The
Toronto Premiere Theatrical screening of REVIVAL69: THE CONCERT THAT ROCKED THE
WORLD,
will take place at
Hot Docs Ted
Rogers Cinema,
506 Bloor Street West,
This Saturday, December 17th, at
7:30PM
Director Ron Chapman will be there.
Also
scheduled is a Q & A following the film with Chapman, John Brower (festival
promoter), Geddy Lee (Rush) and Robby Krieger (The Doors).
Here is a link to the Entertainment Tonight
exclusive,
where you can see the trailer of the film:
https://etcanada.com/news/946054/revival-69-the-concert-that-rocked-the-world-to-document-the-life-altering-toronto-music-festival-that-headlined-john-lennon
And here’s a link to the Hot Docs' site
with details of the event:
https://hotdocs.ca/whats-on/films/revival69?utm_source=Publicity&utm_medium=BCC&utm_campaign=HDCFilms&utm_content=Revival69
The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival at Varsity Stadium September 13, 1969; Interviews
with John Brower, Kim Fowley, John Densmore, Rodney Bingenheimer, D.A.
Pennebaker, and Gary Pig Gold.
By Harvey Kubernik © 2022
It was on an invitation from record
producer, songwriter, music publisher and rock ‘n’ roll publicist Kim Fowley,
John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono hopped on a plane from England with guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voormann and
drummer Alan White to travel to the Toronto Rock
’N’ Roll Revival festival showcasing some of Lennon’s early rock ‘n’ roll
musical heroes — among them Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Little
Richard. The Doors and Alice Cooper were among the other acts at the outdoor
venue.
Author broadcaster and music historian
Ritchie Yorke in his 2009 liner notes to the D.A. Pennebaker-directed John
Lennon/Plastic Ono Band Live Peace In Toronto ’69 DVD release from Shout! Factory wrote, “At Varsity
Stadium the jet-lagged John was extremely nervous. He hadn’t been onstage in
three years, and he admitted to throwing up from nervousness before the show —
with abundant reason. ‘Imagine if you were in the Beatles from the beginning,
and you were never in any other band?’ he postulated. ‘Then all of a sudden
you’re going onstage with this group who’ve never played live together,
anywhere. We formed on the plane coming over here, and now we’re gonna play in
front of 20,000 people.’
“A quick backstage rehearsal, and guest emcee
Kim Fowley urged the audience to fire up their lighters and matches — and in the
process light their communal fire, the early uprising of a collective
consciousness — to welcome onstage the Plastic Ono Band, in their debut performance.
“Back in London after the momentous weekend
in Canada, John was exuberant about the experience of being onstage again.
‘“I can’t remember when I had such a good
time,’ he enthused. ‘We did all the old things from the Cavern days in Liverpool.
Yoko, who you could say was playing ‘bag,’ was holding a piece of paper with
the words to the songs in front of me. But then she suddenly disappeared into her
bag in the middle of the performance, and I had to make [the words] up because
it’s so long since I sang them that I’ve forgotten most of them. But it didn’t
seem to matter.’
“History has shown it was
this concert that finally convinced John there was indeed life beyond the
Beatles.”
Academy Award-winning director D.A. Pennebaker
(Dont Look Back, Monterey Pop, The War Room),
with this September 13, 1969 concert film from Varsity Stadium in Toronto,
Canada, serves as a historical document in the career and life of John Lennon.
The moment has become part of our global memory.
Between 2000 - 2018, I interviewed
Kim Fowley, SiriusXM deejay Rodney Bingenheimer, who in 1969 was then a
reporter for GO! Magazine, the Toronto promoter John Brower, drummer,
John Densmore, co-founder of the Doors, and the Oscar-winning filmmaker and
documentarian, D.A. Pennebaker about this landmark event.
John Brower
Q: Talk to
me about this monumental endeavor.
A: I called
Lennon at Apple Records asking if he wanted to emcee the gig. Lennon said, "No … but
he would like to play!" We went from selling a couple of thousand seats to
selling 25,000 tickets when it was announced Lennon would play.
Q: Did
Morrison and Lennon actually meet at the show?
A: When
Morrison and the Doors heard that Lennon was now going to play, he asked
[manager] Bill Siddons to set up a meeting to discuss who would headline the
show.
There was a knock on the locker room door
and it was Bill [Siddons] and Morrison asking if they could talk to John and I.
I grabbed John and we met in the hallway. The two singers didn’t acknowledge
each other or shake hands but Siddons wanted to ask Lennon if the Doors could
go on before Lennon. John’s eyes opened wide and he said, "No, you guys are
the headliners. That means you go on last, that’s the way it works." John was
not about to be upstaged by Morrison and whatever antics he might pull off.
Just then, Little Richard appeared, and said to us, "Hey, I will headline! I
will headline!"
I then told Morrison, "Look, I have already
paid you guys, so if you don’t want to play, you can go back to your hotel room
and relax. No problem."
Morrison nodded at Siddons and they agreed
to go on after Lennon. Then Morrison said, "One thing: We want to be on the
side of the stage so we can watch the set.”
Kim Fowley
Q: You were
the Master Of Ceremonies in Toronto, Canada, where John Lennon debuted The
Plastic Ono Band on stage, and your voice is heard doing the introduction of
Lennon and friends on the subsequent Live
Peace In Toronto gold album that was culled from The Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival held that September of 1969.
A: It was a concert at The Varsity Stadium. Bo
Diddley, Junior Walker and The All Stars, Tony Joe White, Alice Cooper, Cat
Mother and the All Night News Boys, Lord Sutch, Chicago Transit Authority,
Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, I was his record producer at the
time, Little Richard, Doug Kershaw and the Doors. On the poster, it showed that I, Kim Fowley, was M.C.
Q: How did
you get the gig?
A: I knew
some of the promoters involved, like John Brower, Ken Walker and Thor Eaton. Brower
was a visionary and I dealt primarily with him and Ritchie Yorke. I got the Toronto job because I was the voice
of the Love-Ins in L.A. in 1966, ’67, ’68 and ’69.
I did some pop festival shows with the Doors, the Seeds, Jimi Hendrix
and Jefferson Airplane.
