May 5, 2015: DISCO PART II

1. Play the video of the Village People on The Merv Griffin Show performing their hit song "YMCA." The Village People were named for New York City's Greenwich Village, an area with a large gay population and where the modern Gay Rights movement began in 1969 with the Stonewall Riots.
2. In your notebooks, please answer the following: 
   • According to the discussion, what is the attraction of a disco?  
   • Why might some people like this atmosphere more than others?
   • How would you describe the costumes and gestures of the Village People in their performance? 
   • How does the success of the Village People as a Disco band reflect the influence of gay culture on the Disco genre? 
   • Can you identify elements of this influence in any of the other videos viewed in this lesson?  Be as specific as you can.

Today's Lesson 5/1/15 - The Rise of Disco

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did Disco relate to the sentiments and social movements of the 1970s?

OVERVIEW

The rise of Disco in the 1970s had an enormous cultural impact on the American audience. It was the music they heard on the radio, the music they danced to. It affected fashion. It affected club culture. It even affected film.

Disco's roots were multiple. It had connections to R&B and Funk, but it was also born out of the urban gay culture in New York City. But no matter its roots, it quickly moved into the mainstream with a string of best-selling hits by artists from Donna Summer to the Village People. The phenomenally successful 1977 film Saturday Night Fevertook Disco's commercial popularity to surprising heights. The film’s soundtrack produced numerous  Top 10 hits and the album sold over 15 million copies.

The vibrant sound and energetic dance moves of Disco provided young people with an escape from what film critic Roger Ebert called “the general depression and drabness of the political and musical atmosphere of the seventies.” The economic prosperity and countercultural exuberance of the 1960s had faded. By the mid-1970s, crime rates soared and the combined “Misery Index” of unemployment and inflation reached new highs.

With that as the backdrop, the lure of Disco proved particularly powerful for working-class youth. AsThe New Yorker’s Pauline Kael noted in her 1977 review of Saturday Night Fever, the film and Disco itself centered on “something deeply romantic: the need to move, to dance, and the need to be who you’d like to be. Nirvana is the dance; when the music stops, you return to being ordinary.”

But almost as powerful as the embrace of Disco was the backlash against it. For those who grew up with three-minute songs, bands playing instruments, and the raw aesthetic of early Rock and Roll, Disco was part of a new problem. Ultimately, Disco's rise helped to foster the fragmentation of the 1970s and changed the shape of popular music culture.

PROCEDURE: 

1. Examine the cover of Newsweekmagazine from April 2, 1979, and answer the following questions: 

• What is Newsweek? What does the title of the magazine suggest about what it covers?
• What does this cover suggest about the popularity of Disco? Was it perhaps more than just a style of music? How would you describe the mood of the cover?  

2. Read the following quote: 

Everyone here knows that 1979 will go down in history as the year Disco became the biggest thing in pop since Beatlemania and possibly since the birth of rock & roll.”

-- Music critic Stephen Holden, quoted in Ralph Giordano, Social Dancing in America, 2007

3. Based on the quote, and what you know about music, as well as history, answer the questions that follow: 

• What is a discotheque? What do people do at a discotheque?
• Why might a particular style of music come to be known as “Disco”? What does the name imply about the purpose of the music?
• What does the quote say about how popular Disco was in 1979?
• Under what kinds of historical circumstances do you think people would be drawn to music that makes them want to dance? Times of prosperity? Times of economic hardship?

4.  Please view the following videos of songs that were major Disco hits in the 1970s: Peaches and Herb, "Shake Your Groove Thing"; Sylvester, "Mighty Real"; and Donna Summer, "Love to Love You Baby."  Answer the questions below, in your notebooks.  

1. • How would you describe the music? Is it fast or slow? What instruments are used? What kind of beat does it have?
   • How does these performers look different from, for instance, the Beatles performing "She Loves You"?
   • How are the performers dressed? What words would you use to describe their appearance?
   • Who are the performers? Describe them in terms of gender, ethnicity, etc.
   • What are the people listening to the music doing? What kind of mood do they seem to be in? How would you describe the style of dancing they are doing?
   • Why do you think many of these people have come to the disco to hear the music and dance? How might this music provide them with an escape from the issues that they face in their daily lives?

Today's Lesson 4/30/15 - The NYC Underground

This lesson considers New York City and the cross currents that run between the worlds of music-making and the arts in a broad sense, particularly the visual and literary arts. The epigraphs above provide a launching point for a discussion about one example of such cross currents. Lou Reed, a member of the Velvet Underground, a group Rolling Stone's David Fricke described in 1989 as, "arguably the most influential band of rock's last quarter century," describes becoming multiples of himself so that he can tour frequently. While Reed associates that with the Drifters, a vocal group that purportedly performed in latter-day incarnations that included no original members, But the more obvious line of influence for Reed's thinking goes back to Andy Warhol, the New York art world's most celebrated figure and onetime producer of the Velvet Underground.

