Goldman: Rock is probably the most important
cultural event in the history of America
and out swarmed a whole generation of freaks.
It's what guys seem to get off on,
they like this high-energy sort of event.
Cornelius: And if the sight and sound of soul is your pleasure,
you can bet your bottom, we got 'em baby.
Downs: Unless you've been living in a sealed cave,
you've probably noticed that America's latest craze
is disco dancin'.
This is punk rock, and its purpose is to promote
violence, sex, and destruction, in that order.
Pure rock 'n' roll energy, pure guts, pure stamina.
♪♪
Rock singer Jimi Hendriz died today in London,
according to a police source, from an overdose of drugs.
Reynolds: Janis Joplin was found dead last night.
The cause of death was said to be an overdose of drugs.
Jim Morrison, the lead singer for The Doors,
a rock music group, is dead.
He was 27.
Naftali: The early years of the 70s are sad in music
because you lose people.
And you lose The Beatles.
Simon: This small gathering on Savile Row
is only the beginning.
The event is so momentous
that historians may one day view it
as a landmark in the decline of the British Empire.
The Beatles are breaking up.
Heilemann: It was like a death for a lot of people.
Rock 'n' roll, as we understood it in the 1960s,
was no longer with us.
There could never be another Beatles, never.
[ sniffles ]
♪♪
You might wonder what I'm doing here
with no drummers and no nothing like that.
Well, as you might know, I lost my old band,
or I left it.
♪ Imagine there's no heaven ♪
[ applause ]
♪ It's easy if you try ♪
Asher: For so long you kind of waited
for the next beatles album to see where music was going.
And we just hoped that the music
they would come up with individually would be that good.
You know, I no longer have to, "Oh The Beatles need an album,
you and Paul better go and write 20 songs tomorrow"
kind of thing.
I just write when I feel like it.
♪ Imagine all the people ♪
Cavett: You know, Yoko,
you've even been called "The Dragon Lady"
who brought The Beatles apart -- or took them all apart.
I have trouble with English, so..
Could we please give her the credit
for all the nice music that George made and Ringo made
and Paul made and I've made since they broke up.
[ applause ]
If she did it --
Hanks: The fact is, Yoko Ono did not break up The Beatles.
Time broke up The Beatles, money broke up The Beatles,
business broke up The Beatles,
the desire to go off and do their own stuff
broke up The Beatles.
Man: He's a fleshier, heavier Beatle these days,
respectably married.
And when the kids come to his concerts,
they don't scream any more, they listen.
The significant thing
is that both John Lennon and Paul McCartney
made music in their own particular ways
that was focused on the fact
that they were deeply in love with a woman.
♪♪
♪ But I'm not the only one ♪
McCartney went home, made that record
where he plays all of the instruments on his own,
this kind of cozy domesticity.
Beautiful, wonderful, warm music.
It's gonna look roughly like this.
This is our first showing of it.
So this is just the mockup, folks.
Man: The new album with Atlantic --
and it's gonna be called "Ringo's Rotogravure."
I sell records, and it doesn't matter
if I've been in The Beatles or not,
if they don't like the record out there,
they won't buy it, you know?
Ringo, who, to this day, people dismiss way too much,
has tremendous success in the 70s.
And George Harrison,
who had been stockpiling these amazing songs,
explodes like a supernova
on an album called "All Things Must Pass,"
maybe the greatest Beatles solo album of all.
♪ You don't need no passport ♪
♪ And you don't need no visa ♪
Over the years, you know, I had such a lot of songs
mounting up that I really wanted to do,
but I only got my quota of one or two tunes per album.
Were you held down by the other fellas?
Uh...
well, very subtly, yes.
♪ By chanting the name of the Lord and you'll be free ♪
♪ The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see ♪
I'd just like to thank you all for coming here.
As you all know, it's a special benefit concert.
♪ The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see ♪
Connelly: Ravi Shankar went to George Harrison
and said, this terrible thing is happening in Bangladesh,
what can we do?
And that created the first
major superstar benefit concert ever done.
Hanks: The concert for Bangladesh
was the granddaddy of all issue-themed concerts.
And not only did you get George Harrison, man,
you got Eric Clapton.
