January 10-11, 1969 TNT-Alpine Meadows: Santana Blues Band

(a promotional photo from the Sunday January 5, 1969 San Francisco Chronicle, promoting the Santana Blues Band's appearance at a new Squaw Valley Venue, "TNT")

The Lake Tahoe area has always been a sort of remote suburb of the San Francisco. It is no surprise, then, that in the late 1960s the Lake Tahoe area was a prime outpost for all the bands playing the Fillmore, but this slice of rock history has been largely forgotten. There were no less than three major venues in Lake Tahoe in the late 60s, yet even I was surprised to discover this another remote outpost of the San Francisco ballroom scene, with a press kit photo of the late '68 Santana Blues Band promoting the band's weekend appearance near a ski resort. It appears that TNT-Alpine Meadows (as it was called in the Chronicle) was only open for about a month, but it provides an easy way to introduce some of the mysteries of the Lake Tahoe scene in the late 60s.

Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe, straddling California and Nevada, is one of the West’s largest, deepest, clearest and most beautiful lakes. The lake sits six thousand feet above sea level, and the Truckee River feeds the lake, flowing into and then out of the lake. Truckee, California, about 12 miles North of Lake Tahoe and 30 miles West of Reno, was an original train stop on the Transcontinental Railroad. In 1899 the Duane L. Bliss Family built the Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Company. The Southern Pacific Railway actively encouraged tourist attractions along its rail lines, and Lake Tahoe became a popular resort for the San Francisco Bay Area.

Many families in both the Bay Area and the Sacramento/Central Valley area would buy or rent second homes in Lake Tahoe, and they would spend much of the Summer and many Winter weekends at Tahoe. Part of Lake Tahoe's specialness was that it was a great resort for both Summer and Winter. After 1960, when the Winter Olympics were held at nearby Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe boomed again, particularly for Winter sports. Since the Lake was on the California/Nevada border, parents could go over to the Nevada side and gamble, leaving their teenage kids to fend for themselves.


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(The site of the American Legion Hall, Post 795, in South Lake Tahoe, CA, at 2848 South Lake Tahoe Blvd [US 50])

Lake Tahoe Music in The 1960s
The first person to catch on to the vast quantity of teenagers in Lake Tahoe was a guitarist named Jim Burgett. He started putting on dances at the South Lake Tahoe American Legion Hall (at 2848 Lake Tahoe Blvd, South Lake Tahoe, CA) in 1958. The story is complicated, but by the mid-60s Burgett was holding dances at the Legion Hall seven days a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day. For any teenagers spending a week, a month or a Summer in Lake Tahoe, every night was Friday night, and with the parents often away in Nevada anyway, the Legion Hall dances were the only show in town. Burgett's own band played most nights, but on occasion he hired out of town acts as well. When the Fillmore bands became popular, he would often hire them to give his own band a night off (they also played six days a week at Harrah's Tahoe, believe it or not). The Jim Burgett saga is amazing, and well worthy of a book, which fortunately he is planning to write.

North Lake Tahoe, about 20 miles away, was less crowded and hence had less activity. However, the North Lake Tahoe set considered themselves cooler than the South, and a venue opened in North Lake Tahoe as well. Kings Beach Bowl, a converted bowling alley on North Lake Avenue, was opened in the Summer of 1967, but it was only open on weekends. The sons of the owners had a band, and their dads created a place for them to play. Although the teenagers were not the bookers, they advised the booking agents on what was cool in Sacramento (where they were from) and San Francisco, so some very cool Fillmore bands played Kings Beach Bowl in 1967 and 1968, including Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead and Buffalo Springfield.

By 1968 there were so many teenagers in Tahoe that a third venue opened, The Sanctuary. The Sanctuary took over an old supermarket in South Lake Tahoe, and being just a mile North off Lake Tahoe Boulevard it was a direct competitor to the American Legion Hall. It too was open many nights of the week, starting in June of 1968, with an eight week residency by Santana. In 1968, at least, The Sanctuary was focused a little more on hip San Francisco bands while the smaller but more established Legion Hall depended on Jim Burgett's well known band. The smaller, more distant Kings Beach Bowl retained its hipness factor, but it was too small to compete directly with the two South Shore venues.

Winter Shows
Lake Tahoe had primarily been a Summer resort, but after the 1960 Winter Olympics were held in Squaw Valley, on the Western edge of the Lake, Winter tourism boomed as well. Many of the same families who came to Lake Tahoe for Summers would also go the area to ski, skate and enjoy the Winter. This was exotic fun for Californians, since "Winter" in the Bay Area generally means sunny, 60-degree days with occasional rain. With the increasing number of Winter visitors, it's not a surprise that some Tahoe venues experimented with rock shows to capture some of the teenagers who would have been visiting from the Bay Area on any given weekend.

(The "Trip Or Ski" poster from Kings Beach Bowl, North Lake Tahoe, February 22-24, 1968)

The best known of the attempts at Winter Lake Tahoe rock shows was what I believe to be the first attempt at a "psychedelic" Winter event. Kings Beach Bowl had a three night event from Thursday to Saturday, February 22-24, 1968. The poster (above) was entitled "Trip Or Ski." The date was well-chosen: Thursday, February 22, was Washington's Birthday, then a National holiday, and all schools would have been off. Many families would have gone to Lake Tahoe on Wednesday night, skipping out on work or school for Friday the 23rd. Thus the weekend was perfectly timed for a foray into exporting the San Francisco ballroom scene to wintery Lake Tahoe.

The Grateful Dead had already played Lake Tahoe the previous Summer. They had played a memorable show at the American Legion Hall on August 19, 1967, and then played the next Friday and Saturday night at Kings Beach Bowl (August 25-26). In the intervening week, Jerry Garcia and Mountain Girl, bored of their low-rent motel, went camping. There is even a plausible sounding eyewitness account of a thinly attended American Legion Hall show in Fall 1966. Nonetheless, it hardly mattered: almost all the people in North Lake Tahoe in February '68 would have been from the Bay Area or Sacramento, and the younger people would have known the Grateful Dead well.

The February '68 Kings Beach Bowl shows were part of the Dead's Anthem Of The Sun project, so the shows were recorded. Ultimately, the Friday and Saturday shows (Feb 23-24) were released as Vol 22 of the band's Dick's Picks archival series in 2001 (there were problems with the tape of the first night). Although I have been in touch with someone who attended the shows (a Marin teenager who was mainly interested in seeing the opening act, The Morning Glory), I'm not sure how well attended the events were.


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(Alpine Meadows, just South of Squaw Valley and West of Lake Tahoe)

Winter '69
Clearly the Bay Area rock community was aware that much of their audience decamped to Lake Tahoe on Winter weekends. TNT, whatever it stood for (if anything), seems to be an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of San Francisco bands by extending themselves to Squaw Valley. The location of the venue is described in the (above) photo as "one mile south of Squaw Valley in the Powder Bowl." Squaw Valley and Powder Bowl were both ski areas about 10 miles West of Lake Tahoe. In between them was Alpine Meadows. In contemporary press releases, the venue is described as "TNT-Alpine Meadows." The area was probably unincorporated at the time. I do not know what building was used for the venue. I suspect it was a left over building from the 1960 Olympics, repurposed as a rock venue.

