456 PART 4 | SINCE WORLD WAR II
with Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” widely received as a song about a drug
trip, psychedelic music connected the use of mind-altering drugs with music in
two ways. Some songs, such as the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” (1966) and Jefferson
Airplane’s “White Rabbit” (1967), addressed the topic in their lyrics, usually
veiled in metaphor. Other songs, such as “A Day in the Life,” the closing track on
Sgt. Pepper, used the music itself as an analogue for the drug trip, by stressing dis-
torted guitar sounds, “spacey” reverb, sped-up or reversed tape manipulations,
and other intentionally unnatural-sounding studio effects.
But psychedelic music was not confi ned to the recording studio. Rock concerts
in the late 1960s acted for some audience members as simulations of drug trips
and for others as accompaniments to the same. Such concerts, pioneered in San
Francisco, a capital of the youthful counterculture, often included light shows to
add a visual element to the high-decibel aural disorientation. Although they made
successful albums, San Francisco–based bands such as the Grateful Dead and Big
Brother and the Holding Company, whose lead singer was the passionate, gravel-
voiced Janis Joplin, made their greatest impact in live performances. For rock audi-
ences, participation in these events could be an expression of a group solidarity,
excluding nonfans and creating the sensation of a community favoring “rebellious”
personal identities and ready to scorn those outside the tribe.COUNTRY MUSIC FROM NASHVILLE
TO BAKERSFIELDCountry music underwent transformations in the 1960s that paralleled those of
rock and roll. And like rock musicians, country artists borrowed the advanced
production techniques of mainstream popular music to create records that
appealed to a broader, more diverse audience. But many country music lovers
saw the trappings of mainstream pop as posing a threat to the music’s integrity.K Janis Joplin (1943–1970)
at New York’s Fillmore
East in 1968, with visual
accompaniment by Joshua
Light Show: the epitome of
the late-1960s psychedelic
rock concert.172028_18_440-467_r3_sd.indd 456 23/01/13 11:02 AM