User:Marc Tinroofcat/sandbox

A song often describes what we feel inside. Song and music are the 'soundtracks for our lives.' And for the Vietnam Generation that soundtrack was and is Rock 'n' Roll. Although the first Vietnam War music was often what we would call folk music or country music it was really just the beginning of that transition American Popular music took in the late '50s and early '60s into electric music of all genres. We now comfortably use the term Rock 'n' Roll to define just about all modern popular music. And this box set is all about popular music…and history.

Many of the songs in this box set of 13 CDs were never purchased in regular music shops or heard on the radio—not even on listener sponsored public radio. Because even they knew the controversial nature of this material. Vietnam Veterans have a great wisdom that can be passed on through their own music and there is a great healing power in the writing and the performing and the listening of these songs.

The music of the Vietnam War is packaged and released to the general public and treated as the serious historical thing that it is. The soundtrack of our lives and the testimony of the feelings and thoughts of a generation sorely put upon by their government and their country for something that is now thought of as a mistake by many. What a waste! But maybe not—if this body of work can cause those who listen to it to think about the meaning of war and the price of the experience of war then maybe it was worth it. But that is something that is very, very hard for me to say. We paid a terrible price for learning this lesson.

You will laugh. You will cry. But you will never quite be the same after you experience this box set of collective work.

...Next Stop Is Vietnam: The War on Record, 1958 – 2008 is a stunning, years-in-the-making anthology of the Vietnam War's musical legacy. Presented on 13 CDs with a 400-page book illustrated with numerous archival photographs, this collection examines the war in a powerful and unprecedented way. Over 300 music and spoken word tracks take the listener through a guided tour of this epochal period of modern history.

From America's first, naive impressions of a country called Vietnam through the spirited musical debate over the morality of the war to the healing meditations on the conflict's lengthy aftermath, this set captures it all and more. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Merle Haggard, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Ochs, Johnny Cash, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, The Doors, Country Joe McDonald and dozens of other artists including many Vietnam veterans are the tour guides through this enlightening and entertaining journey.

Production notes:
 * Various - Producers
 * Bill Geerhart - Re-Issue Executive Producer
 * Hugo Keesing - Re-Issue Producer
 * Doug Pomeroy, Christian Zwarg - Disc/Metalpart Transfer
 * Hugo Keesing, C. L. Yarbrough, Richard Weize - Disc/Metalpart/Tape Research
 * Phil Wells & Hugo Keesing - Song & Lyric Transcriptions
 * Christian Zwarg - Mastering
 * Bill Geerhart - Archival Photograph Research
 * Hugo Keesing - Introductory Essay And Artist Notes
 * Lois T. Vietri - Vietnam History Essay
 * Doug Bradley & Craig Warner - Vietnam Music Oral History
 * Bill Geerhart - Additional Research/Writing
 * Bill Geerhart - Proofreading & Editing
 * The Keesing Musical Archive, The Conelrad Collection, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Associated Press, Getty Images, Corbis Corporation, R. A. Andreas - Photos & Illustrations
 * Hugo Keesing, Bill Geerhart, Andy Merck - Photo Scans


 * Special Thanks To - Veterans Of The Vietnam War & Country Joe McDonald