Test captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 the hutchinsons connect their background in music that was developed through the baptist church. They had they come from a family that was very active in the Baptist Community in New Hampshire and it taught them how to sing and how to read music. Music is a little bit problematic in rural new england at the time, right. Its dangerous. People who are musicians are seen as immoral perhaps in some way. The Church Provides a moral space for people to be able to sing because theyre singing the word of god and the hutchinson family as a whole is active in the Musical Community in New Hampshire through the baptist church. One of their brothers is the choir director of the church and provides Music Lessons for the community. The hutchinsons try to run with that in lynn and get this idea maybe we could become a performing troupe. In 1841, they decide to try their luck as three brothers and they tour new england and upstate new york and its a complete flop. They grew up, they claim, in the mountains of the old granite state, the White Mountains, even though the hutchinson was incidentally milford, New Hampshire, i think the highest point is only a couple hundred feet and they dont visit the White Mountains of New Hampshire until 1843, nonetheless present themselves as coming from the mountains of the old granite state, and they try and experiment, which is they bring their youngest sister, 12yearold Abby Hutchinson on the stage with them and these two things connecting to their the geographic location of new england generally and the White Mountains in particular, the soil, along with bringing abby on stage creates a family based presentation that instantly resonates with audiences and so this quartet creates the foundation for the hutchinson family singers that begins to work. One example in 1842, the hutchinsons play at Dartmouth College and this is one of the early concerts with Abby Hutchinson and the first night they two out, they play to the audience, its all men. They applaud, its all great. Next night they come out and its a mixed gender audience with children. Men, their wives and children have come. The first night the men are literally checking them out, right. Is this concert going to be acceptable for my wife and children to experience and so this is the kind of gender dynamic that the hutchinsons are playing around with in their stage presentation at this particular moment in time. In 1842, there is an important event in the fall that starts to push the hutchinsons in new directions. In october of 1842, a fugitive slave George Latimore and his wife rebecca arrived in boston. Seven days later they are recognized by a friend of their virginian master, who then contacts the master. The master contacts the United States marshal in boston and they are immediately thrown into jail as fugitive slaves and there is going to be a trial over whether or not the latimores are fugitive slaves and whether or not they should be reenslaved under the fugitive slave clause of 1793. The hutchinsons are involved in that by virtue of living in lynn, massachusetts, at the time and they begin their kind of steps towards perhaps becoming antislavery singers. So this idea the hutchinsons will pick up on from their own christian background is certainly one of the factors in play. The idea of social betterment that connects also to a youth movement. Many of the hutchinsons fans were of a younger generation, a generation that is increasingly mobile, socially mobile and geographically mobile. Theyre moving to cities from rural areas of the United States at this moment in time. Its predominantly a rural nation. Its not until 1890s and afterwards we consider the United States an urban population. What happened throughout the northeast, ministers would travel from town to town, stay for one or two weeks, create a revival, people would come in and camp out for a week, have a variety of celebrations and have personal spiritual awakenings and in many ways these revivals are the earliest examples of kind of a Popular Culture in the United States, these mass entertainments. Thousands of people at the largest ones would show up, so these kinds of very personal live performances, whether they be of religion or soon of music, are one of the earliest sites of entertainment in the United States and the hutchinsons kind of branch the divide if there is a divide, branch these two areas, the music the religious realm and the musical realm. The hutchinsons will be bear witness to the great antislavery circuit of 1842 who is Frederick Douglas. Frederick douglas becomes the most one of the most notable persons through his speeches at antislavery meetings throughout the northeast in 1842 and so throughout this moment of 1842, the George Latimore incident, seeing Frederick Douglas and perhaps, you know, hearing and, of course, hearing him speak, the hutchinsons, you know, decide to take that step and they will actually perform at the American Antislavery Society meeting in 1843, they will perform in boston a little before that, kind of their first foray into antislavery singing and they do this in very kind of formal meeting settings and they do it brilliantly. The hutchinsons will quite literally use tunes that other people are using, they often come from revival tents, songs that people were singing in a church setting, or in certain cases there will be tunes that are circulating in popular consciousness. This is an era of ministerials creating popular tunes and the hutchinsons will borrow and create their lyrics on top of it. One example is one example of a tune that they borrow from will be old dan tucker. Its their 1844 song get off the track which is a Campaign Song for the liberty party, the first antislavery party in the United States history. One of