Ritchie Havens at Woodstock Remembered

Richie Havens at Woodstock 42 Years Ago Today

BK Notes: This was written in August 2011 

http://jerseyshorenightbeat.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-post.html?m=02011

Jerry, my friend from the old neighborhood emailed me to remind me that this was the anniversary of Woodstock, and was recollecting our trip there.

I remember how I tracked high school mates Jerry and Marc down in Wildwood, where they lived in a motel room and worked as short order cooks at a boardwalk grill. Sitting in their motel room they were excited about a new album by Santana, and played it for me.

Then they said Santana was going to be playing at this festival at Woodstock in upstate New York, where Dylan and The Band were holed up, and The Band was playing the festival too. They were planning to go and wanted me to go with them, even though I was committed to working for the summer, especially weekends.

A few years ago, on another anniversary, Jerry wrote what he remembered. How him and me and our high school mates Mark and Bob left Ocean City in my father's car as soon as I finished work at Mack & Manco's around midnight.

It was the weekend or so before Labor Day, and I had gotten a letter from school - I was to be a freshman at the University of Dayton, Ohio in September, but they sent me a letter saying I had to be at a special "orientation" class the same weekend as Woodstock. I showed the letter to my boss, Mr. Mack, and he said my education came first and I had to go, but be sure to be back on Monday because I was needed for the busy upcoming Labor Day holiday.

We were going to take my '59 Jeep that had no doors or side windows, but it wouldn't start and my mother said to take dad's car and we didn't argue with her. I fell asleep in the back and someone else was driving when we got pulled over and a State cop shined a flashlight in my face. He had seen the "County Detective" sign on the visor and asked me if my dad knew I had the car and if we were going to that rock concert, but he didn't give us a ticket and said to have a good time.

Woodstock the Festival, as everyone who was there knows, wasn't really at Woodstock the town, the artist community where Albert Grossman, Dylan and The Band lived. They were going to have it there, but when the community decided it didn't want all those people coming in, they got Max Yasker's farm near Bethel, New York, about 30 some miles from Woodstock.

As we got closer and the traffic was backed up, they set up road blocks and turned people away, but the "County Detective" sign got us past a few checkpoints. As Jerry remembered, it, he was driving when we picked up a hitch hiker who had already been to the concert site but left to get some supplies. We drove on the side of the road full of stalled traffic and then the hitch hiker told us about a small, dirt side road that led right to the stage and showed us where it was. Before long we had pulled up about 30 yards from the back of the stage, and within an hour we were blocked in so we just made camp right there.

It wasn't rainy or muddy at first, and I think we all went to together to near the front of the stage, which was pretty huge. I think Mark may have stayed behind, but me and Jerry and Bob were right down in front. Jerry now only remembers him and Bob in the front row, but I was there with them for the first half of Richie Havens set, which really was remarkable. He was on for a long time, and since few people paid admission - we didn't have tickets and nobody asked for any - the rumor was that the other acts wouldn't go on without getting paid. So Richie Havens had to play an extra long set.

After awhile I left them at the front of the stage and went for a walk about, to the back on the hill where they had food concessions and a makeshift hospital.

Thousands of more people had arrived so there was no way I would ever make it back to the front row again, though I later learned that Jerry and Bob hung out there for quite some time.

Occasionally we would meet back at the car, but Mark didn't like it at all, especially after it started to rain, and he wanted to go get a motel room somewhere.

While I don't remember too much else, there was the time on Saturday night, I think it was while The Band was performing, when I climbed a tree and laid across a big branch to stay off the wet ground. While up there Jerry was walking by and yelling my name, and was quite surprised to find me at all let alone up in a tree.

I remember taking a dip in a muddy lake with a bunch of naked hippie chicks, but I don't remember many of the acts, even the ones we went there to see, like Santana and The Band.

By Sunday afternoon, enough room had been cleared around the car that we could move it out, and at Marc's insistence, we left early, so we didn't see or hear Hendrix.

