By mid-1968 there was a growing consensus that something had gone horribly wrong with the American dream.
The nation’s youth had loudly made their feelings clear, but now the
older, pre-Beatles generations began to look at the country – with
urban riots, Vietnam, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and
Bobby Kennedy – and wonder what the hell was happening.
This album includes rare classics (The Beach Boys’ ‘Fourth Of July’),
lost masterpieces (Roy Orbison’s seven-minute ‘Southbound Jericho
Parkway’), and forgotten gems by some of the biggest names in the
business (Elvis Presley’s ‘Clean Up Your Own Back Yard’).
Reactions to America’s existential crisis ranged in subject matter
from divorce (Frank Sinatra’s ‘The Train’) and the break-up of the
nuclear family (The Four Seasons’ ‘Saturday’s Father’), to eulogies for
fallen heroes (Dion’s ‘Abraham Martin and John’), sympathy for Vietnam
vets (Johnny Tillotson’s ‘Welfare Hero’), the church’s institutional
racism (Eartha Kitt’s intense ‘Paint Me Black Angels’), and even
questioning the ethics of the space programme (Bing Crosby’s terrific
‘What Do We Do With The World’).
Compiled by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, State Of The Union follows on
from their highly acclaimed English Weather and Paris In The Spring
compilations. With clear parallels between today's fractured country and
the USA fifty years ago, this is a fascinating condensation of what
Americans were thinking when they turned on the TV, or the radio, or
simply walked down Main Street in 1968.
Tracks:
CLEAN UP YOUR OWN BACK YARD - Elvis Presley
BRAND NEW DAY - Della Reese
ABRAHAM, MARTIN AND JOHN - Dion
THE TRAIN - Frank Sinatra
SATURDAY'S FATHER - The 4 Seasons
4TH OF JULY - The Beach Boys
WINE IN THE WIND - Anita Kerr & The Anita Kerr Singers