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Impact Of Rock & Roll On American Youth

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The Impact of Rock & Roll on American Youth

Camille Yang

U.S. History
Ms. Dunn
May 18, 2017 The decade of the 1960s can be said to be a subversion of the United States. From the civil rights movements, anti-Vietnam war demonstration, Kennedy’s presidency, to the assassination of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, the impact of the surging social movements and political turmoils to the American society is extremely far-reaching. There has been a lot of researches on the various social movements in this period. However, people 's attention seems to be limited to another important cultural phenomenon of this period, that is the prosperity of rock & roll. This paper is intended to analyze the …show more content…

It replaced “the old culture patterns of the fifties”2, allowing American youth to quickly integrate them into their lifestyles. This recognition of the black culture made a large part of the Caucasian youth and African Americans to stand side by side in the civil rights movements, to support national equality, and to challenge the old racial concept. This was also represented by the American folk rock of the sixties.
Folk rock in the sixties inherited the tradition of country and western. In the 1960s, the main representatives of folk rock were Joan Baez, The Byrds, Bob Dylan, and so on. However, the most important folk rock singer is Bob Dylan, who was the first and the most important folk rock music creator. Known as the “protest song singer”, for the entire 1960s, Bob Dylan 's music strongly affected young people that were in the wandering and confusion. It was like a banner, a totem, and a pioneer, helped the the youth from the 1960s generation of found the sustenance of their ideals.

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