This Week in 1970

August 4^th – Beach Boys Drummer Dennis Wilson marries his second wife, Barbara Charren in Los Angeles.  The marriage will last four years and produce two children.

August 6^th – Janis Joplin, Paul Simon, Steppenwolf, Poco and Johnny Winter perform at The Concert For Peace at Shea Stadium in New York.  The concert was organized as a reminder of the 25^th Anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

August 8^th – Janis Joplin bought a headstone at the Mont Lawn Cemetery in Phildelphia, PA, to mark the grave of Bessie Smith, who Joplin said was her greatest influence.  Smith died in 1937 after being refused admission to a “whites only” hospital.

Also on this date, Canadian immigration officials turn back thousands of American rock music fans on their way to the Strawberry Fields Rock Festival being held in Mosport, Ontario, declaring that they “failed to produce adequate monies to support themselves.”  Despite the re-routing of these displaced fans, over 8000 Americans made it there to the concert.