Psychedelic Rock: The Counterculture Years
- Music History Hall
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Psychedelic Rock
Inspired by the poetry and music of the Beat culture, free-thinking young people flocked to the Bay Area around San Francisco in the 1960s and took up residence in the Haight-Ashbury district near San Francisco State College.
The hippie culture opposed militarism, economic materialism, sexual repression, and conformity. These free spirits were in favor of psychedelic drugs and open to Eastern religions such as Buddhism. Who were these young people?
They were the Baby Boomers—the children of the post-World War II generation. They had been raised mostly in white middle-class families in the suburbs with an idyllic American upbringing. But the 1960s was a time of profound change in the country. Women were protesting their civil rights, and the arrival of the birth control pill gave women freedom not available to women of an earlier time.
This was a generation of young people "dropping out" of mainstream society and challenging authority. Music was an extremely important element of the scene, and musicians were worshipped by their followers. By early 1967, an estimated 50,000 hippies resided in or near the Haight-Ashbury district. They wanted to "make love, not war" and thought they could change the world.
Psychedelic Rock musicians began to experiment and improvise on songs and would sometimes jam the entire side of an album. During the 1967 "Summer of Love," it is estimated that 100,00 hippies resided in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.
As opposition to the Vietnam War gained steam, there was a hippie pilgrimage to Woodstock, New York, during the summer of 1969 for "three days of peace and music" at the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival.
