MUSICAL DECADES - 1960s - The Vietnam War
Vietnam: a conflict that has sometimes been described as the first rock ânâ roll war. The popular songs of the day helped sustain troops in their jungle outposts and provided a connection to home via American popular culture. Some songs also told about how people âback homeâ felt about the war and âthe boysâ who had gone to fight. So, today, I'd like to take a listen to a cross-section of songs from that era.
Creedence Clearwater Revival, often shortened to Creedence and abbreviated as CCR, was an American rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The band consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty, his brother rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford. Their musical style encompassed the roots rock, swamp rock, and blues rock. Despite their San Francisco Bay Area origins, they portrayed a Southern rock style, with lyrics about bayous, catfish, the Mississippi River, and other popular elements of Southern United States iconography, as well as political and socially-conscious lyrics about topics including the Vietnam War.
Since the 1960s, the children of lower income families have primarily made up Americaâs warrior class. During Vietnam, this inequity was a frequent topic of discussion and fueled this song by Gibson Les Paul legend John Fogerty. The âfortunate sonsâ were those of the upper class who were able to more capably avoid the draft
The song reached number 14 on the United States charts on November 22, 1969, climbed to number 9 the next week, on the way to peaking at number 3 three more weeks later, on 20 December 1969. It won the RIAA Gold Disc award in December 1970. Rolling Stone placed it at #99 on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. In 2014, the song was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
The Shirelles were an American girl group that achieved popularity in the early 1960s with songs such as âTonight's the Nightâ, âWill You Love Me Tomorrow?â and âDedicated to the One I Loveâ. They have been described as having a "naive schoolgirl sound" that contrasted with the sexual themes of many of their songs. Several of their hits used strings and baiĂŁo-style music. They have been credited with launching the girl group genre, with much of their music reflecting the genre's essence. Their acceptance by both white and black audiences, predating that of the Motown acts, has been noted as reflecting the early success of the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
"Soldier Boy" is a song written by Luther Dixon and Florence Greenberg. The song was released as a single in 1962 and met with great success, topping the US Billboard Hot 100.
Barry McGuire (born October 15, 1935) is an American singer-songwriter best known for the hit song "Eve of Destruction", and later as a pioneering singer and songwriter of contemporary Christian music.
"Eve of Destruction" was recorded in one take on a Thursday morning (from words scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper), and McGuire got a call from the record company at 7:00 the following Monday morning, telling him to turn on the radioâhis song was playing. The song hit #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the UK Singles Chart in September 1965.
Joseph Allen "Country Joe" McDonald (born January 1, 1942) is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.
With itâs chorus line âAnd itâs one, two three, what are we fighting for?,â there was no ambiguity in âI Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Ragâ, which Country Joe McDonald and his hippie band performed at Woodstock. The song also became known as the âFish Cheerâ and is still occasionally resurrected at peace rallies throughout the U.S. Here's the song as recorded at Woodstock:
Kenneth Ray "Kenny" Rogers (born August 21, 1938) is an American singer, songwriter, actor and record producer. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Though Rogers has been most successful with country audiences, he has charted more than 120 hit singles across various music genres, topped the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone and has sold over 120 million records worldwide, certifying his position as one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
"Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" is a song written by Mel Tillis about a paralyzed veteran of a "crazy Asian war" (given the time of its release, widely assumedâbut never explicitly statedâto be the Vietnam War) who either lies helplessly in bed or sits helplessly in his wheelchair as his wife "paints [herself] up" to go out for the evening without him; he believes she is going in search of a lover, and as he hears the door slam behind her, he pleads for her to reconsider.
The song reached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 4 in Canada and number 2 in the UK in 1969.
Barry Allen Sadler (November 1, 1940 â November 5, 1989) was an American military veteran, author, actor, and singer-songwriter. Sadler served as a Green Beret combat medic with the rank of Staff Sergeant of the United States Army during the Vietnam War. Most of his work has a military theme, and he credited himself in the proper Army form as SSG Barry Sadler, although his music usually credits read SSgt Barry Sadler. He is most famously known for his hit song "Ballad of the Green Berets."
Not all hits during the Vietnam era were protest numbers. In 1966 âBallad of The Green Beretsâ held Billboardâs number 1 chart position for five weeks straight. It is an unabashedly romantic and patriotic celebration of the U.S. Special Forces and obviously struck as strong a nerve in the American psyche of the day as any protest numbers.
This ends Musical Decades for this week. Thanks for listening and I hope to see you here next time.
(The information used in this post is from Wikipedia.)
Dominique "Nik" Petersen is an aficionado of "oldies" music and the author of The Dr. Hook Trivia Quiz Book. Read about it and her other books at the website:Â
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