The Explosion that Rocked the World

Baby Boomers are people born during the population explosion between the years 1946 and 1964…over 76 million of us! These are folks who are between 52 and 70 years old in 2016. Though considerably grayed and just a wee bit paunchy, in our hearts most of us are still rock-n- rollin’ teenagers in love.

As a group, we are the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation up to this time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. One feature of The Boomers was that we tend to think of ourselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before, hopeful and idealistic. Further, we are arguably the most creative lot in American history.

The generation was heavily music driven, from the tunes and lyrics of early icons like Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Elvis Presley, Dion, and Little Richard that drove us to buy millions of vinyl records and listen faithfully to the AM radio stations that pounded these tunes into our little brains 24 hours a day.

This Rock and Roll birth was followed by an unprecedented burst of talent from the Motown Empire, like the Supremes, Marvin Gay, The Temptations, The Four Tops and numerous others which through the sheer power of music and dance helped open racial barriers.

This whole musical wave was topped off by the mop-headed Beatles and the second “British Invasion.” Simultaneous to the Brit sounds we were inundated by a new “vibe,” that of the West Coast, which included the Beach Boys, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and many others producing a host of mind-blowing hits…Come on baby, light my fire! Out of that milieu came the whole flower-power waves of the great free concerts of Woodstock and San Francisco…and don’t forget to wear some flowers in your hair!

Quietly behind the scenes were the thought-provoking and mellow melodies of the troubadours of our time, like Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Carol King, and James Taylor, as well as great folk groups like The Kinston Trio and The Brothers Four.

In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people became teenagers and young adults, they and those around them created a very specific sub-society that brought ideas that we are still experiencing today. Flash forward a generation and we find that to a great extent, the computer breakthroughs of the Silicon Valley were a result of the creativity of earlier Bay Area influences, as acknowledged by Steve Jobs and many other boomer pioneers of computers and the internet.

This is but the tip of the iceberg. There exists a plethora of excellent books and articles that have been written about these artists and these times, about the Viet Nam War (Good morning, America!), the marches for peace, justice and economic fairness (Power to the People!), and about a generation that changed the world with music, powerful ideas, and, yes, love. Yep, we had some “Good Vibrations” while “Feelin’ Groovy.”