Connelly: It got Dylan out of hiding.
It put two Beatles back on the stage again.
It was unparalleled at the time
and it may still be unparalleled.
♪♪
[ cheers and applause ]
A great deal of music of the 70s
was people who had succeeded in the 60s finding new ways
to express themselves in the 70s.
Man: Have you got any idea why your group particularly
has lasted as long as it has?
Because we stay together, I suppose.
Wolcott: You know, for a few years,
the Rolling Stones had taken a lot of casualties.
Richards: Even Brian felt
that he wasn't gonna be around that long.
Not everybody makes it, you know?
Wolcott: They were fighting for like,
"Where do we secure our foothold now?"
♪♪
♪ Babe, you think I'm crazy ♪
♪ But they're always tryin' to waste me ♪
♪ Make me burn the candle right down ♪
Questlove: In 1971, the Rolling Stones
leave their home, for tax purposes,
to go live in France and record this record
"Exile on Main Street"
in a very hot, uncomfortable, muddy-sounding studio.
♪ Baby, baby ♪
♪ You got to roll me ♪
♪ They call me the tumblin' dice ♪
Wild: That record is the embodiment
of a band making masterpieces on a daily basis.
And I remember reading a review
saying that this was like a debauched album.
I was like, I don't even know what debauched means,
but I got to get some of this debauchery stuff.
♪♪
♪ Baby, I can't stay ♪
♪ They call me the tumblin' dice ♪
♪ they call me the tumblin' ♪
Wilson: Having come out of the 60s, which was its own animal,
the 70s had to show a new skin.
It had to shed the old one.
♪♪
♪ Ooh, yeah ♪
I was never very confident of my voice,
you see, as a singer.
So I thought, rather than just sing them,
which would probably bore the pants off of everybody,
I'd like to kind of portray the songs.
♪ Then I turned myself To face me ♪
♪ But I never caught a glimpse ♪
Wild: David bowie has always been a game changer.
He really has taken the promise of rock
that The Beatles kicked off,
and he's taking it all sorts of interesting places
for others to follow.
♪ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes ♪
♪ Turn and face the strange ♪
♪ Ch-ch-changes ♪
♪ Pretty soon, now, you're gonna get older ♪
♪ Time may change me ♪
♪ But I can't trace time ♪
♪ I said that time may change me ♪
♪ but I can't trace time ♪
This year I took some time off from touring
and went off on some adventures of my own,
and this is kind of a letter back home.
♪ Mm, California ♪
♪ Oh, California ♪
♪ I'm coming home ♪
♪ Oh, make me feel good, rock 'n' roll band ♪
♪ I'm your biggest fan ♪
♪ California, I'm coming home ♪
de Passe: You look to the horizon that you want to move toward,
and that horizon was here in L.A.
Fleetwood: That's where the record companies were,
and there's lots of sun. [ chuckles ]
The way I got to California is just really simple.
I got there in a '57 Chevy
by skipping my finals that year in college.
Wild: Virtually no one was from Southern California.
They're all drawn to the light,
and the light is The Troubadour Club.
John: Things happened gradually until we played
The Troubadour Club in Los Angeles,
which holds 250 people.
It just happened on the first night.
Every great songwriter I can think of
came through The Troubadour.
Jackson Browne, J.D., Henley, and Frey.
Linda Ronstadt, Kristofferson, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor.
The big sea change was people writing their own songs
and expressing themselves.
Is it difficult to reveal yourself constantly
to so many people?
Why do you have to do this?
I feel an obligation to myself and to people
to try and share myself, maybe as honestly as I can.
♪ I left my folk and friends ♪
♪ With the aim to clear my mind out ♪
♪ Well, I hit the rowdy road ♪
♪ And many kinds I met there ♪
♪ Many stories told me Of the way to get there ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh ♪
♪ So on and on I go ♪
♪ The seconds tick the time out ♪
♪ There's so much left to know ♪
♪ And I'm on the road to find out ♪
Everyone was just trying to do whatever came into their head.
In the early days, Paul and I, we wanted to be
the Goffin and King of England, you know?
Goffin and King were very big those days.
