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.