The true nature of a generation is often reflected in its music. By that standard, the baby boomers can finally call themselves grown-ups.
Back in the early 1960s, singer-songwriters Bob Dylan and Joan Baez emerged onto the pop scene with force, capturing millions of hearts, minds and imaginations with home-grown ballads that cursed conformity and condemned war.
Singing Out Against Injustice
Throughout those turbulent years, the two folk singers followed their own paths to a strange, new kind of stardom, selling millions of dollars worth of records to kids who eschewed traditional values, distrusted people over 30 and longed to change the world.
Even after the fervor of the Vietnam era gave way to the boomers' quest for lucrative careers and stable families, Dylan and Baez continued to cry out against injustice, often lamenting Third World oppression, nuclear proliferation or a general indifference to spirituality.
Balancing Present and Past
But by the '80s their lyrics could no longer generate massive outpourings of emotion and outrage. Critics began to portray each of them as poets of the past, fading stars from a fading era. The harshest reviewers called them out-of -date, out-of-tune throwbacks incapable of adjusting to a new beat.
Now the separate careers of the two folk giants are thriving again, driven by songs that reflect a broader range of concerns, admit to their own personal shortcomings and back off the old, self-centered stridency. Their legions of old fans, now grown, are returning, out of a connection to the past and an authentic interest in the new style and substance.
Dylan: Grammies for New Work
This new connection was on full display at the recent Grammy presentations, when the recording industry gave Dylan three Grammies and several standing ovations. Dressed in a silver tux, the graying 56-year-old singer won for album of the year, best male rock vocal performance and best contemporary folk album -- his new stuff, rather than his old standards.
Dylan revealed an undying, even childlike, love for the music of his youth and a sense of grown-up spirituality as well. It came in a reference to the late Buddy Holly, the musical pioneer who ushered in the rock 'n' roll era. " I just have some kind of feeling that he was ... with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.," Dylan said.
The awards themselves also reflected a new desire to put the present and the past into balance. On one hand contemporary performers such as Jakob Dylan, Paula Cole, Will Smith, Vince Gill and Puff Daddy took home trophies. On the other, '60s and '70s stars Elton John, James Taylor, John Fogerty and Johnny Cash won--not for their lifetime contributions but for their latest work.
Baez: Grown Up at Last
But beyond the glare of the Grammys, Baez may best represent the evolution of the '60s generation.
After three decades of singing out as the "Madonna of Social Justice," Baez realized that she had to change, to grow, or be relegated to a symbol of the '60s. She wanted to hold onto core principles while reexamining her personal motivation and her honesty to herself.
