60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes'' Revisited (10)

 

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, John Hammond Sr. recalled, additionally, the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...It was my son who originally told me that Bobby [Dylan]'s name was Zimmerman, because John was doing a gig out in Minneapolis. He said, `Dad, did you know that Bob's real name is Zimmerman, Bob Zimmerman, and that he went to the University of Minnesota?' And I said no, I didn't.

"Before he was signed...

"He didn't want to be the son of a--of a middle-class hardware dealer in Hibbing, Minnesota. Right?

"And of course, the...really bad thing that Bob [Dylan] and Albert Grossman did that I'll never forgive them for, they tried to get Billy James fired here for the Newsweek piece. And that was miserable, because Billy did more for Bob [Dylan] than anybody you can conceive of.

"...Newsweek wanted to do a cover piece on Bob Dylan, and Grossman wouldn't allow Bob Dylan to be interviewed.

"So...he did his own research then. And found out this whole story on the telephone. They asked a neighbor if they ever heard Bob sing before, and the neighbor said, `Don't you remember? We heard him at his bar mitzvah.'

"Herbert Saul, the music editor at Newsweek, who's a great guy. One of the best journalists in the business.

"...This was done to Grossman. This was done purposely to Grossman.

"...The other thing I always held against Bob [Dylan] was the treatment of Joan [Baez] in that Don't Look Back picture. I think that was a disgrace, because it was Joan who made Bob in England.

"And you know--he cut her right off. I thought that was unforgivable..."

And according to the text of her interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Joan Baez then told Anthony Scaduto:

"...I didn't really like `Highway [61]' until 3 years after it was written. I was mad at it. You know I was furious.

"I thought it was a bunch of crap...I felt as though he was inching away from being committed. He was...He did leave a lot of us in the lurch..."

As the following excerpt from the text of Anthony Scaduto's interview conversation exchange with Dylan, prior to Scaduto's biography of Dylan being published in the early 1970s, contained in The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan book which U. of MN Press published in 2022, indicated, Scaduto apparently allowed Dylan, himself, to exercise some control over the text included in Scaduto's early 1970s biographical book about Dylan:

SCADUTO: "Okay. Your notes about my book...At this stage I'm trying to see how I can sum you up. Basically, the problem is that everybody around town, all the cats in the Movement, are running around calling you a capitalistic pig who's ripping off the youth culture and say you should be giving your millions...It's pretty much of a campus attitude, among at least among people who are still involved in SDS and, you know the rest of that revolutionary kind of `nonsense'...You know, it's obvious that...these people...now feel you deserted them...This is what they feel about you now...

"The thing is, I want to make it clear that I cannot in any way take Sara and the children out of the book. I have cut it to a minimum...

DYLAN: "Well, I'm known to retaliate, you know.

SCADUTO: "I know you are. But first of all, you can't scare me.

DYLAN: "I'm playing in the big league and I'm sorry, you know...

SCADITO: "...Talking in terms of retaliation, that's being a little...okay, retaliate, man. No, seriously, I must mention Sara and the children. We can kick it around, we can talk it around, and if you've got ideas...

DYLAN:"...I'll tell you if I don't approve of it or not.

SCADUTO: "Okay.

DYLAN: "And if I don't approve of it, I'm past playing games too.

SCADUTO: "Okay.

DYLAN: "But I'm serious about it. And I'm just not going to stand for it anymore.

SCADUTO: "I don't know why you're getting tough.

DYLAN: "I'm just not going to stand for it. That's all.

SCADUTO: Yeah. But I don't really think there's anything you can do. Really.

DYLAN: Are you kidding?

SCADUTO: "I've taken a large step by letting you see the book in advance...And by sitting down with you and saying, sure, I'll knock out Rosemary McCarthy, if you object to that, to what that chick told me, I'm knocking it out...

DYLAN: "Well, that sounds pretty fair. Now this last part here about my wife and my children. I would like to see what you're going to write...

SCADUTO: "You've seen what I've written so far. You have it there...Okay, I'll show it to you when I write it.

DYLAN: "Okay."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (9)

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, John Hammond Sr. also recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"Bobby [Dylan] had just written `Blowin' in the Wind,' and Peter, Paul and Mary had heard [it]...

"...And so, when Artie Mogull at Witmark heard `Blowin' in the Wind,' he said, `Bobby, I want to sign you right away.' Bobby said, `...I just signed a contract with Duchess Music.'...But Artie Mogull, said `Well, here, Bobby, here's a thousand [equal to around $10,000 in U.S. dollars in 2025]. Why don't you go over and see if you can buy back your contract?'

"...So Bobby went over to Leeds, and...Hy Grill was running the office...

"...Artie insisted Hy took the $1,000 [equal to around $10,000 in U.S. dollars in 2025]...

"Bobby got his contract back and signed with Warner Bros....

"...We completed the second album, and this album started to take off, thanks to `Blowin in the Wind,' and thanks to the...work Peter, Paul and Mary had done with (the song). In fact, we put a special sticker on the second album saying `Featuring Blowin' in the Wind.'...

"I had made one goof...in the signing of Dylan. There's usually an automatic escalation clause on the contract. You know, you start at 4 percent, then you go right to  percent...When the contract came through...there was no escalation clause...

"So, by the time Bob [Dylan]'s contract was finished with Columbia, which was 5 years later--'66--there was a 1 percent thing which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars [equal to millions of U.S. dollars in 2025], which was being held in escrow...

"...You know, the big initial boost to Bob Dylan in this company was Johnny Cash [who entertained U.S. military troops stationed in Asia, on at least 2 USO tours in 1960s]...He was behind him every which way, and they all knew it. He made it known to Clive [Davis]..."

