All posts by Woodstock Whisperer

Attended the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969, became an educator for 35 years after graduation from college, and am retired now and often volunteer at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts which is on the site of that 1969 festival.
Music et al, Music of the 60s

Jimi Hendrix Quits Monkee Tour

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Jimi Hendrix Quits Monkee Tour

July 17, 1967

Jimi Hendrix Quits Monkee Tour

Jimi Hendrix Quits Monkee Tour

Everyone Loves Hendrix?

Young visitors to the Museum at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts (where Woodstock was, not where Woodstock is), often bemoan the fact that they weren’t born for that famous festival. That they would have done anything to attend.

I don’t disagree with their wish, but I will point out that despite his fame today, Jimi Hendrix was not beloved by every young person when he initially appeared on the American scene.

Hendrix first became famous, at least in a small corner of America, at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967 when the next day’s headlines read: Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire.

Jimi Hendrix Quits Monkee Tour

Of course the Monkees

To say that the Monkees were very popular in 1967 is an understatement. The Colgems label had released their debut album, The Monkees, on October 10, 1966. It became Billboard’s #1 album on November 12. It remained there  until February 10, 1967! 124 days. What replaced it? Their second album, More of the Monkees, which remained the number one album until June 16…126 more days! Those numbers exceed the Beatles’ opening days in 1964.

Mike Jeffery was Hendrix’s manager and wanted to capitalize on that popularity with his emerging star. How better to do that than hitch Hendrix onto Comet Monkees?

While the Monkees may have been an assembled act whose members were actors more than musicians, that didn’t mean those members didn’t like music. Micky Dolenz, the Monkees’ drummer, had first heard about Jimi Hendrix and seen him in the Village before Hendrix even went to the UK under the aegis of Animal bassist Chas Chandler.

Jimi Hendrix Quits Monkee Tour

The idea is hatched

Dolenz and fellow Monkee Peter Tork saw Hendrix at Monterey. Tork wasn’t impressed…

…but Dolenz was and he recommended the two groups get together on the Monkees upcoming  28-city tour.

Jimi Hendrix Quits Monkee Tour

Quit

It didn’t go well because, as I’ve said, not every young person in 1967 was ready for or wanted to experience Jimi Hendrix. Had the Jefferson Airplane, the Who, or Joan Baez opened for the Monkees, the results would have been the same: kids repeatedly yelling “We want the Monkees!”

Hendrix’s presence thrilled the Monkees, but eight shows into the tour, Hendrix left.

Obviously the Experience didn’t make the date announced in the above radio spot.

Jimi Hendrix Quits Monkee Tour

Festivals, Music of the 60s

1969 Newport Folk Festival

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1969 Newport Folk Festival

July 16 – 20, 1969
1969 festival #26

Newport folk festvial

1969 Newport Folk Festival

Folk counts

The 1969 Newport Folk Festival is the 26th festival I have blogged about for that famous season. I am including a folk festival in what is mainly a rock festival list because the lines between the two genres had blurred.

Remember that day one of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair began mainly with folk. The 1969 Newport Jazz Festival, less than two weeks earlier, had included many rock acts in its line up. Promoters had seen the writing on the wall: many young people’s tastes had expanded from rock to folk, from folk to rock, from rock to jazz and from jazz to rock. Including a diversity of music attracted more guests and these festivals were business ventures. More guests equaled more revenue.

Fear of Rock

At the earlier Newport Jazz Festival, the popularity of rock performers brought an overflow of attendees. Fences fell. Police policed. Residents complained.

As a result, the Newport City Council instituted a “no rock” rule on the folk festival. A heavy wire fence replaced the former smaller wooden one.  Fewer seats. More security. Earlier curfew.

Still the 60s

1969 Newport Folk Festival
photo courtesy of David Marks (thank you)

Despite the locals’ attempt to tame the scene, singers sang of the times. Johnny Cash sang against the Vietnam war; Buffy St-Marie sang about Native American mistreatment; Len Chandler of civil rights; and there was even an anti-interstate highway construction song by Ed Wheeler named “The Interstate is Coming Through My Outhouse.”

