FRIDAY FLASHBACK: Every Friday we set the Hot Tub Time Machine to one year in rock history and give you the best (and worst) music from that year, all day long beginning at 1:00 AM EST and running for 24 hours on Jivewired Radio powered by Live365.
This Week: 1968
Next Week: 1991
Last Week:1978
Article & Image Sources: All Music Guide, Amazon.com, Pattie Boyd Personal Photographs, Haight Ashbury San Francisco Summer of Love, Bob Gruen Photography, Ian Dickson Photography, The Annenberg Space For Photography, Getty Images, Legacy Recordings, Rolling Stone Magazine, Previous Jivewired Flashback Articles, WLS-AM, The Guardian, UK, Joel Whitburn, Billboard Magazine.
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+ Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
ELECTION 1968: The U.S. Presidential Election of 1968 pitted Republican Richard Nixon vs. Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey with third-party candidate George Wallace of the Segregationist Party creating a substantial impact.
Election Coverage Expanded Edition:
(1968 Election Results via US Election Atlas)
How Did We Feel About The Country In General In 1968?
- Generally Good: 40%
- Generally Poor: 51%
- Undecided/No Answer: 9%
- Viet Nam War: 47%
- Equal Rights 27%
- Assassination of Robert Kennedy: 20%
- Economy (General): 4%
- Space Program: 2%
- Very Good: 41%
- Better Than Average: 41%
- Less Than Average: 14%
- Desperate: 4%
- Better: 61%
- Same: 29%
- Worse: 10%
- Popular Vote Richard Nixon: 31,783,783 Total Votes
- Popular Vote Hubert H. Humphrey: 31,271,839 Total Votes
- Popular Vote George Wallace: 9,901,118
- Electoral Vote Richard Nixon: 301 (Winner)
- Electoral Vote Hubert H. Humphrey: 191
- Electoral Vote George Wallace: 46
The 1968 election was the most confusing and muddled election in the history of The United States of America. We may have had to choose a winner who did not gain the requisite number of electoral votes necessary for election had it not been for George Wallace.
The election featured three credible candidates, Hubert Humphrey from the Democrats, Richard Nixon as a Republican, and George Wallace, a third party candidate representing the Segregationist party. The issues that the candidates were running on not only confused the people, but also the press. Humphrey was running as a supporter for the continuation of the Vietnam War, and Nixon was running on a platform that included a secret plan to end the Vietnam War and as a law and order candidate. Wallace was running as anti-civil rights and a law and order candidate.
It should also be noted that Robert Kennedy most likely would have won the Democratic Presidential nomination had he not been assassinated after his California Primary victory on June 4, 1968. Furthermore, incumbent President Lyndon Johnson, angered by Democrats who did not agree with his stand on the Vietnam War, refused to run again after his weak showing against Senator Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire Primary left him embarrassed. He used all his power in the party to get Humphrey nominated, even though Humphrey failed to get most of the primary voters.
In addition, the Democratic Party had angered most of its supporters in the South by strongly pushing for integration and voting rights for Blacks in the south. Those Democrats who opposed the civil rights legislation lined up behind Governor Wallace, who was one of the most vocal critics against integration and equal rights.
The election was unusual, not only because the two main candidates took positions that could be characterized as contrary to their constituents' normal positions on the war, but because a third party candidate with a substantially large following determined the outcome in favor of Nixon. The national media seemed fixated on the rift within the Democratic Party, especially in the absence of Robert Kennedy. The heavy focus of the media increased the scrutiny of the divided Democrats and eventually doomed Humphrey.