I will never forget the smile on my father's face as he stood on the porch at 819 Wesley when we pulled up in his car, totally covered with mud. He was just glad to see us and his car.

Then, still in our muddy jeans and t-shirts, Jerry and I went around the corner to the local hippie coffee house - The Purple Dragon, and were celebrities for day for being Woodstock veterans. But the next day when I went to work at Mack & Mancos I couldn't tell anyone where I was because I was supposed to have been at college orientation.

I guess that's one of the reasons why I've been a bit disoriented.

And no, I didn't do any drugs at Woodstock, though we did have some wine, and I think Bob did some acid though I'm not even sure about that.

Then later that winter when I was at school in Dayton, Richie Havens did a concert at the basketball arena and I found myself down front in the first row again. After the concert was over I wrote down the address of a house where we were going to a party and gave it to Richie on stage. He smiled and winked at me. Then an hour or so later a limo drives up to the party house and Richie Havens gets out. I was back in the kitchen, and in walks Richie Havens, looking for me, and when he sees me he smiles. 

Richie Havens changes strings on stage at Dayton, Ohio, circa 1970

Can he light up a joint? Sure we're all in college, and he proceeded to roll a joint like he was a cowboy on a horse, twisted it up with one hand and then lit it up.

I think Richie now lives somewhere in Jersey not far from where I am though further north. I was thinking about taking a drive someday and paying him a visit.

Then I'd like to visit the real Woodstock, the town of Woodstock and visit with Levon and Garth and the boys from The Band.

1 comment:

sdt (a.k.a. stevil) said...

Hello, I was just reading your post about Richie Havens at Woodstock. It was of special interest to me as you mentioned the Purple Dragon coffeehouse in Ocean City. I was one of the people who ran it. Would you by any chance have a picture of the building showing the dragon's head hanging from the balcony? I've been trying to find one for many years. (There was one in the Sentinel, but I don't have a copy.)

As an aside to your story, at the beginning of that August, we closed the coffeehouse for the weekend of the Atlantic City pop festival. The coffeehouse was a project of the Methodist Church, and they weren't happy with that choice. As the weekend for Woodstock approached, it seemed like all the kids were going. We couldn't close again, so it was decided that two of us would stay behind. We drew straws. I got one of the two short ones and that's why I didn't get to Woodstock.

Atlantic City Pop Fest - Prequel to Woodstock

ATlANTIC CITY POP FEST - PREQUEL TO WOODSTOCK 

Atlantic City Pop Fest Flashback 1969

ATLANTIC CITY POP FEST - Flashback, August 1969.

http://jerseyshorenightbeat.blogspot.com/2008/02/atlantic-city-pop-fest-flashback-1969.html?m=0

By Bill Kelly 

For the CASINO JOURNAL - August 1989 

Two weeks before Woodstock became a household name in the late summer of 1969, 110,000 people converged on the Atlantic City Racetrack for the Atlantic City Pop Festival - which included many of the acts who made Woodstock famous - Joni Mitchell, Canned Heat, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, B.B. King, the Byrds, Little Richard, Three Dog Night, Procol Harem, the Chambers Brothers, Frank Zappa, Rare Earth, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Chicago and a dozen other bands.

While Woodstock became a major cultural phenomenon, media event and movie, the Atlantic City Pop Festival was a musical experience of a lifetime for those who were there.

"It was the frist time something of that magnitude hit the Jersey Shore, and nothing like it has happened since," says Robin Young, one of the the many who paid $15 for a ticket for the three day affair. A one day ticket for the August 1st, 2nd or 3rd, 1969 event were $6.

As one of the first major shows, and by far the largest at that time, produced by the Electric Factory, the A.C. Pop Fest had its roots in the 22nd and Arch Street psychedelic warehouse in Philadelphia, where many of the new bands of that era performed.

Larry Magid, along with his partners Herb and Alan Spivak, introduced the Philadelphia audience to many of the West Coast groups that were then in the vanguard of the cultural revolution that was sweeping the country. San Francisco has its Haight Ashbury, New Yourk has Greenwich Village and Philadelphia has Rittenhouse Square, where all the hippies would congregate to protest the war in Vietnam, play guitars and throw firisbees.