So far, I have only been able to find four booked weekends for the TNT Alpine Meadows venue, all in the month of January. The bookings were

• January 10-11, 1969: Santana Blues Band (Friday and Saturday)
• January 18-19, 1969: Cold Blood (Saturday and Sunday)
• January 24-26, 1969: Country Weather (Friday thru Sunday)
• January 31-February 1, 1969: Frumious Bandersnatch (Friday and Saturday)

This was not at all a random selection of second-on-the-bill San Francisco bands. All of them were booked by Bill Graham's Millard Agency. The Millard Agency was one of the principal suppliers of bands to the Lake Tahoe venues in 1968 and afterward, and the agency was clearly looking to continue mining the Lake Tahoe market. The purpose of the promotional photo in the Chronicle was that the audience for the concert was in the Bay Area, even though it was 200 miles from the venue.

Santana in early 1969 was not quite the band they would become by the time of their first album and Woodstock, but they were still a great band. The lineup for this show was probably Carlos Santana, Gregg Rolie (organ, vocals), Dave Brown (bass), Mike Carabello (congas) and Doc Livingston (drums). It's possible that conguero Marcus Malone is in the photo above, as it's hard for me to tell for sure. In any case, it probably made for a great night for the young skiers who attended the show.

After
I don't know what happened to the TNT-Alpine Meadows, or anything else about it. I know that Kings Beach Bowl had some low-key shows later in the Winter of 1969, so the idea didn't totally die out. The most unexpected event of the Winter of 1969 was that the owner of The Sanctuary asked Jim Burgett to take over his operation. This was fortunate for Burgett, since at some later point in the Winter heavy snowfall collapsed the roof at the Legion Hall, but he had already agreed to take over The Sanctuary. Burgett changed the name of the venue to The Fun House, and it remained the premier Tahoe venue for several more years. Millard Agency clients from the Bill Graham organization, like Elvin Bishop, Cold Blood and others were regular performers at The Fun House, which became the major Lake Tahoe destination for rock bands and fans. The subsequent history and fate of TNT-Alpine Meadows remains unknown at this time.

September 22, 1968: Del Mar Fairgrounds, Del Mar, CA: Quicksilver Messenger Service/Grateful Dead/others (West-Pole Agency)

(one of the posters for the September 22, 1968 all-day show at Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego County)

Many 60s events are only recalled through the posters advertising the events. If the posters feature groups that are now famous, like the Grateful Dead, the events persist in the historical record, but with little consideration about the nature of the event itself. The all-day rock festival at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, in Del Mar, CA, near San Diego, held on Sunday, September 22, 1968, was one such event. There are a few vague eyewitness accounts, and it seems to have been a pleasant enough show. The weather is always inviting on the San Diego coast, and the bands were a mixture of some excellent well and lesser known San Francisco bands. Ten bands were scheduled in a noon-'til-dusk event, followed by fireworks, so it was probably pretty fun.

What were nine San Francisco bands doing playing an all-day festival in San Diego County in 1968? How did this come about? Without any special information, it's impossible to know for certain. However, a careful analysis of the poster will show us some of the now-forgotten factors in play. In particular, I am interested in looking at this minor, nearly unique event as a way of looking at the important role of Booking Agents in 1960s. Booking Agents, sometimes called Talent Agents, were a crucial piece of the 60s rock story and their role has been largely obscured. This 1968 event mostly featured groups booked by the same agency, San Francisco's West-Pole Agency, so I will look at this event from the point of view of the West-Pole Agency, and Booking Agencies in general.

September 22, 1968: Del Mar Fairgrounds, Del Mar, CA: Quicksilver Messenger Service/Grateful Dead/Buddy Miles Express (formerly The Electric Flag)/Youngbloods/Taj Mahal/Mother Earth/Sons Of Champlin/Ace Of Cups/Phoenix/Curly Cooke's Hurdy Gurdy Band

Booking Agents
A booking agent arranges performances by musicians or bands at different venues, in return for a fee, generally capped at 10% of the performance fee. A booking agent--by law--is different from a talent manager, whose fees are capped at 15%, but who can in turn take a percentage from all revenues, including recording and other sources. Booking agents were and are licensed by the different States, and had to follow various rules, comparable to how Real Estate Agents are overseen. In the 1960s, Booking Agents were limited to taking 10% of a performer's fee (for example, if a band was paid $1000 to play the Fillmore, the Booking Agency received $100), but if the Agent performed certain other services, usually involving publicity (such as providing and circulating posters), they could take up to another 10%. Booking Agents can and did share fees with each other.

The importance of Booking Agents to 60s rock history cannot be overstated, but it is generally completely ignored. A practical analysis shows their importance. If you consider Bill Graham's Fillmore operation, open 52 weeks of the year, with 3 bands each weekend, the need to fill the stage with an endless string of performers was critical. It would be impossible for even the most hard-working promoter to ever find the phone numbers of every band in the country that was on tour, much less those coming from England. However, Booking Agents acted as the middlemen for the touring acts, working with venues across the country to insure that there were bands to play the various auditoriums. By the same token, a band like the Grateful Dead (or any other band) could never have found the contact numbers of every venue in the country, so the Agency served as a critical go-between for bands and promoters.

It is common to look at old rock posters from the Fillmore era, like the one above, and think about the friendships of different band members. It's easy to assume that because bands were friendly, they shared bills or worked different venues, but in fact that had very little to do with friendship. The critical relationship outside of a band's local area--and even within it--was always with the Booking Agent. The Doors and The Jefferson Airplane shared many famous bills in the 60s, including an infamous 1968 European tour, but the fact that they shared a Booking Agency (APA) overrode any other connections between the groups. By the same token, venues far from San Francisco that featured then little-known San Francisco bands farther down on the bill indicate a relationship with the group's Booking Agency, rather than the bands themselves.

Booking Agency relationships are only mentioned in passing, if at all, in most rock histories, so I can only piece together the relationships from fragmentary information. Also, like Real Estate Agents, Booking Agencies shared fees where appropriate. While there were a few National Agencies (usually based in Los Angeles or New York), most Agents worked regionally. If their clients went out of town, like when a West Coast rock band toured the East, they might share with regional agencies with better connections there in return for similar considerations. Nonetheless, the 60s rock business was new enough that some clear outlines could be discerned in San Francisco, where bands had less access or appeal to the big Hollywood agents (like APA, William Morris or Famous).

West-Pole
West-Pole was a San Francisco Booking Agency that seems to have exclusively booked Fillmore-style rock bands in the late 60s and early 70s. They were not a large Agency, in the scheme of things, but as a result it has been easier to discern their operations, and it is thus easier to use them as a template for showing the interrelationship of Booking Agents to the 60s rock business in general. I should add that I am not aware of any history of these matters, so I have had to make educated guesses about a lot of things. Any readers who can illuminate me on either the specific details of the Booking of any of these bands or the general operations of Talent Agents are encouraged to do so.

