Who was hurt the most by not being in the Monterey Pop movie?

The only problem with that theory is that the Northern California audience knew exactly what to expect...Laura Nyro
had had a monster top 10 hit in the Bay Area with "Wedding Bell Blues" in November of 1966...So her popularity was
well-established in the bay area when she performed at Monterey.

 

They have that story about getting banned from US hotels because of their hedonistic lifestyle on the road, so they started claiming to be Fleetwood Mac (who weren't yet famous in the US) and got them banned as well. So I'm guessing they must have appeared there.

Given the great reception Otis Redding got, I don't see what makes anyone think being backed by "a black chic trio" would hurt with that crowd.

 

Love, no question about it.

They were the toast of LA in 1966, admired by their friends/label mates The Doors, influenced Syd Barrett musically and Jimi Hendrix fashion wise and many other artists in many different ways. Even Pete Sinfield of King Crimson was happy about Arthur's comeback in the 2000's. Apparently each album went further down the charts in the USA, but climbed higher in the UK. They could have used the Monterey boost.

Johnny Echols tells the story of an altercation with Lou Adler which sealed their fate in the Love Story documentary. I really wish they had done it because I would love some live footage of the original lineup. Add in the huge crowd, the built in following that still thought highly of them at that time, and it would have been a knockout. It also didn't help that the band had personal and drug problems. They spent that summer trying to get it together to make Forever Changes. To me, the biggest missed opportunity since it all started to go downhill career wise. Now they are a highly respected cult band. I wish they had gotten bigger...

 

David Crosby also had some lovely on-stage banter in that show about how world peace could happen if politicians started taking LSD, I think he attributed that idea to Paul McCartney too!

Yeah, just begging to be censored.

 

I remember that. I've got the CD in the car. I'll have to play it again.

 

No they weren't. They had a number one by then,
something the Who never achieved, I think the Who had better management. It would have been
a master stroke to get them there, would have broken them in the US for sure.

At the time of Monterey, Loog would have been their manager I think, and none of his stable appeared.
(goes to Twitter to ask Loog why)

 

No they weren't. They had a number one by then,
something the Who never achieved, I think the Who had better management. It would have been
a master stroke to get them there, would have broken them in the US for sure.

At the time of Monterey, Loog would have been their manager I think, and none of his stable appeared.
(goes to Twitter to ask Loog why)

tim on Twitter »

 

No they weren't. They had a number one by then,
something the Who never achieved, I think the Who had better management.
At the time of Monterey, Loog would have been their manager I think, and none of his stable appeared.
(goes to Twitter to ask Loog why)

 

No they weren't. They had a number one by then,
something the Who never achieved, I think the Who had better management.
At the time of Monterey, Loog would have been their manager I think, and none of his stable appeared.
(goes to Twitter to ask Loog why)

 

LOL

I am now 0-for-2 on the memory front.

 

But still you're very entertaining!

 

Also, Lou Rawls played the Monterey Festival too. So if the crowd was okay with Lou, I'm sure they could handle Laura Nyro.

 

Two other acts who were invited but did not play:

Smokey Robinson, who somehow ended up on the Board of Directors for the Festival, but supposed did not do anything.

And

Chuck Berry

With regard to Chuck, John Phillips said: "Chuck Berry was invited. I told him on the phone, ‘Chuck, it’s for charity,’ and he said to me, ‘Chuck Berry has only one charity and that’s Chuck Berry. $2,000.’ We couldn’t make an exception."

 

Andrew Loog Oldham on Twitter »


answer from Loog re Small Faces and Stones

 

I've always found it remarkable and most peculiar that Petula Clark was supposedly the first act booked for the festival.


She never played Monterey in the end, but I imagine her career probably would have received a further boost --- perhaps garnering that ever-elusive, all-important street cred that she so desperately needed --- had she performed and been included in the film.


Even if Pet had delivered a rapturous set that wowed the crowd, her appearance probably wouldn't have made the movie's final cut. Like Johnny Rivers, footage of her performance would have been relegated to the editing room floor.


"Oh, Pet's too un-hip to fit" or some other nonsense probably would have been proffered as the justification for her exclusion. Perhaps there's a bit of truth in that narrow-minded judgment, but had the festival organizers strictly adhered to booking only hipster acts, then there would have been very few artists on the bill. The weekend-long event could have been trimmed down to one evening of music...

And the Monterey Pop film would have lost its brilliance and core strength: its showcasing of spectacular musical eclecticism.

 

Although there were many performers at the Festival, these were the ones who fared the best:

In no particular order:

Otis
Jimi
Janis
The Who

I'd even go so far to say that it would not have mattered who the rest of the acts were. Those 4 acts listed above were/are the ones that everyone remembers. Even if other acts had excellent sets, their appearance at the Festival was a non-factor.

 

Complete list of acts:

Friday, June 16

• The Association
• The Paupers
• Lou Rawls
• Beverly
• Johnny Rivers
• Eric Burdon and The Animals
• Simon & Garfunkel

Saturday, June 17

• Canned Heat
• Big Brother and the Holding Company
• Country Joe and the Fish
• Al Kooper
• The Butterfield Blues Band
• The Electric Flag
• Quicksilver Messenger Service
• Steve Miller Band
• Moby Grape
• Hugh Masekela
• The Byrds
• Laura Nyro
• Jefferson Airplane
• Booker T. & the M.G.'s
• The Mar-Keys
• Otis Redding

Sunday, June 18

• Ravi Shankar
• The Blues Project
• Big Brother and the Holding Company
• The Group With No Name
• Buffalo Springfield (played w/ David Crosby)
• The Who
• Grateful Dead
• The Jimi Hendrix Experience
• Scott McKenzie
• The Mamas & the Papas

 

Interesting that the Grateful Dead went on stage in between The Who and Jimi. The legendary story (hyped up after the fact probably) was always that The Who and Jimi didn't want to go on after the other because they were afraid of being upstaged. BUT with the Dead slotted in between them, any competition between The Who and Jimi was a mute point.

 

Does a complete list of each act's setlist exist somewhere?

 

Wikipedia has a set list (of course, Wiki has been known to get things wrong, so there could be a error or two):

Monterey Pop Festival (set list) - Wikipedia »

 

Also note that Big Brother & The Holding Company played on two days: Saturday and Sunday!

 

If we're going to be that speculative, how about the Velvet Underground? That's an act that would have been helped immensely by being included in the film, no matter how long after the festival it was released.

One can only imagine the reaction of the hippies to Lou's bad vibes...

 

One thing you may not understand is that most all musicians have a far wider range of music appreciation and understanding of what it takes to even have a career.
Where most music fans are very parochial, judgmental and don't have a clue.

Look at the list of artists and tell us in your opinion how "hip" Lou Rawls is.

 

Why are people assuming that the place was filled with "hippies"
Were any of you alive and living in California at the time?
How many hippies were there?
I'd venture to say that there were far more surfers than hippies walking around then.

BTW, I too have seen the Laura Nyro footage and it's fantastic.
Where ever those clown reviewers got their impression that it was a nightclub act are delusional.

 

Might be interesting in anyone has access to the early "Rolling Stone" magazines and see what they wrote at the time.

The "IEOR" of 1977 I quoted earlier are critical of Nyro's Monterey appearance but praise her 1970s albums as a "singer and pianist of exceptional power and vision".