Three days in June
The Monterey International Pop Festival took place at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in California over the weekend of 16 to 18 June 1967. It was organised in a matter of weeks by a group that included the singer and songwriter John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, the producer Lou Adler and the publicist Derek Taylor, with several prominent musicians acting as board members. Estimates of the crowd vary, but it ran to tens of thousands over the weekend, with many more people turning up in Monterey than the arena could hold.
The festival was set up as a non-profit venture. Most performers appeared without a fee, with expenses covered, and money left over was meant for charitable purposes, including music education. That arrangement set it apart from conventional concert promotion and fitted the spirit of the time, when the Summer of Love was being talked about in San Francisco and far beyond it.
A deliberately mixed lineup
Organisers wanted to show that rock was a serious art form, and they booked a wide range of acts rather than a single style. Among the performers were:
- San Francisco bands including the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
- Southern California and folk-rock acts such as the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Mamas and the Papas, and Simon and Garfunkel.
- British acts including the Who and Eric Burdon and the Animals.
- Soul and rhythm and blues performers, notably Otis Redding with Booker T. and the MG’s, and Lou Rawls.
- The Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, who played a long afternoon set on the final day, and the South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela.
- Jimi Hendrix, who was making his first major American appearance.
Not everyone took part. The Beach Boys were expected to appear but withdrew, and some of the story of the lineup is about who was missing as much as who played.
The breakthrough performances
Several sets became part of rock lore. Janis Joplin and Big Brother played on the Saturday. Her singing so impressed the film crew and the organisers that the group was asked to return for another slot, which allowed them to be filmed. The exposure helped bring her to a national audience and led to a bigger recording contract.
Jimi Hendrix, who had already become a star in Britain after moving to London in 1966, closed his set with “Wild Thing” and set his guitar on fire. It is probably the single best-remembered image of the festival, and it introduced him to a wide American public. The Who, who also smashed their instruments, followed a similar path of destruction; accounts of who went on first differ, and the story is often told with some embellishment.
Otis Redding, performing to a largely white audience that knew him less well than listeners did in the rhythm and blues world, gave a short, energetic set that was widely praised. For many people there, it was a first look at a soul performer at full strength, and he became one of the artists the festival was most associated with. His death in a plane crash six months later gave that appearance extra weight.
The film and the record
The cinematographer and filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker shot the festival and released the documentary Monterey Pop in 1968. The film kept the key moments in circulation long after the event, and for many people who were not there it is the main way the festival is remembered. Its image of a peaceful, joyful gathering helped to shape a particular view of 1967.
The template for later festivals
Monterey did not invent outdoor music events. Folk and jazz festivals, notably the Newport festivals, had existed for years. What was new was a rock festival, mixing genres and pitched at the American counterculture, that was widely publicised and seemed to work. It showed promoters and performers that large young audiences would gather for a weekend of music, and it influenced the larger festivals that followed, including Woodstock in 1969.
The later record is more mixed. Some of those festivals were far larger and less orderly, and some ended in tragedy, such as the Altamont concert in December 1969. Monterey is often remembered more warmly partly because it was smaller and better organised.
Why it mattered
Monterey brought together the new music of San Francisco, the older traditions of soul and folk, and the British imports in front of the press and the record industry at once. Record companies noticed. Several artists received contracts or wider distribution in the following months, and the festival strengthened the idea that rock could support a lasting, serious culture rather than a passing craze. For the performers named above, it was a defining weekend.