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Perhaps the hottest rock act to ever come out of Boise, Idaho was (and is) the group Paul Revere & the Raiders, who saw considerable commercial success in the 1960s and early 70s with hits such as 'Kicks' and 'Hungry' (1966), 'Him Or Me- What's It Gonna Be?' ('67) and then in 1971 their only #1 single, 'Indian Reservation' ('Cherokee people, Cherokee pride...' -you know, that one). The band was together as early as 1958 as The Downbeats, and enjoyed an early Northwest-only regional hit with 'Like, Long Hair' in 1961. Influenced by British Invasion bands such as The Beatles,...

Down the Road a Piece is a boogie-woogie-style jam written by Don Raye. In 1940, a version was put to vinyl by the Will Bradley Trio that went on to be a Top Ten hit in the US. The song was subsequently recorded by a variety of jazz, blues, and rock artists. British band Manfred Mann -a beat/R-n-B group- released their cover version of it in 1964, on the album 'The Five Faces of Manfred Mann', a critically-acclaimed record that has been called "one of the great blues-based British invasion albums; it's a hot, rocking record that benefits from some virtuoso...

Emerging in the wake of the Fab Four's rise to worldwide fame, The Swining Blue Jeans were what was called a 'Merseybeat' band, in the style of other Liverpool groups inspired by American rock, doo-wop, and R -n- B genres and originating along the banks of the River Mersey in NW England. While not exactly one-hit-wonders, success was considerable -yet brief- for the band, as The Swinging Blue Jeans covered 'Hippy Hippy Shake' (like the Beatles) and scored a British #2 hit single with it (US = #24 on Billboard Top 100). They soon afterward charted with their version of 'Good...

The five Wiltshire lads who made up the individually-eponymous British group 'Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, & Titch' -also know by the acronymic moniker 'DDDBMT' formed a talented pop group who from 1965-1969 spent more time on the UK singles chart than even the Beatles.  The band had first come together in 1961, and after being paired with a pair of talented songwriters by their record label, success in the UK, Australia, NZ, and Germany was considerable -inc. two #1, million-selling singles- though they never really did fully catch-on in the States, where their best effort was #52 on the...

Where the Wild Things Are was the perfect fairytale for the post-Sixties era of navel-gazing psychobabble Maurice Sendak, author of a children's book so wildly popular that there was even a copy of it in the largely bookless house I grew up in, has died. He will always be remembered for Where the Wild Things Are...it will be the simple story of a naughty boy called Max who gets sent to bed and encounters various wild things, told in just nine sentences, for which Sendak will win his place in literary history. It is appropriate that Where the Wild Things...

There was something awful about the year 1968.I was but a lad at the time, merely seven or eight years of age, but almost everything on the T.V. terrified me. Terrible reports from Viet Nam, (where my father was at the time), the Tet Offensive nightly reports of death and casualties (was my daddy one of the ones killed?). Riots and anti-war demonstrations in America’s cities and college campuses. The first stirrings of militant feminism. A second hideous year of hippies with their “summer of love” nonsense, which was just an excuse for selfish, spoiled college kids to get high,...

I didn't start watching the television series "Mad Men" until this past September. I had heard things about it from Rush Limbaugh and others and decided to watch the first few episodes online to see if it was worth my time (and because ensemble series always require that you start at the beginning to understand the show). I eventually watched all four seasons on DVD and often went back and listened to the audio commentary to catch the director's perspective. For those not familiar, the series is about a small advertising firm at the turn of the 1960s and centers...

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.(Genesis 3:22-24)Once we were...

The Animals were a highly influential English rock/R-n-B group, formed in the early 60s in the north-east of England (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). They later in the decade relocated to the bustling London scene. Renowned for their gritty, bluesy sound and deep-voiced frontman Eric Burdon, the band is best known for timeless classics such as "The House of the Rising Sun", "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", and "It's My Life".   The Animals presented a unique blend of rock-oriented pop hits along with R-n-B material to fill out the albums.  Later -under the name Eric Burdon and the Animals- they moved to California and yet...

Noted academics seem to view the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations as a means of recapturing the 1960s, particularly if they missed the latter decade on the first go-round. For one thing, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has endorsed them. “The AAUP’s Council and Collective Bargaining Congress endorsed the Occupy movement last week–a move that, judging from the volume and intensity of e-mail responses, evoked strong feelings among our membership,” Gwendolyn Bradley writes on the Academe Blog. “For many reasons–including the fact that student access to higher education is increasingly threatened by mounting costs and loans and the fact...

