tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/the-rolling-stones-13460/articlesThe Rolling Stones – The Conversation2023-11-16T14:27:57Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2171942023-11-16T14:27:57Z2023-11-16T14:27:57ZNew Beatles and Rolling Stones music owes much of its success to the psychology of nostalgia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559118/original/file-20231113-17-dclgt5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=37%2C273%2C1879%2C919&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles wave to fans after arriving at New York's Kennedy Airport in 1964.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Beatles_in_America.JPG">US Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout the 1960s, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were engaged in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/17541328.2015.1014166?needAccess=true">friendly rivalry</a>. Despite being amicable in person, they were <a href="https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EkouBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP15&dq=rolling+stones+vs+the+beatles&ots=9B9zM46VyK&sig=pvr_uWAnVMsv5mBqPgxpE0Ik8tA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=rolling%20stones%20vs%20the%20beatles&f=false">in competition</a> for record sales, cultural influence and aesthetic credibility.</p>
<p>Despite their enormous popularity, however, not even the most ardent fans of either band would have expected that such a competition would still be going on more than 50 years later. And yet, the Stones recently reached <a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/rolling-stones-top-uk-charts-with-new-album-hackney-diamonds-2023-10-27/#:%7E:text=1%20on%20the%20UK%27s%20Official,charts%20in%20Australia%20and%20Germany.">number one on the UK album charts</a> with their album Hackney Diamonds, and the Beatles <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/the-beatles-now-and-then-leads-uk-midweek-chart-1235471276/#:%7E:text=Also%2C%20%22Now%20and%20Then%22,is%20the%20stuff%20of%20legend.">have done the same on the singles charts</a>. </p>
<p>But how much of this recent success is down to the quality of the songs themselves, and how much is to do with nostalgia? </p>
<p>Both bands have remained commercially and culturally significant since the 1960s, and both have had recent commercial successes prior to their new releases. The Beatles’ 50th anniversary re-release of Abbey Road <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/beatles-abbey-road-returns-to-no-1-uk/">topped the UK charts in 2019</a>, and the Stones’s No Filter Tour – which ran between 2017 and 2019 – was one of the <a href="https://www.billboard.com/lists/billboard-boxscore-top-10-tours-all-time-elton-john-harry-styles/coldplay-a-head-full-of-dreams-tour-2016-17/">highest grossing</a> tours of all time.</p>
<p>Even more recently, Peter Jackson’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/beatles-get-back-documentary-reveals-how-creativity-doesnt-happen-on-its-own-182380">Get Back documentary</a> showed that the Beatles still have immense cultural capital, 51 years after splitting up. As for both bands’ latest releases, however, their success may be more down to us attaching pre-existing positive memories to their music.</p>
<h2>Reminiscence bump</h2>
<p>Music psychologist <a href="https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d-2DYVjNVpQC&oi=fnd&pg=PT238&dq=music+and+emotion&ots=aqVsjjyNTB&sig=CkIZ_i2KImB0pD5k3JVmzl_qFYs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=music%20and%20emotion&f=false">Patrik Juslin has observed</a> that episodic memories linked to music often arouse emotions, such as nostalgia. Listening to any new music from the Stones or the Beatles will naturally remind fans of our early experiences in listening to them. If those memories were good, we may experience a “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140417-why-does-music-evoke-memories">reminiscence bump</a>” – a psychological term to describe when music or other triggers take us back to exciting times in our lives, when we experienced things for the first time.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001s14w/the-one-show-01112023">The One Show</a> broadcast an exclusive <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APJAQoSCwuA&list=PL0jp-uZ7a4g_wUzbgU_US9V7h-HR1TyIh&index=3">short film</a> detailing the making of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW55J2zE3N4">Now and Then</a> the day before its official release, it left the BBC show’s hosts visibly emotional. Later, music broadcaster Lauren Laverne, <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/audio/beatles-now-and-then-lauren-laverne/">who introduced the film</a>, admitted: “I cried like a baby! And I never cry.”</p>
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<p>The reason for such emotion? The song involved all four Beatles performing on the same track, something most fans never thought they’d experience again. Paul McCartney felt the same way, <a href="https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/arts---entertainment/1338316/now-and-then-first-beatles-song-in-decades-will-be-released-today.html">commenting</a>: “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording.” </p>
<p>The opportunity to hear the Beatles together again, one last time, is an irresistible prospect regardless of whether the song is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhWKxnpQXGk">any good</a>, worthy of the <a href="https://exclaim.ca/music/article/despite_paul_mccartneys_insistence_now_and_then_isnt_worthy_of_the_beatles">Beatles name</a>, or can be considered an <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/reviews/the-beatles-new-song-now-and-then-review-1235777477/">official Beatles release at all</a>.</p>
<p>And when the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opxhh9Oh3rg">music video</a> (directed by Jackson) was released, with the aid of some – slightly heavy-handed – trickery, we were able to see the Fab Four united again. It was hard not to get swept up in the poignancy of it all.</p>
<h2>Rolling nostalgia</h2>
<p>As far back as 1989, the Rolling Stones were described in an <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-10-ca-2670-story.html">LA Times headline</a> as “Just Rolling on Nostalgia”. Many of the previews of Hackney Diamonds spoke about how the album reflected “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/22/the-rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-review-convincing-echoes-of-the-band-in-its-pomp">the band in its pomp</a>” and how it included “<a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-album-review/">classic Stones signposts</a>”. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/18/the-rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-review-jagger-polydor?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=fb_us&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2N7t4kt-mqSv1T80sTkWRIE5hcD2v3BxVOIxSLo76uY4FmiZ1z23rWwv8">Much was also made</a> of the fact that the band’s late drummer, Charlie Watts, played on two of the tracks, and that he was joined by their former bassist, Bill Wyman, on the song Live By The Sword. This reunited the version of The Rolling Stones from the mid-70s to the early 90s.
For this reason, the Evening Standard’s Martin Robinson described the track as carrying “<a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/music/the-rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-album-review-b1112603.html">considerable emotional weight</a>”.</p>
<p>On his YouTube channel, Justin Hawkins, frontman of The Darkness, shared <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHnvNgEsOWs">a clip of him listening</a> to the new Stones song Angry. After hearing Mick Jagger’s count-in, Hawkins pauses the track and says: “Brilliant! It’s exactly what you want to hear.” Later, he praises the Keith Richards solo as being “classically Keith”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-music-heals-us-even-when-its-sad-by-a-neuroscientist-leading-a-new-study-of-musical-therapy-214924">How music heals us, even when it's sad – by a neuroscientist leading a new study of musical therapy</a>
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<p>And that’s just it. They may not be doing anything different to what they did 50 years ago, but as long as the music <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/3af3ab743dd43181d98c555b01d589db/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=536309">evokes memories that speak to the heart</a>, it’s enough for most fans. </p>
<p>Whether this is the last new music we’ll hear from these two titans of popular music remains to be seen. But the nostalgia towards them is only going to increase as time goes on, meaning that if they do release any more tracks, they are likely to be even more popular.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Fosbraey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Both bands have remained commercially and culturally significant since the 1960s.Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of WinchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1817042022-05-12T04:37:17Z2022-05-12T04:37:17ZExile on Main St turns 50: how The Rolling Stones’ critically divisive album became rock folklore<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460907/original/file-20220503-26-ht6k4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C2%2C1391%2C1395&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In May of 1972 the Rolling Stones released their 10th British studio album and first double LP, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/exile-on-main-street-96177/">Exile on Main St.</a> Although initial critical response was lukewarm, it is now considered a contemporary music landmark, the best work from a band who rock critic Simon Frith once referred to as “the poets of lonely leisure.”</p>
<p>Exile on Main St. was both the culmination of a five-year productive frenzy and bleary-eyed comedown from the darkest period in the Stones’ history. </p>
<p>By 1969 the storm clouds of dread building around the group had become a full-blown typhoon. First, recently sacked member Brian Jones was found dead, drowned in his swimming pool.</p>
<p>Then, as the decade ended in a rush of bleak portents, they played host to the chaos of the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-01/how-the-rolling-stones-killed-the-hippie-dream-at-altamont/11747188">Altamont Speedway Free Concert</a>, a poorly organised, massive free concert, which ended with four dead including a murder captured live on film.</p>
<p>Yet amidst all this the Stones produced <a href="https://greilmarcus.net/2020/03/22/the-end-of-the-1960s-let-it-bleed-12-27-69/">Let It Bleed</a> (1969) and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/sticky-fingers-mw0000195498">Sticky Fingers</a> (1971), two devastating albums that wrapped up the era like a parcel bomb addressed to the 1970s. </p>
<p>Songs like Gimme Shelter, the harrowing Sister Morphine, and Sway, which broods on Nietzche’s notion of circular time, exuded the kind of weary grandeur that would define Exile.</p>
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<h2>Rock folklore</h2>
<p>The story behind Exile on Main St. has become <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXcqcdYABFw">rock folklore</a>. Fleeing from England’s punitive tax laws, the Stones lobbed in a Côte d'Azur mansion that was a Gestapo HQ during World War II. </p>
<p>Mick Jagger was largely sidelined, spending much of the time in Paris with pregnant wife Bianca. The musicians were jammed into an ad-hoc basement studio, a cross between steam-bath and opium den, powered by electricity hijacked from the French railway system. The house was beset by hangers-on, including the obligatory posse of drug-dealers.</p>
<p>Yet with control ceded to the nonchalant, disaster-prone Keith Richards – the kind of person a crisis would want around in a crisis – they somehow harnessed the power of pandemonium.</p>
<p>The result was a singular amalgam of barbed soul, mutant gospel, tombstone blues and shambolic country, as thrilling in its blend of familiar sources as works by contemporaries <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/sep/02/roxy-music-40-years">Roxy Music</a> and David Bowie were in the use of alien ones. </p>
<p>Jagger shuffles his deck of personas from song to song like a demented croupier, the late, great drummer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/arts/music/charlie-watts-dead.html">Charlie Watts</a> supplies his customary subtle adornments, and a cast of miscreants – most crucially, pianist Nicky Hopkins and producer Jimmy Miller – function as supplementary band members.</p>
<p>All 18 tracks contribute to the ragged perfection of the document as a whole. Tumbling Dice and Happy are textbook rock propelled by a strange union of virtuosity and indolence. And there is an undeniable beauty to the likes of Torn and Frayed and Let it Loose, albeit a beauty that is tentative, hard-earned.</p>
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<p>The package is completed by its distinctive sleeve art, juxtaposing a collage of circus performers photographed by Robert Frank circa 1950 with grainy stills from a Super-8 film of the band and a mural dedicated to Joan Crawford.</p>
<p>Exile confused audiences at first: Writer <a href="https://www.amazon.com/EXILE-MAIN-STREET-Rolling-Stones/dp/0028650638">John Perry</a> describes its 1972 reception as mixing “puzzlement with qualified praise”. The response of critic Lester Bangs was typical. After an initial negative review, Bangs came to regard it as the group’s strongest work. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/exile-on-main-st-mw0000191639">confirms</a> that the record over time has become a touchstone, calling it a masterful album that takes “the bleakness that underpinned Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers to an extreme.”</p>
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<h2>Inspiration</h2>
<p>The roll call of artists inspired by Exile is extensive, from Tom Waits and the White Stripes to Benicio del Toro and Martin Scorsese. But two album-length homages stand out. </p>
<p>In 1986, underground punks Pussy Galore concocted a feral, abstract <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHAEkWcgBD8">facsimile</a> of the entire double-LP. In 1993, singer-songwriter Liz Phair used the original as a rough template for her acclaimed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW1nMJ4-2qM">Exile in Guyville</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, journalist Mark Masters notes that by the 1980s, the social and cultural circumstances that produced Exile were waning as acts such as Minutemen, Mekons, The Go-Go’s and Fela Kuti gave listeners access to fresh modes of rebellion.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brown-sugar-why-the-rolling-stones-are-right-to-withdraw-the-song-from-their-set-list-169936">Brown Sugar: why the Rolling Stones are right to withdraw the song from their set list</a>
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<p>Circa 1972, the Rolling Stones deserved the title “greatest rock and roll band in the world.” That it is still claimed 50 years on shows how classic rock continues to overbear all that followed.</p>
<h2>The grandfathers of rock</h2>
<p>When in 2020 Rolling Stone <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/">magazine</a> made a half-hearted attempt to tweak the classic rock canon – elevating Marvin Gaye, Public Enemy and Lauryn Hill alongside or above Exile and the Beatles – the response was predictably unedifying. </p>
<p>One reader complained that the magazine was catering to “young people with no musical history and older people who don’t know anything.” Others raged that rap is not music and the list was proof of rampant political correctness.</p>
<p>Such archaic, ignorant language is typical of gatekeepers of the classic rock tradition. It is a language of exclusion, ensuring that exceptional new music by, say, <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/fiona-apple-fetch-the-bolt-cutters/">Fiona Apple</a> (which sounds something like rock) or <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/listening-booth/the-hypnotic-spell-of-groupers-shade">Liz Harris</a> (which sounds rather different) will always be rated below what came before.</p>
<p>The Rolling Stones have an inevitable, if ambiguous, relationship to all of this. In terms of race, writer Jack Hamilton <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2016/10/race-rock-and-the-rolling-stones-how-the-rock-and-roll-became-white.html">argues</a> that they were always “fiercely committed to a future for rock and roll music in which black music and musicians continued to matter.”</p>
<p>How they intersect with gender is perhaps more troubling, though also <a href="https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar_url?url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619460801990104&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GvplYvGUEpyO6rQP_qe3mAs&scisig=AAGBfm2sqr4oKv5EoKYSmkitlR44etMXqA&oi=scholarr">conflicted</a>. While eminent female musicians such as Joan Jett, Carrie Brownstein and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRPpCqXYoos">Rennie Sparks</a> continue to champion the Stones, their role as leading purveyors of an inherently masculine, increasingly archaic musical form cannot be avoided.</p>
<p>Exile on Main St. is a significant album made by a bunch of haggard rebels whose heyday (and rebellion) is past but whose art lives on in complex ways. </p>
<p>Along with Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On and Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night, it fits snugly into an aesthetic of washed out, narcotic-smeared masterpieces from the early seventies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dean Biron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In May of 1972 the Rolling Stones released their 10th British studio album and first double LP, Exile on Main St. Reception was mixed, but the album is now considered a landmark.Dean Biron, PhD in Cultural Studies; teaches in School of Justice, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1699362021-10-15T00:17:11Z2021-10-15T00:17:11ZBrown Sugar: why the Rolling Stones are right to withdraw the song from their set list<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426353/original/file-20211014-17-14g81y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C54%2C2561%2C2261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Rolling Stones performing last week in Pittsburgh.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emily Matthews/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The decision by the Rolling Stones to remove their 1971 song Brown Sugar from the set list for their upcoming US tour has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/oct/13/rolling-stones-drop-insensitive-brown-sugar-from-us-tour-setlist">drawn both praise</a> and <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/piers-morgan-tells-mick-jagger-193605271.html">criticism</a>. </p>
<p>Read by some as a surrender to the “<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/piers-morgan-tells-mick-jagger-193605271.html">woke brigade</a>” and by others as a reasonable response to the accusation the lyrics glorify “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-rolling-stones-brown-sugar-racist-lyrics-20190524-story.html">slavery, rape, torture and pedophilia</a>”, the decision highlights the changing ethical considerations musicians must navigate in order to maintain a social license. </p>
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<p>Brown Sugar was recorded in Alabama in late 1969 and released on the Rolling Stones’ 1971 album Sticky Fingers. The song is emblematic of the Stones’ energetic rhythm and blues sound and has been a <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Rolling_Stones.html?id=qXMVwH6E3lAC&redir_esc=y">mainstay of their set list</a> for decades. </p>
<p>The lyrics explore the sexual exploitation of a black woman by slave traders and slave owners in America’s south, presenting a sexualised view of a marginalised group. </p>
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<p>Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good?<br>
Brown Sugar, just like a young girl should. </p>
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<p>Contemporary and informed audiences would also recognise “brown sugar” as a <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/heroin.page">reference to heroin</a>.</p>
<p>Through the course of the song the singer moves from observer to an agent of this sexualisation.</p>
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<p>And all her boyfriends were sweet 16 <br>
I’m no school boy but I know what I like <br>
You should have heard them just around midnight.</p>
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<p>While some interpretations of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Up-Down-Rolling-Stones-Rollercoaster/dp/1843582635">the song</a> would like to see it primarily as a celebration of a drug counterculture, any pretence the phrase “Brown Sugar” is other than a reference to a black woman falls away in the final lyric of the studio album.</p>
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<p>Just like a black girl should.</p>
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<p>This combination of sexual imagery and illicit drug references in the song’s lyrics contributes to the culturally transgressive place the Rolling Stones occupy in popular music history.</p>
<h2>A question of race</h2>
<p>Some have little to say about matters of race in the Stone’s music. A recent essay in the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-rolling-stones/ED42FC0D0D389BCA24024C62306353E4">Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones</a> examines the contribution of non-band members to Brown Sugar, notably pianist Ian Stewart and saxophonist Bobby Keys, and interprets the lyrics as nothing more than “famously bawdy”.</p>