The West-Pole Agency was a partnership between Quicksilver Messenger Service manager Ron Polte and former Big Brother and The Holding Company manager Julius Karpen. Both were former Chicago labor organizers who had relocated to San Francisco in the early 1960s. For many years, I was confused at Ron Polte's role as Manager and Booking Agent, and most descriptions of that are incorrect. There was even a 1969 TV documentary called "West-Pole," produced for Public Television by Ralph Gleason (available as a Bonus Disc as part of the Jefferson Airplane Go Ride The Music DVD). However, although the show features mostly (but not exclusively) West-Pole bands, the actual function of West-Pole is never explained.

Ron Polte
Ron Polte had come to San Francisco from Chicago, because the Chicago police did not want him in town anymore. Polte was friends with Paul Butterfield and Nick Gravenites, among many other musicians, and these friendships would stand him in good stead in the future. By 1967, Polte became the manager of Quicksilver Messenger Service. As the group expanded beyond just playing local shows at the Fillmore and the Avalon, it appears that Polte looked for other ways to maximize the group's returns. Polte was instrumental in putting on concerts outside of San Francisco, in particular booking the Continental Ballroom in San Jose (actually at 1600 Martin Avenue in Santa Clara) for eight weekends in Summer, 1967. While Polte made sure to hire his own band (Quicksilver), he hired all the other San Francisco groups as well.

Somewhere around the Summer of Fall of 1967 Polte seems to have recognized the expanding appeal of San Francisco music and created West-Pole. Thus if West-Pole booked Quicksilver, Polte got two bites of the apple: Polte-the-manager took 15% of the fee, and West-Pole took another 10%. At the same time, Polte had working relationships with all the San Francisco bands, so he was well positioned to work as a Booking Agent, no doubt presenting himself as more sympathetic than the archetypal cigar chomping middle-aged guy in a suit.

Julius Karpen, another expatriate Chicagoan, had taken over the management of Big Brother And The Holding Company after the band had split with Chet Helms in Fall 1966 (ironically over taking a gig Polte had arranged for them in Chicago). However, when Janis Joplin's star quality manifested itself at Monterey Pop, uber-manager Albert Grossman (who handled Bob Dylan among others) took over Big Brother's management. It appears that West-Pole took over the booking of Big Brother on the West Coast, as a kind of "consolation prize" for being pushed aside as manager. Thus the many concerts where Big Brother and Quicksilver played together resulted not just from long-standing friendships between the band but from sharing the West-Pole Booking Agency.

West-Pole Clients
To my knowledge, my best guess at the West-Pole client list was:

• Quicksilver Messenger Service
• Big Brother and The Holding Company (West Coast bookings only)
• Electric Flag (West Coast bookings only)
  
• Sons Of Champlin
• Ace Of Cups
• Phoenix
• Mt. Rushmore
• Freedom Highway
• Ice

Ron Polte managed Quicksilver and Ace Of Cups, while Albert Grossman managed Big Brother and Electric Flag. The other groups had a variety of managers: Fred Roth managed The Sons, and George Smith managed Phoenix, for example.

(an alternate poster for the September 22, 1968 Del Mar Fairgrounds festival)

Del Mar Fairgounds Rock Festival, September 22, 1968
The Del Mar "Autumn Equinox" Festival seems to have been planned on the Monterey Pop model: using an existing outdoor venue for an all-day continuous music show. It was a nice idea, but none of those Festivals actually made any money. Monterey Pop itself only succeeded because all the bands agreed to work almost for free--an agreement that was not repeated--and because ABC-TV financed a TV special (which ultimately turned into the movie Monterey Pop). Still, it seemed like a good idea for a year or so, until the "Woodstock model" took precedence.

The Del Mar festival seems to have been a West-Pole inspired effort to have a sort of "Monterey Pop" event in San Diego. In general, it seemed like a good idea, but the economics did not favor it. Given that there were 10 acts, and a 7-8 hour window for performances (noon until dusk), 5 of the lesser acts must have played about half an hour, the headliners probably played an hour, and some of the in-between a little bit less. A few eyewitness accounts suggest that this was an enjoyable show, if not hugely attended. The members of the group Phoenix recall the show as "an ostrich racing track." While the race track was actually founded in 1937 (by Bing Crosby) as a horse racing track, it's not impossible that ostriches raced there. Nonetheless, the festival was not repeated, so good weather and good vibes aside, it must not have been a profitable event.

Nonetheless, the point I am making here is the critical role of West-Pole as the Booking Agent. Look at the list of acts in terms of Agencies-the West-Pole Acts are in bold:

• Quicksilver Messenger Service
• Grateful Dead
• Buddy Miles Express (formerly The Electric Flag)
• Youngbloods
• Taj Mahal
• Mother Earth
• Sons Of Champlin
• Ace Of Cups
• Phoenix
• Curly Cooke's Hurdy Gurdy Band

The two key headliners were Quicksilver and The Dead, both linchpins of the San Francisco underground, and essential to giving the Festival the hip cred it would need. The Buddy Miles Express were totally unknown, however, and even the Electric Flag were never really that popular. However, since it was clear that West-Pole played a crucial role in booking the show, Buddy Miles could be given a more prominent position on the bill than they otherwise might have deserved.

As to the Sons Of Champlin, Ace Of Cups and Phoenix, good as those groups were, they were San Francisco bands who were completely unknown in the San Diego area. However, because West-Pole was providing the headliners, they could provide the opening acts, and so were able to put their own bands on the bill. In this case, at least, the hippies of San Diego County were the beneficiaries, as all those groups were excellent. However, if different agencies had played a larger role, different groups would have opened the show.

In the 1968-69 period, the Grateful Dead were booked by the Millard Agency. The Millard Agency was the Booking Agency wing of Bill Graham' s organization, as Graham wanted multiple bites of the apple, just as Ron Polte did. The Dead (Millard) and Quicksilver (West-Pole) shared many bills, but the role of the Booking Agent can often be seen in the opening acts. When the Dead played a show opened by Santana, Sanpaku, Cold Blood, Elvin Bishop or It's A Beautiful Day (among others), the Millard Agency's hand seems plain. When groups like The Sons or Ace Of Cups open a show, West-Pole would seem to have been the driving force.

These bookings weren't just gravy: while some bands are only recalled by the likes of me, others like Santana or The Sons Of Champlin ground out a fan base all over Northern California. In the 60s and 70s, relentless touring was a way to bypass radio and the record companies, and a shrewd and efficient Booking Agent could open a lot of doors to a good live band. The most important Booking Agent in the 60s rock scene was actually Frank Barsalona's Premier Talent Agency, responsible for bringing great English bands like The Who, Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac to America, but that is too large a story to tell here.

