“Heart of the Sunrise” is a progressive rock song by British band Yes. It is the closing track on their fourth album, 1971′s Fragile. The compositional credits go to Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, and Chris Squire, though keyboardist Rick Wakeman contributed some uncredited sections. The song eventually rose to become the band’s fourth most-played song.However, it was played approximately three hundred times less than “I’ve Seen All Good People” and received little if any airplay. It was popular enough, however, to appear on Yessongs, Classic Yes, In a Word: Yes (1969 – ), and many other studio and live retrospectives. “Heart of the Sunrise” was used in the Vincent Gallo film Buffalo 66, with matching cinematography. “Sweetness”, from the band’s eponymous debut, was also used.
[Dedicated to Benny Woitowitz and Morten Holmstrup]
Yes is the 1969 eponymous debut album from British progressive rock band Yes, considered among the first progressive rock albums. The original Yes line-up of vocalist Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Peter Banks, keyboardist Tony Kaye, and drummer Bill Bruford remained intact for the album’s recording. Lester Bangs favourably reviewed the album in Rolling Stone, writing that it was “the kind of album that sometimes insinuates itself into your routine with a totally unexpected thrust of musical power. The song “Sweetness” is featured in Vincent Gallo’s first movie as a director “Buffalo ’66″.
[Dedicated to Morten Holmstrup and Benny Woitonitz]
The song was popularized by Roberta Flack in 1972 in a version that became a breakout hit for the singer. The song first appeared on Flack’s 1969 album First Take. Flack’s rendition was much slower than the original as an early solo recording by Peggy Seeger ran two and a half minutes long whereas Flack’s is more than twice that length. This slower, more sensual version was used by Clint Eastwood in his 1971 directorial debut Play Misty for Me during a lovemaking scene. With the new exposure, Atlantic Records cut the song down to four minutes and released it to radio. It became an extremely successful single in the United States where it reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts in April 1972 for six week runs on each. It reached #14 on the UK Singles Chart.
“Ohio” is a protest song written and composed by Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, and performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It was released as a single, backed with Stephen Stills “Find the Cost of Freedom,” peaking at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Although a live version of the song was included on the group’s 1971 double album Four Way Street, the studio versions of both songs did not appear on an LP until the group’s compilation So Far was released in 1974. The song also appeared on the Neil Young compilation album Decade, released in 1977.
On May 4, l970 members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students. The impact of the shootings was dramatic. The event triggered a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close. H. R. Haldeman, a top aide to President Richard Nixon, suggests the shootings had a direct impact on national politics. In The Ends of Power, Haldeman (1978) states that the shootings at Kent State began the slide into Watergate, eventually destroying the Nixon administration. Beyond the direct effects of the May 4th, the shootings have certainly come to symbolize the deep political and social divisions that so sharply divided the country during the Vietnam War era.
In the nearly three decades since May 4, l970, a voluminous literature has developed analyzing the events of May 4th and their aftermath. Some books were published quickly, providing a fresh but frequently superficial or inaccurate analysis of the shootings (e.g., Eszterhas and Roberts, 1970; Warren, 1970; Casale and Paskoff, 1971; Michener, 1971; Stone, 1971; Taylor et al., 1971; and Tompkins and Anderson, 1971). Numerous additional books have been published in subsequent years (e.g., Davies, 1973; Hare, 1973; Hensley and Lewis, 1978; Kelner and Munves, 1980; Hensley, 1981; Payne, 1981; Bills, 1988; and Gordon, 1997). These books have the advantage of a broader historical perspective than the earlier books, but no single book can be considered the definitive account of the events and aftermath of May 4, l970 at Kent State University.
In May 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen confronted student antiwar protesters with a tear gas barrage. Soon afterward, with no provocation, soldiers opened fire into a group of fleeing students. Four young people were killed, shot in the back, including two women who had been walking to class.” (Norton et al., 1994, p. 732) Unfortunately, this short description contains four factual errors: some degree of provocation did exist; the students were not fleeing when the Guard initially opened fire; only one of the four students who died, William Schroeder, was shot in the back; and one female student, Sandy Schreuer, had been walking to class, but the other female, Allison Krause, had been part of the demonstration.
