Blue Moon Edition August 2023
It’s not where it started but it’s where the world took notice in a very big way. $18 got you three days of peace, love, rain and mud, a taste of anarchy and a sense that everything was going to be all right in the end. And it was.
And it got you a pretty astonishing cross section of the music that was happening at the time, folkies Baez, Guthrie, Hardin, and Havens; ethereal Incredible String Band and Sweetwater; raga Ravi Shankar; are you kidding me Iron Butterfly; and all the blues, country, psychedelic, and full blast hard rock you could handle. The ad didn’t even mention Jimi Hendrix, who was the headliner. It was bliss!
It also was a very big boost to many of those performers. Visibility it is called. And the reason all this comes to mind it that I’d like some of my own. I write these newsletters every two weeks and if you like them, I ask you to share them. Please forward them to your friends, your contacts, anyone you know who might have an interest in being in touch with me, even if just briefly to see if they find it entertaining or otherwise worth their time. I would appreciate it and perhaps they will, too!
This is a Test. It is only a Test. An Eye Test, as a matter of fact, circa 1967-68. Can you read it now? Could you read it then? Maybe if you focused, took your time, indulged in a little reefer to bring clarity to the endeavor. Back then, I mean.
It is a poster for a concert at the Avalon Ballroom with Blue Cheer and Country Joe and the Fish. Lights by Diogenes Lantern Works. The venue held some 500 fans, an astonishingly intimate gathering by today’s standards. Tickets were a couple of bucks.
From personal experience, we can be certain all of them gladly joined Country Joe in saluting President Richard Nixon with the Fish Cheer. We can also be certain that Blue Cheer left all of them with an intense ringing in their ears for a day or two afterward. It was a glorious time.
On the other side of the country in 1965 at the Cafe au GOGO, Judy Roderick and Artie Traum were headlining. Her album, Woman Blue, was released that year, one of the seminal records of the folk music scene and she was a terrific singer. Artie was no slouch either. Our friend Sandy Phelps was there and says the show was great.
The opening act was John Hammond, Jr. who was a force in that scene himself and was backed by Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Jimmy soon enough would be known as Jimi and took a back seat to nobody when it came to making music.
Dylan had just gone electric, folk-rock was the new idiom, the writing was on the walI. It gives you an indication of Judy’s talent in those waning days of folk music that she and Artie held the room coming on stage with just their voices and acoustic guitars after an opening act like that one.