Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower
Rock Music on Campus in the Sixties
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Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower
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Narrated by:
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Patrick Lawlor
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By:
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James M. Carter
About this listen
Histories of American rock music and the 1960s counterculture typically focus on the same few places: Woodstock, Monterey, Altamont. Yet there was also a very active college circuit that brought edgy acts like the Jefferson Airplane and the Velvet Underground to different metropolitan regions and smaller towns all over the country. These campus concerts were often programmed, promoted, and reviewed by students themselves, and their diverse tastes challenged narrow definitions of rock music.
Rockin' in the Ivory Tower takes a close look at two smaller universities, Drew in New Jersey and Stony Brook on Long Island, to see how the culture of rock music played an integral role in student life in the late 1960s. Analyzing campus archives and college newspapers, historian James Carter traces connections between rock fandom and the civil rights protests, free speech activism, radical ideas, lifestyle transformations, and anti-war movements that revolutionized universities in the 1960s. Furthermore, he finds that these progressive students refused to segregate genres like folk, R&B, hard rock, and pop. Rockin' in the Ivory Tower gives listeners a front-row seat to a dynamic time for the music industry, countercultural politics, and youth culture.
©2023 James M. Carter (P)2023 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Golden Dreams
- California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963
- By: Kevin Starr
- Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
- Length: 29 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
Starr brilliantly illuminates the dominant economic, social, and cultural forces in California in these pivotal years. In a powerful blend of telling events, colorful personalities, and insightful analyses, Starr examines such issues as the overnight creation of the postwar California suburb, the rise of Los Angeles as Super City, the reluctant emergence of San Diego as one of the largest cities in the nation, and the decline of political centrism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Give us more Starr on California!!
- By Roger on 08-24-16
By: Kevin Starr
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Pure Invention
- How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World
- By: Matt Alt
- Narrated by: Matt Alt
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 265
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 232
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 231
Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives.
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3 out of 5 stars
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great book ruined by ending
- By Grant Holder on 06-07-22
By: Matt Alt
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With Amusement for All
- A History of American Popular Culture since 1830
- By: LeRoy Ashby
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 33 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4 out of 5 stars 65
With Amusement for All is the first comprehensive history of two centuries of mass entertainment in the United States, covering everything from the penny press to Playboy, the NBA to NASCAR, big band to hip hop, and other topics including film, comics, television, sports, and music. Paying careful attention to matters of race, gender, class, economics, and politics, LeRoy Ashby emphasizes the complex ways in which popular culture simultaneously reflects and transforms American culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So Much Fun!
- By Paul on 11-28-13
By: LeRoy Ashby
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Never a Dull Moment
- 1971 - the Year That Rock Exploded
- By: David Hepworth
- Narrated by: David Hepworth
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 202
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 199
On New Year's Eve, 1970, Paul McCartney told his lawyers to issue the writ at the High Court in London, effectively ending The Beatles. You might say this was the last day of the pop era. The following day, which was a Friday, was 1971. You might say this was the first day of the rock era. And within the remaining 364 days of this monumental year, the world would hear Don McLean's "American Pie", The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar", The Who's "Baba O'Riley", Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", and more.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A blast from the past
- By Amazon Customer on 07-30-16
By: David Hepworth
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1959
- The Year Everything Changed
- By: Fred Kaplan
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 140
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 96
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Story4 out of 5 stars 95
Acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that really changed AmericaWhile conventional accounts focus on the 60s as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, Fred Kaplan argues that it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the decades that followed.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Facinating look at a neglected moment in history
- By James on 05-25-11
By: Fred Kaplan
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Here We Are Now
- The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain
- By: Charles R. Cross
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
Simply stated, Kurt Cobain changed the cultural conversation in his all-too-brief life, and even after his shattering death. With interviews and commentary from all corners of the pop culture universe, from the people who knew Cobain to those who continue to help his legend grow, Here We Are Now explores what a singular life meant, and how that meaning can be measured, when and if it can be.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An amazing afterword on culture post Cobain
- By Rebecca F. on 06-11-15
By: Charles R. Cross
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The Walrus and the Elephants
- John Lennon’s Years of Revolution
- By: James A. Mitchell
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
In late 1971 John Lennon left London behind and moved to New York, eager to join a youth movement rallying for social justice and an end to the Vietnam War. Lennon was quickly embraced by radicals and revolutionaries, the hippies and Yippies at odds with the establishment. Settling in Greenwich Village, the heart of Manhattan's counterculture, the former Beatle was soon on the frontlines of the antiwar movement and championing a range of causes and issues.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I wish you were still here
- By Kazuhiko on 12-09-13
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All Shook Up
- How Rock ‘n’ Roll Changed America
- By: Glenn C. Altschuler
- Narrated by: Jack Garrett
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4 out of 5 stars 52
As Glenn Altschuler reveals in All Shook Up, the rise of rock 'n roll--and the outraged reception to it--in fact can tell us a lot about the values of the United States in the 1950s, a decade that saw a great struggle for the control of popular culture. Altschuler shows, in particular, how rock's "switchblade beat" opened up wide fissures in American society along the fault-lines of family, sexuality, and race.
