December 27, 1967 – Leonard Cohen released Songs of Leonard Cohen.
From Mark Deming’s review at the AllMusic.com site: At a time when a growing number of pop songwriters were embracing a more explicitly poetic approach in their lyrics, the 1967 debut album from Leonard Cohen introduced a songwriter who, rather than being inspired by “serious” literature, took up music after establishing himself as a published author and poet. The ten songs on Songs of Leonard Cohen were certainly beautifully constructed, artful in a way few (if any) other lyricists would approach for some time, but what’s most striking about these songs isn’t Cohen’s technique, superb as it is, so much as his portraits of a world dominated by love and lust, rage and need, compassion and betrayal.
December 27, 1967, Bob Dylan released John Wesley Harding album. He had recorded it between October 17 and November 29.
The cover photograph shows Dylan with brothers Luxman and Purna Das. Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, had brought the Asian musicians to Woodstock. Standing behind Dylan (over his left shoulder) is Charlie Joy, a local stonemason and carpenter.
True to the atmosphere of the time’s conspiracy theorists (e.g. Paul is dead), images of the Beatles were purportedly hidden on the front cover in the knots of the tree. (next Dylan see January 20, 1968)
December 27 Music et al
Cultural Milestone
December 22, 1967: Chicago businessman Michael Butler was planning to run for the U.S. Senate on an anti-war platform. He watched the Public Theatre’s production of Hair several times and joined forces with Joe Papp to reproduce the show at another New York venue after the close of its run at the Public.
Papp and Butler first moved the show to The Cheetah, a discothèque at 53rd Street and Broadway. It ran for 45 performances. (CM, see January 22, 1968; Hair, see April 29, 1968)
December 27 – 29, 1969, Miami Rock Festival, among the bands playing were: BB King, The Band, Santana, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Johnny Winter, Grateful Dead, Canned Heat, Sweetwater, Vanilla Fudge, Hugh Masakela, Amboy Dukes, The Turtles, Biff Rose, Tony Joe White, and Celebration.
December 27 – 29, 1969: Blythe, California. The show never happened, but was supposed to have: Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Young Rascals, Vanilla Fudge, Brooklyn Bridge, Neil Diamond, and Johnny Winters.
December 27 Music et al
“Someday We’ll Be Together”
December 27, 1969 – January 2, 1970 – “Someday We’ll Be Together” by Diana Ross and the Supremes #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
December 27, 1913: during the bitter Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914 in Michigan, Charles Moyer, president of the Miners Union, was shot in the back and dragged through the streets of Chicago by men in the employ of the mine owners. That evening, detectives escorted him, still bleeding, to a local train and “deported him” (e.g., ran him out of town). State and Congressional investigations were unable to prove the identity of his assailants, and the crime went unsolved.(see January 5, 1914)
December 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Black History
Powell Green lynched
December 27, 1919: after a “prominent” white movie theater owner was shot and killed, authorities arrested 23-year-old African American veteran Powell Green for allegedly committing the crime. While policemen were moving Powell Green from the jail in Franklinton, North Carolina to the larger city of Raleigh, before he could be tried or mount a defense, a mob kidnapped and brutally killed him.
The mob tied Green to a car and dragged him for half a mile before shooting him with dozens of bullets and hanging his body
Newspaper sources suggest this was the case in the lynching of Powell Green; one witness reportedly testified that, though there were five officers in the police vehicle transporting Mr. Green, he was “taken from the car [by the mob] without the least trouble.”
Green’s corpse was found the next morning riddled with bullets and hanged from a small pine tree along a road two miles from Franklinton. According to press accounts, “souvenir hunters” cut buttons and pieces of clothing from the body and later cut down the tree to yield grotesque keepsakes. (next Lynching, see June 15, 1920; for for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)
This Little Light of Mine
c 1920: Harry Dixon (1895 – 1965) wrote “This Little Light of Mine” as a gospel song. It became a common one sung during the civil rights gathering of the 1950s and 1960s. It continues to be a song of hope today.
