Aereo-Plain is a 1971 studio album by American bluegrass singer-songwriter and instrumentalist John Hartford . It reached number 193 on The Billboard 200 chart.
127-467: The music on Aereo-Plain is a blend of traditional bluegrass musicianship and the hippie spirit of the '70s. The album sold so poorly that Warner Bros. decided to devote no promotion at all to Hartford's next release Morning Bugle . Nevertheless, Aereo-Plain has been called the forerunner of the genre now known as " Newgrass ". Hartford subsequently asked to be released from his contract and later signed with Flying Fish Records . The other members of
254-519: A new religious movement . Escapin' through the lily fields I came across an empty space It trembled and exploded Left a bus stop in its place The bus came by and I got on That's when it all began There was cowboy Neal At the wheel Of a bus to never-ever land During the late 1950s and early 1960s, novelist Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally first in Oregon and after
381-586: A 1902 cartoon by Tad Dorgan , and first appeared in prose in a 1904 novel by George Vere Hobart (1867–1926), Jim Hickey: A Story of the One-Night Stands , where an African-American character uses the slang phrase "Are you hip?" The term hipster was coined by Harry Gibson in 1944. By the 1940s, the terms hip , hep and hepcat were popular in Harlem jazz slang, although hep eventually came to denote an inferior status to hip . In Greenwich Village in
508-460: A cover story entitled "The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture." The article described the guidelines of the hippie code: Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun. It is estimated that around 100,000 people traveled to San Francisco in
635-410: A distinct contrast from his previous appearance as a regular on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour . On the original LP, the title is spelled "Aereo-Plain" but the title of the song is labeled "Steam Powered Aereo-plane". Aereo-Plain has received high praise in retrospective reviews. Writing for AllMusic , critic Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. wrote "The cult following of Aereo-Plain ... has less to do with
762-419: A half. That approach kind of became, after a while, newgrass." Hartford instructed Bromberg to "let the tapes roll, we don't want to hear playbacks until you've put the master together." In 2002 Steam Powered Aereo-Takes was released, which was a collection of outtakes and demos from the recording sessions for this album. The cover features a bearded, long-haired Hartford wearing old style, aviator goggles,
889-462: A hippie in the Panhandle to demonstrate the end of his/her reign. Haight-Ashbury could not accommodate the influx of crowds (mostly naive youngsters) with no place to live. Many took to living on the street, panhandling and drug-dealing. There were problems with malnourishment, disease, and drug addiction. Crime and violence skyrocketed. None of these trends reflected what the hippies had envisioned. By
1016-634: A hit in the United States and Europe. The lyrics, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair", inspired thousands of young people from all over the world to travel to San Francisco, sometimes wearing flowers in their hair and distributing flowers to passersby, earning them the name " Flower Children ". Bands like the Grateful Dead , Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin ), and Jefferson Airplane lived in
1143-490: A low profile). Beyond style, there were changes in substance. The Beats tended to be essentially apolitical, but the hippies became actively engaged with the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. Among the emerging novelists of the 1960s and 1970s, a few were closely connected with Beat writers, most notably Ken Kesey ( One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ). Though they had no direct connection, other writers considered
1270-606: A major hippie event in Chile, was held in 1970. Hippie and psychedelic culture influenced 1960s and early 1970s youth culture in Iron Curtain countries in Eastern Europe (see Mánička ). Hippie fashion and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music , television, film, literature, and the arts. Since the 1960s, mainstream society has assimilated many aspects of hippie culture. The religious and cultural diversity
1397-463: A more vanguardist approach to social justice and focused mostly on labour unionization and questions of social class . In April 1969, the building of People's Park in Berkeley, California received international attention. The University of California, Berkeley had demolished all the buildings on a 2.8-acre (11,000 m ) parcel near campus, intending to use the land to build playing fields and
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#17328911704611524-410: A parking lot. After a long delay, during which the site became a dangerous eyesore, thousands of ordinary Berkeley citizens, merchants, students, and hippies took matters into their own hands, planting trees, shrubs, flowers and grass to convert the land into a park. A major confrontation ensued on May 15, 1969, when Governor Ronald Reagan ordered the park destroyed, which led to a two-week occupation of
1651-430: A rural setting. This ceremony combined a psychedelic experience with traditional Native American spiritual values; these people went on to sponsor a unique genre of musical expression and performance at the "Red Dog Saloon" in the isolated, old-time mining town of Virginia City , Nevada. During the summer of 1965, Laughlin recruited much of the original talent that led to a unique amalgam of traditional folk music and
1778-402: A sense to bridge generations. Philip Lamantia , Michael McClure , Philip Whalen , Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7, 1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading, Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of Howl . It was a success and the evening led to many more readings by
1905-449: A significant minority of young adults to "get clean for Gene" by shaving their beards or wearing longer skirts; however the "Clean Genes" had little impact on the popular image in the media spotlight, of the hirsute hippy adorned in beads, feathers, flowers and bells. A sign of this was the visibility that the hippie subculture gained in various mainstream and underground media. Hippie exploitation films are 1960s exploitation films about
2032-510: A song that protested the Kent State massacre, recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young . Despite the fact that hippie culture was beginning to wane, in 1970, the hippie community of Tawapa was founded in New Mexico . It lasted until the 1990s, when the people were pushed off the land due to housing developments . Much of hippie style had been integrated into mainstream American society by
2159-582: Is based on Gary Snyder. Kerouac was impressed with Snyder and they were close for several years. In the spring of 1955, they lived together in Snyder's cabin in Mill Valley, California . Most Beats were urbanites and they found Snyder almost exotic, with his rural background and wilderness experience, as well as his education in cultural anthropology and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti called him "the Thoreau of
