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The World, Feature >>
-by Marco Werman
It was 40 years ago today...no, wait, not Sgt Pepper's again. Today, we're on to a different psychedelic moment in musical history.
It was 40 years ago this weekend that the Monterey International Pop Festival happened. The festival took place from June 16 through the 18th, 1967 in Monterey, California. A collection of the original music from the Monterey festival was released this month. It's got songs by the likes of The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Jefferson Airplane. Back in 1967, festival organizers wanted to offer the 200-thousand spectators something a little different. Something unfamiliar. Like a sitar player named Ravi Shankar. Or a bopping trumpet player from South Africa named Hugh Masekela.
MASEKELA: "People were turned on in those days just with music. There was no genre, category, or marketing as there is today. People just loved music, they either liked it or it didn't turn them on."
40 years ago, Hugh Masekela was in self-imposed-exile from apartheid-era South Africa. He lived in Los Angeles. The organizers had seen him play at a club there. The festival was a boost to his career. But Masekela says he had other agendas as well.
MASEKELA: "Monterey was a platform to be able to get more visibility to bring awareness about what was happening especially on my continent."
And as Hugh Masekela made the rounds at Monterey Pop, he found allies in David Crosby from the Byrds, and Jorma Kaukonen and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane.
MASEKELA: "And they were some of the first people who became aware of what was happening in South Africa because of our association. They didn't just live for Monterey Pop. They lived their lives like that on a daily basis."
Hugh Masekela says he doesn't remember much about his set at Monterey Pop. He says he was still getting used to his new band. Paul Vieregge was the stage manager for Monterey Pop. He says Masekela's South African vibe was not totally out of left field for the audience.
VIEREGGE: "Most of the guys playing in his band were jazz musicians out of LA. And there was an acceptance to his music. But Ravi Shankar was a complete change."
Ravi Shankar was a complete change. And Monterey was Shankar's big bow to America's hippies.
VIEREGGE: "He asked the people not to smoke, he asked them to be quiet, he asked them to give an opportunity to be heard. He was introducing a whole generation to a new sound."
VIEREGGE: "Almost religious. You know a lot of people looking over the tips of their fingernails. You know what I'm saying? Hands folded in front of their faces, that sort of thing."
Hugh Masekela also has a clear memory of that performance. He remembers Shankar's sitar cutting through the background noise.
MASEKELA: "I've never been in an audience that was that quiet. Of course a lot of people were tripping. But it was like very quiet, people were on very very quiet and gentle LSD trips."
Drugs or not, there was an acceptance of these sounds. And there was a sense of common purpose, too, says Masekela.
MASEKELA: "It was a time of fighting very very seriously against injustice through culture and arts, you know. And I think that it was a period that made the establishment feel that culture and arts shouldn't have the power that it had, the influence that it had. Because shortly after that music became commodity-based. It was no more about music. It was about a commodity to sell most of the time."
The business of music has certainly changed. But stage manager Paul Vieregge sees a certain parallel between 1967 and 2007.
VIEREGGE: "We're again in a long unpopular overseas war. Are the young people going to come up with some things that are going to help us move on as a...like the hippies, starting to become an influence on how people thought about the country they live in. You know, we haven't stopped the train in a long time." 06/15/07 >> go there
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