Chapter 9
On July 4 and 5 of 1969, I got the chance of a lifetime. This is the type of opportunity that all budding musicians need—to see the music world from the underside where it's not so clean and pretty.
Mark Texiera, one of the coolest guys around, was looking for a partner to go with him to the Atlanta Pop Festival. Mark was a year older than I, but we hung out together quite a bit. Girls were nuts about Mark, especially Rocky Combs. Rocky Combs was the sister of a girl that I was nuts about, Denise Combs. Sadly, Denise had a thing for Lance Butler. Why him and not me, I’ll never know.
Mike asked me if I could go. Apparently, no one else could get permission to be gone for four days and on their own in Atlanta. I had slim hope that I could get permission either, but I steeled my nerve and asked my father. To my astonishment, he said yes. Maybe he didn’t realize that he was allowing me to commune with the world of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
We also had a third person going along. Stuart Barnes.
Mark Texiera and I agreed to go along with Stuart for three reasons: first, he had an uncle who lived in Atlanta so we had a place to stay; second, they were going to let us use a car (1965 Ford Fairlane convertible); third, and most important, we knew we could lose him in the crowd.
The 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival featured many of the bands that I grew up on. Canned Heat, Johnny Winter, Johnny Rivers, Al Cooper, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad, Janis Joplin, Spirit, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Pacific Gas & Electric, Ten Wheel Drive, and Sweetwater were all there, as were others I may not recall. The poster for the festival included the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker and Paul Butterfield, but I don’t recall them appearing.
We three rode the bus to Atlanta together. We were picked up at the bus station by Stuart’s aunt who drove us to her house and showed us where we’ll be sleeping. As I recall, Stuart’s aunt and uncle were much cooler than he was. Stuart had a weird sort of chip on his shoulder, probably brought about by years of enduring that sort of nerd teasing that he must have gotten as he was growing up. He wore glasses, had thick, dark hair, and was nearly obsessively trying to get into your business. He also had no interest in the drugs and rock and roll of the festival. He wanted sex.
Me, I had no interest in the sex or the drugs, but the music was all-consuming. Mike was the same way.
We headed out to the Griffith Motor Speedway where the festival was to be held on the morning of the fourth after Stuart’s aunt had made us a sumptuous breakfast. I got to drive, Mike sat shotgun, and Stuart shot off his mouth in the back seat of the Fairlane. He annoyed both Mike and me through the entire trip. He even gave me some wrong directions and we ended up about one hundred miles off-course for the raceway. I wound the Fairlane out and averaged about 100 miles per hour once we had good directions and had us there just in time to get in the back of a two or three mile long traffic stoppage entering into the raceway. It took about three hours of stop and start driving until we got parked and then it was little more than 30 minutes before we lost Stuart in the crowd.
Before you start bitching at me for being so mean to Stuart, when we finally met up at the car at about 2 a.m. to head back to his aunt and uncle’s house, he gave us a full accounting of all the sexy hippie chicks he had seen, how many nipples he had counted, and how many girls he had talked to. He had himself a good time. When we asked him what he thought of certain bands, he wasn’t aware of any of them. To his credit, he did recognize Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man,” when it was played. He preferred the studio version, however.
I was totally transported by Canned Heat. When they performed their Canned Heat Boogie and each member got an extended solo, I was in musical heaven. This is what I wanted to do.
In Johnny Winters, I witnessed the true integration of blues and rock and roll. He was, and still is, a master at the form and I have heard his style mimicked dozens of times since.
Janis Joplin was the highlight of the show. She sang and gyrated across the stage with her big band and put on the best show.
Al Kooper took the stage with more than a dozen musicians in a huge band box and promptly bored us to death with his technical ineptitude on the wah-wah pedal.
Spirit, despite their wonderful studio sound, could hardly be recognized in their live act.
Led Zeppelin was great, and at one point a woman dressed all in red jumped up on the stage and went after Robert Plant. Some stage guards grabbed her and tossed her back into the audience.
It was hot in Atlanta in July. To cool down, we could go over to the fire trucks which were hosing the crowd down with water. My only witness to any nudity at the whole festival happened there when the fireman standing on top of the fire truck turned his hose on a young woman right below him and it blew her bathing suit bottoms right down to her ankles. Mike happened to be sitting on my shoulders at the time trying to soak our tee-shirts and so I didn’t get a very good look.
I was a sometime smoker then. At one point during the second day, I panhandled a cigarette from a guy who was lost to this world. the music wasn’t that good at the moment, so I assume he was under some other influence. He was just sitting with one leg under him and the other serving as a prop for his arm. He had no shirt on, long dirty hair and a scraggly beard. In his hand was a pack of cigarettes with one stuck out of the pack and attached to his lips. It looked as if it needed a light. I said, “Excuse me.”
No reply.
“Hey, excuse me. Can I bum a cigarette from you?” I saw his eyebrows move slightly, so I knew I was getting through. I pointed to the pack and put two fingers up to my mouth in the universal symbol of “gimme a cigarette.”
He turned his head up to me, gave my 16-year-old frame a once over and then pointed the loaded pack at me. I reached out, pulled out the one that had been occupying his lips and said, “Thanks.” He flipped another one out and resumed his studious position.
“Do you have a light?” I asked.
No reply.
“Excuse me. I hate to be such a moocher, but do you have a light also?”
Without moving his head, he produced a lighter, stuck it out at me and flicked it into action. I lit the cigarette. “Thanks,” I said. “I won’t bother you anymore.” He actually nodded his head at me and resumed his contemplative repose.
I think it was the second day when Grand Funk Railroad’s Mark Farmer walked to the stage right through the middle of the crowd, Gibson Les Paul on his shoulder like Paul Bunyan would have carried his axe. Cool.
I tried to sleep the entire six hour bus ride back to Charleston as did Mike. Stuart complained the whole time that the music wasn't that good and that there weren't enough girls there. My parents were glad when I got back home and I believe that my father was proud that I had gone on an adventure as a young man. I know I thanked him for letting me go, but I don't think I told him how much it meant to me that he trusted me to do such a thing.
Dad passed away in in April of 1980. He once told me that no Melton man has ever lived to be 50. He was just four days shy of his 50th birthday. Thanks for the adventure, Dad.