The Autumn Equinox Festival at Del Mar Fairgrounds was not repeated. Some of the West-Pole bands probably garnered a few fans, but West-Pole's primary acts disintegrated at the end of 1968. While both Quicksilver and Big Brother returned to touring in 1970, their impact was not the same (and with Janis Joplin permanently departed from Big Brother, this was no small thing). I believe West-Pole lasted until mid-1970, when various management issues caught up with it. However, because West-Pole was a small agency that represented only San Francisco bands, its footprint is easy to discern, and it provides a useful insight into the unseen role of Booking Agents in 60s rock history.

The Dream Bowl, Vallejo, CA February-April 1969 (Solano & Napa County Rock History)

The Dream Bowl in Vallejo would be an entirely forgotten venue except for the fact that a few Grateful Dead tapes from February 21 and 22, 1969 remain in the vaults. Deadhead persistence seems to have unearthed the poster above.  Despite its brief tenure, however, The Dream Bowl has a quite interesting history, and the brief run of shows from February to about April 1969 represent an excellent idea just a little bit ahead of its time.

Known Rock Shows at The Dream Bowl, Vallejo, CA
February 7-8, 1969 It's A Beautiful Day/Country Weather
February 14-15, 1969 Sons Of Champlin/Blues Helping
February 21-22, 1969 Grateful Dead/Dancing Food & Entertainment/Amber Wine
February 28-March 1, 1969  Santana/Sanpaku
March 14-15, 1969 Mad River/Overbrook Express/Browness [just added 20260713]
April 25-26, 1969 Sons Of Champlin/Rose/Amber Wine

Although the run of "psychedelic" rock shows at the Dream Bowl is quite brief, it had been a music venue since the 1930s--possibly earlier--and had hosted big bands, Texas Swing music, rhythm and blues, country stars and teen rock and roll dances prior to its hippie incarnation. The Dream Bowl was apparently about 10 miles North of Vallejo on Highway 29 (currently the Napa-Vallejo Highway). Apparently it was near the intersection of Highway 29 and Kelly Road (just past Napa Junction). That would actually put it in the town of American Canyon, but as that town was only incorporated in 1992, the Dream Bowl would have been considered part of Vallejo back in the 60s. Supposedly the building still exists, as a furniture warehouse.

Vallejo, Solano County and Napa County
Vallejo, California is the largest city in Solano County, which is just East of Napa County. Vallejo provided access to San Francisco Bay for farmers from Solano, Napa and Sonoma. The area had become prosperous at the turn of the 20th Century when the San Francisco, Napa and Calistoga Railroad provided electric rail and a ferry connection to San Francisco. The initial Napa to Vallejo leg, along with the Ferry, opened in 1905, extending to Calistoga in 1908 (the same general right-of-way is followed by today's Napa Wine Train).

Solano, Napa and Sonoma Counties shipped produce throughout the West (via Southern Pacific) and was a San Francisco resort area as well. Sometime in the late 1920s or early 30s the Dream Bowl was constructed by contractor Walter Polley as a Dance Hall for Big Band music. Local and touring acts played the hall. Although the railroad waned in the 1930s, the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges allowed increased transit across the area.

Area Music History
In World War 2 Vallejo housed a substantial naval base at Mare Island. As a result of the Mare Island base, Vallejo was also a center for shipbuilding in World War 2. Many workers from the South, both black and white, moved to the Bay Area to work in the Defense industry, which mostly revolved around building Merchant Ships. Other shipbuilding centers around the bay included Hunters Point in San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond and Marin City (not coincidentally, all those areas have had relatively large African-American populations since then).

Since the wartime Defense industry ran around the clock, there were large numbers of workers with money burning a hole in their pockets, waiting to be entertained. Musicians from the South played substantial shows up and down the West Coast, from San Diego and Los Angeles to the Bay Area, and in Portland and Seattle as well. The audience for these musicians had moved to the West Coast, so the performers did to. San Pablo Avenue in the East Bay had so many venues it was known as "Music Row." All types of music were represented, and the Dream Bowl seems to have done a prosperous business, as did most music venues around the Bay (not to mention bars) during the war. The Duke Ellington Orchestra, for example, played The Dream Bowl on February 7, 1945.

San Francisco Examiner columnist Phil Elwood recalled the Dream Bowl many decades later (published Oct 27, 1995), remembering seeing Big Jay McShann there

In 1944, I drove the family's '33 Chevy with its A-sticker (ask your grandparents) in the window up Highway 29 north of Vallejo to an oversized Quonset hut roadhouse-dancehall-brawl arena called the Dream Bowl to hear McShann's band on its first California gig.

The Dream Bowl would feature, for example, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys one night, McShann and his Kansas City jazz-blues band the next. Whites (only) went to Wills; blacks flocked to their music, such as McShann's. But any jazz and blues out of the black community drew some whites, like me.

Although the Vallejo shipyards reduced their activity after World War 2, the Naval Base at Mare Island was still active. The Bay Area had a considerably larger agricultural footprint than it does today, and country music was very popular in places like San Jose, Fremont and Vallejo. There are many reports of seeing country stars like Bill Monroe at the Dream Bowl in the 1950s, and Berkeley's Herb Pedersen (later in The Dillards and Desert Rose Band) recalls playing bluegrass shows there in the 1960s (with Vern And Ray).

Very casual googling shows that Vallejo area residents fondly remember going to regular Saturday night dances at the Dream Bowl in the early and mid-1960s, probably dancing to rock and roll. There are other recollections of seeing early performances by Vallejo's greatest musical export, Sylvester Stewart, later to become famous as Sly Stone, and that suggests that the Dream Bowl's history of providing all sorts of music for different audiences remained intact.

Napa Town and County Fairgrounds, Summer 1967
As rock music expanded beyond the confines of San Francisco, teenagers in the surrounding communities got interested. In the Summer of 1967 there were a series of concerts at the Napa Town and County Fairgrounds (at 575 Third Street), probably in the building now called Chardonnay Hall. The Grateful Dead (May 29), Country Joe and The Fish (June 15 ), Big Brother and The Holding Company (June 30), Quicksilver Messenger Service (uncertain) and Blue Cheer (uncertain) all seemed to have played that Summer, often on weeknights.

The Grateful Dead show seems to have been the first of the Fillmore invasions. The show went off without a hitch, but Napa was still quite rural, and when Country Joe and The Fish played two weeks later, some local toughs looking to "beat up hippies" ended up punching out Bruce Barthol and Barry Melton (the local toughs were apparently notorious). When Country Joe and The Fish put out a "board game" as part of their second album, one square said "Napa: You Lose" thus immortalizing the event in a tiny sort of way.

The San Francisco rock community was quite small, however, and when Big Brother played two weeks after the Fish, a few Hells Angels rode up with them and hung around the stage. The local toughs did not choose to harass the band.

