Tag Archives: Festivals

Anniversary, Festivals, Grateful Dead, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Big Rock Pow Wow

10 Comments

Big Rock Pow Wow

Seminole Indian Village, West Hollywood, FL

23 – 25 May 1969

1969’s 8th Rock Festival

Aum…”Mississippi Mud”

Big Rock Pow Wow

Big Rock Pow Wow

1969 Festival #8

The third of the 1969 Memorial Day weekend festivals is perhaps the most interesting. It wasn’t filmed so pictures of the event are hard to come by. It wasn’t recorded either. Well, mostly.

Fortunately for us, the Grateful Dead played the Big Rock Pow Wow that weekend (twice) and, as they typically did, recorded themselves. Today that recording (and an excellent one it is!) is available as Road Trips Vol 4 #1. Both shows are available to listen to via the Internet Archive: Friday 23 May 1969 & Saturday 24 May 1969.  The legendary Owsley “Bear” Stanley recorded them.

Big Rock Pow Wow

Big Rock Pow Wow

Johnny Winter

The festival attracted only a few thousand people, but the line-up was a solid one. One of the performers I want to point out is Johnny Winter. The reason I want to do that is because as we move through the calendar and I blog about the many other 1969 festivals, one should note how many times you see his name. He is all over the place. Actually at the end of April, Woodstock Ventures had already signed him ($7,500) to play at their upcoming middle-of-nowhere festival in Wallkill, NY.

Big Rock Pow Wow

Three days w repeats

Sweetwater would also appear at that august event.

Here is advertised lineup by day:

Big Rock Pow Wow

Arts included

According to the Grateful Dead site: “There was Seminole dancing and chants onstage and off—and the adjacent restored Seminole village was bustling with native crafts-makers (and sellers), as well as various hippie merchants peddling their wares. Because the festival took place on Seminole land, there were no police or conventional security. Timothy Leary’s “people” were somehow involved in putting on the event and Dr. Tim wandered the grounds and occasionally spoke from the stage. “Orange sunshine” acid was everywhere.” 

Big Rock Pow Wow

Aum

The band Aum [members were Wayne Ceballos (guitar, piano), Kenneth Newell (bass), and Larry Martin (drums).] from San Francisco played also.

Aum is another of those good bands that came and went but had the eye of people like Bill Graham who put Aum on his record label for their second (and last) album. It is their “Mississippi Mud” you hear a piece of at the top of today’s entry.

Big Rock Pow Wow

Next 1969 festival: First Annual Detroit Rock & Roll Revival

Festivals, FM Radio, Music et al

Radio Woodstock

3 Comments

Radio Woodstock

Radio Woodstock

Radio Woodstock

AM Radio

I grew up in the 50s and early 60s listening to New York City’s pop radio stations WINS-AM (Murray the K), WABC-AM (Cousin Brucie), and WMCA-AM (B Mitchel Reed). In the hope of avoiding another advertisement and finding a hit song,  my constant switching of stations drove my parents crazy.     

The birth of FM rock stations in the late ’60s rescued and weaned me from that non-stop barrage of advertising and rapid chatter. 

Radio Woodstock

FM Rock arrives

It may seem like FM’s wonderful days of diverse music and sensible DJ commentary are long gone, but like Mom’s adage that if we “go looking for trouble, we’ll find it,” if you go looking for radio stations that still provide that satisfying mix of old, new, borrowed, and blue, you’ll find them.

And with today’s access to the internet, that search is not limited to the 30-mile circumference around your ears.

During the early summer of 1966, I saw a billboard about a new station. An FM station. WOR-FM. I found it and thought I’d found radio heaven, particularly since for the first few months of its existence there were no DJs…union issues. Just song after song after song. Its setlist was a lot like AM, but I didn’t know what was coming. 

A year later WOR decided that their DJs didn’t need choice. One of them, Rosko, resigned on the air. Shortly later, he moved to WNEW-FM which had become the station of choice for most Boomers seeking radio nirvana.

WNEW-FM and its amazing family of DJs are gone, but Woodstock Radio (located in Bearsville, NY — why is it that so many “Woodstock” things aren’t actually in Woodstock?) is a great choice today.

Radio Woodstock

April 29, 1980

WDST first aired on April 29, 1980 and described itself as  “public radio with commercials“. Though CHET-5 Broadcasting bought the station in 1993, Radio Woodstock continues to provide a great mix of music with DJs who don’t get in the way, but still have a voice.

In keeping with its famously known name associated with the Woodstock Music and Art Fair (held in Bethel, NY, not Woodstock, NY), WDST celebrated its 25th anniversary with the first Mountain Jam. Held every year since the first festival in 2004. That festival was a single day with a single stage. Nowadays, the event typically has three stages and takes place over 4 days.

Radio Woodstock

Mountain Jam 2020…COVID’ed

In 2019 the festival moved from Hunter Mountain, to  Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and tried to return for 2020

The music you love is still out there. Like finding trouble, just go look for it!
Happy birthday Radio Woodstock!
Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

1968 Miami Pop Festival

Leave a comment

1968 Miami Pop Festival

Before 1969

While my aim is to have pieces describing each of 1969’s many festivals, mentioning a pre-1969 one is often useful as the several that preceded 1969’s memorable year (capped by the Woodstock Music and Art Fair) helped encourage promoters to expand the number.

1968 Miami Pop Festival
Miami Pop Festival

There were two Miami Pop Festivals in 1968. The first one was in May and Woodstock organizer Michael Lang  played a minor role in that festival’s promotion.

1968 Miami Pop Festival
cover for Miami Pop Festival program

The second Miami Pop Festival began on December 28. An estimated 100,000 attended the three-day concert.  It was produced by Tom Rounds and Mel Lawrence, who had previously produced the seminal KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival in California. [A side note, the Fantasy Fair occurred before the Monterrey Pop Festival and so is actually considered the first rock festival.]

According to Rolling Stone (February 1, 1969), the Miami festival was “a monumental success in almost every aspect, the first significant — and truly festive — international pop festival held on the East Coast.” Hallandale city officials, horrified by visions of stoned hippies dancing naked at Gulfstream, nixed plans for a second Miami Pop Festival.

1968 Miami Pop Festival

1968

Among the performers, were future Woodstock stars, the Grateful Dead, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Richie Havens, Sweetwater, Canned Heat, and Country Joe and the Fish.

Of course it’s difficult to find recordings or film of the event, but we are twice lucky. There is a film/still shot combination video of Jimi Hendrix doing “Foxy Lady.”

1968 Miami Pop Festival

The Dead

And of course the Grateful Dead did record their performance. You can listen to it through the AMAZING collection at the Internet Archive site: Dead in Miami

According to Wikipedia’s entry, some unique stories of the event were that:

  • Joni Mitchell invited Graham Nash and Richie Havens  to join her onstage to sing Dino Valenti’s “Let’s Get Together“
  • Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady played bass guitar with Country Joe & the Fish
  • it was the first rock festival to have separate ‘main’ stages several hundred yards apart (the Flower Stage and the Flying Stage).

There is also some additional information from Miami.com which includes several pictures

1968 Miami Pop Festival