<p>But for many race is central to any consideration of the Stones’ output from this period. Patrick Burke, in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01411896.2010.513322">Rock, Race and Radicalism in the 1960s</a> sees the Stones as wallowing in racist stereotypes. He asserts Brown Sugar is a “lascivious celebration of sexual clichés associated with slavery.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426354/original/file-20211014-13-1eij3gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426354/original/file-20211014-13-1eij3gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426354/original/file-20211014-13-1eij3gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426354/original/file-20211014-13-1eij3gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426354/original/file-20211014-13-1eij3gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426354/original/file-20211014-13-1eij3gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426354/original/file-20211014-13-1eij3gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426354/original/file-20211014-13-1eij3gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Stones performing in 1971, the year Brown Sugar was released.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">J. Maum/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The song undeniably deals in confronting subject matter. Its removal from the set list causes us to question whether the song is racist and speaks to the changing parameters of ethical practice for musicians. </p>
<p>Keith Richards highlights this ambiguity in <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-10-07/rolling-stones-charlie-watts-no-filter-tour">his comments</a> on the removal of the song.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is. Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery?</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-brutal-trade-in-enslaved-people-within-the-us-has-been-largely-whitewashed-out-of-history-165442">The brutal trade in enslaved people within the US has been largely whitewashed out of history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Richards’ mildly defensive tone fuels broadcaster Piers Morgan bellicose defence of Brown Sugar as a “song aimed at defending and supporting black women”. Morgan also draws attention to what he sees as a <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10088127/PIERS-MORGAN-Im-getting-no-satisfaction-seeing-Stones-surrender-woke-brigade.html">“double standard” for rap music where racist and misogynist tropes abound</a>. </p>
<p>Pulling the song from the set list seems to Morgan an unacceptable confession of guilt. </p>
<h2>Ethics in music</h2>
<p>I would argue that whether Mick Jagger, in writing Brown Sugar, intended it to be racist misses the point. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/85999/a-forgiveness-song-the-emergence-of-an-ethical-framework-informing-australian-composers-interactions-with-the-music-of-indigenous-peoples">research</a> examines how non-Aboriginal Australian composers have interacted with Australian Indigenous music. </p>
<p>The use of Indigenous music, instruments and language by Australian composers was once commonplace – and even viewed as a form of advocacy. More recently, Australian composers have come to realise the damage cultural appropriation can cause. </p>
<p>As we learn more about other cultures – including a greater knowledge of what causes offence and what is painful – our behaviour needs to change.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426583/original/file-20211014-16-tsob5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Mick Jagger performing in the 1970s" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426583/original/file-20211014-16-tsob5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426583/original/file-20211014-16-tsob5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426583/original/file-20211014-16-tsob5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426583/original/file-20211014-16-tsob5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426583/original/file-20211014-16-tsob5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426583/original/file-20211014-16-tsob5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426583/original/file-20211014-16-tsob5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Society has changed a lot over the past 50 years – the Stones have, too.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even if the style of Brown Sugar was once heard as an innocent rendering of an upbeat rhythm and blues sound (and as far back as the mid 1960s there have been <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/460716.Black_Music">critiques of the Rolling Stones co-option of Black culture</a>), the ecstatic guitar riff, energetic piano and vigorous saxophone create an unacceptable dissonance in the ears of contemporary listeners.</p>
<p>To use such joyful music to accompany lyrics exploring the sexual exploitation which accompanied slavery clearly causes hurt to marginalised people. As music producer and author <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-rolling-stones-brown-sugar-racist-lyrics-20190524-story.html">Ian Brennan notes</a>, were someone in customer service to utter the line “Brown Sugar how come you taste so good?”, they would be immediately fired. </p>
<h2>The freedom to not play Brown Sugar</h2>
<p>So does the Stones’ decision to pull the song damage the band’s reputation? Is this an act of censorship, injuring artistic freedom?</p>
<p>I would argue the ethical musician should defer to the sensibilities of the marginalised group. The cost here is the Rolling Stones won’t play Brown Sugar live. This isn’t censorship; the song is readily available. It isn’t even iconoclasm - music history is not damaged and no idols have been smashed. </p>
<p>The Stones’ decision to pull the song isn’t a confession of racism. It is an ethical act and, in itself, an act of artistic freedom that preserves their social license and affirms their ongoing cultural significance. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/long-players-secrets-of-the-rolling-stones-longevity-33939">Long players: secrets of the Rolling Stones longevity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy McKenry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rather than being an act of censorship, The Rolling Stone’s decision to remove Brown Sugar from their set list is a show of artistic freedom.Timothy McKenry, Professor of Music, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1667192021-08-24T21:09:59Z2021-08-24T21:09:59ZHow Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts infused one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands with a little jazz<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417685/original/file-20210824-17175-1j96hrf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C112%2C4696%2C3547&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charlie Watts – a humble drummer behind a humble kit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/drummer-charlie-watts-of-the-rolling-stones-at-a-british-news-photo/72591715?adppopup=true">Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an era when rock drummers were larger-than-life showmen with big kits and egos to match, Charlie Watts remained the quiet man behind a modest drum set. But Watts wasn’t your typical rock drummer.</p>
<p>Part of the Rolling Stones setup from 1963 until <a href="https://apnews.com/article/rolling-stones-charlie-watts-died-c9551b21e2806b679bd0eeec0bb4ef2b">his death on Aug. 24, 2021</a>, Watts provided the back-beat to their greatest hits by injecting jazz sensibilities – and swing – into the Stones’ sound.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://people.bu.edu/blues/">musicologist</a> and co-editor of the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-rolling-stones/ED42FC0D0D389BCA24024C62306353E4">Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones</a> – as well as a fan who has seen the Stones live more than 20 times over the past five decades – I see Watts as being integral to the band’s success.</p>
<p>Like <a href="https://www.inner-magazines.com/music/why-ringo-matters/">Ringo Starr</a> and other drummers who emerged during the 1960s British pop explosion, Watts was influenced by the swing and big band sound that was <a href="https://nationaljazzarchive.org.uk/explore/jazz-timeline/1940s?">hugely popular in the U.K.</a> in the 1940s and 1950s.</p>
<h2>Modest with the sticks</h2>
<p>Watts wasn’t formally trained as a jazz drummer, but jazz musicians like Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/tag-team">were early influences</a>. </p>
<p>In a 2012 interview with the New Yorker, he recalled how their records <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/tag-team">informed his playing style</a>.</p>
<p>“I bought a banjo, and I didn’t like the dots on the neck,” Watts said. “So I took the neck off, and at the same time I heard a drummer called Chico Hamilton, who played with Gerry Mulligan, and I wanted to play like that, with brushes. I didn’t have a snare drum, so I put the banjo head on a stand.”</p>
<p>Watts’ first group, the Jo Jones All Stars, were a jazz band. And elements of jazz remained throughout his Stones career, providing Watts with a wide stylistic versatility that was critical to the Stones’ forays beyond blues and rock to country, reggae, disco, funk and even punk.</p>
<p>There was a modesty in his playing that came from his jazz learning. There are no big rock drum solos. He made sure the attention was never on him or his drumming – his role was keeping the songs going forward, giving them movement.</p>
<p>He also didn’t use a big kit – no gongs, no scaffolding. He kept <a href="https://www.gretschdrums.com/artists/charlie-watts">a modest one</a> more typically found in jazz quartets and quintets.</p>
<p>Likewise, Watts’ occasional use of brushes over sticks – such as in “Melody” from 1976’s “Black and Blue” – more explicitly shows his debt to jazz drummers.</p>
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<p>But he didn’t come in with one style. Watts was trained to adapt, while keeping elements of jazz. You can hear it in the R'n’ B of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrIPxlFzDi0">(I can’t Get No) Satisfaction</a>,” to the infernal samba-like rhythm of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgnClrx8N2k">Sympathy For The Devil</a>” – two songs in which Watts’ contribution is central.</p>
<p>And a song like “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fa4HUiFJ6c">Can’t You Hear Me Knocking</a>” from 1971’s “Sticky Fingers” develops from one of Keith Richards’ highest caliber riffs into a long concluding instrumental section, unique in the Stones’ song catalog, of Santana-esque Latin jazz, containing some great syncopated rhythmic shots and tasteful hi-hat playing through which Watts drives the different musical sections.</p>
<p>You hear similar elements in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbmS3tQJ7Os">Gimme Shelter</a>” and other classic Rolling Stones songs – it is perfectly placed drum fills and gestures that make the song and surprise you, always in the background and never dominating.</p>
<h2>Powering the ‘engine room’</h2>
<p>So central was Watts to the Stones that when bassist Bill Wyman retired from the band after the 1989 “Steel Wheels” tour, it was Watts who was tasked with picking his replacement.</p>
<p>He needed a bass player that would fit his style. But his choice of Darryl Jones as Wyman’s replacement was not the only key partnership for Watts. He played off the beat, complementing Richards’ very syncopated, riff-driven guitar style. Watts and Richards set the groove for so many Stones songs, such as “Honky Tonk Women” or “Start Me Up.” If you watched them live, you’d notice Richards looking at Watts at all times – his eyes fixated on the drummer, searching for where the musical accents are, and matching their rhythmic “shots” and off-beats.</p>
<p>Watts did not aspire to be a <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/old-school-jazz-and-lacerated-hands-the-secrets-of-led-zeppelins-moby-dick">virtuoso like John Bonham of Led Zeppelin</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5Up-qHTJdY">The Who’s Keith Moon</a> – there was no drumming excess. From that initial jazz training, he kept his distance from outward gestures.</p>
<p>But for nearly six decades, he was the main occupant, as Richards put it, of the Rolling Stones’ legendary “engine room.”</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Coelho has received research funding from Boston University. </span></em></p>Charlie Watts was the Rolling Stones’ drummer for almost six decades. A scholar of music – and a Stones fan – describes what he brought to the band.Victor Coelho, Professor of Music, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1056402018-10-30T10:44:36Z2018-10-30T10:44:36ZThe soundtrack of the Sixties demanded respect, justice and equality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242768/original/file-20181029-76405-t6rnc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Supremes, with their polished performances and family-friendly lyrics, helped to bridge a cultural divide and temper racial tensions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-International-News-Ente-/0897f662ca564589975e8c01730f5ea4/10/0">AP Photo/Frings</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Sly and the Family Stone released “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/7lL2lMWNtzOcf5HnEudNgn?si=Iki3pMgHRYGigF5i_0reow">Everyday People</a>” at the end of 1968, it was a rallying cry after a tumultuous year of assassinations, civil unrest and a seemingly interminable war.</p>
<p>“We got to live together,” he sang, “I am no better and neither are you.”</p>
<p>Throughout history, artists and songwriters have expressed a longing for equality and justice through their music.</p>
<p>Before the Civil War, African-American slaves gave voice to their oppression through protest songs camouflaged as <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197495/">Biblical spirituals</a>. In the 1930s, jazz singer Billie Holiday railed against the practice of lynching in “<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/jazz-and-the-civil-rights-movement-2039542">Strange Fruit</a>.” Woody Guthrie’s <a href="https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/woody-guthrie">folk ballads from the 1930s and 1940s</a> often commented on the plight of the working class.</p>
<p>But perhaps in no other time in American history did popular music more clearly reflect the political and cultural moment than the soundtrack of the 1960s – one that exemplified a new and overt social consciousness.</p>
<p>That decade, a palpable energy slowly burned and intensified <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/01/1968s-chaos-the-assassinations-riots-and-protests-that-defined-our-world/?utm_term=.b71ae9680ebe">through a succession of events</a>: the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>By the mid-1960s, frustration about the slow pace of change began to percolate with riots in multiple cities. Then, in 1968, two awful events occurred within months of each other: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.</p>
<p>Through it all, there was the music.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.osu.edu/features/2016/the-music-man.html">Coming of age during this time in Northern California</a>, I had the opportunity to hear some of the era’s soundtrack live – James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.</p>
<p>At the same time, virtually everyone in the African-American community was directly connected in some way or another to the civil rights movement.</p>
<p>Every year, I revisit this era in <a href="https://news.osu.edu/students-learn-a-lesson-in-rock-n-roll/">an undergraduate class I teach</a> on music, civil rights and the Supreme Court. With this perspective as a backdrop, here are five songs, followed by a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/osuprezdrake/playlist/1glThKK9iTE9CRAQ0d9pC4?si=BJgzMNRVR42_cHgRtmhEMA">playlist</a> that I share with my students. </p>
<p>While they offer a window into the awakening and reckoning of the times, the tracks have assumed a renewed relevance and resonance today.</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/18GiV1BaXzPVYpp9rmOg0E?si=zswsOON-Rqq1mWntenzr5Q">Blowin’ in the Wind</a>,” Bob Dylan, 1963</strong></p>
<p>First made a hit by the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, the song signaled a new consciousness and became the most covered of all Dylan songs. </p>
<p>The song asks a series of questions that appeal to the listener’s moral compass, while the timeless imagery of the lyrics – cannonballs, doves, death, the sky – evoke a longing for peace and freedom that spoke to the era.</p>
<p>As one critic <a href="https://www.npr.org/2000/10/21/1112840/blowin-in-the-wind">noted</a> in 2010: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There are songs that are more written by their times than by any individual in that time, a song that the times seem to call for, a song that is just gonna be a perfect strike rolled right down the middle of the lane, and the lane has already been grooved for the strike.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This song – along with others such as “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Chimes of Freedom” – are among the reasons Bob Dylan <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/lecture/">received the Nobel Prize in Literature</a>. </p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0KOE1hat4SIer491XKk4Pa?si=s_jCKsCDTV-MPBpQsOcQ4w">A Change is Gonna Come</a>,” Sam Cooke, 1964</strong></p>
<p>During a 1963 tour in the South, Cooke and his band <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/02/01/268995033/sam-cooke-and-the-song-that-almost-scared-him">were refused lodging</a> at a hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana. </p>
<p>African Americans routinely faced segregation and prejudice in the Jim Crow South, but this particular experience shook Cooke.</p>
<p>So he put pen to paper and tackled a subject that represented a departure for Cooke, a crossover artist who made his name with a series of Top 40 hits.</p>
<p>The lyrics reflect the anguish of being an extraordinary pop headliner who nonetheless needs to go through a side door.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Singer Sam Cooke stands next to a huge reproduction of his head on the roof of a Manhattan building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Entertain-/0856cfd19a274ac9a9df38a0520d601c/2/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Showcasing Cooke’s gospel roots, it’s a song that painfully and beautifully captures the edge between hope and despair. </p>
<p>“It’s been a long, a long time coming,” he croons. “But I know a change is gonna come.”</p>
<p>Sam Cooke, in composing “A Change is Gonna Come,” was also inspired by Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-unlikely-story-of-a-change-is-gonna-come">According to Cooke’s biographer</a>, upon hearing Dylan’s song, Cooke “was almost ashamed to have not written something like that himself.”</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/307kcWJQNMdiYYKj1LgClU?si=gTWTLeaHTHGhJZTIHVfRCw">Come See About Me</a>,” The Supremes, 1964</strong></p>
<p>This was one of my favorites of their songs at the time – upbeat, fun and necessarily “unpolitical.” </p>
<p>The Supremes’ record label, Motown, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/arts/artsspecial/motowns-link-to-civil-rights-movement-on-display.html">played an important role bridging a cultural divide</a> during the civil rights era by catapulting black musicians to global stardom. </p>
<p>The Supremes were the Motown act with arguably the broadest appeal, and they paved the way for other black artists to enjoy creative success as mainstream acts.</p>
<p>Through their 20 top-10 hits and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_cBv3wzcGs">17 appearances</a> from 1964 to 1969 on CBS’ popular weekly live program “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the group had a regular presence in the living rooms of black and white families across the country. </p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/2rOyqEU3frual4yxJymr0Z?si=5zOXUWbKSv2ThFa7pFfbbA">Say it Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud</a>,” James Brown, 1968</strong></p>
<p>James Brown – the <a href="http://www.jamesbrown.com/bio/default.aspx">self-proclaimed</a> “hardest working man in show business” – built his reputation as an entertainer par excellence with brilliant dance moves, meticulous staging and a cape routine.</p>
<p>But with “Say it Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud,” Brown seemed to be consciously delivering a starkly political statement about being black in America.</p>
<p>The track’s straightforward, unadorned lyrics allowed it to quickly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/opinion/sunday/james-brown-say-it-loud-50-years.html">become a black pride anthem</a> that promised “we won’t quit movin’ until we get what we deserve.”</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/7s25THrKz86DM225dOYwnr?si=WRIrWDZbRpKnMr9v-1aNqQ">Respect</a>,” Aretha Franklin, 1967</strong></p>
<p>If I could choose only one song to represent the era it would be “Respect.” </p>
<p>It’s a cover of a track previously written and recorded by Otis Redding. But Franklin makes it wholly her own. From the opening lines, the Queen of Soul doesn’t ask for respect; she demands it. </p>
<p>The song <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/14/how-aretha-franklins-respect-became-an-anthem-for-civil-rights-and-feminism/?utm_term=.0a5db56fd9be">became an anthem</a> for the black power and women’s movements. </p>