As this lesson will describe, Andy Warhol was interested in the meeting place of "high" art and commercial art. Where the paintings of Rembrandt and Leonardo Da Vinci are single pieces, with museums across the world fighting to get one of these originals, Warhol created multiples. Much of his work was done using a silkscreening process that allowed him to create a "run" of paintings rather than just one. As a process, it was, at least to the fine-art world, shocking. When Warhol went one step further and sent a "copy" of himself to give a lecture at a college in Utah, he further offended the sensibilities of his patrons. Lou Reed, who described Warhol as the Velvet Underground's "catalyst," slyly picks up Warhol's line of thinking when asked about his active schedule: "There are five of me."

This flow of ideas between Andy Warhol and Lou Reed, illustrated in their actual or purported play with multiples, is representative of a New York experience. Surveying the city from the vantage point of 1976, Nick Kent, in an article from the Rock's Backpages archive, describes the scene thus: "Getting down to basics again, I'd confidently state that out of this current plethora of new N.Y. groups, at least five are capable of exceptional contributions to rock. It should be dutifully noted that at least four of those bands bear obvious heavy debts inspiration-wise to Lou Reed's work specifically within the framework of the [Velvet Underground]." The bands/artists he's referring to include Television, the Talking Heads, the Heartbreakers, and Patti Smith. But what did they draw from Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground? As this lesson will suggest, the answer wasn't always in the music itself. The example of Lou Reed was an example of the cross current described above, that movement of influence between the art world and the music scene.

Procedure: 

1. Read the handout of the article mentioned above from the Daily Utah Chronicle. Answer the following questions.
   • Do you think what Andy Warhol did when he sent an impersonator in his place, after booking himself to deliver a lecture, was right or wrong?
   • What do you think his point was?
   • Do you think there is artistic value in his act?
   • How do you think the art world reacted?
   • How do you think this is or is not an artistic act?
2. Andy Warhol was involved as producer with the New York Rock and Roll band the Velvet Underground. Watch an excerpt from an interview with Lou Reed, the former singer for the Velvet Underground, done in 1975 on a solo tour.  After watching the clip, answer the following:

• In what ways do you think Warhol might have influenced Reed?
• What in particular makes Reed seem a product of Warhol's thinking?
• What kind of presence is Reed?
• Would you want to be the interviewer? Why or why not?

3. Reflect on the ways in which an artist who is not a musician can affect a group of musicians or an individual performer.

• Could an artist affect a band's look?
• Could an artist or writer affect their songwriting?
• Could a filmmaker affect a band's visual appearance?

4/23/15 - Glam Rock Part III

1. Carefully look at the photos of David Bowie (1973), the New York Dolls (1973) and Slade (1974). Please note that these performers were associated with a subgenre of Rock and Roll known as Glam (alternately referred to as Glitter Rock), a style of music and performance that occurred in the United States and Great Britain in the early 1970s. 

• Describe how the performers are dressed. 
• What are some professional or artistic reasons why performers might dress this way?
• What reactions might a teenager receive for dressing this way in public?

2. Watch the clip of an interview with David Bowie (1973).

• How does Bowie’s description of himself as someone who “collects personalities” help explain his physical appearance?
• Why might a teenager want to emulate Bowie’s fashion choices or adopt his “hodgepodge philosophy”?

3. Read Handout 2 – Timeline of the Early 1970s. Ask students to complete an engaged reading of the timeline on their own.  Write down any historical events that might have had a particular significance for someone in junior high or high school during these years.

• Which events on the timeline do you recognize?
• Which events do you think had a greater meaning for people who had actively participated in the cultural and political events of the 1960s? Why?
• Do you see any events that seem to relate directly to teenagers? If you were a teenager at this time, do you think you would have felt a part of the culture or outside of it? Explain.

4. Watch the trailer for American Graffiti (1973). This film was one of the highest grossing movies of 1973.  In other words, a lot of people went to see this movie!  

• How is early Rock and Roll music from the late 1950s and early 1960s used in American Graffiti? Why do you think the filmmaker selected this particular music for the soundtrack?
• The tagline of American Graffiti asks, “Where were you in ’62?” If you are 16 when this film is released in 1973, how old were you in 1962? Do you think this film would have resonated with you? Why or why not?

