— New Buffalo was a commune in New Mexico above Taos from 1967 to about 1979.
— The Great Bus Race in the Aspen Meadow on the summer solstice 1969 was a real event. Peace activist Wavy Gravy is a real person, still living, as of this 2019 writing, and still living in community at the Hog Farm, which is now located in Berkeley, California.
— In 1958 Estella Wheatley Dooley was admitted to the American Bar Association, one of three black women at that time. In 1963 she was admitted to the California Bar. In 1966, after having been in private practice in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Ms. Dooley became the first black woman lawyer in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. Cassandra is modeled on her.
— Iron Butterfly did play Fillmore West on June 24–26, 1969.
— Bill Graham moved the Fillmore from its original San Francisco location at the corner of Fillmore and Geary to the corner of Market Street and South Van Ness Avenue in 1968 and dubbed it Fillmore West.
I wish I could introduce readers to every person who helped make this book a reality, who helped shape it (and me) and interpret it and temper it and trim it and give it structure and heft and meaning and truth.
They are legion, their influence goes back decades, and I am grateful for their time, talent, willingness, expertise, patience, and heart. Not to mention their senses of humor. Here are some of them:
— Betsy Partridge and Tom Ratcliff for the generous loan of their home in Berkeley while I was researching in the San Francisco area.
— Walter Mayes for his San-Francisco-in-the-Sixties knowledge and expertise.
— Kate Harrison for sharing her father’s eloquent,persuasive 1966 letter to the draft board.
— Virginia Butler for sharing the heartfelt letters she wrote home while her husband was on a tour of duty in Vietnam.
— Charlie Young for his musical expertise and edification, and for teaching me to love the Allman Brothers Band.
— Tommy Archibald for his extensive knowledge of rock and roll and in particular the Beatles.
— Jerry Brunner, Woodstock alumnus, for his remembrances of the Strip and the Twelfth Gate.
— Laurie Findlay, who lived in community in New Mexico, and who offered an unerring, ever-present sense of belonging to me as I wrote this book.
— Gary Kemper for his memories of living in Los Angeles in the sixties and the monks at the Hollywood Temple of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Southern California.
— Zachary Wiles for his indefatigable spirit and chauffeur services, toting me all over Los Angeles for research, including Griffith Observatory at night, Laurel Canyon and the Country Store by day, Capitol Records, the Sunset Strip, and a raucous evening at the Troubadour.
— Cathy Archibald, Cyndi Craven, Janice Johnson, Ron Hipp, and Steve Farrell for love and sustenance and sixties stories galore.
— Billy Short, whose memories of the Strip and the Allman Brothers Band in Piedmont Park in 1969 were essential.
— Drummer Paul Fallat, who let me watch him work — and take photos of him at work — and for his “trash can” cymbals.
— Fred Hughes, for his memories of marching in the St. Andrews Parish High School marching band in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1969.
— Terry Kirkman, for his memories of playing at the Troubadour with the Association, and details about the music industry then and now.
— The Georgia State University digital archives and The Strip Project online for sharing back issues of The Great Speckled Bird as well as photos and memories of Atlanta in the late sixties, the political underground sensibilities, and the counterculture.
— Chris Bishop and his work at the website Garage Hangover, for the wealth of primary source archival material on Little Rock, Arkansas, garage bands in the sixties.
— The contributors at the School Bus Fleet Magazine Forum online for their smarts and generosity in educating me on the many makes and models of school buses in the 1960s, including how they were configured, how they worked, how to drive them, how to repair them, and how to deal with tumbling tumbleweeds.
— The contributors at the Steve Hoffman Music Forums online who could energetically argue with one another over which drummer played on what track of which recording of what record in what year — in which session, with what band — but were generous with their expertise and their knowledge of rock and roll in a way that taught me so much about the evolution of American music.
— John Mullin, U.S. Navy aviation machinist mate, hydraulics, sixth-class in the South China Sea, 1967, for generously sharing his life and work as a plane handler aboard the USS Intrepid during the Vietnam War.
— Lisa Law, who lived at New Buffalo in the sixties, for her many amazing photographs, particularly of commune life, and for her documentary Flashing on the Sixties, which provided footage and primary source material about New Buffalo in particular.
— Art Kopecky for his journals and books about life in the New Buffalo commune, an invaluable resource.
— Documentarian Jonathan Ray, enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo nation, for sharing his family memories, for reading this book so carefully in manuscript form, and for his thoughtful and insightful comments and contributions.