 

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (8)

 Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, John Hammond Sr. recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...The executive vice-president of our company [CBS's Columbia Records] was furious because I had not signed Joan Baez...Joan had come up, you see, and [Albert] Grossman was representing her. But just before I was with Columbia, I was with Vanguard Records...So Joan came up--and I was at Newport, you know, when Joan was there...Albert [Grossman] was asking a large advance for Joan. I said, `...Albert,...I'll give you a $1,500 [equal to around $16,000 in 2025 U.S. dollars] advance and, of course, top royalties.'

"Vanguard, I understand offered a $3,000 [equal to around $32,000 in 2025 U.S. dollars]. So, she signed with Vanguard. Now this is not for--just turn the machine off for a second.

"...Bob [Dylan]'s first album came out...And so, we had a wonderful publicity guy at that time called Billy James. And Billy and Bob [Dylan] really became very tight. And Billy got Bob [Dylan] full-page spreads in Seventeen and all the Leed publications and made a real character out of Bob [Dylan]. Columbia did a good job in promotions.

"But the first album was a dud...

"...So then, we were working on the second album...Then Bobby came into the office one day and he said, `John, do you know Albert Grossman?'

"I said, `Sure, I know Albert Grossman...' And he said, `Well, Albert has got a deal for me to go over to England and do a pilot for BBC.' And he said, `There's a lot of loot involved'--It was 2,000 bucks [equal to around $21,000 in 2025 U.S. dollars], which I could show you, because I've been lending Bob [Dylan] money...You know $75 [equal to around $800 in 2025 U.S. dollars], $100 [equal to around $1,000 in 2025 U.S. dollars]--things like that, when he needed it. I also got him a publishing deal. Leeds. He didn't have a publisher, and so [to] Lou Levy, I said `Lou, I got a real talented guy here.'...He said, `Send him over, I'll give him a $500 [equal to $5,300 in 2025 U.S. dollars] advance.' So, Bob [Dylan] signed with Duchess Music [an imprint of Leeds].

"He [Dylan] said `What do you think of Albert Grossman?' And I said, `Well, I can work with Albert...If you want to sign with Albert... go ahead.'

"...Turn the tape machine off..."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (7)

 

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of her interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Carolyn Hester recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...He [Dylan] had Grossman as manager and he had the distribution of Columbia Records behind him..."

And according to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Barry Kornfeld recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's 1960's life:

"...Through the `Don't Look Back' period...success...really...fucked him up a lot and he's insulated himself a lot and surrounded himself with the sycophants who told him that his every fart was `art'.

"...I found that, the singing, as far as singing, I absolutely cannot listen to that whole period. That whining style that he developed I found to be so annoying, really like a fingernail on glass...

"I found a lot of it to be word salads..."

In addition, according to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Izzy Young also recalled the following about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...He [Dylan] was very competitive. He really didn't look at anybody else. And he would just sort of wait his turn, you know, to sing and sing and then go out.

"Yeah, back at the store [Folklore Center]. Everyone would be playing.

"Bob Dylan was performing--all the time.

"...In `61 he was very competitive about the other singers...

"...He knew how to use people. And when the point came not to use them anymore, he dropped them. And he always was making like it was never for him to say, for other people to say it. He was associated with the Beatles. He never said he was associated with the Beatles..."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (4)

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of an interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Carla Rotolo recalled Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life in NYC and also recalled her initial response to the lyrics Dylan wrote to a song, titled "Ballad in Plain D", that Dylan recorded on his early 1960s "Another Side of Bob Dylan" album, which CBS's Columbia Records then marketed and distributed:

"The song [`Ballad in Plain D'], such an absolute screech. I was going to sue the pants off him [Dylan]. I decided--my lawyer said, don't even bother. Because `parasite', the `parasite' is someone who feeds off somebody. And I was the only person who was working at that time...Bobby [Dylan] of course, he makes me the `parasite' when I was working...It wasn't a nice thing to do, particularly when it was all made up out of whole cloth...

"...I think a good part of his guilt was he couldn't be real. I know it was. And he couldn't sort things out himself at that point, because of where his career was going. Just couldn't get himself out of himself...

"...Dylan needed victims, you know what I mean?...When he was a kid, he wasn't being that mean. As he got older, he started getting very nasty. But when he was first in the city, he was a very sweet kid Just not too articulate...He got tighter and tighter and nastier and nastier...He decided he would pick out your weakness and then suddenly grab it and use it on you. Which is what he did with everybody. Find their vulnerable spot and that was it...

"...I remember him saying once about his `Masters of War' song, for example, saying `it's just a whole big put-on, a whole crock of shit. That's what they wanted'...And I got the feeling...he wasn't befuddled and a confused little kid that he came on as...He was using that befuddled act as a weapon, because it worked..."

 

Steve Chapple & Reebee Garofalo's `Rock'N'Roll Is Here To Pay' Book Revisited: Part 3

In their 1977 book, Rock'N'Roll Is Here To Pay: The History and Politics of the Music, Steve Chapple & Reebee Garofalo recalled the pre-1977 history and politics of the U.S. corporate rock music industry in the following way:

"Shortly after their introduction to America in 1964, the Beatles re-released such classics as `Roll Over Beethoven' by Chuck Berry, `Twist and Shout' by Isley Brothers, Barrett Strong's `Money', the Shirelles' `Boys', `Long Tall Sally' by Little Richard. Similarly, the Animals brought back Ray Charles's `Hit the Road Jack' (written by Mayfield) and Sam Cooke's `Shake'. The Rolling Stones did Rufus Thomas's `Walking the Dog,' `Hitchhike' by Marvin Gaye, a number of Chuck Berry tunes including `Carol', `Talking About You', and `Around and Around'...

"...The Beatles along with the dozens of other English groups that quickly followed them were...more marketable than the black artists they imitated....Black acts in general showed a sharp decline on the singles chart from an all-time high of 42 percent in 1962 to 22 percent in 1966...On the album charts, only 3 of the Top 50 LPs for the year 1964 and 1965 were by black artists...Virtually the only black music on white radio, during this period, was produced out of Motown...It is hard to imagine Eric Clapton being...criticized for playing blues guitar if he were not making millions off his music, while the bluesmen whose licks he copied are starving to death...

