Hair (the musical): 1967-1970 Mix

It may be time for a reencounter with “Hair” (the musical) – as a document of 1968-1970 rock, as a legit/ersatz entry into the cultural stream, and apart from it being a stage musical. “Ain’t got no” is a timely rallying cry. The songs are good.

This mix curates performances from four of the era’s released productions and tries to assemble them into an interesting 2020 alt-music album:

  • Off-Broadway 1967
  • Broadway 1968
  • London 1968
  • London 1970

The show’s music was composed by Galt MacDermot and the lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado. The show’s various arrangers and performers slanted the songs in a lot of different ways.

That created a great opportunity to curate a version that sounds less like a musical and more like a 1969 radio station playing an hour of solid, contemporary pop, rock, soul, Brill Building tunes, etc.  

68-minute mp3 mix zipped up here, as follows:

Caveats:

I’m neither a “Hair” nor musical theatre expert. I inherited “Hair” in multiple production and language recordings from my dad, who died in 2010, after DJ’ing a syndicated NPR musical theatre show for 20+ years. That same dad provided two vinyl LPs of “Hair” productions to me before I was 12 years old, so I’ve got a biased relationship to these songs. 

I have four non-English productions of the show from my dad. Another mix will happen. if you have high-quality, non-English production audio files, please contact me. 

5 responses
I've been a silent fan of your mixes for a long, long time. Discovered your blog through the Velvets mixes. Regardless, this is one of your very best. If your dad left you additional stage recordings I, for one, would love to hear them. Here's hoping your dad was a Brecht-Weill fan...God bless him. Thanks again.
John, this is great to hear! My dad was indeed a big Brecht-Weill fan. The only other recordings my dad had were four foreign language productions and the late '70s film soundtrack. Somewhere is a DAT or CD of the episode of his radio show that mixed up Hair.
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