Around the corner on Sanson Street was the Apple Head Shop, owned by Dan and Pam Davis, who also owned the Birdcage Head Shop on the boardwalk in Ocean City. They sold posters, incense, pipes and jewelry, while around the corner, the Electric Factory brought in the music that attracted an increasing larger crowd of the psychedelic generation.

On February 2nd, 1968, Magid and the Spivak brotehrs opened their club with the Chamber Brothers, whose song, "Time Has Come Today," with its cowbell rhythm, was on the pop charts.

"Music is something you can rally around," says Magid today, noting that for the most part, the bands booked for the Atlantic City Pop Festival had previously played the Electric Factory. "Chicago, then known as the Chicago Transit Authority, still played the Electric factory, but by that time, we had started doing shows at the Spectrum."

The A.C. Pop Fest however, was the biggest show they had attempted, and they did it right. The acts matched up and were equal to if not better than Woodstock, and the festival itself was much better organized.

Whereas Woodstock was overwhelmed with a flood of counter-culture campers who crashed the gate, threw a party, left a mess for others to clean up, and lost money, at least unitl the movie came out, the Atlantic City Pop Festival went off without a hitch.

"They had a nice dream for Woodstock," says Magid, "they certainly had the place. People knew Woodstock at the time as the place where Bob Dylan lived. But they forgot to do the most important thing until it was too late - put the gate up. They sold too many tickets. Maybe if they were able to control their ticket sales they would have been able to control it."

On the other hand says Magid, "We had a good show, and I think it was successful mainly because it was a controlled environment at the race track, rather than an open field in the country."

Like Woodstock, which actually took place on Max Yasker's farm near Monticello, New York, local Mays Landing officials tried to ban a gathering of such undesirable elements.

Woodstock itself is still much the same small artists' colony it was 20 years ago, with local residents fighting attempts to hold similar large scale festivals.

From his Electirc Factory office in Philadelphia, where he still runs the company that promotes concerts, Larry Magid said, "Any time you have a large influx of people, the township has to be concerned, and rightfully so. People around the country at the time weren't exactly thrilled with kids with long hair. But we thought we attracted a lot of people. We brought additional revenue to the area. We filled a lot of campgrounds and motels. And we ran an orderly show. Any problems we did have, we were able to contend with them quickly."

"We had a birth, we didn't have any deaths," says Magid, "and we had a good mix of progressive bands that were just beginning to get popular radio airplay, so we didn't have just kids, and sold tickets to people of all ages."

"For Dan Fogel, a Margate musician, it was a family outing. "My parents even went dressed up as hippies," Fogel recalls, "with my mom dressed like an Indian and dad as a cowboy. That's as far as hje got with the hippie thing."

"That was a big year for me," says Robin Young, of Ocean City. "It was the year I made the beach patrol and became a lifeguard. It as also the convergence of a lot of things - the anti-war movement, the psychedelic era, and the music."

"The thing that stands out the most in my mind," recalls Somers Point bartender Jonas Alexy, " is the guy I saw with a crewcut and military jacket with 'Cong Killer' scrawed across his back."

Some people confuse the Atlantic City Pop Festival with another Electric Factory show with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young/Santana concert held at the same location a few years later. And for many, the good times of that period blend into one memory bank where its difficult to recall many details. To put all of this in the right time frame, the Atlantic City Pop Fest was held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 1969. The Vietnam war was raging, the ghettos were burning, Richard Nixon was president and man had just landed on the moon.

The counter-culture movement rallied around music, and it was the music that was the attraction. "It was the first time that people in this area were hooked up with the West Coast music scene," contents Robin Young. The Byrds, with their "Eight Miles High," "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn," were there along with the Jefferson Airplane, the Chambers Brothers and Janis Joplin, rounding out the West Coast coningent.