2286-650: Is essentially a striving for realization of one's relationship to life and other people... Bob Stubbs, "Unicorn Philosophy" By February 1966, the "Family Dog" became "Family Dog Productions" under organizer Chet Helms , promoting happenings at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium in initial cooperation with Bill Graham . The Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore Auditorium, and other venues provided settings where participants could partake of
2413-452: Is not brute savagery, but a healthy balance, a self-regulating system.". Snyder attributed wild to Buddhism and Daoism , the interests of some Beats. "Snyder's synthesis uses Buddhist thought to encourage American social activism, relying on both the concept of impermanence and the classically American imperative toward freedom." While many authors claim to be directly influenced by the Beats,
2540-638: The 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, including nominating their own candidate, " Lyndon Pigasus Pig " (an actual pig), was also widely publicized in the media at this time. In Cambridge, Massachusetts hippies congregated each Sunday for a large "be-in" at Cambridge Common with swarms of drummers and those beginning the Women's Movement. In the United States, the Hippie movement started to be seen as part of
2667-527: The Baby Boomers ; the former who were the actual leaders of the movement as well as the early pioneers of rock music . Lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower , the principal American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary , argues that the terms hipster and hippie are derived from the word hip , whose origins are unknown. The word hip in the sense of "aware, in the know" is first attested in
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#17328911704612794-510: The Diggers , a guerrilla street theatre group that combined spontaneous street theatre, anarchistic action, and art happenings in their agenda to create a "free city". By late 1966, the Diggers opened free stores which simply gave away their stock, provided free food, distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized free music concerts, and performed works of political art. On October 6, 1966,
2921-930: The Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park , San Francisco, and the Monterey International Pop Festival popularized hippie culture, leading to the Summer of Love on the West Coast of the United States, and the 1969 Woodstock Festival on the East Coast. Hippies in Mexico, known as jipitecas , formed La Onda (The Wave) and gathered at Avándaro , while in New Zealand, nomadic housetruckers practiced alternative lifestyles and promoted sustainable energy at Nambassa . In
3048-516: The Protestant Cemetery, Rome . Ginsberg mentions Shelley's poem Adonais at the beginning of his poem Kaddish , and cites it as a major influence on the composition of one of his most important poems. Michael McClure compared Ginsberg's Howl to Shelley's breakthrough poem Queen Mab . Ginsberg's main Romantic influence was William Blake , and studied him throughout his life. Blake
3175-511: The Sunset Strip curfew riots , also known as the "hippie riots", were a series of early counterculture -era clashes that took place between police and young people in 1966 and continuing on and off through the early 1970s. In 1966, annoyed residents and business owners in the district had encouraged the passage of strict (10:00 p.m.) curfew and loitering laws to reduce the traffic congestion resulting from crowds of young club patrons. This
3302-522: The Vietnam War , embraced aspects of Eastern philosophy , championed sexual liberation , were often vegetarian and eco-friendly , promoted the use of psychedelic drugs which they believed expanded one's consciousness, and created intentional communities or communes. They used alternative arts, street theatre , folk music , and psychedelic rock as a part of their lifestyle and as a way of expressing their feelings, their protests, and their vision of
3429-596: The counterculture of the 1960s , accompanied by a shift in terminology from " beatnik " to " hippie ". Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. Notably, however, Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s politically radical protest movements as an excuse to be "spiteful". There were stylistic differences between beatniks and hippies—somber colors, dark sunglasses, and goatees gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair. The Beats were known for "playing it cool" (keeping
3556-407: The hippie and larger counterculture movements. Neal Cassady , as the driver for Ken Kesey 's bus Furthur , was the primary bridge between these two generations. Ginsberg's work also became an integral element of early 1960s hippie culture, in which he actively participated. The hippie culture was practiced primarily by older members of the following generation . Although Kerouac introduced
3683-490: The " New Left ", which was associated with anti-war college-campus protest movements. The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists , educators , agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms on issues such as gay rights, abortion, gender roles and drugs in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken
3810-520: The "Family Dog" hosted " A Tribute to Dr. Strange " at Longshoreman's Hall. Attended by approximately one thousand of the Bay Area's original "hippies", this was San Francisco's first psychedelic rock performance, costumed dance and light show, featuring Jefferson Airplane , The Great Society and The Marbles. Two other events followed before year's end, one at "California Hall" and one at "the Matrix". After
3937-527: The 1962 success of his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in his San Francisco villa. Members included Beat Generation hero Neal Cassady , Ken Babbs , Carolyn Adams (aka Mountain Girl/Carolyn Garcia) , Stewart Brand , Del Close , Paul Foster , George Walker , Sandy Lehmann-Haupt and others. Their adventures were documented in Tom Wolfe 's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test . With Cassady at
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4064-573: The 1965 LP The Rolling Stones, Now! Although the word hippies made other isolated appearances in print during the early 1960s, the first use of the term on the West Coast appeared in the article "A New Paradise for Beatniks " (in the San Francisco Examiner , issue of September 5, 1965) by San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon. In that article, Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn Cafe ( coffeehouse ) (located at 1927 Hayes Street in
4191-626: The 1968 spring equinox, when some 3,000 of them took over Grand Central Terminal in New York—eventually resulting in 61 arrests. Especially their leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin , the Yippies became notorious for their theatrics, such as trying to levitate the Pentagon at the October 1967 war protest, and such slogans as "Rise up and abandon the creeping meatball!" Their stated intention to protest
