WHAT IT WAS‪:‬

This is a story of growing up in Colorado when the counter-culture was taking hold and music seemed to be at the center of everything.


Peace and love and the simple joy of living was the ethos of the times. Creativity was rampant. The music was incredible. For a while, anything seemed possible.


A memory of those times - from 1951 to 1979 - and the people who made it happen. Some of them were very famous, some sorta famous, some were legends in their own mind and nowhere else. Most of them, like the author, were just kids having a ball.


Maybe you were there. If so, you just might be mentioned in here somewhere. Timing is everything and it was an incredible time to be alive, one worth recording before it fades into the ethers.


James Pagliasotti was born and raised in Colorado when all of this was coming to be. He had the good fortune to become the first rock & roll columnist for The Denver Post, write a few pieces for Rolling Stone and many other magazines, was one of the first two people to broadcast on KRNW-FM in Boulder when that little station went free-form, was weekend staff on the air at KFML-AM & FM in Denver when it was in its red hot glory, and on and on. 


He caught more concerts than he can remember and had a backstage pass to most of them. There was a lot to witness on both sides of the curtain. He was entertained, tear-gassed several times, frisked, bugged, drugged, protested, detested, arrested, liked, loved, caressed, and blessed in more ways than he could have imagined. Weren’t we all? 


This is his recollection of What It Was.