5. Read Handout 3 – Alice Cooper.  Please watch the clip of Alice Cooper performing “I'm Eighteen” (1971).  Carefully study the lyrics to "I'm Eighteen"  

• How does Alice Cooper seem to challenge the “seriousness” of the early 1970s? Is the band’s performance intended to be funny, serious, or somewhere in between?
• Is the host’s warning valid about how Alice Cooper’s performance could be construed as “offensive” to certain audiences? Why or why not?
• Based on both lyrics and music, what might a teenager find relatable in this song?
• “I’m Eighteen” reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. Based on the events on the timeline of the early 1970s, why do you think this song was so successful? 

SUMMARY: 

What about the idea of creating one's own identity—such as the “image” of Alice Cooper—might appeal to a teenager in the early 1970s?

Today's Lesson 4/22/15 - Glam Rock Part II

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How was Glam Rock part of a new teenage culture in the 1970s?

OVERVIEW

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, popular music culture had grown up and grown serious.

Songs from the period, whether James Taylor's "Fire and Rain," Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," or the Eagles' "Desperado," showed artists turning inward and emphasizing musical virtuosity. Singer-songwriters performed to seated houses, but even Rock and Roll audiences had become more passive than participatory. It was a culture that embraced denim, facial hair, and  hippie-ish attire—the trappings of a “laid-back” sensibility—as symbols of their time.

A somber mood hung over not just the music but the country. In May 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired upon unarmed Kent State University students protesting U.S. Military operations in Cambodia, killing four and wounding nine. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young would respond to the incident in their song “Ohio,” recorded and released less than three weeks after the shooting. Later that year, trials began for American soldiers implicated in the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam. And in 1972, the Watergate scandal broke, ultimately bringing down President Nixon and further shaking the public’s trust in government.

With the spirit of the 1960s still in the air, the focus remained on a population that came of age in that era. But a new generation of teenagers, too young to have marched on Washington or been eligible for the draft were left in the shadows, without a clear identity. Who were among the next generation of teenagers? And what was their music?

With television’s All in the Family and George Lucas’s film American Graffiti major success stories, it seemed that the baby boomers were all that one heard about, talked about, or watched on the screen. The teenager of the early 1970s was all but invisible.

"Glam" became the buzzword for a new teen-focused music that cut through the seriousness and signaled a return to rudimentary Rock and Roll, awash in flamboyant fashions and theatrical posturing. Glam records were sometimes “bubblegum”— unpretentious, adolescent, and fun—but at other times they were groundbreaking artistic works. Its representatives were David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music, Slade, Sweet, and others. David Bowie drew on his training in theater and mime to create his Ziggy Stardust persona, an androgynous alien-like humanoid who sang about space exploration and Pop superstardom. Alice Cooper combined horror movie spectacle with Rock and Roll anthems of teen angst, including “I’m Eighteen” and “School’s Out.” Teenagers of the early 1970s reveled in the made-to-shock styles and recordings of their new heroes. The hippie met his match.

Through an examination of musical performances, film trailers, television interviews, and archival photographs, students will investigate the cultural landscape of the early 1970s to better understand the rise of Glam and what the music offered teenage audiences who came of age after the radical social movements of the 1960s. 

Procedure: 

1.  Please copy the chart in the enclosed HANDOUT

2. Watch the clip of the Eagles performing “Desperado” (1973).  Then, watch the  clip of Sweet performing “Ballroom Blitz” (1973). 

• How are these two performances different from one another?
• Between the Eagles and Sweet, which of these two bands do you think is trying to make “serious” music for adults? 
• Which band do you think has a stronger appeal to teenagers looking to have fun? Explain your answers.

Today's Lesson 4/21/15 "Glam Rock"

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How was Glam Rock a reaction to the "seriousness" of popular music at the time?

OVERVIEW

In the wake of the somber introspection of the Singer-Songwriter movement, Glam Rock brought a sense of theater back to Rock and Roll.

With artists such as James Taylor and Gordon Lightfoot becoming major figures on the international popular music scene, many considered Rock and Roll to be losing its connection to the "show." For listeners who grew up with R&B, it was clear that things had shifted. If a James Brown live show included dance, costume, and theatrics, a James Taylor live show included none of that. Earnest, stripped down, often presented by a solo artist with a guitar or piano, the music of the Singer Songwriter movement aimed at intimacy and honesty.

Glam Rock was a kind of reaction, an unsettling opening up of the possibilities. It took different forms, from Roxy Music's Pop Art approach to Slade's back-to-basics Rock and Roll to David Bowie's theater of identity. But, across the board, it brought the "show" back to popular music.

