Groovy: When Flower Power Bloomed in Pop Culture

When flower power bloomed in pop culture Ginger Baker 71 Roger McGuinn 72 David Crosby 73 The Doors 74 John Densmore 75 Robby Krieger 76 Ray Manzarek 77 Justin Hayward 78 John Kay 79 Vanilla Fudge 80 The Zombies 82

THE GENESIS Introduction 4 Overview 8 Timeline 10 The folk scene 12

THE FLOWERING The Beatles’ evolution 14 ‘Pet Sounds’ 16 Brian Wilson 17 The Rolling Stones’ evolution 18

TOP 40 Hit singles 1964-1972 20 Tommy James 22 Mark Lindsay 25 Susan Cowsill 26 Hitmakers 30 The Turtles 34 The Guess Who 35 Donovan 36 The Rascals 37

TELEVISION Television trips 38 ‘The Monkees’ 40 Davy Jones 42 Micky Dolenz 44 Peter Tork 46 Michael Nesmith 48 But were they a real band? 49 Monkees memorabilia 50 The Smothers Brothers 54 ‘Laugh-In’ 56 Ruth Buzzi 58 Lily Tomlin 60 ‘Laugh-In’ memorabilia 62 Tiny Tim 64 Tiny Tim memorabilia 67

ALBUM BANDS 33 1/3 revolutions per minute 68 Cream 69 Jack Bruce 70

FILM Groovy movies 84 ‘Riot on Sunset Strip’ 85 ‘The Trip’ 86 ‘Psych-Out’ 87 ‘Head’ 88 ‘Wild in the Streets’ 89 ‘Yellow Submarine’ 90 ‘Easy Rider’ 92 ‘Easy Rider’ vignettes 94 Peter Fonda 95

Insets: “Their Satanic Majesties Request” © London Records, © Decca Records; “Laugh-In” © George Schlatter-Ed Friendly Productions and Romart, Inc.; “Psych-Out” © Dick Clark Productions, © American International Pictures

Ten Years After 138 On Jimi Hendrix 140 The Altamont free concert 146

MESSIAHS The original hippie 150 ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ 152 Ian Gillan 153 Long-hairs on Broadway 154 ‘Superstar’ the movie 155 Tommy Chong 156

ART

FAMILY FARE

Psychedelic posters 96 Peter Max 98 Peter Max memorabilia 101 John Van Hamersveld 102 Diana Prince transformed 104 DC Comics in the groove 106 On Steve Ditko 108 Jim Steranko 109 Archie Comics in the groove 110 Underground comix 112 On Robert Crumb 116

Post-revolution sitcoms 157 Florence Henderson 158 Barry Williams 160 Maureen McCormick 162 Eve Plumb 164 ‘Brady’ memorabilia 165 David Cassidy 166

Every effort has been made to verify the ownership or source of all illustrated material. We regret any errors of attribution, and will make the appropriate corrections in future editions.

‘SUMMER OF LOVE’

Monterey Pop and Woodstock 130 Richie Havens 131 Arlo Guthrie 132 Melanie 133 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 134 The Who 135 Sha Na Na and Canned Heat 136 Mountain 137

Front cover: Hippie girl from Madhouse Ma-ad Freak-Out #72 (1970) by Stan Goldberg © Archie Comics; Woodstock poster (1969) by Arnold Skolnick © Woodstock Music & Art Fair; Snorky doll (1969) © Hanna-Barbera Productions; “Live For Today” picture sleeve (1967) © Dunhill Records; “Stoned Agin!” artwork from Your Hytone Comix (1971) © Robert Crumb; Jimi Hendrix artwork from the cover of “Axis: Bold as Love” (1968) © Reprise Records

Back cover: Dancing girl from poster for “Mondo Mod” (1967) © Timely Motion Pictures Inc.

Black is Beautiful 120 On the Vietnam War 122 Politicians in the groove 123

FESTIVALS

‘Groovy’ logo by: Ed Gabel Proofreader: Scott Peters

Frontis page: Susan Strasberg from poster art for “Psych-Out” (1968) © Dick Clark Productions and American International Pictures

GETTING REAL

The San Francisco scene 124 Paul Kantner 125 Jorma Kaukonen 126 Jack Casady 127 Big Brother and Janis Joplin 128

Written and designed by: Mark Voger Publisher: John Morrow

Danny Bonaduce 170 Shirley Jones 172 ‘Partridge’ memorabilia 173 Teen magazines 176 Saturday morning TV 178 ‘The Banana Splits’ 180 ‘Banana Splits’ memorabilia 180 ‘H.R. Pufnstuf’ 182 ‘Pufnstuf’ memorabilia 184 Casey Kasem 185 ‘The Brady Kids’ 186

ENDSVILLE Epilogue 188 Index 190 Acknowledgments 191

Insets; “Love” poster © Peter Max; “H.R. Pufnstuf” © Sid & Marty Krofft Productions

For Cholly “Groovy: When Flower Power Bloomed in Pop Culture”

© 2017 Mark Voger

ISBN 978-1-60549-080-9 First printing, November 2017 Printed in China All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from Mark Voger, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Inquiries should be addressed to Mark Voger c/o: TwoMorrows Publishing. Photos credited to Kathy Voglesong © the estate of Kathy Voglesong

