POWER TO THE PEOPLE
30 RADICAL ALBUMS THAT CONTINUED THE FIGHT
mUSIC got angry in 1968 and it stayed that way for several years afterwards. In just about every genre, artists either immersed themselves in music that was sonically confrontational or wrote songs that were politically engaged, taking on The Man with fury, rage, contempt and wit. Racial issues were prominent, and in the ferocious, confrontational work of The Watts Prophets, The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron, the kernel of hip-hop was planted. The response of black musicians to the events of 1967 and 1968 ran the full range from a brutal sadness on Nina Simone’s brutal ’Nuff Said! to the commendably determined optimism of Curtis Mayfield.
White rock stars, meanwhile, tended to focus their rage on the Vietnam War or police brutality – sometimes both together in the case of The Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man”. Eric Burdon, The Doors and Creedence Clearwater Revival all produced incredible anti-war anthems, often incorporating military sounds into their music to add texture. Some artists were unambiguous about their desire for revolution, with acts like the MC5 and Jefferson Airplane boldly signing up for the cause, while others like the Stooges and the free jazzers expressed their feelings purely through the chaotic music they produced. Our list of 30 albums picks its way through the highlights from the era, focusing on the records that captured the confused, angry, revolutionary tone of the age.
1 COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH I-FEEL-LIKE-I’M-FIXIN’-TO-DIE Vanguard (released november 1967)
Country Joe McDonald and Barry “The Fish” Melton had been at the forefront of the Berkeley free speech and antiwar movement, and they had been playing the anti-war “Fixin-To-Die-Rag” since 1965. After turning electric, they embraced psychedelia – but “Fixin-To-Die” remained their anthem, a caustic attack on the military apparatus that was previewed at gigs by a cheerful shout of “F-U-C-K” from the audience. It remains the most charged moment on their second LP.
2 MOTHERS OF INVENTION WE’RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY VERVE (march 4, 1968)
Zappa’s cynicism meant he was determined to have it both ways, and this March ’68 album saw the Mothers attack police brutality on “Mom & Dad” but also take a pop at the West Coast hippie movement on “Who Needs The Police Corp?” and “Flower Punk”. Such moral equivalence became harder to maintain as 1968 turned increasingly ugly and battles lines were drawn, but the Mothers’ jarring, discomforting music captured some of the growing cynicism of the time.
3 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA columbia (march 6, 1968)
USA’s leader, Joe Byrd, was steeped in left-wing politics and avant-garde music, but was also drawn to oldfashioned ragtime, marching bands and Dixieland. This was mixed with electronica and psychedelia to create an aggressive, unsettling sonic collage – not unlike Zappa but with more feeling. The political theatre of songs like “Love
Song For The Dead Ché” were enhanced in live shows, when the band performed in front of a giant neon American flag while dressed as priests, Japanese soldiers or businessmen.
4 ERIC BURDON & THE ANIMALS THE TWAIN SHALL MEET mgm (may 1968)
Burdon still had half an eye on 1967 on this second LP with The Animals, which kicked off with the celebratory “Monterey”. But “Sky Pilot” was a sign that the Newcastle ex-pat could acknowledge present concerns, with a sardonic lyric about a military chaplain. This seven-minute ballad had the sound of guns and bagpipes, while flanging created the sound of chopper blades overhead. In the wake of Tet, it had considerable resonance.
5 THE DOORS WAITING FOR THE SUN elektra (July 1968)
Like Burdon, The Doors were still caught between two worlds and Waiting For
The Sun had pop whimsy alongside more serious fare. “The Unknown Soldier”, much like “Sky Pilot”, took on the Vietnam War with unambiguous lyrics, found sounds and music that satirised the military beat. One imagines that Jim Morrison’s father, commander of the US Navy at the Gulf Of Tonkin, would not have been impressed.
6 NINA SIMONE NUFF SAID! rca Victor (october 1968)
Several great black artists were performing on the weekend of Martin Luther King’s assassination, but few were captured on record. One stunning exception was Simone’s April 7 show at Westbury Music Fair in New York, which she dedicated to King and included a tragic new song, “Why? (The King Of Love Is Dead)” about the assassination. An electrifying version of “Backlash Blues” furthered the theme of bitterness and betrayal. Few LPs of the era would be as raw, sad and angry.
7 THE IMPRESSIONS THIS IS MY COUNTRY custom (NOVEMBER 1968)
Simone’s blues had been tackling social issues for decades, but with January 1968’s “We’re A Winner”, Curtis Mayfield composed one of the first soul anthems of the Civil Rights movement. He followed that up with This Is My Country, an album that reflected a more conflicted post-assassination atmosphere. Whereas “We’re A Winner” had been intended to unite a black audience, “This Is My Country” saw Mayfield confront the white world, politely warning “that you must face us at last”.
8 THE BEATLES THE BEATLES apple (November 22, 1968)
The Fab got heavy with “Helter Skelter” and “Revolution 9”, while the equivocal “Revolution 1” saw John Lennon debating the dialectics of rebellion, much to the fury of the left-wing, who felt he was hedging his bets. After Paris, Berkeley Square, the Kennedy and King assassinations and Chicago riots, the people were angry and it was felt The Beatles needed to reflect the mood. If they weren’t on board, who was?
