Here's the second out of five albums I'm posting that make up the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival. As I mentioned in the first album, the festival was broken up into five parts, and one had to buy tickets for each part. This part consisted of the afternoon show on June 17th, the second day of the festival.
Generally speaking, the different parts didn't really have musical themes, except for this one, because most of the musical acts in this part were heavily influenced by the blues.
As I mentioned in the write-up for the first part, I'm mostly just posting what a person named Simon put together in 2022, with some additions based on material made available since then. As with all the parts, I'm including a PDF Simon made that explains the different sourcing for each of the songs.
Also in my write-up for the first part, I mentioned a Wikipedia link that lists the known songs from the festival, including the ones where there's no publicly available recording. It's worth mentioning that link again:
Monterey Pop Festival set list - Wikipedia
Let's review what's still missing. Canned Heat is known to have played the three songs included here, but also an unknown number of additional songs. The Big Brother and the Holding Company set is complete. This was the concert that turned that band's main lead singer, Janis Joplin, into a big star. In fact, they're the only band to play two sets in the festival. That's because their set here was one of the highlights, but a documentary film crew headed by D.A. Pennebaker failed to record any good footage of the band. So they were brought back to play a few songs on the third and final day.
Al Kooper had been a keyboardist for the Blues Project since 1965, but he quit that band shortly before this festival. The Blues Project got their own spot later in the festival, but Kooper got a solo spot too. (He would go on to form Blood, Sweat and Tears a year later.) According to the Wikipedia set list above, he only played two songs, and one of them is here. But according to a Newsweek article I linked to in the first part, Kooper's set lasted about half an hour, so he probably played more.
There are eight songs here performed by the Butterfield Blues Band, led by Paul Butterfield. Apparently there did more songs. But each act was allowed to up to 40 minutes, and their set already totaled 33 minutes, so there's probably just one or two missing songs. There are just two songs here by the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and they played five. One of the missing ones is a cover of "Who Do You Love," which they usually ended with a long jam. There are two Steve Miller Band songs here, but they played at least one more, "Living in the U.S.A."
The last act for this part of the festival was the Electric Flag. This band was formed in the spring of 1967 by guitarist Mike Bloomfield, and it was led by him, Barry Goldberg, and Buddy Miles. This actually was their very first concert. They would put out a studio album in early 1968 called "A Long Time Comin'," but by then the band's sound had already changed, with founder Bloomfield having less of a role. In fact, he left the band just a couple of months after the album was released. This concert is truer to the original vision he had for the band. There are six songs by them here, which actually is two more than the ones on the Wikipedia set list, so I don't know if there are still more missing ones.
I could say a lot more about all the different performances, but I think the music is all good and generally speaks for itself. The sound quality is excellent throughout, especially considering the time period. A lot of that quality is due to the unusually good sound system. Here's what the Wikipedia article on the festival has to say about that:
"Also notable was the festival's innovative sound system, designed and built by audio engineer Abe Jacob, who started his career doing live sound for San Francisco bands and went on to become a leading sound designer for the American theater. Jacob's groundbreaking Monterey sound system was the progenitor of all the large-scale PAs that followed. It was a key factor in the festival's success and it was greatly appreciated by the artists. For instance, in the 'Monterey Pop' film, David Crosby can clearly be seen saying 'Great sound system!' to band mate Chris Hillman at the start of the Byrds' soundcheck."
Note that that, like all the parts from this festival, this sounds even better than what Simon put together, because I boosted the vocals for the songs that needed that, using the UVR5 audio editing program. About half of the songs needed the boost, though there didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. Some musical acts had low vocals across the board, or not, but often that was only the case for certain songs. Perhaps that's because this is a patchwork, put together from many different sources, both released and unreleased.
By the way, here's a quote about the festival by Steve Miller: "I remember being really happy to be at Monterey, really
excited. It was the first event I attended that was organized in such a
really first-class way from top to bottom."
And here are some quotes about the Big Brother and the Holding Company set, since that was the clear highlight of this part of the festival. Rock critic Keith Altham: "Janis Joplin was the staggering thing I saw on the whole show to me. Because I had never heard a woman sing like that. 'I told her afterwards, "you're the best female rock singer I've ever heard in my life.' She looked me up and down, smiled, and said, 'You get out much, honey?' I thought it was funny. She was very friendly. I liked her."
Record company executive Clive Davis: "When Janis (Joplin) took the stage, it was an unknown group to me totally, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and right from the outset it was something you could never forget. She took the stage, dominated, and was absolutely breathtaking, hypnotic, compelling, and soul shaking. You saw someone who was not only the goods but was doing something that no one else was doing. With that fervor, that intensity, and impact. So yes, that in effect, coupled with everything around me, the way people were dressing, what was going on in Haight Ashbury [the hippie district in San Francisco], the spirit in the air, and the feeling... I just said, 'You know, I am here at a very unique time. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it in my spine. I'm feeling it in my sense of excitement. I'm feeling it in the impact. It's not only musical changes, but in societal changes.'"
Davis immediately had the record company he was working for, Columbia Records, sign the band to a record contract, even though they had to buy out the band's existing contract with another company to do so.
This album is two hours and 27 minutes long.
01 talk (John Phillips)
02 talk (Canned Heat)
03 Rollin' and Tumblin' (Canned Heat)
04 talk (Canned Heat)
05 Dust My Broom (Canned Heat)
06 talk (Canned Heat)
07 Bullfrog Blues (Canned Heat)
08 talk (Chet Helms)
09 Down on Me (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
10 Combination of the Two (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
11 Harry (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
12 Roadblock (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
13 Ball and Chain (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
14 talk (Country Joe & the Fish)
15 Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine (Country Joe & the Fish)
16 talk (Country Joe & the Fish)
17 I-Feel-like-I'm-Fixin'-to Die Rag (Country Joe & the Fish)
18 talk (Country Joe & the Fish)
19 The Bomb Song (Country Joe & the Fish)
20 Section 43 [Instrumental] (Country Joe & the Fish)
21 Wake Me, Shake Me (Al Kooper)
22 Look Over Yonders Wall (Butterfield Blues Band)
23 Mystery Train (Butterfield Blues Band)
24 Born in Chicago (Butterfield Blues Band)
25 Double Trouble (Butterfield Blues Band)
26 Mary Ann (Butterfield Blues Band)
27 Driftin' Blues (Butterfield Blues Band)
28 One More Heartache (Butterfield Blues Band)
29 Droppin' Out (Butterfield Blues Band)
30 Dino's Song [All I Ever Wanted to Do] (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
31 If You Live (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
32 Mercury Blues (Steve Miller Band)
33 Super Shuffle [Instrumental] (Steve Miller Band)
34 talk (David Crosby)
35 Groovin' Is Easy (Electric Flag)
36 I'm Sick Y'All (Electric Flag)
37 Texas (Electric Flag)
38 talk (Electric Flag)
39 Over-Lovin' You (Electric Flag)
40 Night Time Is the Right Time (Electric Flag)
41 Wine [Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee] (Electric Flag)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/1mXxvn3Y
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/hpdZuZUHcB1hh9t/file
Like most of the cover art I've made for this festival, I had too many good options to choose from, so I broke the image into four smaller ones. From top left clockwise: Janis Joplin of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish, Mike Bloomfield of the Electric Flag, and Paul Butterfield of the Butterfield Blues Band.