Published by: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27614

Music and message “Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in Roger McGuinn — a folk aficionado who co-founded the folka box.” That lyric was sung by Country Joe McDonald at the rock group the Byrds — was a champion of another important Woodstock festival in 1969. McDonald’s “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ player in the folk revival: Pete Seeger (1919-2014). to Die Rag” is what they used to call a “protest song” — in this “Pete Seeger was one of the founding fathers of this rebirth of case, one about the Vietnam War. The protest song is a format that folk music,” McGuinn said. “He was the son of a musicologist, got much usage among folk musicians during the turbulent 1960s. Charles Seeger, and he had transcribed the Lomax recordings” — Was Woody Guthrie — the sovereign of 20th century folk — a historic recorded document of obscure folk songs — “for the ever so morbid and blunt as Country Joe? Well, Guthrie did favor printed version. So Pete was well aware of these songs.” guitars with the inscription: “This machine kills fascists.” Like Woody Guthrie, Seeger didn’t shy away from politics. A folk revival that was flourishing by the beginning of the (And that’s an understatement.) decade helped nudge grooviness into existence in ways great and “Pete had a political background,” McGuinn said. “He went to small. Concurrent with popular music’s metamorphosis in the ’60s Harvard. He had some problems with his politics — he was far from innocuous pop to acid rock, folk managed to survive, and in left of center — and decided to quit Harvard and go on the road a more or less pure form. with Woody Guthrie, and go around to all these union-organizing A prevailing image of the era was the blissful, acoustic-guitarshows and things like that. Unfortunately, the House Un-American strumming hippie. The Monterey Pop Festival Activities Committee asked him to name was as much about folk as rock. And lest we names (in 1955), and he wouldn’t do it. So From left: Folk deity Woody forget: The stage at Woodstock accommodated they slapped him with a contempt charge. He Guthrie; Peter, Paul and both Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix. But let’s get spent a few days in jail and got a suspended Mary; cover girl Judy Collins; back to that guy with the fascist-killing guitar. sentence. Richie Havens’ debut album. Oklahoma native Woody Guthrie (1912“It was a horrible time, and it was a horriOpposite: Bob Dylan, evolved. 1967), who wrote “This Land is Your Land,” ble thing to have to expose your friends (as Woody Guthrie publicity photo; survived the Depression and the Dust Bowl, Communists). And it was groundless.” “In the Wind” © Warner Bros. Records; which is enough to make anyone sensitive to the As a result, Seeger was banned from Life cover © Time Inc.; “Mixed Bag” © Verve Records; “The Times They struggles of common folks. appearing on television or in nightclubs. Are a-Changin’ ” © Columbia Records “My father really believed there was a wis“He was blacklisted, and had to make his dom in ordinary people,” Arlo Guthrie, another money by playing these impromptu college performer at Woodstock, told me in 2004. “He believed and he concerts,” McGuinn said. “He established quite a circuit of college supported people’s best efforts to take care of each other, whether concerts, as a matter of fact, and became quite popular underit was (during) the crises of the Depression or the second world ground. And then gradually in the ’60s, the ban was lifted and he war or the fight against fascism. It still goes on. I mean, all of was allowed to come back to the forefront and recorded some these struggles still continue. albums for Columbia Records. “He was a guy who had a lot of thoughts about that. They “He has become kind of the king of folk music. Some people weren’t always consistent. They didn’t need to be. But they were think that’s Bob Dylan, but Seeger was definitely there first.” always genuine. They were always real. They weren’t based on McGuinn’s fellow Byrds founder, David Crosby, also chimed polls. They weren’t based on his popularity.” in on the subject of Seeger. “He’s so inspiring, man,” Crosby told Woody Guthrie even looked to his own family for inspiration. me in 2001. “He’s one of these guys like Gandhi or the Dalai “He was feeding off of us,” said Arlo’s sister, Nora Guthrie, of her Lama or Martin Luther King who are willing to stand up in the dad. “Particularly with his children’s songs. One of the kids would face of real opposition — you know, real-world opposition — and say, ‘Let’s go riding in the car!’ and he’d say, ‘That’s a great line.’ ” stick up for what they believe in.”