"In the early sixties women became a recognized trend in rock'n'roll for the first time. Female vocal groups...began to hit the top of the charts. In addition to the Orlons, the Crystals, the Sensations, the Chiffons, the Essex, the Ronnettes, and the Jaynettes, there were the Shangri-Las and the Dixie Cups, and the Motown groups--the Marvelettes, the Supremes, and Martha and the Vandellas...

"...The female vocal groups were pushed from the charts...when the Beatles crashed onto the scene in 1964-65...The...popularity of the Beatles was the single greatest force responsible for the decline of women on the charts in the mid-sixties...In 1969, one of the great years for hard rock, there were fewer women on the year-end single charts than at any time since World War II. The situation for both women album and singles artists was even worse than it had been at the end of 1966, during the height of the British invasion..."

 

Steve Chapple & Reebee Garofalo's `Rock'N'Roll Is Here To Pay' Book Revisited: Part 1

 

In their 1977 book, Rock'N'Roll Is Here To Pay: The History and Politics of the Music, Steve Chapple & Reebee Garofalo characterized the pre-1977 history and politics of the U.S. corporate rock music industry in the following way:

"...The music industry is racist...and many of the political forces that are exerted on blacks outside the business are duplicated within it...It is important to look at the unfolding of that racism within the history of the industry...

"...The music business, the record companies and radio stations, are integrated into a much larger framework of other businesses, sources of finance capital, and the general network of the business system which has an interest--a real, material interest--in reproducing and reinforcing the status quo...

"...In many cases record companies are owned by some of the most obviously reactionary and militarist corporations in the United States...

"Three major record companies...are politically indistinguisable from their parent firms: RCA, CBS, and ABC. RCA and CBS have long been part of a business establishment that supports both major political parties on a regular basis...

"...Most directors at CBS and RCA supported the [Vietnam] war when it was backed by Republicans and Democrats under the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations...

"...During the Vietnam War buildup RCA had annual Defense Department contracts averaging $300 million, and still got some $243 million in DOD business in 1974.

"During the 1960s CBS president Frank Stanton...was chairman of the board of the Rand Corporation, the Air Force-funded think tank that has done extensive secret research for the military on subjects as diverse as counterinsurgency warfare techniques, effectiveness of prisoner interrogation methods, and police surveillance uses of cable television...Stanton was head of the committee that annually reviewed the activities of the U.S. Information Agency, a CIA-funded propaganda operation overseas, and he was chairman of Radio Free Europe, another propaganda outlets, financed through the CIA...

"Given their ties into big and bigger business, no progressive political initiative will be coming from the parent firms of the record companies..."

Arthur Kretchmer's Aug. 5, 1965 `Village Voice' Review of 1965 Newport Folk Festival Revisited

 

In a review of the July 1965 Newport Folk Festival that appeared in the August 5, 1965 issue of the Greenwich Village, NYC-based Village Voice weekly newspaper, titled "Newport: It's All Right, Ma, I'm Only Playin' R & R," Arthur Kretchmer indicated some of the historical reasons Bob Dylan apparently became less popular with some of his early 1960s U.S. folk music fans after 1965:

"Sunday night Bob Dylan was booed for linking rhythm and blues to the paranoid nightmares of his vision...

"Musically, the festival was obtuse and disappointing. Of five official concerts only one (Sunday afternoon) was satisfying, and that was mostly because of the brilliance of Mimi and Dick Farina and some other young singers.

"...Dylan is a man afraid and obsessed. He surrounds himself with people...

"Bob Dylan is out of control. He never had it and never will. Like a mogul he surrounds himself with flunkies who feed him lines and laugh when he repeats them...He is not Guthrie...On the way back from Newport Dylan's `Like a Rolling Stone' was on the radio. (He had been booed for it at Sunday night's concert)..."

On `The Sad Truth' About Post-1970's `Rock Journalism'

 

In the 2003 book that Bloombsury published which former Mojo editor and Rock's Backpages Co-founder Barney Hoskyns edited, titled The Sound and the Fury, post-1970's "rock journalism" was characterized in the following way:

"The sad truth is that rock journalism has become little more than a service industry, with scant critical autonomy and even less responsibility to its readers. We have all, in our different ways, colluded with the entertainment machine in its canny efforts to dictate what music sells.

"...The major conglomerates have done their best to control and commodify rock rebellion.

"The music industry's greatest victory has been to make pop music--from boy bands to nu metal--a mere lifestyle choice, a disposable commodity...

"In this tame new world of fame for fame's sake...we are all living out Warhol's nightmare: an endless parade of pneumatic automatons who signify and celebrate nothing other than their own narcissism and greed...We cannot let capitalism erode our souls..."

Newport Folk Festival's Exclusion Of Barbara Dane Revisited

 

U.S. Jazz, Blues and Folk Singer Barbara Dane in 1960 (wikicommons)

In a 1991 interview, 20th-century and 21st-century U.S. jazz, blues and folk singer Barbara Dane recalled how some commercially-oriented U.S. folk music festival producers--like then-Newport Folk Festival Producer George Wein--apparently failed to invite her to perform at most commercially-oriented U.S. folk music festivals during the 1960's; and during the 11 years that she devoted to recording other protest folk singers or singer-songwriters on non-commercially-oriented Paredon Records' vinyl albums.

"I was never invited back to Newport except once....I’ll give you some documentation about that because it’s kind of interesting.

"But it basically was I went to the festival because I loved the music and I loved the people who perform it.,,So I went several times and just soaked everything up and reconnected with a lot of old friends and all that. But I--outside of being asked to get up and jam on somebody’s set--was never invited back there to sing.

