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Trips: Rock Life in the Sixties-Augmented Edition: Paperback Book

$16.95 USD
$16.95 USD
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Trips: Rock Life in the Sixties-Augmented Edition Cover Image
Trips: Rock Life in the Sixties-Augmented Edition: Paperback Book

Trips: Rock Life in the Sixties-Augmented Edition: Paperback Book

Rock Life in the Sixties--Augmented Edition

Edited by Ellen Sander

Item: 06-828476
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Description
"Name an iconic Sixties rock moment and Ellen Sander was probably there. A beautifully written, sweeping yet intimate account of America's cultural awakening in that decade. Massively entertaining" -- Rolling Stone.

As a pioneering rock journalist for Hit Parader, Vogue, Saturday Review, and other publications, Ellen Sander had a backstage pass to the hottest music scenes of the 1960s. In this feast of juicy anecdotes and keen social commentary, she draws upon her professional and personal experiences to chronicle pop culture's highs and lows during the turbulent decade. Join her for weird and wild road trips with companions ranging from Yippies to the members of Led Zeppelin. Stops along the way include the folk music clubs of Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury in its riotous heyday, and the euphoric festivals at Monterey and Woodstock.
"It is a memoir, a sourcebook, and a love letter," Sander writes, "a recollection of a time, parenthesized by ambivalence and apathy, a search for the ultimate high, a generation with an irrepressible vision, its art, artists, its audience, and the substance of its statement." This expanded edition of Trips adds "The Plaster Casters of Chicago," Sander's seminal piece on groupie culture, the lengthy "Concerts and Conversations," as well as a new Preface and chapter postscripts.

"Simply one of the best pieces of rock reportage ever written." -- Los Angeles Review of Books

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Additional Details
Series: Dover Edition
Publisher: Dover Publications
ISBN10: 0-486-82847-6
ISBN13: 978-0-486-82847-3
UPC: 9780486828473
SKU: 06-828476

More about this title

About the Creator: Ellen Sander

Ellen Sander carved out a unique space in music journalism during the 1960s, when rock criticism barely existed as a legitimate form. Working for publications ranging from Hit Parader to Vogue, she combined the rigor of a cultural observer with the access of someone who actually lived inside the scenes she covered, from Greenwich Village folk clubs to the desert heat of Monterey Pop.

Her perspective was shaped by firsthand experience rather than secondhand gossip. She traveled with artists, attended legendary festivals, and documented the collision between artistic ambition and commercial machinery that defined the decade. Trips stands as one of the few accounts written by someone who was genuinely embedded in multiple scenes simultaneously, rather than observing from a distance.

Why we love this

This is invaluable primary source material for any music program exploring rock history, cultural context, or the sociology of how popular music actually gets made and distributed. Rather than relying on mythology or hindsight, students encounter the 1960s through the eyes of someone who was writing about Led Zeppelin and the Yippies in real time, with all the uncertainty and immediacy that brings. The expanded edition's inclusion of "The Plaster Casters of Chicago" and extended concert essays makes it both more complete and more useful as a teaching text.

What to expect

Reading Trips feels like sitting in a tour bus or backstage area while the decade unfolds around you. Sander writes with the immediacy of someone watching events happen rather than explaining them after the fact, capturing both the exhilaration and the confusion of a generation that didn't yet know how it would be remembered.

Who it's for

Music history teachers, students researching the sociology of 1960s rock, and anyone building context around the era's major artists and movements. This works equally well as assigned reading in a college rock history seminar or as supplementary material for high school music programs exploring how popular music shaped American culture.

How to use it

Assign chapters alongside recordings and documentaries when studying specific movements or festivals. The Monterey and Woodstock sections pair naturally with listening units on those performances, while the Greenwich Village material provides essential grounding for understanding the folk-to-rock transition. Consider excerpts as reading assignments in music appreciation courses or as context-building homework before performing or analyzing 1960s rock repertoire.

Skills your students will build

  • Understanding the relationship between music, counterculture, and social movements
  • Analyzing how journalism and criticism shape musical history and reputation
  • Recognizing the role of live performance and festival culture in defining an era
  • Examining artist behavior, business dynamics, and industry structures from a historical perspective

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