Before we stroll down Memory Lane into June 1967 ...
BFYP Breaking News! Jay & the Americans “Come a Little Bit Closer” to San Diegans at the Del Mar Fair,
June 29, 2017 @ 1:00p! It’s FREE*! Read the excerpt from BFYP Book 1 of their R&R beginnings, finish the story with Book 2 The Swinging Sixties – and take it to the Fair for their autographs! I'll be there too - let's ROCK! (*With
your Fair admission; Seniors only $11.00!)
More Breaking News: Hey San Diegans – been looking for your fave local Rock DJ, Dave Mason? He’s your
new Sunny one weekend Guy, on 98.1 Adult
Contemporary. Tune in to hear Dave turn on!
🎵🎵🎵🎵
It’s Officially the “Golden Summer of Love”!
Unreal.
Groovy. Surrealistic. Here we are … we have arrived in the future, my fellow
Rockin’ Boomers! How did we get here?!
Fifty Years Ago this Month, we were part of an
authentic “happening” … an epiphany … a true phenomenon … the “Summer of Love.”
I
attended the KFRC/San Francisco Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival
the weekend of June 10-11. It transformed the serene top of Mount Tamalpais
into a swirling haze of musical mayhem and dancing Mary Janes. Breathe deep …
It
was not pure mountain air, m’dears!
But it was a celebration of young and old, hippies and button-downs, and a
whole lotta Rock & Roll. This was the weekend that slid us into the Summer
of Love.
KFRC may have been mostly
Top 40 fare the Summer of ‘67, but their innovative support broke the ceiling
for progressive Rock that weekend. The brainchild of Program Director, Tom
Rounds, its lineup included an eclectic spectrum of performers from Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, and The 5th
Dimension, to Country Joe and the
Fish, The Steve Miller Band, and
fast-chart-climbers, The Doors.
The
Fantasy Fair, while grudgingly acknowledged as the first large scale outdoor Rock / Pop concert, was outstripped by a
bigger event a few weeks later. But the Monterey Pop Festival with nearly double
attendance, certainly didn’t dampen the Fair’s status for avid Rock fans. In
fact, MPF benefitted from the Fair’s success. More importantly, the Fair
operated as an altruistic charity benefit, without the MPF’s commercial
business vibe.
Sadly,
very few images and only a couple of truncated film clips
survived the decades. But as long as memory survives, the weekend that kicked
off the 1967 Summer of Love will
live again.
As for
today … look around you … young and old still love mind-altering drugs, we
still protest for love, not war, and this year has seen more society and
political upheaval than there has been since the Sixties. Put a flower in your
hair, “White Rabbit”* in your headphones,
and welcome the “2017 ‘Golden’ Summer of Love”!
Featured Radio Survey: While KFRC’s listeners
discovered new music and a new way to party at the Fantasy Fair, in Lexington,
Kentucky, WVLK fans stuck with the
Top 40. What the “Mighty 590” lacked in radio station polish they made up for
in advertising ingenuity. Check out the music
survey
that doubled as an ad agent’s promo, week of June 10-16, 1967 …
Celebrate JUNE 1967: 50 Years Ago
and … Rock On!
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