I did all those shows and knew what to do
with a large audience like 100,000 people. Ritchie Yorke, Billboard editor in Canada, and a contributor to Rolling Stone and NME at the time, he knew about me and persuaded the promoters to
hire me. $4,000.00 and a plane ticket. I
also got a hotel room a week before the gig. My job was not only to announce
the date but also be a consultant and tell them how things were going.
We had a problem: We only sold 2,000 tickets
before and no one was interested in coming to Canada from America via Detroit
and the other cities. At the time, half way through the week I met with the
promoters, John Brower and Ken Walker, and Thor Eaton of Eaton’s Department Store,
who financed the thing. It was my idea to bring John Lennon over, which John
Brower executed the transaction. But I was the consultant/master of ceremonies.
And I was there suggesting the people to be there.
They threw in Cat Mother and the All Night
News Boys and somebody else came up with Lord Sutch, Chicago Transit Authority and
Alice Cooper, who also backed Gene Vincent. That mixture was great because they
were hillbillies and red necks from Arizona and Gene was king of the rednecks
in terms of music content. They knew all the songs. They put on the blue jeans,
grease and shades and showed up to do it. Gene had done stadiums before.
I
told them to get John Lennon to show up. I said, "The Beatles have just broken
up, and John Lennon is the most competitive in the most competitive group. So,
call him up on a ploy level and invite him and Yoko on a chartered plane which
Mr. Eaton can provide so they can sit at the show on a Royal Box kind of thing. I wrote out the script, I had Derek Taylor
training, and had met the Beatles a couple of times in England, once when John
and Paul came to the hotel I was staying and promoting the soon to be released Pet Sounds Beach Boys’ album. I knew the
mentality to get a Beatle to show up. So, John Brower called Apple Records. John
Lennon got on the phone and heard the pitch. Ritchie Yorke was in the room with
them and he further explained who I was and about the promoters and the event.
It was at a time when the Beatles would be at the Apple office.
Originally, John was asked by Ritchie if he
wanted to come for free and sit there and enjoy seeing his heroes. And he
replied that "He wasn’t a member of Royalty and would rather join in and be a part
of it and didn’t require any money. I wouldn’t feel right coming down there as
a member of The Royal Family just sitting there. I would want to play. Is it OK
to play? I want to try out this thing I’m putting together with Eric Clapton,
Yoko Ono, Allen White and Klaus Voormann."
But Lennon did require film rights and recording
rights. John Lennon was in the music business. He was in show business. Allen
Klein showed up and D.A. Pennebaker showed up with the film unit and this whole
thing was recorded and a Gold album came out of it. So they sent the plane and
John and the band jammed and rehearsed on the way across the Atlantic.
Yoko got sick on the way in. In the morning,
all the Apple people from New York under Allen Klein’s supervision were already
bringing in the recording equipment. I don’t think this was anyone exploiting
John Lennon. I think John Lennon was a bright guy who called his then-manager,
Allen Klein, and told him to "do the paper" with these promoters and "Let's make sure we make a live album."
The recording stuff was all brought in and
then the documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker came to film it. Pennebaker and
I talked. Only 2,000 tickets were sold before Lennon was formally announced.
That’s a bad pre-sale. But people started driving across the border and all
over the world, pre-internet, then deejays got on the radio, and everyone
wanted to see what John Lennon would do after the Beatles.
Q: Any
incidents or problematic performers at the venue?
A: One thing
that happened was Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard all
came up to me at the same time backstage and "We all think all four of us are
the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and how you going to solve that problem in the
introduction?"
So, one became the King of Jungle Rock, one
became the King of Across the Tracks rock, somebody became the Grammar King of Rock, etc., and suddenly everybody had slightly different items of introductions.
They had concerns about billing since each one wanted to be the King of Rock
‘n’ Roll that night, so I had to amend each mention. The visual of all four of
them in front of me … Egomaniacs whose time had passed, demanding to be Kings Of
Rock ‘n’ Roll. And I was in a purple suit, white shoes and a green shirt and
under age 30 and felt superior to all of them.
Q: If John
Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band was the seismic moment that night, was there another
act that performed that ‘made the pizza wiggle’ as guitarist Elliot Ingber would
say.
A: At that
Toronto Pop Festival in 1969 it was Tony Joe White, backed by Booker T. &
The MG’s at that stadium, leading up to the Doors and John Lennon & The
Plastic Ono Band. They blew everybody off. Seeing Tony Joe White was like if
Elvis (Presley) had stayed at Sun Records in 1969 and had a better version of
Creedence Clearwater Revival behind him. With keyboard.
Remember, Tony Joe White is a great guitar
player, besides a great songwriter, so you had the two guitarists, bass, drums
and keyboardist up there, and it reinforced the musical relationship that
Toronto and Memphis always had. The soul and gospel thing. It hits you. Even
though Tony Joe White is from Louisiana, but by then he had been out. It was
the devil’s music in cinemascope live on stage.
The best artist that night was Tony Joe
White when he played ‘Polk Salad Annie.’ Like David Bowie and The Spiders From
Mars at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on his first American tour in 1972 or
in 1966, Jim Morrison pretending to be a heckler at Ciro’s nightclub in
Hollywood from the audience and heckling the rest of the Doors before he went
on stage with them, before anyone knew who they were. It was part of the
act.
Q. Detail
the concert environment and situation around the Lennon Plastic Ono Band
appearance.
A: Remember,
everyone was in a foreign country. And remember, Canada is not America. It
looks like it is because it’s on the same continent but it’s a different country.
Remember, most people in L.A. bands aren’t from L.A. They don’t have a
geographical link anyway. Because they are all carpetbaggers in California. And
then, here they all are in Canada. And all the white guys wouldn’t dare strut
with all the black Gods around who invented the stuff that the white people
stole from. White people stole rock ‘n’ roll from black people. And there were
too many rock pioneers around the room for any white guy to start strutting and
might have gotten his ass kicked. So the strutting was not going on or the
camaraderie. And musically, everybody was good that day. People were fascinated
to see a Beatle in a non-Beatle situation.
