Rock 'n' Roll and War and Peace chronicles and examines the relationship between popular music in the Rock era and the politics and ideology of war and peace throughout the past half-century. This is a topic that, while it’s been touched on in a variety of ways, has never been deeply explored in a single coherent work, especially one that links the various eras and movements, from the 1960s through the 2000s. The book offers portraits of dozens of artists and insights into the meaning and impact of hundreds of songs across more than five decades. The focus of the first section, “Ending War,” is the Vietnam War and the 1960s Woodstock Generation: the first time in history that popular music turned against an active American war effort. The author reviews all of the highlights of this period of vintage protest music, from Folk pioneers Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, through Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye, to John Lennon and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. The dominance of these revolutionary artists, and of similar anti-war messages from a wide variety of musicians, represented a cultural and political shift of seismic proportions that would carry across generations. The second section, “Living in Peace,” then chronicles the musical and social transformation that followed the end of Vietnam hostilities starting in the mid-1970s: the rise of Folk Rock and mellow singer-songwriters, and a new introspective, detached and melancholy ethos within the growing Rock/Pop culture. The likes of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor carried forward the idealism of the ‘60s pacifist movements, but focused away from global geopolitics and inward on the dreams and insecurities of adulthood. A strain of peaceful Soft Rock came to dominate the post-War airwaves, which the chapter relives with insights into dozens of performers and songs of the period. Part 3 is then called “Returning to Battle,” and highlights the renewed focus on anti-militarism of the next generations of Rock musicians and fans. If the Woodstock movement could help end an ill-conceived war, how would those ‘60s veterans’ children respond when the next waves of war drums began to sound? The answers are found in a wealth of musical reactions to global events from the 1980s to the recent past: nuclear saber-rattling under Reagan and Thatcher; the unraveling of the Cold War and the Soviet empire; the first Gulf War; the 9/11 attacks; and the massive protests against the Iraq War. This latest period in particular has received relatively little attention compared with Vietnam era protest music, yet it yielded its own large body of diverse contributions: from major established stars (Springsteen, U2), highly popular newcomers (Green Day, Black-Eyed Peas), and senior veterans of the original movement (Neil Young). The story of these musical and ideological linkages, from the earliest roots of 1960s anti-war protests through the peaks of their revival in the 2000s, is one that will be of interest to a large audience of music fans, history buffs, and social activists alike.
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