My wife and I just watched this documentary this evening (July 4th, 2021). It is astounding to me that I had been unaware of this summer-long series of Live musical concerts in New York City that drew tens of thousands of people out each time. Sure, I had an excuse. That was the summer I hopped on board an airplane at JFK with my college girlfriend for a two month vacay touring around Europe on a British motorcycle. But.... I knew about the Woodstock Festival. I also learned about the festival on the Isle of Wight that happened that year. And, of course, we all knew about the Monterey Pop Festival a couple of years earlier. How was it possible that a whole series of weekend concerts featuring such artists as Stevie Wonder, B. B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Sly and the Family Stone, The Fifth Dimension, Mahalia Jackson....just to name a few, went by completely under the radar? The reason is that despite it being filmed and recorded, nobody at that time was interested. When I say "nobody," of course, I mean the Powers that Be who decide what was worth their time and $$$ in producing, packaging, promoting, etc. A project that was basically about "Negro" musical artists playing to a mostly "Negro" audience. So, my friends, the record of those concerts sat in a basement for 50 years. As one person in the documentary says, "Black folks are used to not having their history told. This was nothing new." But this is now 2021, and....as Bob Dylan said a long time ago, "The times they are a-changing! (btw.... Dylan did NOT play at Woodstock that year, but he did play at The Isle of Wight!). , If you weren't around in '69, here's the Cliff Notes on that period: Beginning with the assassination of JFK in 1963, it seemed the U. S. had been through a rash of them. Malcolm X in Harlem in 1965. Martin Luther King, Jr. In Memphis & Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles - both in 1968. There had been a whole series of deadly riots after the MLK assassination all across the country. The war in Viet Nam was ramping up with no let-up in sight, and the My Lai Massacre was something Americans were having trouble processing. Richard Nixon was president and the Press was under attack like never before. "Easy Rider" was the surprise hit movie of the Summer, which showed just how divided the country had become over the War & "those damned longhair Peaceniks!" The heroes of the film wind up being splattered by a shotgun-wielding redneck on a lonely stretch of southern blacktop decades before "drive by" shootings became commonplace. (Hmmmm....any of this getting your attention?) It was also the summer of Apollo 11 and the first time humans walked on the Moon. Now some 52 years later there are actually a large percentage of people that swear THAT never happened, despite all evidence to the contrary. (I was in camping in the outskirts of Paris that day, so did not see those grainy B&W TV shots of Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon, but I do remember the day!). It was also the year the Beatles had their last public performance (on the roof of Apple Records in London). The first Concorde airliner had a test flight in France. Pontiac introduced its Firebird Trans Am. The Manson Family would murder Sharon Tate and several others that August in L. A. And....in December of that year, The Rolling Stones would hold a free concert at Altamont Speedway in Northern California. It drew 300,000 fans. Thanks largely to the not-so-bright idea of having "Security" supplied by the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, the concert degenerated into just possibly the most chilling finale a decade ever saw. (The documentary of that debacle came out the following year: "Gimme Shelter") The Era of Peace and Love definitely had the final nail driven into its coffin on that day and the 70's were about to get a whole lot worse. But, please. Do yourself a favor and watch this film. And then maybe you might ask yourself, is there anything else in our History that has been kept under wraps, or hidden away or not taught? Because today it seems that very question is almost........ (I will leave it for you to fill in the blank.)
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