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Tear down the walls: Jefferson Airplane, race, and revolutionary rhetoric in 1960s rock

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2010

Patrick Burke
Patrick Burke
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1032, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63105, USA E-mail: pburke@wustl.edu
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Abstract

While the notion of the ‘rock revolution’ of the 1960s has by now become commonplace, scholars have rarely addressed the racial implications of this purported revolution. This article examines a notorious 1968 blackface performance by Grace Slick, lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, to shed light on a significant tendency in 1960s rock: white musicians casting themselves as political revolutionaries by enacting an idealised vision of African American identity. Rock, a form dominated by white musicians and audiences but pervasively influenced by black music and style, conveyed deeply felt but inconsistent notions of black identity in which African Americans were simultaneously subjected to insensitive stereotypes and upheld as examples of moral authority and revolutionary authenticity. Jefferson Airplane's references to black culture and politics were multifaceted and involved both condescending or naïve radical posturing and sincere respect for African American music. The Airplane appear to have been engaged in a complex if imperfect attempt to create a contemporary musical form that reflected African American influences without asserting dominance over those influences. Their example suggests that closer attention to racial issues allows us to address the revolutionary ambitions of 1960s rock without romanticising or trivialising them.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 61 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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