No. 6. “Hair” (Hair, 1968)

By Galt MacDermot (music) and Gerome Ragni and James Rado (lyrics and book).

Up to this point, the Turning Points we have explored came from pedigreed creators thoughtfully and respectfully breaking convention. Hair quite literally found cast members and scenery on the street and put it all on a Broadway stage. It embraced not only the music, but the ethos of rock and roll just as Broadway needed it most. While much of the early days of recorded music, film, television felt like different ways of capturing the theatrical experience, by the 1960s they had all independently evolved into exciting and accessible playgrounds for innovation, while the American Musical was still a formal, often stodgy affair. Hair brought a renegade spirit to the Great White Way made Broadway relevant to younger generations while generated massive pop hits with “Hair,” “Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In” and “Good Morning Starshine.” For all its freewheeling youthful energy, Hair was a dead-serious anti-war statement from the creators. (I submit to the jury Exhibit A: their haunting 1969 Tony Awards performance.) But to some audience members, it was an opportunity to safely visit counter-culture and be titillated by drugs and a little bit of nudity before heading back to home in suburbia. The songs became something you’d hear on a variety show. But even if it lost its edge, Hair’s most enduring influence lies less in its style or views than in its structure: The show was more driven by an overall idea and experience than plot or character, which is the essence of what would soon come to be known as “The Concept Musical.”

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