"...I got an invitation one day via Bernice Reagon to be on a workshop...She’d sort of taken note that the festival was getting further and further from its glory days, when everyone stands on the stage and sings `We Shall Overcome.' And now we’re, you know, two three years down the line and...it’s all sort of a sham.

"And so she decided to propose a political song workshop. And it was going to be a one hour workshop, out on the edge of the...You know, in the tent during the day. Not on the main stage and all that kind of stuff.

"But anyway I got a letter inviting me to be on that. And I decided to turn that down because I decided that it was a mockery of the whole deal...I decided that this was made to marginalize...to a one hour workshop....I mean we’re talking...mid-Sixties, later Sixties. And they were going to marginalize it out to that...

"Boil it all down and have a little token thing. And then they can sit back and say `well we did it. Now we did our thing. We had political singers here.' I decided I wasn’t going to be a party to that.

"So I made a big todo about it. I wrote a big long letter explaining why I wasn’t going to do it and sent it to the board. Which then included quite a lot of people in the folk music field. And kinda quite a lot of key people. And then I also sent it to the Village Voice and they printed it.

"And as a result I was never, for twenty years or more--well let’s say dating from the first festival--which was what ’59, the first Newport festival? I was never invited to sing on a major folk song festival. Zero. You know.

"So I began to realize that this was happening. These things sneak up on you. Like this is not blacklisting in the sense of the McCarthy black list. This is, that’s that only term I can think of, is marginalization. You know, you’re just sort of pushed further out..."

How Barbara Dane Protested Exclusion Of Pete Seeger By `Hootenanny' TV Folk Music Show In 1960's

In a 1991 interview, 20th-century and 21st-century U.S. jazz, blues and folk singer Barbara Dane recalled how she protested against the refusal of the producers of the April 1963 to September 1964 corporate media television folk music show, Hootenanny, to allow U.S. folk singer-songwriter Pete Seeger to appear on their show; and how her protest may have influenced the way some commercially-oriented U.S. folk music people treated her in the 1960's:

"... I was experiencing...in the mid-sixties, already this sense of marginalization from the folk music people because, after turning down [Albert] Grossman [Bob Dylan's then-manager], must have been the word was out. `Oh she’s not real serious about her career or something.'

"Because none of the other managers, entrepreneurs really seemed to want anything to do with what I was doing. And I think also in having--I don’t know--when that “Hoot-N-Anny” business was-- with turning down the “Hoot-N-Anny” show at the last minute. And I did it in a way that I forced them to have a lot of problems….

"But I, you know, once I knew that I wasn’t going to do it, I decided that I wouldn’t just tell them right away. I would wait until the last minute. And tell them so it would cause them a lot of trouble. Why not? If you can do it, do it big.

"So I think...the word went out I was a `troublemaker.' And I was `irresponsible.' Or I was--I don’t know what they would say...So I was feeling further and further marginalized...".

U.S. Jazz, Blues and Folk Singer Barbara Dane in 1960 (wikicommons)

 

Why Barbara Dane Did Not Sign Up With Dylan Manager Grossman In 1960's

U.S.Jazz, Blues and Folk Singer Barbara Dane in 1960 (wikicommons)

In a 1991 interview, 20th-century and 21st-century U.S. jazz, blues and folk singer Barbara Dane indicated why--unlike Bob Dylan--she did not agree to team up with hip capitalist manager Albert Grossman, during the early 1960's folk music boom:

"...Al Grossman was starting to build his stable of people and he brought me to, essentially brought me to the first Newport festival for the purpose of, sort of, you know, let’s see if it’ll fly here. And after that he proposed that I sign up with him. But he laid the cards right out there.

"He says, `look you know you got all this political stuff that you want to do, and you got your children, and you got your family life, and you got all this and you want a career besides.' But he says `you got to decide which it is you’re really gonna do. And, you know, if you make, if you decide it’s really gonna be the career, well, we can do business.'

" And I knew right then and there that we were not gonna be a team…."

How `Rolling Stone' Magazine Rolled The Money In Prior To 1990

Although former Rolling Stone writer Hunter Thompson claimed that Rolling Stone magazine "began its slide into conservatism and mediocrity in 1977," by 1989 its then-parent company, Straight Arrow Publishers Inc. "was worth perhaps $250 million [equal to over $533 million in 2020]--over thirty thousand times its value twenty-two years before," according to the 1990-published book, Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History by Robert Draper.

According to the same book, Rolling Stone magazine's founder and then-owner, Jann Wenner, was personally worth over $100 million in 1990 [equal to over $203 million in 2020] and had used his youth market profits from "Rolling Stone Incorporated" to maintain "an ostentatious lifestyle of private jets, country villas and choice social connections to match."

According to Draper's Rolling Stone Magazine book of 1990, at that time Wenner spent about four months out of the year at his three-story country manor in East Hampton, Long Island and employed servants there. Wenner also then owned a five story Manhattan townhouse and a Mercedes limousine which was driven by his chauffeur. In 1985, Wenner also had spent $2.5 million [equal to over $6.1 million in 2020] of his surplus wealth to purchase and own US Magazine, for awhile.

Although much of the music that Rolling Stone magazine has covered and profited from since the late '60s is rooted in African-American rhythm and blues, ironically, its pre-1990 "reluctance to cover Black music" was "infamous" and "not coincidentally, Rolling Stone" had "never employed a single Black writer," prior to 1990, according to Draper's 1990 Rolling Stone Magazine book. 

