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, Today in history

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives

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Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives

After the Beatles and Beatlemania arrived in the US in 1964, American TV producers realized that prime time musical variety shows aimed at the Boomer youth market would be a good investment.

Shindig!

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives
photo from: http://ctva.biz/Music/US/Shindig.htm

Of course, Dick Clark already had his afternoon American Bandstand. The folk craze was fading and in September 1964, ABC TV entered with it’s Shindig! It succeeded. At least for awhile.

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives

Hullabaloo

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives
photo from: http://www.klru.org/program/60s-pop-flashback-hullabaloo-my-music/

On January 8, 1965,  in response to Shindig!, NBC TV premiered Hullabaloo. The first show included performances by The New Christy Minstrels, comedian Woody Allen, actress Joey Heatherton and a segment from London in which Brian Epstein introduced The Zombies and Gerry & the Pacemakers.

Here’s a retrospective on Shindig!

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives

Mamas and Papas

Here’s a recording of the Mamas and Papas appearance on Hullabaloo. Is the scenery of  those several bath tubs trying to tell us something?

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives

Joey Heatherton

And on August 29, 1966, Hullabaloo ended. While the hunk Robert Goulet may have been OK for viewers,  the far too sexy for prime time Joey Heatherton might be sending the wrong message–for some. For others, they couldn’t get enough of her message for some!

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives

Where the Action Is

Linda Scott and Steve Alaimo

Shindig! and Hullabaloo were both evening shows, but kids coming home from school also had a show: Where the Action Is.

Dick Clark created the show which premiered on June 28, 1965 (close on the heels of Shindig! and Hullabaloo).

Linda Scott and Steve Alaimo, hosted the show and sang numbers between guest performances. A typical show featured two or three performers lip-synching their recent hits with the teenage audience clapping along.  There was usually a segment that featured the Action dancers, too.

 

Ratings and opinions

But prime time TV is a difficult place for rock and roll.  Even in the mid-60s, rock’s unwashed rough image was still seen as vulgar. Ironically, exactly a year later on January 8, 1966, ABC aired Shindig!’s last show.

Afternoons aren’t any easier. Lasting a bit longer than Shindig! and Hullabaloo, ABC cancelled Where the Action Is on March 31, 1967.

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives

Hullabaloo Departs Monkees Arrive

What replaced Hullabaloo? On September 12, 1966, enter the Monkees.

Why such short-lived runs for a shows that seemed to have such guaranteed success? It is part of TV culture to keep shows only as long as they are very successful. Mediocre ratings are rarely tolerated, particularly if someone thinks they have a better idea.

Also those pesky Beatles were changing the rules.

  1. On the same day that Shindig! ended, the Beatles latest album, Rubber Soul, became the Billboard #1 album.
  2. Also on the same day, those same Beatles had another #1 single with We Can Work It Out.
  3. And on the day that Where the Action Is ended, The Jimi Hendrix Experience played at the London Astoria.  At the end his set, Hendrix, for the first time, lit his Fender Stratocaster on fire.

Link with a bit more info about Hullabaloo >>> KLRU article

Beatlemania Arrives Hullabaloo Arrives
Grateful Dead, Music et al

Grateful Dead Play MSG

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Grateful Dead Play MSGGrateful Dead Play MSG

The Grateful Dead played 2,318 shows.

On January 7, 1979 they played the first of the 52 shows they’d perform at New York City’s fabled Madison Square Garden. (The Dead also played 5 shows at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum)

They played more often at only two other venues: Winterland, (60 times) and the Oakland-Alameda County Arena (66 x)

Grateful Dead Play MSG
ticket stub from the first Dead show at Madison Square Garden

The first Garden show was rescheduled from November 30, 1978 and thanks to the ever vigilant Deadheads, we know the set list:

