Introduction
The hippie era, 1960’s and 1970’s, invigorated drug use, free love, and sex. There were many music artists that became promoters to this message. The effects of drugs took its toll on many protruding and accomplished artists of that era. My paper will Focus on Three artists of from this era; Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. Were these musicians an artificial character of their time, or were other issues impacting their choices that caused a fatal dependence on drugs? There have been many popular musicians that have died due to abusing drugs; why is it that drug abuse is so common among musicians and is there any ways it can be prevented? Follow me as we take a deeper look into this artist and their reason for abusing drugs.
Jim Morrison
His childhood:
Morrison was born James Douglas Morrison. It was only six months after Morrison was born that his father was shipped off and served throughout the remaining years of WWII, during that time his mother moved in with the Admiral’s parents in Clearwater, Florida. Jim never saw his father until the age of two. Jim later had a sister and a brother. The most memorable events he experienced in life happened at the age of five. It has been said that, during a family trip in, Jim came across the sight of an accident while traveling in the desert. Jim wrote and spoke of the event on several occasions, he even included it into his music, including “the ghost song: “Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding, Ghost’s crowd the young child’s fragile egg-shell mind.” He spoke that while the incident was realized the Indian’s stayed bleeding to death, and there was no medical help that could help, and even as a small child, he was extremely afraid as his famil...
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...e. He was the ultimate guitar player."
Janis Joplin
In early years:
Joplin was born on January 19, 1943. Joplin grew up and was located in a small town of Texas which was acknowledged for having influences to the oil industry. For many ages, Joplin fought to discharge form this community that she felt to be confining and it is said that she spent even longer trying to overcome her memories of her time spent there which was difficult for her. Joplin developed a love for music at a premature age and even sang in her religious choir as a child. She was six years of age when her mother had her sister Lara and four years later her brother Michael. Joplin always did well in school and was popular until the side effects of puberty started to kick in around the age of 14, she gained some weight. It was during high school when she started to dissident.
mother, Ruth, brought him to live with her at a sailor's hotel and bar that she
Scott Joplin, commonly known as the "King of Ragtime" music, was born on November 24, 1868, in Bowie County, Texas near Linden. Joplin came from a large musical family. His father, Giles Joplin was a musician who had fiddled dance music while serving as a slave at his master's parties. His mother, Florence Givens Joplin, born free and out of slavery, sang and played the banjo, and four of his brothers and sisters either sang or played strings.
Jerry Garcia’s life was filled with wonderful things, many of which he never expected in the first place. After an almost fatal heroin overdose in 1986, “ Garcia philosophically stated, ‘ I’m 45 years old, I’m ready for anything, I didn’t even plan on living this long so all this shit is just add-on stuff.’ ” (“Garcia”) This attitude shows why Garcia did all of the things he did and even how some of them came about. Garcia, who “functioned as the preeminent pied piper of the rock era,” led a life of great artistic ability which he used in many ways(“Grateful Dead_ Rockhall”).
In this essay I will be comparing the life of two valuable musicians of the entertainment industry, Brad Nowell and Kurt Cobain. Bradley James Nowell was born to Nancy and James Nowell on February 22, 1968. The family resided in Long Beach California. Growing up, Brad was a bright and intelligent boy, but disliked school. In fact, he hated it so much that he would have his younger sister do his homework for him. His parents had concluded that it was just a lack of attention toward one subject at a time. At the age of nine, Brad was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and was prescribed Ritalin to gain control over it. Kurt Donald Cobain was also diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and was prescribed Ritalin. Kurt was born to Donald and Wendy Cobain on February 20, 1967 in Seattle, Washington. Kurt was also a smart boy with high hopes but also with a dislike towards school. Kurt's parents went through a divorce when he was six years old. His mother had taken him and moved a few towns away from Seattle. He had a hard time dealing with the divorce, going back and forth between parents and aunts and uncles. Kurt eventually started becoming rebellious, unlike Brad, who actually enjoyed the time spent with each parent alone after their divorce. When Brad was eleven, his father took him on a trip to the Virgin Islands where Brad was exposed to the reggae culture of music. This is where most of his influences were developed. He began to teach himself to play the guitar and practice reggae and punk-rock music all day everyday, which had later made him famous. Kurt, on the other hand, had come upon his influences in a different way. Growing up near Seattle, the Pacific Northwest had more of a hardcore punk-rock scene. He started smoking marijuana and taking other drugs like LSD and pain killers. He, like Brad, had begun teaching himself chords on the guitar and creating local bands across Seattle. Kurt had also spend a lot of time reading at the local library to gain more information that he knew he wouldn't learn in school. For instance, he would read books on society and cultures around the states, which influenced many of his songs he had written that had led to his fame.
