Hippie

This page refers to hippies as a group engaged in a certain lifestyle - for the TV comedy, see Hippies (TV series)

Hippie, often spelled hippy, is a term originally used to describe some of the rebellious youth of the 1960s, although the dawn of the 21st century has brought with it a neo-hippie movement, holding similar beliefs and values as the hippies of the 1960s. The word hippie was popularized by the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. Caen's articles were always written with the help of notes and letters from his San Francisco fan base. He is also credited as among the first to include the words beatnik and yuppie in his column.

Though not a cohesive cultural movement with manifestos and leaders, some hippies expressed their desire for change with communal or nomadic lifestyles; by renouncing corporate influence, consumerism and the Vietnam War; by embracing aspects of non-Judeo-Christian religious cultures (including much Eastern philosophy); and with criticism of Western middle class values. Elements of romanticism and Transcendentalist philosophy can be seen in their writings and artistic expressions. They also embraced communal living, recreational drug use, free love, sexual liberation, interracial dating, unconventional clothing, long hair for both genders and facial hair for men.

Most hippies believed that the government was corrupt, corporate industry was greedy and domineering, traditional morals were askew, and war was inhumane. Hippies often referred to the structures and institutions that they opposed as The Establishment or The Man.

Origins

One possible source of the word "hippie" is the Wolof language of Africa where hipi or hepi means to open one's eyes and be aware. [1]

Reminiscing about late 1930s Harlem in his 1964 autobiography, Malcolm X referred to the word hippie as a term African Americans used to describe a specific type of white man who "acted more Negro than Negroes."

During the 1940s and 1950s the term hipster came into usage by the American Beat generation to describe jazz and swing music performers, and the term evolved to describe the bohemian-like counterculture that formed around the art of the time.

The 1960s hippie culture evolved from the original Beat culture, and it was greatly influenced by changing music styles and the creation of Rock & Roll from Swing and Blues, or what was known as jump blues.

The first use of the word hippie on US television was on WNBC TV Channel 4 in New York City at the opening of the New York World's Fair on April 22, 1964. Some young anti-Vietnam War protesters, wearing t-shirts, denim jeans and with long hair like The Beatles, staged a sit-in and were called hippies by NYPD officers and reporters. The police fought with and swung their batons at them to chase them off the escalators and they fought back and were arrested. Before that date, the type was generally referred to as beatnik.

On the east coast of the U.S., in Greenwich Village, young counterculture advocates were called, and referred to themselves as, hips. At that time, to be hip meant to be "in the know" or "cool", as opposed to being called a stodgy "square". Disaffected youth from the suburbs of New York City flocked to the Village in their oldest clothes to fit into the counterculture movement, the coffee houses, etc. Radio station WBAI was the first media outlet to use the term hippie to describe the poorly-dressed middle class youths as a pejorative term originally meaning "hip wannabes."

September 6, 1965 marked the first San Francisco newspaper story, by Michael Fellon, that used the word hippie to refer to younger bohemians. The name did not catch on in the mass media until almost two years later after San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen began using the term hippies in his daily columns.

Many of the original San Francisco hippies were former students at San Francisco State College (the old name for San Francisco State University) who had "dropped out" after they had started taking psychedelic drugs and began living communally in the large, inexpensive Victorian apartments in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.

Hippie action in the San Francisco area, particularly the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, centered around the Diggers, a guerrilla street theater group that combined spontaneous street theater, anarchistic action, and art happenings in their agenda of creating a "free city." The San Francisco Diggers grew from two radical traditions thriving in the area in the mid-1960s: the bohemian/underground art/theater scene, and the new left/civil rights/peace movement.

Los Angeles also had a vibrant hippie scene in the mid-1960s, arising from a combination of the L.A. beat scene, which was centered around Venice and its coffeehouses and which spawned the Doors, and Sunset Strip, the quintessential L.A. hippie gathering area, with its seminal rock clubs, the Whisky-a-Go-Go and the Troubadour. Sunset Strip was the location of the actual protest referred to in the Buffalo Springfield's early hippie anthem of 1966, For What It's Worth.

