I can’t let this one go. R&B and Pop were never so close together as they were in 1963. That’s why Billboard magazine temporarily suspended their R&B chart at that time… it was practically the same as the pop chart. Elvis & the Beach Boys were having hits on the R&B charts - look it up! It was only in 1965 & thereafter that rock & R&B were forcibly separated by Billboard. It’s true that white English hipsters liked black American music, but put it into perspective… Motown acts weren’t selling in big numbers in the UK until 1965, when they started touring there. The Stax label acts from Memphis only made it to the UK in 1967. Alan Freed brought black & white acts together in the US back in 1954. The English bands of the '60s were great, but they were hardly a new thing.
The 60’s…
Only three television stations. The only way to watch a movie was to go to the movie theater or wait until one of the networks showed it several years later. A lot of the movies and television shows were excellent, others not so much so. News and information came from CBS, NBC and ABC news and newspapers. Walter Cronkite literally told millions of people what was going on in the World at 5:30 in the afternoon. My father still races home at 5:30 today to watch “The News”, even though now one can watch the news anytime they want.
The Vietnam War. Back in the 1960’s there was a military draft, so having to be in the military, and having to fight in some strange country was a scary prospect. If you were drafted, you could either join and hope for the best or flee to Canada where you may never have the chance to come back under threat of prosecution. Risk getting shot in Vietnam or having to live in coldass Canada was not a choice I want to make.
Most people smoked then, and people could smoke almost anywhere literally. Airports, restaurants, supermarkets, shopping areas, even in schools. I remember when people could smoke on the airplane. Gag.
We basically had three Presidents in the 1960’s, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. People loved Kennedy because he was handsome, young and dead. Really wasn’t much of a President, although he did protect the Civil Rights people and forced the rednecks down south to let negoroes in their University. Lyndon Johnson expanded the war in Vietnam, and threw away billions of dollars in his “Great Society”. Nixon, well we know what Nixon was like.
While the “Mad Men” people drink martinis all night, the law was putting people in prison for a gram of marijuana.
America was 90% while and not at all culturally diverse. Some would say this was wonderful, others said not so much.
America was so sexually repressed that Mary Tyler Moore could not sleep with Dick Van Dyke in the same bed. I mean, WTF was that? MTM was about 25, and his name is DICK. When they did have sex, which bed were they in? Also, their kid Richie. Richie was a retard. I am convinced that the writers of the show HAD TO put a child in the series because the normal early 1960’s couple would be incomplete without one.
Men were supposed to join the military (as in HAD TO join the military. Ask any man over the age of 55, even old hippies if they were in the service, about 90% were.) get married, have a career, retire and then die. Women were supposed to get married, have babies, keep house and make sure the husband is well taken care of. I think that more people probably did more outside activities than now, now in 2010, using the computer and home entertainment have kept people in their homes.
The south was not like “The Andy Griffith Show.” (TAGS) It was full of crazy rednecks, with a lot of illegal activities such as illegal liquor, prostitution, gambling and bootlegging. The only one from TAGS who was a realistic southerner was Ernest T. Bass and those other hillbillies with the shotguns. If the redneck cops threw your ass in jail, you wont get any of Aunt Bea’s cobbler. More like a kick in the head from the deputies and thugs. Uncool.
People were executed within a year of being convicted of a crime.
Sodomy was illegal in many states.
There were many more “dry” counties and even dry states up in the 1960’s. In most small towns the city would close on Sunday. Need a loaf of bread? Sorry, it’s Sunday and the store is closed. Probably NFL became so popular because there wasn’t anything else to do but pray to Jesus and fuck the wife.