Haight-Ashbury, Psychedelics, and the Birth of Acid Rock

The late Beat scholar Campbell (1950–2016) and Szatmary (Jazz: Race and Social Change 1870–2019) discuss the origin and legacies of the drug-fueled hippie counterculture in the U.S. from 1964 to 1967, plus the artistic, literary, and musical figures associated with the early use of LSD (Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Hunter Thompson, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, and Jerry Garcia). The book also reveals relatively unknown but salient characters, such as former U.S. Air Force technician Owsley Stanley, who widely distributed LSD before it became illegal, and Billy and Peggy Hitchcock, sibling heirs whose New York State mansion was a center for psychedelic experimentation. The book argues that the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival was the culmination, not the beginning, of true psychedelic culture, and that Woodstock and later manifestations were ironic imitations of what had been authentic. The book also examines different distinctions within psychedelic consciousness, such as the purposeful East Coast vs. the self-indulgent West Coast. Some readers may find debatable the concluding suggestion that these phenomena encouraged a deeper social perception, cooperation, and greater awareness of varied possibilities, even without drugs.