We showed up at noon at the place. It was a
pretty brutal situation because a police official came up to me and said, "If
there is a riot here, and you don’t stop it, you will never leave Canada Toronto
alive." "Yes sir." That was pressure. The promoters said to me, "When you do
the live album, make sure to include our names in the intro." They also were to
pay me the other half of the $4,000.00 promised. So, I had to juggle.
Then, a guy came up to me, dressed in blue,
right out of a Brian De Palma movie, comes up to me and says in a serious voice, "I am Mr. Blue. Take me to John Lennon now." He had blue shades, blue pants,
blue boots, blue jacket and blue shirt I got a very bad feeling about him. So I
told the police to immediately to remove him from the event. He looked like Robo Cop. I always thought Mr. Blue was
a prototype Mark David Chapman.
Q: And the
actual time just before John and the group came on stage
A: So, I see
the Plastic Ono Band. Lennon was nervous. "Are you all right?" "Yes." 20,000
people showed up and the big moment comes and the lights are blinding.
Everything is on and John Lennon summons me to the apron of the stage on the
side by the canopy. I was dressed in a purple suit. He was in a white suit.
This was not the time to have a MIDEM Publishing-like discussion
Then John threw up. And he started to cry.
He said "I’m terrified. Imagine if you were in the Beatles as the only band
you’ve only been in your life. The first time you are to step on stage with
people that weren’t in the Beatles. You’re about to go on stage with your wife, a friend, a friend, and a complete
stranger with songs you had learned acoustically on an airplane on the way
over from England with jet lag. You would be terrified. Do something so the
kids don’t know how scared I am." He was that vulnerable.
That’s all he knew. "Do something! Please do something so people won’t know how afraid I am to go out there." He went
ahead of his band. They were behind him. He was in a bad way.
Q: So
naturally, you saved the day and supplied the remedy, Dr. Kim.
A: I came up
with the following. So, I had seen a
movie a decade before, in Catholic grade school, Our Lady Of Fatima based on The Blessed Virgin appearing in front of
a bunch of kids appearing in a cow pasture in Portugal in the early 20th
century. They had candles and matches lit to honor her presence.
So I figured, and told everybody in the
place, they all think John Lennon is God and this is a religious experience and
a religious experiment. I said to myself, why don’t I take this to the
religious level by subliminally and recreating Our Lady Of Fatima with fire and say the introductory words … "Plastic
Ono Band, please say hello to John and his friends with your matches and your
lighters."
Kim
Fowley can be credited with inventing the idea of lighting matches and lighters
at rock concerts. In 1969 at Toronto It wasn’t as much a stalling tactic for
John to compose himself but to put an amber hue over the entire throng and
suddenly it was a religious spectacle, because John Lennon had a religious
position in the culture ... and so did the Blessed Virgin ... so in my mind there was
no difference between our Lady Of Fatima
and the Plastic Ono Band showing up, and he was dressed in white, by the
way.
So the request was made to Varsity Stadium to "Please
turn off the lights and when I said the word 'Plastic Ono Band,' at the count of
three, I want everybody to light matches simultaneously." It was a welcome in a
very friendly beatified way for John and his friends.
On the live album you’ll hear "Get your
matches ready ... Brower and Walker … Present ... The Plastic Ono Band …" ... and 20,000 matches
were lit. It was a beautiful amber glow and everyone let out a collective gasp and
at that moment, Lennon, who was a Beatle, realized there’s the moment that will
take away from the nervousness of the moment and they went up to the stage and
went right into ‘Money.’ And it was clear sailing from him and them all the way
until the end. It seemed like an hour. Yoko sang in a bag.
So that helped the spiritual subtext of the
event. I had talked to Lennon three years
earlier but in 1969, everybody had gotten scruffier after the Mod 1966 and the
English version of psychedelic culture and Syd Barrett came along and everybody
got dirtier. The guys got dirtier and the girls all threw away their bras away
and didn’t shave their armpits or their legs. So everybody was getting more
‘organic.’ John was a Beatle and larger than life, so nobody was aware if he
was tall or short. Yoko was in the band and went into the bag at a certain
point.
Q: Run down
the set list
A: They just
went on and played. They didn’t sit there and kibbitz or talk to anybody. The
repertoire performed fit the theme of the event which was a rock ‘n’ roll revival
booking and appropriate to open with ‘Blue Swede Shoes’ and play ‘Money. And do ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ from the Larry
Williams’ songbook.
I had met Williams the year before in
Hollywood at an Epic Records party in Hollywood. He, along with Johnny ‘Guitar’
Watson, who 1966 or ’67 produced my friend Chris Darrow’s band, The
Kaleidoscope at Columbia Studios. Chris in the very early ‘70s then met Lennon
one time at Liberty Records in Hollywood. I knew Eddie Cochran, produced Gene
Vincent, and Chris Darrow saw Ritchie Valens live and recorded with the
Crickets, Buddy Holly’s band. Like
Lennon, who met Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Little Richard so
on some level we’re all in this very exclusive club together.
That night Plastic Ono Band did simple rock
and roll songs where sloppiness is a charm, the songs, it’s nighttime outside
and people are drunk and stoned. Klaus Voormann on bass was fine. He had been
in Manfred Mann before and did one of my songs. Alan White was a member of Yes
at the time or a bit later. Eric Clapton had been in Blind Faith the year
before and I was at their L.A. concert at the Forum in Inglewood.
I had known Eric from England at The
Richmond Athletic Club days when he was in The Yardbirds. And I had met him
again when Cream was forming. I had also ‘jammed’ a couple of months earlier
onstage with Blind Faith at The L.A. Forum, where in the dressing room, Eric
asked me to come on stage if I knew the words to ‘Sunshine Of Your Love.’
For the encore, I went out there with Bonnie
Bramlett and didn’t know the words. I was bluffing, so I said into the
microphone "Legalize Marijuana!" ... and they turned off the sound. And that’s how
we got away at the encore. So Eric was friendly. He knew Jack Bruce had covered
one of my songs during his earlier Manfred Mann days for an Australian EP,
‘Long Hair Unsquare Dude Called Jack,’ that I had sung on the last every
Hollywood Argyles single, an anti-hippie song on Chatahootchie Records which
went top ten, by the way, in Saigon. At any rate, Eric and I connected.