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IN THAT SMALL AND ETERNALLY HIP SECTION OF Manhattan called Greenwich Village, the folk revival took hold in the late ’50s and early ’60s. In those heady days, you couldn’t swing an acoustic guitar without hitting a future giant of folk: Dylan, Baez, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton, Peter, Paul and Mary. To hear Collins tell it, “the Village” was its own, independent entity quite apart from the rest of Manhattan. “The Village at that point was kind of like a little town, really,” Collins told me in 2001. “It was very accessible. I had an apartment down on West 10th. The first few times I came here in ’61 and ’62, I stayed at the Broadway Central Hotel down on Broadway and worked at Gerdes Folk City. Everybody came in there — Joan Baez and Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers, of course. Tom Paxton was hanging around. There was Dylan at the bar having a drink or two. Everywhere you would go in the Village, there was Isadore’s, Izzy Young’s (Folklore) Center, where you’d go and buy your guitar strings and get a copy of Sing Out (magazine). “It was very, very friendly and very kind of ‘hometown’-ish. It’s hard to think of New York as hometown-ish, but it is.” John Sebastian, who would later form the folk-influenced pop group the Lovin’ Spoonful, was a witness to the Village scene, having grown up nearby — and in a musical family, yet. “Within four blocks, there were about 15 clubs and 10 other things that couldn’t officially call themselves clubs, which were known as ‘baskethouses,’ ” Sebastian told me in 2010. “What the Catskills represented to comedians, these places represented to young players. You could play for people and measure the response of the audience by what went into the basket.” “There was something in the air that was so exciting,” Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary, told me in 2003. “People were really interested in seeing what everybody else was doing. We would learn songs from each other. There was a sense that what we were doing was important, that it was going to have some gravity and meaning in the world.” Also drawn to the Village was Richie Havens, another Woodstock guy. At the time, Havens wasn’t musically inclined. “When I first went over to Greenwich Village, it was poetry that got me over there,” Havens told me in 2003. “I started out as a total novice. I couldn’t even play guitar. I didn’t know how. “But hearing the songs that I heard in Greenwich Village over the six and a half years that I spent there — reading poetry and drawing portraits, more or less to stay alive — the songs that I heard from the contemporary singer/songwriters changed my life.” Oddly enough, the music Havens was exposed to in this strange new place made him think of where he came from: Brooklyn. “Not a long leap, but it took me 16 years to get there (to the Village) for the first time. Four miles away,” Havens said. “In Brooklyn where I lived, it might as well have been Oshkosh, Michigan, compared to what Manhattan was for me. It was really like: You turned that corner, and there’s Oz, you know? The excitement and the whole thing was inspirational for me.” For Havens, it was only natural that he start playing music. “Once songs had changed me, I knew that they had value,” he said. “So when I borrowed a guitar and went onstage, those were the first songs I sang.” Having been a Village regular prior to Dylan’s emergence on the scene, Havens was in a unique position to witness the metamorphosis of scrawny Robert Zimmerman to … “Dylan.” “I was probably there for three and a half years before Dylan got there, so I saw the whole thing. I really did,” Havens recalled. “So I got to see Dylan and Phil Ochs and Peter, Paul and Mary separately, and watch them become a trio. And all of the others.”

THE FIRST TIME THAT THE REST OF THE WORLD really heard Dylan was through the voices of Peter, Paul and Mary. The folk trio accomplished this with their 1963 hit “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which was written by a then-unknown Dylan. “We had known Bobby in the Village,” Yarrow said. “Initially, he was more like somebody who was trying to fashion a performance. He was just another person finding his muse.” PP&M’s manager, Albert Grossman, presented the trio with an “acetate” (an outmoded recording format) of Dylan’s song. “We were just fully thunderstruck by it,” Yarrow recalled. “It was powerful and wonderful. It was not just a great song, but it seemed, at the time, to encapsulate so much of the process in which we were involved, which was one of questioning the way in which we were living. Instead of prescribing what to do in this situation of real change in the United States, what it did was to allow a person — or request of a person — that he consider the alternatives. So it was an important, important piece on many levels.” The timing of the single’s release was also significant. “It was in 1963, as I remember,” Yarrow said. “And that, of course, was the time of the March on Washington, where we sang it. It was the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. “And that, in conjunction with (PP&M’s 1962 cover of Pete Seeger’s) ‘If I Had a Hammer’ — which was also a song that was anthemic to what was going on in the United States — that established very firmly for us an important ongoing identity, that we were very well aware of, and a sense of responsibility for bringing the issues of public determination, policy determination and issues of fairness squarely into our own internal sense of responsibility.” Yes, folk music carries important messages. But, Collins would add, folk is largely about a very simple act: storytelling. “We are essentially story-loving people,” she said. “Most of the world is. Telling stories is one of the great strengths of any culture. I think the storytelling capacity of folk music was a tremendous source of energy and creativity for people in the ’60s. I think it still is. I think that’s what’s so vibrant about it and completely timeless about it.”

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For the Cowsills, pop success was all in the ...

A GROUP OF SIBLINGS WEARING MATCHING stagewear tour the country with their mom, singing their pop hits. “The Partridge Family,” right? On TV, yes. But there was a real-life inspiration for the fictional Partridges. The Cowsills were the real thing: a touring, recording family who put out real hit singles. Tie for the toothy clan’s highest chart position was “Hair,” which went to #2 in 1969 and raised more than a few eyebrows. A squeaky-clean family act, covering a song from a counter-culture musical? Susan — the youngest Cowsill and the only sister in the act — sang the immortal lyric “and spaghetti” in “Hair” (to her chagrin). I spoke with the singer (born 1959) in 2015. Q: Do you remember much about your childhood in Rhode Island prior to joining your brothers’ band? COWSILL: I totally remember my childhood. More than I remember the band, in fact. It was a rural, in-the-woods kind of lifestyle the whole time. I missed it greatly when we moved to New York City, until Paul found Central Park. Then there was a place for all of us. Q: You aren’t on the Cowsills’ earliest records. When the band started getting attention, were you itching to join? COWSILL: I was. I bullied my way into the band. I would beg, borrow and steal, do laundry, whatever it took. I saw all the fun my brothers were having, and I wanted in. Although, they didn’t want me at first, because I was the creepy little sister (laughs).