On October 6, 1966, the San Francisco hippies staged an enormous gathering in Golden Gate Park, titled "The Love Pageant Rally." As explained by Allan Cohen, co-founder of the San Francisco Oracle, the purpose of the rally was two-fold--to draw attention to the fact that LSD had just been made illegal, and to demonstrate that people who used LSD were not criminals, nor were they mentally ill. Rather, people who took LSD were mostly idealistic people who wanted to learn more about themselves and their place in the universe, and they used LSD as an aid to meditation and to creative, artistic expression. Thousands of hits of LSD were distributed free at the rally, and the Grateful Dead played; its huge success drew many more curious seekers to the Haight-Ashbury district.

Summer, 1967 in Haight-Ashbury became known as the "Summer of Love" as young people (75,000 by police estimates) gathered and shared the new culture of music, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and alternate lifestyles. On January 14, 1967, the outdoor Human Be-In concert provided the initial spark for the Summer of Love, and a few months later Scott McKenzie's rendition of John Phillips' song, "San Francisco," became an instant hit in both the United States and in Europe. The song's lyrics went in part "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...;" inspired by the song, thousands of young people from all over the world traveled to San Francisco. Because many of them wore flowers in their hair and distributed flowers to passersby, they earned the alternate name, "Flower Children."

The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane and a number of other musicians lived in the Haight at the time, which added to the intensity of the Summer 1967 experience. At the end of the summer, the Diggers held a Death of Hippie parade because they felt co-opted by incessant media coverage and interpretation of the hippie movement.

When San Francisco's Summer of Love ended, thousands of newly recruited Flower Children returned home bringing new styles, ideas and behaviors to all major U.S. cities and European capitals. Soon London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and Rome rivaled San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York as hippie centers.

The hippie movement reached its height during the late 1960s, as evidenced by the July 7, 1967 issue of TIME magazine, which had for its cover story: The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture. 1971 is generally considered the last year of the Hippie Era. By the early 1970s much of hippie style had been integrated into mainstream society, and the decades since have seen wide acceptance of some of the more substantive aspects of hippie culture as well.

Historical Antecedents

Time and historical revisionism have obscured the true roots of certain aspects of the hippie movement, which stretch back 100 years to Europe.

Around the turn of the century (1890s), there was an active movement in Europe to return to the natural life and get away from the polluted, crowded cities. This movement was inspired by authors like Friedrich Nietzsche, Goethe, Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha), and Eduard Baltzer, who wrote about how modern material yearnings were taking us away from our balance with nature and leading to spiritual and physical diseases. Thousands of young Germans turned their backs on modern society and sought a return to nature and the pagan spiritual life of their ancestors. They embraced a variety of radical lifestyles including vegetarianism, fasting, raw food diets, nudism, organic farming, communal living, along with sun and nature worship.

These ideas were introduced into the United States over several decades as these back-to-nature Germans settled in various places around the country, some of them opening the first health food stores. Many of them moved to Southern California where they could practice their alternative lifestyle in a warm, welcoming land. Quite a few young Americans adopted the beliefs and practices of these new German immigrants out of a desire to stay healthy and avoid succumbing to disease and urban malaise.

Some young Americans formed a group called "The Nature Boys" that took to the California desert, grew organic food and espoused the back-to-nature lifestyle. One member of this group, Eden Ahbez (or eden ahbez), wrote a song called "Nature Boy" that was recorded in 1947 by Nat King Cole and became the #1 song in the United States. America became aware of a homegrown back-to-nature movement.

Eventually a few of these Nature Boys, including the famous Gypsy Boots, made their way to Northern California just in time for the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967. The psychedelic posters that announced concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium and other San Francisco venues were heavily influenced by the artist Fidus, one of the original German "hippies." Read more about the influence of the Germans on America's hippies here: Hippie Roots & The Perennial Subculture.

