Dennis McNally was the Grateful Dead’s publicist in the mid-‘80s, one of many reasons why he’s supremely qualified to write his new book about the birth of the counterculture in America’s West and East Coast and Britain. ‘The Last Great Dream: How Bohemians Became Hippies And Created the Sixties’, a celebration of music, beat poetry, radical thinking, free speech and artistic liberty, seems even more precious now in the light of recent events. All sorts are discussed here, these being some of the highlights …

… how the Summer of Love of ‘67 actually happened in the Fall of ‘66 in Haight-Ashbury.

… “rigid, stagnant, terrifying”: early ‘60s America before the revolution.

… the three key cities that “experimented with freedom”.

... how San Francisco “cherished strangeness” and had a self-proclaimed ruler, Emperor Norton, who created his own currency.

… how the Grateful Dead - “the ultimate example of the bohemian pulse writ large in music” – spent $1m building a sound system when they were earning $125 a week.

… the influence of Private Eye, Beyond The Fringe and That Was The Week That Was on British culture. And of Lenny Bruce, the Hungry I club, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen and Mort Sahl in America.

… how Rebel Without A Cause and the Wild One helped establish the West Coast as rebellious.

… “there are two flags of freedom – one to make as much money as possible, the other to be as open-minded and thoughtful about everything”.

… Eisenhower said “in God we trust!” But which God?

… the entire security for the 25,000 crowd at the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park was two mounted policemen.

… “nothing is more fun than researching”.

... how the counter-culture was created with very little money or technology.

Order the Last Great Dream here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Great-Dream-Bohemians-Hippies/dp/0306835665

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