Hipper than our kids

by Bruce Pollock

They may not have invented rock & roll, but they were the ones who bought it, adopted it, adapted it, and embraced it. They were the baby boom's first wave, the bumper crop of circa 1945 to 1952, who invested their fondest hopes, deepest dreams, and most poignant identity crises in rock & roll, using the songs as a backdrop to their chosen succession of subcultures. It was an exotic and vocal crowd that stretched from Presley's Memphis to Dylan's MacDougal Street, from Monterey to Woodstock, and for a while it felt like a way to beat the odds and the system. But now that the system has grown up around all but the hardest-bitten boomers, has rock & roll let its generation down? Or is it the other way around? Or are change and disillusionment just another part of the message? In this freewheeling account of rock & roll's place in our national subconsciousness, prizewinning music journalist and novelist Bruce Pollock assembles a personal soundtrack album to the unmade movie musical biogra