This preliminary lesson centers on an investigation of Glam as a reaction. Through a set of comparisons, students will be asked to describe what they see as Glam Rock's fundamental characteristics.

Procedure: 

1. Watch the clips of Jackson Browne performing the song "Before the Deluge." As they watch, tell students to consider these questions:
• What is the mood of the performance?
• Does Browne appear to be focused on the audience as he performs? Describe the performance style as it relates to the conventions of musical showmanship.  In other words, is he more focused on playing, or relating with the audience? 
2. Play the clip of David Bowie performing the song "Rebel Rebel." Take notes on the performance. 

Today's Lesson 4/17/15

EQ: 
How was Heavy Metal involved in the 1980s controversy surrounding the creation of parental advisories for “offensive” music?

Background: 

In the early 1980s, Heavy Metal, which had begun as a somewhat marginal musical genre, began to enjoy mainstream success with the popularity of such bands as Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Kiss, and Twisted Sister. Around the same time, MTV was born, offering a new venue for popular music and a new way for it to enter American households on a grand scale. With their high energy and visual splash, Metal bands became a mainstay of the channel, bringing the music of these groups considerable attention not only from fans, but from parent groups who deemed much of it “offensive” and sought ways to shield their children from it.

At the height of Heavy Metal’s mainstream success the wife of then-Senator Al Gore, Tipper Gore, established the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) along with the wives of several other prominent politicians. The PMRC advocated for the creation of a labeling system that would warn parents of explicit content on recordings. After a contentious hearing in the United States Senate, the record industry agreed voluntarily to adopt a labeling system that would advise parents about recordings containing content that was explicitly sexual, referenced drug or alcohol use, or contained graphic language.  While many stores continued to carry recordings bearing these labels, some merchants—most notably Walmart—refused to carry recordings with advisory labels, a policy that Walmart continues today.

In this lesson, students will investigate the connection between the popularity of Heavy Metal and the emergence of the parental advisory system. They will consider who should have the power to declare a song “offensive” and whether or not access to such material should be regulated. They will further debate the merits of the labeling system, which is still in place, and consider whether or not labeling certain recordings should be considered censorship.  

Procedure: 

1. Review the list of the "Filthy Fifteen" .  Please note that the highlighted songs are from Heavy Metal bands.  In your notebooks, answer. 

• How many of these songs are from Heavy Metal groups?
• Based on what you know about Heavy Metal, why do you think such a high percentage of the songs on the list fall into this category?
• What conclusions can you draw about how some parents felt about their children listening to Heavy Metal from this chart? What does the chart indicate about the perception of Heavy Metal music in the mid-1980s?
• Could you conclude that the efforts of groups such as the PMRC to label and limit access to music was directed largely at Heavy Metal? Why or why not?

2.  

1. Watch  the video of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (1985) In your notebooks, answer:
   • What image do the performers in the video present?
   • What is the overall message of the song and the video?
   • Why do you think this song was included on the list of the “Filthy Fifteen?” What about it might be considered “offensive”? Why might parents not want their children to listen to or watch the video of this song?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 3/30/15

"Blue Eyed Soul Day 2" 

1. Watch the clip of Booker T. and the MGs playing "Green Onions." In your notebooks, or looseleaf books, write a reaction to their performance.  
1. How do you think Booker T. and the MGs embody what Dan Penn likes about Soul music?  What aspects of the song, the performance, or the group presentation to back up your answer.   
2. The kind of interactions between the white and black creative communities that Penn treasured were complicated interactions. In the late 1960s many walls separated the black and white population.
3. Watch an excerpt of an interview with Jim Stewart, the founder of Stax Records, the label that released Booker T. and the MGs' recordings. 
1. Encourage students to reflect freely on what they heard in the interview. 
4. Did something happen in music culture, in the worlds of men like Dan Penn and Jim Stewart, that was different from life in the culture at large?

R&R History Lesson 3/26/15

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did black artists and white songwriters and musicians interact in the Soul era, and what contributed to that interaction?

OVERVIEW

"I'd been digging black records for years and suddenly I got a chance to be involved in making them, even to go get a hamburger, that was all right with me – just to be there. And by being there I started getting lucky with some songs."

-- Dan Penn

If any single theme dominates this history of Rock and Roll, it is the theme of popular music culture as a place and an experience that allows a degree of racial mixing beyond what American everyday life offers. Again and again, new moments in Rock and Roll's ongoing history come when the boundaries that too often organize the races as separate are broken down. Most commonly, it has been black music that provides the primary materials, the inspiration and the talent that kicks off these changes, these moments. But oftentimes the contributions are the result of a kind of dialogue across racial lines. Booker T. and the MGs, a four-member Memphis combo comprised of two black and two white musicians, represents well the ideal form this dialogue can take. To be sure, their moment, 1960s Soul, is rich in examples.