— Cree artist, writer, and educator Alfred Young Man, or Kiyugimah (Eagle Chief), an enrolled member of the Chippewa-Cree tribe, student at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1969, and one of the founding members of the house band The Jaggers, for his expertise in reading this book in manuscript and his contributions to its final form.
— David “Sticks” Levithan, who said, “Make him a drummer,” which opened new vistas for me and for the story. This book is elevated by Sticks’s many contributions to its plot, clarity, rhythm, and flow.
— Phil Falco for design wizardry. Also an elevator.
— Els Rijper, without whom we would have no scrapbooks.
— Melissa Schirmer, who believes in the power of books to change lives and who waited for me.
— The audacious, stout-hearted, intrepid Scholastic team, both Trade and Fairs, that shepherds my books into readers’ hands, including Maya Marlette, Tracy van Straaten, Lizette Serrano, Robin Hoffman, Emily Heddleson, Amy Goppert, Danielle Yadao, and Lauren Donovan
— Steven Malk, who shepherds me.
— Jim Pearce, jazzman extraordinaire and St. Andrews Parish marching band alumnus, who lived 1969 with me. I’d do it again.
— My far-out, crazy quilt of a family, the kind I dreamed of making in the sixties and that I got lucky enough to create, discover, fall into, and be surrounded by. You are all, to a person, the grooviest humans I know.
WORKS CITED
American Experience, season 3, episodes 2–4, “Nixon,” directed by David Espar. Boston: WBGH, 1990. DVD.
American Experience, season 4, episodes 1–2, “LBJ,” directed by David Grubin. Boston: WBGH, 1991. DVD.
Anderson, Terry. The Movement and The Sixties: Protest in America from Greenboro to Wounded Knee. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Bingham, Clara. Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul. New York: Random House, 2016.
Blaine, Hal, and David Goggin. Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew: The Story of the World’s Most Recorded Musician, 3rd ed. Alma, MI: Rebeats Press, 2003.
Bloom, Alexander, and Wini Breines. Takin’ It to the Streets: A Sixties Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Brand, Stewart. “History — Some of What Happened Around Here for the Last Three Years.” Whole Earth Catalog, June 1971.
Burns, Olive Ann. “A Church for Turned-On Types.” Atlanta Constitution Magazine, June 1968.
Cianci, Bob. Great Rock Drummers of The Sixties. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 2006.
Davis, David, dir., and Stephen Talbot, dir. The Sixties: The Years that Shaped a Generation. PBS Paramount, 2005.
Edelman, Bernard, ed. Dear America: Lett
ers Home from Vietnam. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.
Francis, Miller. “The Allman Brothers Band.” The Great Speckled Bird, May 1969.
Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam Books, 1993.
Goodman, Paul. Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society. New York: Random House, 1970.
Graham, Bill. Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out. Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2004.
Guralnick, Peter. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1994.
Guralnick, Peter. Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1999.
Hopper, Dennis, dir. Easy Rider. 1969. New York: Criterion Collection DVD, 2016.
Kaiser, Charles. 1968 in America: Music, Politics, Chaos, Counterculture, and the Shaping of a Generation. New York: Grove/Atlantic, 2018.
Keltz, Iris. Scrapbook of a Taos Hippie. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press, 2000.
Kesey, Ken. “The Great Bus Race.” Whole Earth Catalog, May 1974.
Kirkpatrick, Rob. 1969: The Year Everything Changed. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2009.
Kopecki, Arthur. Leaving New Buffalo Commune. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.
Kopecky, Arthur. New Buffalo: Journals from a Taos Commune. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004.
Kurlansky, Mark. 1968: The Year that Rocked the World. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.
Law, Lisa, dir. Flashing on the Sixties. Flashback Productions, 2004. DVD.
Levy, David W. The Debate over Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Makower, Joel. Woodstock: The Oral History. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
Paul, Alan. One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2014.
Perlstein, Rick. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. New York: Scribner, 2008.
Price, Roberta. Across the Great Divide: A Photo Chronicle of the Counterculture. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010.
Price, Roberta. Huerfano: A Memoir of Life in the Counterculture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.
Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Esrick, Michelle, dir. Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie. New York: Docurama, 2011. DVD.
Tick, Edward. War and the Soul: Healing our Nation’s Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2005.
von Hoffman, Nicholas. We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1969.
Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968.
WEBSITES
“1969” at The Allman Brothers Band, hosted by the Big House Museum, accessed 2018, https://www.thebighousemuseum.com/the-band/.
“A History of Griffith Observatory” at Griffith Observatory, hosted by Friends of Griffith Observatory, accessed 2019, http://www.griffithobservatory.org/about/griffithobservatory.html.