Politics

Hippies were often pacifists and participated in non-violent political demonstrations, such as civil rights marches, the marches on Washington, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, including draft card burnings and the 1968 Democratic Convention protests. Yippies represented a highly politically active hippie sub-group.

In addition to non-violent political demonstrations, hippie opposition to the Vietnam War included organizing political action groups to oppose the war, refusal to serve in the military and conducting "teach-ins" on college campuses that covered Vietnamese history and the larger political context of the war.

Some Americans, especially conservatives, military personnel, and veterans, saw hippie opposition to the war as a lack of commitment to the principles of American freedom in the Cold War battle against communism. They also felt that even non-violent public demonstrations against the Vietnam War were unpatriotic because they compromised the ability of the United States to prosecute the war.

Scott McKenzie's 1967 rendition of John Phillips' song "San Francisco," which inspired the hippie Summer of Love, became a homecoming song for all Vietnam veterans arriving in San Francisco from 1967 on. Mr. McKenzie has dedicated every American performance of "San Francisco" to Vietnam veterans, and he sang at the 2002 20th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial Wall. "San Francisco" became a freedom song worldwide, especially in Eastern European nations that suffered under Soviet-imposed communism.

Other songs, such as Lloyd Marcus' "Welcome Home Brother," have given voice to Vietnam veterans who felt disrespected by hippies and who lamented that fellow Americans never properly honored them for their sacrifices in serving the nation.

Although hippies were sometimes accused of verbally attacking soldiers returning home from duty in Vietnam, or participating in the torching of ROTC buildings on college campuses, with the exception of a small radical fringe element hippies did not verbally assault military personel and did not condone acts of political violence. With the release of FBI records under the Freedom of Information Act, it has become clear that many such attacks were actually perpetrated by FBI COINTELPRO agents provocateurs operating on J. Edgar Hoover's instructions to discredit those who opposed the Vietnam War. ^[1]

Hippies regularly flouted societal attitudes prohibiting interracial dating and marriage, and they were early advocates for the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws that the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1967 (Loving v. Virginia), but which remained on the books in some U.S. states until 2000.

With their emphasis on Free Love, hippies promoted many of the same counterculture beliefs that found early expresssion in the Beat Generation. Co-habitation among unmarried couples was the norm, open relationships were common, and both Beats and Hippies advocated for legal and societal acceptance of most forms of consensual sexual expression outside the traditional bounds of marriage and procreation, with the exception of sex with children.

With regard to homosexuality and bisexuality, the Beats had demonstrated early tolerance during an era when homosexual expression of any sort was still punishable by stiff prison sentences. Although hippies furthered this same accepting attitude, hippie tolerance of homosexuality fell short of full inclusiveness; many hippies were not particularly tolerant of homosexuality when it came to communal living arrangements.

In fact, hippie domestic life seemed largely to default to traditional gender roles, with women doing most of the work -- cooking, cleaning, child care, etc. -- while the men engaged in creative, artistic pursuits. Images of women in hippie art abound, generally as innocents, goddesses or muses. Most hippie entrepreneurs, philosophers, commune founders and leaders, writers and artists were men. A notable exception was Lenore Kandel, whose Love Book got her busted for pornography in 1967.

Hippie political expression often took the form of "dropping out" of society to implement the changes they sought. At their inception, the back to the land movement, cooperative business enterprises, alternative energy, the free press movement, and organic farming were all politically motivated hippie enterprises.

Drugs

The recreational use of marijuana had been established by the Beats, and the drug appears in Jack Kerouac's 1950's novel "On The Road", which was widely read by many soon-to-be hippies.

