AMERICAN DREAM IN..

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.