4318-475: The Aereo-Plain Band were bluegrass veterans Norman Blake , Vassar Clements , Tut Taylor , and Randy Scruggs . The sessions were controlled but relaxed, as Taylor commented, "John let us play what we wanted to play. 'Cause that's one of the beautiful parts about it—he just let us get in there and pick." Producer David Bromberg recounted, "We'd sit around and smoke pot and play "Sally Goodin" for an hour and
4445-622: The African-American community of the period and had developed out of the image "beat to his socks", but Kerouac appropriated the image and altered the meaning to include the connotations "upbeat", "beatific", and the musical association of being "on the beat", and "the Beat to keep" from the Beat Generation poem. The origins of the Beat Generation can be traced to Columbia University and
4572-614: The American folk music circuit. Berkeley's two coffee houses, "the Cabale Creamery" and "the Jabberwock", sponsored performances by folk music artists in a beat setting. In April 1963, Chandler A. Laughlin III, co-founder of the Cabale Creamery, established a kind of tribal, family identity among approximately fifty people who attended a traditional, all-night Native American peyote ceremony in
4699-590: The Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had an influence on American culture leading more broadly to the hippie movements of the 1960s. In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of "the essential effects" of the Beat Generation: The term " beatnik " was coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, blending the name of the recent Russian satellite Sputnik and Beat Generation. This suggested that beatniks were (1) "far out of
4826-424: The Beat Generation, the presence of some black writers in this movement did contribute to the movement's progression. While many of the Beats briefly discussed issues of race and sexuality, they spoke from their perspectives—most being white. However, black people added a counterbalance to this; their work supplied readers with alternative views of occurrences in the world. Beats like the poet Robert "Bob" Kaufman and
4953-487: The Beat Generation." As documented in the conclusion of The Dharma Bums , Snyder moved to Japan in 1955, in large measure to intensively practice and study Zen Buddhism . He would spend most of the next 10 years there. Buddhism is one of the primary subjects of The Dharma Bums , and the book undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the West and remains one of Kerouac's most widely read books. The Beats also spent time in
5080-516: The Beat movement. The Beats were inspired by early American figures such as Henry David Thoreau , Ralph Waldo Emerson , Herman Melville and especially Walt Whitman , who is addressed as the subject of one of Ginsberg's most famous poems, " A Supermarket in California ". Edgar Allan Poe was occasionally acknowledged, and Ginsberg saw Emily Dickinson as having an influence on Beat poetry. The 1926 novel You Can't Win by outlaw author Jack Black
5207-505: The Beats to be a major influence, including Thomas Pynchon ( Gravity's Rainbow ) and Tom Robbins ( Even Cowgirls Get the Blues ). William S. Burroughs is considered a forefather of postmodern literature ; he also inspired the cyberpunk genre. One-time Beat writer LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka helped initiate the Black Arts movement. As there was a focus on live performance among
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5334-419: The Beats were Guillaume Apollinaire , Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire . Gertrude Stein was the subject of a book-length study by Lew Welch . Admitted influences for Kerouac include Marcel Proust , Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe . Gary Snyder defined wild as "whose order has grown from within and is maintained by the force of consensus and custom rather than explicit legislation". "The wild
5461-410: The Beats, many Slam poets have claimed to be influenced by the Beats. Saul Williams , for example, cites Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Bob Kaufman as major influences. The Postbeat Poets are direct descendants of the Beat Generation. Their association with or tutelage under Ginsberg at The Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and later at Brooklyn College stressed
5588-521: The Beats. Cultural critics have written about the transition of Beat culture in the Village into the Bohemian hippie culture of the 1960s. In 1960, a presidential election year, the Beats formed a political party, the "Beat Party," and held a mock nominating convention to announce a presidential candidate: the African-American street poet Big Brown , won a majority of votes on the first ballot but fell short of
5715-571: The Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco), using the term hippie to refer to the new generation of beatniks who had moved from North Beach into the Haight-Ashbury district. A July 1967 Time magazine study on hippie philosophy credited the foundation of the hippie movement with historical precedent as far back as the sadhu of India, the spiritual seekers who had renounced the world and materialistic pursuits by taking " Sannyas ". Even
5842-506: The Haight. According to the hippies, LSD was the glue that held the Haight together. It was the hippie sacrament, a mind detergent capable of washing away years of social programming, a re-imprinting device, a consciousness-expander, a tool that would push us up the evolutionary ladder. Jay Stevens In June 1967, Herb Caen was approached by "a distinguished magazine" to write about why hippies were attracted to San Francisco. He declined
5969-600: The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks , concerning the murder. Beat Generation women who have been published include Edie Parker; Joyce Johnson ; Carolyn Cassady ; Hettie Jones ; Joanne Kyger ; Harriet Sohmers Zwerling ; Diane DiPrima ; Bonnie Bremser ; Lenore Kandel ; and Ruth Weiss , who also made films. Carolyn Cassady wrote her detailed account of life with her husband Neal Cassady which also included details about her affair with Jack Kerouac. She titled it Off
6096-405: The Holding Company came on stage, and six thousand people arrived to imbibe punch spiked with LSD and to witness one of the first fully developed light shows of the era. It is nothing new. We have a private revolution going on. A revolution of individuality and diversity that can only be private. Upon becoming a group movement, such a revolution ends up with imitators rather than participants...It
6223-583: The Japanese concept of yūgen . Mr. and Mrs. Jones were associated with several Beats ( Jack Kerouac , Allen Ginsberg , and Gregory Corso ). That is, until the assassination of the Civil Rights leader, Malcolm X . During this time, LeRoi Jones branched off from the other Beat writers, including his wife, to find his identity among the African-American and Islamic communities. The change in his social setting along with awakening influenced his writing and brought about