We had no idea who these people were,
who the mysterious Mr. King was who'd written all these songs --
you know, "Chains" -- that The Beatles did,
and "I'm Into Something Good,"
which was part of the British Invasion.
We did discover that it was this remarkable woman, Carole King.
Carole King made the transition from basically being
behind-the-scenes woman to a star in her own right.
♪ I feel the earth move under my feet ♪
♪ I feel the sky tumblin' down ♪
♪ I feel my heart start to tremblin' ♪
♪ whenever you're around ♪
Wild: Carole King is the embodiment of what happens
because, in the 60s,
she is trying to write hit songs for other people.
And then in the 70s, with "Tapestry,"
it's the definition of an album of self-expression --
Let me go into my house in Laurel Canyon
and tell you about my life.
After church, you always went out for pancakes.
If you were lucky enough to ride in one of the girls' cars,
you know what you're listening to?
"Tapestry."
♪♪
[ applause ]
Asher: There were a lot of very important women
who were some of the most significant
writers and contributors to music at the time.
We're gonna do a song that's written
by my friend John David Souther,
who is my favorite California songwriter
and one of my favorite singers.
It's called "Faithless Love."
She was, in many ways, my greatest collaborator.
I mean, I became a professional songwriter
because the best voice of my generation was doing my songs.
♪ Faithless love Like a river flows ♪
♪ Raindrops falling On a broken rose ♪
Asher: For my money Linda is still underrated
just for sheer singing power and style and emotion.
♪ And the night blows in ♪
♪ Like a cold, dark wind ♪
♪ Faithless love ♪
♪ Like a river flows ♪
There have been a lot of articles and things
that identify me with the L.A. Sound,
me and Jackson Browne and The Eagles.
We need some new blood in this town, you know?
We're starting to get stale.
♪♪
Nicks: This is a song about a welsh witch.
♪ She rings like a bell through the night ♪
♪ And wouldn't you love to love her ♪
The original Fleetwood Mac was a four-piece full-on blues band.
Asher: They were an English band that became a dual-citizenship band.
They were as American as they were British.
♪ All your life you've never known ♪
♪ A woman taken by the wind ♪
we had had an album out about two years previous
to joining Fleetwood Mac called "Buckingham Nicks"
and Mick really liked the music and they asked us to join.
♪ rhiannon ♪
Fleetwood: "Fleetwood Mac," first Stevie and Lindsey album,
for sure changed our lives.
We had arrived.
♪ Got a fever ♪
♪ Fever ♪
Man: Describe being rich and famous in California.
This is it, kid.
♪ Got a fever ♪
♪ Fever ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Taken by the wind ♪
♪ By the sky ♪
Fleetwood: Hit records sometimes bore an audience,
"Oh, well, they're not gonna have another hit."
Or, "This one isn't as good as that."
Record companies start frothing at the mouth,
and the imaging of the band was becoming a whole thing.
So we were getting ready to make "Rumours"
with everyone falling apart.
♪ Lovin' you Isn't the right thing to do ♪
♪ How can I ever change things that I feel ♪
McVie: The structure of the band is five people,
five very independent, quite strong-minded,
quite stubborn individuals.
♪ If I could, Baby, I'd give you my world ♪
Fleetwood: Two lovely couples.
John and Chris married. Their marriage was on the rocks.
And Stevie and Lindsey might as well have been married.
That all was falling apart.
♪ You can go your own way ♪
♪ Go your own way ♪
♪ You can call it another lonely day ♪
We were testifying, and "Rumours" became the church.
♪♪
[ cheers and applause ]
♪ Ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Let me tell you now ♪
Graham: We were shocked.
Because not only were they incredibly talented,
but they looked like us.
♪ When I had you to myself ♪
♪ I didn't want you around ♪
♪ Those pretty faces always make you stand out in a crowd ♪
how long have you been singing?
Three years.
See, you went to grab it right away.
Gonna snatch it right out of my hand there.
Michael was precocious. He knew he was cute.
And then you would watch him go from that to commanding a stage
in front of, you know, 15,000 people.
Amazing.