YouTube doesn’t seem to have Wheeler’s version, but here’s one by Leroy Pullins.

1969 Newport Folk Festival

Richard Williams

It’s always nice to find a first hand account of an event. Known academically as a primary source, it gives us a better feel for an event than stories written after the event.

Richard Williams attended the 1969 Newport Folk Festival and wrote his impressions about it, particularly the last night on a Facebook comment. Among his observations were hearing an unknown James Taylor participate in a song workshop after which promoters invited Taylor onto the main stage, a rare honor.

On that last night Williams remembers the announcement of Neil Armstrong’s historic steps onto the Moon and leaving the festival while listening to Joan Baez singing “Throw Out the Lifeline” a capella.

That song also is not on YouTube, but here is an Ella Fitzgerald cover of the old spiritual.

Throw Out the Lifeline

1969 Newport Folk Festival

Music Bazaar

A New York Times article headline referred to the 1969 festival as a “music bazaar” and Rolling Stone magazine’s closing paragraph on the festival read: It was the same old shuck. What will happen next year? Who knows but Mr. [organizer George] Wein who closed the Festival by saying: “During the last 16 summers of the Newport Festivals, it’s been the kids who’ve supported us. We’re still concerned with the kids. God Bless You.”

1969 Newport Folk Festival

Next 1969 festival:  Eugene Pop Festival

Black history, History, Lynching

Senator Coleman Bigot Blease

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Senator Coleman Bigot Blease

On July 15, 1930 US Senator Coleman Blease (D-South Carolina) proposed a lynch law for blacks (only) guilty of criminally assaulting white women.

As if that wasn’t enough, he had already read a poem entitled “Niggers in the White House” on the floor of the Senate.

Senator Coleman Bigot Blease
Coleman L Blease when governor of South Carolina
Senator Coleman Bigot Blease

Similar to others

The quick biographical description of Blease reads like many other elected officials of his times: the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Blease was born on October 8, 1868 in Newberry, South Carolina. Of course that is just after the Civil War ended and where the Civil War was fought.

Coleman L Blease graduated from Georgetown University in 1889. He became a lawyer.

Elected official

Voters elected Blease to the South Carolina State House as a State Representative in 1890. He served in that capacity from 1890 – 1894 and again from 1899 – 1900.

He was mayor of Helena, SC in 1897 and became Governor of South Carolina in 1911 and served as governor until 1915. He had a determined personality and nearly came to blows once with a SC representative.

Elected Senator

The people of South Carolina elected Blease to the US Senate in 1924 and he served one term as senator until March 3, 1931.

In 1928, Blease proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, requiring that would have set a punishment for interracial couples attempting to get married and anyone officiating an interracial marriage.

Jessie DePriest

Jessie DePriest was the wife of Illinois congressman Oscar DePriest. In June 1928, then First Lady Lou Hoover invited Mrs DePriest to the White House for tea. Blease was outraged at the invitation because the DePriests were black. Blease proposed a resolution to Congress to remind the Hoovers that they should show respect to the White House and to remember that they were only temporary residents of the White House.

As if his inference was not obvious enough, he then read an outrageous poem entitled “Niggers in the White House.”

Senator Coleman Bigot Blease

The Senate expunged Blease’s comments from the Record.

Senator Coleman Bigot Blease

July 15, 1930

In 1926, Blease had offered his services pro bono to Aiken County, South Carolina to help defend it from suits brought by the heirs of three blacks who had been lynched in that county.

And It was on July 15,1930 while Blease was US Senator that he advocated a lynch law for Blacks (only) guilty of criminally assaulting white women. He enthusiastically declared to a group of supporters that, “Whenever the Constitution comes between me and the virtue of the white women of the South, I say to hell with the Constitution!”

Out of office

Blease was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1930 and an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1934 and 1938.

Blease died in Columbia, S.C., January 19, 1942. His family interred him in Rosemont Cemetery, Newberry, S.C. if you’d like to visit and pay your disrespects.

Senator Coleman Bigot Blease