Woodstock Music & Art Fair Presents An Aquarian Exposition in White Lake, N.Y. 3 Days of Peace & Music. [New York: Woodstock Music, [1969]].

Ibid.

Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service. San Francisco: Family Dog Productions, [1967].

Purchased with the Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund.

Moby Grape Dance Concert. San Francisco: Family Dog Productions, 1967.

Purchased with the Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund.

 

Photograph of Joan Baez by Ed Roseberry. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1965.

Courtesy of Ed Roseberry.

Dylan, Bob. The Times They Are A-Changin'. LP. Columbia, [1964].

On loan from Spencer Lathrop.

You Say You Want a Revolution (1)

Rock music--whether folk, acid, hard, or psychedelic--was the lifeblood of Sixties youth counterculture. Its tone was rebellious and intoxicating. The political events and social tensions of the tumultuous era, marked by the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the nuclear arms race, and the generation gap, furnished plentiful material and inspiration for early acoustic artists. Breaking with their 1940s counterparts, these artists moved away from folk songs towards original songwriting. Out of this younger generation, Joan Baez, perennial critic and ardent antiwar activist, was the first politically active songwriter, while Buffy Sainte Marie, of Cree Indian heritage, penned controversial laments, such as "My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying" and "Universal Soldier." Bob Dylan had the most profound and long-reaching influence on rock and roll. Specifically, his 1965 move to electric guitar, while alienating folk purists, brought in a new and larger group of fans.

The growth of the youth counterculture in the latter half of the 1960s permeated all elements of society and exerted a pervasive influence on fashion, social and sexual mores. Music became the group's outlet and its voice. Electrified rock ruled the day. The hallucinogenic folk-rock blend of Jefferson Airplane, the eclectic virtuosity of the Beatles, the wailing blues-rock of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix's guitar pyrotechnics brought rock to new heights. In the summer of 1969, a crowd of 300,000 descended on Woodstock, New York, in a communal celebration of youthful solidarity, free love, and acid- and electrified rock. As Dylan had foretold, the times they were a-changin.'

At first, Bob Dylan seemed the likely heir to the folk legends Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, adopting their sound, philosophy, and style--down to his rumpled work clothes. Still, he lacked the collective consciousness that had inspired the 1940s folk revivalists. Once Dylan donned electric guitar and neon jacket at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he transformed himself from folk troubadour to rock icon, signaling a fundamental change in the direction of pop culture.