JAN. 14
The Human Be-In Starts a Revolution
''Turn on, tune in, drop out.'' Psychologist and psychedelic-drug enthusiast Timothy Leary coins the catchphrase for the 1960s counterculture while addressing the throng that has converged on San Francisco's Golden Gate Park for the Human Be-In. He thought up the term in the shower as a way to promote LSD. Many attendees appear to be in the know, however, as they groove to performances by Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. While the event takes place five months before the June 21 solstice, it's a significant precursor to the Summer of Love, as news of the happening quickly spreads across the nation. By spring, San Francisco's bohemian Haight-Ashbury district is a mecca for those in search of a spiritual revolution — and some heavy-duty acid.
Gary Duncan, guitarist, Quicksilver Messenger Service
''By the time we got there, there were, like, 20,000 people. Word got
out, and all the news crews arrived, and it became a social movement.''
Ray Manzarek, keyboardist, the Doors
''We were in San Francisco to play our first gig at the legendary
Fillmore. The four of us all looked at each other and said, We're gonna
change the world! Of course, we didn't, but that's another story.''
Sam Andrew, guitarist, Big Brother and the Holding Company
''I've never been able to decide if we were there or not. I thought for
years that we were in NYC having meetings. But every third gig someone
will come up and say, 'I saw you at the Human Be-In!'''
Pamela Des Barres, self-proclaimed groupie and author, I'm With the Band''I went to that, and soon [the love-ins] started in Los Angeles. It was the most free-floating, exquisite experience every time. My girlfriends and I would make cupcakes and put flowers in everybody's hair. The communes were spreading, everybody living together — this was brand-new stuff!''
MARCH 17
The Grateful Dead Come Alive...Sort Of
The Grateful Dead's Haight house is a hotbed of hippie activity, with local musicians and artists congregating nightly. The first self-titled album from the merry band of sonic explorers pretty much stiffs upon its March debut, but their ''out-there'' live shows birth the Deadheads, making them one of the most popular concert draws for decades to come.
Bob Weir, singer and guitarist, Grateful Dead
''If I had that record to do over and I could make one change it would be
the Ritalin. Several of the guys had just discovered Ritalin and
thought, Okay, we'll take a little of this stuff and be right on top of
our form. The music suffered for that a little bit.''
David Crosby, singer and guitarist, the Byrds
''There were jam sessions constantly [at the Haight house]. It was clean,
well kept. But it's impossible to describe. It's like trying to describe
colors if you were born blind.''
Duncan
''The first time I saw the Dead, I think, was at an Acid Test at the
Fillmore. They were playing because they were involved with
[counterculture icon and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest author] Ken
Kesey, who was an advocate of dosing everybody with LSD. I took so much,
it would kill a normal person. There were a lot of people who aren't
around today because they never came down.''
MAY 25
Jefferson Airplane Take Flight
The Airplane are the first of the S.F.-based bands to break big, thanks to their May-charting sophomore album, Surrealistic Pillow, which includes the hits ''Somebody to Love'' and the hallucinogenic-minded ''White Rabbit.'' New singer Grace Slick, a statuesque former model, is hailed as one of the first female rock stars.
Paul Kantner, singer and rhythm guitarist, Jefferson Airplane
''It was a very naively beautiful, fresh album celebrating life. And I
was entranced by Grace almost from day one. But I don't think any of us
thought the band would be a long-term project. We thought we could
change the world just by being good people, the dumb f--s that we were.
[Laughs]''
MAY 27
The Summer of Love Gains an Anthem
Penned for folksinger Scott McKenzie by the Mamas and the Papas' John Phillips, ''San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)'' hits the charts, further encouraging the migration of young people to the Bay Area.
McKenzie
''Phillips was negotiating [the details of the upcoming Monterey Pop
Festival]. He told me about the resistance they were getting [from
locals] and their fear of this wave of young people coming from points
east. I said, 'Why don't we write a song that's friendly advice to kids,
saying: Look, not everyone's excited about you coming here.' [Recently]there was some nutty conservative website which [suggested] I alone was
responsible for sexual immorality. Let me tell you something: I did my
part [laughs], but I can't be held responsible for the whole thing!''
JUNE 2
The Beatles Release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles' album is an instant classic, fueling global interest in psychedelic-drug use (''Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds''), Indian culture (''Within You Without You''), and groovy military clothes.