Q: John Lennon
on stage …
A: John Lennon was a Beatle. You heard that voice
and there he was … A Beatle. It was Gandhi and a human jukebox showing up.
I had drunk some beer that day and on the
original vinyl pressing of the live album you can hear someone saying "Kim!
You’re always on the wrong mike. Kim!" And I fell off the stage into the pit
drunk because I could not believe what I had seen. Then I jumped back up on stage.
The Doors had to follow this and this was the first and only time you had John
Lennon and Jim Morrison on the same bill. I don’t think they posed for photos.
Q: And what
about Lennon’s guitar playing that evening?
A: As far as
John’s guitar playing that night, there are four people who were great rhythm
guitars players in the history of rock and roll: Eddie Cochran, John Lennon,
Joan Jett, and Keith Richard. The four supplied the pulse of whatever band they
were in and they could build a whole rock and roll universe around the pulse of
their rhythm guitar playing. And their guitar was attached to their voice. And
those four people it’s beyond lead guitar and flashy stuff.
It’s the rhythm guitar driving the engine
of a rock and roll band. Jimi Hendrix did something else in his trio as the
Jimi Hendrix Experience as well as the Band Of Gypsys. He took guitar playing
somewhere else. In terms of strict guitar, bass and drums four piece or five
piece and that’s where I rate the four of them.
Q: You knew the
Doors well before Toronto.
A: The
Doors’ John Densmore was a jazz drummer. You also had a jazz keyboardist and a
jazz guitarist all playing the blues with a real great poet and actor fronting
it. It was tremendous. It was theater. Jim Morrison was the best white in
person performer. Better than Elvis. Better than Jagger. Because he did what
Howlin’ Wolf and Lawrence Olivier did. He did it all at the same time. He did
William Shakespeare and gut bucket together. And only PJ Proby rivaled him and
David Bowie came in third.
Jim could sing in pitch, he had the image
and the poetry. He understood theater. Manzarek supplied a pulse, and Robby the
guitarist is never given the credit for what he brought to the table in 1967. The Doors
were not a rock ‘n’ roll band, but gave you a rock ‘n’ roll feeling. And the
only other band that did that was the original King Crimson, ‘cause they weren’t a
rock ‘n’ roll band, either, but when you heard Court of the Crimson King, and Pink Floyd, ’67, they were the only bands
who had some Wagner with a rock ‘n’ roll attitude.
Q: How did
you bring the Doors to the stage?
A: After The Plastic Ono Band departed, I then said “Get
ready for The Doors, who are coming on next!” Then there was an hour wait.
The Doors started doing their thing. Around
the third song of the set, out comes Chuck Berry, who saw the movie cameras
and wanted to walk on stage and he approached Jim Morrison on stage and Jim Morrison
stopped the show and said, "Chuck, you never let kids jam with you. You can’t
jam with us. Be nicer to kids and maybe someday we’ll let you jam with us." And
he was ordered off the stage by Jim Morrison. "Next time some guys want to jam
with you, remember. Get off our stage." The place went wild in front of the whole
stadium. They were the Doors.
The
Doors had to follow everything. The Doors were excellent that night. They had
to be with all that going on. They closed the show and had to follow John
Lennon, the Plastic Ono Band with Eric Clapton. That was hard.
This was the year of the Miami Doors incident.
So they did the Doors. This was going down in real time. It was music of the
moment. It was the Arctic Monkeys playing. Current bands. Whoever was on the
radio was suddenly in front of you. Or, what you remember from the radio years
before in front of you. No passing of the baton or the end of the decade. Any
of that. This is fun. Wow. I just saw a Beatle. I saw the Doors …
I remember a while afterwards, Ray Manzarek,
who I knew from L.A., felt Lennon’s appearance was some sort of psychic release
from the pressures of being a Beatle. In a non-paparazzi time of 1969, no one
had the brains to photograph John Lennon and Jim Morrison together. Nobody has
the picture, because no one thought of taking one because there wasn’t a
paparazzi culture there to document it. They did speak because they had to.
Because one followed the other. Q: And then
the following day post-show encounter with John and Yoko.
A: The next
day at Thor Eaton’s house where John and Yoko were staying with the Plastic Ono
Band. I was sitting outside with the two promoters and they were happy. "Kim
Fowley you really earned your money. You’re gonna be on the album, maybe
they’ll be a movie someday. Isn’t life grand?"
Then, Eric Clapton came out. And he said, "John and Yoko want to talk to you." Eric escorted me to the sitting room of
this mansion and a very quiet John Lennon, who was dressed very casual was
sitting on the floor on a Gandhi position, looking at Yoko who was sitting in a
chair, and Klaus was next to them. And Eric said, "John and Yoko, Kim is here. Kim Fowley." And I was delighted. "Thanks for introducing us." We shook hands.
He was very gracious to me and Klaus Voormann was in the room and so was Alan
White.
And I had always promised myself in my rock and
roll journey when I was in the middle of it that I should always ask the right
questions because I got the historic part of it. Because previous to this, in
1965, I met Bob Dylan and asked him his concept of songwriting, and he said, "Story telling and asking questions." And before that in 1963 I asked Brian
Wilson at Gold Star recording studio one day, "What is the basis of your
songwriting?" And he said, "Well, school is nine months a year and the summer
holidays are three months and you write about that and getting in trouble with
your parents."
So, I had to ask the question to John
Lennon. "Why did the Beatles breakup?" The whole room stopped, and Lennon
looked at me and said, "May I give you an example?" "Yes." "It has nothing to
do with the wives and the women we married. The group was based on us
re-inventing our favorite records."
I said, "Give me an example?" He said, "You know
‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’ We were improvising on Canned Heat and it was
our message to Canned Heat and Norman Greenbaum who had 'Spirit In The Sky’ at
the time. When you do that type of music, put more humour into it. We liked
Canned Heat but didn’t think they had enough humour. So, we wrote that song as taking
the Canned Heat formula and doing something else with it. When The Beatles
stopped re-working or improving on the formulas of their favorite songs, that’s
when we ceased being a band. Because that’s what we did. Because we improved on
formulas that we loved of our favorite records. We stopped listening to records
and improving on the formulas, the techniques and expanding, and that’s when we
ceased being a band."