This lesson looks at that juncture in Soul's history, when popular music and the Civil Rights movement seemed almost to be working in support of one another. Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, the Motown acts; so much was happening, and so much was "crossing over," getting to a wide, appreciative white audience. But the focal point here is not what was happening at the front of the stage. Rather, this lesson goes behind the scenes, to see where young white musicians and writers were working with African-American performers to create something that was truly born of a dialogue.

The focus here is one particular songwriter-producer-musician: Dan Penn. Only 14 when he had his first hit, "Is A Bluebird Blue," recorded by Conway Twitty, Penn was entranced by black music, Ray Charles and Bobby "Blue" Bland among his very favorites. As the epigraph above suggests, Penn found a way to get close to the world associated with just such artists, not caring if he was allowed in simply because he'd be an errand boy if one was needed. Along the way, he wrote some of Soul music's most enduring songs, including "I'm Your Puppet," "Out of Left Field," "Dark End of the Street," and "Do Right Woman." The artists recording those songs included Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge, James Carr, and James and Bobby Purify, all African-American singers. As a white songwriter, Penn was writing for those voices, and he would be the first to tell you: "I mean, white singers are okay, but black singers are better. You don't even have to think about it."

Our aim here is not to assign greater value to white or black voices but to consider the musical results when a class of young white musicians and writers felt unambiguously that black voices were better, and they started writing songs for those voices. In that moment, a dialogue was underway.

PROCEDURE 

1. Read the Rock's Backpages article about Dan Penn. Make notes as you read of any details you feel are significant.
2. When you are done, please answer the following questions: 
• Were you surprised that the songwriter of "Do Right Woman" is a man?
• Were you surprised that he is white?
• Based on what you read, why do you think Dan Penn wrote "Do Right Woman"?
• What part of the country was Penn from? Can you speculate on how that might have affected his musical interests?
• What does Penn say about the importance of white and black artists coming together?
• In Penn's view, did that collaboration across race lines allow for something special?
3. Compare two versions of another Dan Penn original, "I'm Your Puppet," the first recorded by James and Bobby Purify, the second recorded byDan Penn.
4. After you listen, make two lists describing what you hear in each version. 
5. Answer the following question: which version do you think Dan Penn might have preferred and why?

History of R&R Lesson 3/24 "The Roots of Country Rock"

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did Country Music influence Rock and Roll and the musicians who made it?

OVERVIEW

Long before there was a thing called Country Rock, Rock and Roll was deeply entwined with Country music. One could go so far as to say that without Country, there would be no Rock and Roll, Soul Music would be different in character, and the Rolling Stones would be a another band altogether. So, in some respects, the merger of Country and Rock shouldn't have surprised anyone when, in the late 60s and 70s, Bob Dylan released Nashville Skyline, the Byrds released Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the Flying Burrito Brothers formed, bands such as the Eagles came together, and the term "Country Rock" was put into circulation. When it comes to Rock, Country had, simply put, been there all the while. However, what the above acts did, in this particular historical passage, was to give Country a new emphasis.

This micro lesson looks to some of the early cross-pollination between Country and Rock and Roll. Taking Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" as an example drawn from early Rock and Roll, students will have the chance to see and hear Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys perform "Ida Red," the song Berry said provided source material for "Maybellene." In addition, students will watch two clips of Johnny Cash performing, engaging in a discussion of why it was that Bob Dylan might have felt a kinship with Cash, enough so that he asked Cash to record a duet of "Girl from the North Country," the track that would open Dylan's Nashville Skyline.

Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis: all grew up with Country. Jerry Lee Lewis, when citing his three greatest influences, put Jimmie Rodgers, the so-called "Father of Country Music" at the top of the list. In the years following his Rock and Roll career, Lewis would even change his direction and pursue what became a wildly successful Country career. Bob Dylan, years after Nashville Skyline, would bring together a group of artists for a Jimmie Rodgers tribute album. And Hank Williams is regularly cited as one of Rock and Roll's founding fathers, by the likes of Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen. Among African-American artists, the influence of Country was also strong. Taking Ray Charles' album Modern Sounds in Country Music as a kind of case study, students will consider just what an artist associated with R&B did with a song that came straight out of Country. And, finally, students will have a chance to write their own responses to this question: why did early Country matter to musicians in both the black and white communities?

Part I: 

1. Play the clip of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys performing "Ida Red." 

2. Read the excerpted lyrics for both "Ida Red" and "Maybellene." 

3. In your opiniont, what was it that Chuck Berry took from "Ida Red" when writing "Maybellene," lyrically, musically, and otherwise? 