<p>As Franklin <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/17/17699170/aretha-franklin-2018-respect-song-otis-redding-feminism-civil-rights">explained</a> in her 1999 autobiography: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It was the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher – everyone wanted respect. It was also one of the battle cries of the civil rights movement. The song took on monumental significance.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, these five songs can’t possibly do the decade’s music justice.</p>
<p>Some other tracks that I share with my students and count among my favorites include Simon & Garfunkel’s “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/2LkaNhCrNVmcYgXJeLVmsw?si=FOV9PY_AS9qN2uqK8gh6Dw">The Sound of Silence</a>,” Barry McGuire’s “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1x95pWB3KeK3evKa1VrW6e?si=TllEVkaFSomi_tzqnXnqgQ">Eve of Destruction</a>” and Lou Rawls’ “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6lE3fTHyZgGtT2adZSLYxW?si=8UKuSQZ_ScyoFxJ8hUw0TQ">Dead End Street</a>.”</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/user/osuprezdrake/playlist/1glThKK9iTE9CRAQ0d9pC4" width="100%" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105640/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael V. Drake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fifty years ago, Sly and the Family Stone sang ‘We got to live together, I am no better and neither are you.’ The words ring just as true today.Michael V. Drake, President, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/947142018-10-26T10:42:43Z2018-10-26T10:42:43ZIn the turmoil of 1968, music failed to seize the moment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241915/original/file-20181023-169819-18yvdps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">That year, the pillars of 1960s pop music released unfocused, confused albums.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/broken-guitar-neck-748856833">Thitkorn Krireuk/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While the first half of 1968 was a series of explosive moments – the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/29/580811124/military-victory-but-political-defeat-the-tet-offensive-50-years-later">Tet Offensive</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90330162">Paris protests</a>, the assassinations of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/01/15/kings-assassination-shaped-americas-identity-50-years-ago-and-continues-to-shape-it-today/">MLK</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-robert-f-kennedy/">RFK</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2018/aug/19/the-whole-world-is-watching-chicago-police-riot-vietnam-war-regan">Chicago Democratic National Convention riots</a> – the second half seemed like a car wreck in slow motion. </p>
<p>The pace of the news cycle slowed to a crawl, the shock and surprise followed by the dull inevitability of events already set into motion.</p>
<p>The music of 1968 mirrored its historical moment. </p>
<p>The trends and styles of the previous year – the psychedelic rock born of <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/lsd-drugs-summer-of-love-sixties">the Summer of Love</a>, the empowerment of Aretha Franklin’s demand for “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/5WndWfzGwCkHzAbQXVkg2V?si=NhW9m-jXRMibXO-vpvf05Q">Respect</a>,” a rainbow coalition of black and white artists collaborating – passed into instant obsolescence, creating a vacuum waiting to be filled. </p>
<p>The three pillars of 1960s pop music – Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Motown hit machine – certainly didn’t rise to the occasion. Each put out music that was adrift and directionless, and each would lose its momentum and see its influence wane. </p>
<h2>Drifter’s escape</h2>
<p>In the last days of 1967, Bob Dylan quietly released “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2KzCDxKpgLqBffHu1IZ7Kn?si=DNmxv0A3TOCp-pSmsgTKSA">John Wesley Harding</a>.” </p>
<p>The prior year, <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/bob-dylans-motorcycle-accident-1322021">Dylan had been in a motorcycle accident</a>, and his condition was shrouded in mystery. An 18-month period of silence followed, during which Dylan wrote and recorded “John Wesley Harding” with a trio of Nashville musicians. </p>
<p>But the long-awaited album contained none of the piercing anger, wit or wordplay of his white-hot classics “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1lPoRKSgZHQAYXxzBsOQ7v?si=lO9wPjqhT9umbi_G7zMSMw">Bringing It All Back Home</a>,” “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/6YabPKtZAjxwyWbuO9p4ZD?si=FYXa15ipTbaApf00hlXzWQ">Highway 61 Revisted</a>” and the 1966 double-album set “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/4NP1rhnsPdYpnyJP0p0k0L?si=MBSClttbQ5OEgVkn4bPRdQ">Blonde On Blonde</a>.” </p>
<p>“John Wesley Harding” lacked the incisive social commentary of tracks like “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6k9DUKMJpWvu6eFG3O64Lg?si=Q68uFBTXQB-UWYVfzYuUZQ">Subterranean Homesick Blues</a>” (“You don’t need a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows”) or the razor sharp character studies found in songs such as “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/3AhXZa8sUQht0UEdBJgpGc?si=Kt_LNGJnTV6wvdK1ord0Pg">Like a Rolling Stone</a>” (“Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street / And now you’re gonna have to get used to it”). </p>
<p>Instead, Dylan wove perplexing parables couched in biblical imagery in songs such as “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1cbLvt7UrsbVnljXttWUip?si=0p0I8yENTzeIrJv7ozuxfg">I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine</a>” and “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0Fnb2pfBfu0ka33d6Yki17?si=llliBaF_RV6tO_Gzz5Wbaw">All Along the Watchtower</a>,” in which he sang, “Outside in the cold distance, a wild cat did growl. Two riders were approaching; the wind began to howl.” </p>
<p>The album’s darkly mysterious nature set an ominous tone for the year to come.</p>
<h2>The forlorn four</h2>
<p>Like Dylan, the Beatles seemed to be in the midst of an existential crisis.</p>
<p>Following the death of their manager, <a href="https://www.momentmag.com/brian-epstein-the-man-behind-the-beatles/">Brian Epstein</a>, in 1967, the Beatles headed to India, where they studied transcendental meditation with Indian guru <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/maharishi-mahesh-yogi-india-guru-the-beatles-meditation-a8543666.html">Maharishi Mahesh Yogi</a>. When they reconvened in London a few months later, they were no longer bright-eyed youths but four disillusioned men seeking answers and finding none.</p>
<p>After the tumultuous events of the first half of 1968, the group returned to the airwaves with an anthem to the power of positive thinking.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Harrison and John Lennon sit on rocks by a river in Rishikesh, India, where they studied transcendental meditation in 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-India-Enter-/73970b4964e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/5/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Released in September of that year, the single “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0aym2LBJBk9DAYuHHutrIl?si=B1FwJkhbQBy1_eOugtYOiw">Hey Jude</a>” sat atop the charts for months. The song’s first half urged the listener to take a sad song and make it better, while the second half – four minutes of nonsense chanting, slowly fading into infinity – offered only the notion that “though we may be lost, we are all lost together,” a hymn for a community that defined itself more by grief and resignation than by a belief in a better future.</p>
<p>The double album that followed in late November – officially titled “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1klALx0u4AavZNEvC4LrTL?si=p2VaoAKhR5GWcCkdNLXnJA">The Beatles</a>,” but forever referred to as the “White Album” – brought together splintered fragments of the group’s experiences. It contained none of the audacious discovery and very little of the exuberance found in their previous work. </p>
<p>The track “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/3UDmHZcBTQp8Iu8droNtUl?si=5ES_BfHxRmOovpXIP2YPTg">Revolution #1</a>” was the Beatles’ most direct engagement with the politics of the moment. But it was decidedly ambivalent, arriving at the muddled confusion of “count me out in.” It seemed to urge the listener to take up arms, even as the lyrics urged acceptance: “Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright.”</p>
<h2>The widening racial divide</h2>
<p>In the mid-1960s, Detroit’s Motown Records had issued a string of singles that rivaled the Beatles for chart supremacy. </p>
<p>But with Detroit in flames <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-detroit-exploded-in-the-summer-of-1967-81065">during the riots of 1967</a>, the label lost its mojo: The upbeat cheer of the Motown sound was at odds with the violence erupting just a few blocks from the studio. </p>
<p>In 1968, the label’s two biggest acts – <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/thetemptations_islanduk/playlist/1KmAgq98r2vUcHrxUdNdLA?si=nc6_dOfAT52guKvyzG90fg">The Temptations</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/57bUPid8xztkieZfS7OlEV?si=5UwmaYvjTuyH4fVEi1cQSg">The Supremes</a> – barely managed to make the charts, and the few releases that did were dim shadows of earlier brilliance. </p>
<p>The events of 1968 would even more directly effect Stax records, Motown’s biggest rival. </p>
<p>Based in Memphis, Tennessee, Stax artists like Otis Redding and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/2BVYdY4PyfCF9z4NrkhEB2?si=itIAYwifQem-8PUBZGQ-0w">Sam and Dave</a> proudly wore their rough edges and black identity, unlike the polished acts Motown fashioned for The Ed Sullivan Show. </p>
<p>Redding, however, died in a plane crash in December 1967 – an ominous portent for the new year.</p>
<p>On the night of Dr. King’s assassination, just a few blocks from the Stax offices and studio, its legendary integrated house band, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/2vDV0T8sxx2ENnKXds75e5?si=NiDt8UzTRU2MuKfxJWq8hg">Booker T and the MGs</a>, came face-to-face with the racial divisions their very existence had defied. </p>
<p>Fearing for the lives of the two white members, the musicians and staff formed a caravan to escort them safely out of a neighborhood soon engulfed in flames. Though the band continued to work together for another year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/may/15/booker-t-mgs-donald-duck-dunn">the bubble had burst</a>: A community fell apart, and the hits dried up.</p>
<p>James Brown was one of the first stars to directly address the year’s racial tumult in his music, issuing “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1sYRkVKdT2ize1HSDCwbEF?si=FCpi_txxTVinsBMGJ4Sayg">Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)</a>” in the late summer of 1968. </p>
<p>For a moment, he would bridge the gap between black and white, soul and pop, <a href="https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2017/04/05/james-brown-saved-boston-king/">famously holding Boston together with a concert performed</a> the day after King’s assassination. </p>
<p>This night, however, would prove the high water mark for Brown, whose increasingly political music caused him to lose much of his white audience, relegating him to the niche of soul music.</p>
<p>Sly Stone met a similar fate. His 1968 breakout hit, “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1MQWtVcs0PKsY4PA6ZvLiy?si=GiAxBHy2Q-WB9qWYQp5U7A">Dance to the Music</a>,” featured a multiracial band of men and women, creating a musical rainbow coalition.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the 1970s, Sly Stone seemed to succumb to cynicism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-United-St-/69241b44a01c4447a6626929ed4dce93/2/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But within a year, Sly’s message became considerably less rosy. His 1969 album “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/7iwS1r6JHYJe9xpPjzmWqD?si=dUc555gZQm-0KqD4jBoUCw">Stand!</a>” contained the song “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/7EpNtcFGd3yJl0sjgJgqEe?si=rhND2g0FSjWzAK7rcz5IMg">Don’t Call Me Nigger, (Whitey)</a>” while his 1971 follow-up, “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/29f2cOueckYE8Nc1pkJjrU?si=zj1iCmQtSqetPeMj_5VkQw">There’s a Riot Going On</a>,” depicted a dystopian view of the future. Like Brown, he would fade from the mainstream.</p>
<p>After the hopeful days of <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-swinging-sixties-london-changed-the-world">Swinging London</a> and the Summer of Love, the events of 1968 triggered classic fight or flight responses. </p>
<p>A few musicians metaphorically took to the streets. </p>
<p>But most fled for cover, going back to the land or looking to God. </p>
<p>Compared to the more radically charged music of 1969, the resigned hymns of 1970, and the escapist fare that dominated the following decades, 1968 serves as a kind of still point, an extended moment of hesitation after a gunshot, just before the fight-or-flight reflex kicks in.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A few musicians metaphorically took to the streets. But most fled for cover.Alan Williams, Chair of Music Department, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012002018-08-08T16:09:56Z2018-08-08T16:09:56ZMusic hasn’t had a defining #MeToo moment … yet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231155/original/file-20180808-160647-1dyu20t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Righting wrongs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GrandeDuc/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s now ten months since the #MeToo wave broke over Hollywood, with Harvey Weinstein at its centre. Similar revelations have shaken comedy – with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36371741">Bill Cosby</a> the most notable example – and sexism in the political realm has also been in the spotlight, ending the cabinet career of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2017/nov/04/michael-fallon-lunged-at-me-jane-merrick">Sir Michael Fallon</a> amid <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/britains-metoo-movement-is-uncovering-a-culture-of-rampant-sexism-and-harassment-in-londons-corridors-of-power.html">wider concerns</a> about a culture of harrassment and abuse in Westminster.</p>
<p>With R&B star R Kelly’s recent release of the defiant 19-minute song <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44929744">I Admit</a> in response to numerous allegations against him, questions are being asked about why the music industries have not yet faced a watershed moment comparable to Weinstein or Cosby’s downfall.</p>
<p>There have been some moves to highlight harassment in music, with demonstrations of solidarity at both the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/17/music-industry-sexual-harassment-brit-awards-white-roses">BRIT and Grammy</a> awards. But there has yet to be a focal, Weinstein-style watershed moment in the music business. The reason for this is not straightforward. First of all, it’s something of a misnomer to describe the “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-music/article/rethinking-the-music-industry/CE6B71D475494901F49767CCE130718A">music industry</a>” as a monolithic whole, as opposed to distinct – if related – activities: publishing, tours, recordings and so forth. And while there are different segments of the film industry, a movie is a unified product in the way that a song, an album and a gig aren’t.</p>
<p>So legends and heroes have evolved in music differently to cinema. Alongside the power imbalance that also pervades Hollywood, there’s the additional issue of errant behaviour being baked into the rebel credentials of “rock'n'roll” and the closer relationship between fans and stars in music than in cinema. It’s hard to disentangle hell-raising stories of life on the road from the array of questionable acts under the spotlight of #MeToo.</p>
<p>Separating the art from the artist might sometimes be necessary when the cult of the “musical genius” is tied up with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10304312.2018.1483009">instances of problematic conduct</a>. Hugely iconic stars such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-remember-a-rock-god-the-complicated-legacy-of-chuck-berry-74835">Chuck Berry</a>, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/yamma-brown-on-father-james-brown-s-domestic-abuse-i-hated-him-during-those-times-9746826.html">James Brown</a> and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/cynthia-lennon-the-first-wife-of-john-lennon-whose-steadfastness-was-rewarded-by-cruel-treatment-at-10150200.html">John Lennon</a> are on record as having committed offences from voyeurism to domestic abuse. </p>
<p>Numerous others are alleged to have slept with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/15/i-wouldnt-want-this-for-anybodys-daughter-will-metoo-kill-off-the-rocknroll-groupie">underage girls</a> – illegal whatever “consent” was implied, even in the heyday of the rock era.</p>
<p>It’s also harder to “blacklist” artists, who can keep producing music and streaming directly to fans. So when, for instance, Spotify moved to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-24/spotify-said-to-plan-to-restore-xxxtentacion-music-after-outcry">pull XXXTentacion and R Kelly from playlists</a>, it ended up rowing back on the decision on the grounds that it would have been impossible to properly police. </p>
<h2>Change from the ground up</h2>
<p>Fixing all of this will be difficult to achieve quickly. The possibility of powerful female artists taking a stand (as <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-talks-symbolic-lawsuit-groping-trial-sexual-assault-197764/">Taylor Swift did</a> in her court victory over the DJ who had groped her in 2003) provides one point of focus. But it’s not just a matter of policing the behaviour of prominent individuals – systemic, back-of-house, changes are needed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231079/original/file-20180808-191041-10lcqy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231079/original/file-20180808-191041-10lcqy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231079/original/file-20180808-191041-10lcqy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231079/original/file-20180808-191041-10lcqy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231079/original/file-20180808-191041-10lcqy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231079/original/file-20180808-191041-10lcqy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231079/original/file-20180808-191041-10lcqy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ike and Tina Turner: one of pop music’s well-documented cases of domestic violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nationaal Archief via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p><a href="http://uklivemusiccensus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UK-Live-Music-Census-2017-full-report.pdf">The UK Live Music Census</a> showed a broad gender imbalance across different categories of musician, becoming more pronounced in the professional realm. 68% of respondents to a survey of musicians identifying as professional, 81% as semi-professional, were male. This echoes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/oct/12/tonights-live-music-acts-will-mostly-be-male-only-whats-holding-women-back">an analysis by The Guardian in October 2017</a> which calculated that of the 370 gigs listed for one night in October on the Ents24 listings website, 69% of the acts were made up entirely of men, while just 9% were female-only – and half of these were solo artists.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7655118/uk-music-industry-diversity-study-findings">UK Music’s Diversity survey</a> showed women making up 60% of intern positions but only 30% of senior executive roles. Overall, women aged between 25 and 34 make up 54% of the UK music business, but they tend to leave the industry in greater numbers than male colleagues and women aged between 45 and 64 represent just 33% of the workforce.</p>
<p>But work is underway to develop strategies to combat sexism and harrassment in the industry. The Musicians’ Union and Incorporated Society of Musicians recently launched a <a href="http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/the-ism-and-mus-new-code-of-practice/">joint code of practice</a> to tackle harassment and bullying, with <a href="https://www.ukmusic.org/help-and-advice/harassment-in-the-workplace/">UK Music helping to promote their “safe space” email account</a> for reporting harrassment, anonymously if necessary.</p>
<p>Problems among audience members are also moving up the agenda – organisations such as <a href="https://sgfw.org.uk/">Safe Gigs for Women</a> have identified actions for venues and festivals to reduce assault and associated predatory behaviour. Likewise, the <a href="http://musicvenuetrust.com/2018/03/fightback-grassroots-promoter/">Music Venue Trust and Music Planet Live’s initiative</a> to bring more young women into gig promotion is aimed at fostering change at the grassroots.</p>
