The feel-good hits from the musical "Hair"
Sublime, upbeat, and goofy songs from the heart of the 1960s counterculture
Rock ’n’ Roll with Me is a daily email newsletter (except Sunday) presenting one or more of my favorite danceable rock ’n’ roll songs, from the sixties onwards, along with some fun facts and memories.
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Hair is a rock musical that has enjoyed remarkable popularity and longevity since it debuted off-Broadway in 1967 and on Broadway the following year. It spawned a slew of Top Ten hits for a who’s who of pop, rock, and easy listening artists and a Broadway cast album that stayed at the top of the Billboard charts for an entire year. It has been staged in cities and towns all over the world and by numerous touring companies, as well as winning the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for a revival on Broadway in 2007. It was even made into a critical and commercial hit film (1979), starring Treat Williams in his breakout role.
The title refers to long hair as a symbol and statement of the hippies in their protest against ‘the Establishment,’ its conduct of the Vietnam War, and its perpetuation of racism, sexism, poverty, environmental destruction, political corruption, and other ills in modern American society. The hippies were also known for going au naturel (think Woodstock) and eschewing the razor, so there’s the hairiness related to those practices as well. (Just saying.)
Hair in fact achieved notoriety (and threats of censorship) for a brief nude scene at the end of Act I in which the entire cast disrobed, although doing so was supposedly optional. The scene was only 20 seconds and dimly lit, with the actors bathed in a light projection of floral patterns, prompting TV comedian Jack Benny to quip during intermission, “Did you happen to notice if any of them were Jewish?” As you’ll see in fun facts below, one actress in the original 1968 Broadway production refused to take off her clothes and, nevertheless (or maybe because of?), moved on immediately afterwards to a stellar film career.
The story and lyrics were written by two New York City actors, James Rado and Gerome Ragni, who wanted to capture not only their own passionate and volatile friendship (and love affair) but also the energy and passion of the kids in the hippie movement, who were dropping out of mainstream society, dodging the military draft, and holding protests and what they called Be-Ins. Rado and Ragni wanted others to be able to experience the excitement happening on the streets and in the parks of New York that they themselves were experiencing as they hung out with the kids and witnessed them trying to right the wrongs of society and create a better world than the one they were inheriting from the so-called Silent Generation. The two writer-actors wanted to mark and document this historical time so people could really ‘get it’ (as well as develop a theatrical vehicle for themselves).
The amazing music was written by Grammy-winning composer Galt MacDermot, who besides musicals also composed jazz, funk, and classical music and film scores, and whose work has been popular as samples by major hip-hop artists.
I don’t think you can understand how truly energetic and exciting the musical was, how successful it was in conveying the hippie ‘spirit’ to an audience through both its words and music, unless you experience it for yourself. This video might give you a sense. Here is the cast of the 2007 Broadway revival performing one of the most famous numbers, “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” on The David Letterman Show:
The 5th Dimension also did a fantastic version of this song that went platinum, won two Grammys, and is number 66 on Billboard’s “Greatest Songs of All Time.” It was produced by Bones Howe, who was behind most of the hits of the 5th Dimension and the Association, and of course those session musician geniuses called the Wrecking Crew are responsible for the stellar sound. Take a listen:
The theme song of the musical, not surprisingly, is called “Hair,” and its my favorite song from the show. The family pop group from Newport, Rhode Island called the Cowsills reached number two on the charts with their single of this song. All I can say is that these six siblings and their mom are a riot to watch in this TV performance of “Hair,” and that it’s no surprise they became the inspiration for the popular 70s TV show The Partridge Family.
Please note, you’ll have to jump forward to 0:31 if you want to skip a beginning bit with Lyle Waggoner (from The Carol Burnett Show) monkeying around.
Pop singer Oliver also hit it big with another song from Hair called “Good Morning Starshine,” reaching number three on Billboard Hot 100 in July 1969:
You might also remember Oliver for his other hit song, the ballad “Jean,” which was the theme song for the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie starring the incredible Maggie Smith. You can watch him perform it on the Ed Sullivan Show here.
