Category Archives: Music of the 60s

Beatles, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

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John Yoko Give Peace Chance

June 1, 1969

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

Apolitical Beatles

While the Beatles as a group typically remained apolitical, their fame visibility, and life style put them on the world stage whether they wanted to be there or not.

1969 and the Vietnam war continued despite new President Nixon’s promises to end it. The Beatles were still recording as a group (they’d begin the Abbey Road  album  in exactly a month) and were still controversial (radio stations were banning the “Balled Of John and Yoko” because of the line “Christ you know it ain’t easy.”)

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

John & Yoko

It seemed the more others criticized Yoko Ono and her supposed negative impact on The Beatles, the more John fell in love with her and wanted to prove to the world he wasn’t listening to those criticisms.

John and Yoko had married on March 20, 1969 and began a number of peaceful events to promote peace and end war. In an Amsterdam interview he said: What we’re really doing is sending out a message to the world, mainly to the youth, especially the youth or anybody really that’s interested in protesting for peace, or protesting against any forms of violence and we say everybody’s getting a bit heavy or bit intellectual about it. Everybody’s talking about peace, but nobody’s doing anything about it, except for a few people, and the things like the Grosvenor Square marches in London. The end product of it was just newspaper stories about riots and fighting. And we did the bed event in Amsterdam and the Bag Piece in Vienna just to give people an idea, that there’s many ways of protest and this is one of them. And anybody could grow their hair for peace or give up a week of their holiday for peace or sit in a bag for peace, protest against peace anyway, but peacefully. Because we think that peace is only got by peaceful methods and that to fight the establishment with their own weapons is no good, because they always win and they’d been winning for thousands of years. They know how to play the game ‘violence’ and it’s easier for them when they can recognize you and shoot you. They don’t know how to handle humor, and peaceful humor. And that’s our message really.

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

Toronto Bed-In


 One of these events, a Bed In, took place in Toronto and on June 1, 1969 they recorded “Give Peace a Chance” while in their room with several others helping such as including Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Dick Gregory, Allen Ginsberg, DJ Murry the K, Derek Taylor, and Tommy Smothers. Smothers also played acoustic guitar with Lennon.

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

Recording song

The recording became the first single released by Lennon while still a Beatle. It was even credited at first as a Lennon-McCartney tune.

Lennon and Ono performed the song live on September 13, 1969 at the Toronto Peace Festival. Their band was called the Plastic Ono Band and included Klaus Voorman, Alan White, and Eric Clapton.

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

Lyrics

Ev’rybody’s talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m

All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

C’mon
Ev’rybody’s talking about Ministers
Sinisters, Banisters and canisters
Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Pop eyes
And bye bye, bye byes

All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Let me tell you now
Ev’rybody’s talking about
Revolution, evolution, masturbation
Flagellation, regulation, integrations
Meditations, United Nations
Congratulations

All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Ev’rybody’s talking about
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper
Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer
Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna
Hare, Hare Krishna

All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

Legacy

The song has become one of the most powerful peace songs ever written and is still sung today.

John Yoko Give Peace Chance

More about John & Yoko in Canada via The Conversation dot com

Festivals, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Detroit Rock Roll Revival

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Detroit Rock Roll Revival

Michigan State Fairgrounds
May 30 & 31, 1969
Sun Ra…”Atlantis”

First Annual Detroit Rock & Roll Revival

Detroit Rock and Roll Revival

1969 festival #9

The First Annual Detroit Rock and Roll Revival is #9 on the list of 1969 festivals . With any of these festivals, one should not look at the price of admission and sigh with envy. Everything looks less expensive, but keep in mind that the 1969 minimum wage was $1.60 and of course, like now, not everyone even earned that minimum. And if you did, your gross pay for a 40 hour week was $64 or $3328 per year [table].

And like nearly every other festival that summer, recording or filming it did not happen. That being the case, we have to imagine what the festival sounded like. Sun Ra is what I placed at the top of this entry. A whole book is necessary to explain the amazing Sun Ra and his many contributions to jazz and the arts.