One Jack Straw [6:08] ; They Love Each Other [7:48] ; Cassidy [5:00] ; Jack-A-Roe [5:16] ; Looks Like Rain [7:57] ; Tennessee Jed [8:27] ; El Paso [4:19]; Stagger Lee [6:42] ; Passenger [5:07]
Two I Need A Miracle [7:03] > Shakedown Street [10:00] ; From The Heart Of Me [3:42] ; Estimated Prophet [10:38] > Eyes Of The World [9:42] > Drums [4:55] > Space [4:11] > Not Fade Away [13:09] > Black Peter [11:34] > Around And Around [6:03]
Encore Good Lovin’ [7:37]
Grateful Dead Play MSG

Recorded

And like pretty much every Dead show, fans were there to tape it. Bob Wagner’s (transferred by the legendary Charlie Miller) is a great audience recording which the amazing Internet Archive has for you to listen to: AUD of show

AUDs sometimes have their clicks and gaps, but they can can be more fun to listen to than a soundboard recording because, if well done, you are right there with band’s sound.

Grateful Dead Play MSG

Madison Square Garden

The Dead also played the Garden the next night, a common occurrence.  And only Good Lovin’ was repeated. Another common feature of the ever-changing Dead setlists.

Grateful Dead Play MSG
ticket stub for January 8, 1979 Madison Square Garden

Set list? Of course.

One Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo [9:37] > Franklin’s Tower [9:56] ; New Minglewood Blues [5:04] ; Candyman [7:07] ; Me And My Uncle [2:56] > Big River [5:28] ; Friend Of The Devil [10:02] ; It’s All Over Now [8:19] ; Brown Eyed Women [5:09] ; Lazy Lightnin’ [3:34] > Supplication [7:43]
Two Scarlet Begonias [11:43] > Fire On The Mountain [10:16] ; Samson And Delilah [7:09] ; Terrapin Station [12:18] > Playing In The Band [13:25] > Drums > The Other One [8:23] > Wharf Rat [10:52] > Good Lovin’ [6:27]
Encore U.S. Blues [5:31]

Bob Wagner was there again. Charlie Miller has transferred it, again. click >>> January 8 Dead AUD

Grateful Dead Play MSG

Here’s a link to the entire list of MSG Dead shows. How many did you attend?

Grateful Dead Play MSG
Today in history, Vietnam

Draft Resistance Indicted

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Draft Resistance Indicted

Indictments

On January 5, 1968 Attorney General Ramsey Clark announced the indictment five men: author and pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, the chaplain of Yale University Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., 23-year-old Harvard University graduate student Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman, 44, of New York and Temple, Me., and Marcus Raskin, 33, of Washington, co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies, a private research organization on charges of conspiring to counsel young men to violate the draft laws. (NYT article)

Draft Resistance Indicted
l – r: Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Mitchell Goodman, Michael Ferber

According to the indictment, Dr. Spock, Mr. Coffin, Mr. Raskin, and Mr. Goodman agreed to sponsor a nationwide draft-resistance program that would include disrupting the induction processes at various induction centers, making public appeals for young men to resist the draft and to refuse to serve in the military services and issuing calls for registrants to turn in their draft cards.

The government accused the men of having violated Title 50, Section 462(A) of the United States Code Appendix, a section of the Universal Military Training and Service Act that dates to World War I. It declared that any person was guilty of violating the law if he “knowingly counsels, aids, or abets another to refuse or evade registration or service in the armed forces” or if he “shall knowingly hinder or interfere or attempt to do so in any way, by force or violence or otherwise,” with the administration of the draft. It also makes it a crime to conspire to commit these acts.

Draft Resistance Indicted

Draft resistance increases

On January 12, 1968, the New York Times reported that,  The Government disclosed…that more young men were prosecuted and convicted last year for draft violations than in any year since World War II. (Draft convictions)

On May 12, 1968 a jury was selected. It was an all-male jury (Jury selected).

Draft Resistance Indicted

Four guilty

On June 14, 1968, the jury found the four men guilty.

On July 10, 1968, Judge Francis J W Fort sentenced the four men to two years in prison

On July 11, 1969, because of insufficient evidence of a conspiracy, “The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed today the convictions of Dr. Benjamin Spock and three other men who were found guilty in 1968 of conspiring to counsel evasion of the draft.”

Draft Resistance Indicted