the most popular songs of the hutchinson family and it, indeed, becomes an anthem of the Antislavery Movement in the 1840s and 1850s is old dan tucker sped up. They used a faster tempo, but again, theyre using a tune that everybody could recognize and then putting their own lyrics on top of it. They refused to sing to segregated audiences, concert spaces in the 1840s and 1850s are and, of course, certainly throughout the 19th century into the 20th century are almost always except hutchinson family shows and a few others, are almost always segregated. Africanamericans are givens the seats in the way back, often a special section, but at the very least whites and black are not to sit together in the same rows or interspersed among one another. The hutchinsons try their best to promote a desegregated audience. This gets them a lot of criticism, a lot of criticism in boston, creates a famous mob incident in 1847 in philadelphia where a mob threatens to shut down the Musical Fund Hall where the hutchinsons are playing because theyre playing to a desegregated audience and the mob dictate to the theater owners if they allow the hutchinsons to play to black and whites together, that they will literally burn down the hall. This is a somewhat Common Threat that has been played out in pennsylvania and philadelphia in particular on several occasions where buildings have been burnt down for antislavery activism. By and large after the civil war, the hutchinson family singers, asa moves out west, the brothers founded hutchinson mn, minnesota, be asa will move to colorado and live out west for the rest of his life, john will remain centered in lynn, massachusetts, abby in new york and orange, new jersey. And travel the world. She will be in egypt and a variety of other places. She is married ludslo patton, extraordinarily wealthy, whom she weds, and the hutchinsons wont be the social voice in the 1840s and 1850s and by and large they will be what a lot of singers from the 1960s are today, right. They make money off what they once were. They are had been ps. Theyre not creating new music. Theyre going on stage as a relic in many ways that people want to remember the older age in many ways and that younger generations are curious about all these stories that their parents had about this moment. We used to listen to so and so and you go and kind of share that legacy that way. They never reach the fame and celebrity they had during the 1840s and 1850s. Almost 100 years after the hutchinsons sang for reform, singer and songwriter bob dylan begins achieving fame in the early 1960s for his music urging political change in america. Im sorry. Do you consider yourself a politician . Do i consider myself a politician . Well, i guess so. I have my own party, though. Does it have a name . Theres no president s in the party, theres no president s or Vice President s or secretaries or anything like that so it makes it kind of hard to get in. Is it a right wing or left wing of that party . No, its more or less the center. Kind of on the scale. Most people think that bob dylan is leftist or, you know, somehow associated with the Hippie Movement of the 1960s or Something Like that and voice of the generation of the 1960s, which was a label he detested. They would look at him as perhaps a great leader of the antiwar movement. He never went to an antiwar march. In fact, bob dylan is certainly not partisan. You cant stick him in democrats or republicans. I would also say that you really cant say that hes exactly left or right. There are certain themes that come through throughout bob dylans life about his politics and those subjects are social justice, support for the underdog, suspicion of institutions and authority, and a concern about abuse of power. But those things arent necessarily the domain of the right or the left. I think most people have a misconception about what bob dylan is. Bob dylan grew up in northern minnesota in a town called hibbing. That is in a portion of minnesota known as the iron range and thats kind of a special place in minnesota. If a person would have gone to the iron range in the say late 1800s, early 1900s it would have been a hotbed of radicalism. You would have run into socialists, communists. These are folks, you know, working deep underground in iron mine and so this is part of the Labor Movement that existed in america at this time. Dylan himself at one point said that more suspicion of bankers growing up than communists. Bob dylan grew up in a jewish household and that made him a minority as well, and thats going to have an impact on his support for the and you dog and that sort of thing. How many times before they fall out blowing in the wind the answer is blowing in the wind in the 1960s, early 1960s and 1950s as well, the Folk Movement in america sprung up, and it was certainly a, by and large, leftist kind of Movement Interest in civil rights, antiwar, that sort of thing. When you look at the early songs of bob dylan, weve got things like everyone knows blowing in the wind, masters of war would be another one, but there were more topical songs, songs about emmett till, for example. This wars tragedy you should all remember well the color of his skin was black and his name was emmett till these type of songs are written by many other folk singers as well and so what happens is that dylan sort of progresses beyond that and by the mid 1960s then hes writing songs that arent exactly songs you can put your finger on. Its all right mom, only bleeding, like a rolling stone, highway 61 revisited with sort of hallucination type lyrics and what happens is as American Society is changing people start to read in a very heavy, political message in dylan at a time where with if youre really looking at it objectively, you couldnt say that these songs are necessarily overtly political. Diplomat