Program Details

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Music, Media, and the Counterculture 1950-80

Instructor
James Pagliasotti
SM443A
Video Catch-up
Available

Course Description

This class is derived from a memoir about coming of age during the post-War years. It's an impressionistic history, experiential rather than academic, in the form of a personal narrative. We look at the forces that shaped a generation of Americans and provoked a period of astonishing creativity. You are encouraged to remember and record your own impressions of that time. Pagliasotti will be zooming in with commentary and Q&A.

Lectures

  1. What was the historical context that generated social upheaval in the post-War era? What was the relationship between the Classic Era of Rock Music, Freeform Radio's emergence, and the Counterculture's growth? What elements did they have in common that facilitated their prominence? How did traditional culture and the counterculture cross-pollinate? How did the struggle between art and commerce play out? What was gained and lost? Why does it matter?
  2. My personal experience coming-of-age during that time, the pathway that took me to music, media and the counterculture, and insight into the perspective I bring to the subject. It also asks you to recall some of the seminal events of your life and posits that our personal narratives may be the true history of our time.
  3. How and why did broadcast media evolve during the subject timeframe, how did television create Top 40 radio, and subsequently, what forces coalesced that unleashed an unprecedented period of creativity in FM radio? How did it affect society, particularly the counterculture, and what does it suggest about the use of public airwaves? How did traditional media get to where it is today?
  4. What was the relationship between the counterculture and the music that gave it voice? Who were the artists that created the music, and what allowed them unprecedented control of their creative process? What forces changed the music industry resoundingly (so to speak) and generated the Classic Era of Rock Music? Why does it matter? What does it suggest about the struggle between art and commerce, freedom and control?

Course Info

  • Time: 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
  • Date: Thursdays, June 6, 13, 20, 27
  • Location: Friedberg Auditorium, Lifelong Learning Building
  • Fees: Member - $60
    Non-member - $80
    One-time guest pass, Member or Non-member at the door - $30.

About the Instructor

  • James Pagliasotti is a fourth generation native of Colorado on one side of the family and a third generation of New Mexico on the other. He has lived and worked throughout the Rocky Mountain West, where his interests include history, culture, local legend and an abiding interest in and appreciation of Indigenous peoples, their art and culture. He has worked with people from many different tribes and lived for nearly two years at Heart Butte, Montana in one of the most remote places in the continental United States. He then lived for most of the Eighties in the Gary Cooper Lodge, which the famed movie star built on the family ranch during his heyday in Hollywood. James grew up Western and is a product of the Mythologies of the Modern West.