Part II:
Based on the previous exercise, answer the following reflection questions: 

• What is at the heart of the narrative in "Ida Red" and, similarly, what is at the heart of the story in "Maybellene"? What elements do they share as stories?
• Why might the story within "Maybellene" have had an appeal in mid-century America? What do you think cars meant to the people in the listening audience?
• Do the songs have similar human themes? Is there romance involved?
• What musical sections of "Ida Red" are reminiscent of what you hear in "Maybellene"? Do the verses seem at all alike?
• Is the instrumentation of the two different? If so, in what ways?
• How do the performance style, the tempo, and the vocal presentation compare?

Today's Lesson 3/19/15 - Singer/Songwriters and the Environmental Movement

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s address the concerns of the environmental movement?

OVERVIEW

We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

-- Joni Mitchell, “Woodstock” (1970)

In 1962, marine biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a chilling account of the damage done to the environment by pollution, particularly in the form of chemicals and pesticides. Eight years later, on the first “Earth Day,” Americans all over the country joined in protests over the degradation of the country’s air and water, launching an environmental movement that continues today. Popular music began to reflect the same concerns.

This influence was particularly apparent in the work of the Singer-Songwriters. Some made assertive statements about protecting the land from the ravages of corporate greed: As Jackson Browne sang in “Before the Deluge,” “Some of them were angry at the way the earth was abused/By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power.” In “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell lamented that “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” and invoked a world where “They took all the trees / Put 'em in a tree museum / And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em.” Mitchell explicitly called attention to the insecticide DDT, a specific concern at the heart of Silent Spring. 

At the same time, many Singer-Songwriters expressed a more general unease about America’s increasing urban sprawl and suburbanization, and a longing for a closer connection to the land. “In my mind I’m gone to Carolina / Can’t you see the sunshine / Can’t you just feel the moonshine,” sang James Taylor in “Carolina in My Mind.” In “After the Gold Rush,” Neil Young painted a portrait of “a fanfare blowin' to the sun / That was floating on the breeze / Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s.”

In this lesson, students will analyze a series of songs articulating a connection to nature and the environment — a longing to “get ourselves back to the garden” — and examine the ways in which they reflect a growing attention to environmental issues in American culture. 

Procedure: 

1. Read Handout 1: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

1. Answer the questions below:
• How does Carson describe America in the first two paragraphs? How do the people interact with the environment in this world?
• What does she describe happening to America in the rest of the chapter?
• How does Carson develop the idea of the “voices of spring”? How is each voice developed? What does she suggest ultimately happens to these voices?
• How does Carson build her argument? How does her introduction of each “voice” build toward her conclusion?
• Do you think Carson is effective in painting a picture of what is happening to the environment? Why or why not?
• What do you predict the rest of Carson’s book deals with?
• Why do you think this book resonated with so many readers in the early 1960s?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 3/16/15

Today's lesson will wrap up our exploration of the contributions of female singer-songwriters to rock music in the 1960's and 1970's.  Here's what you have to do.   

1. Watch the clip of Carole King appearing with Jane Fonda and feminist Gloria Steinem on The Merv Griffin Show in 1982 (the interview begins at approximately 5:10 on the video, so you can advance to that point). Gloria Steinem is a well-known feminist writer and activist and the co-founder of Ms. Magazine.
2. Respond ot the following questions. 
   • What does Steinem say about the role played by women’s music in the 1970s?
   • Why do you think King (who has made very few television appearances over the years) wanted to appear with Steinem?
   • What does King say about her role in the women’s movement of the 1970s? Was she actively involved?
   • How does Steinem respond? What does she mean when she tells King, “You’re living it”?
   • Overall, do you think the music made by King and the other women in this lesson was political? Was it making a statement about changing roles of and attitudes toward women? Or was it just women making music that people wanted to listen to?
• What do you think women performing as Singer-Songwriters in this era contributed to popular music? Think about music today and the styles it includes, the themes it addresses, and the performers who are most successful.
3. How did the female Singer-Songwriters of the 1970s reflect changing attitudes toward women?
   Should their work be thought of as political, or were they just musicians making good music?
   
4. compare the female Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s to those popular today, such as Adele or Taylor Swift. In what ways is their work similar? In what ways is it different? Think about the musical styles as well as the themes they address in their work. Have these newer artists achieved popularity primarily with girls and women, or do they speak to a wider audience?

3/12 History of Rock and Roll

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did Aretha Franklin represent a new female voice in 1960s popular music?

