THE TURBULENT SUMMER OF 1969

This is September 13, and a Friday.  Some consider this to be a bad luck day.  The origin goes back to The Bible, and more specifically, Jesus.  As such, many other countries also are stuck with this superstition.  However, in Italy, long associated with Catholicism, Friday the 17th is unlucky.  This is because the number 17 in roman numeral is XVII, and anagram of VIXI, which means I have lived in Latin.  Some consider this is a bad omen, as it implies that death is soon.  Oh well, I am posting this article today because it relates to September 13, which in 1969 was a Saturday.

1969 was a heck of a year.

• That was 55 years ago.
• I was sent to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana by C. Brewer of the Hawaiian Sugar Industry to earn a master's degree in chemical engineering.  
• They paid my salary and LSU gave me a full fellowship, waiving tuition, so when you add the income of nurse wife, this was the only time when we actually put money in the bank.  

• 
  We had applied for married student housing, but had not received any info.  The day we arrived, before trying to find a place to live, dropped by the housing office, and they said they had on the typewriter (yes, those were used in 1969) a letter to me advising an apartment had been found for us.  
• So we lived there 3 years and 7 months, for I later worked out with C. Brewer a plan to go for a PhD.  
• 
  The second Popeye's opened a block from where we live.
• This was a period of Pete Maravich playing basketball and Tiger football, where the stadium was next to the chemical engineering building.

• 
  January 28:  massive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara.  Inspired the First Earth Day in 1970.
• February 9:  first Boeing 747 jumbo jet is flown.

• 
  March 17: Golda Meir becomes first, and only, female PM of Israel.
• April 4:  Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated.

• 
  May 15:  Robert R. is the first to die of what later became known as HIV/AIDS.  More than 50,000 have since passed away of this disease.
• June 6:  Robert F. Kennedy assassinated.
• July 8:  first U.S. troops withdraw from Viet Nam.
• July 21:  Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
• August 9:  the Manson Family murders.
• 
  August 15-18:  the Woodstock Festival, which was really held in Bethel, New York, 67 miles away.  Read my posting about how my wife and I almost went, but got discouraged by a traffic jam heading to the site, the potential for rain, and the fact that we had no tickets nor any place to stay.  I had a personal desire to go because in 1967 I had organized a rock concert in Naalehu, where the rodeo was later scheduled, one of the first outdoor rock event before Woodstock.  Of all my life accomplishments, this could well make the top ten.
• August 17:  Category 5 Hurricane Camille devastates Mississippi.  I had driven past this beach front a few months before, and went back a couple of years later to see total devastation.
• November 21:  the beginning of the internet.

Not much mentioned by anyone is the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival on September 13, 1969.  In 2022, Ron Chapman produced Revival 69:  The Concert That Rocked the World, which I recently viewed on my PBS station.  Here is a link so you too can watch it...for a fee.  A few other sources.

A documentary of this music festival, which played for 12 hours that day.  By all counts, it was amazing how well this event went, considering that the Toronto promoters, John Brower and Kenny Walker, were in their early 20's, wished for peace and got way over their heads.  In fact even Brower himself was surprised the concert even happened.

According to this film, Brower (right) and Walker began by inviting rockers who had fallen out of contemporary favor.  With a week to go and just 2,000 tickets sold (they were hoping for 20,000--remember that just the month before Woodstock, which had attracted 400,000), they took a chance and invited the Doors, Alice Cooper and Chicago.  They already had Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Bo Didley and Gene Vincent.  But tickets sales remained stalled.

Through a comic series of mis-contacts, Brower got on the phone John Lennon, who was still a member of the Beatles, to MC the event.  Lennon instead offered to perform with a new group, the Plastic Ono Band.  But they actually had no band, so he and Yoko Ono made some calls.  George Harrison declined, but Eric Clapton (right), Klaus Voormann (left) and Alan White agreed to this hasty adventure.

They decided to leave the UK on a flight to Toronto on September 12, the day before the event.  But that day Lennon and Ono decided they weren't going.  Another series of calls, and they all barely made this commercial flight, and had their first practice of sorts on the plane (drawing by Voorman above).  They made another attempt at the concert venue, but didn't know what to play.  They had never performed together.  In this chaos and uncertainty, all actually went relatively well, and on Lennon's return home, he indicated to the Beatles that he was quitting the group.  

The documentary shows tidbit performances from all the stars, but mostly what was occurring behind the scenes.  Stars were playing back-up for other performers, as there was no real house band.  Read about how this all became Revival 69 by D.A. Pennebaker and Ron Chapman.  In less than 24 hours, they did fill the stadium with 20,000 fans.  Click on this link to watch most of the performances. And this source for more acts.

Back to the focus of the day, every Friday the 13th movie explained with Taylor Swift songs.  Here is one Friday the 13th playlist.  #1 is Friday the 13th by the Vitamin String Quartet.  And another, with Stevie Wonder's Superstition at the top.  iHeart has Elvis' Suspicious Minds on the their list.  While it has nothing to do with Friday the 13th, this would be my favorite, for my wife and I were in the front row of Hotel International in Las Vegas in 1969 at one of his concerts, and I was most impressed with the percussion background.  That was the night he got a visit from Sammy Davis, Jr.

Bebinca remains a tropical storm at 50 MPH, but is expected to become a typhoon and head for landfall over Ningbo, China on Tuesday.  But the path has been vacillating, and those in the Shanghai area should be alert to changes.

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