I do not know of any interesting rock concerts in Napa in 1968. As the rock market got bigger, more and more Solano and Napa teenagers simply drove to the Fillmore or Avalon. There were a few interesting local bands, like Project Hope, but they were not major Bay Area acts. It does appear that the "false Moby Grape" played there (too long a story to go into here), and its possible that Blue Cheer was in 1968 rather than 1967, but the Napa Fairgrounds seem to have been sized out of the rock market.

The Dream Bowl, 1969
I do not know who was promoting psychedelic rock concerts at the Dream Bowl in early 1969, but it seems a logical progression for the venue. Since it was already a music venue, no special permission would be needed to change the musical lineup. And since it was relatively isolated (as near as I can tell), any noise would not be a bother. It appears that the parking lot had been a teen hangout on weekends anyway, so a mere change in entertainment was probably not so big a change for the community, even if they might not have approved of long haired hippie music.

One unseen hand in rock music in the Greater Bay Area in 1969 was the Millard Agency. The Millard Agency was part of Bill Graham's empire, but they booked talent into different venues rather than promoted concerts. An old Federal Law prevented band managers from acting as booking agents, so Talent Agents acted as middlemen, taking a fee for finding bookings for bands by providing acts for promoters. The Millard Agency, as far as I know, was spearheaded by two agents, Paul Barratta and Barry Imhoff, but there must have been other agents as well.

A look at concerts around the Bay Area in 1969 shows the ubiquity of Millard Agency clients. The Millard Agency had a relationship with the Grateful Dead (involving paying back a $12,000 loan from 1968), but the agency also booked Santana, Its A Beautiful Day, Elvin Bishop, Lee Michaels, Cold Blood, AUM, Sanpaku, Country Weather and Frumious Bandersnatch. Although some of these acts are quite well known now, in early 1969 Santana, IABD and Elvin Bishop did not yet have records. Nonetheless all the Millard bands played small and middle sized venues around the greater Bay Area--High School and Junior College gymnasiums, rock nightclubs and outdoor events.

By 1969, rock was big business and fans would make great efforts to see the biggest bands at the Fillmore West. Yet not everyone was able (or willing) to drive to San Francisco, so some of the second tier Fillmore bands could play outlying areas and bring the Fillmore cachet with them. Famous as the Grateful Dead are today, they were not nearly as popular as Janis Joplin or the Jefferson Airplane, so they too played the outlying areas.

The first month of Dream Bowl bookings, on the poster above, is dominated by Millard Agency acts: The Dead, Santana, IABD, Country Weather, Sanpaku and Dancing Food and Entertainment (with Tom Glass and Naomi Eisenberg) were all Millard acts. This seems like a conscious strategy to create a whole new paying venue for the Agency clients. It seems like a great idea, too, but it appears to have been about two decades too early. Other than an April 25-26 show with The Sons of Champlin (who came through the West-Pole Agency, not Millard), the Dream Bowl seems to have disappeared as a music venue of any sort. Either Napa and Solano Counties lacked the population, or the Dream Bowl wasn't a pleasant place to see a rock band, or both. Without direct eyewitness memories, its hard to be certain. One of the few eyewitnesses suggests that the March 1 Santana concert was the last one. I do recall seeing a Sons of Champlin poster for the Dream Bowl on April 25-26, but that is no guarantee it actually occurred.

Update: A Commenter reports that the April 25-26, 1969 Sons Of Champlin show did indeed occur. The billing was Sons Of Champlin/Rose/Amber Whine. Rose was a Marin County band, who were friendly with some members of The Sons. The fact that the April show occurred lends even more mystery to the history of the Dream Bowl, since it didn't quite close after the March shows.

A poster for Mad River, the Overbrook Express and Browness at the New Dream Bowl Ballroom on March 14 & 15, 1969

[update 20260612] A Commenter (below) reports that Mad River and Overbrook Express played the Dream Bowl on the weekend of March 14-15, so that seems to support the story that rock bands continued to play the Dream Bowl. Mad River were a psychedelic band from Yellow Springs, OH, that had moved to Berkeley. Mad River put out two album on Capitol in 1968. The first was a truly epic psychedelic classic, while the second was, rather unexpectedly, an ahead-of-its-time country rock album. 

[update 20260713] poster added! 

Now, of course, Napa and Sonoma are both world-famous wine-growing regions, with wealthy residents and free spending visitors; the new town of American Canyon and Vallejo itself have expanded substantially (probably too much, for the moment, but that's a different issue) and nearby attractions include the Marine World Park and nearby Infineon Raceway (formerly Sears Point). A rock venue that presented Santana, Its A Beautiful Day or the Grateful Dead would be welcome indeed by people in the region, but the moment seems to have passed and left only a furniture warehouse.

A number of questions still remain:

• What was the exact location of The Dream Bowl?
• Is the building still intact?
• Who were the promoters in early 1969?
• Were there any rock shows prior to February 7, 1969?
• Were there any shows later than March 1, 1969?

Anybody with insights, corrections, speculation or recovered memories (real or imagined) is encouraged to Comment or Email me.

Sanpaku Performance List 1968-69 (Work In Progress)

(an updated version of this post is available here)

Many artists, musical or otherwise, fall out of the public eye and their work remains submerged. One of the benefits of the Internet is that as attention returns to deserving performers, blogs can act as a kind of periscope, providing a snapshot of the ocean as they surface. In 1968 and 69, Sanpaku was a seven-piece jazz rock band from Sacramento with a two-piece horn section, well regarded by their peers but largely unknown today. Some members of the band have recently gotten in touch with each other, so I am presenting this list of their known concert performances--surely just a fraction of their total number of gigs--as a starting point for the band's look backwards. 

Background

Sanpaku was a Sacramento based band that formed from a group called The Working Class. They spent the Summer of 1968 in Lake Tahoe, playing at the Kings Beach Bowl on North Shore and The Sanctuary on the South Shore. Later in the Summer and Fall of 1968 they played a number of gigs at Sacramento's Sound Factory. The proprietor of The Sound Factory, Whitey Davis (worthy of a whole book, not just a blog post) wanted to manage the group, but Sanpaku were booked at a Tuesday night audition show at the Fillmore West where they were spotted by Bill Graham's organization.

In the late 1960s, Graham was trying to expand his concert business into a more vertical model, with band management. a talent agency and two record labels. Only parts of these business enterprises were successful, but Graham's Millard Talent Agency gave a lot of opportunity to rising bands. Talent Agencies provide acts to promoters, since no promoter could know every act, nor could an act know every promoter. Sanpaku was a client of the Millard Agency, along with The Grateful Dead, Santana, Its A Beautiful Day, Elvin Bishop, Aum, Cold Blood and others. As a result, Sanpaku played on some very high profile shows in the late 60s where they apparently acquitted themselves quite well. The band never made a formal recording, however, and seems to have broken up in late 1969.