This little light of mine
I’m going to let it shine
Oh, this little light of mine
I’m going to let it shine
Hallelujah
This little light of mine
I’m going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
Ev’ry where I go
I’m going to let it shine
Oh, ev’ry where I go
I’m going to let it shine
Hallelujah
Ev’ry where I go
I’m going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
All in my house
I’m going to let it shine
Oh, all in my house
I’m going to let it shine
Hallelujah
All in my house
I’m going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
I’m not going to make it shine
I’m just going to let it shine
I’m not going to make it shine
I’m just going to let it shine
Hallelujah
I’m not going to make it shine
I’m just going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
Out in the dark
I’m going to let it shine
Oh, out in the dark
I’m going to let it shine
Hallelujah
Out in the dark
I’m going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
December 27, 1956: Federal Judge Dozier Devane granted temporary injunction restraining Tallahassee city officials from interfering with integration of city buses and said “every segregation act of every state or city is as dead as a doornail.” (see Dec 28)
Tamir Rice
December 27, 2015: a grand jury declined to charge a Cleveland patrolman who fatally shot a 12-year-old boy holding a pellet gun, capping more than a year of investigation into a case that added to national outrage over white officers killing African-Americans.
In announcing the decision, Timothy J. McGinty, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor, said he had recommended that the grand jurors not bring charges in the killing of the boy, Tamir Rice, who was playing with the gun outside a recreation center in November 2014.[NYT report] (B & S, see January 18, 2016; Rice, see April 25, 2016)
Vietnam
General Albert C. Wedemeyer
December 27, 1944: U.S. General Albert C. Wedemeyer in Chungking reported that Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley was displeased with aid given to intelligence operatives in Vietnam. Hurley “had increasing evidence that the British, French, and Dutch are working…for the attainment of imperialistic policies and he felt we should do nothing to assist them in their endeavors which run counter to U.S. policy.” Hurley was reflecting President Roosevelt’s January 24 position. (see Dec 31)
Ho Chi Minh
December 27, 1965: Ho Chi Minh addressed the Communist Party Central Committee in Hanoi. Ho said that “politics” was the weak point of the American and South Vietnamese enemy and the domestic situation of the United States will not permit the U.S. to utilize its military and economic power in South Vietnam. The Committee decided that the communist forces in South Vietnam should seek a “decisive victory within a relatively short period of time” but must prepare to defend itself if the U.S. expands its war effort.
JB Lenoir’s “Vietnam Blues”
In 1966: JB Lenoir’s “Vietnam Blues” “Mister President you always cry about peace, but you must clean up your house before you leave” (next Vietnam, see Jan 7; next News Music, see June)
Vatican response to Spellman
On December 23 Cardinal Spellman said the Vietnamese conflict was “a war for civilization—certainly it is not a war of our seeking. It is a war thrust upon us—we cannot yield to tyranny.” Anything “less than victory is inconceivable.”
On December 27, 1966: Vatican sources expressed displeasure with Cardinal Spellman’s statements in Vietnam. One source said, “The Cardinal did not speak for the Pope or the Church.” The Pope had previously called for negotiations and an end to the war in Vietnam.
US forces in Vietnam
By the end of 1966, American forces in Vietnam reached 385,000 men, plus an additional 60,000 sailors stationed offshore. More than 6,000 Americans have been killed in 1966 and 30,000 had been wounded. In comparison, an estimated 61,000 Vietcong have been killed. However, their troops now numbered over 280,000.
Music protests US in Vietnam
In 1967: protest songs of this year included:
“Saigon Bride” by Joan Baez
“Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” by Pete Seeger.
“Backlash Blues” by Nina Simone
“Patriotic” song: “Dear Uncle Sam” by Loretta Lynn
December 27, 1957: from the NYT: “Twenty thousand shrieking, pushing, stamping teen-agers besieged the Paramount Theatre all day yesterday. The attraction was Alan Freed, a disk jockey and master of ceremonies who was presenting a stage show of rock ‘n’ roll musicians.” (see March 24, 1958)
Leonard Cohen
December 27, 1967: Leonard Cohen released Songs of Leonard Cohen.
December 27, 1967, Bob Dylan released John Wesley Harding album. He had recorded it between October 17 and November 29.
The cover photograph showed Dylan with the brothers Luxman and Purna Das. Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, had brought the Asian musicians to Woodstock. Standing behind Dylan (over his left shoulder) is Charlie Joy, a local stonemason and carpenter.
