Rocks In The Attic #1152: Big Brother & The Holding Company – ‘Combination Of The Two (Captured Live At The Monterey International Pop Festival)’ (1967)

“The two showstoppers for me were Otis Redding and Janis Joplin” – Andrew Loog Oldham. 

The third (of four) in the current series of Monterey Pop releases that are being released on an annual basis for Record Store Day, and the fifth overall recording from the festival in my collection. 

Gotta love Janis. Every since I worked out that Steven Tyler is trying his upmost best to ape Janis’ vocal style, it’s given me a newfound appreciation of her. Tyler might look like Mick Jagger, but it’s Janis he’s invoking. 

I don’t love Monterey Pop as much as I love the 1969 Woodstock, but it comes a pretty close second. It’s slightly too close to the psychedelic sound for my liking – not surprising given it took place during the Summer of Love, just a couple of hours down the coast from San Fransisco. But the juxtaposition between all of the psych bands with people like Otis Redding, the Who, the Animals, and Ravi Shankar just makes it a really interesting prospect. 

For some reason, Big Brother & The Holding Company played two short sets at the festival – one at 3pm on the Saturday, and again at 6pm on the Sunday. Both sets are short enough to each take up a single side of this release, and as with all the other releases in this series, the rear cover shows the original telegram confirming the band’s appearance, and the inner sleeve features some great liner notes which put you in the moment for what would be a career-changing performance for Janis. 

As a result of seeing her for the first time at Monterey, Columbia Records president Clive Davis signed her up, and quietly bought her out of her existing contract with Mainstream Records. “All credit to Clive Davis,” said Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler. “I really liked the whole performance and I was just sorry for the guys ‘cause I knew she was going solo. I had watched this sort of thing my whole life.”

Hit: Down On Me

Hidden Gem: Road Block

Rocks In The Attic #1130: Jefferson Airplane – ‘What The World’s Coming To – Live At The Monterey International Pop Festival’ (1967)

Now that those standalone Woodstock releases seem to have dried up, I’m very happy that these standalone Monterey Pop releases seem to have taken over. This is the fourth such Record Store Day release after Otis Redding and Booker T. & The M.G.’s, The Who, and Big Brother & The Holding Company – and I’m hoping there’s more to come. There are lots of big names left in the can: Simon & Garfunkel, Buffalo Springfield, the Steve Miller Band, the Grateful Dead, the Byrds, the Mamas & the Papas…

Their Saturday evening set at Monterey Pop finds the Jefferson Airplane playing a short sharp 40-minute run-through of just eight songs, captured here on one LP with a beautiful flip-back sleeve, drawing from their two studio albums so far: 1966’s JEFFERSON AIRPLANE TAKES OFF and February 1967’s SURREALISTIC PILLOW.

In comparison, their Sunday morning set at Woodstock two years later would include thirteen songs, with the 2019 release being split over three LPs.

The liner notes on this Monterey Pop release contain reflections from Grace Slick, Art Garfunkel, Elvin Bishop, Country Joe McDonald and Jack Cassady. Memories of the show include the amount of food in the backstage area (Slick), their amazing light show which the band seemed to be just as transfixed with as the audience (Garfunkel), and the quality of Marty Balin and Grace Slick’s voices when they sung together (McDonald).

My favourite quote though is Jack Cassady’s that succinctly sums up the Jefferson Airplane:

‘We were also making a departure with our material due to Paul’s ability and desire to write about what was going on around him. Paul would write about news events, while Grace tended to write about the curious thought patterns that would go on in her head. She would get more abstract; her mental patterns would bring images to mind that possibly you hadn’t thought of before.’

Hit: White Rabbit

Hidden Gem: The Other Side Of This Life

Rocks In The Attic #931: Otis Redding & Booket T. & The M.G.’s – ‘Captured Live At The Monterey International Pop Festival (Do It Just One More Time!)’ (1967)

A short, sharp blast – but an important one. This 29-minute record captures, on side A, the brief three-song set by Stax house-band Booker T. & The M.G.’s, before they’re joined by Otis Redding and the Mar-Keys on the flip-side for Otis’ scene-stealing five-song set.