<p>If the #MeToo movement has driven change in the music industries, it’s less about claiming a high-profile scalp such as Weinstein than (hopefully) encouraging research into the scale of the problem and developing ways to address it from the ground up. This takes longer than a media storm – a storm that is all too often followed by business as usual – and it is more of an ongoing challenge. But lasting change requires thorough work over the long term – not just hashtags and speeches.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He is a co-investigator on the UK Live Music Census.</span></em></p>Rock'n'Roll has long been associated with sexual misconduct but there are signs the industry is waking up to this.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/960362018-05-03T14:16:47Z2018-05-03T14:16:47ZGibson guitars: sound of rock that will never go out of fashion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217531/original/file-20180503-153881-16g7pyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C24%2C5344%2C3538&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following months of rumours, Gibson, the legendary guitar manufacturer, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/01/gibson-guitar-firm-files-for-bankruptcy-protection">filed for bankruptcy</a> with debts of between US$100m and US$500m. More significantly, the company also announced plans to reorganise and restructure its business, saying it has agreements with holders of more than 69% of its debt that would allow it to continue to operate. To me, this is the real story here and it speaks volumes.</p>
<p>When the opportunity arose to write this article, I was asked what my angle would be. My initial response was: “Quite simply, Gibson is the sound of rock.” But it’s so much more than that. The warm tones of the 335, one of their earliest electric guitars, dominates jazz and blues music. BB King was a lifelong player – his famous guitar “Lucille” is still a popular signature series instrument.</p>
<p>And when Reggae pioneer Bob Marley first appeared on Top of the Pops he was playing a Les Paul Special, a guitar he was to become forever associated with, its offbeat choppy attack helping define the genre. </p>
<h2>What’s your rig?</h2>
<p>In truth, Gibson guitars have played a major part in defining the sound of popular music. In the popular YouTube documentary series, Rig Rundown, famous guitarists and their technicians discuss the minutiae of complex guitar effects systems, unusual string gauges and the range of different amplifiers used to create their signature sound. In the programme that focuses on AC/DC, the secret to one of the world’s most iconic guitar tones is finally – almost disappointingly – revealed. Standard edition Gibson SG guitar, cable and amp. It’s that simple.</p>
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<p>Rock music wouldn’t be the same without the Gibson. Picture Chuck Berry with his zoot suit and quiff, duck-walking across the stage mid-solo – or Jimmy Page at the peak of his powers, attacking his instrument with a violin bow while a spellbound Madison Square Garden crowd looks on. </p>
<p>Consider the twin horned attack of Angus Young as he lies, spot lit and centre stage, legs spasming, turning in endless circles with his guitar screaming; or Slash, pretty much at any point in his 30-year career, top hat and hair, cigarette dangling from his lips and a low-slung guitar dangling from his shoulder. Central to all of these is the Gibson guitar. </p>
<p>The guitars are also beautiful. We see them in shop window displays, hanging on people’s walls, some never to be played but their mere presence making the space just that bit edgier and cooler. One of my earliest memories is walking to nursery school, a route which took me past a music shop. From first sight, I was mesmerised. The shop spotlights catching the warm sunburst glow of a line of Les Pauls, the intricate grain of the wood clearly visible, shining hardware, lethal looking strings – each instrument different, yet also strikingly familiar.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217517/original/file-20180503-153881-16fa2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=175%2C40%2C8676%2C2896&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217517/original/file-20180503-153881-16fa2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217517/original/file-20180503-153881-16fa2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217517/original/file-20180503-153881-16fa2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217517/original/file-20180503-153881-16fa2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217517/original/file-20180503-153881-16fa2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217517/original/file-20180503-153881-16fa2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Gibson Les Paul: rock’s most famous guitar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Rise of a rock'n'roll classic</h2>
<p>Orville Gibson founded the company in 1902 as the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co Ltd in the wonderfully named Kalamazoo, Michigan. The company initially made mandolins and other similar instruments – but, as the business developed, so did Gibson. First they invented “<a href="https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/archtop-guitar/">archtop</a>” guitars, which mimicked the shape of the violin, then by the 1930s the more familiar “<a href="https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/flat-top-guitar/">flat top</a>” acoustic guitars that we see today. The release of the <a href="https://reverb.com/uk/news/a-les-paul-from-every-year-1952-1960">Gibson Les Paul</a> in 1952 cemented the company’s reputation as a builder of top class instruments. To date, this is still their most successful guitar.</p>
<p>If you’ve ever held a Gibson guitar, you can feel the history. Hollow body models feel fragile, almost insubstantial, seemingly poorly equipped to cope with the rigours of modern music performance. Solid body guitars feel like they’ve been knocked together in someone’s garage from spare offcuts of wood – the switches and knobs quaint 1950s artefacts. The first Les Paul was fashioned from a single four-foot wooden board and was affectionately <a href="https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Les_Pauls_Log_Solidbody_Guitar">known as The Log</a>. A modern Les Paul is really not much different. They are heavy, in both senses of the word. </p>
<p>Perhaps part of Gibson’s problem has been that the instruments are truly cherished by the people who play them. Most of the original guitars from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are still in service, many commanding extraordinary sums of money on the secondhand market. Provenance adds further desirability and further value. <a href="http://iconicaxes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/keith-richards-1959-gibson-les-paul.html">Keith Richard’s 1959 Les Paul Standard</a>, played on the Rolling Stones’ first US TV appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, made history when it <a href="https://www.stringjoy.com/most-expensive-guitars-ever-sold-top-10/">sold for US$1m</a> back in 2003. Not bad for a piece of wood and a few bits of metal.</p>
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<p>There has also been some speculation in the media that Gibson’s bankruptcy is to do with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar/?utm_term=.f05ac27b25c9">decline of guitar bands</a>, that we no longer have guitar heroes. But then look at the roster of artists currently dominating festival headline slots: Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Ed Sheeran, Fall Out Boy, Kings of Leon, Courteeners, The Vaccines, Biffy Clyro – and, guess what – the guitar, that six-stringed wonder, is central to each one of these artists’ sounds. </p>
<p>Gibson is an iconic brand, intrinsically linked with one of the greatest art forms of all time. Their guitars have played a hugely significant role in defining the sound of popular music, music which soundtracks the most important moments of our lives. Long may they continue to build these instruments. I have no doubt that they will.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96036/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The guitar of choice for some of rock'n'roll’s biggest names.Alex Evans, Senior Lecturer in Popular Music & Music Technology, Kingston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/925562018-03-05T17:14:35Z2018-03-05T17:14:35ZRolling Stones tour: they may be older but time waits for no one<p>An article in Rolling Stone magazine described the legendary band – its near namesake – as “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/nothing-lasts-forever-the-rolling-stones-grow-old-19800821">growing old angrily</a>”. Its portrait of Mick Jagger referenced “age lines around his eyes … as old as the weariness and cynicism in his voice”. That was in 1980 when Jagger was in his late 30s. Eleven years, an acrimonious split with Keith Richards and a triumphant comeback later, Q magazine’s review of the band’s live album Flashpoint also placed them in “<a href="https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-rolling-stones-flashpoint">their dotage</a>”.</p>
<p>So as the Stones announce that they are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/26/rolling-stones-uk-tour-dates-tickets">cranking into gear again</a> for their first UK dates in five years (they performed a 12-city European tour in 2017) it’s worth remembering that the debates about how old is too old to rock – and the attendant mixture of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2379658/Mick-Jagger-70-A-rock-god-No-silly-old-phoney-As-Rolling-Stones-frontman-turns-70-basking-adulation-sell-concerts-historian-provocative-view.html">derision</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010vkpz">veneration</a> and <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/the-rolling-stones-are-still-on-tour-something-is-very-wrong-with-our-culture-1.3411507">ambivalence</a> – have their own well-worn lineage.</p>
<p>This is as much to do with genre and how it’s authenticated as with age. Jazz and – closer to home for the Stones – blues artists face fewer qualms about staying on the road, even as the fire fades from their performances. John Lee Hooker was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jun/23/guardianobituaries">recording and touring into his 80s</a> and BB King was just a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/arts/music/b-b-king-blues-singer-dies-at-89.html">year short of 90</a> when he played the last shows before his death (having played Glastonbury at 86). Chicago bluesman <a href="https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/buddy-guy-last-man-shredding">Buddy Guy</a> is still touring at the age of 81.</p>
<h2>Crossroads from blues to rock</h2>
<p>The Stones themselves, now closer to their 60th than 50th anniversary, have played heavily of late on their origins as a blues band – their <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/music/blue-and-lonesome/the-rolling-stones/critic-reviews">well-received</a> 2016 album Blue and Lonesome consisted entirely of blues covers. Returning, or retreating, to the blues that influenced them initially seems both a natural and a strategic move. Strategic in that it taps into a lineage of long-running performers that predates rock. But also natural enough given that the blues has been a musical thread throughout their albums and shows.</p>
<p>They emerged in the early 1960s as a blues covers band – and drew heavily on their influences (their very name is taken from a <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/muddy-waters-1915-8211-1983-19830623">Muddy Waters song</a>) as they forged a new identity as the “greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world”. To be fair, they were rather more assiduous in crediting and publicly acknowledging their musical forebears than some of their 1960s contemporaries, (Led Zeppelin, for example) insisting that <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OPOwUw5UmEEC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=rolling+stones+insist+on+howlin+wolf+shindig&source=bl&ots=PiwoH7ls8G&sig=LoNF0pC1EHGfTktMhjlshfqEFo4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiovJufqtTZAhVgGsAKHVRUD6kQ6AEITjAG#v=onepage&q=shindig&f=false">they would only play US TV</a> show <a href="https://youtu.be/gWBS0GX1s9o?t=49s">Shindig</a> if the producers also booked black American bluesman Howlin’ Wolf.</p>
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<p>The key difference, though, is the way in which blues and rock emerged as popular, commercial music genres. Blues emerged from folk forms and was interpreted and authenticated in light of that – as music predicated on life stories and personal stories embedded in a collective tradition. The music went back to the era of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws">Jim Crow</a> segregation laws and, before that, slavery. (BB King’s great grandfather, for instance, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=A_MX7evt8M4C&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=pop+davidson+riley&source=bl&ots=zynV6FqwKe&sig=JfAAa-viQV0Hn4f-dC8GmLL5Ke4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwinos61s9TZAhXIAcAKHfrQBPgQ6AEIPjAG#v=onepage&q=pop%20davidson%20riley&f=false">was born into slavery</a>). It was also subject to heavily <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-music/article/not-just-the-same-old-show-on-my-radio-an-analysis-of-the-role-of-radio-in-the-diffusion-of-black-music-among-whites-in-the-south-of-the-united-states-of-america-1920-to-19601/44474BC5122012991B9EBF9290984986">segregated markets,</a> in the US, both on the live circuit and on radio.</p>
<p>Rock emerged and was sold as youth music, making an appeal to authenticity predicated on a generation gap and sense of rebelliousness – the Stones’ own “Street Fighting Man”, for example. This meant that while there were numerous musical similarities – such as the 12-bar form – some of the social nuances were lost. As author <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ggzjpqWKDxUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=charles+shaar+murray+crosstown+traffic&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5wrnoutTZAhXDD8AKHcnAA40Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=charles%20shaar%20murray%20crosstown%20traffic&f=false">Charles Shaar Murray pointed out</a>, a middle-aged black American man like Muddy Waters in the 1950s and 1960s singing lyrics like “I’m a man” carried the sub-text of not being referred to as “boy”, a common form of racist address. The same song in the hands of a young, white Englishman was shorn of this context.</p>
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<span class="caption">Play that funky music, white boys: The Rolling Stones in 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kungliga_Tennishallen_Stones_1966a.jpg">ingen uppgift via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Artists such as the Stones were more associated with a commercial milieu. Whatever their – doubtless genuine – pronouncements of dedication to the music, they emerged through major labels with large marketing budgets. And rock music’s rebel credentials were somewhat diluted when its stars, including Jagger, started <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/mick-jagger-knighted-20020725">receiving knighthoods</a>.</p>
<h2>Torn and frayed?</h2>
<p>But genres evolve and, as the Stones and others have shown, commercial or not, they can still chart new paths. Rock, like jazz before it (now a music of conservatories), has entered the academy. “Classic” and “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X0900045X">heritage</a>” rock are established categories and ways of thinking about, as well as selling, a music that is now situated across three generations’ worth of cultural discourse. </p>
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<p>A key, lasting change brought about by the Stones and Beatles generation of rockers was the centrality of the band as a unit of music making, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19401159.2014.969976">and as a marker of authenticity</a>. As my Newcastle colleague <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-late-voice-9781628920642/">Richard Elliott noted</a>, straightforward derision of ageing artists as mere peddlers of nostalgia is itself a rigidly Romantic view that “fixes rock to a time and an attitude” – without allowing for the twists and turns of both the artists and the <a href="http://livemusicexchange.org/blog/seeing-the-stones-in-2003-why/">lifetimes’ worth of listening and experience</a> their work has informed.</p>
<p>There are numerous of ways dealing with growing old in the limelight, from Randy Newman’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PskygyOhIsM">ironic self-parody</a> to <a href="http://variety.com/2018/music/news/paul-simon-explains-his-retirement-from-touring-1202687425/">Paul Simon’s decision</a> to call a natural end to touring with his voice still strong.</p>
<p>For an act such as the Stones, harking back to their musical roots may be a way of aligning their musical development with its own antecedents, at the same time as allowing for a mode of performance less reliant on the physicality of their younger days. Paying tribute to the past – both their own, and musical history more broadly – is a means of carrying it forward. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbMWdIjArg0">Time may be on their side</a> after all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>Why shouldn’t the Stones keep touring in their 70s?Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/869192017-11-30T19:06:13Z2017-11-30T19:06:13ZFriday essay: the art of the pinch – popular music and appropriation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196826/original/file-20171128-28892-fob7n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Rolling Stones performing in Hamburg during the 'No Filter' European tour: the band's legacy is entwined with the pioneers of black American music.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Morris Mac Matzen/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everything old is new again. Today the Rolling Stones release <a href="http://www.rollingstones.com">On Air</a>, a collection of much-bootlegged BBC live studio broadcasts taped for a variety of programs between 1963 and 1965. The remastered set provides a rare glimpse of the young musicians playing to order the songs that defined their early hybrid sound and telegraphed – much like <a href="https://youtu.be/NO-HK_csGwk?t=2m39s">The Beatles</a> – their love for African-American music. </p>
<p>The recently restored archival recordings map their transition from astute performers of seminal black American blues and roots music to legitimate codifiers of its (mostly white) bastard offspring. From I Can’t Be Satisfied to (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, from Route 66 to 2120 South Michigan Avenue. Full circle, full steam ahead.</p>
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<p>The release of these archival recordings, following on from last year’s bristling <a href="https://youtu.be/lrIjMzBr-ck">Blue & Lonesome</a> set and the recent <a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-rolling-stones/2017/u-arena-nanterre-france-3e3c5af.html">nostalgia-laden</a> #NoFilter tour are a reminder of how entwined the band’s legacy is with the pioneers of black American music. From their Delta roots to their electric spirit animal offspring - Chicago and West Coast blues, Stax and Motown soul and early Sun and Chess rock ‘n roll - the old masters had cast a wicked spell over the young lads from Dartford. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the saccharine <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/lfsxC11Rjlppn1kDfNxYBc/how-to-listen-to-radio-2-50s">radio programming</a> Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had grown up with in the 1950s in which appropriating another person’s culture and creative output had turned an artistic endeavour into a form of soft-manufacturing. </p>
<p>Music production became a <a href="http://50spopmusic.com/50snoveltysongsmore/50scoverrecordings.html">lucrative industry</a> with straight-edge white performers like <a href="https://youtu.be/ZgdufzXvjqw">Bill Hayley</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/IEtBdOpM3MY">Perry Como</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/Z8dx0oE--VI">Pat Boone</a> cutting sanitised versions of <a href="https://youtu.be/jqxNSvFMkag">Little Richard</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/Y9wTQsAgktg">Big Joe Turner</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/xbfMlk1PwGU">Fats Domino</a> records when the original renditions were still fighting their way up the pop charts. As Richard explained in the Chuck Berry documentary <a href="http://www.bnd.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/answer-man/article134070984.html">Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then here come Pat Boone. The white kids wanted mine, ’cause it was real rough and raw, and Pat Boone had this smooth version. And so, the white kids would take mine and put it in the drawer and put his on top of the dresser. I was mad. When Pat Boone covered my record, I was mad, I wanted to get him. I said, ‘I’m goin’ to Nashville to find him’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cultural appropriation in a musical context doesn’t have to be at the exclusion of the original artist or the culture from which they carved their path. Pinching musical phrases and stylistic approaches – when done thoughtfully and with a desire to connect with the original work’s unique properties – has always been a part of the <a href="https://austinkleon.com/steal/">art making</a> process. </p>
<p>And yet, as artists like the Stones and the Beatles have demonstrated, it should not be a closed circuit. It should manifest itself as a social and artistic conversation across languages, across media, and across generations - a form of cultural exchange. Although, as Keith Richards discovered when working with Chuck Berry in the late 1980s, getting it right <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/chuck_berry_takes_keith_richards_to_school_shows_him_how_to_rock_1987.html">ain’t always easy</a>. There is inevitably a price to pay, and Richards more than anyone knows the score. For every lift, there is a link to the past – a debt owed and a palm to grease. With every lick comes a nod and a cheeky wink.</p>
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<h2>A medium of social exchange</h2>
<p>The production of culture is very much informed by the technology that enables it.