There was also "B.B. King," already familiar to the Atlantic City audience, Dr. John, Iron Butterfly ("In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida"), Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Three Dog Night, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Rare Earth, Booker T. and the MGs.

Procol Harum played their classic, "Whiter Shade of Pale," Canned Heat did "Goin' Up the Country," and Author Brown sang a rousing version of his song, "Fire,.....I get you to burn,...," which was then a hit on the pop charts and radio.

While Woodstock was billed as "Three days of Peace and Music," with a schedule of eight acts a day, folk one day, rock the next, Atlantic City had 29 top flight acts. Magid claims that, "while their show developed into that, it was both good and bad for them. It became unmanageable for the people that were running it, yet it was good because of what it became. Perhaps we gave them a little push."

The 110,000 attendance figure is also a little bit misleading. While Woodstock attracted over a half-million (500,000) people, the A.C. Pop Fest had between 30,000 and 40,000 people each day for three days, wit many of the same people returning for each day. They were swimming nude in the Horse Shoe motel pool on the Pike, and when the motels and campgrounds were full they pitched tents in the woods behind the track.

Bill Muller of Ocean City was in boot camp at Fort Dix at the time. "Some guys from down south in my unit got leaves for the weekend and went looking for somebody who knew how to get to McKee City," Muller recalls. "I told them I would show them where it was if they would take me along, so I went AWOL. I took them right to the back stretch instead of to the front gate. We hopped the fence and enjoyed the weekend before going to Nam."

Young remembers that the only big problem he saw was when Hugh Maskela came on and played some soft quiet music after another band had just stirred the crowd into a frenzy with same dancing in lines up and down the isles. "One guy was so hot and sweaty he decided to take a dip in the infield lake," Young recalls, "and before long all the people were running towards the lake, pushing and shoving, and I think some people got hurt." The only known casuality.

As far as concert security goes, Magid says, "Rock n' Roll is just like any other industry - it matures. You develop different systems to meet different problems. Hopefully there will be even better ways to do things. We'd like to make the audience more comfortable."

Between sets many people mingled among the flea market booths that were set up in the Club House. At the time many people drank cheap wine, like Boone's Farm, out of brown suede flasks. Another guy says, "Me and my buddy didn't see too much of the music, we were really busy trying to score with the hippie chicks."

Dan and Pam Davis, who ran the head shops on Sansom street and the Ocean City Boardwalk, set up a table concession at the track and sold posters and trinkets to the audience. "That was some show," Dan said, reflecting on the Pop Fest. "I'm still into it today, on tour with the Grateful Dead - riding around the country from concert to concert in a moble home, selling things in the parking lot before and after the shows." Pam says that "Turquoise is making a comeback, but crystals are the big thing now."

Could the Atlantic City track be the site of another festival? The Environmental Response Network wants to put on a seminar and benefit concert for environmental, non-profit organizations in September, and Magid says the track is still a good venue. "It's just that there are others that are better."

"We had one other show there, the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Santana. But it is very expensive to have a show at the track. It's hard to work around the horse race meets, and sometimes in this business, it's not possible to do that. Artists compete for dates or go to the place where they'll do the best. We were happy with the two shows wed did there, but now we have JFK and the Vet, which are less expensive and bigger."

The Atlantic City Pop Festival, it seems, was a once in a lifetime occurance.

I caught the last show on the last night and will never forget it. Having graduated from high school that spring, and getting ready for college, I worked all weekend making pizza at Mack & Manco's on the Ocean City (NJ) boardwalk. My peers were persuasive in convincing me to go along with them after work Sunday night to try to catch the last few acts.

The gates were open and people were starting to leave, but as we made our way towards the stage, through the throngs of people, I could see Little Richard swinging a fur coat around his head while singing, "Good Golly, Miss Molly!" It was starting to drizzle , but the place was going wild. Everyone was dancing, their arms flailing when Little Richard took his fur coat and flung it into the crowd.

When he broke into "Tutti Frutti," I suddenly realized what rock n' roll was all about. I looked at my buddies and we all knew the answer to the question we had been asking all week, "Are we going to Woodstock?"

