The summer of 1969 was the summer of rock music festivals. In many ways these were an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of 1967's "Summer of Love" in San Francisco--and more particularly, the "Be-In" that occurred in that city's Golden Gate Park one day in January of that year. Yes, already by 1969 the counter culture was awash in nostalgia. The pinnacle was at Woodstock that August, but things would become seriously unhinged later that year at the Rolling Stones' one day event at Altamont. (I almost went to the latter, but I was sick that weekend. And I had a lot of homework to do.)
In Toronto, at the end of the summer of '69, things were a little different. It was a one-day affair, as opposed to the 2 or 3 day festivals that were the norm, and it was planned to be a celebration of the roots of rock n' roll. Consequently most of the acts were pioneers of rock, such as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis -- with a smattering of newer acts, most prominent of which was the Doors.
Well, that lineup didn't entice ticket buyers in the summer of '69. Fearing the festival would collapse before it even began, the promoters invited the Beatles -- who were themselves on the verge of collapsing -- to make their first live appearance in 3 years. Needless to say, the Beatles, who had just recently spent their final days together in a recording studio, didn't show. But John Lennon did, and the concert was saved.
Since he hadn't been in front of an audience for such a long time, Lennon later admitted he spent the half hour before he took the stage nauseous in his dressing room. But his performance shows no sign of nervousness. In fact, he shows that he was one of the great rock vocalists. Bowing to the the nature of the event, he sang mostly only old rock n' roll chestnuts such as "Dizzy Miss Lizzie", with the able assistance of Eric Clapton's nimble, blistering lead guitar.
As for the rock pioneers, Jerry Lee Lewis, strangely enough, centered his set on Elvis Presley songs and not his own. Or maybe not so strange -- Presley had recently begun to return to live performances that summer in Las Vegas, and I can't help thinking "The Killer" was attempting his own style of one-upmanship. (His resentment of Presley culminated 7 years later with Jerry Lee showing up drunk late one night with a loaded pistol, at the gate of Elvis' Graceland mansion, ranting and raving. According to one witness, he said, "Tell him the Killer's here to see him" -- hardly assuring words coming from someone brandishing a gun. He was arrested at the scene.) As for Little Richard, he instantly revived his career at Toronto; as one observer noted, "in 30 frenetic minutes Little Richard had just made his comeback".
Here's Lennon's version of "Dizzy Miss Lizzie", Jerry Lee performing a manic "Hound Dog", and Little Richard -- with his terrifically tight band -- performing "Lucille" and making the original version sound like a dress rehearsal.
One of our first nights out on the town after the birth of my firstborn, my wife and I went to a club in Berkeley to see Pearl Harbor & the Explosions, a New Wave/Punk group that was hot at the time. They had a song out called 'Drivin' that was a local hit in the Bay Area. It was sort of a theme song for me at the time, since I did a
lot of driving in my job.
We got great seats near the stage. The night soon turned strange. For some
reason, Pearl Harbor -- who at one time went by the stage name Pearl E. Gates -- began looking at me as she sang. I was pretty surprised & mystified by this. At one point I even looked behind me, to see if maybe there was someone she knew behind me. There was no one there. Her focus on me only increased as the night wore on.
My wife was at first annoyed by this, and then increasingly irritated -- when she wasn't away from our table, calling home to see how the baby was doing. (She'd do this about every 20 minutes.) She kept looking at me, accusingly, as if I was inviting this. I'd shrug my shoulders in response to her angry glances -- to no avail.
We drove home in silence. I tried bringing it up a few days later, jokingly, but that would only make her lapse into silence again.
I saw my now ex-wife a few months back at my son's wedding. We enjoyed talking to one another at the reception, but I think it's a good thing I didn't mention Pearl Harbor.
Here's Pearl Harbor singing 'Drivin' -- apparently from a cable access show in 1979 -- and then you can see her perform 'Fujiyama Mama', backed by The Clash. 'Fujiyama Mama' was a 1950's Rockabilly song, by Wanda Jackson--who has been dubbed both the Queen of Rock as well as the First Lady of Rockabilly. There's the Queen, with none other than the King, on the right, at the birth of their careers. In the midst of the Disco nightmare of the late 1970's, I loved how the New Wave/Punk movement revived the Rockabilly sound, like when Sid Vicious revived Eddie Cochran's 'Somethin' Else'. The final clip is the original 'Fujiyama Mama', sung by that spitfire Wanda Jackson. She's still rocking her tail off -- she played here in LA only a few months ago.
Saw Alt-Country crooner Lynda
Kay at Amoeba Records in Hollywood a couple days ago. She put on quite a show, wowing the crowd from the start when she walked onstage in a golden
suit and under amazing hair--looking just as she does on the left. Kay
was also tugging along a big ol' Gretsch--she's affiliated with that
great ol' guitar company in a publicity campaign. Here's a clip from
that show, followed by a clip of Kay singing a hot Rockabilly number, from a
concert in another city. When
she performed it at Amoeba, it brought the house down. Finally, there's her
Gretsch video. She appears in very different guises in these.
At one
moment, she's the reincarnation of Patsy Cline; at another, she's the
still alive & well Wanda Jackson. But that's
nothing--she used to perform an act where she changed costumes 8 times, as
noted in this week's LA Weekly--which chose her one of its "People
of 2010", and to grace one if its 4 covers. The picture they used was a
cropped black & white version of the picture above. (Where I pick up
my Weekly, her cover wasn't the one that was in the bin, dang it!)