The Philadelphia and New York disco movement, for instance, were as much a technological evolution as a dance floor phenomena. Legendary DJs such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Knuckles">Frankie Knuckles</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Levan">Larry Levan</a> would isolate, cut, loop and layer sounds using reel-to-reel tapes to create <a href="https://youtu.be/VFjJo4Id0_k">extended remixes</a> to maximise a track’s <a href="http://www.dummymag.com/lists/the-10-best-original-disco-remixes-according-to-joey-negro">dancefloor credentials</a>.</p>
<p>In much the same way, hip hop culture helped facilitate the emergence of the remix as a technological act via turntablism, scratching and later sampling. Inevitably, pinching the break or the intro or a signature moment and re-purposing it would evolve into an art form. By dropping musical fragments into new material arrangements, disco and hip-hop DJs from <a href="http://www.sfweekly.com/music/allshookdown/hey-dj/jim-hopkins-significance-san-francisco-disco-preservation-society-project/">the Bay</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/8/11/16130976/44th-anniversary-birth-hip-hop-google-doodle">the Island</a> devised an accessible production methodology that would translate seamlessly into the post-analogue world. </p>
<p>Producers like Danger Mouse (<a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/SoulCoolRecords/danger-mouse-the-grey-album/">The Grey Album</a>) and The Avalanches (<a href="https://youtu.be/qLrnkK2YEcE">Since I Left You</a>) and mash-up artists like Girl Talk (<a href="https://youtu.be/HprWyS25um4">Feed the Animals</a>) and Tom Caruana (<a href="https://tomcaruanamashups.bandcamp.com/album/black-gold-11">Black Gold</a>) are the millennial cut and paste inheritors of this practice.</p>
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<p>The digital remix not only accelerated modes of cultural exchange but made possible an almost infinite splintering of sub genres and associated sub cultures. What makes hip hop culture so important – and this is analogous to the Stones – is that in the beginning, DJs like DJ Kool Herc borrowed from music that was not only underrepresented on mainstream radio, but was made by revered funk and soul artists - the so called “<a href="https://youtu.be/Rm3J5640jXo">the sacred crates</a>. Kool Herc championed records by James Brown, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Castor">The Jimmy Castor Bunch</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymande">Cymande</a> (UK), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incredible_Bongo_Band">The Incredible Bongo Band</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Huey_%26_the_Babysitters">Baby Huey & The Babysitters</a>.</p>
<p>Music is also a medium of social exchange, we can see (and hear) this in the evolution of not only disco and hip hop but also in Jamaican sound system culture of the 1950s. <a href="http://www.mixdownmag.com.au/musicology-history-sound-clash-culture">Sound clashes</a> were inherently socio-political events organised as mass gatherings around big speakers and big sounds and big ideas. In essence, a sound clash was a competition between sound system crews who marshalled speaker stacks, often on the back of trucks, spinning imported American R&B records and later dub plates of exclusive <a href="https://youtu.be/D3DAHAPLaVI">Ska</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/jPbxW_TAdz0">Rocksteady</a> mixes. It was sonic <a href="https://youtu.be/Emo_R_oiyhw">warfare</a>. DJs and MCs - like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Matchuki">Count Machuki</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coxsone_Dodd">Clement "Coxsone” Dodd</a> - became local superstars who cultivated their own sounds. From Jamaican Sound System culture we can mark the emergence of brand new sonic techniques like scratching (Lee “Scratch” Perry), beat boxing (Machuki), the break (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Kool_Herc">Kool Herc</a>) and the remix (<a href="http://www.factmag.com/2015/05/19/king-tubby-beginners-guide-dub-reggae/">King Tubby</a>). </p>
<p>These musical innovations became statements of Caribbean identity. Like African and Cuban rhythms that migrated to the Americas, these sounds became migratory too, travelling with West Indian migrants to the UK, leaking into the sonic palette of predominately white groups such as <a href="https://youtu.be/T_srIE-YAb8">Madness</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/GNglPFYjFGA">The Pretenders</a>, The Specials, <a href="https://youtu.be/zPwMdZOlPo8">The Police</a> and of course <a href="https://youtu.be/nLVJQFJJQjc">The Clash</a>. These would later mutate into more distilled contemporary forms such as Dub, Jungle and Drum & Bass. </p>
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<h2>A cultural awakening</h2>
<p>The release of On Air by the Rolling Stones is indicative of a recurrent theme of the group not only appropriating African American musical stylings, lyrical patterns and performative techniques but pointing audiences to the source. Whether it be in the mimicry of Chuck Berry <a href="https://youtu.be/0Dv_z_99rJg">guitar phrases</a>, the <a href="https://youtu.be/dqiHRYjePBk?t=1m17s">jungle rhythms</a> of Bo Diddley, the vocal mannerisms of Jimmy Reed or the lyrical misogyny of <a href="https://youtu.be/GtRxJDb3vlw">Sonny Boy Williamson</a>, the band has always worn its passion for the source material like <a href="https://youtu.be/gWBS0GX1s9o">a badge of honour</a>. </p>
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<p>The Stones’ breakout tours of the US and Europe (1967-72) are indicative of this dogged commitment to the form. They stacked their support act packages with African American artists such as Taj Mahal (1968), Ike and Tina Turner (upon whom Jagger is <a href="https://www.biography.com/video/tina-turner-mick-jaggers-moves-6816835702">rumoured</a> to have based his raunchy stage persona), BB King (1969), Buddy Guy (1970), and Stevie Wonder (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_American_Tour_1972#Tour_support_acts">1972</a>). As Guy <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/buddy-guy-on-the-rolling-stones-they-were-so-damn-wild-20150707">remarked recently</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They were bigger than bubble-gum … when they came to America, they recognized some of the greatest musicians that I had admired – Ike and Tina Turner, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf – and let America know who we were. They let white America know what the blues is. We owe those guys all the thanks in the world. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The American tours of the early 1970s took place in a politically charged atmosphere of racial division, sexual awakening and inter-generational conflict. A time when white American audiences were still reconciling with the notion that culture was a form of identification, of exchange, a mode of storytelling rooted in race, identity, faith, sex and – after Dylan via Guthrie – politics. </p>
<p>It was also a period of cultural awakening, as a rich lineage of African American music - which had given the world fiercely original artists such as Robert Johnson, Billy Holiday, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Chuck Berry - was now being commodified for new audiences by a new industry and a new genre of musical expression. </p>
<h2>An open source ‘cookbook of rock’</h2>
<p>The musical tool kit the latter artists laid bare – open tunings, a swinging back-beat, bending notes, long form improvisation, call and response, vocal phrasings, urban storytelling, spiritual empowerment, stage theatrics and of course overt sexual bravado were all mutated into this musical progression.</p>
<p>Bands like the Stones, The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, Cream and later Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead appropriated many of these elements to design an open source Cookbook of Rock – flexible enough that it would facilitate decades of experimentation and manipulation, yet well-enough defined so that it would require devotion and authenticity to pull off a lick with your chops and dignity still intact.</p>
<p>Bo Diddley, the original “guitar slinger” – and by his own admission, “the man” – was one of rock and roll’s true technical innovators who has a very <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/arts/pioneer-of-a-beat-is-still-riffing-for-his-due.html">different take</a> on this. </p>
<p>Speaking to the New York Times in 2003, he made it quite clear who were the beneficiaries of this process: “I opened the door for a lot of people, and they just ran through and left me holding the knob”. </p>
<p>Accusations of appropriation have, of course, dogged Led Zeppelin, with several claims that they lifted song parts and lyrics without <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/12/11413242/led-zeppelin-rip-offs">accreditation or acknowledgement</a> (although <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36611961">a court cleared the band of plagiarism </a>in relation to Stairway to Heaven in 2016). The argument they proffer in their defence, that the pinch was more like a sample and that the result was a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/apr/12/led-zeppelin-other-peoples-records-transformed-borrowed">considerable transformation</a> of the original, is consistent with the conceit of musical appropriation as an artistic prerogative. Yet it would seem that Zeppelin were <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/led-zeppelins-10-boldest-rip-offs-20160622">more brazen than most</a>.</p>
<h2>Cultural forms as fashion accessories</h2>
<p>The brashness of <a href="http://turnmeondeadman.com/led-zeppelin-plagiarism-the-lemon-song/">Page and Plant</a> displays a degree of insensitivity and perhaps white privilege that lies at the heart of the contemporary <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/magazine/is-cultural-appropriation-always-wrong.html">cultural appropriation debate</a>. </p>
<p>We have seen recently – from bindis at <a href="http://www.thegloss.com/fashion/selena-gomez-kendall-jenner-coachella-bindis-photos/">Coachella</a> to American Indian regalia at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/feathers-not-allowed-at-burning-man-2013-9?r=US&IR=T">Burning Man</a> – how racial and cultural forms have been commodified and trashed as fashion accessories to serve bizarre notions of connectedness, freedom and belonging. Most prominently, this is exploited by art directors and marketing departments to window dress pop music by highly visible major label music acts who probably should know better in the Twenty-Teens.</p>
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<p>Indian and Hindu culture gets the full treatment in the ethno-confused art direction of Coldplay and Beyoncé’s promo clip for the song, <a href="https://youtu.be/YykjpeuMNEk?t=2m56s">Hymn for the Weekend</a>, that portrays <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/96505762/artist-challenges-cultural-appropriation-in-coldplay-and-beyonce-music-video">Indian stereotypes</a> – like “levitating gurus, slum dogs, and throwing coloured powder” – in a manner that, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/01/coldplay-beyonce-hymn-for-the-weekend-cultural-appropriation-india">Rashmee Kumar</a>, stifles critical thinking about India’s social and political climate. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Coldplay’s video romanticizes Hinduism to further exoticize India as a westerners’ paradise unsullied by harsh realities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We see this time and again in the mish-mash of Asian referencing in productions featuring <a href="https://youtu.be/YqeW9_5kURI?t=2m12s">Major Lazer & DJ Snake</a> (India), <a href="https://youtu.be/cI1A405jBqg?t=30s">Iggy Azalea</a> (India, again) and Katy Perry’s <a href="https://youtu.be/iXqcjgX-I9E">bizarre appearance</a> as a Geisha at the American Music Awards. </p>
<p>Epitomising this trend is John Mayer’s video clip, <a href="https://youtu.be/NyCst7We6Uw?t=46s">Still Feel Like Your Man</a>, a musical performance he <a href="https://splinternews.com/john-mayer-veers-very-close-to-becoming-woke-before-pla-1793859259">confusingly labels</a> “disco dojo” and “ancient Japanese R&B”. Although the clip is emblematic of this creative clumsiness by major artists, the music press at the time went along for the ride. <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/watch-john-mayer-dance-through-colorful-still-feel-like-your-man-video-w475183">Rolling Stone</a> magazine called the clip “colourful” while <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/7751633/john-mayer-still-feel-like-your-man-video">Billboard</a> magazine repeated Mayer’s mixed Japanese metaphor, adding that the Mister Whitmore directed clip is “decorated with kimonos, dancers in panda bear costumes, swordfighting and bamboo trees” despite the obvious contradiction that Panda bears are traditionally from China.</p>
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<p>Music journalist Touré cuts to the chase saying Mayer is “not racist, he is dumb on race”. In just <a href="https://twitter.com/Toure/status/8908255074">one tweet</a> Touré calls out Mayer’s ill-informed approach to not only the video’s production design but even the song’s origins, which evidently have more to do with Katy Perry’s old <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/john-mayer-katy-perry-song-about-hoarding-shampoo-bottles/">shampoo bottles</a> than the origins of global Asian culture. The West’s colonial view of the East however has always been perverted, as Malek Alloula wrote in <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/210962991/Alloula-Malek-The-Colonial-Harem">The Colonial Harem</a> back in 1981, the Orient</p>
<blockquote>
<p>has fascinated and disturbed Europe for a long time. It has been its glittering imaginary and its mirage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pop culture is the messiness between the concentric orbits of personal identity and collective history. When appropriation is done well, with a quest for knowledge or to seek out an emotional core or a narrative truth, this messiness can create new meanings and new partnerships. It might even construct new narratives and spawn new beginnings.</p>
<p>When it is done in an ill-informed, shallow, tokenistic manner, it only serves to perpetuate tired yet stubbornly persistent colonial, racial and patriarchal stereotypes.</p>
<h2>An informed practitioner</h2>
<p>Jagger and Richards are not alone in their quest for authenticity and musical integrity. Many productive relationships were forged between African American musicians and their British disciples in the Sixties. Studious artists such as The Beatles, Eric Burdon, Ray Davies, Eric Clapton, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mayall">John Mayall</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Green_(musician)">Peter Green</a> well understood the burden of institutional oppression and the insult of segregation that framed the Blues narrative. Eric Clapton in particular, when not flirting with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_(Eric_Clapton_album)">radio schmaltz</a>, has spent a large part of his career trying to perfect the performance stylings and musical arrangements of artists such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_King">Freddy King</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson">Robert Johnson</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Fulson">Lowell Fulson</a>. </p>
<p>Listen for instance to Clapton’s extraordinary <a href="https://youtu.be/70sPbNJt5ZQ">vocal</a> performance and brutal <a href="https://youtu.be/g_WUdmwC9Y8">guitar</a> playing on his late career electric blues covers album <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Cradle">From the Cradle</a>.</p>
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<p>In the swinging London of the Sixties, Clapton’s chariot swung low, he understood better than anyone the importance of cultural exchange – of being in the moment, of finding the sound, of going deep. For Clapton, the moment had to be real. He devised his own version of the power-trio band format after seeing the Buddy Guy trio tear up a club in London in 1965. </p>
<p>A year later, at the Regent Street Polytechnic, the roles were reversed when he witnessed the <a href="https://youtu.be/KPJgtQwtVVA">Hendrix phenomena</a> first hand. At the bequest of manager Chas Chandler, Hendrix was invited to jam with Clapton’s new outfit, The Cream. However, Hendrix’s incendiary version of <a href="https://youtu.be/hMkdhVQMBHY">Killing Floor</a> shocked Clapton so completely that he retreated backstage, later confronting Chandler with the <a href="https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/12/hey-jimi">immortal line</a>: “You never told me he was that fucking good.”</p>
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<p>Clapton was knowledgeable enough, however, to understand the lineage back to Buddy Guy and to Otis Rush <a href="https://youtu.be/j082opb4AZo">and the rarefied realm</a> within which these artists operated. Like Clapton before him, Hendrix’s brief London period was very much about research and experimentation. He grabbed what he could – sounds, rooms, gadgets, people, the air itself – to create the colours he saw in his head and by doing so blowing everyone’s mind in the process. </p>
<p>Keith Altham a writer for the New Musical Express at the time, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/aug/08/jimi-hendrix-40th-anniversary-death">remembers Hendrix</a> as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a magpie. He would take from blues, jazz – only Coltrane could play in that way – and Dylan was the greatest influence. But he’d listen to Mozart, he’d read sci-fi and Asimov and it would all go through his head and come out as Jimi Hendrix.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today, if Hendrix were to be studying his Masters at the Melbourne Conservatorium, we would call him an informed practitioner. Back then he was a seasoned professional working in relative anonymity in the hotbed of London with the support of Misters Clapton, Chandler, Jones and McCartney.</p>
<p>Today, magpie extraordinaire Bob Dylan – rock’s first <a href="https://theconversation.com/bob-dylans-nobel-speech-a-splendidly-eccentric-performance-78998">poet Laureate</a>, pirate, cowboy, the joker and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/06/bob-dylan-nobel-spark-notes-plagarism/530283/">the thief</a> in the night – has spent the last two decades reverting to the ramshackle rhythm and blues template of the old masters. His Never Ending tour has become a quest for authenticity via a re-imagining of his back catalogue through the DNA of rhythm and blues. Purists take note.</p>
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<p>So, it comes down to this notion of being informed and knowledgeable about the origins of cultural idioms that are being appropriated that defines music making and performance. Its evolution is an often lawless and contested process of cultural and technical mutation - a hack of the circuits, a pinch of the code. </p>
<p>In the first instance, something has to be identified as being worthy of emulation or adaptation, and in turn, something then has to be gained from the act of appropriating it. The art form must evolve, diversify, move forward, or – as the case is with Hendrix – take a giant leap into the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86919/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mitch Goodwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pinching musical phrases and stylistic approaches has always been a part of art making and can be a respectful exchange. But shallow, ill-informed appropriation only perpetuates tired stereotypes.Mitch Goodwin, Curriculum Design Lab, Faculty of Arts, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/797022017-06-21T11:16:23Z2017-06-21T11:16:23ZAnita Pallenberg: how music’s muses are shortchanged by rock and roll misogyny<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174905/original/file-20170621-8977-1asyi8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anita Palllenberg and Mick Jagger in Performance, 1969.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Two items of recent news will have captured the attention of anyone interested in rock and roll history. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jun/14/anita-pallenberg-dies-aged-73-rolling-stones-performance-keith-richards">death of Anita Pallenberg</a>, aged 75, on June 13, was greeted as the end of an era, the passing of a true 1960s icon whose role as a muse to the Rolling Stones it is hard to overestimate. A couple of days later, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/arts/music/yoko-ono-to-share-credit-for-imagine-john-lennon.html">it was reported</a> that another prominent muse, perhaps the most famous of them all – Yoko Ono – was to be given a writing credit for Imagine, previously credited to John Lennon alone.</p>
<p>Pallenberg was best known for dating not one, but two members of the Rolling Stones (Keith Richards and Brian Jones). She is also widely believed to have had on-screen sex with Mick Jagger while filming Nic Roeg’s arthouse movie Performance. Marianne Faithfull, Jagger’s former squeeze, led the tributes, posting on Facebook: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Anita used to say that we (the two of us) are light years ahead of the Rolling Stones. Witty and probably true!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Born in Italy, Pallenberg belonged to the <em>dolce vita</em> crowd and hung out with Andy Warhol in New York before embarking on a relationship with Jones, the most musically experimental and ethereal-looking Rolling Stone. Faithfull, meanwhile, descends from Austrian aristocracy (masochism came into being as a word due to her great-great uncle <a href="http://www.local-life.com/lviv/articles/venus-sacher-masoch-furs">Leopold von Sacher-Masoch</a> – the author of Venus in Furs). Accent and family tree alone suffice to turn her rendition of John Lennon’s Working-Class Hero into arguably rock’s most idiosyncratic cover version.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174911/original/file-20170621-30190-1vh8mom.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174911/original/file-20170621-30190-1vh8mom.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174911/original/file-20170621-30190-1vh8mom.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174911/original/file-20170621-30190-1vh8mom.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174911/original/file-20170621-30190-1vh8mom.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174911/original/file-20170621-30190-1vh8mom.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174911/original/file-20170621-30190-1vh8mom.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Anita used to say that we … are light years ahead of the Rolling Stones,’ Marianne Faithfull pays tribute to Anita Pallenberg on Facebook.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook</span></span>