On To The Flashback:
1968 Album I Wish I Owned:Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix
1968 Album I'd Give Back If I Could:Fairport Convention by Fairport Convention
1968 Nominee For Worst Album Cover Ever:In Search Of The Lost Chord by The Moody Blues
1968 Most Underrated Song:Can I Get A Witness by Barbara Randolph
1968 Most Overrated Song:Spooky by The Classics IV
1968 Most Memorable Song:Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf
1968 Most Significant Song:White Summer by The Yardbirds
1968 Most Forgotten Song:Israelites by Desmond Dekker
1968 Album Of The Year:"White Album" (title: The Beatles) by The Beatles
1968 Fan's Choice For Most Popular Song: Hey Jude by The Beatles
1968 Most Likely To Start A Party Song:Dance To The Music by Sly & The Family Stone
1968 Please Don't Play Anymore Song: Mony Mony by Tommy James & The Shondells
1968 Song That I Like More than I Actually Should:Star Collector by The Monkees
1968 Album I Liked More Than I Thought I Would:Sweetheart Of The Rodeo by The Byrds
1968 Song That I Tend To Leave On Repeat:Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees
1968 Come Back Player Of The Year:What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
One Hit Wonder of 1968:Bend Me Shape Me by The American Breed
Guilty Pleasure of 1968:You're All I Need To Get By by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
Breakout Artists Of 1968: Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Amboy Dukes, Canned Heat
Overplayed In 1968: Tom Jones
Not Played Enough In 1968: Obscure Motown (Chuck Jackson, Barbara Randolph, Bobby Taylor)
Greatest Single Chart Re-Entry from 1968:Need Your Love So Bad by Little Willie John (1955)
Best Cover Song Of 1968: All Along The Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix (original: Bob Dylan)
An unheralded great album from 1968:Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd by The Monkees
An unheralded great single from 1968:You Ain't Goin' Nowhere by The Byrds
Jivewired Picks: Top Five Songs Of The Year
01. Hey Jude by The Beatles
02. Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees
03. Dear Mr. Fantasy by Traffic
04. Son Of A Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield
05. You're All I Need To Get By by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
HONORABLE MENTION #1:For Once In My Life by Stevie Wonder
Jivewired Picks: Top Five Albums Of The Year
01. The White Album (title: The Beatles) by The Beatles
02. Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. by The Monkees
03. The Who Sell Out by The Who
04. Mr. Fantasy by Traffic
05. Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix
HONORABLE MENTION #1: Cheap Thrills by Big Brother & The Holding Co.
HONORABLE MENTION #2:Waiting For The Sun by The Doors
HONORABLE MENTION #3:Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks
+ Goin' Down by The Monkees from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.
Contrary to myth spread by the unbeknownst, 1967 was the year of the Summer Of Love and not 1969. However, most music historians will point to 1968 as the apex of that three-year revolutionary period in pop music and culture. Sandwiched right between 1969, when the movement culminated with the Woodstock Concert, and 1967, when it all began, sits a great year for music, not as mythic or epic as the other two years, but certainly a tremendous year for music in it's own right.And, so much happened in 1968, musically speaking, that it in retrospect, it really stands out against it's bookend years in that popular music triumvirate.
Assuredly, 1968 provided a soundtrack to a sociopolitical and music revolution, but it was much, much more than that, too. The Beatles/Stones/Hendrix/Doors/Joplin apocalyptic beast threatened to level the very foundation of popular culture.
Jimmy Page left The Yardbirds to start the New Yardbirds, recruiting Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones in the process. Before the year ended, they would become known as Led Zeppelin.
Gram Parsons joined the Byrds, essentially laying the foundation for what would become country rock.
More importantly, psychedlia had found it's way into every nook and cranny of music, starting with the Beatles and filtering into the soul of Sly & The Family Stone, the R&B of The Temptations, the electrified folk of The Grateful Dead, Canned Heat and The Incredible String Band, and even Dr. John's Gris-Gris dabbled in the movement.
Van Morrison's Astral Weeks? Please. Morrison's career-defining LP was a fully mature artistic statement that completely separated him as a solo artist from his work with Them. The Zombies released Oracle & Odyssey to critical, if not commercial acclaim. Britain followed suit, thanks to tremendous artistic achievements by The Kinks and Cream. Beggar's Banquet by The Rolling Stones showed a wonderfully artistic and hard-edged rock and blues maturity for the band, defining the band's direction through 1974, when they began to rely more on the influence of Gram Parsons.