OVERVIEW

When Aretha Franklin belted out, “What you want, baby I’ve got it,” in her 1967 recording of Otis Redding’s song “Respect,” millions of listeners could not help but agree. She had it. With a voice unadorned yet undeniably powerful, she quickly rose up the Pop charts. For many listeners, it may have been the first time they had heard of Aretha Franklin. However, when that single and the album on which it was included, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You, were released on Atlantic Records, it was certainly not her first recording project. She was a veteran artist who had released more than ten studio albums prior to that point. Aretha had been a Gospel ingénue as a young child, recording her first album at the age of fourteen. When “Respect” was released in 1967, she was coming out of a five-year recording contract with Columbia Records where she had released a string albums that revolved around a jazz-pop style. But there was a new energy to her Atlantic debut, backed by the famous Muscle Shoals rhythm section, “The Swampers.” The recordings made more of her Gospel heritage, blending those roots with an R&B feel that resulted in the 1960s Soul sound that we have come to know.  When "Respect" reached Number 1 on both the R&B and Pop charts, and Aretha garnered her first two Grammy Awards, it was clear the “Queen of Soul” had arrived.

Like many African-American vocalists, Aretha’s first foray into music was through her church. She was raised in Detroit, where her father, C.L. Franklin, was the preacher for the thousand-member New Bethel Baptist Church.  Black churches were not only centers of religious experience, they were also centers of social activity, giving a sense of community to a population affected by the upheaval of the Great Migration. The Great Migration changed the fabric of the nation, with millions of African-Americans moving to the North, seeking jobs and freedom. Vibrant black churches, like the New Bethel Baptist Church, flourished during the 1940s and 1950s in northern industrial cities.  Aretha’s musical style had roots in this history. Her father was nicknamed “the man with the million-dollar voice.”  He was a close friend with other pivotal, itinerant preachers, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and famous Gospel performers, including Mahalia Jackson and Clara Ward. Growing up, Aretha would often sing in church with her siblings, (her sisters, Erma and Carolyn, would eventually sing background vocals on albums throughout her career, including the famous “sock it to me” phrase on “Respect”). At eighteen years old, however, Aretha made a break from Gospel music. With the blessing of her father, and following the footsteps of Sam Cooke who had made a similar transition before her, she signed a record contract with Columbia to record secular popular music.

By 1967, the Civil Rights movement had cast a light on human rights issues, opening up a dialogue on women’s rights as well.  Just a few years prior, in 1964, Congress had passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, banning discrimination not only on the basis of race, but also on the basis of religion, ethnicity, and/or gender. Women, and in particular minority women, had long been excluded from certain institutions of higher learning, from job opportunities, from equal pay, and even from fair and equal government representation. In 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW), a grassroots group for women’s rights, was founded. There was a need for strong, feminine voices in a male-dominated society, voices that could redress the largely unspoken sexism of the time. Gospel, which as a musical genre had always elevated the female voice with singers like Mahalia Jackson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, provided a natural answer to the call. And Aretha, despite her move into the Pop arena, was in possession of a raw, riveting style. Her soulful blend of Gospel and R&B would prove to be just what some Americans needed to hear.

Today's Lesson 

1. Watch the 1968 film Aretha Franklin - ABC News Closeup 2. Complete Handout 1: Aretha Franklin Entry Ticket Prompt 

IF YOU DO NOT FINISH THE VIDEO IN CLASS, PLEASE FINISH FOR HW. 

3/10 - Female Singer/Songwriters Continued

1. Listen to clips of the following songs: 
   • Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock" (1971)
   • Janis Ian, "At Seventeen" (1975)
   • Carole King, "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman” (1971)
2. Carefully read the handouts for Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, and Carole King.
3. Answer the questions on each handout.  

History of Rock 3/9

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

What did the success of the female Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s reveal about the changing roles of women in the United States?

1. Read  Handout 1: Excerpt from Lyrics to "My Guy" and play the brief video of singer Mary Wells performing the song in 1965.
2. Answer 
• What is the song about? What kind of mood does it create?
• Explain to students that “My Guy” was written by Smokey Robinson, who also co-wrote the Temptations’ hit song “My Girl.” Ask: Why do you think he titled the song “My Guy” and not “My Boy”? What does this suggest about attitudes toward women in this period?
• Do you think a man is qualified to write a song expressing a woman's feelings about her relationship with a man? Why or why not? Was something lost in an artistic way when women were not writing their own songs to sing?
• Look at the lyric "I'm sticking to my guy like a stamp to a letter.” Overall, what does the song suggest about female roles? About what is worth singing about? About what is important in life?
3. Play the video clip of another hit from that era, the Shirelles performing "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" in 1964. Note that the song was co-written by Carole King and her then-husband Gerry Goffin. Answer 
   • What is the overall mood of the song? Is it similar to “My Guy?” In what ways? In what ways is it different?
4. Play the video clip of King performing the song, which was included on her 1971 album Tapestry.  Compare the two versions of the song, and then answer: 
   • Compare the performers’ appearances. How are they dressed? What kind of facial expressions do they offer? What image of themselves are they presenting?
   • What overall tone/mood does each version convey?
   • Compare the vocal styles of each performance. How are voices used in each version?
   • What are the performers in each video doing while singing? What message(s) do their actions convey? (Note: Be sure students notice that King is playing the piano, while the Shirelles are not playing instruments.)
   • Would you classify the performers in each version as “girls” or “women”? Why?