♪ Oh, baby, give me One more chance ♪
♪ Show you that I love you ♪
♪ Won't you please let me ♪
♪ Back in your heart ♪
♪ Oh, darlin', I was blind to let you go ♪
♪ Let you go, baby ♪
♪ Now since I see you In his arms ♪
♪ I want you back ♪
The only American group to have four consecutive #1 records.
♪ Oh! Oh! ♪
♪ Oh, I want you back ♪
[ cheers and applause ]
For the first time, young black kids had their Beatles.
Hey, man, what has...
five hands...
10 legs...
and 11 alphabet letters?
You don't know?
The Jackson Five.
That's us. That's us.
And that's no jive.
Questlove: The Jacksons were the last act
from the classic Motown Hitsville system.
Robinson: Motown was a very unique place
because a lot of record companies
were being run by businessmen.
We had a music man at the helm.
Berry Gordy was a songwriter.
He said, "We're gonna make music for the world."
Ironically, here he was trying his best
to make black music that would cross over to the white world.
He ended up making the greatest black music ever.
George: He created a machine wherein you take the artist
and polish him up and make them a great package
that they can play the Ed Sullivan show and kill.
Back in the 60s, Marvin Gaye wanted to be Frank Sinatra.
Questlove: He was svelte, clean-shaven, debonair.
And all of that changed in the 70s.
George: Marvin wanted to compete on a high level.
"Why can't I make a record like The Beatles?
I'm selling records like they sell.
Why can't I have that artistic expression?"
♪ Picket signs ♪
♪ Don't punish me ♪
♪ With brutality ♪
♪ Talk to me, Honey, so you can see ♪
♪ Oh, what's goin' on ♪
♪ What's goin' on ♪
♪ Hey, what's goin' on ♪
♪ Tell me what's goin' on ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
Graham: Marvin Gaye was very much affected by the Vietnam War.
His brother was in Vietnam,
so he's hearing all these stories
about what's going on over there.
He's seeing the protest here, and it's changing him.
He holds up a mirror to America. "Look at yourselves, America."
Graham: He's talking about the war, he's talking about poverty,
changing him as an artist
in a way that Berry Gordy is not super happy about.
♪ Mother, mother ♪
♪ Everybody thinks we're wrong ♪
♪ They do ♪
Initially Berry Gordy did not want Marvin to do
"What's Goin' On."
Questlove: Motown was supposed to be non-threatening.
Here you now have Marvin Gaye making a protest record
about the war that could potentially ruin good money.
You don't lightly talk about the government.
♪ Yes, I want to know ♪
♪ What's goin' on right now, people ♪
de Passe: Ultimately when he agrees to put out "What's Goin' On,"
Berry tells Marvin,
"Okay, if you're right, I'll learn something.
And if I'm right, you'll learn something."
And of course, as Berry will say,
"I learned something."
Questlove: Every artist at Motown suddenly
also wanted to try their chance at freedom.
When people say soul,
uh, they put you in one category.
They say, "he's a soul artist."
That's all they expect for you to sing.
And that's all they want you to sing.
That's not true.
Soul is being able to express yourself.
Wild: Stevie Wonder went to Berry Gordy
and he negotiated his creative freedom,
and he used every bit of it.
♪♪
♪ Very superstitious ♪
♪ Writing's on the wall ♪
Stevie wonder making some of the greatest records
anyone's ever made in popular music in America,
back to back to back.
♪ Ladder's 'bout to fall ♪
Questlove: It's the equivalent of shooting
a perfect shot from half-court with your eyes closed.
"Music of my Mind"...
"Oh, he made it. He ain't gonna do it again."
"Talking Book"...
"Innervisions"...
"Fulfillingness' First Finale"...
Oh, my God, he did it!
And then, suddenly, "Songs in the Key of Life."
♪ When you believe in things you don't understand ♪
♪ then you suffer ♪
♪ Superstition ain't the way ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
Questlove: What The Beatles did in the 60s,
I feel Stevie Wonder was the person to do that
for music in the 70s.
♪♪
[ cheers and applause ]
Hi, there, and welcome aboard.
You're right on time
for a beautiful trip on the Soul Train.
And if the sight and sound of soul is your pleasure
and what's your treasure,
you can bet your bottom we got 'em baby.
