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Tuesday, January 20, 2015

(Not so) "Silent Generation"

What do Eric Burdon, Dylan, Baez, Jagger, Lennon, McCartney, Charlie Watts, Ringo Starr, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Phil Ochs - I could go on and on, but that's more than enough to make my point - all have in common ?

'Besides singing that God-damned caterwaul music ???? -Turn it DOWN NOW !!!!'

Yeah, besides that.

Well they are all - we are told by lots of historians who shall remain unnamed - members of The Silent Generation (1927-1943) so unlike us loud 'n' lively Boomer Generation types.

All the leaders of my boomer generation were musicians and they almost all born during WWII's uptick in babies while remaining too young to be able to share in 1945's collective glow of modernist self-satisfaction.

These guys were loud - in their singing, drumming and in their opinions and their dress.

They were part of us, first as part of the same long baby boom.

And that remains true, even if these early boomers remained unrecognized as such by lazy postwar journalists .

They all much preferred to peddle a 'nudge nudge' story of horny dad coming home from years overseas in 1946 and making lots and lots of whoopee.

They were also part of us, as part of the post -1945 Transitional Generation, and that is in fact why they felt so compelled to sing and say what they did.

But 'silent' ? Never !

And they say historians have no sense of humour ...

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