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<p>The Stones never sounded as good as when Pallenberg and Faithfull were in their orbit – a relatively brief imperial phase lasting from 1968’s Beggar’s Banquet to Exile on Main St in 1972. The band’s musical and lyrical palettes were expanded by Faithfull and Pallenberg, who introduced them to cosmopolitan European cultural references, providing an effective counterpart to their schooling in the American blues. If you don’t believe me, just give Sympathy for the Devil (1968) another listen. </p>
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<p>Faithfull, who split from Jagger in 1970, was not credited for co-writing Sister Morphine on the initial release of the Stones’ album Sticky Fingers’ (1971) – an omission only rectified with the remastered version of the album in 1994. She is hardly the only victim of Jagger’s and Keith Richards’ effective patenting of songwriting credits for the Stones – irrespective of duties carried out. But any discussion of contributions Faithfull, Pallenberg or Bianca Jagger (Mick’s wife from 1971 to 1979) might have made is exacerbated by the systematic objectification of female companions.</p>
<p>The default setting of rock’s institutional sexism has repeatedly denigrated women as groupies, trophy items and distractions from the serious work of writing and recording rock and roll. A playlist of misogyny could fill your iPod for a marathon run – but just start off by downloading Kiss’s Beth, Rainbow’s All Night Long or, indeed, the Rolling Stones’s Star Star.</p>
<p>Grunge rock ostensibly sought to dispel the macho posturing of yesteryear, but the <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/03/love-story-of-kurt-cobain-courtney-love">union of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain</a> was construed through traditional paradigms. Love was the more famous of the two when they met – but the lead singer of Hole (who the Nirvana frontman famously referred to as “the best fuck in the world”) was often presented as a modern day Yoko Ono, a parasite feeding off his talent.</p>
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<h2>Credit where it’s due</h2>
<p>Any divorce lawyer can testify to the difficulties in ascertaining what different partners bring to a relationship, but Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan provide an all-too-rare example (<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/why-robert-wyatt-s-wife-alfie-is-his-most-important-collaborator-1.2032866">Alfreda Benge and Robert Wyatt</a> also spring to mind) of a canonical male singer-songwriter recognising his wife for satisfying his creative as well as emotional and sexual needs. In public statements and copyright alike, Waits has been scrupulous in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/oct/29/popandrock1">acknowledging Kathleen Brennan</a> for the experimental turn in his musical production between Heartattack and Vine (1980) and Swordfishtrombones (1983).</p>
<p>If this is the exception rather than the rule, general patterns are inscribed within a broader tendency to underplay female influence on male musicians. Ann Powers, the LA Times rock writer, has <a href="http://www.academia.edu/14626423/_Bring_it_On_Home_Robert_Plant_Janis_Joplin_and_the_Myth_of_Origin">given the example of Janis Joplin</a>, who had an incredible influence on heavy metal that has gone largely unacknowledged. A similar case could be made for Tina Turner. Her semi-autobiographical song Nutbush City Limits remains a concert staple for Detroit rocker, Bob Seger, and was used to audition the Geordie vocalist Brian Johnson when Australian metal superstars, AC/DC, needed a new singer following the death of Bon Scott. </p>
<p>It is <a href="http://people.com/archive/tina-turner-the-woman-who-taught-mick-jagger-to-dance-is-on-the-prowl-again-vol-16-no-23/">well documented</a> that Jagger appropriated many of her stage moves after the Stones opened for Ike and Tina Turner in the mid-1960s. Ike has rightly been <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-flashback-tina-turners-abuse-871542">vilified as a wife-beater</a> – but the fact that <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/290080.No_Woman_No_Cry">Bob Marley</a> and <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/john-lennons-dark-side-domestic-6481985">John Lennon</a> are generally seen as global ambassadors for peace despite having abused their female partners is evidence of a wider culture of sexism, the effects of which still resonate today. </p>
<p>Yoko Ono may not have endured the physical and psychological violence to which Lennon <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/john-lennons-dark-side-domestic-6481985">subjected first-wife Cynthia</a>, but she was almost universally vilified for reputedly breaking up the Beatles alongside her reputed personal and professional affectations. </p>
<p>I’ve always found Imagine schmaltzy and hypocritical mush – in my alternative canon, Voice of the Beehive’s Perfect Place would have trumped it to being awarded Song of the Century by the National Music Publishers Association. But Ono being retrospectively granted co-authorship as she collected the award for a composition – whose sentiment and style were little in evidence in Lennon’s life or songs prior to their meeting – is a symbolic milestone worthy of applause.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan Wheeler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All too often the women beside rock music’s giants are not given credit for their influence.Duncan Wheeler, Professor in Spanish Studies, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/706152016-12-21T12:24:11Z2016-12-21T12:24:11ZJo Cox charity single: there’s no going back in the merging of pop and politics<p>It might seem odd, at a time when politicians are held in such low esteem, that a group of British MPs are part of a project that’s in the running to win an iconic popularity contest – the <a href="http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/prime-minister-theresa-may-backs-single-in-memory-of-jo-cox-aiming-for-official-christmas-number-1__17498/">Christmas Number 1 spot in the singles chart</a>. </p>
<p>Alongside a host of musicians including Steve Harley, David Gray and KT Tunstall, a cross-party group of MPs is appearing on a single to raise funds for the charitable foundation set up to continue the work of Batley and Spen MP <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/jo-cox-28509">Jo Cox</a>, who was murdered by hard-right winger Thomas Mair in the run-up to the Brexit referendum.</p>
<p>It’s a cover of the Rolling Stones song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqMl5CRoFdk">You Can’t Always Get What You Want</a>, also recently in the news when <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/donald-trump-the-rolling-stones-mick-jagger-responds-to-use-of-you-cant-always-get-what-you-want-a7407151.html">Donald Trump used it</a> after his victory speech. Cox’s internationalist, progressive vision was utterly at odds with Trump’s ethos, so there’s an aspect of the charity single that could be read as trying to reclaim the song from reactionary forces.</p>
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<p>But there are other factors at play, too. The single confirms the convergence of the popular cultural and political mainstreams. This trend has been increasingly evident from the political end for a long time. The New Labour 1997 campaign’s use of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmwqEg-06Ww">Things Can Only Get Better</a> was perhaps the high watermark of electoral success in conjunction with pop. It certainly illustrated the political turn towards a media friendly strategy in the “news bite” culture, and the increasing prominence, if not prevalence, of spin that followed in the wake of rolling television news and the expansion of the internet. </p>
<p>Public relations aside, it’s also unsurprising that politicians would naturally lean towards appearing on the Jo Cox single. Generations of MPs have now grown up with rock. The Parliamentary band MP4, whose members appear on the single, is an ongoing endeavour, as is the <a href="http://louderthanwar.com/rock-the-house-calls-for-musicians-to-enter-contest-with-finals-in-parliament/">Rock the House</a> competition. </p>
<p>Philip Hammond’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-38293156">decision to waive VAT on the single</a>, likewise, echoes not just the Stones’ decision to forgo their royalties from it but the “official” endorsement of previous chancellors to facilitate charitable releases. This was <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/07/13/music-tax-the-prime-minister-how-live-aid-changed-the-uk-and-the-world/#29aa1769cdad">a bone of contention</a> in the case of Do They Know It’s Christmas, which kick-started the charity single trend in 1984.</p>
<h2>Activism to fundraising</h2>
<p>But this Stones cover also reveals how the convergence of political activism and popular music has evolved since the 1980s. Post Live Aid, activist pop has slowly but surely moved from the realm of the social towards the commercial.</p>
<p>Pop’s interventions in activism and the policy sphere used to involve a stronger grassroots component at the forefront. From the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/aug/10/folk.politicsandthearts">Aldermaston</a> marches in the 1950s, where popular jazz marching bands provided the soundtrack, to the CND, through to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/apr/20/popandrock.race">Rock Against Racism</a> in the 1970s, political pop tended to be driven from the local sphere upwards. Drawing on this dynamic, and the association with a “counter culture” that had opposed the Vietnam war in the 1960s, the likes of Joan Baez appealed to a “rock community” at Live Aid. “This is your Woodstock,” were her opening remarks. </p>
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<p>But Geldof’s Live Aid emphasis was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoSIf55FN0">explicitly on fundraising</a> and the use of top-down star power to both drive home the point and fill the coffers. This represented a profound shift in the association of pop and politics.</p>
<p>Consider the phenomenon of the “charity single” and the ironies and paradoxes that it embodies. On the one hand, it could be said to dilute pop’s capacity to speak for the margins, in the mainstream at least. Certainly the Stones – fronted by Sir Mick Jagger – have long made their peace with the establishment since the fraught relationship that existed when they wrote You Can’t Always Get What You Want. This was once a band clouded by controversy in the wake of <a href="https://www.iorr.org/talk/read.php?1,1755802,1756208">drug busts</a> and associations with <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/6690506/The-Rolling-Stones-at-Altamont-the-day-the-music-died.html">Hells Angels</a>. No longer.</p>
<p>But while it is becoming easier for politicians to get directly involved in the pop process, the charity single may also make it easier for pop stars to have a direct effect – certainly one that’s measurable – albeit primarily in financial terms. Despite <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/24/g8.debtrelief">controversies</a> after the fact about the long-term effect of Live Aid, there’s little question about its fundraising capacity. Or about it cementing the idea of musicians as actors on the political stage.</p>
<h2>Shifting cultures</h2>
<p>This also echoes broader, underlying cultural and political shifts since the end of the 1970s. There’s been a general move away from notions of collective activity, community and the role of the state, towards the concept of individual responsibility. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Rockin_the_Boat.html?id=wpbuz4Td3_4C&redir_esc=y">Reebee Garofalo</a> has compared the Live Aid model to Woodstock as representatives of pop politics: the latter embodying a communitarian ethos, the former framing the audience as consumers.</p>
<p>The ostensible onus on individuals to make a difference by digging into their wallets has been a central feature of pop’s claim to benefiting the public good since Live Aid. But even when there has been mobilisation around an issue and a specific policy focus, as with <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/thelive8event/lineupandartists/">Live 8 in 2005</a>, the scale of success is debatable. Arguably Geldof’s greatest diplomatic achievement at Live 8 was less in brokering any <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5128344.stm">lasting G8 action on third world debt</a> than getting the fractious <a href="http://ultimateclassicrock.com/pink-floyd-live-8-reunion/">members of Pink Floyd onto the same stage again</a> after decades of animosity. </p>
<p>This isn’t to decry the charity model. Nor to deny the activism that takes place further away from the pop centre – there’s still a need for a line between grassroots action and the corridors of power. In the long run, these changes just shine a light on the evolution of musical forms, and consequently their social and political positioning. With grassroots work increasingly oriented towards the internet, it’s perhaps inevitable that maturing forms like rock gravitate towards a space closer to the media and political centre.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>MPs and rock songs may seem like odd bedfellows, but the charity single marks a longstanding shift in how music mobilises the masses.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/638462016-08-18T12:38:46Z2016-08-18T12:38:46ZIt’s only rock ‘n’ roll – and sometimes it’s better in mono<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134438/original/image-20160817-3611-1iyo67o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Snowmanradio</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While music lovers continue to argue about the relative merits of digital audio and the analogue vinyl disc, another debate is going on about the renaissance of an audio format that most people thought had long since disappeared: mono. Apparently banished during the second half of the 20th century by the advent of two-channel stereo, single-channel monophonic audio is making a reappearance. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.thebeatles.com/monovinyl/">Beatles in Mono</a> vinyl box set was released a couple of years ago, and will now be joined by The <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/rolling-stones-announce-massive-mono-box-set-w433790">Rolling Stones in Mono</a>. </p>
<p>So why this return to what many might think an outmoded and inferior way of reproducing sound? Can there really be anything that these monophonic mixes have to offer in 2016? There are two main issues. Firstly, different mixes produced at different times and possibly by different people will sound different, regardless of whether they are in stereo and/or mono. </p>
<p>A guitar solo, such as McCartney’s on “<a href="http://www.icce.rug.nl/%7Esoundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/t.shtml">Taxman</a>” from 1966’s Revolver, could never be played exactly the same way twice, even if the notes and their approximate durations are the same. In a similar way, the parameters of mixing, even when using the relatively primitive apparatus of 50 years ago, were sufficiently variable that each attempt at creating a mix, even with exactly the same people and technology wouldn’t produce an identical output. </p>
<p>Ryan and Kehew’s detailed study of The Beatles studio work, <a href="http://www.curvebender.com/rtb.html">Recording The Beatles</a>, often makes the point that mono mixes were considered the most important at that time. Draft versions were regularly produced during recording sessions with the band involved, but stereo versions were often left to the very end of the production process with only George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick present. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Beatles in the recording studio with producer George Martin in 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Capitol Records</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Different people working at different times will not produce identical mixes, and the outcomes can be radically different. Mixes have their own aesthetics, they can express musical ideas. As Emerick said: “a mix was a performance by the people on the mixing console”.</p>
<h2>How we hear sound</h2>
<p>The second issue relates to differences in how we perceive mono and stereo sound. Our brains use information from our ears to build a picture of what objects are in our vicinity, their width and position and the acoustic environment in which they reside. This is known as <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/auditory-scene-analysis">auditory scene analysis</a>. </p>
<p>An early stage of this is spectral analysis which separates out sound components at different frequencies. These components are then regrouped according to whether they belong to the same sound source. One of the methods of determining this “belongingness” is by comparing the levels and times of arrival of various components between the two ears to determine whether they come from the same place. Such components have a stronger sense of belongingness, or homogeneity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early Rolling Stones compilation in that newfangled stereo format.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Totally vinyl</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Grouping sounds together in the same space (as is the case with mono) is one way of “glueing” them together, making them sound like they are an integral part of a larger whole. </p>
<p>But if you want to be able to hear the constituent parts of your mix as clearly as possible it’s better if they appear to come from different positions (something that is possible with stereo). Such combinations of sound obscure – or “mask”, in the <a href="http://thepowerofsound.net/psychoacoustics-defined/">psychoacoustic language</a> – each other less. This is known as “binaural release of masking” (binaural because it requires two ears to work) and it helps us hear one person’s speech through the babble of others – the “<a href="http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/03/the-cocktail-party-effect.php">cocktail party effect”</a>.</p>
<p>Of course this can be too revealing, George Harrison recalling that stereo mixes “<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/13181476.All_you_need_is_____The_Beatles_in_mono_or_stereo_/">ruined the sound from our point of view … it all sounded very naked</a>”. Comparing the mono and stereo mixes of “Taxman”, the McCartney guitar solo demonstrates these aspects of spatial presentation – unfortunately copyright doesn’t allow the two versions to be presented here. </p>
<p>In mono the solo takes (quite literally) centre stage and dominates, its partial masking of the other instruments enhancing its importance. In stereo, although it is at a similar level, it is moved to far right of the auditory scene and the parts in the opposite speaker are not so obscured. We can hear those parts more clearly, but the alpha dominance of the solo is diminished. </p>
<p>Whilst the underlying acoustics and psychoacoustics do not change, responses to the musical art of mixing are subjective. One person’s exciting clump of homogenous sound is another’s muddy mess, one’s revealing heterogeneous spread is another’s diluted smear (“<a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/revolution/">they took a heavy record and turned it into a piece of ice cream</a>” – John Lennon this time, on the stereo mix of “Revolution”).</p>
<h2>Two ears, one speaker</h2>
<p>When listening in mono there is something to bear in mind. When the same sound emanates from two loudspeakers, the two sound waves interfere with each other creating boosts of sound at some frequencies and reductions at the ears, leading to a subtle but undesirable change in the spectrum of sound. With just one speaker, there is just one wave and so there is no interference (if we ignore the effects of reflections of that wave from walls and other surfaces in the room). </p>
<p>So, by all means enjoy the different quality of sound in mono mixes (and the different approaches taken in those mixes) but, if you are going to have only one channel you really ought to have only one speaker too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jez Wells does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Beatles have released their early recordings in mono and the Rolling Stones are soon to follow suit. Fans think they sound better.Jez Wells, Lecturer, Department of Music, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/440082015-07-02T19:33:11Z2015-07-02T19:33:11ZBattling the British Invasion: Mr Tambourine Man and the fight for American pop independence<p>Fifty years ago, in the first half of 1965, the British invasion was officially under way – at least, in music. </p>
<p>It seemed like all the biggest hits on the American pop charts came from British bands. Ever since The Beatles’ pivotal first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in February 1964, the American shores had been flooded by a steady stream of English bands with matching suits, moptop haircuts, endearing accents and catchy tunes. </p>
<p>The UK acts didn’t completely eclipse the Americans during the height of the moptop mania. The Supremes, for instance, had hit the top of the US charts with five consecutive singles by the summer of 1965, and the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ topped the charts in early 1965. </p>
<p>The British success was significant enough, however, to force the American music business to recalibrate. By the summer of 1965, an American pop music revolution was underway.</p>
<p>This rebuttal to the British invasion was headlined by The Byrds’ hit single, Mr Tambourine Man. Recorded in Hollywood in January 1965, the story of this song, its influences and its wild success, is the story of America’s return salvo in a transatlantic fight for pop domination.</p>
<h2>A Dylan song</h2>
<p>Mr Tambourine Man came to the Byrds via their manager, Jim Dickson, who was also <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Flight-Definitive-Biography-Byrds/dp/1872747000/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1435547868&sr=8-9&keywords=johnny+rogan">active in music publishing</a>. </p>
