Tear Down the Walls: White Radicalism and Black Power in 1960s Rock
Patrick Burke
Abstract
This book sheds light on a significant but overlooked facet of 1960s rock and the Black Power era—white musicians and audiences casting themselves as political revolutionaries by enacting a romanticized vision of African American identity. It focuses on 1968 and 1969, years when the New Left in the US and UK began to combine cultural radicalism and political radicalism. White musicians sought to employ Black music for revolutionary aims that included personal transformation, political protest, and/or free publicity. Rock, a form dominated by white musicians and audiences but pervasively influe ... More
This book sheds light on a significant but overlooked facet of 1960s rock and the Black Power era—white musicians and audiences casting themselves as political revolutionaries by enacting a romanticized vision of African American identity. It focuses on 1968 and 1969, years when the New Left in the US and UK began to combine cultural radicalism and political radicalism. White musicians sought to employ Black music for revolutionary aims that included personal transformation, political protest, and/or free publicity. Rock, a form dominated by white musicians and audiences but pervasively influenced by African American music and style, conveyed deeply felt but inconsistent notions of Black identity in which African Americans were simultaneously subjected to insensitive stereotypes and upheld as examples of moral authority and revolutionary authenticity. Radical white musicians during the 1960s were invested less in direct imitation of African American music than in adapting and synthesizing it, seeking to rework its practices and principles into forms that were relevant, and perhaps radicalizing, for their predominantly white audiences. There was therefore more to the racial dynamic of popular music during the late 1960s than a simple conflict between cultural appropriation and resistance.
Keywords:
white musicians,
authenticity,
1960s rock,
rock,
cultural appropriation,
cultural radicalism,
political radicalism,
New Left,
Black Power
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2021 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226768182 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: January 2022 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226768359.001.0001 |
