Militant Blues on Campus History of Rock Roll
Militant Blues on Campus History of Rock & Roll Chpt. 12
The Vietnam War
Vietnam Protest
The Psychedelic Blues • The music of the oppressed race • Made popular by College kids
Jimi Hendrix • Part Cherokee • From a broken home in Seattle • Hendrix and the Experience – Flower Children • Freely experimented with drugs • “Stone Free”
Jimi and the Blues • Rock’s greatest virtuoso • Grew up listening – Muddy Waters – Howlin’ Wolf • Honorable discharge as paratrooper • Played with: – Little Richard, James Brown & B. B. King
Psychedelic Jimi • Delivered loud, angry electric blues that captured the violence of the era. • Electronic devices – Wah-wah pedal – Fuzz box – Feedback
Machine Gun • Trying to express that at every moment there are terrible things going on all over the world – war, destruction, and terror…he wanted to open people’s eyes • “to all the soldiers who are fighting in Chicago and Milwaukee and new York, oh yes, and to all the soldiers who are fighting in Vietnam. ” • “That’s all I’m singing about. It’s today’s blues”
Wild Thing
Janice Joplin • Hitchhiked from Port Arthur Texas to San Francisco • Influenced greatly by Blues artist Bessie Smith • Razor sharp cries of anguish • Sang with several different groups: – Big Brother and the Holding company – Kosmic Blues Band – Full Tilt Boogie Band
Janice Joplin
Heavy Metal Thunder • Militant mood of the times • Delivering loud, explosive blues • Unfettered by psychedelia • Initially defined by Steppenwolf
Led Zeppelin • Reworked version of Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years” called “How Many More Times” • Lead guitarist Jimmy Page became one of heavy metal’s main stars
Led Zeppelin
Black Sabbath • Perfected the loud, aggressive blues that characterized heavy metal • Originally called themselves Earth • When they were “Earth” they did more blues from Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters & John Lee Hooker. • They began doing heavier stuff and in 1969 changed their name.
Black Sabbath
Led Zeppelin vs Black Sabbath
Ozzy Osbourne • Lead vocalist of Black Sabbath • John “Ozzy” Osbourne • “Now you consider everyone’s all jolly and tiptoein’ around, stoned on acid, havin’ Woodstock and all love, peace, sex, drugs and rock-’n’-roll, and all that’s great…but for us guys that were livin’ in this hole in the world, it wasn’t that way. ”
Ozzy Osbourne
Woodstock
Jimi at Woodstock
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