HALF A MILLION RAIN-SOAKED FANS BRAVED WOODSTOCK, THE OUTDOOR ROCK FESTIVAL THAT, FROM A DISTANCE OF YEARS, WOULD BE VIEWED AS THE CLIMAX OF HIPPY CULTURE. THIS EVENT AND THE ROLLING STONES' DISASTROUS FREE CONCERT AT ALTAMONT - ALSO IN 1969 - ENDED BOTH THE SWINGING SIXTIES AND POP'S TURBULENT ADOLESCENCE.
Nearly all the old heroes had gone down. The Yardbirds, the Small Faces, the Walker Brothers, the Animals, the Byrds, the Spencer Davis Group, the Mothers Of Invention, the Dave Clark Five, Jefferson Airplane, the Zombies and, of course, the Beatles, had all either broken up, or were about to break up, leaving a residue of mostly tedious splinter groups, supergroups and solo performers to add to a growing pile. Many bands would reform, but such a possibility was denied the Jimi Hendrix Experience after the death of its leader in 1970 - though the Doors struggled on for a while without their late focal pint, Jim Morrison.
 The late Miles Davis: the oldest teenager in the business. |
The last most people would ever see of Elvis Presley would be on stage in a Las Vegas casino in the white garb of a rhinestone cowboy. After Altamont, the Stones luxuriated in St Tropez and tabloid gossip columns. Most of the rest either withdrew from pop altogether or marked time in cabaret or back-of-beyond dance hall where they were displayed as curious from the recent past.
While T Rex, Slade and Alice Cooper made their chart debuts in 1971, these harbingers of glam-rock were conspicuous by their absence on college juke boxes, full of album-enhancing 45s by Humble Pie, Deep Purple, Man, Black Sabbath and other "heavy" ensembles who appealed to male consumers recently grown to man's estate. Also in favour was the pomp-rock of ELP, yes and borderline cases like Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues, Deep Purple and - laced with grace-saving humour - Holland's Focus. From continent Europe too wafted the icy, Teutonic Dream, Can, Kraftwerk and Neu.
Jazz-rock also scored in sock-smelling university hostel rooms. Though Britain spawned respectable names such as East Of Eden, Colosseum and John McLaughlin, jazz-rock's truer home was the United States which abounded with the ilk of Weather Report, Return To Forever, the Jazz Crusaders and Miles Davis, who were often castigated for preferring technique to instinct. Most complaints were directed at the polysynthesizers and similarly expensive state-of-the-art keyboards that floated effortlessly over layers of treated sound on jazz-rock (and pomp-rock) discs - for, no matter how cleverly utilized, these seemed impassive and gutless against the potentially more thrilling margin of error with "real" instruments.
Rock music acquired a more human element around 1971 when Carole King's Tapestry began a sojourn in the US album charts. Tapestry was a less self-obsessed example from the early Seventies denomination of singer-songwriters who infested not only student dorms/bedsits but also the Top 40. Reaching out to self-doubting adolescent diarists rather than head-bangers, the genre was called "self-rock" if you liked it, and "drip-rock" if, like Melody Maker's Allan Jones in a scathing article, you didn't.
 John Hiseman's Colosseum strut their stuff at the 1970 Bath Festival. |
The bland uniformity of most drip-rock executants was another symptom of the post-Sixties doldrums. With all the charisma of a tin of beans, and lyrics that frequently made you embarrassed to be alive, Joni Mitchell, solemn James Taylor, Cat Stevens, twee Melanie or someone like them would utter "beautiful" cheesecloth-and-denim banalities on television specials, open-air gatherings and sold-out stadiums, having captured the general tenor of the bland "Woodstock Generation" - a re-run of 1967 without colour, daring or humour. Its anthem was Simon and Garfunkel's piteous 'Bridge Over Troubles Waters', and its house band Crosby, Stills and Nash, whose perfect harmonies were now enhanced with the high-pitched cantillations of Neil Young. The basic ethos was of being so bound up in yourself that every trivial emotion or occurrence was worth telling the whole world about. On stage, no Mick Jagger cavortings were necessary. All you had to do was sit on a stool, sing to your guitar and beam a small, sad smile every now and then.
Because some hip names had been printed on one of his LP jackets and he covered a few drip-rock classics, it was even cool to dig an easy-listening Mr Wonderful like Andy Williams whose chief ability was adapting just enough of prevailing trends to not turn off older fans.
One trend not investigated by Williams was a form of rock from the West Indies. While ska, bluebeat and further shades of Caribbean sounds were coalescing into the primeval atom of reggae, Desmond Dekker, Prince Buster and similar upmarket practitioners had enjoyed isolated hits. Yet it was to be despised by most of the so-called intelligentsia, until, via the auspices of Bob Marley, Burnin' Spear et al, reggae in the Seventies would outflank even blues as the new "twisted voice of the underdog" and student disco accessory. Rivalling Marley and his Wailers as 1973's toast-of-the-campus was New York's Steely Dan - but, after Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells had set the standard, "works" were very much de rigeur too. Jethro Tull, Yes and Hawkwind were among many prominent acts who cuts albums as a continuous entity, teeming with interlocking themes, links and leitmotivs. These records would leave their marks on the New Age meanderings of the Eighties and, before that, the classical-rock fusions of bands like Renaissance, the Electric Light Orchestra and glam-rock late-comers, Queen.
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