Counterculture Kaleidoscope: Musical and Cultural Perspectives on Late Sixties San Francisco

University of Michigan Press

This book includes a chapter called The Natural persona: Freedom, the Grateful Dead, and Anticommercial Counterculture.

Publisher's description:

In a bold reconsideration of the late sixties San Francisco counterculture movement, Counterculture Kaleidoscope takes a close look at the cultural and musical practices of that era. Addressing the conventional wisdom that the movement was grounded in rebellion and opposition, the book exposes two myths: first, that the counterculture was an organized social and political movement of progressives with a shared agenda who opposed the mainstream (dubbed "hippies"); and second, that the counterculture was an innocent entity hijacked by commercialism and transformed over time into a vehicle of so-called "hip consumerism." Seeking an alternative to the now common narrative, Nadya Zimmerman examines primary source material including music, artwork, popular literature, personal narratives, and firsthand historical accounts. She reveals that the San Francisco counterculture wasn't interested in commitments to causes and made no association with divisive issues---that it embraced everything in general and nothing in particular.

• Refusing To Play, Pluralism, and Anything Goes: Defining The Counterculture
• The Outlaw Persona: Joplin, Big Brother, and Pluralism in Black and White
• The Exotic Persona: Absorbing the Postcolonial Political Pill
• The New Age Persona: Sex, Spirituality, and Escaping to the Now
• Helter Skelter: Lessons from the End of the Counterculture