I graduated from high school in 1969. I remember the Nixon and Elvis photo. Elvis was really an icon of people a few years older than me. I went to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island which took place a couple weeks before Woodstock. A lovely young woman invited me to go to to upstate NY with her and go to Woodstock. I declined. I needed to go home and back to work because I was starting college in September. Well, there were certainly bands I would have loved to see at Mudstock, but I had made the right decision. At Newport I saw many bands and folk artists and got to meet and talk with them. I have followed many of their music all my life. But, I was already seeing the manufactured side of music and the CIA/deep state players involved. "Hey Hey We're The Monkeys..."
I also see how the country music scene was the same problem in spades. My big disappointment is as they aged, most of these folk music stars switched from being the rebels to being THE VOICE of the Government Narrative. NO tolerance for the unvaxed, We should be rounded up and put in camps, we should not be able to go out or go to stores, Support WAR in Ukraine or you are a Russian stooge, Support Hamas, on and on. Support war??? The same people who created the antiwar songs of the Vietnam era?
R and B was the first crack opening. Like a hand breaking through in a cosmic game of tag Africa slapped us all upside the head putting us all back in the right direction. Mother Africa. No one really had a clue what to do but better music helped. In ways nothing else did or could.
I graduated from high school in 1969. I remember the Nixon and Elvis photo. Elvis was really an icon of people a few years older than me. I went to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island which took place a couple weeks before Woodstock. A lovely young woman invited me to go to to upstate NY with her and go to Woodstock. I declined. I needed to go home and back to work because I was starting college in September. Well, there were certainly bands I would have loved to see at Mudstock, but I had made the right decision. At Newport I saw many bands and folk artists and got to meet and talk with them. I have followed many of their music all my life. But, I was already seeing the manufactured side of music and the CIA/deep state players involved. "Hey Hey We're The Monkeys..."
I also see how the country music scene was the same problem in spades. My big disappointment is as they aged, most of these folk music stars switched from being the rebels to being THE VOICE of the Government Narrative. NO tolerance for the unvaxed, We should be rounded up and put in camps, we should not be able to go out or go to stores, Support WAR in Ukraine or you are a Russian stooge, Support Hamas, on and on. Support war??? The same people who created the antiwar songs of the Vietnam era?
Watergate never really added up for me. There have been worse things done by presidents.
Brilliant essay Thomas. Spot on.
Amazing! I’m just watching an episode of America’s Untold stories on Richard Nixon… highly recommend it! A synchronicity for sure! Cheers!
Tricky Dicky and Elvis the Pelvis!
R and B was the first crack opening. Like a hand breaking through in a cosmic game of tag Africa slapped us all upside the head putting us all back in the right direction. Mother Africa. No one really had a clue what to do but better music helped. In ways nothing else did or could.
Wow. Another fantastic article Thomas