Music for most people is an outlet and an easy way to escape through the singers lyrics. In the sixties, the hippie culture practically lived through music. They fed off their favorite musicians and followed the lifestyles that were sung by the Rock ’n’ Rollers. The hippie youth began to dance, dress, overdose, talk, and basically live just as the rockers did.
One of the most successful and influential bands was the Rolling Stones; which Time magazine called, “perverted, outrageous, violent, repulsive, ugly, incoherent, a travesty. That’s what’s good about them.” The Stones displayed a darker and negative side of mankind. Fans went crazy over this offbeat group. Mick Jagger, the lead vocalist, was one of a kind. The band would often make headlines like “Stones throw TV out of the window.”
In 1965 America discovered the rock group, the Grateful Dead in the Haight-Ashbury district. The band had the early support of an alleged LSD chemist known as Owsley, and under its leader Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead developed a drug-related style called “acid rock.” In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Jerry Garcia quoted Grateful Dead band member Phil Lesh stating, "acid rock is what you listen to when you are high on acid." The group had a flock of fans known as the “Dead Heads” who gathered at the bands often free concerts. Grateful Dead is one of the most popular bands to the hippies.
A new form of music formed out of the psychedelic bands that played to the hippies in Haight-Ashbury known as the San Francisco Sound. Bands that were in the movement were, the Grateful Dead, the Diggers, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Santana and many more. The lyrical content of the San Francisco Sound was both intelligent and emotional. Lyrics were deliberately and often skillfully, poetic.
During the sixties two of the most famous singers emerged, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. The New York Times reported them to be, “the king and queen of gloriously self-expressive music.” The hippie counterculture went through a whirlwind of experimental drugs and rock music as they followed these musicians. On stage Jimi Hendrix played his guitar like no other instrumentalist could dream of. He would interact with it like the guitar was his lover and played rifts that seemed unimaginable. At 24 years old, Jimi was known as a rock star. He would put on shows of moaning, screaming, and heart rendering sound ending with the burning of his guitar. Also 24, Janis Joplin was the “soul belter.” From her style of dress to her style of music hippies loved her. She would stomp her feet, sway her hips, and wear jangling bracelets, funky dresses, and big floppy hats. Her voice was a bluesy one of a kind that screamed (literally) soul. These two stars began to heavily drink and use drugs and eventually their lifestyle caught up with them when they both died sixteen days apart, both were 27 years old.
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