Big Brother and the Holding Company came together in 1960's San Francisco, springing from the same historic Bay-area scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others. While the band was formed before Joplin came along, they became famous shortly after absorbing her as lead singer.  The chemistry worked, and soon they released what many consider to be a truly epic rock-n-roll record, the US #1 Cheap Thrills... Janis Joplin (1.19.43 - 10.4.70) herself was of course an American singer, songwriter and arranger. After dying far too young, Joplin lives on in in our collective memory as a star-crossed member of the...

Donovan (Donovan Philips Leitch 5.10.46) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music in a way that had substantial commercial appeal.  Donovan appeared in the UK early in 1965 with a series of live performances on the pop TV show Ready Steady Go!... and his popularity quickly spread from there. After signing with the British label Pye Records in 1965, he recorded a handful of singles and two albums in the folk music vein with leading independent record producer Mickie Most, scoring...

The Animals were an influential English rock group from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, formed in the early 60s. They later in the decade relocated to the bustling London scene.Known for their gritty, bluesy sound and deep-voiced frontman Eric Burdon, the band is best known for timeless classics such as "The House of the Rising Sun", "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", and "It's My Life" (below). The Animals presented a unique blend of rock-oriented pop hits along with R&B material to fill out the albums.  Considered in the U.S. as part of the British Invasion, The Animals underwent numerous personnel changes over...

The Hollies are an English rock group, formed in Manchester, England in the early 1960s. The band was not named -as popular legend has it- after Buddy Holly, but rather for the holly decorating the house of founding member Graham Nash at Christmas-time 1962. The Hollies are amongst the most musically-flexible survivors one can imagine, and the band became one of the leading British groups of the era, enjoying considerable international success delivering hits in varied styles. Along with The Rolling Stones and The Searchers, they are one of the few British pop groups of the early 1960s that have...

Since I have been exploring the impact of John Lennon on our culture, I have been asked more than once, Why Lennon ? Why single him out as if he was the one who debauched our culture? I don’t believe he is any more responsible for the decay of our society than any of the other hedonistic rockers of the sixties, so that is a good question. The answer is that Lennon serves as an ideal symbol ,a representative of an entire point of view, that is the sixties anti-christian assault on western civilisation. I believe that we have demonstrated...

Johnny Rivers (born John Henry Ramistella @ NYC 11.07.42) is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, guitarist, and record producer.... styles include folk songs, blues, and revivals of old-time rock 'n' roll songs in addition to some of Rivers' original material. Johnny Rivers's greatest success came in the mid-to-late 1960s with sequence of top US and international hits such as "Seventh Son", "Poor Side of Town", "Summer Rain", "Secret Agent Man" -theme to the TV show- then in the early 70's with a great cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu" that went to...

The baby boomers. Born between 1945 and 1955, they are busy ignoring the biblical calculus that a man's span is three score years and 10. Having enjoyed a life of free love, free school meals, free universities, defined benefit pensions, mainly full employment and a 40-year-long housing boom, they are bequeathing their children sky-high house prices, debts and shrivelled pensions. A 60-year-old in 2010 is a very privileged and lucky human being – an object of resentment as much as admiration. I'm at the heart of all of it – guilty as charged. Born 21 May 1950, I'm the quintessential...

false freedom… Posted on July 5, 2010 by billrandles “While promising them liberty , they themselves are the slaves of corruption, for by what a man is overcome, by that is he brought into bondage” 2 Peter 2 “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your shackles!” Karl Marx “All the world over, so easy to see, that people everywhere just want to be free…”(The Young Rascals) We live in an age of revolution. Everywhere on this planet people have been “breaking off the shackles” in one “liberation movement” after another in the quest for that...

godless righteousness… Posted on May 23, 2010 by billrandles Do you remember the social and moral revolution of the 1960′s? The youth movement of the left were destined to break all of the rules, and liberate society from the dreary bondage of the past. They were going to show us how to do it the right way! As an anthem from that day proclaimed,”All the world over so easy to see, that people everywhere just want to be free“. Isn’t it ironic that those same revolutionaries, now come of age, have created a society that is vastly more restricted than...

"There is a generation who curses his father and does not bless his mother There is a generation who is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness..."Proverbs 30:11-12 Do you remember the social and moral revolution of the 1960's?The youth movement of the left were destined to break all of the rules, and liberate society from the dreary bondage of the past. They were going to show us how to do it the right way! As an anthem from that day proclaimed,"All the world over so easy to see, that people everywhere just want to...