The Miami Festival: An Inspired Bag of Pop
by Ellen Sander
New York Times January 12, 1969 ————————————————————————
The area was alive with beads, bells, prim and pressed cotton resort wear, cheerful faces, spontaneous dancers, and a total of 99,000 fans. They had all come over a three-day period from the Eastern Seaboard, from Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and as far away as Montreal and Big Sur to attend the first annual Miami Pop Festival held in Gulf Stream Park, Hallandale, Florida, from one to ten P.M. each day, December 28 through December 30, 1968.
The event was a resounding success in both organization and programming, making it the first significant major pop festival held on the East Coast and the first successful pop festival since the now legendary Monterey International Pop Festival in June, 1967.
The program, which consisted of 35 acts, offered hardcore blues, sassy San Francisco funk, rockabilly, gospel, rousing rhythm and blues, folk music, jazz, top 40 pop, Latin rock, and hillbilly music in addition to a solid lineup of rock and roll. The generous expanse of pop was with a conscious sense of scope, history, roots, and direction.
With a singular lack of superstars, the festival was the first event of its kind to successfully showcase pop in perspective, gracefully carrying the hillbilly-and-grits banjo picking of Flatt and Scruggs, the multi-textured outbursts of the Grateful Dead, the Chicago blues of the Paul Butterfield and the James Cotton Blues Bands, the jazz of the Charles Lloyd Quintet and the hard rock of Steppenwolf, all on the same bill.
The 35 acts gave a total of 42 performances on two stages during the three days. Concerts were staggered in sets of 45 minutes each with a 15-minute overlap, making it possible to see everything or stay in one area for those portions of the program which seemed most attractive.
The two performance areas, one in front of the Gulf Stream race track grandstand, another in a large tree-lined meadow, were several acres apart. Between the two were an art exhibit, arts and crafts concessions, enormous pop art sculptures, food and drink concessions, and two live, painted Indian elephants who watched the spectacle with politely amused ponderousness. The layout of the grounds and situation of the diversions kept the crowd in a constant state of flux, and the entire affair had a continuing, organic feel about it, being both artistic and entertaining at each meandering turn. The weather was balmy, audience and performers were in good spirits, and there was hardly a set that didn’t meet with wild enthusiasm.
Particularly satisfying were Three Dogs (sic) Night, a brilliantly eclectic group that did inspired re- creations of, and improvisations around the hits of other pop artists and contemporary writers; and also Pacific Gas and Electric, a blues-rock-gospel ensemble in spirited, uncontrived, crisp music. Their audiences, for the most part, had never seen them before. These two and Sweetwater, a Los Angeles group with a vaguely oriental rock sound, are among the best and most underexposed talent in the country. The Festival was a perfect setting for the discovery, rediscovery and elevation of fresh sounds in the musty closet of rock.
Chuck Berry who, along with Elvis, precipitated the onslaught of rock way back in the fifties, performed a chronological set of his old hits, which by now are institutions. Marvin Gaye, Junior Walker and the All Stars, and the Sweet Inspirations burrowed deep into the rich black roots of rhythm and blues, the basis of all rock and roll. Richie Havens did unique, incandescent thing. From England, Procul Harum and the Terry Reid group performed. Country Joe and the Fish, which temporarily includes Jack Cassidy on leave from the Jefferson Airplane, played a set. It was a hardy, inspired mix of sounds.
Significantly enough, the only real disappointment was Steppenwolf, which came on in all arrogance and superstar nonchalance for one of the Sunday night’s closing performances. They were one of the biggest names scheduled and the worst show. Also Fleetwood Mac, a blues- inspired group from England, had a hard time getting together musically. Folk duo Ian and Silvia were rather restrained at their first pop festival. And the Box Tops gave off a feeling of irrelevance. But these failures were somehow bearable.
Constant magic and music filled the air as crowds wandered comfortably from area to area. There were several narcotics busts made on the festival grounds but no violence or brutaility (sic) of any kind ever erupted. The police, private security corps and concessionaires were easygoing and goodnatured and, as festival producer Tom Rounds observed dryly Monday evening when two pot smokers were quietly escorted into paddy wagons “Anyone who can’t find a place to turn on in 250 acres without getting caught, is just dumb.”
The Miami Pop Festival was a monument to pop, an excellent model for future events of this kind. It was a shift in perspective, an experiment in depth rather than sensation. It had that special balance of humility and extravagance which consistently delighted an initially skeptical audience. After all, these pop fans had been through a year and a half of badly produced, expensive pop festivals, most of which failed miserably. The ticket price was only $7 for ten consecutive hours of entertainment each day.
Jose Feliciano appeared twice, Joni Mitchell closed her notably lovely set singing Dino Valenti’s “Get Together,” accompanied by Richie Havens and Graham Nash, late of the Hollies. Fred Neil, an oft-forgotten folk singer and songwriter who directly or indirectly influenced a good portion of today’s pop, visited the festivities Monday night looking lean, tanned and healthy. Music from both stages could be heard all over the festival grounds and spontaneous jams ignited in the performer’s private area.
Post-festival celebrations included a rock and roll wedding in which Spanky of Spanky and Our Gang was married to Medicine Charlie of the Turtles in a folk coffee house in Coral Gables. The wedding party included members of Our Gang, the Turtles, Richie Havens and Tiny Tim. After all that, New Year’s was a letdown.