Subtitled “The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical”, Hair, which began life in 1967 at New York’s then-new Public Theater Off Broadway, not only was it the first Broadway musical to prominently feature nudity, but it was a hugely influential insertion of a 1960s countercultural sensibility into mainstream Main Broadway: It was banned in many cities and led to many lawsuits. The musical contributed a number of songs that would become radio hits (often in covers) and theatrical musical standards: “Aquarius”, “Let the Sunshine In”, “Hair”, “Ain’t Got No/I Got Life”. “Good Morning Starshine”, “Easy to Be Hard”, among others.
Hair he won the Tony Award for Best Musical for Butler in 1969, along with six other Tony Awards, and his cast album spent 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200, won the Grammy for best cast album, and spawned four hit singles. The record was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The Fifth Dimension’s medley of “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” was the number 1 country pop hit for six weeks in 1969 and was the number 2 single that year. (Young man Riverdale fans can ask their grandparents about the 1969 title song, “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies). Cowsills’ “Hair”, Three Dog Night’s “Easy to Be Hard” and Oliver’s “Good Morning Starshire” all reached the national Top 5.
Butler maintained friendships with Hair alumni including one-time cast members like Diane Keaton, Donna Summer, Ben Vereen and Keith Carradine. The show’s co-creator, James Rado, died in June and its original Broadway star, Robin McNamara, died last year.
He was eager to produce and co-finance the film version of Hair and developed a script with Colin Higgins (harold and maude) as the writer and Hal Ashby (Coming home) as director with Peter Bart as producer. Although studio deals and financing were in place, Ashby fell ill and pulled out in pre-production, with Milos Forman directing and Lester Persky producing.