6350-525: The LSD that became a seminal part of the "Red Dog Experience", the early evolution of psychedelic rock and budding hippie culture. At the "Red Dog Saloon", The Charlatans were the first psychedelic rock band to play live (albeit unintentionally) loaded on LSD. When they returned to San Francisco, "Red Dog" participants Luria Castell, Ellen Harman and Alton Kelley created a collective called "The Family Dog." Modeled on their "Red Dog experiences", on October 16, 1965,
6477-788: The Northern Pacific Northwest including Washington and Oregon. Kerouac wrote about sojourns to Washington's North Cascades in The Dharma Bums and On the Road . Reed College in Portland, Oregon was also a locale for some of the Beat poets. Gary Snyder studied anthropology there, Philip Whalen attended Reed, and Allen Ginsberg held multiple readings on the campus around 1955 and 1956. Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen were students in Reed's calligraphy class taught by Lloyd J. Reynolds . Burroughs
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#17328911704616604-439: The Road , and it was published in 1990. Poet Elise Cowen took her own life in 1963. Poet Anne Waldman was less influenced by the Beats than by Allen Ginsberg's later turn to Buddhism . Later, female poets emerged who claimed to be strongly influenced by the Beats, including Janine Pommy Vega in the 1960s, Patti Smith in the 1970s, and Hedwig Gorski in the 1980s. Although African Americans were not widely represented in
6731-488: The U.S., and the movement eventually expanded to other countries, extending as far as the United Kingdom and Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico , and Brazil. The hippie ethos influenced The Beatles and others in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, and they in turn influenced their American counterparts. Hippie culture spread worldwide through a fusion of rock music , folk , blues , and psychedelic rock ; it also found expression in literature,
6858-434: The United Kingdom in 1970, many gathered at the gigantic third Isle of Wight Festival with a crowd of around 400,000 people. In later years, mobile "peace convoys" of New Age travellers made summer pilgrimages to free music festivals at Stonehenge and elsewhere. In Australia, hippies gathered at Nimbin for the 1973 Aquarius Festival and the annual Cannabis Law Reform Rally or MardiGrass . " Piedra Roja Festival",
6985-666: The United States, with 20,000 to 30,000 hippies gathering in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. On March 26, 1967, Lou Reed , Edie Sedgwick and 10,000 hippies came together in Manhattan for the Central Park Be-In on Easter Sunday . The Monterey Pop Festival from June 16 to June 18, 1967, introduced the rock music of the counterculture to a wide audience and marked the start of the "Summer of Love". Scott McKenzie 's rendition of John Phillips ' song " San Francisco " became
7112-494: The United States. The hippie movement in the United States began as a youth movement. Composed mostly of white teenagers and young adults between 15 and 25 years old, hippies inherited a tradition of cultural dissent from bohemians and beatniks of the Beat Generation in the late 1950s. Beats like Allen Ginsberg crossed over from the beat movement and became fixtures of the burgeoning hippie and anti-war movements . By 1965, hippies had become an established social group in
7239-612: The White House and chatted with a group of the hippie protesters. The draft was ended soon thereafter, in January 1973. During the mid-late 1970s, with the end of the draft and the Vietnam War , a renewal of patriotic sentiment associated with the approach of the United States Bicentennial , the decline in popularity of psychedelic rock, and the emergence of new genres such as prog rock , heavy metal , disco , and punk rock ,
7366-451: The accident and left incriminating notebooks behind. He was given the option to plead insanity to avoid a jail term and was committed for 90 days to Bellevue Hospital , where he met Carl Solomon . Solomon was arguably more eccentric than psychotic. A fan of Antonin Artaud , he indulged in self-consciously "crazy" behavior, like throwing potato salad at a college lecturer on Dadaism . Solomon
7493-502: The album a B+ rating, writing "I must admit that Norman Blake's guitar, Tut Taylor's dobro, and Vassar Clements's fiddle complement Hartford with tact, wit, and sly razzmatazz. But I insist that it's Hartford's funny, quirkish songs, rather than his banjo, that save me from continued boorishness." Stylus Magazine ' s 2006 review praised Hartford and the album: "It would be easy to call Aereo-Plain an 'Old Weird America' classic, but Hartford’s loves were never so static, and he seemed in on
7620-479: The artist Wally Hedrick to sit in the window dressed in full beard, turtleneck, and sandals, creating improvisational drawings and paintings. By 1958 tourists who came to San Francisco could take bus tours to view the North Beach Beat scene, prophetically anticipating similar tours of the Haight-Ashbury district ten years later. A variety of other small businesses also sprang up exploiting (and/or satirizing)
7747-399: The assignment but interviewed hippies in the Haight for his own newspaper column in the San Francisco Chronicle . Caen determined that, "Except in their music, they couldn't care less about the approval of the straight world." Caen himself felt that the city of San Francisco was so straight that it provided a visible contrast with hippie culture. On July 7, 1967 Time magazine featured
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#17328911704617874-449: The bands they loved, living communally in the large, inexpensive Victorian apartments in the Haight-Ashbury . Young Americans around the country began moving to San Francisco, and by June 1966, around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight. The Charlatans , Jefferson Airplane , Big Brother and the Holding Company , and the Grateful Dead all moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood during this period. Activity centered on
8001-415: The beatniks, or at least found the parodies humorous (Ginsberg, for example, appreciated the parody in the comic strip Pogo ) others criticized the beatniks as inauthentic poseurs . Jack Kerouac feared that the spiritual aspect of his message had been lost and that many were using the Beat Generation as an excuse to be senselessly wild. During the 1960s, aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into
8128-628: The city of Berkeley by the California National Guard . Flower power came into its own during this occupation as hippies engaged in acts of civil disobedience to plant flowers in empty lots all over Berkeley under the slogan "Let a Thousand Parks Bloom". In August 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair took place in Bethel, New York , which for many, exemplified the best of hippie counterculture. Over 500,000 people arrived to hear some of