9 ROLLING STONES BEGGARS BANQUET decca (december 6, 1968)
A couple of weeks later, the Stones answered that question with the furious double whammy of “Street Fighting Man” and “Sympathy For The Devil”. The former was just as equivocal as “Revolution 1” but came wrapped in an incendiary riff and happened to get released as a single just as Chicago erupted in riots. Rarely had the Stones shown such immaculate timing: they were even able to rewrite “Sympathy For The Devil” to reflect the death of Bobby Kennedy.
10 mC5 KICK OUT THE JAMS elektra (February 1969)
The MC5 had been preaching revolution for months. They managed to get themselves arrested during the Detroit ’67 riots and played amid the mayhem in Chicago. Their debut LP began with JC Crawford’s call to arms – “I want to see a little
revolution out there” – while a twin-guitar attack fuelled their take on John Lee Hooker’s “Motor City Is Burning”, written in the wake of the ’67 uprising.
11 JAMES BROWN SAY IT LOUD – I’m BLACK AND I’m PROUD king (april 1969)
Like the MC5, James Brown had had quite enough of this shit. “Say It Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud”, written in the summer of 68, was one of funk’s most impassioned celebrations of black empowerment. The Black Panthers loved it.
12 THE WATTS PROPHETS THE BLACK VOICES: ON THE STREETS IN WATTS ala (april 1969,)
Formed in the wake of the 1965 Watts riots, The Watts Prophets were a collective who fused jazz and poetry, reclaimed racial epithets and scared the shit out of white America as well as any black American not up for the cause. There was no room for subtlety in their short, angry evocations of black rebellion, epitomised by “Things Gonna Get Greater Later”, which was an outright declaration of war.
13 SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE STAND! EPIC (MAY 3, 1969)
“Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey” ordered Sly on
Stand!, which could easily have been a title of a song from The Black Voices. But the Family Stone were allinclusive, and “Everyday People” was a plea for equality more in the style of Curtis Mayfield. The band would get darker on 1971’s There’s A Riot Going On, informed by the Panthers, cocaine and the death of the ’60s dream.
14 PHIL OCHS REHEARSALS FOR RETIREMENT A&M (MAY 16, 1969)
Ochs beat Sly to the punch with this bleak commentary on 1968, epitomised by the untitled fifth track, on which he pointedly asked “Where Were You In Chicago?” Ochs had been at the August riots, and the album’s cover featured his gravestone saying he died in Chicago in 1968. This was dark stuff and on “I Kill Therefore I Am” he offered a brutal dissection of violent American conservatism.
15 ELAINE BROWN SEIZE THE TIME VAULT (SUMMER 1969)
Recorded in April 1969 and released later that year, Seize
The Time was the work of a Black Panther Party member who fitted revolutionary lyrics to rather polite loungejazz music. The Black Panthers proclaimed them as “the first songs of the American Revolution”, but they really showed the difference between propaganda and the real, raw and more radical anger bubbling up from the streets.
16 JOE HENDERSON POWER TO THE PEOPLE MILESTONE (SUMMER 1969)
Jazz expressed solidarity with the revolution through song titles (“Blues For The Viet Cong” by Stanley Cowell being a prime example) and music that rejected Eurocentric notions of melody. Some artists did this with free jazz, others by moving into funk or African rhythms. Henderson’s
Power To The People, with Herbie Hancock on electric piano, was futuristic hard bop, with titles like “Black Narcissus” and “Afro-Centric”.
17 THE STOOGES THE STOOGES ELEKTRA (AUGUST 5, 1969)
The Stooges’ debut LP epitomised the anarchy of the era. The music was abrasive and riotous, but the band’s lyrics were almost devoid of any political content. This was music as escapism, with Iggy rejecting the reality of the tattered American dream. “It’s 1969, OK/ We got a war across the
USA”, he sang on “1969” – an anthem of bleak disassociation that sounded like a street fight.
18 JEFFERSON AIRPLANE VOLUNTEERS RCA VICTOR (NOVEMBER 1969)
In contrast to the Stooges, the politically engaged Airplane went all in for revolution even as the music remained passively pretty. “Up against
the wall, motherfucker”, they sang on the pro-anarchist anthem “We Can Be Together”, while “Wooden Ships” grappled with nuclear war and “Eskimo Blue Day” contemplated ecology. The title was a take on religious charity Volunteers Of America: the band had wanted to call the LP Volunteers of Amerika.
19 STEPPENWOLF MONSTER ABC DUNHILL (NOVEMBER 1969)
Steppenwolf had been addressing social and political themes since their debut album, but were given a bigger platform after “Born To Be Wild” appeared on the
Easy Rider soundtrack (itself, an important document of the prevailing mood) and decided to use it to attack the Vietnam War.
Monster’s opening track “Monster/Suicide/ America” was an ambitious state-of-the-nation address, while “Draft Resister” celebrated the draft dodger as a national hero.