born a 30-year-old. I knew exactly what was going on. I made it into the band two months before we did “The Ed Sullivan Show,” so my timing was impeccable. I knew I was a musician, even though I was very young. I was into music. Q: It seemed almost wrong that the Cowsills recorded “Hair.” But it went to #2. How did the idea to cover it come about? COWSILL: The “Hair” thing came about when we were doing a TV special with Carl Reiner. It was about art and culture of the time. He had us on, and he thought it would be funny if we did the song from “Hair” — the dichotomy of having the Cowsills do “Hair.” The boys did a recording of it, just for that TV show. It came out so well that we wanted to put it out as a single. MGM didn’t want to put it out, so my brothers brought it to a (radio) station in Chicago, and they secretly played it on the air. The switchboards lit up. Today, they would call it “going viral.” Q: What do you remember about recording “Hair”? Do you remember anything about developing the arrangement? COWSILL: The guys would know. I just remember that I wished I didn’t have to do the “and spaghetti” thing. I remember not appreciating that part. The others got such cool parts to sing, and I’m singing what? I got the cute part, because I was the little girl. Q: But after all, “and spaghetti” is a part of pop history. And history is history. COWSILL: History is history. Q: Did you see “Hair” on stage?

Q: You were 8. Did you know what you were getting into?

COWSILL: We did go see it. But not me. My mom wouldn’t let me. My brothers all saw it, at the Aquarius Theater in Los Angeles, in fact.

COWSILL: I knew what I was getting into. I think I was

Susan Cowsill rocks “The Mike Douglas Show” (1970).

Q: Of course, “Hair” was inspired by the hippie movement. It was the time of “flower power,” psychedelia, Vietnam. Were you too young to be aware of these things? COWSILL: I was incredibly aware of that movement. I wished I was older; I would have been in it. Because, I became a hippie at 9. I decided that’s who I was. I knew I was a bit young. I said, “I’m gonna kick it back here with these people.” Q: How did you become a 9-year-old hippie? COWSILL: I think I was simply paying attention to the energy and focus of these kinds of people. It was more appealing to me than worrying about corporations and the state of the country. Plus, it was easy; I had brothers. My oldest brother (Bill) was bona fide. That’s not something you choose. You don’t just say, “I think I will take on the hippie mentality.” It just fit. It still fits. I’m still a hippie. Don’t tell anyone. Q: You toured a lot as a child. Was it a blur? COWSILL: It was not a blur. We toured all the time. We played fairs, auditoriums, colleges. I barely went to school. Q: The Cowsills wore some groovy threads. Did you get a kick out of that? COWSILL: The clothes were fun. I got to pick out most of my own stuff. We had a very nice lady named “Genie the Tailor” (Jeannie Franklyn). “Tiny Dancer” (by Elton John) was written after Jeannie. She did our last look, which was the more psychedelic look — “groovy,” as you would say. The guys had less fun with the clothes than I did, because guys’ clothes are limited. But I enjoyed it, because I was a girl. Q: The band did a lot of TV. You mentioned “Ed Sullivan”; I’m guessing it meant something to do “Johnny Cash.” COWSILL: Doing “Ed Sullivan” was awesome, because it was “Ed Sullivan.” Johnny Cash, for me, was great, because he was one of my favorites. I always thought he was such a bad-ass guy. I liked his music. We did Johnny Carson (“The Tonight Show”). Not a lot of people can say that anymore. Q: Your father (Bud Cowsill) managed the Cowsills and would, to say the least, clash with your brothers. Did these incidents stress you out as a child?

COWSILL: I just needed to know where I was supposed to be, how long I was supposed to play, and where I was gonna play next, to get the most fun out of it. There were plenty of things to stress me out; show business was not it. I was 8. All I cared about was: Does the motel have a pool? Q: Would you call your father a Svengali? A taskmaster? How would you categorize him? COWSILL: My father? An ill-equipped parent. An illequipped music-business participant. An illequipped-to-be-on-this-planet kind of guy. He bit off a lot when he was very young. He did not have a lot of education. I think I would categorize him as that person. Not prepared for the life he was living. Q: “The Partridge Family” was inspired by the Cowsills. Did you watch the show? COWSILL: Sure. I watched it every Friday night. I had a crush on David Cassidy. I knew who I was on the show. I remember thinking that the girl (played by Suzanne Crough) couldn’t play her tambourine, but I could play mine. I was sad when she died (in 2015). So, yeah, I loved the show. Q: It’s a well-known, and tragic, phenomenon that many child stars have had difficult adult lives. Some say they had “interrupted childhoods.” Was this the case for you? COWSILL: I wouldn’t call it an interrupted childhood so much as a different lifestyle. I understand the concept. Was I in the Brownies or the Girl Scouts? Did I go to the dances? No. What do you say about something like this? It’s not your regular thing. But so much of it was truly a blast. It was an alternative childhood lifestyle. Part of me laments not having a lot of the things other people had. But a big part of me says, “How cool for you, that you had this adventure.” It’s crazy. Everything that would seem unnatural and/or different from a regular childhood, to me, was normal. You are presenting a life to a child that, as they’re growing up, they’re not going to question. It’s only when you look back as an adult that you see the differences. When people say, “Was it a weird childhood?” I say, “It was my childhood.” I only had one.