This article is an attempt to deal with the historical inaccuracies that surround the May 4th shootings at Kent State University by providing high school social studies teachers with a resource to which they can turn if they wish to teach about the subject or to involve students in research on the issue. Our approach is to raise and provide answers to twelve of the most frequently asked questions about May 4 at Kent State. We will also offer a list of the most important questions involving the shootings which have not yet been answered satisfactorily. Finally, we will conclude with a brief annotated bibliography for those wishing to explore the subject further.
The decision to bring the Ohio National Guard onto the Kent State University campus was directly related to decisions regarding American involvement in the Vietnam War. Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States in 1968 based in part on his promise to bring an end to the war in Vietnam. During the first year of Nixon’s presidency, America’s involvement in the war appeared to be winding down. In late April of 1970, however, the United States invaded Cambodia and widened the Vietnam War. This decision was announced on national television and radio on April 30, l970 by President Nixon, who stated that the invasion of Cambodia was designed to attack the headquarters of the Viet Cong, which had been using Cambodian territory as a sanctuary.
Protests occurred the next day, Friday, May 1, across United States college campuses where anti-war sentiment ran high. At Kent State University, an anti-war rally was held at noon on the Commons, a large, grassy area in the middle of campus which had traditionally been the site for various types of rallies and demonstrations.
The song refers to both the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as well as the trial of the Chicago Eight, where protesters at the convention were charged with intent to incite a riot. The first line of the song: “So your brother’s bound and gagged, and they’ve chained him to a chair” refers to Bobby Seale, the defendant who was gagged and bound to a chair in the courtroom following repeated outbursts. On Four Way Street, Nash dedicates the song to “Mayor Daley”.
Abandoned Luncheonette is the second album by the American pop music duo Hall & Oates, released in 1973, which combines folk, Philly soul, and acoustic soul. The most well-known track from the album is “She’s Gone,” one of the act’s best-loved songs; Daryl Hall, according to some reports, has called it the best song he and John Oates wrote together. Both performers were undergoing romantic problems at the time the song was written; a 1985 article in Rolling Stone said the song was about Hall’s divorce from wife Bryna Lublin. A promotional video for “She’s Gone” was produced. This video opens with shots of the “abandoned luncheonette” (see note below about Album Cover), in which Hall & Oates sit in recliners, wearing bathrobes and singing the song. Towards the end of the video, Oates rises, dons a jacket with long cuffs, and proceeds to perform his guitar solo with his hands completely covered by the sleeves of his jacket.
Killer political psych/funk/groove/soul classic from Eugene McDaniels (AKA The Left Rev Mc D). Released by Atlantic (SD 8259), and featuring Ron Carter and Hugh McCracken. Features the song Cherrystones, which inspired the DJ of the same name (this sheds some light on the sounds within as well). [Source]
Eugene McDaniels may be famous (or infamous) for `Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse` but for my money (which isn’t much these days), THIS album has the songs! One of the weirdest career trajectories in music, McDaniels had gone from an early 60s R&B hit maker, as Gene McDaniels, with songs like “100 lbs of Clay”, then seemingly taken a few years away from music, and reemerged with this militant, bizarre, and utterly seductive music. If I remember correctly he had begun working on this album while in the studio with Bobby Hutcherson recording the amazing album “Now!” Only one of the tunes on this album is really reminiscent of that masterpiece, “Unspoken Dreams of Light”, loaded with jazz intervals and trippy, convoluted lyrics about a coming bloody revolution sweeping the country. It’s a rock-funk-folk arrangement, I suppose, but the refrain sounds like it was left over from “Now.” [Source]
Going by the name of Gene McDaniels in the beginning of his career, this Kansas City-born singer/ songwriter had a couple Top 10 hits with “A Hundred Pounds of Clay” (1961) and “Tower of Strength” (1962), two tracks that would certainly win over mainstream white audiences of that era, when the world of music was still considered innocent, wholesome and non-threatening. It wasn’t until almost 10 years later that he would begin recording under his full name EUGENE McDANIELS, while also incorporating more themes of black consciousness into his songwriting. [Source]
