Acts with no resemblance to the quartets in identical suits that had defined rock-and-roll were suddenly introduced to the world: Big Brother & the Holding Company, Canned Heat, and Country Joe and the Fish, all unknown outside of Los Angeles and San Francisco; Jimi Hendrix, who had achieved stardom in London; The Who, a band that was scarcely known in America; and Ravi Shankar, who was booked at the insistence of the Beatles.

All of them, and others not seen in the film -- The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Mike Bloomfield's newly-formed Electric Flag -- had their careers transformed by Monterey. Scott McKenzie, a longtime friend of festival organizer John Phillips, reaped the most immediate rewards with a new song, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," written on the eve of Monterey by Phillips, which became a Number One hit in the weeks that followed. Janis Joplin and Big Brother got a recording contract coming right out of the festival and became famous overnight -- drummer David Getz later revealed that it was only after Monterey that they began to work on sounding professional. Jimi Hendrix found stardom in the embers of his burning guitar, and Pete Townshend achieved fame over the dead body of his guitar (the Stratocasters were dropping like flies).

For other groups, Monterey was a crossroads. On the second night, the Byrds played their first major concert in over a year, which also marked the end of David Crosby's membership in the band. In a 1982 interview, bassist Chris Hillman remembered it as one of the group's finest shows ever, but also recalled that Crosby infuriated the others by endorsing the use of LSD from the stage. The next evening, Crosby took the stage and played a set with Buffalo Springfield, marking his performing debut with Stephen Stills (but not Neil Young, who had left Springfield's lineup).

For others, film and festival alike were a moment of glory. South African-born trumpeter Hugh Masekela's soaring rendition of "Bajabula Bonke" ("Healing Song"), written by his then-wife Miriam Makeba, was immortalized amid a shimmering, billowing light show. Canned Heat's appearance was a rare instance of fulfillment in their tragic history -- Alan Wilson and Henry Vestine came out of Monterey hailed by Down Beat magazine as "possibly the best two-guitar team in the nation." Three years later, Wilson was found dead of unknown causes at age twenty-seven, outside the home of lead singer Bob Hite; and Hite himself collapsed and died following a show in 1981, at age thirty-six.

Any film that condenses a 72-hour event (and 85,000 feet of film) into 78 minutes can only deal with the essentials of its subject. "Shoot what catches your eye -- what you see as the spirit of the festival," D. A. Pennebaker instructed his seven two-man film crews.

Thus, Jimi Hendrix's full set included "Purple Haze," "Like a Rolling Stone," and "The Wind Cries Mary," but his guitar aflame in the night mattered more than the music. The Jefferson Airplane's spot revealed more about the group's internal dynamics than any interview -- the tight close-up of Grace Slick throughout "Today," a song written and sung by Marty Balin, was another sign of Balin's declining role in the group he founded. And Otis Redding moved into the bright stage lights so much that most of his footage was overexposed -- rather than junk it, Pennebaker used it to capture the singer's vibrancy and ebullience.

Monterey Pop was not the first great concert movie (The T.A.M.I. Show from 1964 has that honor), but it was the first one produced with a good sound system. The festival was recorded from the stage on eight-track equipment (the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album, released only two weeks earlier, had been done in four-track), with each crew recording its own sound on the spot. The results were as vivid sonically as visually.

Despite the organizers' enthusiasm, the First Annual Monterey International Pop Festival was also the last. The Summer of Love faded into autumn, and the sixties passed, tragically taking with it the talents of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Alan Wilson, Mama Cass Elliot and Otis Redding. But the legacy of Monterey and all who performed there lives on over 20 years later, immortalized in D. A. Pennebaker's psychedelic splash of sound and color called Monterey Pop.
-- BRUCE EDER* * * * *

A film about California ... Sitting with Lou Adler and John Phillips, Lou in his ancient straw planters hat, John dressed as outrageously as he could imagine, talking about how to film the festival ... but all the while looking out across the hills of Los Angeles, I was thinking to myself, this is going to be a film about California. And then when the festival began I found out what that meant. Lou and John, in their fantasy wisdom, had put together such a scene of music and camaraderie, that forever after it will be my memory of California. And, as well as their friendship, I will always value what they taught me about filmmaking.
-- D. A. PENNEBAKER

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