`Rolling Stone' and `Spin' Magazines' Historic Sexism Revisited

As late as the 1990s, hip capitalist rock music industry establishment publications like Rolling Stone and Spin magazines apparently still operated in an institutionally sexist way, in relation to women music journalists. As music journalist Lucy O'Brien wrote in her 1996-published She-Bop: The Definitive History Of Women In Rock, Pop and Soul book:

"Being a female music journalist has its particular obstacles, too...Like many female journalists, I found that `serious' long articles inevitably went to the male writers, while too often we were kept to writing reviews, short pieces or doing interviews with women artists. Women are not considered heavy-weight enough to comment on the top male acts of the day--be it Public Enemy or Iggy Pop. Women rarely get staff positions with power to commission other writers. In 1994, for instance, the senior editorial team of Rolling Stone consisted of 10 men and two women, while among their contributing editors (including Kurt Loder, Greil Marcus and Robert Palmer) there were three women and 27 men. Spin did marginally better with six female and 27 male writers on the masthead, plus one woman among six top editors..."

Hip Capitalist Establishment's `Rolling Stone' Magazine Revisited: Conclusion

By 1970 the hip capitalist establishment Rolling Stone magazine of Wenner was also being criticized by U.S. women's liberation and radical feminist movement activists and women rock music critics like Ellen Willis for its sexism. As Joe Hagan's 2017 Sticky Fingers book recalled:

"Ellen Willis, a pioneering feminist and the first rock critic at The New Yorker, wrote to Ralph Gleason in 1970 saying she refused to write for Rolling Stone because it was `viciously anti-women.' `RS habitually refers to women as chicks and treats us as chicks; i.e. interchangeable cute fucking machines,' she wrote, adding...that Jann Wenner's bias against revolutionary politics fed the oppression of females: `To me, when a bunch of snotty upper-middle white males start telling me that politics isn't where its at, that is simply an attempt to defend their privileges'..."

And according to the same Sticky Fingers book:

"Around the offices of Rolling Stone, Wenner was known for his jovial sexual harassment. He didn't discriminate between men and women...`He was hitting on every girl and every guy,' said Lynn Hirschberg. `He once grabbed me around the hips and said, `Ten more pounds and you'll be perfect.' This was in front of everybody at a meeting and I wanted to die. It was like this schoolboy crap.'..."

As a long-time member of the Hip Capitalist Establishment since the late 1960s, Rolling Stone magazine's owner and publisher between 1967 and late 2017, Wenner, apparently accumulated over $700 million in personal worth according to the Celebrity Net Worth website, during the 5 decades between 1970 and its sale to Penske Media Inc. in late 2017. And in 2020, the Hip Capitalist Establishment's Rolling Stone magazine website still apparently doesn't encourage most U.S. music fans who still bother to read Rolling Stone magazine to get more into non-commercially-motivated, anti-establishment protest folk music very much during the 21st-century.

For as Rolling Stone magazine's long-time hip capitalist former owner and publisher Jann Wenner said as long ago as 1977:

"I think Rolling Stone is establishment. I think that rock culture...has become establishment in this country, and is the leading cultural establishment in this country right now." (end of article)

Hip Capitalist Establishment's `Rolling Stone' Magazine Revisited: Part 3

As early as the late 1960s, Hip Capitalist Publisher Wenner was already apparently collaborating with record company executives of corporate media conglomerates like CBS, that wished to make a lot of money by exploiting the youth market of rock music fans. As Joe Hagan's 2017 Sticky Fingers book recalled:

"...Rolling Stone's relationship to the `Columbia Rock Machine' had grown increasingly tight, starting with its first advertisement in issue No. 8. Clive Davis, having ascended to president of CBS Records...viewed Wenner as an ally in building a new industry out of rock and roll, and he gave Rolling Stone its first steady advertising contract to keep the newspaper afloat...Davis put Rolling Stone into record stores through Columbia's distribution system, which...accounted for 15 percent of the newspaper's single-copy sales [in the late 1960s]...In addition, Jann Wenner was using Columbia's office in New York as a virtual bureau of Rolling Stone. In a letter to Bob Altshuler, the publicist for Columbia, Wenner thanked him for the `favors, the lunchs (sic), the tickets, and the use of your secretaries and office...'...Wenner...set up camp at Columbia to lay out a promotional ad for...a full-page in The New York Times..." 

So, not surprisingly, when Abbie Hoffman and other Youth International Party/Yippie activists in the late 1960s U.S. antiwar Movement called upon U.S. music fans to protest against the Vietnam War, the System and the U.S. Establishment at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and participate in "Festival of Life" antiwar music concerts in Chicago, hip capitalist publisher Wenner urged Rolling Stone readers to stay away from both the antiwar movement street protests and the planned "Festival of Life" concerts and rallies in Chicago's parks.

In exchange for apparently acting as a marketing and public relations/propaganda tool of the U.S. Establishment's corporate media conglomerates' record company subsidiaries, by 1970 Rolling Stone magazine apparently began receiving additional funds from some of the same record companies whose special corporate interests it promoted. As Joe Hagan noted in his Sticky Fingers book:

"[In 1970] Ralph Gleason...recognized that Wenner was in real [financial] trouble. It was Gleason, Wenner said, who pointed him to the record labels; perhaps they could be convinced to help bail Wenner out of his financial woes. Wenner first approached Jac Holzman of Elektra and explained his situation. `I'd say,...' recounted Wenner,`...I need an advance of money, give me some money, I need money in the bank.'

"...Holzman became a strong financial booster of Rolling Stone, and Wenner put his artists, the Doors and the MC5 on the cover. Along with Clive Davis of CBS, who gave Rolling Stone more than 30,000 [equal to over $202,000 in 2020] in advance advertising and some free business consultation, Holzman agreed to help Wenner by explaining his situation to Steve Ross...who was rolling up the independent record labels under his corporate umbrella...(later renamed Warner Communications). Holzman was about to sell Elektra to Ross for $10 million [equal to over $68.1 million in 2020]...Ross owned Independent News, the magazine distributor...Independent agreed to cut Wenner a check for $100,000 [equal to over $661,000 in 2020]..."