When John Mayall released the album Bluesbreakers two years earlier, featuring former Yardbirds guitarist Eric Clapton, he defined, once and for all, a genre of rock and blues which soon became one of the strongest undercurrents of British rock music. The scene erupted in 1968 as Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker formed the all-star trio Cream, and combined with diverse changes in musical direction from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, effectively suffocated the final remnants of the Mersey Beat era.
The new guard of Brit Rock indulged in guitar distortions, dissonant solos and psychedelic studio effects that were shocking for an audience raised on the early Beatles sound. By fusing blues and rock with a hint of improvisation and a propulsive beat, 1968 formed the perfect segue into progressive music and the free-form jam band and hippie sound it bore going forward, inspiring countless artists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Though not revolutionary by any means, especially if you ask many of the blues artists of the 1940s and 1950s, the hybrid sound was much more sophisticated than the childish verse-chorus-verse interplay of The Mersey Beat sound.
San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle also attracted and harbored a sizable blues community, thanks to Janis Joplin, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix. Influenced by the acid-rock movement on the West Coast, Joplin (vocally), Hendrix (instrumentally) and Jim Morrison of The Doors (poetically) were the most visceral and immortalized artists on the West Coast at that time. Joplin's wild antics were immortalized on Cheap Thrills, her output with Big Brother & The Holding Company, Morrison's gigs with the Doors are legendary to this day, and Hendrix achieved incendiary status both literally and figuratively with his guitar work.
As the year ended, an icon from the old guard in music at a career crossroads vowed to assert himself with a statement showcase. Almost defiantly taking a stand for a way of life and an era of music that had come to be perceived as conservative, outdated and pedestrian, a revitalized Elvis Presley announced to the world that he still belonged and his music still mattered.
Perhaps in fear of the changing face of the music landscape, Presley launched an unprecedented comeback attempt in 1968. Truly the forerunner to the popular MTV Unplugged in that it featured informal jamming in front of a live, studio audience on a makeshift soundstage with limited amplification, Elvis launched a historical TV broadcast simply called Elvis. Sponsored by The Singer Sewing Machine Company, it aired on December 3, 1968 on the NBC television network. The special is commonly referred to as the '68 Comeback Special, because of subsequent developments in Presley's career, but the soundtrack album was released simply as The NBC-TV Special.
Despite huge success in both his music and acting careers following his release from the army in 1960, Presley's career had declined steadily in the years leading up to 1968. The music scene had changed dramatically since his last U.S. #1 single in 1962, and Presley was facing musical irrelevance.
The edited broadcast of December 3 - combining the big, choreographed numbers, lavish sets and some of the informal live sessions - was an enormous success. The show was the highest-rated television special of the year.
Critics generally agree that the broadcast did show what Elvis Presley really could do - in addition to making profitable, if generally uninspired movies and soundtracks. The '68 Special is widely credited with revitalizing his career: chart statistics for the summer of 1968 suggest that Presley's recording career was becoming all but non-existent. After the special, he began his stint in Las Vegas and toured, achieving a string of record-breaking sell-out performances across America until his death in 1977. Chart successes returned, including a U.S. number one hit in 1969 with Suspicious Minds and a U.K. number one in 1970 with The Wonder Of You.
Gone Too Soon
- Little Walter, aged 37 (February 15)
- Frankie Lymon, aged 25 (February 25)
- Martin Luther King, Jr. aged 39 (April 4)
- Little Willie John, aged 30 (May 26)
- Andre Mathieu, aged 39 (June 2)
- Robert Kennedy, aged 43 (June 5)
- Luther Perkins of The Tennessee Two, aged 40 (August 5)
- Red Foley, aged 58 (September 19)
Folsom Prison Blue Suede Cocaine Blues Shoes
+ Cocaine Blues by Johnny Cash from the album At Folsom Prison
On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash took his band, his father, and a couple of opening acts to California’s Folsom State Prison to record two shows. They had rehearsed for two solid days in a Sacramento motel, where–astoundingly–they were visited by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, who offered his encouragement and good wishes.
