The Sixties, Rock Music & the Counterculture at Stony Brook & Drew Universities, 1966-1971

In the image above, a student at Stony Brook University in 1968 reads The East Village Other, an underground newspaper, while sitting on the campus amid a pile of dirt/mud commonplace to a campus constantly under construction.  So prevalent were the sights, sounds, and dirt of construction the students came to refer to themselves as “the mud people.”

Stony Brook University, on Long Island, New York, also hosted the full breadth of rock music’s eclecticism during the late sixties.  In terms of sheer volume, the campus is a real standout, hosting more than any other single campus.  And, like Drew, this pattern was the result of students efforts with not only little administration/faculty oversight, but often outright hostility.

The provocative, counterculture band The Fugs, pictured at right, performance on the campus proved controversial.  While some students embraced the unconventional performance, others reacted with outrage, screaming in the face of the student who’d booked the band, Howie Klein.  He followed the criticism with an editorial in The Statesman, the student newspaper, defending the choice.

Klein also met around the same time a young guitar player named Jimi James performing at a local club in New York and asked him to come play the campus.  In the spring, 1968, that guitar player, now known as Jimi Hendrix, performed on the campus as part of the 1968 north American tour of The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

A similarly personal encounter resulted in The Jefferson Airplane performing on the campus too.

Howie Klein, Sandy Pearlman and Richard Meltzer, pictured above, more than any other students were responsible for the development of rock music culture on the campus.

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Likewise, the campus culture at Drew University turned decidedly “counterculture” following 1967.

Glenn Redbord, at right, launched the practice of booking rock and roll concerts on the campus in 1966.  Redbord’s successor, Greg Granquist below…  Dave Marsden, pictured below right, followed and kept the Social Committee very active bringing rock music acts to campus.

Front page tribute to Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin following their deaths.

The student-run newspaper, The Acorn, played a key role in running ads for up-coming concerts, album/concert reviews, and analyses of of the rock/blues genre.

The Acorn became a member/subscriber to the Liberation News Service.  The content soon reflected broader, countercultural shifts, such as the “comix” of R. Crumb, above, and others, alongside much dissident and subversive content.

Band/artists at Drew University, 1967-1971

Band/artists at Stonybrook University, 1967-1971

1967: Four Tops, Daily Flash, Jefferson Airplane, Tom Rush, Ian and Sylvia, Tom Paxton, The Bagatelle, Jaki Byard Trio, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis Band, Thelonius Monk, The Grateful Dead, Tim Buckley, The Doors, The Chambers Brothers, The Blue Öyster Cult/Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest Group, The Holy Modal Rounders, The James Cotton Blues Band, Steve Noonan, Phil Ochs, Doc Watson, The Jefferson Airplane, Kaleidoscope, Ravi Shankar, Charles Lloyd, Babatunde Olatunji

1968: Jackson Browne, Judy Collins, Country Joe and the Fish, The Fugs, Jimi Hendrix (The Jimi Hendrix Experience), The Soft Machine, The Spencer Davis Group, Beacon Street Union, The Vagrants, Vanilla Fudge, Janis Ian, The Grateful Dead, The Incredible String Band, Children of God, Orpheus, Smokey Robinson, Sam and Dave, Tim Hardin, Joni Mitchell, “Spider” John Koerner, The Churls, Procol Harum, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Moby Grape, Rhinoceros, Blue Öyster Cult/Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest, Group, Ten Years After, Big Brother and the Holding Company Reverend Gary Davis, Richie Havens, The John Hammond Trio, Janis Joplin, Nina Simone, The Youngbloods

1969: Earth Opera, Flatt and Scruggs, Arlo Guthrie, Jethro Tull, Mountain, Beau Brummels, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Taj Mahal, Ten Years After, Chuck Berry, Slim Harpo, James Cotton Blues Band, The Band, Blue Öyster Cult/Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest Group, The Byrds, Gordon Lightfoot, Turley Richards, The Flock, The Spencer Davis Group, The Who, Sha-Na-Na, Larry Coryell, Pacific Gas and Electric, The Cast of Hair, Bludwyn Pig, The Moody Blues, The Band, Mother Earth

1970: Laura Nyro 01_10, Turley Richards 01_10, Melanie 02_21, Jerry Jeff Walker 02_21, Renaissance 02_22, Van Morrison 03_01, John Mayall 03_07, Van Morrison 03_07, Tube Groove 03_14, Pig Iron 03_21, James Taylor 03_21, Quicksilver Messenger Service 04_05, Roland Kirk 04_18, Cannonball Adderly 04_26, The Allman Brothers Band 04_28, Chicago Transit Authority 04_28, The Jefferson Airplane 05_01, Blue Öyster Cult/Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest Group 05_01, Mad Dogs & Englishmen 05_13, Joe Cocker 05_13, Canned Heat 05_22, Traffic 06_04, MC5 07_03, Ten Years After 07_03, Mott the Hoople 07_04, The Allman Brothers Band 07_09, Mountain 07_10, Bloodrock 07_24, Grand Funk Railroad 07_24, Swallow 07_24, The Allman Brothers Band 07_26, Miles Davis 08_15, Santana 08_15, James Cotton Blues Band 10_04, B.B. King 10_04, Raphael Grinage 10_08, The Allman Brothers Band 10_23, Bonnie Delaney and Friends 10_23, The Grateful Dead 10_30, New Riders of the Purple Sage 10_30, The Grateful Dead 10_31, New Riders of the Purple Sage 10_31, Small Faces 11_05, Rod Stewart 11_05, Poco 11_07, The Allman Brothers Band 11_14, Hot Tuna 11_23, Cat Stevens 11_24, Traffic 11_24, Leonard Cohen 12_06, Miles Davis 12_12, Leon Thomas 12_12

1971: Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys 00_00, Cowboy 02_27, Tom Rush 02_27, Freddie King 03_07, Leon Russell 03_07, Blue Öyster Cult/Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest Group 03_19, The Soft Decline 03_19, Procol Harum 04_11, Seatrain 04_11, John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra 04_13, The J. Geils Blues Band 04_25, Jethro Tull 04_25, Roberta Flack 05_08, Les McCann 05_08, The Allman Brothers Band 09_19, The Wet Willie Band 09_19, Boz Scaggs 09_26, The Beach Boys 09_26, Charlie Chin 10_02, Shawn Phillips 10_02, Corbitt and Daniels 10_09, The Youngbloods 10_09, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention 10_16, The Holy Modal Rounders 10_17, The J. Geils Band 10_31, Johnathan Edwards 11_07, The Flying Burrito Brothers 11_07, Pink Floyd 11_14, Donny Hathaway 11_20, The Kinks 11_28, Yes 11_28, Pentangle 12_06, Blue Öyster Cult/Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest Group 12_11, The Byrds 12_11, John McLaughlin 12_11, “Spider” John Koerner 12_12