What
that meant to me was that the Beatles were the ultimate expanders and
derivative detectives of the essence of songs. In Hamburg they would play hours
every night and must have analyzed why a Chuck Berry or Little Richard song
worked and when they started writing their own songs those techniques they employed.
And the other thing that John didn’t mention
was that BBC Radio at the time would play all kinds of music next to each
other. You could hear Little Richard, Hank Williams, and Kenny Ball back to
back. You could hear Julie Andrews
singing ‘The Sound of Music’ and then Gary U.S. Bonds right after that. So
those guys had this tremendous musical palette to listen to and then if they
started doing covers it was obvious perhaps. So, Bo Diddley and Maurice
Chevalier were equal to them.
So,
when John said to me that we stopped improving on the formula of our favorite
records. John was enjoying the fact that he could go on stage and do something
without whatever the restriction of being a Beatle was. He didn’t say there was
a restriction. He didn’t say it but it was like playing football after you leave
Manchester United team and you go play a football game in the park with your
friends from the neighborhood or pub. It’s gonna be different if you’re gonna
be David Beckham than if you’re in a jersey out on the pitch, or the field, you
know.
He
hadn’t played music outside the Beatles. The last time he played as the Plastic
Ono Band was that December at the Lyceum in England when it was billed as the
Plastic Ono Supergroup.
That’s when the Beatles stopped being the Beatles. He didn’t mention all the things they’ve
written about since. To him, the Beatles ended because they didn’t want to
reinvent music they liked anymore. I told him to have a nice trip back.
Goodbye. Never saw him again.
Q: Reflect
on John Lennon now.
A: Rock and
roll died with Elvis Presley in 1977 and rock died in 1980 with John Lennon. It
might have died again with MTV. What happened was, as Clive Davis told me in
his office, MTV assigned pictures to the music where you made your own
pictures. When you listened to music of a great record, you would remember back to the
day and where you were when you heard it or what it meant to you, where you were sitting
or the car you were in. But once some guy put an expensive video on, you now always
remember the song by the visual image assigned to it, which ruined rock and
roll.
Same
thing that has ruined politics in America. The presidential elections are
determined by who is good on TV, not by who would be a good person to govern or to
lead the country. So too much media takes away the experience of listening to
music. And Elvis was the King of rock and roll and Lennon the next King of hard
rock, or rock. What happened was that then MTV showed up and after that and you had
disco. Rodney
Bingenheimer
Q: You were a music reporter at the time and in Hollywood writing a regular music column for
Go! Magazine and went to the festival and involved in the whole trip.
A: The Doors arrived in Canada first and escorted into Varsity Stadium.
When John & Yoko and the band showed up I got in the limo with promoter John Brower along with
Klaus Voormann and headed for the show. We were driving and all along the way fans followed us.
John told the driver of the limo to slow down because Yoko was six months pregnant. She was very friendly
to me. John and I talked all about Gene Vincent and he said he couldn’t wait to see him. He talked about
times they used to play pool together 10 years ago in England.
In the car I played a tape of Elvis Presley singing the Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Hey Jude’ from the 1969 show I saw
Elvis do in Las Vegas at the International Hotel. I saw it weeks before and got a cassette of the show. John was amazed
and could not believe it. He was really excited he was gonna see Gene Vincent. He wanted to be on the stage with Chuck
Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. So when we met up with Gene, he and Gene exchanged autographs. Eric Clapton was in another limo.
We pulled in front of the stadium and a young girl yelled out "It's John Lennon of the Beatles!" And all of a sudden there were
bodies everywhere on top of the limo that we couldn’t see out of it. We headed straight to the dressing room so that John could
lie down for a while. We were greeted by Little Richard, Gene Vincent and Lord Sutch.
Q: What was the hang like before the gig?
A: I stayed in a hotel and shared a room with Gene. I was in the room when Jerry Lee Lewis called Gene and I answered the telephone.
"Hello. Is Gene there?" "Who is this?" "Just tell him it’s ‘The Killer’ calling …"
Later, in 1971, I was with Gene when he and David Bowie recorded a living room version of ‘Hang On To Yourself.’ Alice Cooper’s band
backed Gene and it was amazing. No rehearsals for anyone. Alice Cooper went on with chickens and pigeons. Lord Sutch sang with C.T.A.
We did a couple of radio interviews earlier for CKFH-FM and I got the station to play the GTO’s new single. And I gave them Condello’s new
single, ‘Goodnight,’ who were a Greene and Stone act they managed. They also played Thomas and Richard Frost’s new record on the Imperial
label, ‘She’s Got Love.’
I set up the t-shirt booths at the stadium. Jerry Lee Lewis went on the stage all the while believing John Lennon wasn’t even there. Also, Tony Joe
White was amazing that night. It was like seeing Elvis with a guitar, and Elvis was doing ‘Polk Salad Annie’ in his Las Vegas shows, which I had just seen
before. I knew Alice Cooper from Hollywood and he made a big impact tossing a chicken into the audience from the stage. The Cooper band backed
Gene Vincent, who delivered. Jerry Lee Lewis was amazing, and Little Richard was really good. I witnessed the entire show from the wings - the only place
to be.
Q: What were your expectations when Lennon and the group hit the stage and tell me about the set?
A: I had no idea what was going to be played. I don’t want to know what songs the band I am seeing are going to play or go to sound checks. Kim Fowley
was really good and funny on stage to set it up. I had no idea what to expect. It was rock and roll! It was good. It was John with rock and roll and ideal for
what was going on with the show around him. I didn’t really like seeing a Beatle with a beard. (laughs). He had stage fright. I know he was sick, like he
had the flu.
They opened with ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ with John singing lead with a little help from Yoko. The John went into ‘Money,’ just like the early Beatles’ album.
He did ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy.’ It was like going to a Beatles’ concert. I had last seen the Beatles in August, 1966, in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium, sitting
in the dugout with Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys. John even wrote a new song and played it that was called ‘Cold Turkey.’ Then they all did
‘Give Peace a Chance’ and a weird noisy sound happened. A high pitched noise. Then John took the guitar and waved his guitar to the amp
and Eric did the same.
The high frenzy was too much. Some people had to put their fingers in their ears and open their mouths and you really felt stoned afterwards.