True to the atmosphere of the time’s conspiracy theorists (e.g. Paul is dead), images of the Beatles were purportedly hidden on the front cover in the knots of the tree. (next Dylan, see January 20, 1968)
December 27 – 29, 1969: Miami Rock Festival, among the bands playing were: BB King, The Band, Santana, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Johnny Winter, Grateful Dead, Canned Heat, Sweetwater, Vanilla Fudge, Hugh Masakela, Amboy Dukes, The Turtles, Biff Rose, Tony Joe White, and Celebration.
December 27 – 29, 1969, Mid Winter Pop Festival, Blythe, California. The show never happened, but was supposed to have: Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Young Rascals, Vanilla Fudge, Brooklyn Bridge, Neil Diamond, and Johnny Winters.
Someday We’ll Be Together
December 27, 1969 – January 2, 1970 – “Someday We’ll Be Together” by Diana Ross and the Supremes #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
December 27 Peace Love Art Activism
TERRORISM
December 27, 2001: U.S. officials announced that Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners would be held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [NYT report] (see January 11, 2002)
December 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History
Crime and Punishment
December 27, 2018: Adou Kouadio, a citizen of Ivory Coast, arrived at the Texas border in early 2016 and asked for asylum, claiming that he had been threatened after supporting a political opponent of his country’s president.
But for the nearly three years that his request had remained under consideration while American authorities detained Kouadio, 43, first in Texas and later in New Jersey. In August, he petitioned a court for help.
On this date, Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan said the government had violated Kouadio’s rights.
“This nation prides itself on its humanity and openness with which it treats those who seek refuge at its gates,” the Hellerstein wrote. “By contrast, the autocracies of the world have been marked by harsh regimes of exclusion and detention. Our notions of due process nourish the former spirit and brace us against the latter.”
Detaining Kouadio for 34 months without a bail hearing violated his due process rights as a nonresident immigrant arriving at the border, “limited as those rights are,” the judge said in a ruling some legal experts also considered a rebuke of the Trump administration’s strict immigration policies. [NYT article] (IH, see Dec 31; C&P, seeFebruary 20, 2019)
December 27 Peace Love Art Activism
PSYCHEDELICS
December 27, 2022: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) formally declared the results of a ballot initiative that voters approved in November 2022 and issued a proclamation that certain psychedelics were officially legal to possess and grow in Colorado under state law,
While there are still several steps that must be taken to fully implement other aspects of the reform—which also involves creating “healing centers” for supervised psychedelic sessions—possession, cultivation and sharing of certain substances by adults 21 and older is now legal under state law. [MM article] (next Psych, see )
According to the Desert USA site: Blythe, California is agriculturally based but heavily influenced by tourism, Blythe is located on the California-Arizona border where Interstate 10 crosses the Colorado River. Blythe’s population more than triples during the winter months with the arrival of visitors seeking relief from their cold climate home states during that season.
In the summer, in spite of extreme high Sonoran Desert temperatures, Blythe is a center for water sports along the Colorado River. Blythe is a small town and the people are very warm and friendly. Blythe’s educational system offers students facilities from pre-school through community college.
1969 Mid Winter Pop Festival not
Poster says…
The Mid Winter Pop Festival was the BIGGEST and BEST of ’69. At least that is what its poster proclaimed. Attendees were going to “See and Hear Dozens of GREAT STARS in Person!
It was going to be… A MUSICAL HAPPENING FOR LOVERS OF ROCK AND SOUL….
SET IN THE DRY, WARM DESERT SOUTHWEST – ALONG THE BEAUTIFUL COLORADO RIVER SOUTH OF
BLYTHE, CALIFORNIA
There would be no less than 14 HOURS OF FABULOUS ENTERTAINMENT EACH DAY !!!
100,000 ACRES WITH PLENTY OF WATER, SANITATION AND MEDICAL FACILITIES. CAMPING AREAS PROVIDED.
REASONABLY PRICED FOOD AND BEVERAGES
1969 Mid Winter Pop Festival not
Who would (not) be there?