Donovan, singer
''The day Sgt. Pepper was released in Britain [on June 1], we ran down to
the store to get it. I did drop by [the recording sessions], but I was
with the Small Faces when I first heard the album. We'd been hanging
out, smoking joints, drinking wine, and playing guitar. It blew
everybody's mind.''
Micky Dolenz, singer and drummer, the Monkees
''Paul McCartney invited me to a session. I got on my paisley,
double-knit bell-bottoms and my tie-dyed shirt and my beads and my hair
all done up; I must have looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and
Charles Manson. The limo pulls up to Abbey Road Studios, and I walk
inside. The four guys are sitting there in jeans and T-shirts, just
playing. I was like, 'Where are the girls?' John Lennon said, 'Hey,
Monkee man: You want to hear what we're working on?' He points to George
Martin, up in the booth. Martin is wearing a three-piece suit. He pushes
the button, and I hear the tracks to 'Good Morning Good Morning.' It was
a big moment.''
Weir
''We went up to Tim Leary's place in upstate New York and listened to it.
It was a bit rich for me. I found myself longing for that old, lean rock
& roll quartet. But, that said, it was pretty damn good. At the end,
Leary said, 'My work is done.' I'm not totally sure I felt that way,
but...[laughs]''
Des Barres
''I remember it being played at the love-ins. It was magic; you could
almost see flowers sprouting in the air. And if you were on acid, you
really could see flowers sprouting in the air!''
JUNE 16-18
Groovy: the Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey County Fairgrounds fest features a veritable A-to-Z of Summer of Love luminaries, including the Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, Buffalo Springfield, the Grateful Dead, the Mamas and the Papas, Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, Otis Redding, the Janis Joplin-fronted Big Brother and the Holding Company, and a guitar-immolating Jimi Hendrix. Soon after, media interest in the counter-culture climaxes with the TIME magazine cover story ''The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture.''
Lou Adler, record label owner and Monterey co-organizer
''Woodstock is remembered for the weather. Altamont for the murder. But
Monterey is remembered for the music.''
Duncan
''I was standing 15 feet from Hendrix when he burned his guitar.
Afterwards I was in the [musicians'] tent, and we both had black cowboy
hats on. Hendrix looked at me and said, 'That's a nice hat.' I said,
'Thank you,' and he said, 'Would you like some acid?' He had a little
tin and handed it over — it had about 20 hits — and said, 'Take whatever you
want.' So I swallowed about 10 and handed it back to him, and he took
the rest. About 20 minutes later, he said, 'Let's play!' We played for
four or five hundred years. [Laughs]''
McKenzie
''Watching Otis was thrilling. People forget this was a fantastic time
for soul music. He got more reaction in terms of traditional applause
than anybody. Then we lost him [in a plane crash on December 10, 1967].
Jesus. You know, there's no justice.''
Andrew
''Ravi Shankar asked everyone not to smoke marijuana. We were impressed
by that. He said, 'You don't need that if you're going to listen to my
music.'''
Peter Tork, singer and multi-instrumentalist, the Monkees
''The Vietnam War was going on, of course. We knew it was bogus from the
start — not unlike contemporary situations. One of the reasons for the
Summer of Love was that a ton of kids simply withdrew from Lyndon
Johnson's world because it was so clear that those who were in charge
were totally bereft of any moral underpinning whatsoever. We said: You
guys know nothing, so we're going to run off and have our fun. It's like
that line from 'Wooden Ships' by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: 'We are
leaving, you don't need us.'''
JULY 29
The Doors' ''Light My Fire'' Blazes a Trail to the Top of Billboard's Hot 100
Jim Morrison & Co. are given carte blanche on their eponymous debut album. The result, released in January 1967, is a groundbreaking, subversive fusion of rock, poetry, and sex with a track listing that includes ''Light My Fire,'' ''The End,'' and ''Break on Through (To the Other Side).'' But the album starts to shift significant quantities only after a truncated version of the seven-minute ''Light My Fire'' hits No. 1.
Manzarek
''When we recorded 'Light My Fire,' Bruce Botnick, our engineer, was
watching a Dodgers game — they were going for the pennant and the great
Sandy Koufax was pitching. We're playing the solos; Jim's dancing around
playing a maraca, and he comes across the TV in the corner. You could
see him going, What the heck is this? He looks at Bruce, looks at the TV
set, picks the set up, and throws it at the window. Fortunately, the
glass was a good three-quarters of an inch thick. The set bounced off,
fell on the floor, sputtered, and died. You don't have a baseball game
playing when the Doors are making magic.''
