What most people do not know is that there was a pre-cursor to this festival. It took place two years before, June 1967. That event was the Monterey Pop Festival.

Some historians claim Montery Pop was a better show than Woodstock and it was, for sure,  the beginning of the summer of love. Monterey Pop was the brainchild of John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, a big folk-rock group of the era. San Francisco was home-base for the hippies, so Monterey was a nearby venue that drew in the flower children.

Another fact that most people do not know is that the two most sensational acts at Woodstock had performed, and been equally startling and popular, a couple years before at Monterey. A young woman named Janis Joplin became a star at Monterey Pop. It was one of her earliest public appearances. She spent much of her time on stage swigging on bourbon as she sang. The audience loved her sexy, raw blues.

The other act, that brought the house down, was already huge in Europe but had not yet been discovered in the U.S. We are talking Jimi Hendrix. This kid, originally from Seattle, became a superstar at Monterey Pop, his first American venue. 

Joplin and Hendrix became legends but both would be dead, within one year of the Woodstock performances, from drug overdoses. They died only two months apart from one another in 1970. Their historical and phenomenal Woodstock performances were captured on film.

Steven L. Smith

Bellingham WA Home Inspections