All the Doors and myself were onstage and we really couldn’t believe it. It sounded like music from the year 1992.
Q: What about the Doors set?
A: I watched the Plastic Ono Band with Jim Morrison right at the side of the stage. Jim said after they left the stage, "You expect us to follow that?"
Lots of people cheering.
It worked in a big stadium. Jim got a little snotty when Yoko started doing her whole thing. I don’t think he was into that Bagism trip. But I was sort of
into Yoko ‘cause of The Fly album and The Wedding album, so I expected some arty thing, although it was a bit weird mixed in with the other rock stuff
everyone was doing.
Jim had cut his hair and shaved off his beard and looked really good. The Doors rocked that night. I had seen them in 1969 at the Aquarius Theater in
Hollywood and at Toronto they were pretty amazing. They did ‘Back Door Man’ with some of ‘Maggie M’Gill’ and ‘Roadhouse Blues’ in it as well as
‘When the Music’s Over,’ ‘The Crystal Ship,’ ‘Light My Fire’ and a few other songs.”
John Densmore
Q: Tell me
about this Toronto concert
A: We came
to Canada and at the airport we all got into two black Cadillacs. Then all of a
sudden, several hundred bikers started zooming along beside us. They were in a club
called the Vagabonds. A hundred ‘Hell’s Angels’ types, and we’re going, "Hey,
this is kind of cool." And we come into the stadium, a football stadium, and they
drive the limos all the way around the entire circle of the track with these
150-200 bikers leading us. So it’s real profound. Like, "Oh my God. Here comes
Lucifer," you know. It was really great.
So, I go backstage and Eric Clapton says to
me, "Isn’t this a crazy life?" Eric has not cleaned up his act yet. I didn’t
get to see John. And we have to follow John and Yoko, and it’s a monster band.
Eric, Klaus, Alan. Ridiculous. They start and then we hear this noise coming
out of the speakers. Everyone on the stage is saying, "What the fuck is going
on here? Some feedback with their set?" And then everyone notices a bag on the floor
of the stage with a wire leading from it. Yoko is in the bag with a microphone
warbling. It was great. We didn’t know what the fuck was going on. ‘Oh, wait a
minute, she’s in there.’ Really outrageous.
I mean, you know, John Lennon and the Plastic
Ono Band walked out on stage and it was the biggest roar of the century and
we’re supposed to follow this group?
Kim Fowley introduced us and we played the
best we could. In my opinion, we were fine. We weren’t great. We weren’t lousy.
We were fine. But everyone was so in awe of the Mop Top … It was great.”
D.A. Pennebaker
Q: You saw and documented the Toronto moment but didn’t film The Doors.
A: Morrison had come to me a couple of times and he obviously was interested. He and Bob Newirth came and showed me Jim’s film.
His student film, HWY. I was not impressed, but that didn’t mean anything. And I was interested in anybody who was a poet and wanted
to make films. That was interesting to me. I didn’t look down like this was amateur. But the fact is that he was a boozer. And, you know,
that’s a hard thing to make a film about. My father was a boozer. You can’t count on getting their real lives. You get something else. They
put on a kind of a show. And that was a problem.
And, Morrison was funded. He had some kind of money. And I had some concerns what he would look at in 20 years. When the Doors got to
Toronto, they were all very puffy. They looked like chefs in a big restaurant. And I would have shot them, but we couldn’t afford to stay for the
two days. But I heard them and we couldn’t afford the tracking. We paid for the track for Yoko and John and gave it to them to release as a record.
It’s an amazing thing. Coming at the end of that whole concert, it was the end of the Beatles. They understood it and at the end they fell silent.
And John looked out and it was kind of scary and nobody was there. It was a funny moment. And they all left the stage and I remember a piece of
paper blowing across the stage and slowly the audience came to life. I thought, "My God. This is a fantastic wake.’
Yoko was so crazy, but still, there was something so fascinating about what she did. You could see she did it with absolute conviction. What she was
bringing to me was a kind of funeral cry for something that was lost. At the time I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. But I did welcome it.
Gary Pig Gold
Saturday, September the 13th of 1969, broke particularly warm, bright and sunny over the suburbs of Toronto.
And this was to be the day the drummer in my very first teen-aged garage combo agreed to accompany me all the
way into the Big City in order that I could buy my very first teen-aged guitar. But! An electric one this time; the better
to approximate the walls of sound on our bass player's 'Summertime Blues' 45 ... Blue Cheer version, that is.
Only one problem though: I had only managed to accumulate twenty Canadian dollars with which to accomplish this
most momentous of tasks ... which, of course, upon arrival, dictated that we bypass the big downtown music stores and
traipse directly instead over to that string of seedy-and-then-some pawn shops which littered – literally! – the city's
infamous Church Street Strip. Needless to say, the proprietor of the very first establishment we entered
certainly must have seen us coming, as in answer to my request, he pulled from the back room a flaming
once-red electric (sort of) guitar of questionable pedigree, not to mention intonation which cost – surprise! –
exactly twenty dollars. The grin on my face as I emptied my pockets was equaled only by the smirk on said
salesman's face as he packed my new best friend into a 'complimentary' cardboard carrying case and sent us
triumphantly upon our Blue Cheer way.
However, strolling
back to the train station drummer Mike and I were suddenly struck by
music – loud music; rock and roll music! –
drifting enticingly overhead from some far-off location. It didn't sound like a
record ... or a radio... and as we ventured northwesterly it grew ever louder
and absolutely groovier by the block. Soon enough we found ourselves, along
with about a thousand or so other curious kids milling outside the University
of Toronto's Varsity Stadium, wherein it seemed like there was an actual
bonafide rock festival going on. Could it ... Could it be the
Great White Northland's very own Woodstock a-happening?!!
Eagerly
circumventing the perimeter of the gigantic structure, we came upon
one rear entrance-way guarded by a genuine dyed-in-tie-dyed-wool hippie –
yep, just like those our parents had warned us about via the pages
of The Toronto Daily Star – who said "Hey, man ... You guys wanna
come on in?"
Welllll ... Explaining we'd just lost our last remaining $20 on
Church Street, he replied "Don't worry, man. Just sneak on in. I won't tell
anyone. Go on!"