Sonny states, “Her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes--when it's in your veins. It makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time. And distant. And---and sure [...] It makes you feel---in control. Sometimes you’ve got to have the feeling.”(Baldwin,16). Baldwin uses the comparison of music and heroin to emphasize the addictive quality of music for Sonny as well as the feeling of control it gives him. This imagery of the overwhelming feeling shooting heroin serves as an illustration of the power that music has over Sonny. Through this metaphor, the reader gains an understanding of why Sonny needs music.
Music can be traced back into human history to prehistoric eras. To this day archeologists uncover fragments of ancient instruments as well as tablets with carved lyrics buried alongside prominent leaders and highly influential people. This serves as a testament to the importance and power of music, as well as its influence in society. Over its many years of existence, music’s powerful invocation of feelings has allowed it to evolve and serve many purposes, one being inspiring change. American journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson once said, “Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of fuel. Sentimental people call it inspiration, but what they really mean is fuel.” This fuel is the very things that powers the influence of Rock ‘n’ Roll on American society, that author Glenn C. Altschuler writes about in his book, “All Shook Up – How Rock ‘n’ Roll Changed America.” Between 1945 and 1965 Rock ‘n’ Roll transformed American society and culture by helping to ease racial integration and launch a sexual revolution while most importantly developing an intergenerational identity.
When first reading “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, it may initially seem that the relationship between musicians and drugs is synonymous. Public opinion suggests that musicians and drugs go hand and hand. The possibility lies that Sonny’s passion for jazz music is the underlying reason for his drug use, or even the world of jazz music itself brought drugs into Sonny’s life. The last statement is what the narrator believes to be true. However, by delving deeper and examining the theme of music in the story, it is nothing but beneficial for Sonny and the other figures involved. Sonny’s drug use and his music are completely free of one another. Sonny views his jazz playing as a ray of light to lead him away from the dim and dismal future that Harlem has to offer.
At first glance, "Sonny's Blues" seems ambiguous about the relationship between music and drugs. After all, the worlds of jazz and drug addiction are historically intertwined; it could be possible that Sonny's passion for jazz is merely an excuse for his lifestyle and addiction, as the narrator believes for a time. Or perhaps the world that Sonny has entered by becoming involved in jazz is the danger- if he had not encountered jazz he wouldn't have encountered drugs either. But the clues given by the portrayals of music and what it does for other figures in the story demonstrate music's beneficial nature; music and drugs are not interdependent for Sonny. By studying the moments of music interwoven throughout the story, it can be determined that the author portrays music as a good thing, the preserver and sustainer of hope and life, and Sonny's only way out of the "deep and funky hole" of his life in Harlem, with its attendant peril of drugs (414).
Through Elvis Presley, rock ‘n’ roll changed the face of American music, and influenced a whole generation’s political philosophy. Composer Leonard Berstein once said, “He introduced the beat to everything and changed everything-music, language, clothes; it’s a whole new social revolution-the 60s come from it” (Wattenberg 6B). To his credit, Elvis embraced rhythm and blues not as a from to be imitated, but as a form to honored and interprete... ...
Still, few musicians have lived more thoroughly the life of their times. Unlike the tie-dyed, good time trip of Jerry Garcia's Grateful Dead, Hendrix felt both the raw, unleashed energy of the sixties, and also the decades terror and confusion. Listening to his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, or the equally powerful Machine Gun one can't help but wonder if this wasn't the most empathic musician to ever pick up a guitar. In those works Hendrix seemed to feel everything for everyone -- black, white, GI, protester, hippie, straight -- he found a place for all of us. American music would never be the same.