♪ Dancin', dancin', dancin' ♪
Questlove: "Soul Train" finally offered America
its first view of Afrocentricity.
It was a new idea to say "Black is Beautiful.
I would literally run home from church
to get home to see "Soul Train."
It was the one reliable place to see the artists you loved.
de Passe: There's no question that "soul train"
broke a lot of artists
and introduced a lot of artists to audiences
that they had never performed for.
♪ Rhythmatic, acrobatic ♪
♪ She's a dynamite attraction ♪
♪ At the drop of a coin, she comes alive, yeah ♪
Questlove: Ten years before he did the moonwalk,
Michael Jackson debuted the robot
in 1973 on "Soul Train."
Graham: People had done the robot before.
But there was a way that he did it.
It was faster, it was sharper,
and it was street.
♪♪
I could just see his afro bouncing
because there was so much precision to it.
♪ Dancin', dancin', dancin' ♪
♪ She's a dancin' machine ♪
Rock, the music that infuriated so many people
in the 50s and 60s,
the music that so many thought too loud, vulgar,
and somehow dangerous to our morals.
Rock has not only refused to go away,
it has become an institution.
♪♪
[ cheers and applause ]
Connelly: Heart was a big deal because
in a decade that was dominated by a type of rock 'n' roll
that rhymes with "rock" and begins with a "c,"
but I won't go on further,
they were willing to play with those guys
and succeed on their terms.
The stuff from the 60s was like,
Oh, that's way too hippie, now we have to up it a notch.
Anderson: The audiences have come to expect
a better standard of performance,
better quality of lighting and sound and staging.
They've come to expect a show.
♪ If we still have time, we might still get by ♪
♪ every time I think about it, I wanna cry ♪
Naftali: In the 70s,
the groups started to become more theatrical.
They realized that just giving them the music isn't enough.
We've got to give them something to look at.
Connelly: More naked people, more misbehavior,
more over-the-top stuff going on.
Just -- just more.
♪ Oh ♪
♪ No time ♪
Wilson: Playing stadiums was too unreal.
It would just be a sea of faces into infinity.
♪ With your sweet flowing love, love ♪
♪ Crazy, crazy, crazy on you ♪
♪ Ooh, crazy on you ♪
Stadium tours put a lot of people together
to hear music at the same time.
What they also do is they force the musicians
to play to the back of the hall.
Wild: In the 70s that distance
between the performer on stage and that audience grew.
George: If you went to any of the big arena rock shows,
it was always about the star up here
and the audience down here,
and this sort of iconography of the rock star
as this huge figure.
♪ Let me go crazy, crazy on you ♪
♪ Oh ♪
[ cheers and applause ]
Chancellor: It was bound to happen,
but it comes as a shock nevertheless,
in a poll taken by a leading pop music magazine in England,
The Beatles came in second.
The most popular rock group in England these days
is called the Led Zeppelin.
Rollin: In their 20s, they are rich, powerful,
temperamental, and pampered.
They are the Led Zeppelin, a rock group on tour.
And in the vernacular of the record biz,
where to be merely big is nothing,
the Zeppelin is very big.
To get around, the zeppelin uses a chartered 707,
the kind of plane President Nixon uses.
♪♪
But the President's plane doesn't have an organ,
nor a 15-foot mirrored bar,
nor in the private quarters
does it have two bedrooms and a fireplace.
I'm a bit upset that there's not a pool table onboard.
Apart from that, I think this is about the best way to travel.
Culhane: Americans are now spending $2 billion a year on music.
That's $700 million more than the whole movie industry grosses
from ticket sales in one year.
About three times the amount of money taken in
by all spectator sports.
I'm telling you that rock 'n' roll
basically is no different than IBM, Xerox, Sara Lee, Chevrolet.
It's supply and demand. It's the same business.
Wild: Rock 'n' roll had been
a little, gritty novelty business.
It was not the center of the world in the 50s and 60s.
And in the 70s it becomes the main event,
and that has repercussions
in all sorts of positive and negative ways.
Rudge: The total cost of this tour is $3.5 million.
Now the gross for the tour is in the region of $11 million.
So, you know, it's a living.
