Category Archives: Festivals

Festivals, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Palm Beach Music Art Festival

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Palm Beach Music Art Festival

November 28 – 30, 1969 (Thanksgiving weekend)
West Palm Beach, FL
1969 festival #48
From the “Palm Beach Pop Festival” short
Palm Beach Music & Art Festival
poster for Palm Beach Music & Art Festival. Note how the festival used “music and art” in their title (the earlier Woodstock was the only one to do that) and note the “bird/peace symbol”…too similar to Woodstock’s to be a coincidence
Palm Beach Music Art Festival

Palm Beach

For many people, the only festivals in 1969 were the famous Woodstock Music and Art Fair and the infamous Altamont Speedway Free Festival. There were many more: none larger than Woodstock, all more peaceful than Altamont.

The Palm Beach Music & Art Festival was one of the last that year. It was the 38th of the year.

It ran on Thanksgiving weekend, November 28 – 30, 1969.  Like most of those many other 1969 festivals, little can be found about them. Organizers didn’t record nor film them. Occasionally someone’s hand held movie or recording pops up.

Palm Beach Music Art Festival

Documentary

But over all, the Palm Beach Music & Art Festival remains unknown. There are some still pictures and a group is trying to collect anything anyone has to create a documentary:

Palm Beach Music Art Festival

Sheriff Bill Heidtman

There is a 2009 Palm Beach Post article: Then-Palm Beach County Sheriff Bill Heidtman vowed to make life miserable for the free-loving, pot-smoking, anti-establishment youngsters who were coming to the Palm Beach Pop Festival. He threatened to herd alligators toward the crowd, gathered on a grassy field at the Palm Beach International Raceway. And he promised to dig out fire ant colonies and relocate them at the venue.

Palm Beach Music Art Festival
Palm Beach Music & Art Festival
Palm Beach Music Art Festival

Palm Beach Music & Art Festival

The Festival was at a drag strip outside of West Palm Beach. Among others, Grand Funk played three nights also. The show featured Iron Butterfly, King Crimson (Robin Fripp and Greg Lake), Jefferson Airplane, Rotary Connection (Minnie Ripperton), PG&E, Rolling Stones, Vanilla Fudge, Janis Joplin and Her Full Tilt Boogie Band, Johnny Winters, and others.

On the third night, Winters played, then Vanilla Fudge, followed by Janis Joplin. Afterwards, the announcer said, Johnny wants it, Janis wants it, and the Fudge wants one. All three bands came out on stage and jammed. Winters jammed with the guitar players and scatted with Janis.

Wavy Gravy was there in his WW2 pilot helmet or whatever it was, guiding a car backwards trying to help them and backed them into the pond. We’d like to think he knew it was the police in an unmarked car and put them in the pond on purpose since we know he didn’t do drugs.

2014 Palm Beach Post retrospective article 

Palm Beach Music Art Festival

Next 1969 festival: Altamont

#1 album, #1 Song, Festivals, Music et al, Music of the 60s

November 6 Music et al

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November 6 Music et al

Jimmy Dean, “Big Bad John”

November 6 Music et al
Jimmy Dean

November 6 – December 10, 1961: “Big Bad John” by Jimmy Dean was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Dean and Roy Acuff composed song. It was released in September 1961 and won Dean the 1962 Grammy Award fir Best Country and Western Recording.

November 6 Music et al

Bill Graham

San Francisco Mime Troupe
November 6 Music et al
poster announcing the fundraiser for the San Franciso Mime Group

November 6, 1965: promoter Bill Graham put on his first show, a benefit for the radical San Francisco Mime Troupe at the Calliope Warehouse in San Francisco. He did it to raise money for a legal defense fund for a member of the troupe who been arrested a few days earlier. The troupe’s offices were in the warehouse and they figured they could hold about 400 – 500 people. The donation to get in was “at least $1.00”. About 4000 people showed up.

For entertainment, Bill hired a band who also rehearsed in the same warehouse. The band was the Jefferson Airplane. They played 3 songs. The Fugs and Lawrence Ferlinghetti were also on the bill. (see Dec 10)

November 6 Music et al

Rolling Stones, “Get Off of My Cloud”

November 6 Music et al
Get Off of My Cloud cover by the Rolling Stones

November 6 – 19, 1965, “Get Off of My Cloud” by the Rolling Stones was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and followed the successful “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”  The Rolling Stones had recorded “Get Off of My Cloud” in early September 1965 and released it that November. It remained at #1 for two weeks. The single was included on the Rolling Stone’s next album, December’s Children (And Everybody’s), released in December, 1965.

In a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Jagger said, “That was Keith’s melody and my lyrics. … It’s a stop-bugging-me, post-teenage-alienation song. The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the early ’60s, and I was coming out of it. America was even more ordered than anywhere else. I found it was a very restrictive society in thought and behavior and dress.“

November 6 Music et al

see Raccoon Creek Rock Festival for more

November 6 – 8, 1969: Livingston Gym, Denison University (Granville, OH). The Who. The Spirit and Johnny Winter. Supporting acts: Owen B, The Dust

November 6 Music et al