The Atlantic City Pop Fest may not be as famous as Woodstock, but it was a better concert, a more organized show, and changed the lives of a lot of people.

"It was the right place at the right time," says Larry Magid. "It was the timing as much as anything, right smack in the middle of that whole era. It was a good experience for many, and when that movement kept getting bigger and more popular and was not just for the moment, not just a fad, the festival became part of our history and folklore."

[Originally published in part in the August, 1989 edition of the Atlantic City Casino Journal]

COMMENTS

Michele, Heather's auntie said...

I certainly agree with you on that one. As one of the people who attended Woodstock, and has written a story in the book Woodstock Revisited, I have to say that was the best concert by far.

I wish I would have thought to put a call out for stories about that one. Your story brings back more memories.

Ellen Christine Millinery said...

I always looked at the AC Pop Festival as a dry-run for Woodstock. After the fact, of course, since that was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. I made it to both, benign little hippie chick that I was. My crowd always stayed at the shore during the summer, but this was the summer a year later after Senior Week had made it's mark. We were still hanging out at the shore on our at-home visits from college, and music was our touchstone. Electric Factory Concerts had us enthralled, so to AC we went.

Woodstock happened a blink of an eye later that same summer, and because of AC, we were ready. At the track all three of those days, drowning in a sea of music, and high from the experience (no comment, please), we felt part of a new generation making it's stamp on the world. Those concerts solidified our beliefs, our destinies. Surrounded by unfamiliar faces all feeling the same vibe, we revelled in those moments of shared consciousness. It was indeed those moments that created the Woodstock Nation, and helped propel our generation to the front lines of changing the world.

Jackie Farg said...

I remember driving down to AC with my two girlfriends. We only had enough money for one night in the hotel on the boardwalk. It seemed to take forever to get to the racetrack, cars and people everywhere. Once there people had little tables set up selling their stuff. I remember a girl climbing up the light pole for a better seat. Great time, fond memories. It would be great if there was a tape of it.

dougal said...

I went with my brother and several friends, one of whom was home from Vietnam and had, (gasp) volunteered to go back. We drove down from central Jersey. It was the best rock festival I ever attended. I rank the ones I attended in this order: 1. Atlantic City 2. Strawberry Fields. 3. Woodstock. 4. Randall's Island.

Atlantic City had the Race Track which held maybe 75,000 fans if I recall correctly. It meant you could sit in the shade and watch the acts. It was comfortable. We slept at a campsite within walking distance of the racetrack. I slept in the back of my mother's station wagon with the seat folded down. Very comfortable. We barbecued and basically had a good, comfortable weekend. At Woodstock, I could only stand to stay one full day, Saturday. It was just too out of control with anarchists raiding the capitalist food stands, a lot of acid, etc. Plus the weather was a problem, although Saturday was the best day in that regard. I saw one women trip out and start dancing shirtless. When one of her friends tried to cover her up, she punched him hard. So much for peace and love.

The only bad incident at Atlantic City I saw was when Zappa came out on the stage and was tuning up his guitar. Some drunk/drug-crazed moron climbed up on stage and started trying to talk into the mike and address the audience. Zappa walked up and said something to the guy and the guy swung at him. The guy was then mugged by roadies and dragged off.

The music was great, the weather was perfect, but I was disappointed CSNY didnt' show as well as the Moody Blues. Little Richard tore the place up. Joplin was a little bit out of it. This was her period with Snooky Flowers, the saxophonist, and the music sounded different than it did with Big Brother.

Credence Clearwater and Joe Cocker were moved by the crowd to do great sets. B. B. King also.

I'm very glad I went.

Miamimama said: I was there with my boyfriend and his parents who rented an RV with a toilet! We had it made. Unlike many at Woodstock we actually got to hear and see all of the acts. One of the highlights of my life was meeting Grace Slick..she bummed a cigarette from me. It was thrilling! My boyfriend's little brother tried to hitch-hike on to Woodstock but never made it because of the weather. Anyway, thanks for the memories!

christine said...