George: It was so decadent and over the top
and money just [whooshes] being thrown against the wall.
Could be a bit of a hypocrite, you know,
if you're consistently evoking the ideas of young people,
and bouncing off the ideas of young people,
taking young people's money and putting it in your pocket,
you know, and really what you are
is you're a middle-aged family man.
And it's only the hypocrisy that I'm worried about.
♪♪
Wild: Bruce Springsteen was trying to reclaim
the soul of rock 'n' roll by going back to basics.
Van Zandt: Using elements from the past
that were kind of being discarded at that point.
♪ In the day we sweat it out on the streets ♪
♪ Of a runaway American dream ♪
George: Using a sound that was not what was on the radio
and was not what was mainstream rock.
♪ ...suicide machines ♪
♪ Sprung from cages on Highway 9 ♪
♪ Chrome-wheeled, Fuel-injected ♪
♪ And steppin' out Over the line ♪
♪ Whoa ♪
Wilson: Bruce Springsteen created his own counterculture.
It just speaks exactly to the American spirit.
You couldn't hit it on the head more than bruce springsteen did.
♪ Baby, we were born to run ♪
♪♪
"Born to Run" was a towering statement
in the middle of the 70s.
It was the cover of Time and Newsweek.
Van Zandt: Bruce did not like it at the time.
Me, on the other hand, I'm like,
"My friend's on the cover of Time and Newsweek.
This is cool."
♪ Whoa, whoa, oh, oh ♪
Cowie: When "Born To Run" comes out in 1975,
it's a desire to really escape the claustrophobia of the 1970s.
It is an anthem to save your soul.
♪♪
[ cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Christgau: I was lucky enough to be invited
to David Mancuso's legendary space in Soho called the loft.
I thought that was one of the most utopian scenes
I had ever encountered in music.
George: Mancuso is one of the guys
who really took the art form of playing the records
and how he curated the records.
♪♪
He might play an Isaac Hayes record,
he might play a salsa record.
It wasn't so much about a style
as it was an aesthetic of dancing.
Woman: They have all types of people here --
people who dance, people who hop up and down.
You can get high, stay here all night.
Crocker: Why are people dancing again?
I wish I knew. [ laughs ]
but I'm glad it's happening.
♪♪
What we now know as disco
really starts with a band called The Tramps.
The drummer, Earl Young, invents the idea
of four on the floor with eight on the hi-hat.
[ imitating hi-hat ]
So everything is pow, pow, pow!
♪ Burn, baby, burn ♪
That's the sound of disco.
♪ Burn, baby, burn ♪
Moroder: I love disco.
I always loved dance music anyway
because whatever I did as a producer
was always danceable.
Okay, there we go. Need the melody.
Wild: Giorgio Moroder, working out of Munich,
put together technology and soulful vocalists,
Donna Summer being the ultimate embodiment,
and they make some of the biggest records of all time.
♪ Oh, love to love you, baby ♪
Questlove: "Love To Love You, Baby" was four minutes of singing...
[laughing] 14 minutes of...
a lot of not singing.
♪ Oh, love to love you, baby ♪
♪ Oh... ♪
Questlove: And I always wondered for the life of me, like,
was Moroder just, like, in the booth like,
"More passion, more -- give me..."
Moroder: Actually, I threw everybody out of the studio,
switched the lights off,
made sure that the tape is running,
and I said, "Okay, let's do it."
And I think she did it in 10 minutes.
♪♪
Wild: The Donna Summer records
were some of the biggest records of all time,
and they kicked off a revolution.
♪ I want do it till the sun comes up ♪
Downs: Unless you've been living in a sealed cave,
you probably noticed that America's latest craze
is disco dancin',
that's "dancing" without the "G".
what's discos, bird?
Oh, snuffy, where have you been?
♪ I want to put on ♪
♪ My, my, my, my, my boogie shoes ♪
♪ Just to boogie with you ♪
Rather: The green that discos take in
and what they generate with the records,
we are talking about an estimated $4 billion --
that's with a "b" -- $4 billion a year.
Casey: I remember really being upset about this word "Disco,"
it was R&B music to me,
and I felt like they stripped it and gave it a new name
or weren't giving credit
where I think the credit was supposed to go.
