Seven Ages of Rock
Seven Ages of Rock is a BBC Two series, co-produced by BBC Worldwide and VH1 Classic in 2007 about the history of rock music.
It comprised six 60-minute episodes, with a final episode of 90 minutes, and was broadcast on Saturdays at 21:00. Each episode focused on one type of rock music, each typified by one or two artists or bands. The series producer was William Naylor, and the executive producer for the BBC was Michael Poole, a former editor of the 1990s BBC music, arts and culture programme The Late Show. The production was based at BBC Bristol and each programme was narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt on the BBC and Dennis Hopper on VH1 classic.
The series also included additional material broadcast on BBC radio and available on the BBC website.
Series structure
The series makes heavy use of archive material. These early performances of musicians are interspersed with interviews with various other musicians. Naylor could use interviews from various other music series he had made for the BBC, such as with David Bowie, who was not available for an interview this time.In an interview about the series, Naylor says that he has noticed the time is ripe for a revival of rock because he sees a growing popularity of slightly uncomfortable music and a somewhat arrogant attitude, precisely what rock needs. He also claims the series finally says what needed to be said, that England made Jimi Hendrix. He even states that rock music started on 24 September 1966 in London, when Jimi Hendrix went there.
Episodes
Programme 1: The Birth of Rock
grew up in Seattle in the 1950s, learning the Twelve-bar blues as a teenager. Whilst in the Army, he came under the influence of the electric blues of artists such as Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King and Muddy Waters. After he was discharged in 1962, he became involved in the Chitlin' Circuit, playing with figures such as Little Richard.Former Animals member, Eric Burdon, says Hendrix could not get off the ground in the United States because black blues was not popular there. Meanwhile, the English music scene was learning to play the blues from the US records they bought, with bands forming like The Rolling Stones, who began by copying American blues numbers. When they started to write their own songs they gave them a sexual swagger and a new direction. Whites playing the blues made it more acceptable to the white US audience reintroducing the style to America. When Hendrix moved to New York City he came under the influence of British blues music, especially that of Jeff Beck of The Yardbirds and Eric Clapton, who had become famous with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. While living in Harlem, he also came under the influence of Bob Dylan, whose "Like a Rolling Stone" revolutionised rock. For Hendrix, this inspired him to begin singing, having previously been self-conscious about his voice. Another English band, The Who, inspired him most. With a roughness and a high octane sound, they created the modern stage presence with the theatrics of destroying their equipment, such as playing the guitar by ramming it against the floor and speakers.
Jimi Hendrix came to London in late 1966 after having been discovered and invited by his future manager Chas Chandler of The Animals, on the sole condition that he would be introduced to his guitar heroes. He arrived at the height of swinging London with Cream being the most important band around. At one of their concerts, Hendrix asked if he could join in a jam. That was already audacious, playing with 'God', but then he blew Clapton away, who went back stage and had a hard time lighting a cigarette because his hands were shaking too much. Stealing Cream's thunder, Chandler put together The Jimi Hendrix Experience, who became famous faster than almost any other rock band.
However, despite his UK success, Hendrix was still largely ignored in his home country. This was to change when he played the Monterey International Pop Festival at the height of the Summer of Love. The Who played first, with an aggression never before seen in the United States, Hendrix stunned the crowds further with his explosive sound and showmanship culminating in setting fire to his guitar.
In 1966, The Beatles had taken refuge in the studio, transforming themselves from a pop band to psychedelic pioneers. When Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in 1967, Hendrix covered it on one of the experience's next shows. Having seen the power of the studio album he went on to create Electric Ladyland. However, it led to Hendrix becoming more deeply involved in drugs and Chas Chandler leaving as manager.
By 1968, America and Europe were being torn apart by conflict at home and abroad. The Rolling Stones tapped into these feelings with a new creative zeal. However, their performance at Altamont became one of the most violent days in rock history, after a member of Hells Angels killed Meredith Hunter, a drugged member of the audience, who drew a revolver from his jacket during the Stones' set. The Altamont festival was meant to mirror the Woodstock Festival, where Hendrix delivered a searing version of the Star-Spangled Banner, which some saw as a political statement against the Vietnam War. However, Hendrix began to tire of stage performance and at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, he gave a lacklustre performance. In September, he died of an accidental overdose. Along with the deaths of Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin and the breaking up of The Beatles, this brought this age of rock to a close.
