Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-2-1972, Part 1: David Peel, Herbie Mann, J. Geils Band & More

Here is the first part of the second day of the 1972 Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. I'm doing this day by day, so this goes back to "Part 1" instead of "Part 4" of the entire festival. This is kind of a grab-bag for musical acts from the second day where I only have small portions of their sets.

Unfortunately, so much time has passed since this festival that a lot has been lost. I only was able to learn some basics about which acts performed on which day (though even that is sometimes questionable, especially since some of the acts performed more than once), and which ones were the headliners. Also, only bits and pieces of the music have survived. I've previously mentioned the official double album, "Mar y Sol: The First International Puerto Rico Pop Festival," long out of print. Some of the songs on this album come from that. (Specifically, tracks 1, 11, and 13.) But most of the songs come from an audience bootleg I mentioned in my previous write-ups. The good news is that the sound quality is surprisingly good for an audience bootleg. I didn't try any of my usual audio editing tricks on those songs, because they sounded like a soundboard already. But the bad news is how we often have only portions of many sets. For instance, I'm sure Dr. John played a lot more than just one song! I assume all the acts here performed more songs. But something is better than nothing.

The J. Geils Band set is the longest here, at 22 minutes. A New York Times review that was down on the festival in general liked that performance, at least, writing, "The J. Gells band finally played a set that deserved the accolades it has received in the past." Too bad there isn't more of it. 

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 Wang Dang Doodle (Dr. John)
02 All the Things You Are [Instrumental] (Dave Brubeck & Gerry Mulligan)
03 Take Five [Instrumental] (Dave Brubeck & Gerry Mulligan)
04 The Pope Smokes Dope (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
05 talk (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
06 Up Against the Wall (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
07 talk (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
08 New York City Hippie (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
09 Mother Where Is My Father (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
10 Memphis Underground [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
11 Respect Yourself [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
12 Never Can Say Goodbye [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
13 talk (J. Geils Band)
14 Looking for a Love (J. Geils Band)
15 talk (J. Geils Band)
16 Homework (J. Geils Band)
17 Crusin' for a Love (J. Geils Band)
18 Sno-Cone [Instrumental] (J. Geils Band)
19 Wait (J. Geils Band)
20 talk (J. Geils Band)
21 Whammer Jammer (J. Geils Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/77vXqgBR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0qsJyXsMdlKWoD1/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Herbie Mann playing flute in front, with other band members. 

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-31-1969, Part 1: Incredible String Band - Herbie Mann

It's time for me to tackle more of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. With this album, I'm beginning the second day of the festival. So note in the album title this is "8-31-1969" instead of the 30th, and thus Part 1 (again). 

I really wanted to have one musical act per album, but this is the one exception. I was only able to find 11 minutes of the performance by the Incredible String Band, and 14 minutes of the performance by Herbie Mann, so I put them together. I don't know if they played back to back, but the odds are low that they did. At least it's known they both performed on the second day.

All the music on this album is from a soundboard bootleg source. I'd guess maybe half or less of the total music from the festival has been made public with soundboard sound quality, but it's very strange how it sometimes is only parts of sets, as is the case both times here. In some cases, I've found an audience bootleg to fill in missing pieces, but not here. So something is better than nothing, I guess.

I've already posted some Incredible String Band albums at this blog, so I don't need to introduce them. Obviously, they must have played more than two songs, but I couldn't find any complete set list for them.

Herbie Mann (who died in 2009 at the age of 73) had an unusual career. He was a jazz flutist. What was unusual was that he managed to have some pop hits, and got enough of a following to be invited to a rock festival like this one. No doubt, he wouldn't have been invited had it not been for his album "Memphis Underground," released in April 1969. Recorded in Memphis with soul musicians, it fused jazz and soul, and went on to become of the best selling jazz albums of all time. 

In this concert, all his songs were instrumentals, with his jazz flute being the lead instrument. Just like the Incredible String Band, he must have played more than two songs, but these are all we have. Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Herbie Mann - Wikipedia  

Regarding the festival in general, the attendance dropped about in half on the second day. That was largely due to the negative media coverage. The front-page headline on the morning of the second day in the Dallas Morning News was "Drugs Mar Pop Fest!" The article told of "freak-outs" and "bad trips" suffered by at least thirty youthful "hippies" who'd taken mescaline or LSD, requiring treatment in the festival's first aid tent. One of the festival's promoters later told Rolling Stone Magazine, "The press hurt us bad. I could just see parents looking up from their papers at breakfast and telling their kids, 'You're not going out there.'" In actual fact, the percentage of people having bad trips was extremely low compared to the overall size of the crowd, something that Dallas Morning News article even acknowledged deeper in the article. But one has to keep in mind the cultural conservatism in Texas at the time. It's a wonder the festival was allowed to happen at all. In fact, a similar festival planned to take place that same summer in Oklahoma City was cancelled by the authorities at the last minute.

A bigger problem was that the festival was really hot. Many people were treated for heat exhaustion, and also for cut feet, due to going barefooted. Another problem was outsiders who continued to go to the lake next to the venue to ogle at naked people skinny dipping there. But other than that, the festival ran quite smoothly compared to other festivals of similar size in that era.

Here's the list of all the music acts on the second day, in alphabetical order, since I don't know the actual order they appeared:

Chicago
James Cotton Blues Band
Delaney & Bonnie
Grand Funk Railroad
The Incredible String Band    
B.B. King
Led Zeppelin
Herbie Mann
Sam & Dave
Santana 

In addition to this album, I'm posting the sets from Led Zeppelin, Sam & Dave, and Santana. For all the others, they also performed on either the first day and/or third day as well, and I have albums from all of them on those days. So, very luckily, nothing really important is missed from this day.

This album is 26 minutes long. 

01 talk (Incredible String Band)
02 Waiting for You (Incredible String Band)
03 Black Jack Davy (Incredible String Band)
04 Tangier [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
05 Improvisation [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
06 talk (Herbie Mann)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Qcq67t43

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/m59CqMvUzhl3F6i/file

Both photos are from this exact concert. On the left, that's Robin Williamson, one of the two lead singers for the Incredible String Band. On the right, that's Herbie Mann. Both of the original pictures were in black and white. I used the Kolorize program to colorize them.