The music of any specific era is like a mirror reflecting the concerns of a culture at that specific time. Sometimes it reflects these images in an indirect way, sometimes very directly. The decade of the sixties was a revolutionary and turbulent time for social and political change. The music and musical styles of the sixties reflected American culture and had an effec

t on the political activism for which the sixties are best remembered.

In 1951 Bill Stewart and Todd Storz were hired to rebuild an Omaha radio station, which was currently ranked dead last. Little did they know that their epiphany would change the way people listened to music. One day, the pair went to a local bar to conduct target research. They were listening to that the locals played on the jukebox. They found that the people would listen to the same song over and over again without becoming tired or agitated. Their idea was to play music on the radio just as locals did in bars and such, over and over again. They coined this the Top 40, and did just that, played the top songs over and over again. This was an immediate success and KOWH radio's ratings went from five percent of an available audience to a commanding 45.2 percent. This was the start of bringing the new music to everyone, not just those in clubs or bars where the songs were played. Storz was a businessman and didn't really care about the music. He said, "I do not believe there is any such thing as better or inferior music." He also said, "if the public suddenly showed a preference for Chinese music, we would play it." This is a major difference from this time until later on in the Sixties when radio stations would specialize in certain music because of the wide range of rock and roll. The popularity of these radio stations dwindled down when the television craze blew up.

Elvis made his television debut on January 28, 1956 when he appeared on the "Stage Show" hosted by the Dorsey brothers. Few people watched the show, but his appearance coincided with the release of his song Heartbreak Hotel. His career soon took off, and he soon became known as the King of Rock. Elvis was loved by many because everything about him was against the norm. He was not a clean-cut good citizen. In his early years he had to act like a model citizen to get gigs because in that time people were not accepted if they were different. Marion Keisker said in 1953, "The reason I taped Elvis was this, Over and over I remember Sam saying, 'If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars', this is what I heard in Elvis." Everything about Elvis was different, from his sexual style of dance to his ability to warp and change his voice and style of singing. "Within the span of one ballad, "That's When Your Heartache Begins," he lurches intuitively from one voice to another, sounding now like a poised baritone, now like a keening tenor."

Sixties music can be distinguished from other periods by three main characteristics. First, it reflected the new sexual permissiveness by including obviously sexy lyrics. Second, until the mid-1950's, popular music was aimed at both teenager and their parents. During the sixties, a "youth culture" formed that was distinct from the rest of society. "Third, until the mid-fifties, both popular music musicians and their audiences were overwhelmingly middle-class and white. During the sixties this changed when a number of divergent forces came together to create a new kind of music and a particular audience for that music. One major force was the mass migration of southern Blacks to the North during and after World War II. An increase in "race programming on urban radio stations reflected that population shift. Until that time, black music, labeled "rhythm and blues" had been largely inaccessible to white audiences, now all they had to do was turn on a radio."

In Liverpool, England in 1961 the Beatles were starting their rise to become the greatest band of all time. Brian Epstein, the future manager for the band, on his first visit to see the Beatles said, "I had never seen anything like the Beatles on stage. They smoked as they played and they ate and talked and pretended to hit each other. They turned their backs on the audience and shouted at them and laughed at private jokes." The Be

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Approximate Word count = 3253
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)