Inspired by Harvard professor Timothy Leary, who advocated the use of psychotropic drugs for the purpose of expanding one's consciousness, many hippies enlarged their repertoire of recreational drugs to include not only marijuana (see cannabis and hashish), but also hallucinogens such as LSD (see both psychedelic and psychedelic drug), psilocybin (see psychedelic mushroom), and mescaline. The use of these drugs became common in hippie settings, both because of their psychopharmaceutical effects and to express disaffection with societal norms.

In addition to Leary, Ken Kesey was an important figure in promoting the recreational use of psychotropic drugs, especially LSD, also known as "acid." By holding what he called "Acid Tests," and touring the country with his band of Merry Pranksters, Kesey became a magnet for media attention that drew many young people to the fledgling movement. The Grateful Dead played some of their first shows at the Acid Tests, often as high on LSD as their audiences.

The psychotropic drugs that were adopted by hippies were introduced in part during CIA project MKULTRA, which tested the effects of various drugs and other treatments on numerous Americans, often without their consent. While a student at Stanford University, Ken Kesey himself was a volunteer subject in one of the many drug trials promoted by the MKULTRA project, and it was during these trials that he was first introduced to the use of LSD.

Travel

Hippies tended to travel light and were able to pick up and go to wherever the action was at any given time, whether that was a "love-in" on Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco, a demonstration against the Vietnam War in Berkeley, one of Ken Kesey's "Acid Tests" or just because the "vibe" wasn't right and a change of scene was desired. Pre-planning was eschewed and most were happy to put a few clothes in a backpack, stick out their thumbs and hitchhike to just about anywhere. Hippies seldom worried about whether or not they had money, hotel reservations or any of the standard accoutrements of travel. Because most hippie households welcomed overnight guests on an impromptu basis, the reciprocal nature of the lifestyle permitted enormous freedom of movement. People generally co-operated to meet each other's needs in ways that became less common after 1971. This way of life is still seen today among some Rainbow Family participants.

A derivative of this free-flow style of travel were hippie trucks and buses, hand-crafted mobile houses built on truck or bus chassis to facilitate a nomadic lifestyle. Some of these mobile gypsy houses were quite elaborate with beds, toilets, showers and cooking facilities.

On the West Coast, an entire lifestyle developed around the Renaissance Faires that Phyllis and Ron Patterson first organized in 1963. During the summer and fall months, entire families traveled together in their trucks and buses, parked at Renaissance Pleasure Faire sites in Southern and Northern California, worked their crafts during the week, and donned Elizabethan costume for weekend performances and to attend booths where handmade goods were sold to the public.

The sheer number of young people living at the time made for unprecedented travel opportunities to special happenings. The peak experience of this type was the Bethel, New York Woodstock Festival that was held August 15-19, 1969, and which was attended by over 500,000 people.

Characteristics

Long hair for both genders, and more facial hair for men than was common at the time. Many white people associated with the American Civil Rights Movement and the 1960s counterculture, especially those with with curly or "nappy" hair, wore their hair in afros in earnest imitation of African-Americans.
Brightly colored clothing; unusual styles, such as bell-bottom pants, tie-dyed garments, dashikis, peasant blouses; and non-Western inspired clothing with Native American, African and Latin American motifs. Much of hippie clothing was self-made in protest of Western consumer culture. Head scarves, headbands, long beaded necklaces (for both men and women), and sandals were also fashionable.
A preference for certain styles of music; psychedelic rock such as Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, blues such as Janis Joplin, traditional Eastern music, particularly from India, or rock music with eastern influences (The Beatles), soulful funk like Sly & The Family Stone, jam bands like the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band, and folk music such as Bob Dylan. Neo-Hippies frequently participate in the bluegrass and/or folk music scene.
Performing music casually, often with guitars, in friends' homes, or for free at outdoor fairs such as San Francisco's legendary "Human Be-In" of January 1967, the Woodstock Festival of August 15, 16, 17, 1969.
The VW Bus is usually known as a counterculture/hippie symbol; a peace symbol is often painted where the Volkswagen logo would otherwise be seen. Because of its low cost (during the late sixties), it was revered as a utilitarian vehicle. Many buses were repainted with graphics and/or custom paint jobs - these were predecessors to the modern-day art car.
Rejection of anti-miscegenation laws and acceptance of interracial dating and marriage,
Free love, including open relationships and most consensual forms of sexual expression, except sex with children. Traditional legal constructs and religious teachings that prohibited non-procreative sex outside the bounds of marriage were widely flouted--premarital sex, extramarital sex, homosexuality and bisexuality. (See also: Sexual revolution).
Communal living
Recreational drug use (as opposed to drug dependency), usually limited to pyschotropic drugs such as marijuana, mescaline, psilocybin and LSD
A generally mellow outlook on life, and a belief that the temporal world is a manifestation of human thought and consciousness.
A fondness for nudity
Use of incense
Belief in Eastern spiritual concepts, such as karma and reincarnation; interest in Hindu and Buddhist religious philosophies.
Belief that spiritual advancement leads to increased psychic ability, e.g., the ability to see the human aura. A vegetarian lifestyle was often considered important in this regard because it was thought to cleanse the body of impurities and "negative vibrations".
Belief in astrology, tarot and I Ching divination.
Most importantly, for many hippies the twin ideals of peace and love were their guiding stars.

