Charles Giuliano

Counterculture in Boston 1968-1980s Charles Giuliano

The counterculture emerged during the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco. This book chronicles the emergence of Counterculture in Boston: 1968-1980s. The torch was passed to Boston with social and political emphasis by1968. Boston has a student population of some 250,000. Entrepreneurs developed ways to market to that community. There were clubs and concerts promoting jazz, rock, and folk music. Experimental FM radio stations expanded rigid top-forty playlists to album-oriented programming. That resulted in breaking artists and bands including J. Geils, Aerosmith, The Cars, Boston, Velvet Underground, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, Joan Baez, James Taylor, and Bruce Springsteen. The underground press evolved into alternative weekly tabloids. There was free campus distribution for Boston After Dark, Cambridge Phoenix, Boston Phoenix and the Real Paper. Toward the end of the 1980s counterculture became ever more commercial. This book focuses on when Boston was the epicenter of an American revolution. To tell this story I spoke with editors, critics, DJ's, musicians, promoters, and publicists. They include: Harper Barnes, David Bieber, Bob Blumenthal, Ron Della Chiesa, Dexter Gordon, Jean Bergantini Grillo, John Hochheimer, Martin Kaplan, Jon Landau, Charles Laquidara, Bill Lichtenstein, Roger Lifeset, Steve Nelson, Al Perry, Arnie Reisman, John and Leah Sdoucos, Fred Taylor, George Wein, and David Wilson.