In addition, according to the same book, "Wenner recounted in 1976" that "`then Clive and Jac each advanced me something like $25,000 [equal to over $170,000 in 2020] or $35,000 [equal to over $238,000 in 2020];'" and "Wenner said Gil Friesen of A & M weighed in with another $30,000 [equal to over $202,000 in 2020]. And "by the end of 1970, Wenner had...the financial backing of the American record industry...and...a new investor on the hook, Max Palevsky, chairman of the Xerox Corporation, a multimillionaire prepared to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into Rolling Stone in 1971..." So, not surprisingly, "a story line gelled in the underground press: Jann Wenner was the man who sold out the revolution for dirty record money;" and "The Yipster Times ran a story called `The Day Rolling Stone Sold Out To Xerox'" in the mid-1970s "claiming Xerox paid off Wenner's debts in exchange for opposing antiwar demonstrations." (end of part 3) 

Hip Capitalist Establishment's `Rolling Stone' Magazine Revisited: Part 2

Before becoming a hip capitalist music magazine publisher/owner between the late 1960s and 2018, Jann Wenner--after having worked in 1964 as a campus stringer at the University of California-Berkeley for the then-RCA-owned NBC News establishment radio-tv corporate media news subsidiary--had, ironically, worked for the 1960s antiwar left-wing magazine, Ramparts, that first exposed in 1967 the CIA's covert funding of the National Student Association [NSA] during the 1950s and early 1960s. As Joe Hagan recalled in his 2017 Sticky Fingers book:

"Wenner's fortunes began when Ramparts, a monthly founded by left-wing Catholics...decided to launch a biweekly broadsheet in the fall of 1966 called The Sunday Ramparts...[Ralph] Gleason, a member of Ramparts' editorial board, recommended Wenner as an editor and `rock and roll specialist,' and Wenner...moved...to San Francisco to help put out the first issue in October 1966..."

During that same year of 1966, according to the same book, Wenner also "was classified as 1-A by the Selective Service System making him available for the Vietnam draft;" but according to Sticky Fingers author Hagan, "to help Wenner avoid the war," a "Dr. Martin Hoffman on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley" then "diagnosed him with a `serious personality disorder'" and Dr. Hoffman's "letter to the army draft board...achieved its purpose."

According to the Sticky Fingers book, "in creating Rolling Stone, Wenner borrowed heavily from...The Sunday Ramparts, where Wenner worked until it ceased publication in June 1967." The same 2017 book also observed, however, that, during the Spring of 1967, "Wenner was approached by Chet Helms, who told Wenner he was germinating a hippie music magazine for distribution in record stores" and "Helms came to believe Wenner had slunk away with his idea..." Sticky Fingers author Hagan also noted that Crawdaddy!, not Rolling Stone magazine, was actually "the first American rock-and-roll magazine;" and that Paul Williams, not Wenner, actually "invented in 1966" the first rock-and-roll magazine, which "was named for the club where the Rolling Stones" band "first played."

Much of the initial $2,500 [equal to over $19,500 in 2020] capital that Multi-Millionaire hip capitalist Wenner (whose 21st-century personal wealth was estimated to be $700 million by the Celebrity Net Worth website in recent years) required to launch his Rolling Stone magazine in California in October 1967 apparently came from a Manhattan dentist named Dr. Schindelheim--the father of Wenner's then womanfriend and later wife/ex-wife, Jane Schindelheim. The parents of Jane Schindelheim provided Wenner with $2,000 [equal to over $15,600 in 2020]. As the Sticky Fingers book noted:

"They wrote the check, plus a little extra, and gave Rolling Stone the financial push it needed. The money Dr. Schindelheim earned...also gave...daughter an ownership stake in Rolling Stone...which, in early October 1967, Wenner incorporated...under a name he liked quite a lot: Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc."

According to Sticky Fingers author Joe Hagan, much of the Rolling Stone magazine "thing" that was first published by Wenner on Oct. 18, 1967 had apparently "been begged, borrowed, recycled and stolen. Chet Helm [who died in 2005]...; Ralph Gleason's title...; the newsprint and layout of The Sunday Ramparts...; several stories from the Melody Maker [music magazine of the UK], rewritten by Susan Lydon..." (end of part 2.)  

Hip Capitalist Establishment's `Rolling Stone' Magazine Revisited: Part 1

"I think Rolling Stone is establishment. I think that rock culture...has become establishment in this country, and is the leading cultural establishment in this country right now."

--Rolling Stone Magazine Inc. Owner Jann Wenner in 1977

"...Jann Wenner's oldest and dearest friends--people who worked for him in the 1960s and after--could not help but notice the likeness between Trump and the Jann Wenner they knew. The crude egotism, the neediness, the total devotion to celebrity and power. Wenner and Trump were the same age and had met a couple of times at charity events in Manhattan..."

--page 503 of former Rolling Stone magazine and former Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Hagan's 2017 book, Sticky Fingers

Hip Capitalist Establishment's Rolling Stone Magazine Revisited: Part 1

In 2020 many music fans in the United States are now anti-capitalist, socialist or libertarian anarchist in their politics. Yet between the late 1960s and 2018, a magazine that published many articles about the music that many music fans in the United States listen to each month, Rolling Stone magazine, was mostly owned by a multi-millionaire white hip capitalist member of the U.S. Establishment named Jann Wenner, prior to it being sold to Penske Media Inc. in late 2017.

Not surprisingly, before Wenner became a hip capitalist music magazine publisher in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a member of the U.S. white corporate male hip capitalist media establishment by the end of the 1970s, he apparently was not much of a teenage rebel against the U.S. Establishment in his political beliefs or in the way he lived his life. As Joe Hagan observed in his 2017 book Sticky Fingers:

"Wenner...was...a Kennedy-worshiping preppy whose thwarted ambition to attend Harvard had diverted him to Berkeley...An inveterate social climber...Wenner crashed debutante balls and went on ski weekends to private resorts with rich friends...who knew Kennedys and Hearsts...As a teenager, he attended a boarding school in Los Angeles that housed the offspring of Hollywood royalty, including Liza Minnelli..."