“Art Kopecky” about living in New Buffalo commune in the late sixties and early seventies with photographs and journal entries from that time, hosted by Art Kopecky, accessed 2019, http://www.arthurkopecky.com/.
“Garage Bands” in The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, hosted by The Central Arkansas Library System, accessed 2018, http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2591.
“Great Speckled Bird” at the Georgia State University Library, with all back issues of the underground newspaper The Great Speckled Bird, hosted by GSU Library digital collections, accessed 2018, http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/GSB.
“In Bloom: Mary Beal’s Mojave” at The Mohave Project, with photos and biography of Mary Beal, hosted by Kim Stringfellow, accessed 2018, http://mojaveproject.org/dispatches-item/in-bloom-mary-beals-mojave/.
“Lisa Law Flashing on the Sixties” about living in community in the sixties with photographs and articles, hosted by Lisa Law, accessed 2018, https://www.flashingonthesixties.com/.
“The Strip Project” about the hippie scene along Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta in the late sixties, with oral histories and primary source materials from that time, hosted by Patrick Edmonson, accessed 2018, http://www.thestripproject.com/.
“Whole Earth Catalog” back issues hosted by New Whole Earth LLC, accessed 2018, http://www.wholeearth.com/index.php.
PHOTOS CREDITS
Photos copyrighted ©
DUST JACKET
Jacket photos ©: background: Premyuda Yospim/iStockphoto
BOOK
Page 5: NASA; 6–7: Horst Faas/AP Images; 8–9 top: Horst Faas/AP Images; 8–9 bottom: Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images; 10: Wally McNamee/Getty Images; 12–13: NASA; 15: Jim McMahon/Mapman ®; 16–17: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; 18–19: Paul Slade/Getty Images; 20 left: George Brich/AP Images; 20 right, 21: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; 22–23: Robert Altman/The Image Works; 24 top: Neal Boenzi/Getty Images; 24 bottom: Paul Slade/Getty Images; 25: Paul Slade/Getty Images; 26–27: Rolls Press/Getty Images; 29: Art Greenspon/AP Images; 30–31 top: Dang Van Phuoc/AP Images; 30–31 bottom: Art Greenspon/AP Images; 32: LBJ Library photo by Jack Kightlinger; 33 top, 33 bottom, 34–35, 36–37: Bettmann/Getty Images; 39: Charles H. Phillips/Getty Images; 40: Lee Balterman/Getty Images; 41: APA/Getty Images; 42, 43 left: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; 43 right: Bettmann/Getty Images; 44–45: David Fenton/Getty Images; 46–47: Hugh Van Es/AP Images; 49: Jack Sheahan/Getty Images; 50–51: Bernie Boston/Getty Images; 53: Ted Streshinsky/Getty Images;
Page 146: House Of Fame LLC/Getty Images; 148: Keystone/Getty Images; 150 left, 150 right, 151: Lisa Law; 153: John Brandi; 154–155: Steve Schapiro/Getty Images;
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The publisher has made every effort to trace the ownership of every selection included; to secure the necessary permissions to reprint the selection and to make full acknowledgement for its use. In the event of any question arising as to the right to use any material, the publisher, while expressing regret for any inadvertent error, will be happy to make the necessary correction in any future printings, provided notification is sent to the publisher.
DEBORAH WILES was born in Alabama, grew up around the world in a military family, and spent her summers in a small Mississippi town. Her books include the picture book Freedom Summer, and the novels L
ove, Ruby Lavender; The Aurora County All-Stars; Each Little Bird that Sings, a National Book Award finalist; and A Long Line of Cakes. The first book in The Sixties Trilogy, Countdown, received five starred reviews upon its publication and has appeared on many state award lists. The second, Revolution, was a National Book Award finalist.
Deborah lives in Atlanta, Georgia. You can visit her on the web at deborahwiles.com.
This book was edited by David Levithan and designed by Phil Falco. Its documentary features were coordinated by Maya Marlette and Els Rijper. The text was set in Futura, a typeface designed by Paul Renner between 1924 and 1926. The display type was set in FF Identification 04S, designed by Rian Hughes in 1993. The book was typeset at Jouve North America and printed and bound at LSC Communications in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The production was supervised by Melissa Schirmer. The manufacturing was supervised by Angelique Browne.
Copyright © 2019 by Deborah Wiles
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
While inspired by real events and historical characters, this is a work of fiction and does not claim to be historically accurate or portray factual events or relationships. Please keep in mind that references to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales may not be factually accurate, but rather fictionalized by the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, October 2019
The text type was set in Futura
Cover art & design © 2019 by Phil Falco
e-ISBN 978-1-338-49745-8
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