In a pivotal scene in the 1969 film Easy Rider, three men decompress over a campfire and a joint after an uncomfortable run-in with some bigoted middle Americans. George, played by Jack Nicholson, says it best: “Oh yeah, they gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual… it’s gonna scare ’em.”
The same year Easy Rider was trying to slough off conventional society’s hang-ups, Indiana band Coven—fronted by the enigmatic and magical Esther “Jinx” Dawson—released their debut LP, Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls. At a time when most popular music was all about peace, love, and “smiling on your brother,” Coven went the other direction. Witchcraft teems with dark lyrics about witches, magic spells, and pacts with Lucifer. The record even includes a 13-minute satanic mass ceremony. Pair these occult themes with a trained opera singer and some spooky, jangly rock ’n’ roll akin to Jefferson Airplane or Fleetwood Mac, and you’ve got a band of free individuals certainly capable of scaring some people. According to Dawson, audiences were not ready for such devilish musings.