Does anyone have photos of the mix position, sound crew or sound system?

JJ said...

I was there. My friends and I went down in a V W mini bus. I had a great time. By Sunday I worked myself down just in time to see Santana, what a show. Thanks for the flash back

Jimmie Closes Woodstock

Vietnam at 50 – Stripes.

Patriotism or protest? Army vet Jimi Hendrix had the 'most electrifying moment' at Woodstock

https://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/vietnam-stories/1969/patriotism-or-protest-army-vet-jimi-hendrix-had-the-most-electrifying-moment-at-woodstock-1.594315

Jimi Hendrix playing his guitar during his set at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Playing with Jimi Hendrix is Billy Cox (wearing a turban).

By SEAN MOORES | Stars and Stripes | Published: August 15, 2019

On Aug. 18, 1969, former soldier Jimi Hendrix, resplendent in bright red headband, white fringed shirt and bell-bottom blue jeans, unfurled what has been called the cultural moment of the 1960s when he played an incendiary instrumental version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” for remnants of the crowd at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in Bethel, N.Y.

Hendrix died 13 months later, shortly after his amplified anthem received widespread exposure in the Academy Award-winning “Woodstock” documentary. He was 27. His legacy as a guitar god is unassailable, but 50 years after Woodstock a question remains: Was Hendrix’s performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” patriotism, or was it protest?

The interpretation lies with the listener. At first, Hendrix adhered to the melody of the song, which had only been the official U.S. national anthem for 38 years. By the time he got to “the rockets’ red glare,” though, Hendrix unleashed the full force of his white Fender Stratocaster. The squeals of amplifier feedback and dive-bombing on his electric guitar’s vibrato bar have been said to evoke combat, fighter jets, artillery, ambulance sirens and, perhaps, riots in the streets. It also included a segue into taps, the traditional bugle call played at military funerals.

Popular interpretation, rooted in the mythology of the ’60s, favors protest. It was a complicated time in American history. National pride swelled a month earlier when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, but there was widespread conflict. Civil rights struggles and changing sexual politics made frequent headlines, as did the Vietnam War. As Hendrix performed that 3-minute, 46-second version of the national anthem, the war raged half a world away. More than 35,000 American troops had been killed.

“It was the most electrifying moment of Woodstock, and it was probably the single greatest moment of the ’60s,” New York Post pop critic Al Aronowitz wrote. “You finally heard what that song was about, that you can love your country, but hate the government.” (Francis Scott Key, whose patriotic poem written in 1814 later became “The Star-Spangled Banner,” might have disagreed.)

Noted cultural critic Greil Marcus, who got his start reviewing music for Rolling Stone magazine in the ‘60s, allowed for a more open-ended interpretation in Clara Bingham’s 2016 book “Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul.”

“I always think of it as the greatest protest song ever, but it’s not just a protest song, it’s an incredibly layered, ambiguous piece of music,” Marcus said. “To take the national anthem and distort it … it was taken as an attack on the United States for its crimes in Vietnam, which is not an unreasonable way to hear it, but it’s also a great piece of music. No art that has its own integrity is ever going to be about one thing or be one thing.”

Addressing the anthem

Ten months before Woodstock, Jose Feliciano proved that changing the national anthem could bring a backlash. The blind singer-guitarist created a stir when he turned in a soulful rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” more akin to a folk song than a formal performance before Game 5 of the 1968 World Series in Detroit. Many fans were outraged, and even the Tigers and Cardinals players were divided. Feliciano insisted his intent was patriotic.

“I just do my thing, what I feel,” Feliciano told The Associated Press. “I was afraid people would misconstrue it and say I’m making fun of it. But I’m not. It’s the way I feel.”

The heat blew over. RCA Records released Feliciano’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a single that reached the Top 50. The controversy reignited with Hendrix.

Even in the pre-Twitter era, Hendrix was hounded to explain his motivations. At a news conference a few weeks after Woodstock, Hendrix said, “We’re all Americans … it was like ‘Go, America!’ … We play it the way the air is in America today. The air is slightly static, see.”