Alternative Programme 1: ''[My Generation]''
The broadcast of the VH1 episode is very differently structured and features several different songs, interviews, and artists, as well as the main focus, Jimi Hendrix, being completely removed and the new focus being the Rolling Stones. This is not an issue with other episodes which are only mildly different.In the early 1960s, the music for teenagers was sweet and soulless, manufactured pop with a beat for crooners such as Bobby Vinton and Bobby Vee. The music of blues singers such as John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf was powerful and rebellious and had come out of struggle in a way that spoke to the British Working Class, who were not politically constrained as they were in white America.
In 1962, The Rolling Stones formed and started playing in the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond. Their Blues with a British twist proved a hit with teenage audiences. The Rolling Stones began creating their own songs with lyrics loaded with arrogance and sex. Their space at the Crawdaddy Club was taken by The Yardbirds, who attempted to produce their own twist on the blues, helped by their guitarist Eric Clapton, who was considered by some to be so proficient with the guitar that he garnered the popular nickname "God". However, he split from the Yardbirds after their commercial success to become a serious blues musician.
A new wave of British bands were now emerging. The Kinks produced an electrified gritty sound expanding musical possibilities. Inspired by them, The Who combined a macho image, pop art and fast driven rock. In 1965, year zero of rock, the Who released a song that the program postulates defined the era, "My Generation", and was incredibly innovative in both its sound and rebellious message.
The Animals had first opened the path for these bands with the reimagining of "The House of the Rising Sun", which they came across when it was covered by Bob Dylan from the New York City folk scene. He now took inspiration from these new British bands by going electric to produce "the Wild Thin Mercury sound of Rock Music", which added sophisticated lyrics to rock.
Back in Britain, Eric Clapton had found creative freedom in his own band Cream, which were much more musically skilled than most other groups at the time. They took the language and feel of the blues producing the 'endless-solo'. Disraeli Gears took the blues and combined it with the drug-filled psychedelia, showing the artistic potential of rock.
When The Who went to the Monterey International Pop Festival, they innovated the live performance by channelling aggression, playing at high volume and destroying their instruments. This established the festival as the centre of the rock performance but also signalled the end of the innocent optimism of the summer of love. Anxieties over the Vietnam war and social unrest rising and, after the Woodstock Festival, business started to take over what artists were doing. This new mood was channelled by the Rolling Stones using darkness as a new creative zeal. However, they were plunged into their own darkness with the death of Brian Jones and the chaos of Altamont, where, according to Al Kooper, the innocence of the Sixties finally died.
The Beatles are not mentioned throughout the episode.
Many of this episode's featured songs are completely different, and so they are listed separately here:
| Artist | Song | Year | UK Chart | US Chart |
| John Lee Hooker | "Boom Boom" | 1962 | – | – |
| Howlin' Wolf | "Spoonful" | 1960 | – | – |
| The Rolling Stones | "Not Fade Away" | 1964 | 3 | 48 |
| The Rolling Stones | "Around and Around" | 1964 | 1 | – |
| Howlin' Wolf | "How Many More Years" | 1951 | – | – |
| The Rolling Stones | "Little Red Rooster" | 1964 | 1 | – |
| The Yardbirds | "For Your Love" | 1965 | 3 | 6 |
| The Rolling Stones | "The Last Time" | 1965 | 1 | 9 |
| The Rolling Stones | " Satisfaction" | 1965 | 1 | 1 |
| The Kinks | "You Really Got Me" | 1964 | 1 | 7 |
| The Who | "I Can't Explain" | 1965 | 8 | 97 |
| The Who | "My Generation" | 1965 | 2 | 74 |
| The Animals | "The House of the Rising Sun" | 1964 | 1 | 1 |
| Bob Dylan | "Like a Rolling Stone" | 1965 | 2 | 4 |
| Cream | "I Feel Free" | 1966 | 11 | 116 |
| Cream | "Crossroads" | 1968 | 3 | 1 |
| Cream | "Sunshine of Your Love" | 1967 | 5 | 4 |
| The Rolling Stones | "Gimme Shelter" | 1969 | 1 | 3 |
| The Rolling Stones | "Sympathy for the Devil" | 1968 | 3 | 5 |