johnny Cash launched a national television show that brought folk and country musicians together in the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. With folk music identified most often with the political left, and country music with the opposite end of the spectrum, Cash sought to bridge that gap. Music, he believed, belonged to us all. For Cash personally, one of the high points came when he recorded a duet with Bob Dylan on one of his favorite Dylan songs, “Girl from the North Country.” Merle Haggard confounded social critics with back-to-back releases of “Mama’s Hungry Eyes,” a populist, left-leaning lament about the anguish of life in the migrant labor fields of California, and “Okie from Muskogee,” his conservative ode to old-fashioned patriotism. As the war raged on in Vietnam, Credence Clearwater’s “Bad Moon Rising,” became a favorite among the troops, and with racial tension still boiling over in the nation’s inner cities, Elvis Presley released “In the Ghetto,” a song of empathy written by country singer Mac Davis. On a lighter note, B.J. Thomas's "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" anchored the soundtrack for one of the year's most popular movies, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," a western comedy starting Paul Newman and Robert Redford. And the Rolling Stones traveled to Muscle Shoals, AL to record “Wild Horses” and two other tracks, following the lead of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, among other great artists who embraced the Muscle Shoals sound. (Rolling Stone named Franklin's version of "Do Right Woman," written by Dan Penn and Chips Moman, two of Muscle Shoals' most gifted musicians, as one of the 500 greatest records ever made.)
Finally, most memorably, there was Woodstock. In August, more than 400,000 music fans descended upon Max Yaegur’s dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains for an all-star lineup of rock ‘n’ roll. Many historians have argued that the musical highpoint came on the final day of the festival with Jimi Hendrix’s electric guitar solo of “The Stars Spangled Banner.” When critics questioned the unorthodox rendition, Hendrix’s reply was simple. “I didn’t think it was unorthodox,” he said. “I thought it was beautiful.”
-- Frye Gaillard
Available Now!
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Journey to the Wilderness:
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