This is really chilling. Brought back so many memories. I was at Woodstock. After the rain a helicopter flew over us. Many thought we were going to be gunned down. Instead they tossed thousands of dandelions down on the crowd. People screamed. Some fell to their knees and called out their names. And as if on a magical cue everyone began to sing Let The Shine. It was a baptismal moment. Watching this just now brought it all back.
Wow, just wow! What an amazing and epic moment that must have been ❤ Im jealous of course but also very happy for you 😉 I've always wished I was born a generation earlier 🙌 (but well, I got to experience the 'grunge-era' instead and Im quite happy with that🤘)
I was in Viet Nam in 1968 so this Anti-War musical means a lot to me. I just saw a production of the play at The Bay Street Players in Eustis, Fla. this past weekend. Great memories and "Let the Sunshine In" brought me to tears as it always has.
This is an amazing clip. Hair seems like it was on the cutting edge at the time. The juxtaposition of Ed Sullivan with the amazing original Broadway cast underlines that. But also consider the timing. Hair opened on Broadway in April, 1968, well over a year before Woodstock. But it opened Off-Broadway in October, 1967, right after the so-called Summer of Love. And Ragni and Rado started writing it all the way back in 1964. I feel like they really caught the emerging zeitgeist and actually helped to make it a widespread reality. Often when theater or movies or TV deal with current events and fashions, they are just a little behind the front lines, but Hair was right there pushing things forward.
67 was the Summer of love, can't figure why so many people now think it was 68 or 69.plus still best version of the play as all are real hippies and some real flower children ✌️
The interesting thing about the timeline is that during the 1967 off-Broadway season a new song was added. Initials explicitly linked the CIA with LSD in a smash-hit Broadway play, years before the CIA's connections with LSD were made public.
@@shaggynwhitt6672 I totally agree with you, that this is the best version of HAIR and because the cast were real hippies which makes it all more authentic and original - Peace S
It's very interesting watching this clip from 1968 because it seems un-ironic and quite serious, something I didn't catch from the modern day performances which is much more light hearted and fun. Now I get it, it is a serious protest for the times.
The final image of Ed Sullivan smiling with beads and flowers gives me life! As usual, he knew that a major cultural shift had happened even if the audience didn't.
OMG, i just flashed back over 50 years. Back in the day, this turned me into a card carrying hippie. 😆 I had the album & knew every word to every song.
wow! this was over two decades before i was even born but somehow it still brings me a feeling of chilling nostalgia i can't even explain, it's so weird. i just love it so much
I knew Jerry Ragni as a teenager. A tortured, brilliant - no - genius, Magoo who changed my life. If he was my age today, HAIR wouldn't have come into being. The space for this kind of creativity doesn't exist anymore. Hell, it barely existed in his time. Making your own statement, your own mark, will always be made in the streets of society. Not here, in the virtual world.
RIP Kim Milford. He's the actor playing Claud and was only 17. He died from a heart condition at 37. He was also in the Original Rocky Horror and had a band.
This is goosebump-inducing amazing. Hard to believe these talented people whose voices and creativity documented and influenced are in their 70s and 80s. We need to be reminded of the themes of this groundbreaking musical. We need a Hair for today.
Words cannot describe how good this is. Goodbumps allover. Unlike the movie this was real time, defining this unique era is it happened. Voices from heaven, contagious enthusiasm and immortal songs. Thanks for uploading this!! 🙏🙏🙏
I cannot tell you just how grateful I am for you! I have been searching for this video, FOREVER. My Mother was part of this very cast shown in this video. She has this very same video, but it is on a VHS tape. We no longer have a VHS player, so we have been unable to view it at home. In addition, we have been super scared to possibly transfer the VHS to DVD, in fear of destroying the actual VHS tape itself. Thank you again for uploading this "Ed Sullivan Show" video!
I know !! Also ,so cool that your mom was in the cast!!! The show changed my life (I saw the revival in 2011). It feels like I am watching a bit of history that is still fresh!!
In 2009 the cast of the revival of Hair recreated this performance on Letterman. Letterman just put it up on his RU-vid channel. 40 yrs later on the same Ed Sullivan theater stage.
You can feel it when the cast goes into the crowd. This rather conservative audience, more used to Ethel Merman and Alfred Drake than Jimi Hendrix, is shell shocked, amused, and wondering if Ed has gone off the deep end for booking this Broadway musical 'interlude'
Ed Sullivan show had The Rolling Stones, Elvis, Beatles, lots of groups that were popular at the time, your reading way too much in the audience reactions
I'm from europ and i have seen HAIR in1968 in Hollywood,it was SOMETHING! It still gives me goosepimples today. What a time this was. Thank You very much,LOVE and PEACE for all of YOU!
