One of the things leftover from the the 1960’s is Woodstock. While they had some great music it wasn’t all that great as far as the planning for it went.
Down in Atlanta the same year was the Atlanta International Pop Festival held over the July 4th weekend with as many as 150,000 in attendance. The lineup was:
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Booker T. & the M.G.’s
The Butterfield Blues Band
Canned Heat
Chicago Transit Authority
Joe Cocker
Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Dave Brubeck Trio w/ Gerry Mulligan
Delaney and Bonnie and Friends
Grand Funk Railroad
Ian & Sylvia
Tommy James and the Shondells
Janis Joplin
Al Kooper
Led Zeppelin
Pacific Gas & Electric
Johnny Rivers
Spirit
The Staple Singers
Sweetwater
Ten Wheel Drive
Johnny Winter
in 1970, held again over the 4th of July weekend ,the Atlanta Pop Festival, after taking note of what happened at Woodstock, had an even bigger music festival, at least 600,000 attended and it was planned out to avoid as many of the problems as possible that happened at Woodstock and was a huge success. Yet you don’t hear much about it.
The lineup for 1970 was :
The Allman Brothers Band
Ballin’ Jack
Bloodrock
Bloomsbury People
Cactus
Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys
Chakra
Chambers Brothers
Goose Creek Symphony
Grand Funk Railroad
Gypsy
Memphis State University cast of “Hair”
Hampton Grease Band
Handle
Richie Havens
Hedge & Donna
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
It’s a Beautiful Day
Johnny Jenkins
B.B. King
Lee Michaels
Mott the Hoople
Mountain
Poco
Procol Harum
Radar
Rare Earth
Terry Reid
Rig
Savage Grace
John Sebastian
Bob Seger System
Spirit
Ten Years After
U.S. Kids
Johnny Winter
The Allman Brothers opened and closed the event.
Take a look at the acts booked both years, really impressive and in some ways much better than what was at Woodstock.
If I had been able I would have been at the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival.
Admittedly, I’m out of the pop culture loop these days, but could there even be a list like that for today’s musical talent?
That LIST! Yikes. We had some music, didn’t we?
Sometimes when I’m listening to a song on YouTube I’ll read some comments. Invariably the kids are drooling...wishing they’d grown up with our music.