A Susan Cowsill ’toon by caricaturist Jack Davis, from the back cover of “The Best of the Cowsills” (1968). Overleaf: The entire clan by Davis, from the album’s cover. © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

Reality TV They were born in a network boardroom. They ripped off “A Hard Day’s Night.” They didn’t play their instruments. That’s what naysayers said of the Monkees. But you know what? The Monkees’ songs are immortal, and their TV shows are funny. Still. The Monkees — Meanwhile, the TV show began to subtly reflect the counterDavy Jones (the heartculture movement, while Jones, Dolenz, Tork and Nesmith were throb), Micky Dolenz (the growing tired of the sitcom format. They had guest Frank Zappa clown), Peter Tork (the stoner type) and “play” a car — that is, beat a 1940s jalopy with chains. Michael Nesmith (the relatively sane one) — were After “The Monkees” was canceled, reruns began airing on derisively nicknamed the “Prefab Four,” and not unreasonably so. Saturday-morning TV, and Monkeemania infected the little brothIf you watch the Beatles in the 1964 film “A Hard Day’s Night” ers and sisters of first-run viewers. Cereal-munching children in and then watch the 1966-68 sitcom “The Monkees,” the imitation pajamas watching Frank Zappa? Now, that’s subversive. is conspicuous. But you can’t blame the boys, who, after all, “ ‘The Monkees’ was, I think, unique in the sense that it kind merely answered an ad for a cattle-call audition and won their of brought long hair and the hippie culture into the living room,” roles over 437 fellow hopefuls. Dolenz told me in 2001. The series, co-created by Bob “NBC was very, very concerned Rafelson and Bert Schneider (who and worried about putting the show later produced “Easy Rider”), was on the air, putting guys with long madcap, inventive, energetic and hair on TV in prime time. I rememirreverent. Part Beatles, part Marx ber them telling me that. Because Brothers, Mssrs. Jones, Dolenz, at the time, the people you saw on Tork and Nesmith were like cartelevision with long hair were usutoon characters come to life. ally on the news, getting arrested,” The boys’ road from fictional to Dolenz added with a laugh. bona fide band was paved with “Because, it was considered the surprise. Don Kirshner was initialcounterculture. It was considered ly enlisted to expedite the necesanti-American. And they (the netsarily rapid writing and recording works) were very, very careful. of tunes. Some heavy hitters That’s one reason we were never penned Monkees songs (Tommy able to make any political or social Boyce and Bobby Hart, Gerry comments. Not that we even would Goffin and Carole King, Neil have wanted to. It was probably the “The Monkees” © Raybert Prod. Inc. ™ Screen Gems, Inc. Diamond) and provided key instruwrong venue for that. It was fairly mentation (the Wrecking Crew, Glen Campbell). The Monkees — I don’t want to say ‘innocent,’ but — mainstream in that sense. scored 10 songs in the Top 40, six in the Top 10 and three #1’s. “So I think if there’s anything we did contribute, it was to So in real life, the Monkees, manufactured though they were, make it a little more acceptable to be young, male and have long became a real phenomenon. To the network suits, a Frankenstein hair, as most of the kids in the country did. And most of the kids was created. When the boys began making noise about musical in the country — even though they may have been sympathetic to autonomy, they were granted more clout. Kirshner walked, saying what was going on politically and socially — were not necessarily his agreement wasn’t honored. (Tork later said Kirshner “left in a active. They weren’t blowing up things or being extremely antihuff.”) Now working with producer Chip Douglas, the boys still social. They were just wearing the stuff that you can get at the scored hits (“Daydream Believer,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday”). mall now. And the Monkees kind of represented that.”

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Campy troubadour “By and by they had a song, about a lost child traveling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.” — Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol” (1843) WITH HIS DEATH-WHITE PALLOR, STRINGY hair, protruding beak, effeminate manner and nails-onblackboard falsetto, Tiny Tim was a lightning rod. Most people laughed at him. Some called him a “fruitcake.” Perhaps a few fringe hippies, or aficionados of 1920s songs, took him seriously. But the overwhelming consensus was: He’s a freak. “Is Tiny Tim for real?” was a question on everyone’s lips after the singer (some would argue against that descriptor) debuted on TV’s “Laugh-In” on Jan. 22, 1968. “It was tough to get letters, after the ‘Laugh-In’ show, 98 percent ‘pan’ mail,” Tiny told an interviewer. “They said, ‘Where’d you get him from?’ ‘What’s happening to the world?’ “Even though it was rough, that’s the same thing that happened when I had this long hair in ’54 around the neighborhood in New York City, in Washington Heights. Only this time, it was on a larger scale. It was around the world.” Tiny Tim (1932-1996) was born Herbert Buckingham Khaury in New York City to a Jewish mom and a Catholic dad. “I remember, when I was 3 years old, having an old gramophone Victrola,” he once said. “I was always attracted to, not only those types of records, but a medium in which a voice can come out of a box like that.” A man named Bill Chambers was in Tiny’s junior high class. “The way people saw him on TV, that’s the way he was back then. That was no act,” Chambers told me in 1997. “He was very good-hearted, very bright. I used to go to his house and listen to his records. He had a crewcut in those days. He was a big guy — the tallest kid in the class. He used to sit way in the back. He was very shy. He was so unathletic, it was incredible. But he loved sports, especially hockey. “One kid at school used to bully him a lot. But he would never fight, no matter what. I took care of this bully one time. Herbert never forgot that.”