Sanpaku featured guitarist Mark Pearson, later in Sacramento's Nielsen-Pearson Band, Gary Larkey and Stan Bagdazian on horns, Bob Powell on keyboards, bassist Kootch Trochim and drummer Duane (Motor) Temme, joined in mid-1969 by singer/conguero Rico Reyes. This list only has the gigs that I have been able to uncover (with the gracious help of road manager Hewitt Jackson), and that mostly means high-profile shows, shows where they played with an interesting act who had a history of their own, or shows with a surviving poster. Anyone who recalls seeing the group, or additional gigs or has other relevant information is encouraged to Comment or email me. When I get enough new information, I will update and later re-publish the post.

List of Known Performances

October 22, 1968 Fillmore West Crystal Syphon/Sanpaku/Crazy Horse   
There is a flyer, but the date is difficult to discern, yet I am assuming this was the show that brought Sanpaku to the attention of the Bill Graham organization. This was a Tuesday night audition (the poster says “1.00 Jam”).  Crystal Syphon was a Merced band, and Crazy Horse was probably a Merced band also.  There is a chance that this show is October 21, 1969 and that San Paku's audition was on another date altogether in the late 68-early 69 time frame (although I should add that if the show is from 1969, it is still unlikely that Crazy Horse was Neil Young's backing band, though not entirely impossible).

It is a very little known fact of Fillmore West history is that from September 1968 until it closed in July 1971, the Fillmore West had a concert almost every Tuesday night. Almost none of these were on the famous poster series, and as a result these shows have been ignored by Fillmore historians. They generally featured a popular local band and two new bands, or at least newly-arrived-in-town bands. Admission was $1.50, and it was a popular stop for record company reps and managers to see what might be happening.

Sanpaku played one of these gigs, at any rate, and I believe this to be the date. They were good enough to be snapped up by the Graham management operation. Their shows were booked by the Millard Agency, providing them access to many great Northern California gigs. Sanpaku may have played more than one Tuesday night show, as was common practice. A successful audition band often got another shot as the Tuesday headliner.  

October 26, 1968 Freeborn Hall, UC Davis Glass Thunder/Sanpaku
Freeborn Hall was the biggest auditorium at UC Davis.

December 6-7, 1968 New Committee Theatre, San Francisco Initial Shock/Sanpaku/Devils Kitchen (6th)/Notes From The Underground (7th)
The Committee, the Bay Area's groundbreaking improvisational comedy troupe, had opened a new Theatre at 836 Montgomery. The venue also put on rock shows as well as the regular improv fare.

January 4, 1969 Sound Factory, Sacramento Glad/Country Fog/Sanpaku/Rush/Big Foot
This was a benefit for the FM station that became KZAP. The Sound Factory, at 1817 Alhambra, was run by former Crystal Ballroom (Portland) proprietor and Avalon Ballroom manager Whitey Davis. It featured great groups, but was always on shaky financial footing. Sanpaku apparently opened quite a number of shows at the venue (and attended most of the rest of them) while the venue operated between June 1968 and March 1969.

February ?, 1969 Fillmore West Sanpaku
As alluded to in Ralph Gleason's column below (see March 13-16, 1969, below), Sanpaku had played a great set on a Tuesday night audition. My assumption is that their October audition put them in Bill Graham's orbit, and a February (more or less) Tuesday night appearance was like a coming out party. The next step up was to open the Creedence/Jethro Tull show on March 13-16 (below).

February 28-March 1 Dream Bowl, Vallejo, CA Santana/Sanpaku
The Dream Bowl was on Highway 29, between Vallejo and Napa, in the general vicinity of Sears Point Raceway (now Infineon Raceway). The venue dated back to at least the 1940s. During World War 2, so many transplanted Southerners were in California working in the defense industry that the West Coast became a key entertainment center (Bob Wills even moved to California). There was substantial shipbuilding in Vallejo, so there were many country music fans. The Dream Bowl was an important stop on a local country music circuit around the Bay Area.

After World War 2, Vallejo returned to being a sleepy suburb, but the Dream Bowl continued to present country style music, at least into the early 1960s. There seems to have been a brief effort to make it into a suburban rock venue, but it seems to have been some years before Sonoma and Solano Counties had enough population to support their own venue.

Note that almost all the groups on the poster were booked by the Millard Agency.

March 13-16, 1969 Fillmore West Creedence Clearwater Revival/Jethro Tull/Sanpaku
Bands who did well at a Tuesday audition were given a chance to open a show, and if they succeeded they were given a chance to be 'on the poster.' Sanpaku's presence at this high profile gig indicates that they must have been signed up by the Millard Agency by this time.

Influential San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ralph Gleason gave a favorable notice to the band in his march 17, 1969 column. He wrote

Sanpaku, which is a young band from Sacramento, was also on the bill. They appeared at one of the Tuesday night Fillmore sessions a few weeks back and blew everybody's mind. They are one of those marvelous mixtures of free form jazz and blues and rock. They opened with "Parchman Farm" and went on to do an exciting set with good solos from the two horn players. The lead singer is very good, too.

March 26-30, 1969 Whisky A Go Go, West Hollywood Aum/Sanpaku
The Whisky A Go Go was a high profile club in West Hollywood. Bands actually played for Union Scale, but so many record company and industry professionals saw the bands that it was worth it to play the gig. Both Aum and Sanpaku were Millard Agency bands, and this was the organization's way of showcasing the groups outside of San Francisco. Aum was a power trio led by guitarist Wayne Ceballos.

April 18-19, 1969 Rose Palace, Pasadena John Mayall/Deep Purple/Sanpaku
John Mayall would have had his acoustic Turning Point lineup (with Jon Mark and John Almond) and Deep Purple's first American tour would have featured the "Hush" lineup (with Rod Evans on vocals and Nick Simper on bass).







April 22-23, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley Its A Beautiful Day/Sanpaku
The New Orleans House was a popular rock club in Berkeley. Bands played gigs like this on weeknights (this was a Tuesday and Wednesday) in between opening for larger shows. Its  A Beautiful Day was a very popular local group, but they did not yet have an album. They too were booked by the Millard Agency.

May 10, 1969  Pacific Memorial Stadium, U of Pacific, Stockton, CA Santana/Cold Blood/Sons of Champlin/Elvin Bishop/Counry Weather/Sanpaku/  
“Pacific Pop Festival” (noon to 7 pm)
Pacific Memorial Stadium was a modest sized football stadium. Every one of these bands was a Millard Agency client. Santana had not yet released their first album, although they had probably signed to Columbia by this time and may have begun recording it already.

May 30, 1969 Merced County Fairgrounds, Merced Memorial Day Rock Festival
Santana/Elvin Bishop Band/Sanpaku/Crystal Syphon/Crazy Horse/2 others
Santana, Elvin Bishop and Sanpaku were all Millard clients, and Crystal Syphon (and probably Crazy Horse) were Merced-area bands.