In addition, during the 1950s, the Rolling Stone magazine owner's mother, Sim Wenner, "was involved in the California Democratic Council" and "befriended Democrat Alan Cranston, who later became a senator from California;" and, along with Jann Wenner's father, Baby Formula Inc. owner Ed Wenner, "socialized with...the Roth family, who owned the Matson shipping company," according to the same book. (end of part 1)

Broadside Magazine's 1964 Critique of Dylan Revisited

In a 1964 issue of the now-defunct Broadside magazine, U.S. folk music critic Paul Wolfe provided U.S. topical and protest folk music fans with the following interesting historical take on the early days of Bob Dylan's post-1964 artistic direction:

"The Newport Folk Festival of 1964 formed an important milestone in the resurgence of topical music. It brought many of the younger performers into first contact with large segments of the folk music world; it proved that topical music, when delivered with artistry and sincerity, can be heartily appreciated by a wide and diverse audience; it outlined many of the goals toward which the various writers must strive.

"But the Festival’s most significant achievement was specific and twofold: it marked the emergence of Phil Ochs as the most important voice in the movement, simultaneous with the renunciation of topical music by its major prophet, Bob Dylan. It was the latter event that proved most surprising.

"Dylan’s `defection' into higher forms of art was predicted. His preference for free-verse, uninhibited poetry over topical songs has been apparent for quite a while; his dissatisfaction with concert tours and adulating fans is also no secret. But his new songs, as performed at Newport, surprised everyone, leaving the majority of the audience annoyed, some even disgusted, and, in general, scratching its collective head in disbelief. The art that had, in the past, produced towering works of power and importance, had, seemingly, degenerated into confusion and innocuousness. `Your new songs seem to be all inner-directed, inner-probing, and self-conscious,' wrote Irwin Silber, editor of SING OUT!, in an open letter to Dylan. `You seem to be relating to a handful of cronies behind the scenes rather than to the rest of us out front.'

"And this disappointment in his new songs was heightened by their juxtaposition, on the stage of Newport, with the eloquent musical force of Phil Ochs. While Dylan was telling his perennial, anonymous girl friend, `All I really wanna do is, baby, be friends with you,' Ochs was informing the leaders of the government, `I ain’t marchin’ anymore!' While Dylan sang `It Ain’t Me, Babe,' and, in the guise of rejecting a persistent female, told his thousands of worshipers to look elsewhere for someone to walk on water, Ochs took the time to denounce the labor unions for their betrayal of the civil rights movement; in `Links On The Chain'—Ochs’ supreme artistic achievement—and perhaps the most important topical song of the year—he calls upon the `ranks of labor' to ponder their own `struggles of before' and tell, ironically, which side they now are on in the Negro struggle for equality.

"There, the difference between the two performers became manifest; meaning vs. innocuousness, sincerity vs. utter disregard for the tastes of the audience, idealistic principle vs. self-conscious egotism. And even in his attempts at seriousness Dylan was bewildering. `Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,' while underlain by a beautiful poetic idea, must be termed a failure; somehow, a forced monotony of rhymes seemed much more effective in `Only A Pawn In Their Game.' And in his other song, `Chimes of Freedom,' the bewilderment is raised to the highest degree. In this incredible jumble of confused, obscure images piled atop one another, Dylan traces the pursuit for higher forms of freedom, spanning a human lifetime, encompassing all of human life. This probing journey through anguish begins `far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toe' and ends, some eight grueling minutes later, with the chimes of freedom flashing `for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe.' The fallacy inherent in the concept of chimes flashing is annoyingly obvious. It is also obvious that Dylan was too enmeshed in his own ego and seeming adoration of words (no matter how meaningless his combinations of these words renders them) to consider the absurdity of treating a subject of such scope in a song. As Irwin Silber said, the Dylan we once knew, the author of `With God On Our Side' and `Hattie Carroll,' `never wasted our precious time.' `Chimes of Freedom' brings to mind once again the fable of the Emperor’s new clothes; and a short story entitled `Face In The Crowd' by Budd Schulberg (it was made into a noted movie). The protagonist of that story is a hillbilly singer who, through publicity, slick management and an overpowering ego, rises to such heights of stardom and popularity he thinks he can get away with anything on the public. The tragedy is that he cannot, and, in the end, is ruined.

"Does Bob himself give a concrete reason for the emergence of the `new' Dylan? One might be found in the song `My Back Pages' in his latest album Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is an intensely honest, revealing self-portrait, indeed a brutal denunciation of the `old' Dylan. It characterizes the latter as a deceived, impotent `musketeer' whose main stimuli to action were confusion and immaturity, rather than a fiery poetic spirit reacting to the injustice he saw all around him. Thus a seeming disillusionment with both himself and the ideals he fought for looms as a factor.

"Other forces shaping his new posture include his own artistic drives and capabilities (which are indeed considerable) running headlong into the limitations of the musical form. As Phil Ochs said in the 1964 Newport brochure: `I think he’s slowly drifting away from song-writing because he feels limited by the form. More and more of his work will probably come out in poetry and free verse, and I would not be surprised if he stopped singing altogether, considering the over-adulation of his fans and the lack of understanding of audiences that identify with him.' Indeed there are reports not only that he is working on a book of his own poetry but that he plans to start up a poetry magazine (further Dylan artistic endeavors include a motion picture, which Dylan has written, is directing, and stars in himself). These varied artistic projects imply his abandonment of topical song writing; an artist must express himself through the most effective mediums at his command. But they do not explain his new songs; nor, if he is discontented with singing, why he continues to give concerts; or why he is still cutting records. Contradictions have followed Bob Dylan from the time his folk-singing career began. Now, seemingly at the end of it, they have yet to be dissipated.

