Monterey Pop Festival

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The Monterey International Pop Festival music festival was planned by John Phillips ( The Mamas and the Papas ), music producer Lou Adler and publicist Derek Taylor . The Beatles and The Beach Boys also sat on the organizing committee . It was held from June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairground in California .

description

The Monterey Pop Festival is the musical prelude to the so-called " hippie culture" ( Flower Power , Love and Peace Generation ). In total, between 50,000 and 90,000 people attended the festival. Bringing out a documentary about what was happening was Hollywood's concern from the start. In 1968 came DA Penne Bakers Strip Monterey Pop as "non-commercial" film of the organization The Foundation out.

Many of the most famous interpreters of pop music performed, including Jimi Hendrix , Otis Redding , The Who , Big Brother and the Holding Company (with their singer Janis Joplin ), Steve Miller Band , The Electric Flag , The Butterfield Blues Band , Canned Heat , Eric Burdon & The Animals , Jefferson Airplane and The Byrds . Ravi Shankar played classical Indian raga music on the sitar with his ensemble .

Some of the concerts were later published as live recordings on long-playing records (e.g. Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar). The artistic director of the festival was Tom Wilkes .

The fact that pop musicians began to be more enthusiastic about the synthesizer can partly be traced back to the festival; Robert Moog had a demo booth there that attracted a lot of attention.

Cancellations for the festival

  • Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys , who helped develop the concept for the concert, pulled the Beach Boys back at the last minute. The group should have ended the festival as the main attraction.
  • The Beatles did not accept the invitation to play live and were subsequently dismissed from the organizing committee.
  • Also, The Rolling Stones did not occur. Guitarist Brian Jones announced the appearance of Jimi Hendrix on stage.
  • Dionne Warwick canceled the performance on the grounds that she already had other commitments.
  • Neil Young stayed away from the festival, so he had to be replaced as guitarist and singer for the band Buffalo Springfield by David Crosby . Their appearance was announced by Peter Tork from The Monkees .
  • The Kinks had agreed to participate, but did not get a visa from the USA because they were in dispute with the American musicians' union.
  • Donovan could not get a visa to the United States because he violated the Narcotics Act in 1966.
  • Cream canceled because their band manager had planned other appearances for the band's US debut.

Order of appearances

Friday June 16

Saturday 17th June

Sunday June 18th

Effects

The appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival brought the breakthrough for some musicians, for Otis Redding also outside the soul scene , for Jimi Hendrix and The Who , who were already successful in England, now also in the USA, and for Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company , it was the breakthrough ever.

The festival itself was the first in a series of major (rock) festivals. A repetition in the following year failed despite persistent efforts by John Phillips due to the slow resistance of the city administration.

Eric Burdon & the New Animals later released the song Monterey on the album The Twain Shall Meet . In the text, Eric Burdon mentions some of the participating musicians and briefly imitates the respective musical style.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Murray, Charles Shaar: Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the Post-War Pop , Faber and Faber, London 1989, ISBN 0-571-14936-7 .