Topic spans: 1964 - 2006
Hippie Society: The Youth Rebellion
Flowers and free love. Antiwar marches and acid tests. In the mid to late 1960s, youth across North America and Europe began to "turn on, tune in and drop out." Fed up with the establishment — parents, schools, police — they went looking for a new way of life. To Toronto's Yorkville and Vancouver's Kitsilano district they came, preaching peace, love and non-conformity.
14 television clips
8 radio clips
A sunshine melody: Joni Mitchell
Broadcast Date: May 1, 1967
An overheard conversation at a fair in Regina was the inspiration for one of Joni Mitchell's latest songs, a first-person story called Song to a Daydreamer, or Blue on Blue. Mitchell's fame as a songwriter and folksinger is spreading. The prairie-bred musician has moved to Detroit and is performing regularly in clubs and festivals across the United States. In this clip, Mitchell explains why she stopped playing "beautiful but dreary" traditional English folk songs.A sunshine melody: Joni Mitchell
• Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort Macleod, Alta., on Nov. 7, 1943. Her family moved to Saskatoon when she was nine, and that's the city she considers her hometown.• Because she couldn't afford a guitar, the teenaged Mitchell bought a baritone ukulele to play at parties.
• After high school, Mitchell enrolled in art school but dropped out after one year to move to Toronto and pursue a career as a folksinger.
• After moving to the United States in 1965, Mitchell became part of a growing movement of folk musicians. Some of her earliest success came when other singers recorded songs she'd written. These performers included Buffy Sainte-Marie and Judy Collins.
• In 1969, Mitchell was scheduled to perform at Woodstock, the hippie era's most famous music festival, but her manager advised her not to go lest she miss an appearance on the Dick Cavett Show that Monday.
• Mitchell's 1971 recording Blue catapulted her into the Billboard Top 20. Blue represented a departure for her, as it was a conscious effort to escape the "hippie goddess" image she'd acquired. Mitchell felt Blue — with all its layers of emotion — was a truer reflection of herself, uncontrived and honest.
• The song Mitchell performs in this clip — Song to a Daydreamer or Blue on Blue — was never professionally recorded or released commercially.
A sunshine melody: Joni Mitchell
Medium: Television
Program: Take 30
Broadcast Date: May 1, 1967
Guest(s): Joni Mitchell
Host: Adrienne Clarkson, Paul Soles
Duration: 8:48
Last updated:
July 15, 2008
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They say if you can remember Woodstock, you weren't really there. Of course, that's not entirely true. More than 400,000 people gathered in a farmer's field in upstate New York to attend the three-day music...
Topic
The word "teenager" didn't even exist until the 1940s. But as long as there's been a word to describe youth aged 13 to 19, there have been adults complaining about teenagers. Drinking, promiscuity,...
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hippie · Yorkville · flower children · 1960s
A sunshine melody: Joni Mitchell.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: July 15, 2008.
[Page consulted on Feb. 9, 2010.]