8255-509: The counterculture of the Ancient Greeks, espoused by philosophers like Diogenes of Sinope and the cynics were also early forms of hippie culture. It also named as notable influences the religious and spiritual teachings of Buddha , Hillel the Elder , Jesus , St. Francis of Assisi , Henry David Thoreau , Gandhi and J. R. R. Tolkien . The first signs of modern "proto-hippies" emerged at
8382-627: The country, which played a significant role in spreading hippie ideals throughout America. In December 1969, a rock festival took place in Altamont, California , about 45 km (30 miles) east of San Francisco. Initially billed as "Woodstock West", its official name was the Altamont Free Concert . About 300,000 people gathered to hear The Rolling Stones ; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young ; Jefferson Airplane and other bands. The Hells Angels provided security that proved far less benevolent than
8509-426: The developing psychedelic rock scene. He and his cohorts created at this very place what became known as " The Red Dog Experience ", featuring previously unknown musical acts— Grateful Dead , Jefferson Airplane , Big Brother and the Holding Company , Quicksilver Messenger Service , The Charlatans , and others—who played in the completely refurbished, intimate setting of Nevada, Virginia City's "Red Dog Saloon". There
8636-546: The development of many of his most notable works, like Somebody Blew Up America , in which he reflected on the attacks of 9/11 and America's reaction to this incident about other occurrences in America. One of the key beliefs and practices of the Beat Generation was free love and sexual liberation, which strayed from the Christian ideals of American culture at the time. Some Beat writers were openly gay or bisexual, including two of
8763-492: The dramatic arts, fashion , and the visual arts, including film, posters advertising rock concerts, and album covers. In 1968, "core visible hippies" represented just under 0.2% of the U.S. population and dwindled away by mid-1970s. Along with the New Left and the Civil Rights Movement , the hippie movement was one of three dissenting groups of the 1960s counterculture. Hippies rejected established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons and
8890-424: The early 1960s, New York City , young counterculture advocates were named hips because they were considered "in the know" or "cool", as opposed to being square , meaning conventional and old-fashioned. In the April 27, 1961 issue of The Village Voice , "An open letter to JFK & Fidel Castro", Norman Mailer utilizes the term hippies, in questioning JFK's behavior. In a 1961 essay, Kenneth Rexroth used both
9017-441: The early 1970s. Large rock concerts that originated with the 1967 KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival and Monterey Pop Festival and the British Isle of Wight Festival in 1968 became the norm, evolving into stadium rock in the process. The anti-war movement reached its peak at the 1971 May Day Protests as over 12,000 protesters were arrested in Washington, D.C.; President Nixon himself actually ventured out of
9144-408: The emotions they felt toward jazz. They used their pieces to discuss feelings, people, and objects they associate with jazz music, as well as life experiences that reminded them of this style of music. Kaufman's pieces listed above "were intended to be freely improvisational when read with Jazz accompaniment" (Charters 327). He and other writers found inspiration in this genre and allowed it to help fuel
9271-605: The end of 1954 and began writing Howl . Lawrence Ferlinghetti , of the new City Lights Bookstore , started to publish the City Lights Pocket Poets Series in 1955. Kenneth Rexroth 's apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams , an old friend of Rexroth, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by Wally Hedrick To organize the Six Gallery reading , Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in
9398-495: The end of 1967, many of the hippies and musicians who initiated the Summer of Love had moved on. Beatle George Harrison had once visited Haight-Ashbury and found it to be just a haven for dropouts, inspiring him to give up LSD. Misgivings about the hippie culture, particularly with regard to substance use and lenient morality, fueled the moral panics of the late 1960s. By 1968, hippie-influenced fashions were beginning to take off in
9525-498: The end of the 19th century in Europe. Late 1890s to early 1900s, a German youth movement arose as a countercultural reaction to the organized social and cultural clubs that centered on "German folk music". Known as Der Wandervogel ("wandering bird"), this hippie movement opposed the formality of traditional German clubs, instead emphasizing folk music and singing, creative dress, and outdoor life involving hiking and camping. Inspired by
9652-559: The eventual nomination. The Associated Press reported, "Big Brown's lead startled the convention. Big, as the husky African American is called by his friends, wasn't the favorite son of any delegation, but he had one tactic that earned him votes. In a chatterbox convention, only once did he speak at length, and that was to read his poetry." Ginsberg had visited Neal and Carolyn Cassady in San Jose, California in 1954 and moved to San Francisco in August. He fell in love with Peter Orlovsky at
9779-442: The exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism , explicit portrayals of the human condition , experimentation with psychedelic drugs , and sexual liberation and exploration. Allen Ginsberg 's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs ' Naked Lunch (1959), and Jack Kerouac 's On the Road (1957) are among the best-known examples of Beat literature. Both Howl and Naked Lunch were
9906-445: The fact that LSD had just been made illegal—and to demonstrate that people who used LSD were not criminals, nor were they mentally ill. The Grateful Dead played, and some sources claim that LSD was consumed at the rally. According to Cohen, those who took LSD "were not guilty of using illegal substances...We were celebrating transcendental consciousness, the beauty of the universe, the beauty of being." In West Hollywood , California ,
10033-506: The first health food stores , and many moved to southern California where they introduced an alternative lifestyle. One group, called the "Nature Boys", took to the California desert and raised organic food, espousing a back-to-nature lifestyle like the Wandervogel. Songwriter eden ahbez wrote a hit song called Nature Boy inspired by Robert Bootzin ( Gypsy Boots ), who helped popularize health-consciousness, yoga , and organic food in
10160-431: The first three "Family Dog" events, a much larger psychedelic event occurred at San Francisco's "Longshoreman's Hall". Called "The Trips Festival ", it took place on January 21 – 23, 1966, and was organized by Stewart Brand , Ken Kesey , Owsley Stanley and others. Ten thousand people attended this sold-out event, with a thousand more turned away each night. On Saturday January 22, the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and
10287-566: The focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States. The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists , who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity. The core group of Beat Generation authors— Herbert Huncke , Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr , and Kerouac—met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus in New York City. Later, in
