Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 5: Van Morrison, Linda Tillery, Lydia Pense, and More

Here's the fifth set from the fifth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. So this is the very last album of the series. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set is a spontaneous jam session featuring pretty much any musician who wanted to be on stage.

Promoter Bill Graham wanted his final night of the week of concerts closing the Fillmore West to go out with a bang. So the radio station broadcast on KSAN continued until the early morning hours as the jamming continued. Surprisingly, Van Morrison didn't get a set of his own at any point that week. But maybe that was in order to save him as a surprise for this final jam session, I don't know. For the song list below, I'm only including the prominent lead vocalists for the songs that had vocals. You can see Van Morrison sang on most of the songs. But Linda Tillery of the band the Loading Zone sang quite a lot, as did Lydia Pense, of the band Cold Blood. 

But those weren't the only ones on stage. I found information that at least these other musicians were on stage during this jam session: Carlos Santana, Sam Andrew (Big Brother & the Holding Company), Michael Bloomfield, Jack Casady (Hot Tuna), John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service), Vince Guaraldi, George Hunter (an artist who did many record covers), George Marsh (the Loading Zone), Bernard Purdie (a jazz drummer), and members of Tower of Power. The biggest surprise there for me is Vince Guaraldi, a jazz musician best known for his soundtracks to Charlie Brown TV specials.

It's clear no songs were carefully practiced for this jam session in advance. So the musicians stuck to simple songs that most everyone on stage was likely to know, or at least could fake it, such as "Johnny B. Goode" and "Roll Over Beethoven." 

A Rolling Stone Magazine article written just after the concert had this to say about the final jam session: "[Bill] Graham and his staff pelted the audience with gifts – paper plates, beer, champagne, and ice cubes. Sometime between 4 and 5 A.M., everyone gave up and went home. About 40 fans stuck around to shake hands with Graham, then left him to wander alone among the amps and debris." 

We actually have a photo of Graham "wandering alone among the amps and debris," so, what the heck, I'll show that here. 

It sounds like the Fillmore West was a great venue, and certainly a lot of phenomenal music was performed there during its relatively brief run, from 1968 to 1971. At least it went out in proper style with these concerts. 

This album is 55 minutes long. 

01 talk (Jam Band)
02 Rock Me Baby (Van Morrison & Linda Tillery)
03 I Found a Love (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
04 Flute and Guitar Jam [Instrumental] (Jam Band)
05 talk (Jam Band)
06 Roll Over Beethoven (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
07 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
08 Johnny B. Goode (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
09 My Angel Baby - Sh-Boom - Blue Moon - My Angel Baby (Linda Tillery)
10 Final Jam [Instrumental] (Jam Band)

https://bestfile.io/en/fBIQ5OtldjBWT6P/file

Once again, I got lucky with the cover art. The cover only shows Van Morrison, but apparently it comes from this exact concert.