AMS Lecture Series: Christoper Doll -- "The Unlikely History of 1960s Rock and Roll"

Christopher Doll of Rutgers University
Lecture Title: "Nuclear Holocaust, the Kennedy Assassination, and 'Louie Louie': The Unlikely History of 1960s Rock and Roll"
Christopher Doll describes his talk: "In narratives of American popular-music history, the song 'Louie Louie' is usually depicted (to the extent it surfaces at all) as a minor, and ultimately ephemeral, controversy: a song that initially raised eyebrows and lowered standards but that was quickly forgotten in the wake of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and other more substantive, 'classic' sixties artists. My talk will reposition 'Louie Louie' as a major turning point in the history of Anglo-American popular-music style-a unique combination of past and contemporary practices, one that anticipated some significant formal aspects of the music that would follow. An abundance of musical examples will illustrate this talk's exploration of the relationship between sixties socio-political events and youth music, the impact of Latin music in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, the history of melodic-accompanimental textures since the advent of jazz, and the eventual global ubiquity of songs built around short loops of music."