AUG. 7
George Harrison Hates the Haight
Perhaps a little too late to the party, the Beatle guitarist arrives in San Francisco and is unimpressed by what he sees. Meanwhile, busloads of tourists gawk at the hippies and, often, the bare derrieres of the Grateful Dead.
Donovan
''George saw that it had turned into skid row, and the older generation
of bohemians that were less altruistic were selling hard drugs. The
dealers started using our songs as an example of 'Turn on, tune in, drop
out.' We didn't mean turn on to drugs — we meant turn on to awareness.''
Kantner
''The mistake we made was telling everyone what a wonderful time we were
having.''
Weir
''As soon as someone saw a tour bus rounding the corner, the cry went
out: Battle stations, load and prime. Whoever was around would get by a
window and fire away — we'd all drop our pants.''
AUG. 25
Jimi Becomes Experienced
The Jimi Hendrix Experience's first album, Are You Experienced, proves the trio's leader doesn't need lighter fluid to set his instrument on fire. Tracks such as ''Purple Haze,'' ''Manic Depression,'' and ''Foxey Lady'' mark the start of Hendrix's all-too-brief reign as the world's greatest guitarist.
Des Barres
''At one of the early love-ins I met a photographer. He was making a
short film [with the Experience]. He said, 'Do you want to dance in it?'
I went over to this cavernous hippie pad in the Hollywood Hills. It's
all painted psychedelic, and Hendrix is there and [Experience members]Noel [Redding, bassist] and Mitch [Mitchell, drummer]. I danced on this
pedestal while Jimi was grinding out 'Foxey Lady.' It was a
life-altering experience to be in a room with those guys. Jimi hit on
me, of course, but I was too nervous and virginal. I wound up with Noel;
he was willing to wait.''
Dolenz
''Jimi Hendrix was the opening act for [the Monkees]. The kids, I don't
think they got it. He'd be out there playing 'Purple Haze' to 'We want
Davy!' It was embarrassing, but we had a great time.''
SEPT. 17
The Doors Get ''Higher'' on The Ed Sullivan Show
Manzarek
''They asked us not to say the word 'higher' [in 'Light My Fire']. We
thought, Is this a Theater of the Absurd play that we have entered into?
But we told one of the top dogs that we would not say the word — and, of
course, we all looked at each other and said, Let's do it! So Jim said
the word 'higher,' and the man came backstage and told us we would never
work The Ed Sullivan Show again. Jim looked at the guy — and this is
classic Morrison — and said, 'Hey, man, so what? We just did The Ed
Sullivan Show!'''
OCT. 6
Bummer: The Death of Hippie Parade
Haight-Ashbury scenesters respond to the intense media coverage and the degradation of their counterculture ideals by drawing the Summer of Love to a close with a mock funeral procession. Tragically, real funerals follow as, over the next few years, many of the era's prime talents — Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead's Ron ''Pigpen'' McKernan — prematurely depart for the great love-in in the sky.
Weir''The problem with that parade was that a lot of my brethren, our kindred spirits, were already gone. This parade was for the people that had killed the hippies. [Laughs]''
Andrew
''Janis was the most talented person to come out of the scene, easily.
Her entire career was four years long. I often thought if she hadn't
left Big Brother as early as she did, she might still be with us.''
Crosby
''What were the aims of the counterculture? Get high, get laid.''
McKenzie
''I do love some of the things that we tried to do. We figured, if you
had peaceful thoughts, maybe there's a chance that peaceful actions come
after. And I don't think that's silly, I don't think that's worthy of
ridicule.''
Donovan
''This was the year that, fully, the bohemian knowledge was returned to
the world. I can't say enough about it. The Summer of Love is not a
historical time; it's a portal that was fully opened [after] it was
closed for two wars and a depression. The music carried the message. And
the music was absolutely f--ing great!'' (Additional reporting by Rob Brunner, Shirley Halperin, Beth Johnson, and Damien McCaffery)
Vintage Vinyl
Some of 1967's most far-out LPs
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles
The Doors
The Doors
Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplane
The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead
Are You Experienced
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Moby Grape
Moby Grape
The Who Sell Out
The Who
Disraeli Gears
Cream
Da Capo
Love
King & Queen
Otis Redding & Carla Thomas
Something Else
The Kinks
John Wesley Harding
Bob Dylan
