Something happened between 5/1967 and 11/1967. Click through to YouTube to see these two clips of Eric Clapton and Cream. Musically, they are equivalent and on the same page. The blues guitar had entered the psychedelic age. That doesn’t change from the May clip to the November clip. But the visual self-presentation is different. In the May clip, Clapton doesn’t seem to know what to do with that hair, how to dress, how to present himself. In the November clip, he is totally comfortable in his own skin, the casual hippie style has settled into place.
So what happened between May and November of 1967 that might have signalled hippie/psychedelic culture finding its comfort zone? The release of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s album at the very end of May, just two weeks after Cream’s gig at the Beat Club in the top clip? Or their worldwide live release of “All You Need Is Love” a few weeks after that? The explosion of hippiedom in the San Francisco Summer of Love from June to August? Maybe. Then again, this may all be my own quirky reading of the two clips. But I hope you enjoyed the little trip down memory lane to the music scene of 1967, which imho pivoted away from Elvis/Sinatra days and carved out a new sonic landscape that still bears fruit today 🙂
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