Do it again, second half of the chorus,
but bring that sound in. That's great.
[ note plays ] -Yeah.
Okay.
1, 2, 3, 4...
Graham: The Bee Gees always liked R&B,
they always liked Soul.
I always thought of them as a Pop band,
but that always had R&B leanings.
George: The Bee Gees did what pop stars do --
they really got the zeitgeist of what was going on.
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, Stayin' alive, stayin' alive ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' ali-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-ve ♪
Rather: This is the scene outside a New York disco
called Studio 54.
This is the place that's in with the disco crowd.
I have been to goat ropings and space shots.
I've been in a lot of strange places
and seen a lot of strange things,
but nothing stranger than Studio 54
at the height of its popularity in the 70s.
♪♪
It's where you come when you want to escape.
It's really escapism.
George: The front door of that spot was insane.
I sometimes would just walk by to watch people not get in.
'Cause that was fun too.
Oh, you're not shaved,
there's no way in a million years you're gonna get in.
It doesn't matter, if you're not shaved --
Listen, just go home.
You had to be selected. You had to be chosen to get in.
We can't let in everybody who wants to come in.
I wish we could.
♪ Aah, freak out ♪
♪ Le freak, c'est chic ♪
♪ Freak out ♪
Graham: The great Chic,
led by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers,
go to studio 54 to get in, and they don't.
So they write a song.
♪ Have you heard about the new dance craze? ♪
♪ Listen to us, I'm sure you'll be amazed ♪
Graham: It was kind of a dis to Studio 54 for rejecting them.
The part where they say "Freak out"
actually began as something else.
♪ aah, freak out ♪
♪ Le freak, c'est chic ♪
♪ Freak out ♪
It went from something "off" to "Freak off"
to being "Freak out."
♪ Just come on down ♪
♪ To the 54 ♪
♪ Find a spot out on the floor ♪
♪ Aah, freak out ♪
♪ Le freak, c'est chic ♪
♪ Freak out ♪
Graham: That's probably the best thing
that ever actually came out of Studio 54,
was that song. [ chuckles ]
Wild: Disco was a revolutionary force.
Funk marries disco, and it leads to hip-hop.
♪♪
Questlove: It's 1979.
I heard Chic's "Good Times" come on,
and I just kept hearing someone talk over the song.
♪ I said a hip hop, the hippie, the hippie ♪
♪ To the hip hip hop and you don't stop ♪
♪ Rock it out, baby bubbah, to the boogie, the bang bang ♪
♪ the boogie to the boogie the beat ♪
♪ Now what you hear is not a test ♪
♪ I'm rappin' to the beat ♪
♪ And me, the groove, and my friends ♪
♪ are gonna try to move your feet ♪
What's great about this song
is that's where hip-hop gets its name from.
Questlove: We didn't know the name of the song
was called "Rapper's Delight."
The next day I went to the record store,
like, "Yo, y'all got 'Hip hop'?"
"Hm?"
Graham: So when people talk about the song,
they go, "What's that hip-hop song?"
And it was the first hip-hop song to crack the top 40.
It changed everything.
Heilemann: "Rapper's Delight" in 1979 opens this incredible door
to the last new American art form, which is hip-hop.
♪♪
Kick out the jams, mother[bleep]
♪♪
Detroit, 1969 is where punk was originally born.
♪♪
♪ It's all right ♪
The MC5, The Motor City 5, and Iggy and the Stooges
release two pioneering albums that indicate
that there's a new style of music coming back.
It's a garage rock, it's minimalist,
it's aggressive, it's loud, and it's very often obnoxious.
♪ Let me kick out the jams ♪
♪ Yeah, kick out the jams ♪
♪ I got to kick 'em out ♪
Punk rock was so f'ing scary to us
because here we are with our big majestic songs,
and here comes Punk with their like...
♪♪
Connelly: The Ramones get started
as a reaction to everything else that's going on.
People see them and they go, "This is the answer."
♪ Hey, ho, let's go ♪
♪ hey, ho, let's go ♪
I had to see how great rock 'n' roll
is supposed to be done.
Woman: How should it be done?