The danger of presenting such a list of outward characteristics is that it tends to trivialize the spiritual and philosophical underpinnings of hippie beliefs. Perhaps the best summation of these beliefs appeared in the first edition of Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalogue, published in Fall, 1968:

"We are as gods and might as well get used to it. So far, remotely done power and glory--as via government, big business, formal education, church--has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing--power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested...”

At their highest point of awareness, hippies recognized themselves as "conscious creators." What they created during the 1960s was an attempt to avoid induction into a pre-packaged, materialistic culture where they would be reduced to mere consumers. As the outward manifestations of hippie culture were incorporated into the mainstream package, those who understood the task of "conscious creation" moved on, staying one step ahead of unending attempts to subsume their lives and their spirit.

Legacy

By 1970, much of hippie music and fashion had become mainstream-- large rock concerts that originated with the 1967 Monterrey Pops Festival became the norm; mustaches, beards and longer hair abounded; and colorful, multi-ethnic clothing dominated the fashion world. The media lost interest in the subculture as it went out of fashion with younger people and hippies became targets for ridicule with the advent of punk rock.

During the decades since the 1960s, many of the more substantive aspects of hippie counterculture have also became mainstream:

Interracial dating and marriage have became much more common and are now generally accepted practices. Multiracial children of interracial couples, like Tiger Woods and Keanu Reeves, even enjoy a certain cachet in many circles.

Public political demonstrations are considered legitimate expressions of free speech.

Unmarried couples of all ages feel free to travel together and live together without societal disapproval.

Frankness regarding sexual matters has become the norm--even conservative talk radio hosts, like Dr. Laura, feel free to exclaim "Orgasms are cool!"

In urban centers especially, and in corporate America, the rights of homosexual, bisexual and transexual people have been greatly expanded.

Religious and cultural diversity has gained widespread acceptance, and most people are aware of at least some Eastern religious and spiritual concepts--karma and reincarnation in particular

Co-operative business enterprises and creative community living arrangements are widely accepted.

Interest in natural food, herbal remedies and vitamins is widespread, and the little hippie "health food stores" of the 60s and 70s are now large-scale businesses.

Many hippies made, and continue to maintain, long-term commitments to the lifestyle. As of 2005, hippies are found in bohemian enclaves around the world or as wanderers following the bands they love.

In the United States many hippie types refer to themselves as "Rainbows," a name derived from the tie-dyed T-shirts they wear and, for some, from their participation in the hippie-like Rainbow Family. Since the early 1970s, they rendezvous informally on U.S. National Forest Land at Rainbow Gatherings, with the motto "peace, love, harmony, freedom and community." Rainbow Gatherings, or World Gatherings, are also held in many other parts of the world.