<p>In 1964, Bob Dylan was mostly known as a songwriter, and Dickson was able to obtain an unreleased recording of Dylan performing his song. Recorded during a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bob-Dylan-Recording-Sessions-1960-1994/dp/0312150679/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435547980&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=dyla+recording+sessions">June 1964 session</a> for the album Another Side of Bob Dylan, Dylan was dissatisfied with this version and it was nixed (another version would appear on his next album). Dylan also performed Mr Tambourine Man at the Newport Folk Festival that summer. </p>
<p>Dickson was a believer in Dylan’s music, and was convinced that this was just the song his fledgling group needed.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Bob Dylan performs Mr Tambourine Man at the Newport Folk Festival on July 24 1964.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A Beatles guitar</h2>
<p>The Byrds (then going by the name Jet Set) began working on Mr Tambourine Man in the fall of 1964, though the band was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Turn-60s-Folk-Rock-Revolution/dp/087930703X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1435548255&sr=8-3&keywords=unterberger">a bit more skeptical</a> of the song. The first arrangement featured harmony vocals, percussion and acoustic guitars, very much in a folk style. </p>
<p>Missing was the band’s trademark jingle-jangle of the Rickenbacker electric 12-string guitar, which would not become a part of their sonic signature until members Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Gene Clark and probably Chris Hillman watched <a href="http://die-augenweide.de/byrds/speak/aboutbeatles.htm">A Hard Day’s Night</a>, in which George Harrison plays the Ric 12 string throughout the film. (McGuinn claims to have been so inspired by the sound that he immediately traded a couple of instruments to get his own Rickenbacker.)</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A early demo of the Byrds rehearsing an acoustic version of Mr Tambourine Man.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A ‘Bach’ intro</h2>
<p>The trademark opening guitar lick of Mr Tambourine Man was crafted by Roger McGuinn, who had significant experience as an arranger; in the past, he’d worked for artists such as the Limelighters, the Chad Mitchell Trio and Bobby Darin, while arranging for Judy Collins. </p>
<p>McGuinn had been playing an adaptation of J S Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring on the acoustic 12-string during live shows. He based the distinctive opening lick for Mr Tambourine Man on his Bach arrangement. When he played that lick on the electric 12-string, the classic jingle jangle of folk rock was born. (Bach’s Jesu melody makes another appearance in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTlS2JhaBJM">She Don’t Care About Time</a> from the band’s second album.)</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Roger McGuinn, in his role as accompanist for the Chad Mitchell Trio, performs on NBC television in 1962.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>A Wrecking Crew</h2>
<p>The Byrds were signed to Columbia Records in November 1964, in part on the recommendation of jazz musician Miles Davis. The label, however, didn’t believe in the young musicians’ ability to deliver a suitably professional recording in the required studio time. </p>
<p>So the producers turned to the best studio musicians in Los Angeles, a group of skilled players popularly known as the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wrecking-Crew-Inside-Best-Kept-Secret/dp/1250030463/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1435548513&sr=8-4&keywords=wrecking+crew">Wrecking Crew</a>. (At the time, it was common practice for groups to use studio musicians on their recordings.) In fact, McGuinn is the only member of The Byrds to play on Mr Tambourine Man, though he, Crosby and Clark perform all the vocals.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Byrds lip-sync Mr Tambourine Man on ABC’s Shindig! on June 23 1965.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A Beach Boys beat</h2>
<p>The members of the Wrecking Crew had played on many of the girl-group hits that came out of Los Angeles in the 1960s. These musicians also played on Beach Boys sessions and, according to Roger McGuinn, some of the players on the Mr Tambourine Man session had played on the Beach Boys’ Don’t Worry Baby. </p>
<p>Whether or not this is accurate (the <a href="http://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/afmcontracts/BeachBoys_IGetAround+DontWorry.pdf">union contracts</a> suggest Wrecking Crew member Bill Pitman played on <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/jimmy/mcguinn/mtm.html">both sessions</a>), it’s at least apparent that the studio players at the Byrds session were asked to re-create the groove of that Beach Boys single. </p>
<p>They succeeded: if you listen to the two records back to back, the similarity in feel is unmistakable, especially in the respective rhythm guitar parts.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Beach Boys’ Don’t Worry Baby, which was influenced by the Ronettes’ Be My Baby.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Jockeying for chart position</h2>
<p>Mr Tambourine Man marked the beginning of the American folk-rock response to the British invasion. Columbia delayed the single’s release to avoid competition with the label’s other records, so Mr Tambourine Man appeared in the spring of 1965, entering the Billboard Top 40 on June 5. </p>
<p>By the end of the month it was in the number one slot, where it remained over the Fourth of July weekend. The Byrds’ single displaced The Four Tops’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z59EVHU8MjI">I Can’t Help Myself</a> at the top of the charts, so its success was not a direct victory over the British groups. The Byrds’ platter, however, was then ousted from the top slot by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-cant-get-no-satisfaction-50-years-later-the-song-that-almost-never-was-42796">Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction</a>, as the competition for chart supremacy with the Brits began heating up. </p>
<p>In pop music, turnabout is fair play: by mid-June, Mr Tambourine Man entered the UK charts, rising to number one by mid-July, supplanting the Hollies’ I’m Alive. </p>
<p>To recap: the Byrds set a Dylan song to a Beach Boys beat using a Beatles guitar to play a Bach-influenced lick, while recording with a studio band that was accustomed to playing girl-group hits (phew!).</p>
<p>The resulting music – a stylistic melting pot – launched a spirited defense of the American charts that would soon be joined by Dylan himself, along with Sonny and Cher, the Loving Spoonful, the Turtles, The Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel and Barry McGuire.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87216/original/image-20150702-11342-u0vdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87216/original/image-20150702-11342-u0vdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87216/original/image-20150702-11342-u0vdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87216/original/image-20150702-11342-u0vdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87216/original/image-20150702-11342-u0vdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87216/original/image-20150702-11342-u0vdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87216/original/image-20150702-11342-u0vdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87216/original/image-20150702-11342-u0vdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Revere and the Raiders helped beat back the British Invasion – and dressed the part.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Paul_Revere_and_the_Raiders_1964.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Folk rock wasn’t the only American style that topped the charts in the mid 1960s: Motown continued its successful run, and southern soul – highlighted by Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett – joined the fray. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Beach Boys’ surf music became increasingly ambitious and influential, and Paul Revere and the Raiders led a harder-edged musical assault on the British invasion, scoring a series of hit singles while appearing on ABC’s weekday TV program <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IF5TXl8u4c">Where the Action Is</a> wearing Revolutionary War outfits, tricorner hats and all.</p>
<p>But when the Fourth of July fireworks erupted in the summer of 1965, the meteoric musical ascent of Mr Tambourine Man was the first clear sign that American groups were back in the game – and on the charts – for good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Fifty years ago, in the first half of 1965, the British invasion was officially under way – at least, in music. It seemed like all the biggest hits on the American pop charts came from British bands. Ever…John Covach, Director, Institute for Popular Music, University of RochesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/427962015-06-03T20:27:31Z2015-06-03T20:27:31Z(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, 50 years later: the song that almost never was<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83876/original/image-20150603-2956-1a9kmzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The US version of the Rollings Stones' 1965 LP Out of Our Heads featured Satisfaction.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/48580880@N08/6115109939">LucienGrix/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, the Rolling Stones released their breakthrough single (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, which debuted in the US during the first week of June 1965. The band’s previous singles had done well enough stateside: the country-influenced Heart of Stone had risen to 19 on the charts in late 1964, and the gospel-tinged <a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-ago-the-rolling-stones-first-us-hit-evinced-the-bands-eclectic-style-37687">The Last Time</a> had reached 9. </p>
<p>But Satisfaction catapulted the band’s into superstardom, hitting number one on both sides of the Atlantic.</p>
<p>The song kicks off with a now-classic guitar riff, enhanced by the sound of the <a href="http://www.vintageguitar.com/17397/maestro-fuzz-tone/">Fuzz-Tone</a> – an innovation of the era that adds an enormous amount of distortion to the guitar tone, fattening up its sound in a way that’s both pleasing and aggressive. </p>
<p>But that iconic guitar lick was not initially intended to be on the final record – at least, as far as Keith Richards was concerned – and in the early stages of the recording process, there was little the others could do to satisfy the band’s lead guitarist. </p>
<h2>A fuzz and a click</h2>
<p>In the spring of 1965, while the Rolling Stones were touring the US, Richards awoke one morning and noticed that the cassette tape in his portable recorder had wound to the end. </p>
<p>He couldn’t remember using it the night before, so he rewound the tape and listened. Apparently, he had recorded a few snatches of Satisfaction and gone back to sleep, leaving the machine to record a long stretch of snoring.</p>
<p>The song’s seeds had been planted.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Keith Richards, on writing ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The band needed a follow-up single to The Last Time and liked to record stateside, so they tumbled into Chess Studios in Chicago to work on some material, including Satisfaction. </p>
<p>The Stones were influenced by a wide variety of music. Keith has said that the initial idea of the song was spurred by the music of Martha and the Vandellas, and elements of the Motown group’s singles of the time – Dancing in the Streets and, especially, Nowhere to Run – are present in the track.</p>
<p>From there, they headed to the West Coast, where they gathered in Hollywood’s RCA Studios with engineer Dave Hassinger to continue working on Satisfaction. </p>
<p>But Keith still <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Rolling-Stones-Complete-Recording/dp/1901447774">wasn’t happy</a> with the results: he’d hoped to add horns to the introduction, thinking the song needed an extra <em>umph</em> – and perhaps hoping to mimic the use of horns in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQRIOKvR2WM">Nowhere to Run</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83736/original/image-20150602-19228-1uytqnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83736/original/image-20150602-19228-1uytqnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83736/original/image-20150602-19228-1uytqnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83736/original/image-20150602-19228-1uytqnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83736/original/image-20150602-19228-1uytqnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83736/original/image-20150602-19228-1uytqnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83736/original/image-20150602-19228-1uytqnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83736/original/image-20150602-19228-1uytqnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An ad for the Maestro Fuzz-Tone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/germanium/3487101994/in/photolist-bEjxCd-rtT2R-55GagL-6j9iWb-369xB7-364Xwp-369yaS-369yub-364Wx2">germanium/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>At one point, a Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone was brought in. It was likely given to the group by the Gibson guitar company, along with Keith and Brian’s distinctive <a href="http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Firebird.aspx">Firebird guitars</a>. Other accounts say someone was sent out to a local music store in search of something to spice up the track. </p>
<p>The band then recorded the track with the fuzz-drenched guitar part. But initially, it was only supposed to serve as a placeholder for what would be a horn line. </p>
<p>During the playback, everybody assembled – the band, producer Andrew Loog Oldham and Hassinger – immediately believed they had a hit on their hands. Richards, however, wasn’t pleased with this version, and demanded a vote. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stone-Alone-Story-Rock-Roll/dp/0306807831">According to Stones bass player Bill Wyman</a>, Keith (together with Mick) lost in a landslide. The song was released as we know it. </p>
<p>If you listen carefully at about 0:35 in the track, you can actually hear the Fuzz-Tone switch click. For whatever reason, the click was never erased, and it forever exists as a reminder of the Fuzz-Tone’s original role as a “demo” placeholder.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A scandal of circumstance</h2>
<p>Then there’s the aftermath of the song’s release, and the legendary scandal it created.</p>
<p>Listening to the lyrics today, it’s tough to understand why they were so controversial. Likely prompted by a line in Chuck Berry’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU_506KSI_s">Thirty Days</a>, they discuss dissatisfaction with a range of everyday events, mostly having to do with advertising hype. </p>
<p>One verse does describe a woman on a “losing streak” who asks the man to come back next week. This was widely thought to refer to the woman rejecting a sexual advance because she was menstruating. And somehow, a number of listeners thought the song was about masturbation – or, at least, sexual dissatisfaction – which is something of an interpretive stretch.</p>
<p>The scandal surrounding the lyrics has to be understood in the context of two issues. First, Andrew Loog Oldham had worked hard to establish the Stones as the anti-Beatles. Already, the Stones had been promoted as the bad boys of pop in the UK, though in the US the worst anybody had been able to say is that they were shaggy and, perhaps, rude. </p>
<p>Second, just before the release of Satisfaction, the Kingsmen’s Louie, Louie had created a stir with lyrics that were purported to be obscene. The FBI was even called in to investigate the track (though a cursory listen to the Richard Berry 1957 original or the Rockin’ Robin Roberts 1961 cover makes it clear that the lyrics are far from obscene). </p>
<p>In the case of Louie, Louie, the seriousness of the charge significantly outweighed the validity of the evidence, at least in the popular imagination. The idea that a rock song could be dirty, after all, was not too far removed from the swiveling hips of Elvis Presley a few years earlier, or hokum blues tracks like Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle, and Roll (1954). The Rolling Stones were simply the most recent example of the of rock music troublemakers.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Berry’s Louie, Louie.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction established at least one template the Stones would return to many times over their career: the idea of bad boys singing dirty songs, of misbehaving rebels eager to shock adults while delighting fans. </p>
<p>But the practice of experimenting with new sounds in the studio would also become increasingly central to the band’s music, especially in the second half of the 1960s. The use of the Fuzz-Tone on Satisfaction was only the beginning, and seems quite tame compared to the trippy <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8o0gj-A0">2000 Light Years from Home</a>, recorded just two years later. </p>
<p>By 1967, the scandal involving the band became drug use. But throughout the Stones’ long, storied career, the band refused to express regrets over being provocative, never giving anyone the satisfaction of an apology.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>To read about The Last Time, the Rolling Stones’ first US hit, click <a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-ago-the-rolling-stones-first-us-hit-evinced-the-bands-eclectic-style-37687">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Fifty years ago, the Rolling Stones released their breakthrough single (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, which debuted in the US during the first week of June 1965. The band’s previous singles had done well…John Covach, Director, Institute for Popular Music, University of RochesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/390412015-03-26T10:29:37Z2015-03-26T10:29:37ZThe messy history of music copyright suits<p>Earlier this month, a jury found Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams guilty of copyright infringement for their hit song “Blurred Lines,” and ordered the duo to pay $7.4 million to the estate of Marvin Gaye.</p>
<p>The verdict has resulted in a whirlwind of reaction and analysis – most of it incredulous. </p>
<p>“I’m a little bit shocked by it, quite frankly,” country musician Keith Urban <a href="http://tasteofcountry.com/keith-urban-blurred-lines-verdict/">said</a>, while songwriter Bonnie McKee <a href="http://www.people.com/article/blurred-lines-verdict-keith-urban-nick-lachey-react">told People Magazine</a>, “It strikes fear into the hearts of songwriters.” <a href="http://htl.li/2WhIa5">According to John Legend</a>, the “verdict could set a scary precedent.” </p>
<p>But “Blurred Lines” is only the latest copyright case in an industry rife with suits and counter-suits. The Gaye estate is no stranger to the game: in the early 1980s, they settled a $15 million lawsuit by David Ritz, who claimed co-writing credit for Gaye’s mega-hit “Sexual Healing.” And a 2012 article about a lawsuit Marvin Gaye III had leveled against Lenny Kravitz <a href="http://gossiponthis.com/2012/12/03/marvin-gaye-son-wants-shameful-biopic-about-his-dad-stopped-lenny-kravitz/">noted</a>, “Gaye III has also gone as far as to sue restaurants and radio stations for copyright infringement on songs.”</p>
<p>Even for Pharrell Williams, lawsuits are standard fare; he’s frequently served as both plaintiff and defendant, going up against <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/pharrell-williams-william-what-know-578580">Trajik</a>, <a href="http://mcir.usc.edu/cases/2010-2019/Pages/currin.html">Peter Currin</a>, <a href="http://www.judiciaryreport.com/pharrell_williams_steals_more_copyrights.htm">Geggy Tah</a>, <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/257051994/Holla-Back-Entertainment-v-Pharrell-Williams-Gwen-Stefani-etc-pdf#scribd">Carla Boone</a>, <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6415063/pharrell-youtube-lawsuit-irving-azoff">YouTube</a> and <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/pharrell-williams-william-what-know-578580">Will.I.AM</a>. </p>
<p>Music lawyer Kenneth Abdo perhaps put it best when he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/business/media/industry-issuesintrude-in-blurred-lines-case.html">said</a>, “There is an old saying in the music industry…if you get a hit, you will get a writ.”</p>
<h2>Lawyers lick their chops</h2>
<p>On the surface, it would seem like copyright infringement is straightforward: either you lifted someone else’s work and called it your own, or you didn’t. </p>
<p>Technically, in order to be found guilty of infringement, two things must be proven. First, there needs to be direct or indirect evidence of access to the original composition. If that’s been established, “substantial similarity” between the original and supposedly infringed-upon work needs to be determined.</p>
<p>It’s the second factor that’s ripe for conflicting interpretation – and exploitation. After all, what makes something substantially similar?</p>
<p>But music copyright is muddled because ultimately it is decided by judges and juries who are “educated” by music experts from <em>both</em> sides, each of which insists that its interpretations – based on vague terms like “substantial,” “feeling” and “similar” – are correct.</p>
<p>So while most music fans remain blissfully ignorant of copyright law, behind the gold-record-lined walls there are throngs of lawyers working around the clock to defend their clients from “thieves” plundering their work, or from accusations by gold diggers looking for a quick buck.</p>
<p>Outside the walls the public only sees the “noble” attorneys who claim that they’re keeping us from slipping into creative anarchy. But it’s no coincidence that the greater the success of a hit song, the more shrill their “righteous” defense of artistic liberty becomes. In truth, these gimlet-eyed lawyers have been trained to detect the smallest possible copyright infractions – and are primed to strategically pounce. </p>
<h2>Artists learn the hard way</h2>
<p>In 1992, the hip-hop group Arrested Development released their hit song “Tennessee.” It soon caught the attention of Prince’s lawyers because the group never got permission to use a sample of the word “Tennessee” from Prince’s song “Alphabet St.” </p>
