Brits Played the Sound Track for My Generation

By ROB PATTERSON

I’ve recently been reflecting on how I’ve been writing this column for, best I can estimate, some 20 years now. And though it has always been a favorite among the variety of editorial work I do, of late find myself enjoying it as much as ever, maybe even more than ever.

Sure, there’s an appeal to having somewhere that I can freely offer my thoughts on just about any entertainment topic I like. But that’s also something I haven’t suffered from a lack of over the four decades or so of my career, being able to write reviews of music, movies, books, TV and even such topics as architecture and barrooms for a fairly wide variety of print and digital publications.

But I do feel like I’ve staked out a comfortable and appealingly familiar space here for myself, and do hope that I’ve done the same for those of you dear readers who have been with me here for these surprisingly many years. After all, there is nowhere else where I’ve as long regularly contributed to – and contributed to as an opinion writer – as here in The Progressive Populist. And I must confess that I also like it when what I say challenges readers to also critically comment on what I write. Even if I don’t always reply and only rarely address those who take the time to write me in this space, trust me: Even if I might vehemently disagree – most commonly it seems with Bob Dylan doubters and haters – I do hear you.

For as long as I’ve been doing this, I know I’ve been making comments in my columns about specific points with the aesthetic that informs what I say here, I don’t as often dial back the focus to the bigger picture that explains, I believe, why I think and write as I feel. I’d been pondering this notion as I started reflecting on the length of my tenure here. And then I watched a documentary film, “My Generation,” that crystalized not only what my aesthetic is and how it was formed, but also pondering the forces that made who we are.

It’s a quite delightful journey through the 1960s with noted English actor Michael Caine. But it’s not simply an act of recollection by a significant presence in the social and cultural revolution of the era but also a bit of perspective – from his point of view as a young Cockney growing up with what seemed a constricted future simply by who he was and, as an extension of that, how he spoke. Yet the social, cultural and political winds of the era opened up English society to allow him to earn a knighthood yet still speak like a lower-class Londoner.

The film’s title is from a song by The Who – whose Roger Daltrey also comments in the film – one of my first and, still today favorite rock bands. But that also means I get a wee bit of ownership in what it’s about. Because a rather wide streak of what formed me and my aesthetic as expressed in this column is the subject matter here.

It’s best tagged as The British Invasion if – and only if – one takes that beyond just the musical movement spearheaded by The Beatles. Because it was for me and quite a few of my peers also about all sorts of other things from the United Kingdom: James Bond, for starters, both in the Ian Fleming books and the films starring Sean Connery. Also the TV series “The Avengers” on US television in the mid-1960s (and later “Monty Python”) and of course Caine and Julie Christie, hell, even bloody Prince Charles. Even circling back to the music how the British rockers treasured and were inspired by American blues music and in doing so helped focus my US generation back onto a part of our heritage that enjoyed a revival from the 1960s into the ‘70s that continues unabated today.

So, yeah, my aesthetic … It has a strong strain of Anglophilia that’s undeniable. And “My Generation” examines it in a way that goes well beyond the “hippie ‘60s” cliches thanks to Caine.

Populist Picks

Documentary Film: “Peter Green: Man of the World” – Speaking of English musicians and American blues, this excellent doc brings back towards the front the early blues-rock years of the band Fleetwood Mac, which he fronted as guitarist, singer and songwriter and too often gets overshadowed by the band’s later pop-rock superstardom. The originality and innovations of his blues-rock musical legacy are showcased here while his mental healthy stuggles, now in the past, are covered with a deft sensitivity.

Music Album: Wildcard by Miranda Lambert – I’ve largely given up listening to most mainstream commercial country music these days … other than some of the women who have the true spirit going on. So even if the production on this disc has a wee bit too much modern slickness for my tastes, Lambert writes and delivers songs of spirit, sass and depth that befit her superstar status.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2020

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