He certainly harbored no ill will toward U.S. troops. Earlier in his Woodstock set, Hendrix dedicated “Izabella” to “maybe a soldier in the Army, singing’ about his old lady that he dreams about and humpin’ a machine gun instead.”

If Hendrix was protesting the national anthem or U.S. involvement in Vietnam, he never said so. On Sept. 9, Hendrix again addressed “The Star-Spangled Banner” on “The Dick Cavett Show.”

“What was the controversy about the national anthem and the way you played it?” Cavett asked Hendrix.

“I don’t know, man,” he replied. “All I did was play it. I’m American, so I played it. I used to have to sing it in school, they made me sing it in school, so … it was a flashback.”

Cavett, addressing the audience, said, “This man was in the 101st Airborne, so when you write your nasty letters in …”

“Nasty letters?” Hendrix asked.

“Well, when you mention the national anthem and talk about playing it in any unorthodox way,” Cavett said. “you immediately get a guaranteed percentage of hate mail from people who say, ‘How dare …’.”

“That’s not unorthodox,” Hendrix said, cutting off his host. “That’s not unorthodox.”

“It isn’t unorthodox?” Cavett asked.

“No, no. I thought it was beautiful. But there you go, you know?” Hendrix said, to applause from the audience.

J. Kimo Williams, 69, also thought it was beautiful. Williams, who founded the Lt. Dan Band with actor Gary Sinise, saw Hendrix perform at the Waikiki Bowl in May 1969, just before shipping off to the Army at 19. He was stationed at Fort Ord in California during Woodstock and did not become aware of “The Star-Spangled Banner” performance until checking out the “Woodstock” soundtrack album at the service club in Vietnam.

Williams was so inspired by that Hendrix concert that he immediately decided to dedicate himself to the guitar and a career in music. While serving as a combat engineer in Vietnam, Williams included Hendrix songs in the repertoire of his band, The Soul Coordinators. After returning to the States, he used his GI Bill benefits to attend Berklee College of Music and became an award-winning composer. As a student of music, he sees a simpler interpretation of that Woodstock performance.

“If it had been someone else, on piano, who was a famous classical piano player, and that person decides to improvise over ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ I don’t think there would have been as much of a controversy as [with] Hendrix doing it in his way,” said Williams, who resides in Shepherdstown, W.Va., with his wife, artistic partner and fellow Army veteran, Carol.

“Because he did nothing to the melody to make it sound wrong. He did nothing with the melody or with the … he didn’t say, ‘here’s my protest, and we gotta get out of this war and if we don’t then here you go.’ He played it. He wanted to, you know, the words … it says, ‘the bombs are bursting.’ He wasn’t talking about Vietnam, he was talking about Francis Scott Key indicating in the song that the bombs were going off, so he wanted the bombs to go off. He was actually trying to sonically represent the words of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and I thought he did a great job of it.”

Whatever Hendrix’s intent, the moment apparently wasn’t planned.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” “wasn’t on the set list!” bassist Billy Cox told Atlanta Magazine in 2012. “We had rehearsed a repertoire and we played that repertoire … And then, Jimi just starts playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner!’ At first I thought, ‘OK, I know it, let’s do it.’ And then all of a sudden something told me, ‘You better lay out of this one, Billy!’ And what an incredible decision that was. Jimi was one of a kind. That was his moment there.”

Cox continues to honor his friend on the all-star Experience Hendrix tours and with his Billy Cox Band of Gypsys Experience. Long before any of that, Cox and Hendrix were Army buddies at Fort Campbell, Ky.

Army years

Jimi Hendrix performs at Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt, West Germany, on January 17, 1969. Before he became one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Hendrix was briefly a supply clerk with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky.

STARS AND STRIPES

Before he was renowned for screaming feedback, Hendrix was, briefly, a member of the Screaming Eagles. The 101st Airborne Division, that is.

