Page 44 - All About History - Issue 53-17

Rock ‘n’ Roll

Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1968: (From
left) Tom Fogerty, Doug Clifford, Stu Cook and
chief songwriter/frontman John Fogerty

The main voices of dissent had so far belonged for Newsweek in San Francisco, right when people
Psychedelic rockers to the folk world. By contrast, pop music was still were starting to notice the whole hippie thing. I
Country Joe And
The Fish (with catching up. This all changed when Barry McGuire was at the Human Be-In, where you could sense
Joe McDonald, far took P.F. Sloan’s ‘Eve Of Destruction’ — sample you were part of something bigger. Then, in June
right), May 1967 lyric: “You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’ ‘67, there was the Monterey Pop Festival, which
/ You don’t believe in war but what’s that gun was a big step upward in the numbers of people
you’re totin’?” — to the top of the US charts in and the prestige of the bands involved: The
September 1965, knocking The Beatles’ ‘Help!’ Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane,
from its perch. Jimi Hendrix, The Who. It was all peace, love
The next few years saw a rapid expansion of the and brotherhood.”
counterculture. As the factional lines became ever In contrast to this communal feeling of
more indelible by 1967’s Summer of Love, rock positivity, things had turned ugly by 1968. Riots,
‘n’ roll adapted to suit. “President Johnson had protests and strikes burst out across the United
this continuing build-up of troops and younger States amid the continuing fight for civil rights,
people like myself, who could possibly get drafted, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr
were going against it,” recalls US author and and Bobby Kennedy and the ongoing carnage
journalist, Michael Lydon, who helped set up in Vietnam. In Europe, too, there were bloody
Rolling Stone that year. “And that really student protests against political repression.
divided families. Popular music As political temperatures soared, so did the
was dividing old and levels of vitriol in the songs. The Doors weighed
young too. I was in with ‘The Unknown Soldier’, alongside the
working likes of Jefferson Airplane (‘Volunteers’), Cream
(‘Take It Back’), Janis Ian (‘Society’s Child’), James
Brown (‘Say It Loud — I’m Black And I’m Proud’),
the MC5 (‘Motor City Is Burning’) and Creedence
Epiphone Casino Clearwater Revival, who offered up the stinging
‘Fortunate Son’. The latter, ostensibly an anti-war
song, acted as a wider commentary on elitism
and entitlement. “It ain’t me, it ain’t me,” howled
Blues great Howlin’ Wolf adored the hollow- frontman John Fogerty, “I ain’t no fortunate one.”
bodied Casino that Epiphone introduced in the A similar, albeit meandering, sentiment was
early ‘Sixties. Paul McCartney bought his first expressed by Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody, in
one in 1964, soon followed by John Lennon and his epic talking-blues satire, ‘Alice’s Restaurant
George Harrison. In fact, Lennon used it for the Massacree’. The song contained comic asides,
remainder of his time with the group.
references to petty crime, the hippie community
and the insanity of the draft process. In its own
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