Saturday 31 October 2009

1967 Berkeley Folk Festival Film

This interesting little item cropped up in the August 11, 1967 television listings shown in Massachusetts' Lowell Sun newspaper. It identifies a showing on Channel 2 of a programme entitled Summer Sampler. The description refers to Folk music and rock ‘n’ roll from the Berkeley campus. The only acts listed are Reverend Gary Davis together with Country Joe and The Fish. This was film taken from the July 1967 Berkeley Folk Festival and also featured performances by Kaleidoscope, Doc Watson, Crome Syrcus, Jimmy Cotton's Chicago Blues Band and the Red Crayola. If copies survive I have never found them.

The title Summer Sampler would be reused for at least one more KQED production (featuring Steve Miller in Golden Gate Park). KQED were also responsible for “A Day in the Life of Country Joe and The Fish” which was filmed that spring and included interviews with each of the band members. KQED would later go on to produce the Vibrations series of short films later in 1967 and again one featuring our epic travelers Country Joe and The Fish. Sadly much of the original KQED film appears to have been lost.

Also being shown at 10:00pm is a re-run of an episode of the Avengers described as The East and West join to find out who’s murdering spies and why. Readers of this column will no doubt be aware that the episode being referred to is Brian Clemens’ classic The Correct Way To Kill.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

The Name Game


There are no words that can adequately express my views on this brief article that was culled from the May 6, 1967 edition of Billboard. Mere words just don't seem to be enough.

Of course this is not just a Berkeley artifact, but an item covering the entire Bay Area - the San Francisco Scene captured in a few short paragraphs.