The Road to Woodstock: The Psychedelic Sixties
Tuesday, Dec 01, 2026
1:30pm - 3:30pm
Lecture by:
Brent Hagerman
When the Beatles released Revolver in August 1966 it marked a coming of age for rock ‘n’ roll. The album introduced psychedelic music into the mainstream with “Tomorrow Never Knows” and started popular music on a musical and cultural road trip that would eventually lead to the culmination of the counterculture, Woodstock. In this lecture I will look at the characteristics and cultural politics of psychedelic rock in the music of artists such as the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and Janis Joplin.
About Brent Hagerman
Brent Hagerman
Brent Hagerman teaches in the areas of popular music, cultural studies, and religion at Wilfrid Laurier University, including an introduction to popular music called “Guitars, Hooks and Beats: Music since 1950.” He has played guitar, mandolin, and/or saxophone in genres ranging from reggae to rock to bluegrass, and regularly can be heard in local Irish pubs with the Mighty Kin. He firmly agrees with that great 20th century philosopher, Bruce Springsteen, that “you can change someone’s life in three minutes with the right song.”