"The paths of Bob Dylan bear extreme relevance to the course of today’s topical songwriting. For instance, take Phil Ochs. His career is still evolving and expanding, but considering what has happened to Bob, an inevitable question arises concerning Phil: will he follow in the footsteps of his predecessor? Will Phil too eventually be disillusioned, or in some way become discontented, with his personal messages of protest, and abandon them? Only time—of course—can tell. But an analysis of the facts renders this unlikely. The difference between Ochs and Dylan, both as artists and personalities, are striking. Ochs is much more deeply committed to the broadside tradition. To news and politically-oriented songs, most of which are focused on specific events and do not range into the wide scope of human events and variegated problems that characterize so many of Dylan’s most famous works. In addition, Dylan has undergone repeated metamorphosis as a performer; each of his four albums differs radically from the others. This has not been so with Ochs, whose second L-P (by Elektra) plainly will be a continuation of the work foundationed by his first (Ochs’ 2nd L-P is scheduled for release in January 1965). Quite to the contrary, Phil’s basic melody and lyric patterns have remained constant from the very beginning; indeed many of his first songs, notably `William Worthy' and his talking analysis of Cuba and Viet Nam, occupy important positions in his current repertoire. Thus, the constant change of character and outlook, the reluctance to stay in one `bag' of song-writing for an extended period of time, that have engendered Dylan’s renunciation of topical music, are not evidenced in Ochs. Nevertheless, the influences of Dylan have found their way into several of Ochs’ new songs. In `In The Heat Of The Summer' and `The Hills of West Virginia,' Ochs has attempted to subtlety and poetry where before he used power and irony. Thus, those two songs differ artistically from all his previous ones; indeed in the first song, dealing with the recent riots in various Negro ghettos, he goes so far as to abandon rhyme scheme altogether. It is a novel artistic experiment; but, unfortunately, this first attempt at poetry-in-song is unsuccessful. `In The Heat Of The Summer' emerges as little more than an exercise. But in `The Hills Of West Virginia,' some reflections during an automobile trip, Phil’s simple, unpretentious, easy-flowing imagery, encased in what could be his most beautiful melody, weave a sharp and colorful tapestry of observation. It is certainly one of his best songs and proves Ochs doesn’t have to protest to be good. It also proves that one can absorb the good influences of Dylan without being affected by the non-artistic sides of the latter’s enigmatic career.


"Many talented people today are writing topical songs. But, to me, Phil Ochs stands virtually alone in his field; very few writers are very close to him in quality and productivity. This is a happy fact for topical music. However, the cash registers are ringing in his ears more and more; legions of adulating fans and his identity as a `celebrity' grow larger as time goes by. Thus, one final question must be posed in connection with the path of Phil Ochs, hence the path of topical music. Can he overcome the pressures, the lures, the rewards and the egotism attached to being a celebrity? Can he maintain a sincerity of principle despite material prosperity? It is evident that he will continue writing protest songs; the question now is whether he will continue meaning them. For Phil Ochs, on whom the future of topical music rides, `these are the days of decision.'” 
--Paul Wolfe
(Broadside magazine--issue 53/1964) 

Abbie Hoffman's 1969 `Woodstock Nation: A Talk-Rock Album" Book Revisited

In his classic Woodstock Nation: A Talk-Rock Album" book of 50 years ago, 1960's U.S. antiwar movement organizer/activist and Chicago 8 Trial defendant Abbie Hoffman indicated how the U.S. hip capitalist rock music industry entrepreneurs and rock capitalist musicians who put together the Woodstock Music Festival in August 1969 apparently failed to reflect the egalitarian values of the 1960s antiwar and anti-capitalist Movement's counter-cultural hippie youth culture:

"...The za-za world of rock is almost entirely an uptown plastic dome. Up at Woodstock it meant living at the Concord hotel or the Holiday Inn in Liberty and buzzing in stoned out of your head in a helicopter. It meant being hustled under guard to a secluded pavilion to join the other aristocrats who run the ROCK EMPIRE...

"I emerged exhausted, broke and bleeding from the WOODSTOCK NATION. It was an awesome experience but one that made me have a clearer picture of myself as a cultural revolutionary--not a cultural nationalist, for that would embrace a concept of hip capitalism which I reject...Cultural revolution requires people to change the way they live...

"The four promoters of Woodstock Ventures are Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman and John Roberts...Lang owned a head shop in Coral Gables until he got the idea for Woodstock Ventures. Kornfeld was a rock promoter for ...bubble rock groups...Rosenman and Roberts had the bread. Roberts' old man owned a multi-million dollar pharmaceutical firm...

"...Brothers and Sisters, we have a duty to each other to work out the problem of the vultures that prey on our culture and indeed on the rest of the world culture as well...The Big Boys are going to get together and sort of figure out how they can make some bread on the Woodstock Nation or, if not directly, how they can suck its energy. All that has to be fit in along with Columbia Records pulling ads out of the underground press in an effort to cripple them. A to P research firm had suggested two ways to prevent another Chicago from happening.

"1. Cancel the policy of youth fare on airplanes.
"2. Urge Columbia Records to pull out of the underground press...

"...These guys were prepared to do anything to stay in business, even grow their hair a little longer and put on some beads.

"Fit all that in with Love Food, Inc. selling sawdust burgers for outrageous prices on the highest hill in WOODSTOCK NATION and shoveling real money with real shovels into Wells Fargo Trucks, all the time guarded by cops who weren't holding flowers in their hands, no sir. These are things that weren't announced from the stage in that syrupy smooth groovy voice, nor talked about in the psychedelic hand-outs and press releases of Woodstock Ventures...

"What are you gonna do with your bread, brother rock stars? Are you gonna help build and defend the WOODSTOCK NATION NOW, or are you just gonna piss it all away?...

"...Revolution was becoming a saleable commodity and the only way to deal with that was to try and rip off the bread and spread it around like the manure it was...No real hip activist could just sit by and watch skilled promoters create events that gathered huge numbers of young people and made exorbitant profits without eventually taking an interest..."