“Don’t know much about history.” Sam Cooke: “(What a) Wonderful World”

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This semester I’m teaching my first history course ever, America in the ‘60s, which has been a challenge because (one) I wasn’t even a history minor, much less a major, (two) I’ve never taken a course on the ‘60s [1], and (three) I’m beat (as in Ginsberged/Kerouaced [2]), i.e., beaten down. Like, every glance in the fluorescently brutal faculty restroom mirror finds me staring into the red-rimmed eyes of Charles Bukowski’s doppelgänger, a visage that makes Bill Murray look dewy.[3] It’s not the face of a novice teacher. Or a middle-aged teacher.

And this teaching a new course takes energy. I find myself in a sort of a footrace with my students, maybe half a block ahead, as I learn the material and create content through multimedia lectures. It always feels as if they’re gaining on me.

On the other hand, I have learned a great deal about civil rights and Vietnam. Ask me about the Little Rock Nine, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, or My Lai, and I can name names, Calley and Colburn, for example. In fact, when that trove of Kennedy assassination papers came out last week, I could better appreciate LBJ’s’ theory that JFK’s offing was tit-for-tat revenge after the CIA had sanctioned the assassination of South Vietnam’s sorry-ass Premier Diệm.

Of course, acquiring knowledge is a valuable side benefit of teaching. You reread Emerson and discover you were too young to appreciate him back when it was pimples, not crevices, you saw in the mirror. The Faulkner sentences you couldn’t unravel back then start singing. Hairs stand up on the back of your neck. Those hairs begin to samba.

Anyway, with those students in hot pursuit, I decided to segue from campus protests to the counterculture and the evolution of 60s pop music. I figured with my not inconsiderable knowledge of those areas, [4] I wouldn’t have to prepare as much, which hasn’t been quite true, but getting the scoop on Berry Gordy isn’t as nearly a downer as revisiting the 16^th Street Baptist Church bombing.

I don’t have a text, so, like I said, I’m creating the factual content in Keynote presentations that students download from my website. They’re pretty cool because you can embed videos without jumping off to access YouTube. You can watch Elvis swivel instead of reading descriptions of him swiveling.

I’ve divided the decade into four mini-eras: Early 60s (1960-3)[5], the British Invasion (1964-66), the Summer of Love (1967), and the Late 60s (1968-1970, including Woodstock and Altamont).

Of course, this division is overly simplistic. I’ve put Motown and Stax in the early 60s despite Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and Otis Redding’s triumphant, heartbreaking performance at Monterey in ’67.

One of the subdivisions of early 60’s is surf music, which I divide into vocal groups (Jan and Dean, The Beach Boys) and instrumental groups (The Safaris, Dick Dale). What occurs to me after watching some Dick Dale performances and interviews is that he might be one of the most under-appreciated innovators and influences in rock history.

Methamphetic bio: Arab descent, Eastern music scales, California surf breaks, Stratocaster reverb, souped-up riffs.

Dig this from 1963.

 

Hendrix in 1969

 

 

Hendrix famously said, “You’ll never hear surf music again.” Did he mean the Beach Boys? That Hendrix was so good surf guitars wouldn’t hack it?

Here’s what Dale says in an interview with Surfer Magazine:

I read that when Jimi Hendrix said, “You’ll never hear Surf music again,” that was in reference to your battle with cancer. Is that true?

You know what’s so funny? Why didn’t they say the rest of his sentence? Do you know what the rest of the sentence is?

No, I have no idea. What is it?

I had never missed a gig in my life, and I had a temperature of 104, and I couldn’t even talk…and had got hit real bad with rectal cancer. Jimi was recording in the studio and said, “I heard Dale did a no-show. That’s not like him. You know?”

His guitar player said, “No man, he’s dying.”

They had given me three months to live.

Then Jimi said, “You’ll never hear surf music again.” And then he said, “I bet that’s a big lie. Let’s pack up, boys, and go home.”

That was the full f–king sentence.

Gotta go.  I got class tomorrow and the British Invasion to tee up.

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[1] I did, though, pay attention while stuff was happening like the assassinations, the fire-hosing, the ’68 convention, etc.

[2] Pronounced Karo-whacked.

[3] The trade off in losing 25 pounds is resulting gaunt face looks older because facial fat has a Botox like effect.

[4] Note the arrogant modesty in the double-negative.

[5] I place Motown and Stax in this unit, though, of course, those artists flourished in the mid-to-late 60s as well.