May 31, 1969 Berryessa Bowl, Napa Sanpaku/Crystal Syphon
Beryessa Bowl was a amphitheatre at man-made Lake Berryessa. This relatively local gig, in the Bay Area but many miles from San Francisco, was probably typical of a lot of Sanpaku gigs

June 13, 1969 Convention Center, Fresno, CA Grateful Dead/Aum/Sanpaku
The Grateful Dead were booked by the Millard Agency in 1968-69, mainly as a way to pay back money they had borrowed from Bill Graham. During this period, many of the opening acts at Grateful Dead shows were Millard clients. At this show, Sanpaku flautist Gary Larkey, Aum guitarist Wayne Ceballos and legendary singer Ronnie Hawkins all joined in with the Dead to play "Turn On Your Lovelight."

June 20-21, 1969 The Barn, Rio Nido Country Weather/Sanpaku/Jaybyrd
The Barn in Rio Nido was probably another name for the Rio Nido Dance Hall, but I'm not certain of that.

June 24-26, 1969 Fillmore West Iron Butterfly/Cold Blood/Sanpaku

July 19, 1969 Gym, Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey Santana/Sanpaku/Fritz
Once again, San Paku opened for a Millard client. I'm not certain if the opening act was the Menlo Park band called Fritz, featuring bassist Lindsay Buckingham and singer Stephanie (Stevie) Nicks.

The Monterey Peninsula College gym was a modest sized venue, which probably held about 2000 in a festival seating type arrangement.

Around this time, some band members recall a meeting in which Bill Graham explained to them that Santana rather than Sanpaku would be going to a large rock festival in upstate New York called Woodstock.


August 5, 1969 The Matrix, San Francisco Sanpaku/Bigfoot
The Matrix, at 3138 Fillmore, was still a musicians' hangout. While not a big gig, it was an important place to be heard. Chronicle critic Ralph Gleason regularly mentioned the bands scheduled to play The Matrix (to the delight of all Rock Prosopographers). The clip below is from Monday August 4, 1969.

August 8-9, 1969 The Poppycock, Palo Alto Sanpaku/Terry Dolan
The Poppycock, at 135 University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto, was that city's venue for the original rock club circuit. Second-tier bands played clubs like The Poppycock, New Orleans House and Matrix regularly between higher profile gigs.

August 14, 1969 Coliseum Arena, Oakland Blind Faith/Delaney & Bonnie & Friends/Free/Sanpaku
The band played unbilled at the Bay Area stop of the biggest rock tour to date.

August 20, 1969 El Roach, Ballard, WA Grateful Dead/NRPS/Sanpaku
The Dead, New Riders of The Purple Sage and Sanpaku were supposed to play Seattle's outdoor Aqua Theatre, but they got rained out. Instead, they went to the nearby El Roach Tavern (at 5419 Ballard Avenue in suburban Seattle) and put on a surprise show. I'm not certain exactly who played, but Sanpaku members were definitely there.

August 21, 1969 Aqua Theatre, Seattle, WA Grateful Dead/NRPS/Sanpaku
The bands finally got to play their show the next day. The interesting venue was not in good repair, and this was the last concert at the facility. However, flautist Gary Larkey joined the Dead for a few songs. For many decades it was arbitrarily assumed that the guest performer was Charles Lloyd, but in fact it was Larkey.

The Grateful Dead and probably the New Riders played a rock festival in Oregon on Saturday, August 23 (The Bullfrog 3 Festival at the Pelletier Farm in Helens, OR), so I would not be surprised to find out that Sanpaku played it as well.

September 8, 1969 Quad, Irvington High School, Fremont, CA Aum/Sanpaku
A September 11, 1969 Fremont Argus "Teen" section article reported (above) that a Monday night dance in the School Quad was a huge success, with over 1000 students attending. Gigs like this, besides being a nice payday on an otherwise non-working night, helped build a band's audience as well.

September 10, 1969 The Matrix, San Francisco Sanpaku/Ice

September 16-18, 1969 The Matrix, San Francisco Sanpaku/Mendelbaum
Mendelbaum had arrived from Wisconsin in the Summer, and had become almost the house band at the Matrix. Bands played weeknight gigs at tiny clubs like The Matrix (this was Tues-Wed-Thurs) because it gave them a chance to have fun and work on stuff for the bigger gigs on the weekends. 

September 24, 1969 Fillmore West   
Bay Area Drug Committee Presents At Bill Graham’s Fillmore West A Benefit Show Save The Children 
It’s A Beautiful Day/Sanpaku/Sons of Champlin/Ace of Cups/The Outlaws (Dino Valenti and Garry Duncan)/Terry Dolan

October 5, 1959 Frost Amphitheatre, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA Its A Beautiful Day/Mike Bloomfield-Nick Gravenites/Cold Blood/Southern Comfort/Sanpaku/Old Davis
Benefit for MidPeninsula Free University
Photos exist of Sanpaku performing at this Sunday afternoon event (the clip above is from Ralph J Gleason's Chronicle column of October 3, 1969). By this time, New Jersey born trumpeter David Ginsberg had replaced Stan Bagdazian on trumpet. Ginsberg had been at the University of Wisconsin, and had recently moved to San Francisco.

October 9, 1969 Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA Sons of Champlin/Sanpaku

October 11, 1969 Cal Expo, State Fairgrounds, Sacramento, CA Janis Joplin and Her Kozmic Blues Band/Blues Image/Sanpaku
Sanpaku opened for Janis on their home turf, at the fairly new State Fairgrounds.

Sanpaku had formed a basketball team to challenge Bill Graham's Fillmore Fingers on Tuesday nights. They named their team the Paku Jets, and had t-shirts made up. They lost, big time. But they won in a way, since their friend Carlos Santana wore one of the shirts when Santana appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on CBS-TV on October 24, 1969. On the video (Youtube), the "K" in Paku is visible on Carlos's t-shirt as the band launches into "Persuasion."

October 28-30, 1969 The Matrix Sanpaku/Mendelbaum

October 31, 1969 M.V. Gym, [city?]  Country Weather/Sanpaku/First Time Around  
“Barefoot Dance”
I have seen a flyer for this, but I don't know where the school was. Many flyers for school dances had very little such information, since the only audience was students who knew the location of the gym.

November 6, 1969 Gym, College Park High School, Pleasant Hill Mike Bloomfield and Friends/Country Weather/Bronze Hog/Sanpaku/Orion/Daybreak
This concert was mentioned in Ralph Gleason's column on November 5. I'm not sure why six bands would play a High School gym on a Thursday night--I assume this wasn't a school event. The High School was across from a Junior College (Diablo Valley) so perhaps it was associated with that institution.

November 7, 1969  Gym, Contra Costa College, Richmond Cold Blood/Sanpaku/Little Johns
There were actually quite a few rock concerts at the Contra Costa College gym in the 1960s.

November 8, 1969 [venue], Hayward State College, Hayward Sanpaku/Dry Creek
I assume this was a student event at Cal State Hayward, but it was on a Saturday night and presumably open to the public, as it was mentioned in Gleason's column. I'm not certain of the exact venue. Hayward State (now known as Cal State University, East Bay) was opened in 1957. At the time, there was only the main campus above Mission Boulevard,

Dry Creek featured drummer Sammy Piazza, who ended up joining Hot Tuna.