But alas, what
with the complimentary elastic band already giving way 'round my pawnshop
guitar case [sic!], and terrified said instrument might fall into some wrong hands
altogether, I regretfully said "No thanks," clutched my six-strings ever
tighter, and Mike and I continued our journey back to Union Station just as it
sounded like Jerry Lee Lewis was taking the stage. We tried consoling ourselves
on the ride home that not only would there be other rock
concerts to sneak into in our futures, but that with an actual electric guitar
finally in our arsenal, someday WE would be playing Varsity Stadium. And the
Killer would be opening for us!
Now, here's the
punchline:
A few hours later, safely home after Saturday dinner, my
phone rang. It was drummer Mike. "Gary! Quick! Turn on CHUM-FM right
now!!!" he gasped before hanging up. Hmmm. Downstairs to my radio I went, just
in time to hear our favorite jock gasping "And I don't believe it, ladies
and gentlemen, but it's true! As we report to you now, live from Varsity
Stadium, none other than JOHN LENNON has just taken the stage! Yes, JOHN
LENNON. This is unbelievable, ladies and gentlemen!!"
Eight years later,
I also turned down two free tickets to go see April Wine at the El Mocambo
... yes, on the night it turned out the Rolling Stones were playing instead. But
I really do much more miss having missed the world premiere of the Plastic Ono
Band right there ten blocks northwest of Church Street near the end of one of
the greatest 1969's of my life. But every September 13th I still
pull Live Peace in Toronto out for a spin on the ol' Pig
Player ... Side 2 and all, I'll have everyone know.
Oh, and that
semi-red $20 electric special from Church Street? Turns out its frets and neck
altogether were no more durable than its cardboard carrying case: the poor
thang survived less than two months of my adolescent Blue Cheering all over it.
I certainly
learned my lesson though: I spent nearly Fifty dollars on my next guitar...
************
Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how some of these stories develop here in Forgotten Hits ...
I have always said this has been a learning experience for ALL of us, myself included.
And, with the input of some of our knowledgeable readers, we've come up with a WHOLE lotta answers to a WHOLE lotta questions over the years.
Check this out ...
Hi, Kent!
Hope you and yours are having a wonderful
holiday season!
I'm posing a conundrum (I love that word) to you and your readers ... one that has
been haunting me for a while now.
Every hard-core Dick Biondi fan knows about his
"Pizza Song" 45, and his LP "The Teenagers" that he did just after he left WLS in 1963. He's recorded
all sorts of things, but this piece, which I discovered by accident a year ago, has been plaguing me. I want
to solve this mystery, but I can't find a bit of info anywhere.
There are NO clues on line regarding this record. The Minuteman label (at
bottom) has been gone for a long time, and nothing important can be found online about it.
A piece that ran in BILLBOARD in 1976 talks about recordings made by disk
jockeys, and Dick is shown as having done not only the "Pizza Song" but also a piece
called "A Letter to Mom" on the "Minuteman" label, which has been out of business since the
late 60s.
The record shown below came out in 1967. There were only 12
records released on the "Minuteman" label and the one shown is, to the best of my knowledge, NOT the Dick Biondi we all
know and love. But that article in Billboard calls out "A Letter..." as being by a guy
with the same name.
The only way to solve this mystery is to find a copy of the record. Any info
regarding this mystery would be greatly appreciated.
Mike Wolstein
My
first gut instinct is that this is a re-release of a recording Biondi
made for IRC Records back in 1963 (referenced that way in your first
two photos)
The
copy I have (and it's only a digital copy) is called "Dear Mom" ...
which could just as easily serve as "A Letter To Mom." Maybe it was
re-released to try and cash in on the success of Victor Lundberg's
single "An Open Letter To My Teenage Son," which was a Top Ten hit that year (???) That, too, would make
sense if it were released in 1967. Somebody may have remembered it from
when they first heard it several years earlier and thought that if THAT
one could be a hit record, why not this one, too?
By
1967, Biondi was back in Chicago on WCFL ... so you'd think there'd
have been some airplay of it here ... but I sure don't remember it (and
1967 is MY year for music!!!)
Here's the track that I have in my library, listed as "Dear Mom" ...
Give
it a listen and see it what I've said above makes sense. (Remember,
this is just a guess on my part ... but hopefully an educated one!)
In the meantime, we'll put this out there to the readers and see if we can find out anything differently or gather more information about the record. (Isn't this something that Pam could just simply ask him about?!?!?)
kk
And then ...
I just found this ... I'm lost - how come I
never heard of this?
Where did this info come from? I'm
beginning
to feel really stupid! ;-)
Mike
OK, now I've got a couple of questions ...What city is this from?
And why are there only 22 songs listed on their Top 23 survey?!?! (lol)
[Oh wait ... I see that there's a #15 and a #15a ... it's just a few places above where they spelled "Disguise" wrong on the Elvis record!]
I also think that this is quite likely a "fake" survey put together just as a means of promoting Biondi at the time. (Why would any radio station other than the one he was working for be trying to plug or promote this record?)
And, finally, after a little more digging, I have found that "A Letter To Mom" was a track on Biondi's "Teenagers" album, issued in 1963 - all
the more reason for me to think that Minuteman Records just reissued
this track as a single trying to cash in on the success of the Victor
Lundberg record.
(In the "Notes" section after this LP listing it says: "Legendary disc-jockey Dick Biondi recorded this album in 1963 in
Nashville between his jobs at WLS radio in Chicago and KRLA in Los
Angeles.
Recording engineer: Billy Sherrill, Piano - Ray Stevens (yes, THAT Ray Stevens!),
Guitar - Wayne Moss, Drums -Ken Buttrey.)
