7th and Market Streets, Oakland: August 7, 2009

On August 9, 1969, the City of Oakland held a Synanon-sponsored Street Fair. It featured a 14-hour free concert on two stages, headlined by Country Joe and The Fish. Just one week before Woodstock, the Oakland Tribune reported that 75, 000 people attended the event.

I have written about what I could determine about this remarkable event here. When I was in California recently, I took pictures of the site. Of course, the area has changed dramatically, both because of redevelopment and because of changes resulting from the aftermath of the Cypress Freeway collapse during the Loma Prieta Earthquake (October 17, 1989).

In August, 1969 these blocks were probably largely empty, which is why a large, free event could be held there. I have assumed that the area was slated for redevelopment, so many buildings must have been razed, but there was probably nothing yet in its place.

These photos were taken from a gas station on the corner of 7th and Market, looking across Market street. The top photo, with the tall apartment building, is the Southwest corner of 7th and Market; the lower photo, looking at a McDonald's, is on the Northwest corner of 7th and Market.

August 9, 1969 7th and Market Streets, Oakland, CA: Synanon Street Fair with Country Joe and The Fish

On Saturday, August 9, 1969, one week prior to Woodstock, Country Joe and The Fish headlined a 14-hour free concert at a Street Fair in Oakland for as many as 75,000 people. There are many remarkable things about this event, not the least that it seems to have been totally forgotten in the history of the East Bay and East Bay music. Until I discovered it recently in the archives of the Oakland Tribune, I knew nothing about it, and that made it officially obscure. This post is a brief effort to show what I have learned from the Tribune archives, as well as showing how remarkable this event appears to be.

Throughout most of the 1960s, the city of Oakland took pains to separate itself from its neighbor Berkeley, frowning on Anti-War demonstrations, long hair, rock music and everything associated with it. Berkeley had been having all sorts of free rock concerts and events for years, but Oakland remained a staid, middle class city. The Oakland Tribune was owned by the Knowland family, one of California's most powerful families, and The Trib represented Oakland's political and economic power brokers at the time. When the Tribune started giving over substantial space to promoting the Synanon Street Fair, in July 1969, a month before the event, it is clear that this event was supported by the City of Oakland at the highest levels.

Synanon was a drug rehabilitation program that put addicts to work doing a variety of community activities, thus becoming a sort of self-funding entity. Synanon had good relations with the City of San Francisco, and they had put on very successful Street Fairs in San Francisco in 1967 and '68. The Fair itself, complete with rock bands, were free, but Synanon made money through concessions and sponsorship. These events appear to be the predecessors of such San Francisco events as The Haight Street Fair or The Folsom Street Fair.

Oakland seems to have felt that the city needed such a fair, but a number of things seem to make the Oakland event different from the San Francisco events. The event was held at 7th and Market Streets, not too far from Downtown, but also part of the more African American neighborhoods that had been bisected by new roads as part of urban re-development. The trace evidence of the performers and the photos suggest that the event was intentionally structured to engage both the Black and White communities, a common effort in Berkeley but not so common in Oakland. 7th and Market was approximately in the area that had seen the founding of The Black Panthers, Oakland's most infamous export, so a multi-racial City-sponsored Rock Festival was not at all insignificant.

There were two stages, with 14 hours of almost continuous performers. According to the August 7 Tribune, the scheduled performers were:

Rock Stage (10:00am-midnight, scheduled order)

VeeJays/Southern Comfort/Phananganang/Marvin Gardens/Country Weather/Transatlantic Railroad/Synanon/Frumious Bandersnatch/Joy of Cooking/Flamin’ Groovies/Everyday People/Country Joe and The Fish/Morning Glory/Womb/The Crabs

Concert Stage (10:00am-midnight, scheduled order);

Johnny Mars Blues/Ice/Murray Music Co/Martha Young/Eddie Henderson/Gentle Dance/Harley White Sextet/Afro-Jazz Quartet/Gospel Tonics/Sounds of Synanon/Esther Phillips/QueQeg/Sebastian Moon/Orion

In an article on the day of the concert, The Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band were also listed as performers, probably on the Rock Stage.

Only Country Joe and The Fish were headline performers. Most of the names were popular club bands around the Bay Area. The division of acts suggests that the Rock Stage featured mostly white rock acts, and the Concert Stage featured mostly, but not exclusively, "black" acts. I doubt there was a Free Concert or similar event prior to this that tried to appeal to both Black and White audiences, and precious few afterwards.

Articles leading up to the event suggested that as many as 100,000 people were expected. The headline article on the Sunday afterwards (August 10, 1969, from which the above pictures are taken) says that 75,000 people attended. Given the Tribune's and Oakland's vested interest in a successful event, there is reason to think this may be an exaggeration. Nonetheless, as the top photo shows, there was certainly a substantial crowd, at least early in the day, so any exaggeration may be mild. The numerous photos in the Tribune pictured a broad spectrum of attendees: children, hippies, and young and old black and white people. Regardless of who may have actually attended, it is clear that a peaceful multi-racial social event was a primary goal of the effort.

After August 10, however, I could find nothing more about this event. This leaves numerous questions unanswered. Among them:

• A huge free concert near downtown, directed at a multi-racial audience, is both radical and far-sighted, particularly for Oakland. Whose idea was it, and how did it get traction?

• Free rock concerts, starting in Golden Gate Park (on October 6, 1966), and followed by The Human Be-In (January 14, 1967), were iconic events in the 60s rock world, remembered fondly and often incorrectly by aging white hippies. What did the African American community think of this event, held near "their" neighborhood, then, afterwards and now?

• If this concert was the success the article makes it out to be, why wasn't it repeated? While I note the large crowd in the picture above, based on the schedule the picture was probably taken about 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon. How big a crowd was there at midnight, when The Crabs and Orion closed each stage?

I lack the resources to investigate this event, but it stands in stark contrast to almost every other rock festival and free concert in the Bay Area and elsewhere during the late 1960s, and it seems ripe for analysis and research.

Notes on the performers

Country Weather, pictured above, were a Contra Costa County band featuring guitarist Greg Douglass, who co-wrote the hit single "Jungle Love" for The Steve Miller Band.

Joy Of Cooking, a Berkeley band who released several fine albums on Capitol in the 1970s, had only formed a few months prior and was still mostly playing Berkeley clubs.

Frumious Bandersnatch were a band from Lafayette, popular locally but who never recorded. Members of the group were later in Journey and The Steve Miller Band.

For a current picture of the site, see here.