THE 1960s reverberated to rock. The walloping folk rock of Bob Dylan
sang a striking counterpoint to the sweet-sour, sometimes thunderous
eloquence of the Beatles at their best; the psychedelic star shells
launched by the Jefferson Airplane soared over the Beelzebub beat and
leer of the Rolling Stones. And now, suddenly, the ’70s have brought a
startling change. Over the last year a far gentler variety of rock
sound has begun to soothe the land. Why? Theories abound, few of them satisfactory. The fading out of
ear-numbing, mind-blowing acid rock, some say, is related to the
softening of the youth revolution. Its decline is variously viewed as a
symptom of either progress toward harmony and thoughtfulness or a
tragic slide from activist rage into a mood of “enlightened apathy.”
There is also the desire for individual expression on the part of
talented rock musicians too long cooped up in their communal palaces of
sound. Many of them came to realize that the higher the decibel rate,
the less creative subtlety possible for composers and performers alike.
In any case, rock could hardly have gotten more frenzied. “After you
set your guitar on fire,” says Rock Musician Danny Kootch, “what do you
have left? Set fire to yourself? It had to go the other way.” Whatever the cause, the result is clear. The old groups are fast
fragmenting. In their place, a diverse, wonderfully evocative
collection of individual balladeers and rock composer-performers is
quickly moving in as the major pop innovators of 1971. Many of them
have dropped such devices as the electrified guitar and wall-to-wall
loudspeaker banks; they are returning instead to the piano, or to the
more intimate acoustic guitar. Offering a kind of Americana rock, they
are likely to celebrate such things as country comfort, Carolina
sunshine, morning frost in the Berkshires. What all of them seem to
want most is an intimate mixture of lyricism and personal
expression—the often exquisitely melodic reflections of a private “I.” A Peculiar Hold on American Youth As TIME’S informal
family tree of rock shows, many of the new troubadours are not new at
all. The decompression of rock can be traced back to 1968 and Bob
Dylan’s search for a simple way of saying simple things in John Wesley
Harding. Among the groups, the gentling process was carried to mellow
new highs and lows by The Band. The rise of rock’s new solo poets is a
natural extension. Often they are talented offshoots from famous
groups, the most notable examples being all four Beatles.
Characteristically, they make the new sound but leave explanations to
musicologists and sociologists. Occasionally, however, one will fall
prey to the seductions of historic hindsight. “The dream is over,” John
Lennon has lately observed. “I’m not just talking about the Beatles,
I’m talking about the generation thing. It’s over, and we gotta—I have
personally gotta—get down to so-called reality.”
