throws the fragments into the audience magnanimously, as a peace offering . . . all of which is easier to understand if you know that Jimi took a bunch of Owsley acid before theperformance, the micrograms measured in the thousands, but probably no more than everyone else in the arena ingested collectively.
“I saw Owsley give him two of his little purple tabs, and I watched Jimi swallow them about half an hour before he went onstage.”
Peter Pilafian, Mamas & Papas road manager
“I saw him take, literally, a handful of Owsley tabs. At least four, maybe six. I saw him take it. And then he crumpled up in the corner. And he was wearing—English garb, you know, stuff. Ruffled stuff, psychedelic ruffles. And he looked like a bag of laundry in the corner of the room, and people were taking bets if he could even stand, much less get onstage. . . . And he looked like laundry in the corner of the tent. And when his time came to play, they literally—guys came in and picked him up, and sort of walked him to the stage. And as soon as he got onstage, he transformed into Jimi Hendrix, from a crumpled bunch of laundry into the greatest rock-and-roll guitar player in history.”
Bob Seidemann, San Francisco photographer
In contrast to the Who’s calculated smashup, Jimi’s theatrics are spontaneous, fueled by equal doses of LSD and the love made manifest in his music. This is his first American performance since he gigged as an R&B sideman with the Isley Brothers and Little Richard years ago. A few fans might have seen him backing John Hammond, Jr., in a Greenwich Village gig back in the folk days, but here the show is all Jimi. He’s making it up as he goes along, and he ends his set in a literal blaze of glory.
To close the evening, and the festival, the Mamas and the Papas float about the stage in floor-length dresses and robes. Denny shows up at the eleventh hour and puts his heart fully into the songs, the group truly reunited and as happy to be on this stage as all the others who have preceded them.
“I thought that [Monterey] just cut the whole scene wide open. It connected it. It was like opening a gigantic door that suddenly made what was an embryonic West Coast music scene into something of national, cultural prominence. And I thought it sort of put the stamp on the era. I thought it was enormously powerful. Because it was innocence. It was a window on this land of innocence where sweetness and a certain kind of Tao-like love of poetry and music and friends that was suddenly—the spotlight turned on and it was all there for the country to see, and it made it visible. It didn’t last very long.”
Peter Pilafian
“My idea of a good festival, the best festival of all time, was Monterey.”
Grace Slick
—
O N M ONDAY MORNING the stragglers melt away into the postpsychedelic mists, carrying fragments of the festival’s spirit out into the world, while county workers set about raking up the wilting orchids. The dreaded fifty thousand failed to materialize, but Chief Marinello figures the three-day crowd at thirty-five thousand, with more than ten thousand able to hear the music coming from the stage at any given moment, including those outside the arena on the fairgrounds.
Janis and Big Brother aren’t the only ones who achieve sudden renown at Monterey. Jimi Hendrix becomes an overnight sensation. A measure of how little known he was before Monterey is his third billing, below Jefferson Airplane and the jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo, on the poster—printed before Monterey—for his scheduled appearance at the Fillmore in San Francisco that follows the Pop Festival.
And Otis Redding has brought soul music a giant step closer to the mainstream by knocking the socks off a musical generation that is leavening the pop charts with songs about subjects far beyond teenage heartbreak.
In the immediate aftermath of the festival, it is Janis who gets the most notice, the biggest boost. The fact that Big Brother
“I saw Owsley give him two of his little purple tabs, and I watched Jimi swallow them about half an hour before he went onstage.”
Peter Pilafian, Mamas & Papas road manager
“I saw him take, literally, a handful of Owsley tabs. At least four, maybe six. I saw him take it. And then he crumpled up in the corner. And he was wearing—English garb, you know, stuff. Ruffled stuff, psychedelic ruffles. And he looked like a bag of laundry in the corner of the room, and people were taking bets if he could even stand, much less get onstage. . . . And he looked like laundry in the corner of the tent. And when his time came to play, they literally—guys came in and picked him up, and sort of walked him to the stage. And as soon as he got onstage, he transformed into Jimi Hendrix, from a crumpled bunch of laundry into the greatest rock-and-roll guitar player in history.”
Bob Seidemann, San Francisco photographer
In contrast to the Who’s calculated smashup, Jimi’s theatrics are spontaneous, fueled by equal doses of LSD and the love made manifest in his music. This is his first American performance since he gigged as an R&B sideman with the Isley Brothers and Little Richard years ago. A few fans might have seen him backing John Hammond, Jr., in a Greenwich Village gig back in the folk days, but here the show is all Jimi. He’s making it up as he goes along, and he ends his set in a literal blaze of glory.
To close the evening, and the festival, the Mamas and the Papas float about the stage in floor-length dresses and robes. Denny shows up at the eleventh hour and puts his heart fully into the songs, the group truly reunited and as happy to be on this stage as all the others who have preceded them.
“I thought that [Monterey] just cut the whole scene wide open. It connected it. It was like opening a gigantic door that suddenly made what was an embryonic West Coast music scene into something of national, cultural prominence. And I thought it sort of put the stamp on the era. I thought it was enormously powerful. Because it was innocence. It was a window on this land of innocence where sweetness and a certain kind of Tao-like love of poetry and music and friends that was suddenly—the spotlight turned on and it was all there for the country to see, and it made it visible. It didn’t last very long.”
Peter Pilafian
“My idea of a good festival, the best festival of all time, was Monterey.”
Grace Slick
—
O N M ONDAY MORNING the stragglers melt away into the postpsychedelic mists, carrying fragments of the festival’s spirit out into the world, while county workers set about raking up the wilting orchids. The dreaded fifty thousand failed to materialize, but Chief Marinello figures the three-day crowd at thirty-five thousand, with more than ten thousand able to hear the music coming from the stage at any given moment, including those outside the arena on the fairgrounds.
Janis and Big Brother aren’t the only ones who achieve sudden renown at Monterey. Jimi Hendrix becomes an overnight sensation. A measure of how little known he was before Monterey is his third billing, below Jefferson Airplane and the jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo, on the poster—printed before Monterey—for his scheduled appearance at the Fillmore in San Francisco that follows the Pop Festival.
And Otis Redding has brought soul music a giant step closer to the mainstream by knocking the socks off a musical generation that is leavening the pop charts with songs about subjects far beyond teenage heartbreak.
In the immediate aftermath of the festival, it is Janis who gets the most notice, the biggest boost. The fact that Big Brother
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