"The 1960s signaled a period of radical cultural, social, and political shifts in the United States and all around the globe; yet in just three years, between 1969 and 1972, Village Voice "Scenes" columnist and cult figure Howard Smith got to the heart of it all with his radio segment on New York City's WPLJ FM. As famous himself as the people passing through his studio, Smith was able to encapsulate the end of an era through personal and hard-hitting interviews with Mick Jagger, Frank Zappa, Andy Warhol, Buckminster Fuller, leaders of the Gay Liberation Front, a NARC agent, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and countless other iconic and influential personalities, including musicians, artists, and people in film to writers, politicians, and social activists, from countercultural luminaries to everyday revolutionaries and everyone in-between. The Smith Tapes transcribes for the first time ever 60 of those recorded sessions, from an archive of over 150 reels unearthed after over forty years. Edited by Ezra Bookstein, this book reveals the time capsule Smith ingeniously captured, and contains raw and unscripted talks that take you right into the midst of a transformative cultural and musical explosion"--