Original Rock Festival Is Returning
Fifty years ago, the idea of the rock festival was hatched with a simple ambition: to get the same respect as jazz.
Lou Adler, the Los Angeles record producer, recalls a meeting in the spring of 1967 where he, Paul McCartney and the Mamas and the Papas discussed what became the Monterey International Pop Festival. “The conversation drifted toward the fact that rock ’n’ roll was not considered an art form in the way that jazz was,” said Mr. Adler, 83. “With the possibility of doing something at Monterey, at the same place as the jazz festival, it just seemed like a validation to us.”
Monterey Pop, held June 16 to 18, 1967, in Monterey, California, was pivotal. It served as the blueprint for the explosion of rock festivals that culminated in Woodstock, and with its crowds of face-painted hippies and slogan of “music, love and f lowers,” Monterey defined the Summer of Love.
Monterey was the breakout moment for Jimi Hendrix, who lit his guitar on fire, and Janis Joplin, who was quickly signed by another fresh face, Clive Davis of Columbia Records. The Who, Ravi Shankar and Otis Redding got some of their first exposure to the American mainstream there. “It was a great hang,” said Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. “Everybody was there — everybody but the Beatles.”
Exactly 50 years later, the festival will be celebrated with a new event, held at the fairgrounds from June 16 to 18. Featuring Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, Gary Clark Jr., Jim James, Kurt Vile, the Head the Heart and Mr. Lesh with his Terrapin Family Band.
It will lead a wave of commemorations for Monterey Pop’s half- century. The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles has an exhibition that includes items from Mr. Adler’s collection, and “Monterey Pop,” the documentary by D. A. Pennebaker, will get a new theatrical release this month.
As important as it became, the original Monterey Pop did not have terribly auspicious beginnings. Michelle Phillips, of the Mamas and the Papas, remembers a meeting where her group was pitched on playing Monterey. “I thought it was a ridiculous idea,” she recalled. “How are you going to get all those musicians there, and pay them, and put them up, and make a profit?”
But Mr. Adler and John Phillips, Ms. Phillips’s husband and bandmate, took the event over. They made the festival a charity event, with artists playing for free, and put together a “board of governors” that included Mick Jagger, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, Donovan, Smokey Robinson and Mr. McCartney.
The board acted as a magnet for talent. Mr. McCartney suggested the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which had just exploded on the London scene. San Francisco groups like Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had Joplin, a littleknown singer, also played. The event was put together in six or seven weeks.
In the conservative enclave of Monterey, the authorities’ fear of drugs and crime became an obstacle. Mr. Pennebaker’s film captures that tension, as well as the good vibrations that triumphed. Festival attendees are shown giving flowers to smiling policemen.
Mr. Adler said that as many as 100,000 people attended over the three days. The festival went on without major incident, but it never had a sequel. The Monterey community had a hostile reaction to being overrun, Mr. Adler said, but Monterey Pop was also a victim of its own success, as competing festivals sprouted up everywhere and booking agents for the new breed of rock stars realized their negotiating leverage. “It was a different music business all of a sudden,” Mr. Adler said.
Concerts have progressed to a scale that would be unrecognizable in 1967, with V.I.P. ticket packages, corporate sponsorship and smartphone apps. But the times have parallels, like musicians reacting to political events.
“If you look at the spirit of the times at Monterey, I think there’s a very similar spirit now, when there’s so much at stake in the world and so much trouble in the world,” said Mr. James, who is also the leader of the band My Morning Jacket. “We need as many reasons as possible to get together in the name of peace and love.”
And this time, the bands will be paid.