History of Rock n Roll Lesson 3/5/15

1. Play the first short clip from the 2008 BBC documentary Motor City's Burning: Detroit from Motown to the Stooges.  and answer the following questions. 
   • Is the sound of the song in any way similar to that of "High School”? If so, in what way(s)?
   • Does the song have a similar message to that of "High School”? In what way(s)? Be as specific as you can.
   • What happens musically in this clip? Does the sound change or develop much? How might the sound reflect what is being said in the lyrics?
   • Overall, what ideas do you think the band is trying to express in this song?
2. Play the second short clip from the documentary Motor City's Burning, of the Stooges’ Iggy Pop explaining his musical influences, and answer:
   • What did Iggy Pop find so impressive about the machine at the Ford Rouge plant? What did it represent to him?
   • Why would a band want to imitate this sound? Would someone who feels powerful in his or her everyday life be likely to feel the need to express him or herself this way?
   • What kind of person would say -- or what kind of experiences would lead someone to want to say -- “to hell with all this finery”?
   • How did the music of the Stooges and MC5 reflect that the residents of Detroit are “tough people”?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 3/2/15 - Detroit

In the history of popular music, some cities play a more significant role than others. New York and Los Angeles, by virtue of size, location, and proximity to the music industry, figure larger than anyplace else. In the midst of the British Invasion, London achieved a similar status. Nashville, too, carved out a special place, due to the fact that Country music's writers, performers, and most significant institutions settled there. New Orleans and Memphis, of course, are places with deep history that loom large. But out there in middle America are cities of real significance to the Rock and Roll story. Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit are among them. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin recounted the band's manager, Peter Grant, saying, ""If you blow it in Cleveland, you're finished. Don't even start." The heartland, for bands like Zeppelin, was a testing ground.

In this chapter, Detroit is singled out as a case study. Lessons will explore Detroit from a number of angles. The protagonists are diverse: John Lee Hooker, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, Berry Gordy, the Stooges, the MC5. In the age before the Internet, cities like Detroit could establish a regional identity that had its own logics. Artists could be stars in their region and almost unknown elsewhere, because radio and press were more regionalized. Bob Seger broke out as a major regional act well before he extended that reach with "Night Moves" and other national and international hits. Everything you needed was there at home, and every act that seemed to matter would come through.

A destination for African Americans coming north during the Great Migration, Detroit had a rich black culture that informed its Blues, R&B, and Soul offerings. And the quality of that music affected the white performers, from Mitch Ryder to Iggy Pop. The lessons coming in the second phase of this project will look at years in which a rich cross-cultural dialogue took place through music, with Motown Records, "The Sound of Young America," serving as a kind of emblem of what was possible. But they also look at the current status of the so-called "Rust Belt." So many years later, with the American auto industry largely gone, Detroit suffers. The city's music, whether that of the White Stripes or Eminem, has carried on, but never as it did in the golden age of the city's musical life.

Activity: 

1.  Read Handout 1: Detroit Job Description.  Based on the description, complete the chart, and the questions that follow.  

2. WATCH  1965 promotional video about the city of Detroit.  Then answer the questions below. 

• What image of the city does the video project? What words come to mind?
• How does the video use music to create a particular impression about Detroit?
• According to the video, what was the prosperity of Detroit built upon in the mid-1960s?
• What was the main industry in Detroit at this time?

3. LISTEN

“Hello, Detroit,” by Sammy Davis Jr..  Then, answer the questions below:

• What is the overall mood of the song?
• How does the song's image of Detroit compare with the image presented by the promotional video?
• Ask students why Berry Gordy might have been a Detroit "booster." 

Introducing Hard Rock - Assessment

1. Read Charles Shaar Murray's extended essay 
2. Based on that, write a three-paragraph description of Hard Rock's main features.  In other words, what are the main components of hard rock music?  What are the "essential elements?"