Rotary Connection
Young Rascals
Bicycle
Linda Ronstadt
Laura Nyro
Eric Mercury
Chambers Brothers
Chicago Transit Authority
The Youngbloods
Brooklyn Bridge
Country Joe & the Fish
Pacific Gas & Electric
Steve Miller Band
Janis Joplin
Jefferson Airplane
Iron Butterfly
Neil Diamond
Buffy Sainte-Marie
…and many others
1969 Mid Winter Pop Festival not
Tickets
Tickets on sale at:
Jim Salle’s
Fahrenheit
Gay’s Men’s Shop
1969 Mid Winter Pop Festival not
Poster
TO RECEIVE YOUR TICKETS TO THIS FESTIVAL BY RETURN MAIL, FILL IN THE COUPON AND MAIL TO:
MID-WINTER POPS FESTIVAL, INC.
2818 St Louis St.
New Orleans, La 70119
Or
MID-WINTER POPS FESTIVAL
PO Box 47846
Atlanta, Ga. 30340
Tickets were $21 each or $30 at the gate.
There was a limited quantity available so Mid Winter Pops Festival, Inc encouraged fans to buy early and save.
Mid-Winter Pops Festival, Inc of 2818 St Louis St, New Orleans, LA sponsored the event.
1969 Mid Winter Pop Festival not
djtees
A blog site called djtees.com has a long essay about the not-festival and has a few opinions and as with my research little to go on. Here’s the complete post:
There is a genuine mystery about this festival. It’s another for the ‘it never happened’ file and in that, no so unusual. As we know, The Man was always trying to fend off the freaks with legislation, sometimes successfully, mostly not. But the Mid Winter Pop Festival doesn’t fall into that category.
Blythe is a wee town on the border between California and Arizona, right out in the desert. Basically head east from Palm Desert on the 10 and you end up there. I love that road, it’s so elemental and wild out there. You feel so tiny and transient compared to all that old nature.
And, as any snowbird who vacations in Palm Springs knows, the desert is lovely and warm in the winter and although it can be cold at night, it’d be perfect festival weather for late December.
With a strong bill it was bound to attract interest.
Brooklyn Bridge, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Iron Butterfly, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Johnny Winter, Neil Diamond, Vanilla Fudge, Young Rascals
However, that isn’t enough bands for a three day fest, nowhere near enough. And that is where the mystery starts. The poster doesn’t even say where the gig was to be, just broadly referring to ‘Blythe vicinity.’ However, no applications for a festival were made in the area and no preparations were being made. No other words, no-one looking like Chip Monck with an army of longhairs armed with wood and nail guns had turned up anywhere near Blythe to put up a stage even a week or two before.
The San Bernardino Sun newspaper reported Riverside County Administrative Officer Robert T. Anderson said “The Blythe vicinity could mean a location in Riverside County, Imperial County to the South or in Arizona across the Colorado River,” But no public agency in either Riverside or Imperial counties has authorized any pop festival in either county, he added.
So what was going on? One of the ticket agencies listed in an advertisement in an underground newspaper said it stopped selling tickets after it was notified the festival was moved from a 100,000-acre Blythe ranch to an as yet undisclosed location. The ad, signed by Mid-Winter Pops Festival, Inc, New Orleans, promised, “Watch next week’s ad for location ‘funkiest spot in America.”
But at that point, the trail goes cold. There was no further announcement and no Blythe festival or inheritor of that title seems to have happened. Now whether it was a scam all along, or a good idea that fell through, who really knows? However, the lack of bands on the bill, whether they were ever actually booked or not, I think is the clue. Other fests that had to be called off had a massive roster in place because you need about 30 bands for a 3-day show, Blythe had just nine.
To me, it looks like someone used those bands to pull in some ticket sales, waited as long as possible, trousered the money and then cancelled a festival that was never going to happen. Also, it wasn’t clear who was putting the festival on, who was behind Mid-Winter Pops Festival, Inc, New Orleans and usually, there was at least a known figurehead, or some rich kid putting up the money. Again, that’s unusual.
Advertising bands that were not confirmed bookings was a common scam, we saw it at the Northern California Folk Festival when Led Zeppelin were said to be on their way but hadn’t been signed up. Sometimes this was wilful deceit, more often it was a failure of procedure and logistics.
But it wouldn’t be a surprise if someone advertised a festival by 1969, took money for tickets and then simply disappeared. It was easy to do in those analogue days.
So Blythe never saw an influx of hippies and rockers and the desert kept on being quiet, wild and magnificent.
So…
…the event never happened and if you know why let me know.
1969 Mid Winter Pop Festival not
Here’s the post listing all the rock festivals I’ve found or been informed about.
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