who carries on his shoulder a siamese cat and people go, what does this mean . There must be some deeper message. Johnny is in the basement mixing up the medicine, im on the pavement thinking about the government. He doesnt say what hes thinking about the government, but you, the listener, then inject your own meaning into that. Hes not really offering answers throughout this time. This voice of a generation thing, he says the answer is blowing in the wind. Well, its a great song and, you know, if i were to make a play list of 1960s music that song would be on there, but the answer is blowing in the wind isnt particularly helpful if youre searching for answers. Thats, i think, how we have to understand his political output. Its not, again, thats what i mean when i say that its not exactly what people think. I would like to know about the meaning of the photograph with you wearing triumph tshirt . What would you want to know about it . I would like to know, thats an equivalent photograph and means something, and i would like to know i would like to know visually what it represent us to. Youre a part of that. Um, i havent really looked at it that much. Ive thought about it a great deal. When people are looking to bob dylan for the answers, its a great thing to Youtube Bob Dylan press conference 1965, no matter which one you hit its going to be great. If you start to think what it must have been like to have every little thing you do or say looked at so intently, you know, how many times has someone said, whats the meaning of the shirt youre wearing right now . Well, you know, what are you going to do with that . Just had to grate on a person. I think any thinking person that was in his situation would just find a lot of this inane. I believe thats a big reason why he really got away from that voice of the generation protest music. He saw it as, in my opinion anyway, he saw it as a prison. Once he got locked in to being this one thing, he could never get out. In 1965 he went electric, starting playing electric guitar rather than au caustic and harmonica. People would come to his concert and boo him and how dare he and that sort of thing. Once again, i think he looked at all that and said, you know, no thanks. And so by 1966, hes out of there. He goes to upstate new york and starts having children and starts writing love songs and, you know, sort of domestic bliss and that sort of thing. Its a whole new dylan after 1966. In the 1970s when he becomes a born again christian, he for the first time is telling the audience i have the answer and people arent interested in hearing what his answer is. The publics reaction to the new dylan by the 1980s, were a whole generation from the 1960s. Theres a whole group of kids growing up in the 80s and i would have been one of them, who are watching mtv and bob dylan for as great of a songwriter he is, is not maybe the most mtv persona for a 14yearold. It really depends on which public at this point because the baby boomers are adults and theyve got mortgages and jobs, et cetera, not following music as closely and so, you know, in some ways dylan is slipping through the cracks a little bit. When we are the world comes out hes invited and he sings on that. Hes not forgotten, but hes not quite the same public figure that he had been. You know, as a dylan fan, when people find out that im a dylan fan, some people well his voice, i like his songs, dont like his voice, well listen, listen deeper and by the way his voice is often very good. Its like a leather coat, you know. Its broken in. And thats when it fits best. You know, really he is a remarkable artist and, you know, it might not necessarily be everybodys favorite style of music, but something he has said will resonate with you. In july of 1966, bob dylan suffered serious neck injuries in a motorcycle accident forcing him to decline an invitation to a musical festival the following summer in monterey, california, that would help to define 1967s summer of love in america. We love you all. This is very man. Monterey is very groovy man. This is something. This is our generation, man. All you people, were all together, man. Its groovy, dig yourselves. Its really groovy. The festival was a threeday musical event in june of 1967 so it kicked off that summer of love, but it really was the first real big sort of rock and roll musical festival to happen here. The city of monterey, pretty conservative community at that point and there was a lot of concern about these what they call then the word hippie was a new word at that point, in the past years or so, they were always used as this youngster Hippie Movement and a lot of the news over the past seven months the summer of love is happening in San Francisco and no one quite understood what that was all about. These kids, these boys with the long hair and drug thing, and they were concerned about this. The chief of police felt so confident and so comfortable about this group that was here,s they groups that wouldnt cause any problems, that he actually released a big number of his policemen because there was a fire a at one of the old canneries that night, the policemen would go down and monitor the fire. He felt fine with what was going on at the festival that particular night. Whats great about the monterey pop festival, it wasnt just rock and roll music. They brought in all different genres of music here. African jazz, soul music, lou rawls sang here on friday night and one of the biggest hits of the entire festival was otis redding. Most of the audience had no idea who he was. He had been singing many years before that. He came here and blew this place away. Ive been loving you too long he actually died a few months after that festival in a plane crash, so there was a lot they brought a lot of different ideas to the festival and opened up people