Others gather at more organized festivals, such as the Glastonbury Festival in the UK. In 2005 this festival covered 900 acres (3.6 km²) and attracted 150,000 people to see more than 385 live performances of dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.

The Burning Man festival is an annual gathering that began as a 1986 San Francisco celebration and is now held in the Black Rock Desert northeast of Reno, Nevada. The festival becomes a temporary city (36,500 occupants in 2005) and is a contemporary expression of alternative community inspired by the early hippies.

Many hippies of today have made use of the World Wide Web and can be found on virtual communities such as Hippyland, the largest International Hippie community on the web, or UKhippy in the UK. Also, there are many events, festivals and parties that promote hippy lifestyles and values.

In the United Kingdom, the New age travellers movement revived many hippie traditions into the 1980s and 1990s.

The "boho-chic" fashion style of 2003-5 had a number of hippie features and, indeed, the London Evening Standard used the term "hippie chic" (11 March 2005).

Pejorative connotations

The term hippie has also been used in a derogatory sense to describe long-haired unkempt drug users. Among those of the Beat Generation, the flood of youngsters adopting Beatnik sensibilities appeared to be cheap, mass-produced imitations of the Beatnik artist community. By Beat standards, these newcomers were not "clever" enough to really be "hip". On the other hand, conservatives used the term hippie as an insult toward young adults who had leftist, liberal, and other progressive outlooks on life. Band members like the Beatles defied and baffled adults in adopting long, shaggy hair. Such displays of apathy with regard to appearance were but one way in which hippies defied preconceived adult expectations.

Today in more conservative or mainstream culture, and especially in political discourse the term hippie is often used to allude to slacker attitudes, irresponsibility, leftist sentiments, and participation in recreational drug use. An example is its use by the South Park cartoon character, Eric Cartman. In the "Die Hippie, Die" episode (viewable here[2]), the entire town joins Cartman in his negative view of hippies after they invade South Park for a "Hippie Music Jam Festival … [creating] the largest such gathering in the history of Man."

Neo-Hippies

Neo-hippies or simply hippies today is generally used as a pejorative term for a Western spiritualist, however it is self-applied by certain groups. Often these are 21st century people who claim to believe in some form of the hippie philosophy developed in the 1960s. Dreadlocks — especially with beads sewn into them — remain popular amongst neo-hippies. Many critics argue that these "new hippies" are making more of a fashion statement than participating in a meaningful anti-materialist movement.

While there are references to the peace and justice themes advocated by their 1960s counterparts, neo-hippies have engaged in little civil disobedience or demonstrating to oppose the Iraq War and Patriot Acts I and II, compared to the 60's. Many of today's hippies are prominent in the "Dead-head" and "Phish-head" communities, as well as in the jamband scene, in general. Many criticisms of the hippie period following the Summer of Love continue to resonate: it can be shallow, hedonistic, fueled by drugs and the same middle-class money it claims to oppose.

Perhaps the two most valid criticisms are that many new hippies are not, in fact, more than superficial believers in the original culture, and that those who are true believers have largely disconnected from society. Hippies often promote organic farming, growing one's own food, making clothes by hand and "living off the (electrical) grid"; this leads to living in rural settings where these goals are feasible. Most older hippies today are political dropouts, with little to no faith in the system. The book The Rebel Sell details a more thourough criticism of both neo and original hippie 'counter culture' as being essentially individualistic and materialistic, thus consumer advocating, though claiming the opposite. This individualistic approach is evident in the isolating back-to-the-land and politically non-allied characteristics. Back-to-the-land ideas echo the original frontier mentality of American expansion as well as ironically lead to environmentally destructive suburban sprawl in continually further reaches. Political individualism can be contrary to socialist principles of common ground and compromise, as well as ironically similar to the each-for-himself ethos that defines capitalism.