Tiny from the cover of “God Bless Tiny Tim.” Opposite: A one-shot magazine (both 1968). “God Bless Tiny Tim” © Reprise; The True Fantastic Story of Tiny Tim © Corncob, Ltd.

The scratchy songs coming through that gramophone had an effect on Tiny, who was determined to follow in the footsteps of his musical heroes of yesteryear such as Rudy Vallee, Byron G. Harlan (“Thomas Edison’s favorite singer”), Irving Kaufman and Bing Crosby. But Herbert Khaury seemed like an unlikely entertainer. He was odd-looking, and his passion for the old songs outstripped his actual talent. Still, he had drive. He hustled. He went on many auditions, and adopted the ukulele out of necessity. “The reason for the ukulele is very important” he once said. “I used to go to a lot of singing auditions — plenty in the ’50s.” He explained that he would accompany himself on the uke so that if an audition went badly, he wouldn’t have to suffer the humiliation of asking a pianist to return his sheet music. BY THE MIDDLE ’50S, KHAURY was singing in Greenwich Village clubs billed as Larry Love, “the Singing Canary.” To stand out, he adopted the falsetto. “Like it or not,” he later said, “I really do thank Jesus Christ for his blessings. He gave me a style which I believe, I pray to him, was a little different. And in this business, originality is the key to success.” Not everyone embraced the falsetto, to put it mildly. “You’ll never get anywhere singing in that sissy voice,” his father once said. He turned pro in 1962, when he was paid $10 a night to perform at the Café Bizarre in the Village. The next year, his agent (who specialized in representing little people) suggested he change his name to Tiny Tim, after the Charles Dickens character. Later in the ’60s, Tiny garnered notice while performing at The Scene, a New York City discotheque; in the 1968 film “You Are What You Eat”; and on “The Merv Griffin Show.” It all led to “Laugh-In.” For his debut “Laugh-In” appearance, Tiny was introduced by co-host Dan Rowan as the “toast of

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American movie “Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid” is what Dennis Hopper once called them. They are the motorcycle-riding long-hairs Wyatt and Billy, played by Peter Fonda and Hopper in “Easy Rider.” Hopper, who also directed the iconic 1969 counterculture road picture, always viewed “Easy Rider” as a western. There is an important difference, though. In westerns, drifters usually try to cross the plains without attracting attention. (It helps to ensure their safe travels.) Not so in the case of laid-back Wyatt and irascible Billy, who are willful magnets for the hateful stares, and worse, that they draw in the bigoted burgs along their journey. It’s the hair and wild getups, partly. But mostly, it’s ... The Bike. You know the one I mean. Wyatt’s stunning chopper is instantly recognizable as Smithsonian-worthy, with its implausibly long front forks and a teardrop gas tank decorated with a gleaming American-flag design. Just as Billy gives the finger to a yokel who taunts him to “get a haircut,” so Fonda and Hopper gave the finger to the movie-industry status quo in making the indie blockbuster, which was groundbreaking on several levels. It used contemporary songs (by Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix, Roger McGuinn, the Band and others) instead of a conventional soundtrack. It used quick-cut, sometimes avant-garde editing. Sun-flares on the camera lens during riding scenes were intentional. And it has a flash-forward. Hopper (1936-2010) co-wrote the script with producer/star Fonda and screenwriter Terry Southern, though Hopper swore to his dying day that the script was his alone. It follows the exploits of two compadrés who score cocaine in Mexico, sell it to a wealthy weirdo (Phil Spector, using his reallife Rolls Royce and bodyguard), and invest in a pair of customized choppers. Into that stars-and-stripes-bedecked gas tank, Wyatt jams tubing stuffed with cash from the drug deal. Said Hopper (in 2005 commentary for the film): “The idea of putting all the money in a gas tank that had the American flag on it, the idea that we were destroying ourselves, and this beautiful chrome machine — we lived in the United States, and if we weren’t careful, we could explode and blow up and implode.” Wyatt and Billy kick-start their spiffy new rides, hit the road, and “Easy Rider” becomes part travelogue, part time capsule and, yes, part western. Need you be told that Billy is the Gabby Hayes surrogate? Their idea is to retire to Florida as rich men, but not before they take in the sights and sounds of Mardi Gras. Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker (Luke Askew); visit a commune; go skinny-dipping with hippie chicks (Luana Anders and Sabrina Scharf); get thrown in jail for “parading without a permit”; meet an alcoholic lawyer (Jack Nicholson) who tags along; cruise past still-inhabited old slave shacks in Louisiana; pick up a couple of hookers (Karen Black and Toni Basil); and drop acid at Mardi Gras. Fonda and Hopper both had Hollywood pedigrees. As Henry Fonda’s son, Peter Fonda had a surname with juice, and Hopper had been a rising star in