November 14-15, 1969 The Old Fillmore Country Weather/Sanpaku/Floating Bridge
A series of shows were put on at the original Fillmore Auditorium (at 1805 Geary) in 1969, but the venue had gotten too small for the booming rock market(h/t Colin for the long-lost poster).

Floating Bridge were from Seattle.

November 20-23, 1969 Fillmore West  Jethro Tull/MC5/Sanpaku
Sanpaku played again with Jethro Tull, this time on Tull's triumphant return to Fillmore West as headliners. The ad above is Bill Graham Presents regular display ad in the Sunday Chronicle. Each ad had the same format, listing the bands and with a picture of a prominent member of the headline group (in this case Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull). For weeks on end, the ad said "illmore West."

Sanpaku were advertised for a Friday night (Nov 21) show at the Santa Rosa County Fairgrounds in Sonoma, supporting Its A Beautiful Day and Cold Blood, but they were replaced by Joy of Cooking, as a Fillmore West show always took precedence over one in the hinterlands.

December 3, 1969 Fillmore West Creedence Clearwater Revival/Billie Joe Becoat/Gary Wagner/Clover/Sanpaku/Joy of Cooking
In his November 30 column, Gleason tantalizingly mentioned a Wednesday night Fillmore West concert, headlined by Creedence and featuring numerous popular local club acts. The show was a benefit for KPFA-fm in Berkeley, as Wednesday was the usual night for such things (this show is outside the known list of BGP events). Yet by the next week, Sanpaku was off the bill (replaced by Commander Cody), and it appears they broke up shortly after this.

Anyone with additional information (band members and road managers, I'm lookin' at ya), please post them in the comments and I will update as needed (thanks to Sanpaku road manager Hewitt Jackson for carrying the flag, sending some great scans and letting me know that Sanpaku was just one word--see the band blog here).

Concert Guarantees, 1969

The rise of 1960s rock also made the record industry into a hugely lucrative business. While the record industry had always been profitable, it had been a business where many middlemen--store owners, distributors, publishers, plant operators, A& R Men--took little pieces of the profit as it went by, so that many people made a living, but it was not a place where great fortunes got made. The "Baby Boom" created a huge teenage market, and the rise of The Beatles and transistor radios insured that popular rock music became big, big business. A rare insight into the concert business comes from this LA Times Wire Service article, published in the Athens, OH Messenger on December 21, 1969. In a surprisingly informative interview, talent agent Frank Barsalona discusses late 1969 rock concert economics in explicit detail.

Talent Agencies were the means by which promoters and acts found each other, across the country and around different region. A promoter such as Bill Graham couldn't possibly know enough bands to put 3 acts in the Fillmore 52 weekends a year, so he had to Talent Agents to provide performers. Talent Agencies were structured similar to a Real Estate firm, where the agent took a piece of the performer's fee (typically around 10%). Talent Agents competed with each other and worked with each other, just as Real Estate agents did. Understanding the 60s Concert industry is greatly illuminated every time I uncover information about which bands and promoters used which agency.

Frank Barsalona of the Premier Talent Agency is one of the most important people in 1960s rock, but he is hardly known outside the business. Premier Talent was the principal conduit for booking English bands in American venues, from about 1968 onwards. Premier Talent worked with a "circuit" of now legendary venues, including Fillmores East and West, The Boston Tea Party, The Kinetic Playground in Chicago and many others. Premier provided a steady stream of terrific English bands like Fleetwood Mac, The Who and Ten Years After for the American venues. These groups started out as opening acts, but after each killer show word got around, FM airplay increased and the next time through town they were second on the bill, and then headliners, and so on. Thus Barsalona's insight into the touring market is critical since he played an essential role in creating that market.

The article begins with an overview of how the music industry has changed, and then points up the way in which music has become big business indeed

In 1959, you could [promote a show with] a group or artist with a #1 record for $350. Now groups who haven't been within 50 positions of #1 can earn $3500. Some top acts can earn more than $100,000 for an hour on the concert stage.

After observing that the Rolling Stones earned $170,000 for two shows in one night in Los Angeles (November 8, 1969 at the Forum), Barsalona goes on to give a breakdown of the highest paid performers at the end of the decade.

After imagining that The Beatles would get $100,000 a night if someone could get them to perform, somewhat more than the Rolling Stones, he goes on to break down the top acts:

Tom Jones gets $50,000 a night (and so could Bob Dylan), while Glenn Campbell is earning $35,000 each evening. Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Englebert Humperdinck and Barbara Streisand are in the $25,000 to $35,000 category, with Johnny Cash not far behind. Between $12,500 and $25,000 are Blood, Sweat & Tears, Aretha Franklin, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Iron Butterfly, Janis Joplin, Dionne Warwick, the Fifth Dimension and The Who.

To my knowledge, Led Zeppelin and The Who were the only Premier Talent clients amongst this list.

The article goes on to explain that most acts receive a guarantee against a percentage of the gate, so a promoter paying $10,000 for a band with a 60% "rider" will end up paying the act $18,000 if he sells $30,000 worth of tickets. Thus if Hendrix were guaranteed $25,000 for a large show (by 1969 standards), he would surely get more if he sold out the concert. Barsalona goes on to explain, perhaps somewhat defensively, of the vast expenses for bringing a rock band to town.

Barsalona breaks down a Led Zeppelin concert at O'Keefe Center in Toronto (two shows on November 2, 1969), where $31,000 of tickets were sold, and Led Zeppelin's share was about $18,000 (60%). The band's expenses were $12,100, so Led Zeppelin ended up clearing $5,900 for the night, according to Barsalona.

The intriguing details are at the end. The band has a road manager and two roadies, plus a "driver/lifter," and a ton of stuff that is airfreighted from concert to concert. Within just a few years, a four man crew with little enough equipment to go by airfreight would be a distant memory. In 1969, however, very few bands toured with their own sound systems. Most groups had their own amplifiers and used the "House" PA for the vocals and drums. Except for a few venues such as the Fillmores, this often led to poorly balanced systems, with little in the way of monitors and scant ability to mix the sound out in the audience. I believe the Grateful Dead and Fleetwood Mac were the first to tour with their own systems, and it was no coincidence that the soundmen of both bands (Owsley Stanley and Dinky Dawson) were good friends.

By the early 1970s, the Grateful Dead model had become standard, as top-line bands toured with a fleet of trucks carrying sound and lights. While band members and their guitars still traveled by plane, a vast road crew drove the trucks from gig to gig. Some of the biggest tours apparently had two sound systems that could leapfrog from venue to venue. The Dead took this to its logical conclusion with the legendary "Wall Of Sound" in 1974, which I can personally testify was beyond state-of-the-art but nearly bankrupted the band. By the mid-1970s, the numbers in rock had gotten so vast that an important Talent Agent like Frank Barsalona would be a lot less likely to name the prices for the top 10 acts in the country, as concerts got larger and larger and the number of zeroes in contracts continued to increase.