Talk about memories....I auditioned for "HAIR" in San Francisco....a bit late in progress‼️Tommy Smothers was on the short panel of judges. Told me that I had a great voice but I was "too legitimate" theatre. They were looking for street people. I sang "Don't Rain on my Parade" 🙄from Funny Girl...and dressed straight as an arrow!! WTH was I thinking?!🤷🏻♀️Went back a few says later wearing a great DISGUISE. He walked right past me in the hallway and I quickly pulled up the newspaper I was reading. I donned an Afro wig, a Daishiki and decorated bell bottom jeans‼️🤣😂Still a no❤️🩹...as main cast had long been chosen, but saw the play 13 times with different cast members (rarely had to pay.) Dated a cast member!!🎭
That woman’s voice gives me goose bumps. Just beautiful. BTW: now I know how the show “Cats” got their idea for that number they did where all the “cats” climbed down from scaffolding slowly.
I was a hopeful hippie back & still am but the Age of Aquarius never did come. Our hope of a peaceful world never materialized. Sad our country has gotten so dangerous instead.✌🏼
‘Hair’ the 1978 film of the play was a big movie on early cable tv…I always enjoyed the film, and I’ve been seeing clips and reading up on the original B’way cast and the general history of the play… From 2024, looking back, I find ‘Hair’ incredibly moving & touching. These 2 songs especially, and Treat Wiiiams’ death last year put a new spin on the cross-cutting at the end of the film version, as he takes Jon Savage’s place in Vietnam, and they gather round the grave… yeah, good stuff. Love seeing the passion of this original cast.
Theres fewer of us every day. Im still living in the 60s. Remembering my dad pound my bedroom door hollerin turn that damm thang down ! Then hed throw the circuit breaker for my room. I miss that guy. We laughed bout that in later years
(Let The Sunshine In) Has to be one of the most moving songs ever made. 5th Dimension got that off. Only thing the Broadway hit did was change the Bassline.
I remember going to see this in Gr. 11, our English teacher thought it was a good experience for us. It was! I will always remember the great time we had! 🥰
there's like 5 hits from this musical! underrated bc of it's iconic cultural status as ground breaking😮makes a great listen😊original Broadway soundtrack is wild😮🎉😂
I knew Mildred when we were in high school together. Mostly in passing. Near the end of that school year, she and my sister had tickets to Hair at the theater in Baltimore. My sister’s boyfriend was supposed to go with them as their driver. But they broke up. 😢 So that asked me to drive. During intermission, my sister went to the ladies room. It was then that Mildred and I , how shall I say this?, hit it off. We married two years later. We have been married for 50 years. Hair is special to us.
That was amazing, thank you for sharing it with all of us. I have to wonder how many white Americans suddenly decided to cast their vote in fear for Richard Nixon after watching this? lol
I saw this in 1968 as a kid. Unfortunately was too young to understand it but I loved the music. My mom got me the album not knowing the lyrics, and my older sister told me sing Sodomy in front of mom who said she would take the album away if sang it again. I had no idea what any of the lyrics meant except they were “bad words”.
My parents had the album and I started listening to it when I was around eight. I didn’t know what the words meant, but I knew how to look them up in the dictionary. LOL
Wow. I wasn't prepared for the emotional impact of their voices. Very intense. Ahhh, the healing power of music. Ed Sullivan nearly grimaced when the number opened, I'm sure he was grimacing through the abstract beginning, nervous about those long hairs in front of a national audience, making it hilarious at the end when the hippies come bearing beaded necklaces for old Ed! The squares and the hippies, a true generation gap moment.
Hair is the first musical I saw - in 1969. I love musical theater and have seen many shows but it remains my favorite. It has the best opening and closing songs, my favorite line - “oh my god your skin is soft, I love your face” - and my favorite musical moment - when the second female voice joins in on “facing a dying nation.” It’s interesting to see videos of the Flesh Failures from eastern from Eastern Europe. I’m amused when I hear “supreme wisions.” Check out the performance of the Flesh Failures on Bulgarian Idol, featuring one of the best singers in the world.
Wow, ahead of their time 🕑...tears ❤🎶💃🏽✨️✌🏽🧘🏾♀️💖🌬🌎. I forgot how powerful and tripy that was😮. Wasn't it the longest running Musical on Broadway, dang. People did so much work😢...why aren't we 🌬further along on this crazy dense planet 🌎. #Humans #Evolve already damnit!!!