Ubiquitous Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter was there and as I’ve pointed out in the earlier posts on 1969’s festivals Winter was seemingly at all of them.

Psychedelic Stooges   

The Psychedelic Stooges might not sound familiar, but Iggy Pop and the Stooges certainly will…

MC5 

The MC5 (“Motor City 5”) were the “big” name and their song “Kick Out the Jams” typified their far left in-your-face pre-punk sound. Under the “management” of John Sinclair. Sinclair was the founder of the White Panthers and was sentenced to ten years in prison in 1969 after giving two joints to an undercover narcotics officer. Sinclair was infamously referred to by Abbie Hoffman at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair that August during the Who set. Pete Townshend was not happy about it.

Here is an amazing example of an MC5 performance 14 months later at Tarter Field, Wayne State University on July 19, 1970.

Detroit Rock and Roll Revival

Line-up

First Annual Detroit Rock & Roll Revival

  • MC5
  • Chuck Berry
  • Sun Ra
  • Dr John the Night Tripper
  • Johnny Winter
  • Psychedelic Stooges
  • Terry Reid
  • Amboy Dukes
  • SRC
  • Frost
  • Rationals
  • Teegarden & Van Winkle
  • Lyman Woodward
  • Up
  • Wilson Mower Pursuit
  • 3rd Power
  • NY Rock & Roll Ensemble
  • David Peel
  • Lower East Side
  • Red, White, & Blues
  • Sky-Train
  • Savage Grace
  • James Gang
  • Caste
  • Gold Bros
  • Dutch Elm

While not one that might make a Festival Hall of Fame, it certainly had it’s share of great music.

Detroit Rock and Roll Revival

Next 1969 festival: Sunrise to Sunset Festival

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Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

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CSN Crosby Stills Nash

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

May 29, 1969
CSN Crosby Stills Nash

E Pluribus Unum

The Hollies were part of the British Invasion on the heels of America’s Beatlemania and we first heard them on “Look Through Any Window” without realizing we were listening to Graham Nash.

The Byrds were part of “that” California sound that provided counterpoint to the Beatles. It was Roger McGuinn whose voice we were hearing mainly, but David Crosby’s was an important part, too.

We likely thought Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” was a war-protest song, not realizing it was about teenagers being allowed to stay out late. If someone had said Stephen Stills we may or may not have recognized the name.

Then we found out that Buffalo Springfield was no more; that the Byrds kicked David Crosby out of the band.

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

April 1969

In early April 1969, the brand new Rolling Stone magazine had an article about the three finishing their album. The article gave high praise to this latest “supergroup” : “The album, as yet untitled, is arguably the most talked-about LP-in-progress in Los Angeles, one of the most talked-about in the industry.”

When Atlantic did release the album on May 29, 1969 such praise gave it an automatic boost. Unlike today, the group did not tour beforehand nor did  it tour right away.  And by the time they got to Woodstock and sang in front of the half million strong it was only their second gig. And they were, quote, “scared shitless.”

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

Crosby, Stills & Nash album

Though they were new, Crosby, Stills and Nash (no Oxford comma) did not need Woodstock and it’s accompanying movie and triple album exposure (Warner Bros owned the rights…Atlantic by this time was under WB’s umbrella…and Cotillion, the Woodstock album’s label was under Atlantic’s umbrella), but it helped of course.

The CS & N album went on to have two hit singles (” “Marrakesh Express” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” ) and  itself peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. It now has had sales of over 4,200,000 copies.

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

Cover trivia

Some trivia about the well-known album cover taken by the famed Henry Diltz. When Diltz took the photo, the band hadn’t settled on a name yet, but did within a day or two. Realizing that the band name did not match the photo, they returned to re-shoot. Unfortunately, the building had been demolished in the interim.

When the jacket is fully opened the “whole” photo appears. At least it appears to appear with drummer Dallas Taylor Prisoner of Woodstock. That part of the photo was pasted in later with a photo of Taylor posed in Crosby’s door.

The PopSpots site has a great picture essay about the cover.

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

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