20 DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES CREAM OF THE CROP MOTOWN (NOVEMBER 3, 1969)
Motown’s apolitical reputation wasn’t entirely accurate – Smokey Robinson had released “I Care About Detroit” a year after the 1967 riots, while Abdullah (Joseph McLean) had released the powerful Pan-African anthem “I Comma Zimba Zio” in 1968. The success of “Love Child”
showed that the Supremes could take on big issues, and their most political engaged album was Cream Of The Crop, featuring “The Young Folks”, “Shadows Of Society” and a cover of “Blowin’ In The Wind”.
21 CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL WILLY AND THE POOR BOYS FANTASY (NOVEMBER 1969)
Like the artists of Motown, Creedence weren’t particularly given over to politics but that detachment allowed them to come up with “Fortunate Son”, one of the most forensic attacks on Vietnam. John Fogerty had been drafted in 1966, and here focussed on the hypocrisy of those who promoted war but who would never send their sons to fight. The clarity of his fury and the driving melody made this a counterculture anthem.
22 CHARLIE HADEN LIBERATION MUSIC ORCHESTRA IMPULSE! (JANUARY 1970)
Haden, who had played on Ornette Coleman’s Shape
Of Jazz To Come, formed the Liberation Music Orchestra in 1969 to express solidarity with the poor and oppressed through avantgarde music. Their experimental debut album was inspired by songs from the Spanish Civil War and included “Song For Ché”, “War Orphans” and “Circus ’68 ’69”, which was inspired the events in Chicago in 1968 and ended with a burst of “We Shall Overcome”.
23 THE GROUNDHOGS THANK CHRIST FOR THE BOMB LIBERTY (may 1970)
Inspired by the increasing heaviness of British rock in the wake of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, The Groundhogs’ third album began a journey that would culminate with
Who Will Save The World? in 1972. Thank Christ For The Bomb embraced anti-war sentiment on the funky “Soldier” and explosive title track, while “Rich Man, Poor Man” was a fairly sophisticated rejection of straight society.
24 THE LAST POETS THE LAST POETS DOUGLAS (MAY 1970)
While bands like The Groundhogs were thinking of dropping out, The Last Poets were ramping up the militant rhetoric. The band had formed in a Harlem park on Malcolm X’s birthday in 1968 and the Poets’ Alafia Pudim had jammed with Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles in 1969. The Poets celebrated black power using provocative poetry and the rhythm of hand drums, speaking to the street on tracks like “Wake Up, Niggers”.
25 GIL SCOTT-HERON A NEW BLACK POET: SMALL TALK AT 125TH AND LENOX Flying Dutchman (1970)
Like The Last Poets, SCOTTHERON was a street poet but one whose intellectual instincts were even more finely turned. His debut opened with his anticommercial statement “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, continuing to present a sharp, funny analysis of America’s racial conflict, both angry but self-aware. “Whereas once I wanted the white man’s love; now he can kiss my ass” he raps on “Evolution (And Flashback)”.
26 MILES DAVIS JACK JOHNSON COLUMBIA (FEBRUARY 24, 1971)
Davis expressed revolutionary concerns in musical terms on In A Silent
Way and Bitches Brew, and would soon use funk to reach a younger audience with On
The Corner. But Jack Johnson was more explicit, an album of jazz-rock fusion that celebrated boxer Jack Johnson. “I’m Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion of the world. I’m black. They never let me forget it. I’m black all right. I’ll never let them forget it.”
27 MARVIN GAYE WHAT’S GOING ON? TAMLA (MAY 21, 1971)
What’s Going On? was a landmark and not just in soul terms – not many artists in any genre other than folk would dare make an entire concept album about war, poverty, drugs and injustice. Gaye had wanted to do this since the Watts riots and he was vindicated, selling 2m copies in a year.
28 CURTIS MAYFIELD ROOTS CURTOM (OCTOBER 1971)
Like Marvin Gaye, Mayfield was increasingly confident about expressing his political views from the confines of the sweetest soul, but his mood was more optimistic. On “Get Down” and “Beautiful Brother Of Mine” he pleaded for understanding, while “Underground” saw him insist that “colour,
creed and breed must go,” a sentiment he had been expressing since his days in The Impressions.
29 ARCHIE SHEPP ATTICA BLUES IMPULSE! (AUGUST 1972)
Ever since 1965’s Fire Music, Shepp had shown his concern for social causes and like Pharoah Sanders he was using African rhythms to break with tradition. His two 1972 albums, Attica Blues and The Cry Of My People were among his fullest realisations of those concerns, with Attica Blues using a combination of jazz, blues and funk to mark in sadness rather than rage the 1971 riot at Attica prison, which left 43 people dead.
30 JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO SOME TIME IN NEW YORK CITY APPLE (SEPTEMBER 1972)
Lennon was still angry and this LP saw him tackle a raft of causes, from police brutality to the war in Ireland. Counterculture luminaries John Sinclair and Angela Davis were also celebrated. However, it seemed as if Lennon had missed the boat, and the LP was savaged as “witless doggerel”. In some ways, it marked the end of an era.