10414-669: The form of the Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca murders committed in August 1969 by Charles Manson and his "family" of followers. Nevertheless, the turbulent political atmosphere that featured the bombing of Cambodia and shootings by National Guardsmen at Jackson State University and Kent State University still brought people together. These shootings inspired the May 1970 song by Quicksilver Messenger Service "What About Me?", where they sang, "You keep adding to my numbers as you shoot my people down", as well as Neil Young 's " Ohio ",
10541-430: The freedom to dress up for weekly musical performances at their favorite ballrooms. As San Francisco Chronicle music columnist Ralph J. Gleason put it, "They danced all night long, orgiastic, spontaneous and completely free form." Some of the earliest San Francisco hippies were former students at San Francisco State College who became intrigued by the developing psychedelic hippie music scene. These students joined
10668-455: The full psychedelic music experience. Bill Ham, who had pioneered the original "Red Dog" light shows, perfected his art of liquid light projection , which combined light shows and film projection and became synonymous with the "San Francisco ballroom experience". The sense of style and costume that began at the "Red Dog Saloon" flourished when San Francisco's Fox Theater went out of business and hippies bought up its costume stock, reveling in
10795-473: The growing countercultural New Age movement of the 1970s. While many hippies made a long-term commitment to the lifestyle, some people argue that hippies "sold out" during the 1980s and became part of the materialist, self-centered consumer yuppie culture. Although not as visible as it once was, hippie culture has never died out completely: hippies and neo-hippies can still be found on college campuses, on communes, and at gatherings and festivals. Many embrace
10922-485: The hippie counterculture with stereotypical situations associated with the movement such as cannabis and LSD use, sex and wild psychedelic parties. Examples include The Love-ins , Psych-Out , The Trip , and Wild in the Streets . Other more serious and more critically acclaimed films about the hippie counterculture also appeared such as Easy Rider and Alice's Restaurant . (See also: List of films related to
11049-523: The hippie subculture .) Documentaries and television programs have also been produced until today as well as fiction and nonfiction books . The popular Broadway musical Hair was presented in 1967. People commonly label other cultural movements of that period as hippie, but there are differences. For example, hippies were often not directly engaged in politics, as contrasted with "Yippies" (Youth International Party), an activist organization. The Yippies came to national attention during their celebration of
11176-478: The hippie values of peace, love, and community, and hippies may still be found in bohemian enclaves around the world. Hippie communes, where members tried to live the ideals of the hippie movement, continued to flourish. On the west coast, Oregon had quite a few. Around 1994, a new term, " Zippie ", was being used to describe hippies that had embraced New Age beliefs, new technology, and a love for electronic music. Beat Generation The Beat Generation
11303-460: The hippies espoused has gained widespread acceptance, and their pop versions of Eastern philosophy and Asiatic spiritual concepts have reached a larger group. The vast majority of people who had participated in the golden age of the hippie movement were those born soon after the end of WW2, during the late 1940s and early 1950s. These include the youngest of the Silent Generation and oldest of
11430-510: The joke besides. Shame, then, that the augurs of American music never smiled on Hartford the way he beamed on them." All tracks composed by John Hartford; except where indicated Hippie A hippie , also spelled hippy , especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s , originally a youth movement that began in the United States during or around 1964, and spread to different countries around
11557-512: The mainstream media lost interest in the hippie counterculture. At the same time there was a revival of the Mod subculture , skinheads , teddy boys and the emergence of new youth cultures, like the punks , goths (an arty offshoot of punk), and football casuals ; starting in the late 1960s in Britain, hippies had begun to come under attack by skinheads. Many hippies would adapt and become members of
11684-520: The mainstream of society" and (2) "possibly pro-Communist." Caen's term stuck and became the popular label associated with a new stereotype—the man with a goatee and beret reciting nonsensical poetry and playing bongo drums while free-spirited women wearing black leotards dance. An early example of the "beatnik stereotype" occurred in Vesuvio's (a bar in North Beach , San Francisco) which employed
11811-476: The mainstream, especially for youths and younger adults of the populous baby boomer generation, many of whom may have aspired to emulate the hardcore movements now living in tribalistic communes, but had no overt connections to them. This was noticed not only in terms of clothes and longer hair for men, but also in music, film, art and literature, not just in the United States, but around the world. Eugene McCarthy 's brief presidential campaign successfully persuaded
11938-493: The meeting of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Carr, Hal Chase and others. Kerouac attended Columbia on a football scholarship. Though the beats are usually regarded as anti-academic, many of their ideas were formed in response to professors like Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren . Classmates Carr and Ginsberg discussed the need for a "New Vision" (a term borrowed from W. B. Yeats ), to counteract what they perceived as their teachers' conservative, formalistic literary ideals. Ginsberg
12065-493: The mid-1950s, the central figures, except Burroughs and Carr, ended up together in San Francisco, where they met and became friends of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance . In the 1950s, a Beatnik subculture formed around the literary movement, although this was often viewed critically by major authors of the Beat movement. In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into
12192-581: The most notable musicians and bands of the era, among them Canned Heat , Richie Havens , Joan Baez , Janis Joplin , Grateful Dead , Creedence Clearwater Revival , Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young , Carlos Santana , Sly and the Family Stone , The Who , Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix . Wavy Gravy 's Hog Farm provided security and attended to practical needs, and the hippie ideals of love and human fellowship seemed to have gained real-world expression. Similar rock festivals occurred in other parts of