One of the folk music singers who sang with the Freedom Singers were Joan Baez. Joan wanted people to have peace through her music. Joan Baez was born in Staten Island, New York, on January 9, 1941. In 1951, she spent a year living in Baghdad, Iraq, with her family when her father accepted a job there. When Joan’s family moves back to the U.S; the family moves to California. In 1956, she hears a Martin Luther King Junior’s lecture on nonviolence and Civil Rights. She also bought her very first guitar. In 1957, she commits her first act of Civil disobedience by refusing to leave her high school during an air-raid drill. Then, she graduated in 1958, from Palo Alto High School.
Scott Joplin was born in eastern Texas and raised in a town called Texarkana; the date of his birth though, is under debate. It was originally thought that he was born on November 24, 1868, but later research indicates that his birthday was more likely some time in the second half of 1867 (Berlin). He was the second child born to Giles Joplin and Florence Givins of their six children. He was of African decent and his father was a liberated slave, meaning that Jo...
Drug abuse is one of the singular commonalities between the majority of jazz musicians. Those who did not participate or who overcame their addiction were honored throughout the jazz community. It was too easy to become entrapped in the temptation of escape that heroin offered. Ignoring the consequences of such a drug, ignoring the toll it took on their lives. Although many jazz musicians still struggled with obtaining fame and fortune and simply surviving in the times they lived in heroin was able to provide a temporary but fulfilling escape. Being highly addictive many lost their lives to heroin abuse or HIV/AIDS because of sharing hypodermic needles. “Many talented jazz musicians either had their careers sidetracked or prematurely ended due to their addiction ...” yet the use of narcotic did not dissipate. Death being one of the side effects of heroin provoked the question of why anyone would take it. Not being able to understand sacrificing their body to “free” their souls. Not all addicts were suicidal but their addictions caused the misconception that they were. Throughout the majority of the story, Sonny’s unnamed brother attempts to comprehend why anyone, especially his brother, would partake in drug abuse if they did not have a death wish, “... why does he want to die? He must want to die, he’s killing himself, why does he want to die?”. A friend
Rag time as it is most commonly know was the type of fast paced music played around 1885 in St. Louis. Scott Joplin was born in 1868 and lived until 1917, but has done a lot in his life span. He was one of the first African Americans to be know as a composer. Born in Texarkana, Texas to a large family with musical background, he began learning to play the guitar and beagle, and gained free piano lessons by showing such fast progression to his teachers. After death of his mother, he left the house at age fourteen. He learned much form traveling through Mississippi playing in local spots and learning form what was offered to him. In 1885 he arrived in St. Louis, at the time a center for a new music phenomenon called ragtime.
Poet William Blake once said "If The Doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite" (Gilmore 34). From this quote arose a band that even over 20 years after its disbanding still is played and remembered. The Doors started as a little garage band in California back in the early sixties. They were extremely popular due to their lead singer, Jim Morrison. Morrison himself was a real character. Morrison is considered by many critics a modern day poet. Others view him in a different light, George Will wrote "Morrison resembled Byron in one aspect, they both were mad, bad, and dangerous to know" (Will 64). Still others view him as a hero of the 'counterculture'. He was a sort of 'Peter Pan', one of those boys who never grew up. Morrison basically was The Doors. His blatant disregard for law and order made him a very well known figure. He was arrested on a few occasions for charges ranging from inciting riots to indecent exposure. He was also notorious for his drug use and alcohol abuse. His poetry though, justified his lifestyle. There were also three other members of the band: Ray Manzarak (keyboards), John Densmore (drummer), and Robby Krieger (guitarist). They all made up The Doors, but after the death of the lead singer Jim Morrison, the band's popularity dropped significantly. They did though produce three albums after Morrison's untimely demise (all of which were not very popular). Jim Morrison died on July 4th, 1971, in Paris, France. He was 27 years old at the time of death (the same age Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died at also). He was found in his bathtub with a cute smirk on his face. He had finally "broke through to the other side"(Gilmore 35).