Many US marijuana growers are hippies, either by adoption of the trade and culture, or because their parents did the same. Stable hippie communities built on the marijuana trade exist on the Northwest Coast of the US, (especially in and around Humboldt Co., CA), in the South and Northeast of the United States, as well as in several provinces in Canada. Smaller hippie communities built on more traditional farming and crafts are spread throughout the US and Europe.

In the US, the art car has almost replaced the VW Bus since these have become sought-after by enthusiasts, however a few hippie-era buses remain. In the UK and Europe, New age travellers in converted buses and trucks are generally referred to by others as "hippies", although most of them will strenuously reject this and other labels. An interest in environmentally-friendly technology like hybrid vehicles (not to include biodiesel and SVO/WVO technology) have also gained massive acceptance and promotion.

Drug usage is just as accepted as in the "original" hippie days, although it is not considered necessary to take drugs in order to be part of the lifestyle. Some modern hippies frown upon excessive drug use because of lessons learned from the past. Some of the more conservative hippies deplore most drugs other than cannabis and psychedelics, such as LSD, magic mushrooms and salvia divinorum.

Neo-hippies of today are usually found attending music and art festivals around the United States. The bands performing at the festivals are usually called "Jam Bands" because many of their songs contain long instrumental jams. The jams are similar to music performed by the original 1960s hippie bands such as Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers Band, Carlos Santana, Big Brother, and Jefferson Airplane. The modern jam bands play a fusion of all musical genres including rock, blues, jazz, bluegrass, funk, reggae, prog-rock, folk, and hip-hop. Psychedelic Trance music is also a common music preference for hippies around the world. Psychedelic Trance festivals last up to seven days and typically take place in the summer months. Israel, Germany, South Africa and England all have major trance followings but the psychedelic trance culture is followed by many hippies worldwide.

The biggest jam band hippie festival is called The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. It is a four-day, multi-stage, summer camping festival held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, and it is reminiscent of the festivals of the 1960s. However, the trend of Bonnaroo shows it is moving away from jam band headliners as the 2006 lineup is led by non-jam bands like Radiohead, Beck, Tom Petty, Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, and Sonic Youth, just to name a few. This is perhaps an indication that the hippie music scene, or jam bands, is once again decreasing in popularity. Certainly, without the Grateful Dead and Phish in existence, the nomadic touring hippies are left without a seminal jam band to follow.

Hippie Slang from Wolof Language

There are a number of words from the Wolof Language that became widely used slang among hippies. The Wolof language is spoken in West Africa (Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania) and is related to the Mandinka language. One possible scenario as to how these words came into English: a number of Wolof-speaking people were brought from West Africa to America as slaves, and their descendents became involved in the Jazz and Beatnik scenes. European American participants in the Jazz and Beatnik scenes emulated African American ways and eventually influenced the hippie movement.

hep, hipi, hippy = open eyes, knowledge, wisdom, well informed, up-to-date, to open one's eyes, be aware of what is going on. Usage: He is a hippy. He is hip to the scene.
cat, -kat = friend, fellow, suffix denoting a person. Usage: He is one crazy cat.
hep-cat = person who understands, common phrase used in 1960s.
dig, deg, dega = understand, appreciate, pay attention. Usage: You dig what I'm saying?
honk, honky = white, pink, pale. Used to refer to white people. Usage: How's it hanging, honky.
boko, bogus = fake, deceit, fraud. Usage: This game is bogus.
jive, jaiv = lie, trick. Usage: Don't jive me, fool.
cool = calm, controlled, slow. Translation of suma, meaning cool.

Source: http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_languages.htm

External links

Bibliography

Dr. Kent, Stephen A. From slogans to mantras: social protest and religious conversion in the late Vietnam war era Syracuse University press ISBN 0-8156-2923-0 (2001)
Wolfe, Tom. 1981. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York, Bantam.
Young, Shawn David, M.A., Hippies, Jesus Freaks, and Music (Ann Arbor: Xanedu/Copley Original Works, 2005). ISBN 1-59399-201-7

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