12319-671: The most prominent (Ginsberg and Burroughs ). However, the first novel does show Cassady as frankly promiscuous. Kerouac's novels feature an interracial love affair ( The Subterraneans ), and group sex ( The Dharma Bums ). The relationships among men in Kerouac's novels are predominately homosocial . The original members of the Beat Generation used several different drugs, including alcohol, marijuana , benzedrine , morphine , and later psychedelic drugs such as peyote , Ayahuasca , and LSD . They often approached drugs experimentally, initially being unfamiliar with their effects. Their drug use
12446-424: The music than with Hartford's quirky songs and even quirkier approach... One of the attractions to this material is that Hartford seems to be in his element, just doing what comes natural to him... Aereo-Plain signaled the full blooming of his eccentric talent. This is an essential album for any fan, revealing both his genius and the glory days of early '70s progressive bluegrass." Music critic Robert Christgau gave
12573-587: The new craze. In 1959, Fred McDarrah started a "Rent-a-Beatnik" service in New York, taking out ads in The Village Voice and sending Ted Joans and friends out on calls to read poetry. "Beatniks" appeared in many cartoons, movies, and TV shows of the time, perhaps the most famous being the character Maynard G. Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959–1963). While some of the original Beats embraced
12700-403: The now locally famous Six Gallery poets. It was also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement since the 1956 publication of Howl ( City Lights Pocket Poets , no. 4), and its obscenity trial in 1957 brought it to nationwide attention. The Six Gallery reading informs the second chapter of Kerouac's 1958 novel The Dharma Bums , whose chief protagonist is "Japhy Ryder", a character who
12827-469: The phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948 to characterize a perceived underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York, fellow poet Herbert Huncke is credited with first using the word "beat". The name arose in a conversation with writer John Clellon Holmes . Kerouac allows that it was Huncke, a street hustler, who originally used the phrase "beat", in an earlier discussion with him. The adjective "beat" could colloquially mean "tired" or "beaten down" within
12954-415: The police, who saw the hippie movement as dangerous. The resulting legal actions and pressure caused Helms and Bob Cohen to close the venue at the end of that year. By the end of the summer, the Haight-Ashbury scene had deteriorated. The incessant media coverage led the Diggers to declare the "death" of the hippie with a parade. According to poet Susan 'Stormi' Chambless, the hippies buried an effigy of
13081-589: The public in the form of festivals and concerts. The Grateful Dead wrote a song about the Merry Pranksters' bus trips called "That's It for the Other One". In 1961, Vito Paulekas and his wife Szou established in Hollywood a clothing boutique which was credited with being one of the first to introduce "hippie" fashions. During this period Greenwich Village in New York City and Berkeley , California anchored
13208-582: The security provided at the Woodstock event: 18-year-old Meredith Hunter was stabbed and killed by one of the Hells Angels during The Rolling Stones' performance after he brandished a gun and waved it toward the stage. By the 1970s, the 1960s zeitgeist that had spawned hippie culture seemed to be on the wane. The events at the Altamont Free Concert shocked many Americans, including those who had strongly identified with hippie culture. Another shock came in
13335-539: The state of California declared LSD a controlled substance, which made the drug illegal. In response to the criminalization of LSD, San Francisco hippies staged a gathering in the Golden Gate Park panhandle , called the Love Pageant Rally , attracting an estimated 700–800 people. As explained by Allan Cohen, co-founder of the San Francisco Oracle , the purpose of the rally was twofold: to draw attention to
13462-427: The summer of 1967. The media was right behind them, casting a spotlight on the Haight-Ashbury district and popularizing the "hippie" label. With this increased attention, hippies found support for their ideals of love and peace but were also criticized for their anti-work, pro-drug, and permissive ethos. At this point, The Beatles had released their groundbreaking album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , which
13589-527: The terms hip and hep are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of African American jive slang and meant "sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date". The Beats adopted the term hip , and early hippies adopted the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation . Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic music , embraced the sexual revolution , and many used drugs such as marijuana and LSD to explore altered states of consciousness . In 1967,
13716-430: The terms hipster and hippies to refer to young people participating in black American or Beatnik nightlife. According to Malcolm X 's 1964 autobiography, the word hippie in 1940s Harlem had been used to describe a specific type of white man who "acted more Negro than Negroes". Andrew Loog Oldham refers to "all the Chicago hippies," seemingly about black blues/R&B musicians, in his rear sleeve notes to
13843-462: The weapon. Carr turned himself in the following morning and later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Kerouac was charged as an accessory, and Burroughs as a material witness, but neither were prosecuted. Kerouac wrote about this incident twice in his works: once in his first novel, The Town and the City , and again in one of his last, Vanity of Duluoz . He wrote a collaboration novel with Burroughs, And
13970-519: The wheel of a school bus named Further , the Merry Pranksters traveled across the United States to celebrate the publication of Kesey's novel Sometimes a Great Notion and to visit the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. The Merry Pranksters were known for using cannabis , amphetamine , and LSD , and during their journey they "turned on" many people to these drugs . The Merry Pranksters filmed and audio-taped their bus trips, creating an immersive multimedia experience that would later be presented to
14097-402: The works of Goethe , Friedrich Nietzsche , and Hermann Hesse , Wandervogel attracted thousands of young Germans who rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and yearned for the pagan , back-to-nature spiritual life of their ancestors. During the first several decades of the 20th century, Germans settled around the United States, bringing the values of this German youth culture. Some opened
14224-595: The world and life. Hippies opposed political and social orthodoxy, choosing a gentle and nondoctrinaire ideology that favored peace, love, and personal freedom, expressed for example in The Beatles ' song " All You Need is Love ". Hippies perceived the dominant culture as a corrupt, monolithic entity that exercised undue power over their lives, calling this culture " The Establishment ", " Big Brother ", or " The Man ". Noting that they were "seekers of meaning and value", scholars like Timothy Miller have described hippies as
