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Celebration Of Life-1971
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Posted On 06/21/2009 01:22:36 by DBarry
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Today is June 21st, The Day of The Summer Solstice. It arrived at 2:45 AM Central Daylight Savings Time. From now until the Winter Solstice the days will be getting shorter.
And that brings us to the focus of todays column. It was on this date back in 1971 that the Celebration of Life Music Festival began. This event seemed doomed from the get-go. First of all it was after Altamont, the infamous rock concert in 1969 which included a homicide, a drowning and two hit-and-run accidents. It was headlined and organized by the Rolling Stones who hired the Hell's Angels as security. You would think that this would have been the last show of its kind. But, no. The greed of promoters is apparently insatiable.
The Celebration of Life Music Festival was held near McCrea La. on the east side of the Atchafalaya River north of Melville. And almost as if Altamont had never happened, the promoters right off hired the Galloping Gooses Motorcycle Club for "security" on the grounds. But there were no incidents because of them, however, there were a couple of drownings in the Atchafalaya and a drug overdose.
The festival was scheduled for eight days, but for the first few days it was mired in legal hassles. When it finally did go on it was for a total of four days. Not nearly all the acts who were on the original schedule got to perform, especially Janis Joplin who had been dead for several months already. If it had gone on as planned though, it would have been one monumental rock fest. Take a look at this list of artists :
The Allman Bros., Alex Taylor, Amboy Dukes, B. B. King, Ballinjack, the Beach Boys, Bloodrock, Boz Scaggs, Buddy Miles, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat, Chambers Bros., Chuck Berry, Country Joe McDonald, Delaney-Bonnie & Freinds, Dixieland Jazz Bands, Edgar Winter's White Trash, Eric Burdon, War, Flying Burrito Bros., the Ike and Tina Review, It's A Beautiful Day, James Gang, John Hartford, John B. Sebastion, John Lee Hooker, Johnny Winter, Leon Russell, Melanie, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Ravi Shankar, Richie Havens, Roland Kirk, Seatrain, Sly & The Family Stone, Symphany Orchestra and the Voices of Harlem.
I would love to nail down a list of what bands actually did play. But I wasn't there, and I wasn't able to access the Advertiser Archives for this one.
The Festival Poster was pretty nice. It touts "A Week In The Country-Summer Solstice."
Here's a link you can check out and get a look at it :
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/fullRecord.asp?id=54175
Meanwhile, the national news took a pretty dim view of the whole affair. This is the article that Time Magazine printed about it.
Mud, Sweat & Tears
From Time Magazine
Monday, Jul 12, 1971.
It was billed as a "celebration of life," but the Louisiana rock festival near the town of McCrea may have marked the end of what began at Woodstock as a beatific American experience and deteriorated into something violent at Altamont and vapid at Powder Ridge. Last week's festival, which lated only four days instead of the announced eight, was an American nightmare. To begin with, the festival was postponed for three days while the promoters wallowed in legal mire. The kids amused themselves by making human mudpies and bathing in the nude. Two youths drowned in the fast-rushing Atchafalaya River. State undercover narcotics agents circulated in the crowd and made more than 100 busts. One youth died in a hospital tent from a drug overdose. Meanwhile, dazed with blistering heat, and stulifying humidity, the estimated 50,000 youths who gathered to see Country Joe McDonald and John Sebastion were also choked by dust. For the Woodstock Nation, McCrea was a bleak experience of mud, sweat and tears.
Well, what can you say? Those guys from New York just can't handle a Louisiana summer can they. Not everybody thought such negative things about the festival as a whole.
Check out this video. Although Rare Earth wasn't on the bill, they're song "I Just Want To Celebrate," seems to work well with this, from 8mm film, shot by someone who was there and thought it was a great time. Just go to YouTube and type Celebration of Life 1971 into the search window. You'll also get to read some comments from a lot of folks who were there.
WARNING: I picked up a terrible computer virus from one of the sites that had info on Celebration of Life. I would advise not searching the subject on Google etc.
