Music Memorabilia
Giving Thanks: Jefferson Airplane Guitarist Sheds the Rock-Star Mask to Tell His Truth
By Ben Marks — “If you remember the ’60s, you weren’t there.” So goes the stoner cliché. Despite this paradoxical measure of authenticity, Jorma Kaukonen’s (St. Martin’s Press) is filled with richly detailed recollections of that landmark decade, although Kaukonen does confess to forgetting big chunks of the 1970s and ’80s. “That's true,” the lead guitarist of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna confirmed when we spoke recently about his memoir and memory lapses, “for better or worse.” “We were in the...
Behind the Scenes With Janis Joplin and Big Brother, Rehearsing for the Summer of Love
By Ben Marks — A few months from now, millions of Baby Boomers will be seized by the same disorienting flashback, in which they’ll be hurtled through time and space to San Francisco in 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love. The trigger will lurk in the coverage of this cultural watershed by news organizations, magazines, and websites, all of whom will to be tripping over themselves to celebrate the 50th anniversary of what was, in fact, a marketing gimmick designed to capitalize on a scene that was...
Lightman Fantastic: This Artist Drenched '60s Music Lovers in a Psychedelic Dream
By Ben Marks — When kindly old grandparents beckon their fresh-faced grandchildren into their rock-poster-lined man caves and she sheds, to vape sweet kush and wax nostalgic about the San Francisco music scene of the 1960s, their rambling recollections are often accompanied by the sounds of “Cheap Thrills” or “Aoxomoxoa”—cranked to 11. "When you are painting with light, if people aren’t there, nobody sees it." Getting high with grandma and grandpa while listening to Big Brother and the Holding Company...
Anita Pointer: Civil-Rights Activist, Pop Star, and Serious Collector of Black Memorabilia
By Lisa Hix — At one point, Anita Pointer—lead vocalist and writer for the Pointer Sisters’ Top 10 hit “I’m So Excited”—was one of the most famous women in the world. During the early ’80s, she and her sisters June and Ruth tore up the pop music charts with singles like “Jump (For My Love),” “Neutron Dance,” “Automatic,” “He’s So Shy,” and “Slow Hand.” If you search for the girl group on YouTube and watch videos from the height of their popularity, you’ll be whisked back on a buoyant romp of sequins,...
At the First Rock Festival, Pianos Fell From the Sky
By Ben Marks — Now that the orgy of insufferable hipsterism known as Coachella is finally behind us, it’s officially music-festival season, when hundreds of concerts will take over entire cities, towns, parks, and fields across the United States. As everyone knows, events like Lollapalooza, Lockn', and Bonnaroo follow in the grand tradition of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair held in August of 1969. That’s when a dairy farmer from Bethel, New York, named Max Yasgur opened his pastures to half a million...
The Dead Files: Rock Art, Artifacts, and Psychedelic Office Supplies Up for Grabs
By Ben Marks — When people ask me where I went to high school, I often tell them Winterland, the former Ice Follies arena in San Francisco where, from 1966 to 1978, legendary rock impresario Bill Graham produced concerts headlined by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to the Sex Pistols. My friends and I spent many an evening (and early morning) in that gloriously decrepit firetrap, but, in fact, I am a proud graduate of San Rafael High School, class of 1973, home of the fighting Bulldogs and 420. In 1970, our...
When Rock 'n' Roll Loomed Large Over the Sunset Strip
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — The enormous, unblinking chrome eyeballs stared down from their perch above L.A.'s famous Sunset Strip as record producers, nightclub owners, and movie stars sped by in their convertibles. The sign included no words, but in 1972, everyone was familiar with "Tommy," the rock opera about a "deaf, dumb, and blind kid" who plays a mean game of pinball. It didn't really matter if passing motorists didn't know these meticulously painted pinball eyes signified the release of the London Symphony...
Like Iggy Pop? Thank Your Grandparents
By Lisa Hix — If you had to choose an image to define “rock ’n’ roll,” what would it be? Elvis’ pompadour? A psychedelic rock poster? A Flying V guitar? The last thing you might picture is a young woman in the Great Depression, wearing her Sunday best, smiling modestly as she poses with her saxophone. But when Jim Linderman, a collector of vernacular photography and folk art, finds a photograph like that, he sees the seeds of the rebellious music known as rock. Linderman, an author and former librarian...
Being The Beatles: Untold Stories from the Fab Four's Legendary North American Tours
By Ben Marks — Like a lot of people of a certain age, I’ll never forget the night I watched The Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show." It was February 9, 1964, I was 7 years old, and John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had just invaded America. Coming scant months after the assassination of President Kennedy, the whole country (or at least 73 million television viewers) was ready for an evening of guilt-free fun. "I used to watch them wiggle their butts on stage." Even more...
Meet the Man Who Made Cowboys Love Rhinestones
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Though it might seem like country-western stars sprang from the womb wearing golden boots and rhinestone suits, it wasn't always so. In fact, we owe such flashy styles to a Ukrainian-born Jew named Nudie Cohn, who was the first to mix Nashville and Hollywood, making it hip to be ostentatious. While Cohn's name might not be familiar, you’ve certainly seen his famous Nudie suits, ranging from Gram Parsons' marijuana-leaf masterpiece to Elvis Presley's outfit of glitzy gold lamé. Taking his...
Rockin' at the Rollarena, Pre-Summer of Love
By Ben Marks — If you were in a rock band in late-1960s San Francisco, the world beat a path to your garage door. Record executives walked the length of Haight Street and saw dollar signs instead of peace symbols, signing bands to fat contracts as fast as they could. But if you wanted to rock ’n’ roll in the East Bay, particularly in that no-man’s land between Oakland and San Jose, you were a beggar at the banquet happening just a few miles away. It didn’t matter that you thought your group could be the...
Found Photos: When Rock Lost Its Innocence
By Ben Marks — On February 26, 1955, a Cleveland deejay named Tommy Edwards became the first music promoter to book a Southern singing sensation named Elvis Presley north of the Mason-Dixon line. The event was the Hillbilly Jamboree at Cleveland's Circle Theater. That fall, Edwards brought Presley back to the Cleveland area for several more shows, including one on October 20, 1955, at Brooklyn High School. On that date, Pat Boone was the headliner (“Ain’t That a Shame” was his big hit), with Elvis,...
Lady Gaga, Innovator or Copycat? We Dissect “Born This Way”
By Lisa Hix — Lady Gaga has a reputation as a wildly original trendsetter. But based on the evidence we found in "Born This Way," she's also a mega recycler of pop-culture history. Being connoisseurs of cool old stuff, we noticed that even her most outlandish imagery in the head-spinning video for "Born This Way" owes a great debt not only to Madonna's "Express Yourself," but also to works of science fiction, movie history, famous artworks, television, camp culture, and religious artifacts throughout...
Stephen M. H. Braitman on the British Invasion, from the Beatles to the Sex Pistols
By Dean Schaffer — I was a Hollywood kid. My father was a TV and radio editor in the San Fernando Valley, and he allowed me to do my first writing to review concerts and shows for the newspaper. But as a younger kid, I really hated rock ’n’ roll music and pop music, and I disliked the Beatles and all that. I have a younger sister who was a total Beatlemaniac. She started getting into the ’60s scene, but I was more influenced at that time by my father’s interest in classical music. I was, however,...