From top: Jack Nicholson has breakfast; Dennis Hopper and Karen Black get acquainted; Peter Fonda digs deep; Mr. Billodeau. “Easy Rider” © Raybert Productions, Pando Company and Columbia Pictures

Bikers Wyatt (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper) search for America in “Easy Rider.” “Easy Rider” © Raybert Productions, Pando Company and Columbia Pictures films like “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Giant.” Also, both were graduates of the Roger Corman school of guerilla filmmaking. So these guys knew how to work in and outside of the system. The irony is, Fonda and Hopper had recently decided they needed to get away from motorcycles and drugs in the movies, lest they be typecast. (Fonda had starred in “The Wild Angels,” Hopper in “The Glory Stompers,” and both were in Corman’s LSD opus “The Trip.”) But then something weird happened. Newly minted MPAA chief Jack Valenti declared, at an industry function while looking directly at Fonda (according to the actor), that filmmakers needed to get away from sex, drugs and cycles, and make more movies like “Dr. Doolittle.” This set something off in Fonda. That night, the idea for “Easy Rider” came to him. DURING FILMING, HOPPER ENCOURAGED HAPPY accidents. When Nicholson, playing a deflowered pot virgin, cracked up during his stoned campfire rant about Venusians, that’s the take Hopper used. At a given location, Hopper sought local amateurs rather than actors to play small roles, to great effect. In the infamous café sequence, the hate-spewing good old boy in the CAT cap was not played by a pro. Could you have wanted a better man for the role? (Fonda always remembered the gentleman’s name: Hayward Robillard Jr.) Likewise, the fellow with the goiter on his neck who aimed to throw a scare into Wyatt was a nonactor named David C. Billodeau. Even the truck he rode in — the one Wyatt barrels toward, as if their two vehicles are locked in an old western showdown — is a real truck, not a movie prop. Nicholson’s participation was itself a happy accident. His character George Hanson — only a vague idea in Fonda and Hopper’s original scenario — was later fleshed out by Southern, according

to Southern biographer Lee Hill. Fonda wanted Rip Torn for the role. Nicholson was, at the time, planning to quit acting to concentrate on producing and writing. It was “Easy Rider” producer Bert Schneider who pushed for Nicholson’s casting. So Nicholson became George, and George commandeers the movie during his brief time within it. The character represents much. When we first see George, he is “in” with the law. Though he awakens in jail after having “tied one on,” the cops bring him aspirin and coffee, calling him “Mr. Hanson.” George, you see, is a local whose father has political pull. George can’t be touched, even in jail. His new long-haired friends are another story. As George warns Wyatt and Billy: “They got this here scissor-happy ‘Beautify America’ thing goin’ on around here. They’re tryin’ to make everybody look like Yul Brynner.” But when George tags along with these two, his fortunes change quickly. After a couple of days of riding and smoking weed around the campfire, George starts to resemble Wyatt and Billy in a way. He is certainly guilty by association in the eyes of the good-old-boy patrons of the Morganza, Louisiana, coffee shop into which the three travelers stumble for a bite of grub they never get. George is no longer protected. The locals see to that. An interesting sidelight here: When Hopper, on the spot, cast those amateurs in the café sequence, he told them a lie. He said that in the movie, the hippies had just raped and murdered a young woman. This gave the locals license to spew their hate with impunity. And — along with the grandeur of Monument Valley, the painterly purple hues of Southwestern sunsets, and the vanishing innocence of small-town America — it was recorded for posterity in “Easy Rider.”

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To the Max WHEN YOU THINK OF 1960s psychedelia, you think of Peter Max. The artist’s “Love” poster, which shows a young woman’s face emerging from a flower stem (or does it?), is an iconic image of the era. Max’s color-saturated work was strikingly contemporary, even as it drew from nostalgic genres such as art deco. Max wore long hair and a euphoric grin, and his art conveyed childlike innocence. But Max’s flair for self-promotion and branding proved the bottom line was on his mind as much as peace and love. I spoke with the native of Berlin, Germany, in 1997. Q: In the ’60s, you were one of the progenitors of the psychedelic genre of art. Are there precedents in art history for the psychedelic look? MAX: You know, there have been. There have been precedents, always, in these Romantic periods. The NeoRaphaelites. In Japan, Hokusai. And the art nouveau period: (Antonio) Gaudi and (Alphonse) Mucha and some of the art nouveau artists. There have been those type of elements. But it’s never been so extreme, so psychedelic, where it’s really fresh. Of course, there was no media at the time. This became a national phenomenon. Q: Simplicity is a large aspect of your work — an almost a childlike simplicity that belies its sophistication. Is it done unconsciously? MAX: There has to be a simplicity in the work. It shouldn’t be effortive. It has to come real naturally. It should be a fun thing. You know, many years ago, 200 years ago, when it was the realists (art movement), there was a very big effort to make a face look like

Peter Max in 1997. Opposite: A 1969 Life cover story “really bolted me into space,” said the artist. Photo by Kathy Voglesong; magazine © Time Inc.

a face, and eyeballs look like they’re wet, and hair to look like hair and cotton like cotton and silk like silk. But that’s not necessary today; the camera does that.

