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By the late 1960s, change was afoot in America; the phlegmatic 50s were long over. Perhaps still lulled, it took the 60s some time to show up.
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It was on the airwaves too, because the top two records on the Billboard Hot 100 were covers of songs from the revolutionary theatrical show Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical which opened on Broadway the year before with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado, and music by Galt MacDermot. Released in 1969, one of its songs Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by the 5th Dimension was number one, and the title song Hair by the Cowsills was number two. The Cowsills were American performers from Newport, Rhode Island, six siblings ranging in age from eight to nineteen. By 1969, they were joined in the group by their mother, becoming a direct inspiration for the 1970s television show The Partridge Family. But the Cowsills were no lip-synching actors on TV, they were real pop stars. Just two years previously they had a seminal Summer of Love hit, The Rain, the Park and Other Things, singing about "flowers in her hair, flowers everywhere . . . " which also reached number two on the Billboard charts. But by 1969, it was all about Hair, and for me, all about mine.
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