<p>This was a time when hip-hop and rap artists began to use sampling keyboards to build songs using segments of copyrighted sound recordings. Today, major artists know better than lift anything recognizable from other recordings without the proper license. But even now, newer artists often won’t attempt to get clearance. They reason that if they’re sued – well, their song must be a hit, so they’ll be wealthy enough to settle out of court.</p>
<p>As composer Carl Wiser <a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=10720">recalled</a>, “It was our first record, we definitely weren’t vets in the industry, we didn’t understand all the game play and the rules. So we didn’t ask for permission. I learned as a producer pretty quickly the laws of sampling: it’s the wild, wild West out there.” </p>
<p>This lesson in copyright law cost Arrested Development $100,000.</p>
<p>But Prince’s attorneys were strategic in their pursuit. As Wiser <a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=10720">explained</a>, the lawyers only raised a fuss once “the song moved up the chart the album got to #3 on the pop charts. And once it went down, the very week it went to #4, we got a call from Prince’s representation. They waited for that song to sell as many possible copies as they could wait for.” </p>
<p>Settling out of court like this is the usual outcome of such disputes. In 1986, the road manager for the group America heard Janet Jackson’s new song “Let’s Wait Awhile” while driving. He pulled over to a phone booth and called the band asking if they’d heard the song and how it sounded like “Daisy Jane.” Months later he received a 10% “finder’s fee” after America and Jackson settled.</p>
<p>In 1997, while writing his mega-hit “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” Richard Ashcroft of the Verve negotiated the cost to use a sample from the Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time.” </p>
<p>Ashcroft’s reward for trying to follow the letter of the law? The Stones sued anyway, claiming that the use of the sample was more integral to the song than had been originally negotiated. In the end, The Verve was ordered to hand over royalties and songwriting credits to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. </p>
<p>When asked if the Verve got a fair shake, Richards <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/music/lawyers-sue-men-plunder/2009/11/01/1257010103921.html?page=fullpage">responded</a>, “I’m out of whack here, this is serious lawyer shit.”</p>
<p>This reaction is typical of musicians who prefer to leave the law to their retained lawyers and record labels. In many cases, entertainment lawyers are like ambulance chasers: they’re the ones that convince composers that they’re owed money for infringements they’d otherwise never notice. </p>
<p>Out of consideration for reputation – and because it’s cheaper – most musicians hope to settle nuisance cases to make them disappear. </p>
<p>After all, what’s $100,000 when you’re raking in millions?</p>
<h2>George Harrison gently weeps</h2>
<p>But it’s George Harrison’s 1976 case that draws the most parallels to “Blurred Lines” – for the “you’ve got to be kidding!” reaction in the press, the immense popularity of both parties involved and the huge amount of money at stake.</p>
<p>In 1962 the girl-group quartet The Chiffons recorded Ronald Mackand’s song “He’s So Fine.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Chiffons’ 1962 hit ‘He’s So Fine.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Eight years later, George Harrison released the song “My Sweet Lord.” Mackand had passed away, but the publishing company that represented his widow, Bright Tunes Music, brought Harrison to court, claiming that he had unlawfully copied “He’s So Fine.”</p>
<p>In Bright Tunes Music v. Harrison Music, the judge determined that although the accused, George Harrison, didn’t consciously copy parts of “He’s So Fine,” he had nonetheless <em>heard</em> the song – which proved access to the original version.</p>
<p>Next the judge determined that “substantial similarity” existed. With both criteria accounted for, he slapped Harrison with a guilty verdict and ordered Harrison to fork over $1.6 million (more than $6 million today) of the $2.1 million he’d earned from “My Sweet Lord.” </p>
<p><a href="http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Bright_Tunes_Music_v_Harrisongs.pdf">According to the judge</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Harrison’s subconscious knew it already had worked in a song his conscious mind did not remember…I do not believe he did so deliberately. Nevertheless, it is clear that “My Sweet Lord” is the very same song as “He’s So Fine” with different words.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The music world was shaken to its compositional core (<em>You mean you can be sued for what’s in your subconscious?</em>). </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Can you subconsciously copy something?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“It made me so paranoid about writing,” Harrison recalled, “that I didn’t even want to touch the guitar or piano in case I touched somebody’s note.”</p>
<p>In the wake of “Blurred Lines” the music world has again likened the verdict to the death of composing. </p>
<p>“We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn’t stand,” <a href="http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2015/03/12/blurred-lines-lawyer-says-will-make-sure-verdict-doesnt-stand">said</a> Pharrell’s attorney Howard King, one of Forbes’ <a href="http://pview.findlaw.com/view/4860976_1">Power 100 Lawyers in Entertainment</a>.</p>
<p>But in the end, it’s all just the shuffling of money. Business as usual. Composers will compose and lawyers will sue. </p>
<p>Welcome to the music industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Snyder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Like ambulance chasers, gimlet-eyed entertainment lawyers have been trained to detect the most trivial copyright infringements.Jeffrey Snyder, Professor of Music / Director of the Music Industry Program / Director VALE Music Group, Lebanon Valley CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/376872015-03-13T10:04:50Z2015-03-13T10:04:50Z50 years ago, the Rolling Stones’ first US hit evinced the band’s eclectic style<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74378/original/image-20150310-13550-8ee37m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 'The Last Time,' the band's country, gospel and blues influences would be put on display. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/15216378955/in/photolist-pbBVki-nQ4ycw-ALuN2-6JYNA-CXFdg-doewSR-6uBoQ-79V6oF-cxXLB5-dddWqU-o7ftqH-pbm4aV-34MJh7-3dv25N-kUkmCX-7U9YAj-kUkkEe-5GNYxp-9ZufnA-5zCnQ-8fNTLu-knSXCD-4dKA9r-knSYBn-3dqzwR-aPJhXi-ftV8Ub-3dsWck-u8oUr-oVFr8B-nWHM3N-o97WZL-eFQ61A-nYEohj-eFJ4sF-9hovqU-nGgUxW-o1xCMc-N5mYX-nYLisZ-nYt2s2-nYDCzh-nYLgfc-nYErK1-CNt9n-nGgyxg-nYDFg9-nYtbEa-o1xERn-nGhJzB">Paul Townsend/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the first weeks of 1964, the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” raced up the US charts, giving the Liverpool band its first American hit single and helping to launch the British invasion. At around the same time, the Rolling Stones were enjoying a number-three hit in the UK with “Not Fade Away,” as well as a number-one British EP. The Stones tried – but couldn’t immediately replicate – the Beatles’ stateside success, lagging behind by more than a year. </p>
<p>The decisive breakthrough for Mick, Keith and company came with the release of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” in June of 1965. The song rocketed to the top of the US charts, partly fueled by claims that the lyrics referred to sexual frustration.</p>
<p>But “Satisfaction” was not the Stones’ first top ten single in the US. In March 1965 the band released “The Last Time,” which rose to the number-nine spot stateside, while topping the charts in the UK. Unlike “Satisfaction,” the story of this song is not one of scandal and rebellion, but rather one of admiration and imitation. It possessed stylistic flairs and influences that would ultimately foretell the band’s future stardom. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Rolling Stones perform ‘The Last Time’ in 1965.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The roots of this Jagger-Richards original can be traced back to “This May Be The Last Time,” a gospel track recorded by the Staple Singers in 1955. A quick listen to the Staple Singers’ record will dispel any doubt over the source of the chorus in the Stones song. The gospel influence would become a central element in the Stones’ original music for years to come, especially in tracks such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=the7gV99YRI">“Shine a Light.”</a> </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Stones were clearly inspired by Staple Singers’ ‘This May Be the Last Time.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But “The Last Time” is more than a rocked-up gospel reworking. It’s driven by an opening guitar riff that percolates throughout the song, creating a hook that rivals the chorus’s infectiousness. The idea of opening with a guitar riff wouldn’t have been new to fans of Chuck Berry’s music (as the Stones were) or the Shadows (not so much). It’s also worth noting that the Beatles’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTr8h4MkSYw">“I Feel Fine”</a> commenced with a catchy guitar lick; released in late 1964, it’s a track that could have inspired the Stones, along with the Staple Singers’ record. </p>
<p>The Stones would employ catchy opening riffs in future hits. In fact, the famous opener to “Satisfaction” may well have been an attempt to repeat the distinctive arranging element of “The Last Time.” And a catchy guitar lick is also used in the band’s next single after “Satisfaction,” “Get Off Of My Cloud.” (Meanwhile, the Beatles led off both “Ticket to Ride” and “Day Tripper” with a guitar hook, making 1965 into an unofficial “Year of the Guitar-Riff Intro.”)</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An advertisement for The Rolling Stones’ 1965 US tour, which promotes ‘The Last Time.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Stones_ad_1965.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Listeners may also detect a hint of country music in “The Last Time.” Country would play an important role in the band’s developing career (perhaps best captured in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YRdxHHFKvQ">“Dead Flowers”</a>). The Stones covered Hank Snow’s “I’m Moving On” during live shows in early 1965, and even included it on the EP Got LIVE If You Want It in the UK, and the album December’s Children in the US. </p>
<p>But we needn’t look further than the single that preceded “The Last Time” to hear a classic country twang. “Heart of Stone,” released in late 1964, rose to a respectable number 19 in the US charts – while unabashedly tipping its hat to country influences. In fact, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX0pB1Szgmk">demo of this song</a> contains a prominent pedal steel guitar – a staple of the country sound (though apparently someone deemed it <em>too country</em> for the final version). The demo also contains guitar work by a young session guitarist named Jimmy Page, whose solo Keith Richards copied note for note on the single.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Like ‘The Last Time,’ ‘Heart of Stone’ was infused with country influences.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Stones originally emerged out of the London blues revival scene in 1962, at first playing only cover versions of the blues, soul and 1950s rock music they revered. So it’s only natural that their first original songs would be rooted in the dozens of cover songs the band played and recorded in its nascent years. “The Last Time” is simply a logical extension of the group’s development and range of influences – the sort of compositional modeling has been occurring in music for generations.</p>
<p>But the Rolling Stones’ eclectic range of influences <em>did</em> create a uniquely broad stylistic palette, one that the band drew on as their music expanded and developed throughout the years – and as they went on to enjoy greater success and longevity than most of their contemporaries.</p>
<p>So despite its title, there would ultimately be very little about the band’s first US hit that would happen for the last time.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>To read the story behind the band’s first mega-hit (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, click <a href="http://theconversation.com/i-cant-get-no-satisfaction-50-years-later-the-song-that-almost-never-was-42796">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37687/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Covach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The band’s first US hit wasn’t ‘Satisfaction.’ Released in March 1965, ‘The Last Time’ possessed stylistic flairs that would predict the band’s future success.John Covach, Director, Institute for Popular Music, University of RochesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/339392014-11-11T04:10:57Z2014-11-11T04:10:57ZLong players: secrets of the Rolling Stones longevity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64177/original/6dfkbdx5-1415666815.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rock 'n' roll is never just about the music. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Abir Sultan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Rolling Stones are currently nearing the end of their seventh (and quite possibly last) tour of Australia and – despite cancelling the Hanging Rock gig due to Mick Jagger’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/rolling-stones-sydney-gig-to-go-ahead-but-victorian-fans-angry-20141110-11jp82.html">throat infection</a> – are still going strong, as is their fan base. </p>
<p>Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (both 1962 founding members), Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood have performed together since 1975. For sheer longevity and reputation, the Stones are the <a href="http://www.placidodomingo.com/inhalt.php?id=7489&menu_level=2&id_mnu=9916&id_kunden=1002">Placido Domingo</a> of popular music. Their achievement is all the more remarkable because it is in a field otherwise obsessed with youth and characterised by the impermanence of fashion. </p>
<p>So what’s the secret? </p>
<p>Like Domingo, of course, their success is first and foremost sustained by the quality of their musicianship. As is apparent to anyone who has been fortunate (as I was) to catch them on this tour, Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood remain an impressively skilled musical unit. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64172/original/fdfdbvf4-1415665763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64172/original/fdfdbvf4-1415665763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64172/original/fdfdbvf4-1415665763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64172/original/fdfdbvf4-1415665763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64172/original/fdfdbvf4-1415665763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64172/original/fdfdbvf4-1415665763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64172/original/fdfdbvf4-1415665763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64172/original/fdfdbvf4-1415665763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood performs at Adelaide Oval, October 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/James Elsby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But they are also both the progenitors and masters of a particular style of rock that has become both instantly recognisable as their own and profoundly influential. </p>
<p>We might broadly describe it as a louder, ruder and more explosive form of rhythm and blues or, as The Age’s Michael Dwyer <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/rolling-stones-review-how-can-these-elderly-gentlemen-sound-so-cool-sexy-loud-and-nasty-20141106-11hjw1.html">put it</a> after last week’s Melbourne performance: music that is “cool, sexy, loud and nasty”. And they self-evidently have not grown tired of it. </p>
<p>But of course it isn’t only rock ‘n’ roll. Or at least rock ‘n’ roll is never just about the music. For one thing it is also great theatre. </p>
<p>Mick Jagger in particular must surely rank alongside the late Freddie Mercury of Queen as a master of stadium dramatics. “I’m not just singing”, Jagger <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-rolling-stones-soul-survivors-20130507?print=true">told Rolling Stone</a> last year, “I want to do a performance, as well, so that’s waving my arms around and running around, and I’m dancing”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64179/original/hczc267d-1415666970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64179/original/hczc267d-1415666970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64179/original/hczc267d-1415666970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64179/original/hczc267d-1415666970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64179/original/hczc267d-1415666970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64179/original/hczc267d-1415666970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64179/original/hczc267d-1415666970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64179/original/hczc267d-1415666970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mick Jagger performs at the Adelaide Oval, October 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/James Elsby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And yes he still does, and it is a phenomenal physical achievement for a man aged 71.</p>
<p>Live performance is the Stones’ great metier. Sure, their global reach, and fortune, was anchored in radio airplay, vinyl and now digital sales, but their regular world tours have helped sustain their claim both to ongoing relevance and, compared with our world of auto-tuned, studio-produced pop, to authenticity.</p>
<p>This projection of authenticity is perhaps the Stones’ greatest underlying allure. And it is not just a matter of musical substance. As one of the last remaining global rock ‘n’ roll bands from the 1960s still performing, they also evoke for their audiences something of that extraordinary decade of Western cultural and political history when life itself seemed more authentic. </p>
<p>Regardless of when we were born, all of us harbour, I think, a longing for the <em>idea</em> of the 1960s. Phrases like “Turn on, tune in, drop out” have, it seems, become less an invitation to a decade-long party than a lasting challenge to all of us to live more intimately and deeply. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64173/original/x4fnb5xm-1415665909.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64173/original/x4fnb5xm-1415665909.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64173/original/x4fnb5xm-1415665909.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64173/original/x4fnb5xm-1415665909.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64173/original/x4fnb5xm-1415665909.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64173/original/x4fnb5xm-1415665909.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64173/original/x4fnb5xm-1415665909.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64173/original/x4fnb5xm-1415665909.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1966 Australian Tour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LucienGrix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are continually drawn back to the the culture of the 1960s because, as New York Times commentator Matt Bai <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/politics/26bai.html?_r=0">put it</a> a few years ago: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As much as conservatives may view the decade as the crucible of moral relativism and the beginning of a breakdown in established social order, there remains something powerfully attractive about the binary, simplistic nature of it all, the idea that one could easily distinguish whether he was for war or against, in favour of equality or opposed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today, it can seem as if young, counter-cultural, hippie radicals have merely transmogrified into old bankers and hedge-fund managers and the like. Such was the gloomy prognosis of history that characterised <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/gough-whitlam">recent commentary</a> around the death of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (a “60s” PM, at least in spirit, if ever there was one). </p>
<p>Fairfax senior journalist Michael Pascoe indeed speculated that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/we-dont-mourn-gough-whitlam-we-mourn-ourselves-20141021-1195kc.html">“we don’t mourn Gough Whitlam, we mourn ourselves”</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The optimism, the positivity, the change, the opening up, the justice, the independence, the betterment of the nation, the internationalisation that Whitlam sought and represented has been replaced after four decades with a more general negativity, with so little ambition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the last surviving major pop-cultural link to, if not the letter, then at least the spirit (and most certainly the <em>sound</em>) of the 1960s, The Rolling Stones remind us of what might have been (and maybe also a glimmer too of what could still be). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gd6ODRkzSUc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, 1965.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their concerts offer us a musical transport of the imagination back to that age of self-discovery, and the possibilities for self-empowerment and self-fulfilment it once promised. </p>
<p>To be sure, this is not just an uncomplicated journey into an uncomplicated past, as suggested by the lyrics of songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd6ODRkzSUc">(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction</a> (1965) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM_p1Az05Jo">You Can’t Always Get What You Want</a> (1969). But you can at least be guaranteed at a Rolling Stones concert that the ride there will be one hell of a lot of fun. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>The Rolling Stones <a href="http://www.frontiertouring.com/rollingstones">14 On Fire</a> tour continues in Sydney on November 12, the Hunter Valley on November 15 and in Brisbane on November 18.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Tregear conducted the Consort of Melbourne on stage with the Rolling Stones at the Rod Laver Arena on November 5.</span></em></p>The Rolling Stones are currently nearing the end of their seventh (and quite possibly last) tour of Australia and – despite cancelling the Hanging Rock gig due to Mick Jagger’s throat infection – are still…Peter Tregear, Professor and Head, School of Music, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.