14351-410: The world. The word hippie came from hipster and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village , San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and Chicago's Old Town community. The term hippie was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier. The origins of
14478-619: The writer LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) provide through their work distinctly Black perspectives on the movement. Kaufman wrote about a number of his experiences with the racist institutions of the time. Following his time in the military, he had trouble with police officers and the criminal justice system. Like many of the Beats, Kaufman was also a fan of jazz and incorporated it into his work to describe relationships with others. LeRoi Jones ( Amiri Baraka ) married Beat writer, Hettie Cohen, who became Hettie Jones , in 1958. Together with Diane di Prima , they worked to develop Yūgen magazine, named for
14605-500: Was a big part of the scene in the Village, as was Burroughs, who lived at 69 Bedford Street. Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and other poets frequented many bars in the area, including the San Remo Cafe at 93 MacDougal Street on the northwest corner of Bleecker, Chumley's , and Minetta Tavern . Jackson Pollock , Willem de Kooning , Franz Kline , and other abstract expressionists were also frequent visitors of and collaborators with
14732-400: Was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s , better known as Beatniks . The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest,
14859-472: Was afterward handcuffed by police), erupted in protest against the perceived repressive enforcement of these recently invoked curfew laws. This incident provided the basis for the 1967 low-budget teen exploitation film Riot on Sunset Strip , and inspired multiple songs including the famous Buffalo Springfield song " For What It's Worth ". On January 14, 1967, the outdoor Human Be-In organized by Michael Bowen helped to popularize hippie culture across
14986-477: Was arrested in 1949. The police attempted to stop Jack Melody (a.k.a. "little Jack") while he was driving a car in Queens with Priscella Arminger (alias, Vickie Russell or "Detroit Redhead") and Allen Ginsberg in the back seat. The car was filled with stolen items Little Jack planned to fence. Jack Melody crashed while trying to flee, rolled the car and the three of them escaped on foot. Allen Ginsberg lost his glasses in
15113-408: Was broadly inspired by intellectual interest, and many Beat writers thought that their drug experiences enhanced creativity, insight, or productivity. The use of drugs was a key influence on many of the social events of the time that were personal to the Beat generation. Gregory Corso considered English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley a hero, and he was buried at the foot of Shelley's grave in
15240-419: Was cited as having a strong influence on Burroughs. In many ways, Surrealism was still considered a vital movement in the 1950s. Carl Solomon introduced the work of French author Antonin Artaud to Ginsberg, and the poetry of André Breton had direct influence on Ginsberg's poem Kaddish . Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, John Ashbery and Ron Padgett translated French poetry. Second-generation Beat Ted Joans
15367-560: Was given shock treatments at Bellevue; this became one of the main themes of Ginsberg's "Howl", which was dedicated to Solomon. Solomon later became the publishing contact who agreed to publish Burroughs' first novel, Junkie , in 1953. Beat writers and artists flocked to Greenwich Village in New York City in the late 1950s because of low rent and the "small town" element of the scene. Folksongs, readings and discussions often took place in Washington Square Park . Allen Ginsberg
15494-622: Was introduced to the group by David Kammerer . Carr had befriended Ginsberg and introduced him to Kammerer and Burroughs. Carr also knew Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker , through whom Burroughs met Kerouac in 1944. On August 13, 1944, Carr killed Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife in Riverside Park in what he claimed later was self-defense. He dumped the body in the Hudson River , later seeking advice from Burroughs, who suggested he turn himself in. He then went to Kerouac, who helped him dispose of
15621-586: Was named "the only Afro-American Surrealist" by Breton. Philip Lamantia introduced Surrealist poetry to the original Beats. The poetry of Gregory Corso and Bob Kaufman shows the influence of Surrealist poetry with its dream-like images and its random juxtaposition of dissociated images, and this influence can also be seen in more subtle ways in Ginsberg's poetry. As the legend goes, when meeting French Surrealist Marcel Duchamp , Ginsberg kissed his shoe and Corso cut off his tie. Other influential French poets for
15748-584: Was no clear delineation between "performers" and "audience" in "The Red Dog Experience", during which music, psychedelic experimentation, a unique sense of personal style, and Bill Ham's first primitive light shows combined to create a new sense of community. Laughlin and George Hunter of the Charlatans were true "proto-hippies", with their long hair , boots, and outrageous clothing of 19th-century American (and Native American) heritage. LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley lived in Berkeley during 1965 and provided much of
15875-644: Was perceived by young, local rock music fans as an infringement on their civil rights , and on Saturday, November 12, 1966, fliers were distributed along the Strip inviting people to demonstrate later that day. Hours before the protest one of the rock 'n' roll radio stations in L.A. announced there would be a rally at Pandora's Box , a club at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights, and cautioned people to tread carefully. The Los Angeles Times reported that as many as 1,000 youthful demonstrators, including such celebrities as Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda (who
16002-537: Was quickly embraced by the hippie movement with its colorful psychedelic sonic imagery. In 1967 Chet Helms brought the Haight Ashbury hippie and psychedelic scene to Denver , when he opened the Family Dog Denver , modeled on his Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. The music venue created a nexus for the hippie movement in the western-minded Denver, which led to serious conflicts with city leaders, parents and
16129-456: Was the subject of Ginsberg's self-defining auditory hallucination and revelation in 1948. Romantic poet John Keats was also cited as an influence. Writers of the Beat Generation were heavily influenced by jazz artists like Billie Holiday and the stories told through Jazz music. Writers like Jack Kerouac ( On the Road ), Bob Kaufman ("Round About Midnight," "Jazz Chick," and "O-Jazz-O"), and Frank O'Hara ("The Day Lady Died") incorporated
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