Some fun facts
The musical’s title was reportedly inspired by pop artist Jim Dine’s piece called "Hair” — a drawing of hair accompanied by the word ‘HAIR’ — on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“The Met”).
Hair creators Rado and Ragni had already performed together off-Broadway in Hang Down Your Head and Die, a play about capital punishment, which lasted for only a single performance. That play had been conceived and produced by the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club, with two of the writers and actors being Michael Palin and Terry Jones who went on to achieve fame as members of the comedy troupe Monty Python. Funnily enough, the play did well when mounted at the Comedy Theatre in the West End of London, but not when it was brought over to New York.
The band Three Dog Night, whose danceable songs I will cover in another post, had a hit with their Hair ballad “Easy to Be Hard.”
Hair has been a hotbed for the nurturing and launching of acting and musical talent. Two examples of actors who got their start in Hair were Diane Keaton (who refused to perform nude with the rest of the cast) and Tim Curry, who went on to cult status playing Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the L.A. and London stage productions and the film production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Rockstar Meat Loaf appeared in both the Los Angeles and Broadway productions, which led to a Motown album and opening for such acts as The Who, Alice Cooper, and Bob Seger after appearing in Los Angeles, and to the L.A. theater production and the spin-off film version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show after appearing on Broadway. We’ll hear more about the divine Meat Loaf in a future post.
Pop star Jennifer Warnes was the female lead in the L.A. production, going on afterwards to become a friend and collaborator of Leonard Cohen and, among many other accolades throughout her career, winning an Academy Award with Joe Cocker for “Up Where We Belong,” the platinum hit single from the film An Officer and a Gentleman.
The “Queen of Disco” Donna Summer appeared in the German production and was quoted as saying about the nude scene “it was not meant to be sexual. ... We stood naked to comment on the fact that society makes more of nudity than killing.” Good point, but hmm, not sure…
Questions for discussion in the comments
Is your hair streaming, flaxen, waxen — or oily, greasy, fleecy?
Is it easy to be hard, hard to be easy, easy to be easy, or hard to be hard?
Why did Hang Down Your Head and Die fail in New York? Thoughts?
Isn’t Galt a great name, especially for an action hero or romance novel love interest?
Are you up where you belong?
Other thoughts, bemusings, far out happenings you wish to bring up?
First, I'm impressed that your posts are so well researched and you're planning to write daily!
Second, I thought the discussion about the Fifth Dimension cover of "Age Of Aquarius" in _Summer Of Soul" was really interesting (see this summary: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/5th-dimension-summer-of-soul-1190823/ ) .
As co-lead singer Billy Davis Jr. acknowledges in the film, the 5th Dimension were blessed and cursed. Coming together from worlds as varied as pop and gospel, the quintet were, in a way, a black version of the Mamas and the Papas. Their harmonies were similarly sunny and enveloping, and one of their earliest hits was, in fact, a cover of John Phillips’ “Go Where You Wanna Go.”
...
[T]he 5th Dimension also became victims of their own success. In an extended Summer of Soul segment, Davis and Marilyn McCoo, the group’s most prominent female member, rewatch the footage with equal degrees pride and pain. “We were constantly being attacked because we weren’t ‘black enough,’” McCoo says. “Sometimes we were called the black group with the white sound, and we didn’t like that. … Our voices sound the way they sound. How do you color a sound?” As Davis adds, “Everyone thought we were a white act until they saw pictures.” Those poignant moments recall similar put-downs that Whitney Houston endured two decades later, after she began pulling in both black and white audiences with her first two albums.
"Hair" and the entire hippie/antiwar/civil rights movement were incredibly divisive among people our age group, at least where I lived. I idolized the protesters and the hippies; my aunt took me to see Jefferson Airplane when I was in junior high school. (https://zapatosjam.substack.com/p/the-coolest-aunt-in-the-world). But many of my peers had adopted postures of intense hostility and contempt for all that, probably by osmosis from their parents. The first date I ever went on was to see Hair--of course it was a much later production, sometime in 1974. Thanks for all the backstory--I'm not sure how you manage it!