The general decline in standards today

[Travis Lee Johnston]

It's funny how Sinatra thought Elvis was the leading cause of juvenile delinquency in the late 50's, yet Sinatra was a zoot suiter in the 40's. Ah the decline of youths.

 

[rue]

The thing is, most people of the time had little to no contact with hippies -- they were a phenomenon you saw on television, when Joe Friday lectured some longhair punk with sunglasses about LSD, or you saw in double-page spreads in Look magazine. I never saw a live, in-person hippy until the mid-70s -- they just weren't a presence in small towns or even small cities. And by the time they did filter down to that level, any ideology that drove the movement had long since been leached out, and it was just another marketing driven fad, or an excuse to get high.

That makes sense and I think you're right..... I believe most of the "hippies" had no idea what they were actually apart of and were just getting high and thinking it was a fun time.

 

[rue]

I don't know exactly where it started...but it did spread like wildfire. The time was right and the music was a big influence. The Viet Nam war brought a hopelessness to many of us..the deep emotional aftermath of what happened to Kennedy. The world seemed in such turmoil. It wasn't so difficult for us youngsters to prefer a land of fantasy. The real one had become a nightmare to deal with.

ugh... that music

 

[TidiousTed]

That makes sense and I think you're right..... I believe most of the "hippies" had no idea what they were actually apart of and were just getting high and thinking it was a fun time.

That would most certainly go for those here in Europe that called themselves hippies.

 

[TidiousTed]

ugh... that music

Like it or not, parts of that music was also pushing the evolvement of popular music forward in leaps. You may hate Jimi Hendrix' music but his guitar technique was revolutionary

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

The Doors hated the hippy thing, yet get pushed into that pool. If it wasn't for Iggy Pop seeing Jim Morrison, the Stooges may have never happened which was crucial in a lot of ways to what would become punk rock.

 

[rue]

Like it or not, parts of that music was also pushing the evolvement of popular music forward in leaps. You may hate Jimi Hendrix' music but his guitar technique was revolutionary

I'm just not a fan..... I was an 80s teenager and at the time I listened to all kinds of rock, but I was kind of like what I was saying about the hippies... just doing what I thought was fun and trying to fit in.

Basically all I listen to now are the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s with a bit of the 60s.... as in the Motown type stuff.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

What about all the people the hippies admired and emulated? Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, the Nearings, a lot of them were actually pretty Golden Age. I mean, unless the Great Depression doesn't count.

Well..singers came along in the mid/late '60s..like Arlo"Guthrie"singing a familiar folksy tune to some..but new to those my age. The same with many singers and bands that were actually singing their version of the blues of a different era. British blues being the 'best'..IMO. If you look at practically every '60s..early '70s singer or band..it was based on the more raw original sounds of the past. They chose songs/lyrics from the past to portray the 'depression' they now felt..and to relate to others eloquent lyrics that actually may have been written about something else entirely. However..with a new background and style it could seem to apply to us who needed the songs. For many of us..it wasn't realized until after the fact..where the basis of the music actually came from..or what it truely was. I think at the time..the hippies(me?) admired who was singing it now. Joplin...Moody Blues..Credence..Rascals....with little knowledge of music history. Afterall it was now!

 

[TidiousTed]

I'm just not a fan..... I was an 80s teenager and at the time I listened to all kinds of rock, but I was kind of like what I was saying about the hippies... just doing what I thought was fun and trying to fit in.

I loved Hendrix' music back when I was 17 - 18 (I’m born in 1953) but I haven’t listened to his music for ages, but neither have I thrown his record away. They are still there with the rest of my vinyl. To day I actually usually listen to much older music. But to put it in perspective, I have a 20 year old daughter who wakes up every morning to her alarm clock booming out All Along The Watchtower played by Hendrix

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Growing up now, there's little that the music industry has to offer me. Now and then a country song will come out that I go 'that's an okay song' but it just doesn't do it for me.

The instrumentation of music in general now is so pop/rock based that it just leaves me cold. So much of it isn't relatable, either. That's what I liked about country music, and it's strayed from that. Listening to rap music where they're talking about pimping hoes and stuff like that, just is awful. Even in country music, I hear them talking about smoking dope and stuff like that. I prefer Merle Haggard's line "We don't smoke Marijuana in Muskogee" to this stuff now.