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4 out of 5 stars
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50's Rock&Roll was more of a force than I thought
- By James on 10-19-11
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Can't Stop Won't Stop
- A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
- By: Jeff Chang
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 19 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop became the Esperanto of youth rebellion and a generation-defining movement. In a post-civil rights era defined by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop crystallized a multiracial, polycultural generation's worldview and transformed American politics and culture. But that epic story has never been told with this kind of breadth, insight, and style.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not About Hip Hop Music
- By A. Yerkes on 09-06-19
By: Jeff Chang
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Alan Lomax: A Biography
- The Man Who Recorded the World
- By: John Szwed
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
The remarkable life and times of the man who popularized American folk music and created the science of song. Folklorist, archivist, anthropologist, singer, political activist, talent scout, ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, concert and record producer, Alan Lomax is best remembered as the man who introduced folk music to the masses. Lomax began his career making field recordings of rural music for the Library of Congress and by the late 1930s brought his discoveries to radio, including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Burl Ives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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They Done Good
- By DonnaMarie113 on 06-26-22
By: John Szwed
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The Nineties
- A Book
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,918
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,664
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,654
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we’re still struggling to understand.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Very White Middle-class Take On The Nineties
- By Umar Lee on 02-10-22
By: Chuck Klosterman
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God's Forever Family
- The Jesus People Movement in America
- By: Larry Eskridge
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
The Jesus People movement was a unique combination of the hippie counterculture and evangelical Christianity. It first appeared in the famed "Summer of Love" of 1967, in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and spread like wildfire in Southern California and beyond, to cities like Seattle, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. In 1971 the growing movement found its way into the national media spotlight and gained momentum, attracting a huge new following among evangelical church youth.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very good book, marred by narration
- By Dru Lattin on 11-04-15
By: Larry Eskridge
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New York, New York, New York
- Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
- By: Thomas Dyja
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy, Thomas Dyja - introduction
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 164
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 143
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 141
Dangerous, filthy, and falling apart, garbage piled on its streets and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble; New York’s terrifying, if liberating, state of nature in 1978 also made it the capital of American culture. Over the next thirty-plus years, though, it became a different place - kinder and meaner, richer and poorer, more like America and less like what it had always been.
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5 out of 5 stars
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OMG...right on 👍👍👍👍👍
- By howie wine on 04-04-21
By: Thomas Dyja
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Once in a Great City
- A Detroit Story
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 187
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 154
It's 1963, and Detroit is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America. It was the American auto makers' best year; the revolution in music and politics was underway. Walter Reuther's UAW had helped lift the middle class. Once in a Great City shows that the shadows of collapse were evident even then. Yet so much of what Detroit gave America lasts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By Jordanel on 01-02-16
By: David Maraniss
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Beatles '66
- The Revolutionary Year
- By: Steve Turner
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 367
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 311
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 311
The year that changed everything for the Beatles was 1966 - the year of their last concert and of Revolver, their first album created to be listened to rather than performed. This was the year the Beatles risked their popularity by retiring from live performances, recording songs that explored alternative states of consciousness, experimenting with avant-garde ideas, and speaking their minds on issues of politics, war, and religion. Music journalist and Beatles expert Steve Turner investigates the enormous changes that took place in the Beatles' lives and work during 1966.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great listen
- By Tad Davis on 07-28-18
By: Steve Turner
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Seven Dirty Words
- The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
- By: James Sullivan
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 126
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Story4 out of 5 stars 128
In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Carlin's CV with no Depth or Insight
- By Dubi on 01-23-14
By: James Sullivan