NEW YORK (AP) – Chrissie Hynde wouldn’t make a name for herself in music until a few years later, but her memories of how the daily 1971 soundtrack connected with time remain vivid.
Hynde had just left Kent State University in Ohio, where four students had been shot dead by the National Guard the year before. Neil Young’s incendiary song about the Ohio incident was playing when she told her story.
Your three words essentially provide the thematic message for the producers of the series. Through the indelible work of Marvin Gaye, Carole King, John Lennon and many others this year, they document how musicians reacted at a time when the 1960s dream was dying and it was unclear what would replace it.
“Some people run away and hide in drugs,” said James Gay-Rees, one of the show’s executive producers. “Some people write protest music and some find their identity. It really is a brilliant turning point. “
It was the year of Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” No. 1 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 best albums of all time. Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”. King’s “tapestry”. Lennon’s “Imagine”. The “Sticky Fingers” of the Rolling Stones. Sly & the Family Stones “There’s a riot.” David Bowie’s hit “Changes”. Gil Scott-Heron’s song that became a catchphrase, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”
Gay-Rees was 4 years old at the time. The series took three years to complete, mainly because of the arduous task of securing rights to 150 or so pieces of music after he was fascinated by the David Hepworth book 1971 – Never A Boring Moment: Rock’s Golden Year.
After a slightly unfocused first episode, the series fits into more thematic follow-up pieces. One episode focuses on King and Mitchell and breaking down sexual barriers, while “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” looks at black musicians and how they tackle issues such as poverty and government treatment with work that sounds fresh today.
Gay-Rees said he wanted to avoid the look of traditional musical documentaries, with recordings of creators sitting in control rooms talking about why they added this or that instrument.
Instead, songwriting is talked about in the context of time, so the series takes into account both the story of the year and the music.
“You can’t really make a movie about John Lennon writing ‘Imagine’ without asking why he wrote ‘Imagine’,” he said.
In addition to key music releases, the producers deserve credit for all of the video they unearthed, including the film directed by Lennon, producer Phil Spector, and the musicians who record the album Imagine. In another priceless clip, President Richard Nixon introduces a performance by the Ray Conniff Singers in the White House by saying, “If the music is square, it’s because I like it square.”
Nixon smiles frozen when one of the singers holds up a sign protesting the Vietnam War.
Similarly, the “Revolution” episode contains brutal footage of the uprising in Attica Prison with a discussion of Aretha Franklin’s participation in a charity for the victims.
Other topics include the emergence of glam rock after the breakup of the Beatles, how James Brown and other black artists fought racism, the rise of hard drugs and how this affected artists like the Rolling Stones and Sly Stone, and how George Harrison “concert for Bangla Desh “provided a template for future benefits.
While Gay-Rees said he was “not prone to nostalgia,” it’s hard to dismiss the quality of the songwriting.
Was it the best year for pop music?
“You can argue whether it was ’66 or 1950 or ’71,” he said. “But it’s been a pretty good year in every way.”
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