Booker T. & The M.G.’s almost sound nervous on their opening number Booker-Loo. They seem to loosen up on their cover of Rufus Thomas’ Philly Dog, and by the time they close their set with Hip Hug-Her, they’re cooking.

Otis explodes onto the stage with Sam Cooke’s Shake, before reminding the pop world that Aretha Franklin’s recent hit single Respect was originally written and recorded by him two years earlier. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now) feels like the centrepiece of his performance, before appealing to the pop audience again (and possibly the in-attendance Brian Jones) with a cover of the Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. His set closes with Try A Little Tenderness, originally written in the 1930s but recorded by Otis and Booker T. & The M.G.s, with an arrangement by Isaac Hayes, for 1966’s Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary Of Soul.

As with the Who’s recently released Monterey set, the Otis Redding release also features artwork containing the telegram confirming his appearance with both the M.G.’s and the Mar-Keys at the festival:

The above mentioned will perform without fee. The festival will furnish first class round trip air transportation for seven persons from Memphis, Tenn. and for two persons from Macon, Georgia. The festival will also furnish hotel accommodations for the nine persons.

Hit: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

Hidden Gem: Shake

Rocks In The Attic #922: The Who – ‘A Quick Live One’ (1967)

Alongside with sets by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Otis Redding, my collection of standalone sets from the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival seems to be slowly catching up to my collection of standalone Woodstock sets (eight at the last count).

I hope we see some more Monterey releases – perhaps scheduled for Record Store Day, as this and the Otis Redding album were. They’re short records, but such amazing packages are worth the expense: The Who’s red, white and blue tri-colour vinyl release lasts a mere 25 minutes; Otis’s red and black marbled release is slightly longer at 29 minutes. Only Hendrix’s long-available release feels like a proper-length LP at 43 minutes.

The rear cover of A Quick Live One features a photograph of the Western Union telegram sent to the festival by Who manager Kit Lambert, confirming their ability to play. The telegram opens by stating the Who accept the invitation to perform on the evening of Saturday June 17^th, or Sunday June 18^th. It was the Sunday evening they ultimately played, and what a night of music that was: the Who followed Buffalo Springfield, and were then followed by the Grateful Dead, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Scott MacKenzie and the Mamas & the Papas.

The band agreed to appear ‘without fee for charity,’ the telegram continues, ‘subject to festival committee paying 6 first class return air fares plus all internal transport accommodation and living expenses.’

Hit: My Generation

Hidden Gem: A Quick One (While He’s Away)

Rocks In The Attic #293: Otis Redding – ‘History Of Otis Redding’ (1968)

It’s funny how some musicians become saints when they die young, and others are just glossed over. I don’t think I ever want to see another t-shirt with the faces of Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley and Jim Morrison draped in moonlight, but still there they are, in the type of shops that typically attract the fat, lazy and stupid.

Perhaps Otis died too young – he was only twenty six at the time of his death, a year younger than the mythical age that might have guaranteed him a place on those t-shirts.

Redding died in December 1967, and there’s a pretty horrible photo of him being pulled out of the frozen lake that his plane crashed into. There’s an equally horrible set of photos of him, from a couple of days prior to the crash, which show Redding standing next to his new plane outside the aircraft hangar, beaming with pride over his new acquisition. These have more impact than the crash photo, if only because they paint a picture of youth and exuberance that was very soon snuffed out.

History Of Otis Redding was the very first of countless Otis compilations, but the only one released in his lifetime, just a month before his death. I often wonder where he would have ended up had he not died – there are dozens of singers from that era of soul – Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, William Bell etc – that drifted into obscurity in one way or another. Who’s to say that Otis Redding wouldn’t have done the same thing? The question mark comes with his appearance at the 1967 Monterey Pop festival, and his apparent crossover into the pop mainstream. Unfortunately it’s a question that will never be answered.

I’ll just have to keep looking out for a t-shirt of Otis Redding’s’ face draped in moonlight…

Hit: Try A Little Tenderness

Hidden Gem: I Can’t Turn You Loose