This Week's Attitude
It's The Music That Makes Summer Of '67 Unforgettable
By Neil S. Friedman

Depending on your age, your point of view or where you were - and how much you recollect - the Summer of Love in 1967 was the best of times and the worst of times. As various social and cultural changes took root, riots erupted in Newark and Detroit, and the Vietnam War, with young men at risk of being drafted, continued to escalate and baby boomers spearheaded the mushrooming anti-war movement.

The Sixties was, after all, a chaotic decade, bookended by President Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and Woodstock, a three-day music festival in the Catskills, six years later, and marked with the Dr. Martin Luther King and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's assassinations within three months of each other in the spring of 1968.

Nevertheless, when you methodically examine that season forty years later, the novel music that surfaced evokes the period as much as actual events. And the summer of love description notwithstanding, that emotion did not necessarily widely prevail, except perhaps in small pockets on the East and West coasts - and, conceivably, on and around some college campuses.

On the West Coast, the city of San Francisco witnessed a migration of hippies - free spirited youths driven to wear flowers in their hair, courtesy of singer/songwriter Scott McKenzie's classic "San Francisco" - who were urged to turn on, tune in and drop out as they settled in and around the city's eccentric Haight-Ashbury district. Across the country, New York City's Greenwich Village, a Mecca for the former generation's beatniks, poets and artists, welcomed - with open arms - members of the budding nonconformist youth movement.

But that summer when many first generation baby boomers contemplated life after college, sex and drugs may have been part of their lives - but rock and roll was, in all probability, more dominant. Baby boomers - the generation born in the decade following World War II - rejected many of the rigid and restrictive social traditions that were faithfully sustained by their predecessors.

Besides the social changes, the youth of the Sixties helped shape a counterculture that experienced a shift in fashion and music. One chief example was the 1967 rock musical, "Hair," which opened at the off-Broadway Public Theater, and was categorically anti-establishment and anti-war.

Though rock and roll had established a solid foothold by the time the summer of love rolled around, it had barely evolved from the early, hip-shaking days of Elvis Presley to wholesome doo wop and pop music to early 60s folk music from Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary, among others.

But, in '67, there were momentous musical changes blowing in the summer wind.

A trio of albums that define the period - The Beatles, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," The Doors' eponymous debut and Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow" - laid the groundwork for an imminent revolution in an industry that had thrived mainly with singles since 1955.

Prior to 1967, most LPs offered a few worthy songs, which were individually marketed with throwaway B-sides that were economical for consumers. The remaining eight or nine tracks were usually filler material or cover versions to round out the platter and rarely deserved more than a listen. But with "Sgt. Pepper," The Beatles fashioned a thematic album that many groups would subsequently employ. The Doors' and the Airplane's LPs did not use the conceptual approach, but every song was daring enough to entice listeners to explore them, which became a criterion for succeeding artists.

In 1967, up-and-coming free-form FM radio abandoned narrow, repetitious play lists, which buoyed the evolution of rock and roll as a unique outlet for emerging bands with on-air personalities, who spoke in relaxed speech patterns without silly effects. Top 40 radio, with fast-talking disc jockeys who often managed to throw in the time weather and station call letters before the vocals kicked in, still dominated the airwaves but rarely played songs over four minutes, but still allowed for some of that summer's classic cuts. Conversely, FM stations programmed unaltered and unedited tracks from new artists.

Some of the definitive singles that could be heard on AM stations in the car or on portable radios that summer were "Happy Together" by The Turtles, "Let's Live for Today" by the Grass Roots, Strawberry Alarm Clocks' psychedelic-tinged "Incense and Peppermints," one of the shortest hit songs ever made, "The Letter" by The Box Tops that became one of the year's biggest hits, Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl," which was edited for AM airplay due to one phrase about "making love in the green grass," and an abridged "Light My Fire" by The Doors, which was about seven minutes long as written.

Incidentally, The Ed Sullivan Show , which became a nationally televised showcase for the hottest bands of the sixties, after The Beatles debut American performance in February 1964, caused controversy for two groups that year. When The Doors were booked to perform their abridged hit in 1967, censors ordered them to change the lyric "Girl, we couldn't get much higher," but maverick lead singer Jim Morrison sang it as he wrote it, later contending he forgot because he was nervous. The incident resulted in a lifetime ban from the show by the legendary host. Eight months earlier, when The Rolling Stones performed "Let's Spend The Night Together" - the title alone made prudes cringe - lead Mick Jagger altered the title to "Let's Spend Some Time Together," but mockingly sang it as he rolled his eyes to emphasize his displeasure.

Meanwhile, FM stations frequently programmed four-six minute tracks, entire album sides or blocks of songs with related themes, which appealed to sophisticated music lovers. Some of acts that FM helped thrust into the spotlight included Cream, a power trio made up of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker; Big Brother & The Holding Company with lead singer Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and The Grateful Dead.

The music and its business of merchandising have radically changed, and also splintered into an excess of genres. Yet, no matter how old boomers get, and how many aches and pains they bear with aging, when we recall the timeless music that became a framework of our youth, it keeps us forever young.

Note: Many of the songs touched upon above can be found in recently released Time Life multi-disc compilations, "Flower Power," "Summer of Love" and "Sounds of the City."