Up Front the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’S Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and White Album (1968)
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Up Front The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and White Album (1968). By Brian Butko, Editor June 1967: prelude to 1968 As June 1967 dawned, the Beatles’ new album, History Center Chief Librarian Art Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, was Louderback recalls seeing some of the bands playing from every radio and turntable. By in Pittsburgh a week after Monterey, when he time the Monterey Pop Festival opened a few was 17: weeks later, the “Summer of Love” was in full After catching the new James Bond movie swing. The three-day concert was inspired by we went to see the Mamas and the Papas music had already been released in 1967 such as with two opening acts, Moby Grape and Monterey, California’s annual jazz festival but The Velvet Underground & Nico featuring Andy the Buckinghams. There was even a sur- Warhol’s iconic banana print on the cover. it was a concept not yet adapted to pop music. prise guest, Scott McKenzie whose new Monterey was the first major rock festival, song “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear And so the discord and disillusionment of bridging the gap between the more conservative Flowers in Your Hair)” was a major hit. 1968 was set in motion during 1967’s idealized folk music of the Mamas and Papas, the The amazing part of the evening was walk- Summer of Love. Even the hippies tired of ing up to the Civic Arena. It was Sunday Association, and Simon and Garfunkel (much the relentless media attention, the co-opting night (date night) and all the men going to and commercialization of their ideals into just of it New York–Los Angeles based), and the new the show were dressed in sports coats and sounds of Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, and the girls in dresses. another style. In October 1967, they held their the Grateful Dead (out of San Francisco). While groups at Monterey like Moby own Death of Hippie mock funeral procession Paul McCartney was on the festival’s board Grape, the Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield through Haight-Ashbury. Runaways were still but the Beatles’ music had become too complex offered up the new music of flower power and arriving, as were harder drugs and crime, and to perform live. Another board member was protest, an even edgier style was emerging out so the original hippies were beginning to flee, or Brian Wilson, leader of the Beach Boys, who were of London. Monterey also showcased acts like “going up the country” as later immortalized in set to headline Monterey. The band had kept The Who pounding out “My Generation” and song by Monterey performers Canned Heat. The up with the times by releasing their boundary- destroying their equipment, and Jimi Hendrix Haight especially had been a place where bands pushing Pet Sounds album and complex “Good grinding to “Purple Haze” and lighting his guitar and fans could intermingle and participate in Vibrations” the year before. Their next album, afire. A year later, even the Beatles’ psychedelia shows. After Monterey, with careers born or SMiLE, was an upbeat look at America, but had been supplanted by the bleak cover of The emboldened, the artists took precedence, and progress slowed until the album was cancelled, White Album and the group audibly weighing they in turn took on the role of musical royalty and at the last minute, the Beach Boys withdrew the merits of a “revolution.” separate from the overwhelming crowds, as seen from Monterey. Music was changing rapidly Not that the summer of ’67 had been at Woodstock two years later. The brief moment and the group worried their songs celebrating all peace and love. That June saw the Six Day of innocence had passed, and in its place came sun, surf, and happy times would look foolish Arab-Israeli War. July brought riots in Detroit, the turmoil of 1968. alongside psychedelic groups singing about sex, Newark, and Milwaukee. In August, the U.S. Brian is researching June 1967 for a future drugs, and war. Any chance the Beach Boys had military admitted it had expanded the Vietnam project. He thanks music history proofreaders to not be seen as “squares” was actually sealed conflict by bombing Laos daily for three years Rob Conroy, Jennifer Baron, and Jennifer Sopko when they skipped Monterey. without informing the public. And far-edgier for their helpful insights. WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2013 5.