Heck, just recently, a song called 'Dirt Road Anthem' came out. A country song, half of it is rapping! I don't wanna hear that in my country music! I said to a friend of mine, as they mention George Jones in the song "I bet the majority of people listening to this song have no idea who the Possum is!"

So, I stick with my older Country-Western, some oldies, Doo-Wop, Big Band, Polka, and Champagne Music a la Lawrence Welk. Sorry. I'm ranting.

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

It all comes from these fellas;

Charlie Patton
Robert Johnson
Chester Burnette
Son House
Blind Willie Johnson
Tommy Johnson

To name a few.

 

[TidiousTed]

Well..singers came along in the mid/late '60s..like Arlo"Guthrie"singing a familiar folksy tune to some..but new to those my age. The same with many singers and bands that were actually singing their version of the blues of a different era. British blues being the 'best'..IMO. If you look at practically every '60s..early '70s singer or band..it was based on the more raw original sounds of the past. They chose songs/lyrics from the past to portray the 'depression' they now felt..and to relate to others eloquent lyrics that actually may have been written about something else entirely. However..with a new background and style it could seem to apply to us who needed the songs. For many of us..it wasn't realized until after the fact..where the basis of the music actually came from..or what it truely was. I think at the time..the hippies(me?) admired who was singing it now. Joplin...Moody Blues..Credence..Rascals....with little knowledge of music history. Afterall it was now!

Very well put Daddy :eusa_clap

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

If country music still had a soul to steal in the more modern times, it would sound something like the "Fire Of Love" album by The Gun Club. Americana at its finest.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkp1CwGg-Kw&feature=related

I like this version lol

[video=youtube;epZxUhCE5l8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epZxUhCE5l8&feature=related[/video]

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Or Willie Nelson, or Bill Clinton for that matter

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

Grizzly Adams did have a beard.

 

[rue]

I like this version lol

[video=youtube;epZxUhCE5l8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epZxUhCE5l8&feature=related[/video]

lol

 

[Tango Yankee]

I would tend to agree with everything you said. The school in which this female teacher worked had police on duty, and I believe the parent was charged. I believe the teacher said that the parent was already on probation.

A niece was a 2nd grade teacher at a school in Cincinnati for a year a couple of years ago. While she was there a student's grandmother ran down the principal and his son when he tried to stop her from driving into the school bus exit. She didn't want to go in where the student pickup point was because there was water in puddles there and she didn't want to get her car dirty.

The niece also had to get restraining orders for a couple of different parents. She was also headbutted by one student and purposely tripped up by another as she was walking by.

For some reason, the school couldn't get her to stay on after that first year. [huh]

Now there's a decline in standards for you!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Tango Yankee]

Growing up now, there's little that the music industry has to offer me. Now and then a country song will come out that I go 'that's an okay song' but it just doesn't do it for me.

The instrumentation of music in general now is so pop/rock based that it just leaves me cold.

I've never liked most of "country" music. I grew up on rock (anyone else remember KMET-The Mighty Met in Los Angeles?) and pop (KHJ). But when I was a kid we had an album by the Sons of the Pioneers. Now that I liked and still do. For some odd reason I also liked Randy Travis when he was big in the '80s--even bought some of his CDs. Other than that the whole "we're jes' good ole boys who love "Ahmurica" theme leaves me cold. And I think the two-step was invented by a drunk cowboy with a broken hip.

But... in the '80s in Austin the C&W places with DJs would play some rock sets between the C&W and unlike the rock clubs you could actually hear someone you were talking to without having them screaming at you.

And what's with the line dancing? Again, back in Austin there were maybe two songs that were "line dance" songs. Now my impression is that everyone line dances to everything, and few two-step, waltz, or whatever the other actual dances were that I watched back then.

OK, inadvertant rant off. :eusa_doh:

Cheers,
Tom

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Ha, that is a lot of it, and a lot of what I like. I'm a sentimental guy, at times, and really love songs about America, though.

Other than that the whole "we're jes' good ole boys who love "Ahmurica" theme leaves me cold.