No pyrotechnics, no phony showmanship,
just pure rock 'n' roll energy, pure guts, pure stamina.
♪ They're piling in the back seat ♪
♪ They're generating steam heat ♪
♪ Pulsating to the back beat ♪
♪ The blitzkrieg bop ♪
It's just real and raw and there's no crap involved.
As opposed to the standard schlock we hear on the Top 40.
The Ramones were one part of a wider New York scene.
Where you had people like Patti Smith.
I'm an artist. Rock 'n' roll is my art.
The New York Dolls.
Don't [bleep] with us, sweetheart.
The Dead Boys.
In rock 'n' roll, anybody can play.
And Richard Hell.
This next number is called
"I Belong to the Blank Generation."
Mattson: Richard Hell was one of the first
to cut his own hair.
He was ripping his clothes
and then safety-pinning them together.
He was the king of the punks.
The safety-pin thing, for instance, is his.
It's pretty clear that he invented that.
♪ hey, ho, let's go ♪
Punk in the united states is a music elaboration,
a statement of sorts about what music is
and how it ought to be played.
In England, punk rock is not a musical statement,
it is a social one.
If punks have a home territory,
it is here on King's Road in the middle of London,
the same street that launched the miniskirt
and the look and mood of the swingin' 60s.
King's Road belongs to punk rockers.
King's Road belongs to us!
-What's society done for us? -Nothing.
It ain't got me a job.
There isn't any future for a kid now.
I mean, there isn't.
Mattson: There is an indigenous anger and frustration
that drove a lot of punk on
and got a lot of young people behind it.
♪ London calling to the faraway towns ♪
♪ Now war is declared And battle come down ♪
You've been said to be a political group.
Yeah, they have said it. Yeah, it's true.
If there was jobs, maybe we'd be singing about
love and kissing or something.
Graham: The Clash, musically is the best of the lot.
It doesn't sound like traditional punk,
but it doesn't sound like
anybody else but The Clash either.
♪ But I have no fear ♪
♪ 'Cause London is drowning, and I ♪
♪ I live by the river ♪
♪ I never felt so much alike ♪
Mattson: Punk was, I think, a kind of wide umbrella,
and that wider scene included people
who were a little bit more complex
in their musical performance style.
People aren't gonna buy something that you call punk.
They might buy it if you call it New Wave.
Man: You hear a lot of that punk rock these days.
Can we have your thoughts on that?
I think it's better just to call it New Wave, really.
I think by defining it as punk, you're automatically putting
a boundary around what's possible.
And I think bands like Talking Heads are excellent.
Connelly: Talking Heads was the ultimate college band
and they did sophisticated, spiky music
that reflected who they were.
And it particularly reflected the fascinating individual
that David Byrne would emerge to become.
I thought I'd write a song about urban guerillas
from the point of view of their daily lives,
instead of from the point of view of their politics.
♪ Heard of a van That's loaded with weapons ♪
♪ Packed up and ready to go ♪
This area of New Wave music
is where the stars of the 1980s are going to come from.
Questlove: What makes the 70s so special
is that there is still a sense of naiveté.
The innocence that music
could really make a difference in your life.
♪ This ain't no party, This ain't no disco ♪
♪ This ain't no fooling around ♪
♪ This ain't no Mudd Club or CBGB ♪
♪ I ain't got time for that now ♪
You pick any genre you like and I will tell you
that the best music made in that genre was made in the 1970s.
And you'll have a hard time proving me wrong.
Wild: What was great about a "me" decade
is that it allowed the greatest artists of our times
to do some of their greatest work
because they were really exploring.
That is as deep as popular art ever gets.
♪ ...work in the nighttime ♪
♪ I might not ever get home ♪
♪ This ain't no party, This ain't no disco ♪
♪ This ain't no fooling around ♪
♪ I'd love to hold you, I'd love to kiss you ♪
♪ But I ain't got time For that now ♪
♪ Trouble in transit, Got through the roadblock ♪
♪ We blended in with the crowd ♪
♪ We got computers, We're tapping phone lines ♪
♪ I know that that ain't allowed ♪
♪ Ah, make me shiver, I may feel tender... ♪