ROCK REVOLUTION!!

A quarter of a century ago, a monster curled silently, embryonically, in the depths of American airwaves. It had lain quietly for a long, long time.

It twitched.

Music, then, wasn’t a way of life; it didn’t inspire young people to look for their own styles of dress, language, and attitudes. It was just nice music, catchy and hummable, which you listened to on the car radio and didn’t really think too much about.

Until...

Deep in the abdomen of America, the monster stirred. People became restless, uncertain of the origin or importance of these strange new vibrations, but sure it meant something was going to happen. Something big.

When it finally emerged, kicking and screaming, from its Southern R&B womb, the new gospel spread like wildfire, carried on the lips of people like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Bill Haley. Preachers, teachers, parents and psychologists greeted the arrival of this new music with mindless hostility. Rock ’n’ roll. The monster was said to cause brain damage, Communism and promiscuity.

And the natiop’s youth said, “You bet, Jackson!”

Freeze frame, Cut—1969. Detroit.