Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Festival, held in June 1967, is regarded as a pivotal event in the history of American rock music. Organized by key figures in the music industry, including John Phillips from the Mamas and Papas, the festival aimed to highlight prominent musical acts, especially from California, while also intending to donate its proceeds to charity. Attracting a diverse crowd of approximately fifty thousand attendees, the festival showcased a blend of new and veteran performers over three days, featuring iconic artists such as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, and the Who.
Significantly, the festival marked a departure from traditional concert formats by presenting a variety of acts over multiple days, influencing the structure of future music festivals, including Woodstock. The event not only elevated the profiles of participating bands but also established San Francisco as a major music hub. Its atmosphere of goodwill and communal appreciation among the audience and performers reflected the emerging hippie ethos of peace and love during the 1960s. The festival's legacy continues to resonate in the music industry and popular culture, underscoring its importance within the rock genre and beyond.
Monterey Pop Festival
Date: June 16-18, 1967
The event that inaugurated the 1967 Summer of Love. The Monterey, California, event the nation’s first large-scale rock music festival became the model for many later music extravaganzas.
Origins and History
The Monterey International Pop Festival was the brainchild of two Los Angeles businesspeople who raised money and secured a lease to the fairgrounds where it was held. However, after John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas and his producer-manager, Lou Adler, became involved, they assumed the job of organizing the festival. They created a board of governors that included musicians Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, William “Smokey” Robinson, and Brian Wilson and established a plan to donate the proceeds to charities. The aim of the festival was to showcase the most important musical acts of the period, particularly California bands.
The Festival
On a weekend in June, 1967, a crowd of fifty thousand gathered in Monterey for the first and only Monterey Pop Festival. Despite initial fears, the event took place without any major problems. The Friday evening show was a mixture of new and veteran performers. The Paupers, an unknown Canadian group, gave a surprising performance; Eric Burdon debuted his new version of the Animals; and Johnny Rivers appeared. However, the highlight of the evening was the singing of Simon and Garfunkel.
Saturday afternoon was devoted to the blues, with Los Angeles band Canned Heat starting the show, followed by Country Joe and the Fish, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and the Steve Miller Band. Al Kooper played a solo number on the piano, and Mike Bloomfield, formerly of the Butterfield band, introduced the Electric Flag, who gave a rousing performance. The highlight of the afternoon was the inspired singing of Janis Joplin, lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company. She made such an impression that her band was asked to play again on Sunday night. That second performance is captured in D. A. Pennebaker’s film, Monterey Pop (1969). Saturday night’s proceedings began with Moby Grape, followed by the Byrds and the Jefferson Airplane, featuring new singer Grace Slick. Otis Redding, however, stole the show with a dynamic version of “Try a Little Tenderness.”
Sunday afternoon featured a two-and-a-half-hour performance by Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar, who hypnotized an audience largely unfamiliar with his ragas. On Sunday evening, Blues Project opened, followed by the Buffalo Springfield and the Grateful Dead. The Who, a band that had enjoyed only limited success in the United States, worked itself into a frenzy of smashed guitars, smoke bombs, and feedback that stunned the crowd. Two sets later, the Jimi Hendrix Experience made its U.S. debut. Hendrix topped the Who’s antics when he lit his guitar on fire and smashed it into his amplifier. The Mamas and Papas closed the show with a selection of the group’s most popular songs.
Impact
The festival was a seminal event in the history of American rock and roll. Although annual folk and jazz festivals took place across the country, the Monterey event was the first carefully organized rock festival. Before the Monterey event, typically a collection of bands toured a number of cities, putting on predictably choreographed performances. However, the concept of a collection of bands performing over a number of days was repeated at events in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, the Isle of Wight, and Woodstock.
After the festival, San Francisco became an established music capital, with its own recording studios and a thriving community of musicians and producers. The Monterey Pop Festival brought widespread attention to a host of bands that had been known primarily in San Francisco. The festival boosted the sales of albums that had been released by the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Moby Grape, and Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Steve Miller Band, Electric Flag, and Big Brother and the Holding Company managed to parlay their appearances into recording contracts. Other artists also found themselves with an instant reputation and lucrative contracts, most notably Hendrix, Redding, and the Who.
The best aspect of the festival was the spirit of good will. The crowds were especially appreciative of the bands and remarkably tolerant of each other, and many band members calmly mingled with their fans. To most observers, this behavior seemed the perfect embodiment of the hippie ethos of peace and love, and it set the tone for the remarkably docile spirit of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
Additional Information
The most comprehensive treatment of the festival is Joel Selvin’s Monterey Pop (1992). Other important accounts include Robert Christgau’s Any Old Way You Choose It: Rock and Other Pop Music, 1967-1973 (1973), Jack McDonough’s San Francisco Rock: The Illustrated History of San Francisco Rock Music (1985), Gary Herman’s Rock ’n’ Roll Babylon (1982), and D. A. Pennebaker’s film, Monterey Pop (1969).