50 Years Ago this Month – June 1967

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!

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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 5^th 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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*List of performers for both days of the Fantasy Fair.

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50 Years Ago this Month – Merry May 1967

(Few days late and a dollar short … traveling does that to you.)

Groovin’ with Respect, May 1967 

Most radio stations across the country charted “Groovin’” by The Young Rascals in the top five, 50 Years Ago this Month. With a lot of “Respect” from Aretha Franklin, they leap-frogged each other up the charts to vie for the #1 and #2 golden spots for much of latter May.

KXOA/Sacramento and WABC/New York were “Groovin’” at the top of their surveys for the week of May 17^th and 19^th (respectively). KFRC/San Francisco gave their listeners “Respect” at the top, with Ed Mitchell spinning the tunes for you from 9 a.m. ‘til noon, on the Big 610.

What else happened in May 1967? Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, baby!

May 1:

-       The “secret’s” out of the bag! Spunky head Beatle, Paul, admitted they’d all dropped acid at one time or another.

-       Women everywhere swooned with envy as Priscilla Beaulieu married hunky Elvis Presley at the Aladdin in Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas!

May 10:

-       Not wanting The Beatles to hog all the limelight, Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones did them one better (or worse)—and found themselves in lock-up on drug charges.

May 20:

-       Repercussions? The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” suffered in the UK charts as BBC took their drug admissions seriously, and banned it.

May 25:

-       Defiance? Never let others dictate your personality, was John Lennon’s motto as he drove off in his newly renovated Psychedelic Rolls Royce.

-       Does it seem The Beatles dominated the late Sixties? Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean other great music wasn’t happening.

Featured Radio Survey: KFRC/San Francisco’s Big 30 for May 17, 1967, gave Aretha and their listeners the “Respect” we deserved. Capturing the moment in music, we heard Lou Rawls lament a “Dead End Street” at #5, and a peek into the upcoming Summer of Love, with “The Flower Children” (Marcia Strassman) hugging the #9 spot. Here’s the full top ten …

Celebrate MAY 1967: 50 Years Ago and … Rock On!

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50 Years Ago this Month – April 1967

An Over-the-Shoulder Peek at April 1967 

50 Years Ago this Month saw Psychedelic Rock force its swirling climb up the charts, gaining heat as we moved closer to the torrid Summer of Love.

We began the month on a high note, at the top of WABC/NY’s All American Survey April 8, 1967, “Happy Together” with The Turtles.

Not all DJs were happy together however, with radio broadcasting formats. FM stations began playing follow-the-leader, finding their footing outside the Jazz genre, in AOR and other diverse areas. Especially after DJ Tom Donahue signed on at KMPX/San Francisco, Friday, April 7, 1967. Always a rebel, Tom began his push for Freeform Rock, combined with an all-female engineering staff. It worked.

Need more to celebrate April 1967? Party on, for “Louie Louie” Day, April 11^th; and have you hugged your vinyl record store owner lately? The tenth annual Record Store Day, spins off April 22^nd. (Though you can start as early as the 15^th for some.)

 

By month’s end in the Top 40, frustrated and disillusioned, we lamented toiling at our jobs with The Easybeat’s “Friday on My Mind” at #12, on WABC’s April 29 survey. Following on its heels, we protested with Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”* at #13. Although the tune took two weeks to climb its way to the middle of the pack, that didn’t reflect on its emotional impact.

The mood of the moment is capsulized in a nice long excerpt from the newly released BFYP (e)Book 2 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The Swinging Sixties! Like many of his listeners, DJ Neale Blase, objected to the Vietnam War.

Doing so on the radio though, generally didn’t sit well with station management. One night, as Neale broadcast live in a special airing with Armed Forces Radio on KOMA/Oklahoma City …

“Here’s a song for Private Bob Smith from his wife in Montana … she’s hoping that you’ll be home soon, safe and sound … and by the way, Bob, we all want you guys home soon, because you shouldn’t even be there. So for all of you guys over there … listen very closely to the lyrics of this song.” KOMA listeners heard Buffalo Springfield warn, “There’s a man with a gun over there …” *

Aware of his opportunity as a DJ to comment on news of the day, Neale said, “I can’t tell you how many times we would talk over the intro of a song and express our views in a very compatible tone of voice, with the tempo of the song. Never underestimate the power of subtlety.” Read the rest of Neale’s Swinging Sixties story, here.

Featured Radio Survey: In view of this lengthy post, and the lamentable fact I don’t have an April ’67 vintage radio survey in the BFYP Collection, we’ll continue to enjoy the March KFRC/San Francisco survey, and bounce back with more than enough May ’67 surveys next month. Top 30 station, KFRC, tipped the iceberg of our music revolution. But the depth of its love came from the base of FM underground music that would soon emanate from KMPX and DJ Tom Donahue. Check out the eclectic mix in the March 1, 1967 KFRC Big 30 chart.

Celebrate APRIL 1967: 50 Years Ago … Rock On!

  

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