A Watershed Week In Folk And Rock Music History

If you enjoy the music of  the '60's this is a week to remember three landmark July events that shaped the industry then and continue to impact what we hear today. 

JULY 9, 1962: Bob Dylan

Dylan and Joan Baez, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 8, 1963

Bob Dylan was only 21 on July 9, 1962 when he walked into the Columbia Recording Studios in New York to record a song to be included on his second album. The song, Blowin' in the Wind, brought him fame and recognition as one of the nation's leading folk poets in the twentieth century. The lyrics and Dylan's comments on the song were published in June 1962 in the folk journal, Sing Out. He said this:

Too many of these hip people are telling me where the answer is but oh I won’t believe that. I still say it’s in the wind and just like a restless piece of paper it’s got to come down some ...But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know . . . and then it flies away.

The music critic, Andy Gill, said this about the song in his book, Classic Bob Dylan, 1962-1969: My Back Pages:

Blowin' in the Wind marked a huge jump in Dylan's songwriting. Prior to this, efforts like The Ballad of Donald White and The Death of Emmett Till had been fairly simplistic bouts of reportage songwriting. Blowin' in the Wind was different: for the first time, Dylan discovered the effectiveness of moving from the particular to the general. Whereas The Ballad of Donald White would become completely redundant as soon as the eponymous criminal was executed, a song as vague as Blowin' in the Wind could be applied to just about any freedom issue. It remains the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked, and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude.

JULY 5, 1965: Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane, first album released August 1966

On July 5, 1965, singer-songwriter, Marty Balin, watched a frustrated hootenanny try-out walk off the stage of The Drinking Gourd in disgust over his performance. Balin liked what little he heard and was impressed by the man's ambition. He went backstage and asked him, Paul Kantner, if he would join a band he was forming for his new Haight-Ashbury club called The Matrix. Kantner agreed. He didn't know it at the time, but he and Balin had just formed a band that would become Jefferson Airplane.

In a matter of days, another Drinking Gourd singer, Signe Toly Anderson, would join. Kantner recruited his downstairs neighbor, Jorma Kaukonen, as another guitarist. A local drummer and bass guitarist filled out the group. Kaukonen would convince Jack Casady to become their new bass later in the year.

Six weeks after Balin and Kantner had their backstage chat, Jefferson Airplane debuted as the house band at The Matrix on August 13, 1965. The band was an instant success and went on to release their first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, a year later. Signe Toly Anderson (vocals) and Skip Spence (drummer) soon left and were replaced by Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden.  The group's next album, Surrealistic Pillow, launched them to international success.

JULY 3, 1968: Crosby, Stills & Nash

CSN's first album, released May 1969

The Byrds had already fired David Crosby, Buffalo Springfield broke up leaving Stephen Stills without work, and Graham Nash felt far too restrained working with the Hollies. They knew each other through the music scene in Los Angeles and networks that develop naturally among like-minded folks. Crosby and Stills had already been jamming in Florida and elsewhere. Both knew Crosby through his American tours.

The catalyst in this story is the singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell. She shared Laurel Canyon, a neighborhood just north of Hollywood, with many other music industry notables and up-and-comers. Mitchell's home was described (Mark Volman) as "a little different...not so much maternal but about holding court in terms of songwriters who could find themselves there on any given night...and present their music to a kind of inner circle of people." On July 3,1968, circumstances brought Crosby, Stills, & Nash together at the house. "Nash asked Stills and Crosby to repeat their performance of a new song by Stills, You Don't Have To Cry, with Nash improvising a third part harmony." In a Daily Mail interview, Nash recalled, "That night, while Joni listened, the three of us sang together for the first time. I heard the future in the power of those voices. And I knew my life would never be the same."

Neither would music for millions around the world. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and later, Neil Young, would go on to phenomenal success. And so it was for Dylan and the members of Jefferson Airplane. Change would be about them and through all of it they would make music history for decades as their sounds and musical influences live on for appreciative audiences around the world.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Roman Scherman Collection, National Archives and Records Administration

Text:

wikipedia.org
history.com
classicbands.com, Rock and Roll History
youtube.com, Signe Toly Anderson interview, KGON Portland, 2011
youtube.com. Mart Balin: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, Joe Vertino, producer, martybalin.net, 2009
vanityfair.com, "An Oral History of Laurel Canyon, the 60s and 70s Music Mecca"," March 2115

Quotations, Crosby, Stills & Nash segment:

"You Don't Have To Cry" quote is from wikipedia.org
Nash quote, dailymail.co.uk
Volman quote: Hotel California: The True Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Barney Hoskins. Wiley, 2007