In We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. They explore how and why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the World back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. They also demonstrate that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans—black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and “grunts”—whose personal reflections drive the book’s narrative.
Many of the voices are those of ordinary soldiers, airmen, seamen, and marines. But there are also “solo” pieces by veterans, such as Karl Marlantes and Yusef Komunyakaa, whose writings have shaped our understanding of the war, as well as songwriters and performers whose music influenced soldiers’ lives, including Eric Burdon, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Country Joe McDonald, and John Fogerty.
This event will include Stax Records artists who are also military veterans.
Together their testimony taps into memories—individual and cultural—that capture a central if often overlooked component of the American war in Vietnam. For more information, please see: http://wggootp.com/
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