Let's see if anybody comes back with any more information (or theories) after they see this posted on Tuesday. (kk)
| A1 | Dick Biondi | Dedication |
| Rate |
| A2 | Dick Biondi | The Teenager |
| Rate |
| A3 | Dick Biondi | Teenage Humor |
| Rate |
| A4 | Dick Biondi | The Disc-Jockey |
| Rate |
| A5 | Dick Biondi | Too Big To Cry |
| Rate |
| B1 | Dick Biondi | The Teenagers Song |
| Rate |
| B2 | Dick Biondi | Greatest Compliment |
| Rate |
| B3 | Dick Biondi | The Teacher |
| Rate |
| B4 | Dick Biondi | The Teenage Mind |
| Rate |
| B5 | Dick Biondi | Record Hops |
| Rate |
| B6 | Dick Biondi | Letter To Mom |
| Rate |
| B7 | Dick Biondi | Thanks A Million |
| Rate |
And yes, as we have pointed out several times before, that the sweater that Biondi is wearing was made for and given to him by Pam Pulice, producer of the "still-in-the-works" Dick Biondi Documentary that we have all been waiting for! (kk)
First off, I had no idea that Dick did anything on IRC other than
"The Pizza Song."
[Technically, this LP came out on the Richwood Record Label, RWLP-1001 - kk]
I am totally lost. In spite of my having known Dick since 1961,
and being a follower (although not a perfect one) of his all that time, I have NEVER heard anything related to that
"song." "The Pizza Song" and his "Teenagers" LP are the only pieces that went public, that I know of. All the
rest, compilations of his on-and-off- air stuff, is fairly well publicized. To be honest, I doubt even Pam knows about this,
as I wrote to her about it, and haven't heard anything back. I'm getting together with her tomorrow, and I'll
see what she has to say.
And, it'd be great if she (or anyone else) could ask him, as he's
keeping to himself, and no one can contact him, other than the guy who takes him out for pizza on occasion.
Thanks a million for your help!
Mike
More info ...
Clark Besch, who has copies of both the Biondi "Teenagers" LP and the single released on Minuteman, has confirmed that BOTH recordings of "A Letter To Mom" are the same.
Despite the info about recording this track in Nashville, I would have thought it was done here in Chicago ... especially since the LP came out here in '63 and Dick is wearing the sweater that Pam made for him.
The track I have (titled "Dear Mom" on my digital copy) came from a series of a couple of hundred tracks from WLS, including some old air checks of the early jocks at the station, interviews, songs that charted ONLY the the WLS Silver Dollar Survey but not on the Billboard Chart, etc. ... so I never thought this to be anything BUT a WLS project. (Again, best place to sell it is where Biondi is on the radio!)
However, Clark (an avid Biondi collector who has contributed numerous VERY rare and highly collectible pieces to Pam Pulice's movie project) points to a questionable timeline ... and even wonders if the Minuteman single really came out in '67 ... or in '63. (For the record, we found a number of timeline discrepancies in Harvey Kubernik's piece above as well ... The Beatles had NOT officially split up at the time of John's appearance at The Toronto Rock And Roll Festival ... John had just recently done a solo gig, appearing on The Rolling Stones' Rock And Roll Circus television special ... and the year before that he appeared in the Dick Lester film "How I Won The War."
While I have absolutely NO doubt as to how nervous he must have been ... I mean they were going out in front of 20,000 people after just a two hour rehearsal on the plane ride over from England!), I think he rebounded well and put on a pretty good show, literally saving the festival in the process.
Likewise, they weren't improvising on Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit In The Sky" because that record hadn't even come out yet ... and wouldn't for several more months.
Still, I want to see the film once it becomes available here in America ... but I've got to be honest with you ... at this point, every bit as much to see Tony Joe White's performance as John Lennon's or The Doors! (Truth be told, I WILL skip the Yoko shrieking over feedback segment 'tho ... this has never been my thing then ... or now!)
Anyway, I'm getting WAY off topic here, so let me get back to the Biondi question at hand! (lol)
Biondi left / got fired / quit (the exact circumstances are still unclear and have been debated for years ... the most common running story is that Biondi THOUGHT he had been fired so he just stopped showing up! ... while others speculate that he quit in protest because of the tremendous volume of commercials expected to run during his program ... one of the downsides of being the #1 Jock in Chicago!)
In any event, Clark Besch tells us that during a few weeks of uncertainty as to whether or not Dick would come back on the air to a newly expanded time slot, Biondi spent a week in Nashville doing some A&R work. This may be where the speculation comes from that he recorded the album while he was there, technically just after "leaving WLS."
But other evidence states that Dick was already promoting his new album on the air ... on his show on WLS ... and even performed a few tracks from it at some of the various record hops and sock hops he was doing every week. (In fact, Ray Stevens made some of those appearances with Dick, accompanying him on piano.)
According to Clark's timeline, "Just as Dick left WLS, he hawked his new album 'Dick Biondi's Favorites' around town, including a shot on a local bandstand show hosted by Jim Lounsbury that was actually filmed at a Biondi hop, which also featured Ray Stevens ... so this likely included Dick doing a track or two from his album with Ray accompanying him.
"At this time, a 45 was released from the album, 'A Letter To Mom.' It sold well enough to make a Singer Top Five chart in July of that year.
[This is evidently the chart that Mike sent us a photo of, displayed above. - kk]
"At the time, Del Shannon's Beatles song 'From Me To You' was only #10, so Dick was beating a Beatles song at the time and Ray Stevens also had a song in the top chart."
Clark thinks the Minuteman single was released on Mothers' Day, May 12th, 1963. Biondi even published the lyrics in his local newspaper column ... so I'm thinking everybody involved had high hopes for this record at the time. (Which means that if all of this information is correct, Dick even beat Victor Lundberg to the punch by about four years ... but nobody ever knew!!!)
The Singer Records Chart that Clark identified is dated July 23rd, meaning Biondi had already left WLS by this time. However, if the record did, in fact, come out for Mothers' Day, then Biondi was most definitely still on the air at WLS at the time ... which makes more sense to MY timeline.
However, an IRC discography doesn't show "A Letter To Mom" as an early 1963 release ... so DID it come out on Minuteman instead? And if so, why? Especially since the LP was being released on Richwood Records.
Regardless, it HAD to be selling a whole bunch of copies in order to rank this high on Singer's own in-store chart ... which means it HAD to be out on a single on SOME record label ... now we just need to figure out which one! (It builds a good case for Minuteman ... which blows my whole Victor Lundberg theory!)
Obviously, there are still some questions to be answered here ... so we'll leave it in the very capable hands of our crack research team here in Forgotten Hits to take it from here. (kk)
