Soundscape Bi-Monthly

In This Issue:
____________________
epth Look At;
A look back An In-D
at Musicians,
People, and
Events over
 the last
millennium
that shaped
and changed
music
forever.

$1.65 USD    $2.11 CAN

______________
Inside the 
_________________________
 Table of
Contents
1950's 1-4

1960's 4-7
Artist Profiles;
1950s
Elvis Presley:
Elvis was born January 8th, 1935, in
Tupelo, Mississippi. He was born into
a very poor family and grew up in
an area that had both lower-class
blacks, and white. This gave him an early
exposure and immersion into both country music
and gospel music. Both genres being associated
with the poor groups at the time. He taught
himself how to sing and play the guitar at a young
age. He was discovered while recording a single
record for his mother’s birthday at Sun
Records. He produced many singles under
Sun, and later signed to RCA. He was
also somewhat of a movie actor. He
served in the Korean War, he went willingly and
was considered
a patriot
because of it.
He later died in
the mid 1970’s
of heart failure,
related to his
drug abuse.

1
 Pat Boone:
Pat Boone was a songwriter,
musician and film star, however is
most notably known for re-releasing
covers of black music. He was one of
the most famous musicians in the
1950s. Covering songs from a variety
of African American artists. He later
began to host his own television
show in the late 1950s. The Pat
Boone Chevy Showroom ran for 3
years until 19

Little Richard:
Born December 5th, 1932, Richard Wayne
Penniman, otherwise known as Little Richard
grew to become one of the most influential Rock
n’ Roll artists of the 1950s. His father was killed
in a knife fight outside of a bar when Richard
was still a young boy, widowing his mother. In
order to support his family, he began to play
piano inside a strip-club while he was still a
child. As he grew older he developed a very
charismatic and eccentric personality, which
would benefit him in taking part in the creation
of Rock n’ Roll. Little Richard signed to RCA
Records where he dominated the charts for
several years. He was a Baptist Preacher for a
short time, but later returned to the music scene.
He is also regarded as creating the Funk
genre.
2
Buddy Holly;
Buddy Holly was a Rock n’ Roll
musician in the 1950s, who with his
band, The Crickets, pioneered many
innovations in rock music. He had
very humble beginnings hailing from
a lower class, very religious family.
He was not considered
conventionally attractive; however,
he still rose to fame. He is well
known for “creating” the guitar solo.
He tragically died in a plane crash
and his career was abruptly over.

3
 People &
Events: 1950s
The Payola Scandal
Payola was the agreement
between Record Companies
and Disc Jockeys in which
Record Companies would pay
DJ’s to popularize certain
records. Essentially bribing the
DJ’s to play specific records.
The more money a studio had,
the more they had to bribe the
DJ’s, and thus the more times
the record would have been
played, leading to hits on the
charts. Over 300 DJs were put
on trial, however only one man
took the blame; Allen Freed
Allen Freed was a Disc Jockey that was an
enemy of congress, because he would
refuse to play any African American Songs
covered by whites. He was also unsightly
and unkempt compared to his counterpart,
Dick Clark. Allen would constantly smoke,
was an insomniac, and could be very crass.
He was slapped with over 20 counts of
criminal fraud. He died several years later,
after battling with alcoholism.

4
 People &
Events: 1960s
Hippies:
The hippie movement was a subculture that
revolved around the ideas of peace and
protest, and heavy drug use. For many teens
and young adults, their solution to the
world's problems around them was to spread
peace through protest. Many of these people
would travel the country, living out of busses
or vans, either attending large protests
around the country, traveling from concert to
concert, or following the individual bands
themselves like many of the “Dead Heads”
did. A large part of the hippie movement was
drug use. On the west coast, many were
using LSD and smoking weed. While on the
east coast many were using amphetamines
and cocaine.
Alfred Matthew Hubbard:
Alfred Matthew Hubbard was a scientist working at Harvard
University in the early 1960s. He had read a scientific article
about a new mysterious drug, LSD-12. He became determined
to discover more about the drug, and he found a fellow
scientist that was testing LSD-12 on rats. Through this fellow
scientist, he was able to obtain LSD of his own. He had taken it
and believed that it had a profound effect to open the human
mind. After a while of experimenting with LSD, he had obtained
a very large quantity of LSD from a chemical distribution plant
in Sweden, and he alone distributed LSD to over 6,000 people,
including politicians, religious officials and other scientists.
5
MK Ultra
The CIA conducted many experiments on the
american populus and prisoners during this time. The
MK Ultra program was a series of CIA “mind control”
experiments. The CIA was extremely interested in
the ideas of telekinesis and astral projection
particularly. They underwent these experiments with
very strange and unorthodox means, using many
experimental drugs and hypnosis. LSD took a huge
part in this. Because of the unexplainable effects of
the drug on the mind, the CIA believed this to be the
key to unlocking the mysteries of the human psyche.
These experiments are also believed to be the
reason that LSD was released to the american
populus.

Civil Rights
The civil rights movement was a large
series of events in the 60s that some would
argue is still going on today. Racial tension
was at an all time high as the US was
trying to correct its mistakes by integrating
african americans into areas and places
only for whites, along with giving them
more rights overall. Many whites did not
like this, and caused a lot of backlash.
Many leaders rose through this time to
preach the integration of the races. A great
deal of good came out of this struggle,
however there was still a great deal of
strife, which should not have had to come
to gain civil liberties in the first place.
6
Martin Luther King Jr.
Reverend Martin Luther King
Jr. was an influential figure in
the Civil Rights movement.
As a preacher in Chicago, he
learned the values of peace
from his father. He brought
these ideals into the Civil
Rights movement. Preaching
peaceful means of civil
disobedience and protest to
the millions who listened to
his message. He was
assassinated despite his John F, Kennedy
peaceful message. John F. Kennedy was a very influential
president for the brief time. He was one in the
1960s. Growing up in a very politically powerful
family, he had great expectations put on him
from a young age. He served in WWII from
1941 to 1945 as a P.T. boat lieutenant, where
he learned many leadership skills. He rose
through the political ranks soon thereafter until
reaching the presidency of the United States.
He was well renowned as a playboy, having
several “pool girls” on the payroll of the White
House he called “Fiddle” and “Faddle.” He was
assassinated in 1963 while in Texas, the motive
for this assassination is still generally
unknown.