Category Archives: Music et al

Music of the 60s, Rock venues, Today in history

Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

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Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore Auditorium (photo from Wolfgang’s Vault)
Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

Chet Helms

In 1966 Chet Helms (friend of Janis Joplin and the one who connected her with Big Brother and the Holding Company) teamed up with a commune  called Family Dog and started putting together a series of  shows at the Fillmore Auditorium. Family Dog and Bill Graham, new to the world or rock venues, hosted events on  alternating weekends. The two promoters would lock horns many times over the years, and it was always a contrast in styles. Bill Graham had a reputation as an aggressive, no-nonsense business man, whereas others saw Helms as a more down-to-earth guy who was less interested in money and more focused on throwing a great party. His lack of business skills is one of the reasons Chet never made a much money in the music business, but he was never short on ideas.

The Fillmore Auditorium had been used in December 1965 by Bill Graham in his first foray as a rock promoter.

Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

SF Mime Troupe

Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco
Mime Troupe benefit ad

The Grateful Dead had performed there as part of Ken Kesey’s January 8, 1966 Acid Test (a very interesting recording of the Dead at that event)

…then the first rock shows as just rock shows (February 4, 5, and 6, 1966) were held at the Fillmore Auditorium.

Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

Jefferson Airplane

Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco
poster from first show (“Jefferson airplane fillmore poster 1966” by Bill GrahamUploaded by We hope at en.wikipedia – eBay itemimageTransferred from en.wikipedia by SreeBot. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jefferson_airplane_fillmore_poster_1966.jpg#/media/File:Jefferson_airplane_fillmore_poster_1966.jpg)
Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

Matrix

The Fillmore Auditorium was not the first rock venue in San Francisco. The Matrix had opened six months earlier on August 13, 1965 showcasing the Jefferson Airplane, which singer/founder Marty Balin had put together as the club’s “house band.”

On October 16, 1965, the Family Dog had put on a dance and concert a the Longshoremen’s Hall with the Jefferson Airplane, the Charlatans, and the Great Society. 

Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

Bill Graham

Bill Graham kicked off his 1967 Summer Series with an incredible lineup at the Fillmore. Headlining the show were Rock and Roll’s biggest new stars, the Jefferson Airplane whose album, Surrealistic Pillow, was climbing the American pop charts. Last on the bill behind Jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo was a relatively unknown guitar player named Jimi Hendrix.
“Jimi first came to San Francisco right after Monterey Pop. …He opened and then Gabor Szabo and then the Airplane. That was the first night. Afterward, the Airplane asked him if they could open the show. Jimi took the town by storm.” Bill Graham (poster from Wolfgang’s Vault site)
Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

Pinnacle

From the Fillmore site: The Fillmore represented the pinnacle of creative music making in the late 1960s. From December 10, 1965, when Bill Graham produced a San Francisco Mime troupe benefit (Jefferson Airplane with Great Society and Mystery Trend; the Warlocks, later the Grateful Dead, kicked off the show), until July 4, 1968, The Fillmore audiences experienced a 2 1/2 year musical and cultural Renaissance that produced some of the most innovative, exciting music ever to come out of San Francisco. The careers of the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Moby Grape, the Butterfield Blues Band, and countless others were launched from The Fillmore stage. The most significant musical talent of the day has appeared there: Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Cream, Howlin’ Wolf, Captain Beefheart, Muddy Waters, The Who – well, you get the picture. Or you’ve heard the stories. If you’re lucky, you were there.

In July, 1968, the Fillmore Auditorium morphed and moved to the Fillmore West, a west coast counterpart to Graham’s already-opened Fillmore East in New York City.

The site remained basically the same and has been a venue under different names at various times since. Today it is again the Fillmore.

References:

Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco
Birthdays, Music et al, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka

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Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka

or as we all knew simply her as…

Melanie

Kept a candle lit
February  3, 1947 – January 23, 2014

Melanie Safka was born and raised in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York City.

She loved performing music from childhood and eventually, as so many others had, found herself in Greenwich Village and its folk scene.

She signed with Buddah Records and in 1968 released her first album, “Born to Be.” From it, she had the hit single Bobo’s Party. It was #1 on French charts.

Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka

Her name (just Melanie, of course) came to prominence after her Woodstock Music and Art Fair’s performance. The event inspired her to write  “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” because of the many lighter, matches, and candles the crowd there used during her nighttime set.

Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka
“(When I heard about Woodstock) I very naively, I said “Wow. That sounds nice: three days of peace, love and music.” What I pictured was families laid out on their blankets, and it being in a big pasture, and being very laid back. Maybe some arts and crafts and maybe some pottery, and I could get some beads and stuff. That’s how I pictured it.” (from http://popcultureaddict.com/interviews/melanie/)
Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka

Melanie performing “Birthday of the Sun” at Woodstock. This video was taken from a laser disk of “Woodstock: The Lost Performances”, which is now out of publication. In the closing credits, Melanie is listed as “Melanie Schekeryk” (her married name).

Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka

Even though Woodstock brought her a measure of fame, Melanie never became famous outside her large circle of loving fans. In 1976 she played at the Bottom Line in New York and New York Times music critic headline said: Melanie Is a Complete Delight at Bottom Line. The lead sentence stated that:  Melanie is now 29 years old, and she’s been around since before Woodstock. She has her fans, but she is hardly a big star; for most rock enthusiasts. (NYT article)

Melanie Ann Safka

Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka

 She released dozens of albums and compilations and singles.

Her site talks about her performances this way: “An Evening with Melanie [was] an unforgettable night of songs and stories from the incredible career of the artist who became known as “The Female Bob Dylan”.  Accompanied by her son Beau-Jarred, a talented multi-instrumentalist and vocalist in his own right, the show [was] a musical journey from that momentous day in the summer of 1969, to the present.

Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka
Melanie and her son Beau-Jarred

Kept the Dream Flowing

In July 2023, Keep the Dream Flowing, the anything-Woostock-related podcast, issued it’s interview with Melanie.

The conversation includes…

  • how she had run away to California before finishing high school
  • how just before Woodstock, she was in England with her husband working on a soundtrack
  • how her Mom picked her up at the airport
  • how she didn’t have any official credentials at Woodstock
  • that she thought she’d go on after Richie Havens
  • that she had an out-of-body experience as she got on stage at Woodstock
  • a year later at the cancelled Powder Ridge festival, she was the only performer to show up and still perform.

And much more.

Click on this link for it.

Just before her death she had been in the studio working on a new record of cover songs, “Second Hand Smoke,” for the Cleopatra label; it would have been her 32nd album.

Melanie
Melanie with Woodstock soundman Bill Hanley.

Reference >>> WoodsTALK

Reference>>>Variety magazine obituary

Singer Songwriter Melanie Ann Safka
Birthdays, Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism

Graham William Nash OBE

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Graham William Nash OBE

Happy birthday Graham Nash
February 2, 1942

Most of us know a bit about Graham Nash. We may not have realized he was a big part of the Hollies, but we liked them along with so many other British bands that followed the Beatle Invasion.

We may have heard that he left the Hollies just as we may have heard that David Crosby had left the Byrds and that Stephen Stills had been part of the defunct Buffalo Springfield.

And in 1969 we heard Crosby Stills and Nash.

Graham William Nash OBE
cover of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s first ablum

We know about their nervousness at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair–“Thank you. We needed that. This is the second time we’ve ever played in front of people. We’re scared shitless.”

For CSN (and later Young) Graham Nash wrote many of their best-known songs such as “Marrakesh Express,” “Our House,” “Teach Your Children, ” “Just a Song Before I Go,” and “Wasted on the Way”.

Over the years, Graham Nash and David Crosby often worked together as a duo and like many couples had had several falling outs.  Crosby Stills and Nash also occasionally reformed (sometimes with Neil Young as well).

In 1979, Nash co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy [MUSE] which is against the expansion of nuclear power.

He is also a well-respected photographer. (2013 Rolling Stone article with some of his photographs)

Graham Nash was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1997 and as a member of The Hollies in 2010.

Nash performs at the 2014 Goldman Prize ceremony in San Francisco.

Graham William Nash OBE

Below is a short piece from CBS News in which  Nash spoke about the deaths of David Bowie and Glenn Frey.

Below is a long interview with Graham Nash from the Library of Congress in which he spoke about his autobiography “Wild Tales: A Rock and Roll Life” (2013)

Nash released his sixth solo album, This  Path Tonight, on April 15, 2016. He continues to tour and you can see those dates at his site.

A Life In Focus

And in October 2021, he published A Life In Focus which Google books described, “In this curated collection of art and photography from his personal archive, Graham Nash’s life as a musician and artist unfolds in vivid detail. Best known as a founding member of the Hollies and supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash, Nash developed a love of photography from the time he was a child. Inspired by his father, Nash began taking pictures at 11 years old and would go on to take his camera with him ever since–on tour with the Hollies and later CSN, among friends at Laurel Canyon and abroad. Many of his photographs depict intimate moments with family and friends, among them Joni Mitchell, Stephen Stills, and Neil Young. Nash’s playful and observant.”

Still Going Strong!

In April 2016, Nash released This Path Tonight album…

And in May 2023 he released Now.

Graham William Nash OBE