Few people realize that Carl Perkins added his wicked guitar licks to the standard sound of the Tennessee Three backing Cash that day. Even fewer know that both the morning and afternoon shows actually began with Perkins performing his own songs.
Six minutes before the Man in Black walked out for the first show with his trademark opening “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” and the definitive take on Folsom Prison Blues, Perkins got the prisoners into gear with a rocking Blue Suede Shoes.
The best performance of the set was Cocaine Blues, if you are asking me.
The Who Bets Heavily Against Zep And Loses Big
On September 7, 1968, the quartet that would make up Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones) performed for the first time, billed as The New Yardbirds. The Yardbirds had disbanded two months earlier, and guitarist Jimmy Page subsequently formed this new group.
Chris Dreja of the "old" Yardbirds was not happy with the billing of the new band, and issued a cease and desist letter, stating that Page was only allowed to use the New Yardbirds moniker for the Scandinavian dates of their tour.
Legend has it that the new band's name was allegedly chosen by The Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle, who had suggested that the supergroup would go down like a "lead balloon," a British idiom for disastrous results.
The group dropped the 'a' in lead at the suggestion of their manager, Peter Grant, so that those unfamiliar with the phrase would not pronounce it "leed". The word "balloon" was transformed into "zeppelin," perhaps an exaggeration of the humor, and to Page the name conjured the perfect combination of heavy and light, combustibility and grace. They secured a $200,000 advance from Atlantic Records, one I am sure paid off quite considerably. Led Zeppelin was signed without a representative having ever seen them play, largely on their abilities with the Yardbirds and also on the recommendation of singer Dusty Springfield.
Ironically, Page wanted to form a supergroup with himself and Jeff Beck on guitars, and The Who's rhythm section: drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle. Vocalists Donovan, Steve Winwood and Steve Marriott were also considered for the project before then-obscure lead singer Robert Plant, formerly of The Woolworths and The Crawling King Snakes was selected on the recommendation of John Bonham.
Page's original supergroup never formed, though Page, Beck and Moon did record a song together in 1966 called Beck's Bolero, which is featured on Beck's 1968 album, Truth. The recording session also included bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones, who told Page that he would be interested in collaborating with him on future projects.
OTHER HEADLINING MUSIC NEWS EVENTS OF 1968
- The Gibson Guitar Corporation patented its Gibson Flying V electric guitar design.
- Universal Studios offered the Doors $500,000 to star in a feature film. The film was never made.
- The Beatles and their wives, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, Mia Farrow, Donovan and others traveled to India to visit Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at Rishikesh.
- Johnny Cash and June Carter were married in Franklin, Kentucky, with Merle Kilgore serving as best man.
- James Brown appeared on national television, in an attempt to calm feelings of anger in the United States following the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
- At a press conference, John Lennon and Paul McCartney introduced the Beatles' new business concept, Apple Corps, Ltd.
- The assassination of Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of assassinated President John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy, took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California, during the campaign season for the United States Presidential election.
- Two sons of singer Roy Orbison, 10-year-old Roy DeWayne Orbison and 6-year-old Anthony King Orbison, died in a house fire in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Orbison's youngest son was saved.
- 500,000 people march in Washington, D.C. for peace, which becomes the largest anti-war rally in U.S. history. In attendance: Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, John Denver, Mitch Miller, touring cast of Hair.
- Cream played their farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall. It was the last time Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker played together until their 1993 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company performed their last concert together before Janis became a solo act.
- The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was filmed. Acts included The Rolling Stones, The Who, Taj Mahal, Jethro Tull, The Dirty Mac, and Marianne Faithfull. This was the last appearance of Brian Jones as a member of The Rolling Stones.
- Peter Tork left the Monkees.
The following bands were all formed in 1968: Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Free, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, Nazareth, The Plastic Ono Band featuring John Lennon, Rush and Yes.
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