SUMMER OF LOVE
40th ANNIVERSARY
June 1967 - June 2007
Graphic By JT Maier Associates
Monterey Pop Festival helped jump-start Summer of Love
By Shay Quillen, MEDIANEWS
Article Last Updated: 06/21/2007 04:36:37 AM PDT
FORTY years ago, a bold experiment called the Monterey International Pop Festival kicked off the Summer of Love with good vibes and some amazing music.
"There wasn't a festival before," says Lou Adler, the L.A.-based music mogul who co-produced the three-day event with musician John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas. "So not having any rules or regulations or standards, nothing was really a barrier. We just jumped in."
An estimated 200,000 people made their way to the Monterey County Fairgrounds on June 16-18, 1967, for the world's first rock festival. L.A. and Bay Area hipsters, newly minted Midwestern hippies and curious Monterey High kids alike paid up to $6.50 a show — or just sneaked in — to see 31 acts, including Jimi Hendrix making his incendiary American debut and soul man Otis Redding wowing, for the first time, what he dubbed "the love crowd."
"Everyone came together, enjoyed the music and put politics aside," says Frank Sollecito, now a Monterey city councilman but at the time a clean-cut football star from Monterey High School. "That's a great name, the Summer of Love, and I think it started right here at Monterey Pop."
It was remarkable that it happened at all.
Adler and Phillips, who died in 2001, took over the dates from the original promoter with just seven weeks to go. They opted to turn what had been envisioned as a for-profit festival into a benefit, with Phillips' band headlining.
READ THE WHOLE STORY HERE:
The Bay Area Insider.
AP - Fri Jun 22, 10:31 PM ET
A crowd keeps a large ball, painted to represent a world globe, in the air during a gathering at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, to celebrate the summer solstice on Thursday, June 21, 1967, day one of 'Summer of Love.' If the Summer of Love established San Francisco as the hub of hippiedom, the summer of 2007 may one day be remembered as a time when the city and the rest of the country commemorated 1960s counterculture by taking the 'counter' out of it. (AP Photo)
The Monterey International Pop Festival Lineup
Friday Evening, June 16
The Association
The Paupers
Lou Rawls
Beverly
Johnny Rivers
Eric Burdon & The Animals
Saturday Afternoon, June 17
Canned Heat
Big Brother & The Holding Company
Country Joe & The Fish
Al Kooper
The Butterfield Blues Band
Quicksilver Messenger Service
The Steve Miller Band
The Electric Flag
Saturday Evening, June 17
Moby Grape
Hugh Masekela
The Byrds
The Butterfield Blues Band
Laura Nyro
Jefferson Airplane
Booker T & The MGs with The Mar-Keys
Otis Redding
Sunday Afternoon, June 18
Ravi Shankar
Sunday Evening, June 18
The Blues Project
Big Brother & The Holding Company
The Group With No Name
Buffalo Springfield
The Who
The Grateful Dead
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Scott McKenzie
The Mamas & The Papas
FROM:
Monterey Intl' Pop Memory
The Monterey International Pop Festival is hot again 40 years later
Official Monterey International Pop Festival BLOG:
CREATED BY:
BOOMERS INTERNATIONAL OFFICIAL SITE
June 2007