Now let's travel further back in time to this date in 1879. When this ad appeared in the Lafayette Advertiser :
Dobbins' Electric Soap
Having obtained the agency of this celebrated soap for Vermilionville and vicinity, we append the opinion of some of our best people as to its merits :
Dobbins' Electric soap made by I. L. Cragin & Co, of Philadelphia, Pa., gives perfect satisfaction in every respect. I have given it a fair test and recommend it to all housekeepers.
&nb sp; &nb sp; ERNEST BERNARD
I have thoroughly tried Dobbins' Electric Soap and find that it surpasses all other soaps for washing purposes, and it is a great saver of time and labor.
&nb sp; &nb sp; R. Dugat Parish of Lafayette.
After having used Dobbins' Electric Soap, we find that it is better than any other soap we have ever tried. With it washing can be done in one half the time, boiling the clothes is unneccesary and but very little rubbing is needed.
&nb sp; &nb sp; H. GONELLAZ, A. NEVUE, Vermilionville.
We desire all our friends and customers to give this soap one trial, so they may know just how good the best soap in the U. S. is.
&nb sp; &nb sp; GERAC BROS, Sole Agents, Vermilionville.
I have alway understood that electricity and water do not not mix, but maybe its a low voltage Electric Soap. And on top of that, the box of Electric Soap Flakes in that picture looks like it would be great with milk.
This ad was in the Advertiser on todays date in 1879 and is very similar to the ads they ran everywhere else in the country. About three or four testimonials with no explanation for what Electric Soap really means. We can only wonder.
Now, let's skip back a few years to this date in 1873, when new technology was muscling its way into the world of the printed word.
&nb sp;
&nb sp; "A Printer's Dream "
One of the typographical correspondents of the Missouri Republican professes to have had a prophetic vision of a revolution in the mode of printing newspapers. thus:
"Entering the splendid composing-room, I looked around for the printers. Lo and Behold ! not a 'print' was in sight ; not a stand nor a type case ; not an oath nor a vulgar word was heard ; but about a dozen intelligent-looking gentlemen were sitting, each with a marble-topped square table before him, on which was a pile of finely polished zinc plates, the width of a column, and of various lengths. Each likewise had a stationary cutting-knife beside him, to use as he required. I inquired what had become of the typos, and was told that their occupations, many of them having chosen the profession of the law, for which their previous extensive practice at the bar eminently fitted them, and that the gentlemen sitting before me wrote the newspaper on those zinc plates, that as fast as one finished article, he took a proof from it with a peculiar ink, between cylinders, as a copper-plate does ; and that afterwards the plates were arranged as the type used to be between column rules, just as high as the plates. That then a roller was passed over them repeatedly, containing a varnish which adhered to the writing on the plates themselves, until the letters were high enough from which to make a matrix, and that from this time the process was substantially the same as when type was used.
"But, how," I asked, "did the readers of the paper like a manuscript newspaper?
"Oh ! many objected to it, but they soon became accustomed to it, and now would not exchange it for the old style. Besides, practice has made the writers so perfect that the paper looks like a copper-plate."
"Are there any other advantages connected with the new system ?"
"Very many ; prominent among which are economy in wages and an increase of reading matter--the new system is saving one thousand dollars a week, at least, for type-setting, and giving at least one-third more matter."
And finally, this appeared in the Lafayette Advertiser on Sat. June 21, 1879, concerning progress
on the railroad work on the western side of Vermilionville at Lake Charles.
&nb sp; RAILROAD ITEMS
A squad of Penitentiary convicts--one hundred and five--under the superintendence of Capt. Hayden, arrived at this place on Saturday, 14th ints., and were lodged at their headquarters, now temporarily located about two miles west of town (Lake Charles). They began work on Monday morning on the the Louisiana Western Railroad going west.
There has been a large increase of laborers during the last few days. All laborers coming find employment. A locomotive is expected today, per schooner Piper, from Galveston. The second schooner from New York, the Sarah F. Bird, will finish today discharging at Calcasieu Pass her 550 tons of steel rails and fastenings. About 1000 tons of steel rails and fastening left New York for Lake Charles this week, and also tubes, by the Mallory Line, for the Calcasieu river bridge. Laborers camps are rapidly moving eastward. Three saw mills here, and three at Orange are sawing for the railroad. Work goes right along.--Lake Charles Echo
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