Q: In your style, you often have black linework filled with color. It reminds me of comic book reproduction. Were the comics books an influence on your work? MAX: The very expressionistic kind of stuff, oh, yeah. Always. When I was very young, I discovered comic books. I saw that people drew these things. I was fascinated. I wanted to draw like that. I started drawing a lot. And drawing made it happen. Once I drew a lot, then I knew I had the instinct of making images. Q: Do you remember which comic book artists you read? MAX: I forgot the artists. It would be the regular comic books — you know, “Batman,” “Superman” and all those. Then, of course, I studied art. I found that there were things like compositions. Who knew? I didn’t know that there were such things as compositions or color combinations. Once I got a knack for compositions and color combinations, it just took off on its own. And then suddenly, innovation happened. I started innovating images. Then the public picked it up. I started getting articles and articles and reproductions. It all happened. Q: Did drugs play any part in your art? MAX: Yeah, in the beginning, there was a moment in my life. Luckily, later on, I found a swami from India, Swami Satchidananda. He’s a very holy man that I brought from India to America. He was the real thing.

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Wild thing Like a supernova, Jimi Hendrix materialized suddenly, and blew the world away with his spacey music and look. And then he was gone. It’s hard to believe Hendrix’s stardom lasted a mere four years. His songs such as “Foxy Lady,” “Purple Haze,” “Hey Joe” and “Little Wing” occupy an unshakable place in the rock canon, and his cosmic-blues playing style has never been duplicated. But Hendrix’s art was born of pain, his nomadic childhood touched by poverty and domestic upset. His song “Castles Made of Sand” seems to refer to the fighting he witnessed all too often between his parents, Al and Lucille: “Down the street you can hear her scream ‘You’re a disgrace’ / As she slams the door in his drunken face.” Lucille died in 1958 at 32, when Hendrix was 15. Born in 1942 in Seattle, Hendrix fell in love with the guitar before he even owned one. In 1961, he joined the Army — the law twisted his arm — and later played on the “chitlin circuit,” backing Little Richard, the Isley Brothers and Sam Cooke. Hendrix relocated to New York, where former Animals bassist Chas Chandler caught his act and essentially “exported” him to London, on a Sept. 24, 1966, flight. Hendrix began jamming with, and dazzling, the elite of British rock. Among audience members at his pivotal Jan. 24, 1967, set at the Marquee Club — home of the first-ever Rolling Stones show — were all four Beatles, most of the Stones, half of The Who and Eric Clapton. His hastily assembled band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience (Noel Redding on bass, Mitch Mitchell on drums), followed Cream as the newest “power trio.” The Experience’s first release, the single “Hey Joe,” shot to #6 in the U.K. An unforgettable set at Monterey Pop (1967), during which Hendrix set his guitar on fire, sealed his fame. Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock (1969), with its solemn excerpt from “Taps,” seemed to articulate, via electric guitar, what a mess the country was in. Still, beneath it all was a faint ring of hope. No one on Earth played guitar like this guy.

Jimi Hendrix’s art was born of pain. Opposite: The cover of “Axis: Bold as Love.” Screen shot © Monterey International Pop Festival Foundation, Inc.; album cover © Reprise Records

JANIE HENDRIX Younger sister

“I wrote many reports in school on how Jimi was my hero. I won’t say I idolized him, because we only idolize God, but he was definitely my hero. When he’d come back home, he’d like to sit and play games. ‘Monopoly’ was one of his favorites. He’d play that all night, ’til the sun rose. You get to know a lot about people when you play games. Jimi would want to buy all of the, what we called, ‘Skid Row’ properties. Then he’d put big hotels on them, and try to upgrade the inner city, basically. Then, of course, it always happened that you landed in those areas, vs. Park Place and Broadway. He didn’t want to buy any of those places. He just wanted to buy the slums and build them up. And that really was his dream. I’ve listened to interviews of him in Harlem, when he said that he wanted to build big, round, beautiful buildings — studios and places for people to go to express themselves. Just make it a beautiful place.”

RICHIE HAVENS Folk singer

“I remember well Jimi Hendrix at the end of the Greenwich Village years. I mean, I actually sent him to Greenwich Village to become Jimi Hendrix. He wasn’t even ‘Jimmy James’ (an earlier stage name used by Hendrix) yet, you know? Which is interesting.”

DONOVAN Rock singer

“In ’67, I was the first, with (sculptor) Gypsy Dave (Mills), to meet Jimi Hendrix at the airport when he flew in from New York. Chas Chandler found Jimi in the Village playing in a blues club, and brought him over. And I was there on the very first day that Jimi set foot in a cruddy, little hotel in London where we musicians used to stay, in Bayswater. When I then saw Jimi play with the Experience a week later, my mind was blown. I heard guitar from Pete Townshend before and Dave Davies of the Kinks. I mean, I’d heard guitar before. But never like this.”

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