Military service was unlikely his preferred career path, although a common one for poor, black teenagers in Hendrix’s hometown of Seattle. The choice became more appealing after he ran afoul of the Seattle Police Department as a high school dropout.

After enlisting in May 1961, Hendrix initially embraced the structure of the Army and expressed a desire to be elite. In his 2005 Hendrix biography “Room Full of Mirrors,” author Charles R. Cross cites a letter Hendrix sent to his father, Al, after getting his assignment as a supply clerk for the 101st at Fort Campbell. Hendrix pledges to “try my very best to make this Airborne for the sake of our name … I’ll fix it so the whole family of Hendrixes will have the right to wear the ‘Screaming Eagle’ patch.”

Despite that early earnestness, military life soon lost its appeal for Hendrix. A chance meeting with Cox led to an impromptu jam. Soon after, they formed The Kasuals and began playing around nearby Clarksville and Nashville, Tenn. As his guitar skills rapidly improved and the number of gigs increased, Hendrix’s interest in soldiering waned. He wanted to pursue a career in music and could focus on little else. He did not want to wait until his three-year commitment was up.

It did not take the Army long to grant his wish. Hendrix was written up for missing bed check, sleeping while on duty and unsatisfactory performance, among other infractions. He was even caught masturbating in the barracks, an act that was likely an intentional ploy to get kicked out of the service. Hendrix often said that a broken ankle suffered during a parachute jump led to his dismissal from the Army, but there is no mention of such an injury in his service records. He was discharged from the Army in June 1962.

Regardless of the reasons, Hendrix was once again a civilian and free to play music professionally. When Cox’s hitch ended a short time later, he and Hendrix formed a new band, The King Kasuals. They toured the collection of black-owned clubs mostly in the South known as the Chitlin’ Circuit, where Hendrix learned showman moves such as playing the guitar behind his back and with his teeth. Eventually a promoter offered him a chance at greater success in New York.

The Experience takes off

That opportunity didn’t quite work out as promised, and Hendrix found himself flat-broke in the Big Apple. At one point, he didn’t even own a guitar. He found session work and spent time playing with the Isley Brothers, Little Richard and King Curtis as well has fronting his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, around Greenwich Village in 1966.

Chas Chandler, the bassist for The Animals, was so blown away upon seeing Hendrix that he offered on the spot to manage him. Hendrix flew to England to seek his fortune. Along with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, he formed The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

For all of his struggles in America, Hendrix took this power trio on a meteoric rise up the UK charts in 1967. They scored Top 10 hits in England with “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze” and “The Wind Cries Mary” in the first half of the year, and their acclaimed debut album, “Are You Experienced,” followed later in the year. The band’s success quickly spread to the United States.

Hendrix returned to America as a conquering hero. One of the enduring images from the Summer of Love is Hendrix setting his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop Festival in California, kneeling before the burning instrument and coaxing flames from it like a voodoo priest. That performance exemplified Hendrix’s penchant for guitar pyrotechnics and presaged the figurative fireworks of his Woodstock performance by nearly two years.

The Experience recorded two more successful albums, “Axis: Bold as Love” and “Electric Ladyland,” before tensions with Redding led Hendrix to break up the band after a performance June 29, 1969, at the Denver Pop Festival. Eight weeks later, in his debut with his new band, Hendrix encapsulated the spirit of the ’60s.

A time of transition

Jimi Hendrix performs at Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt, West Germany, on January 17, 1969. Although he became famous fronting the Jimi Hendrix Experience, he performed at Woodstock in August 1969 with a larger band called Gypsy Sun and Rainbows. 

RED GRANDY/STARS AND STRIPES

Woodstock MC Chip Monck introduced the band as The Jimi Hendrix Experience, but Hendrix quickly corrected the record.

“Dig, we’d like to get something straight,” he said. “We got tired of the Experience … it was blowin’ our minds. So we decided to change the whole thing around, and call it Gypsy Sun and Rainbows. Or short, it’s nothin’ but a Band of Gypsys.”

The new band had only been rehearsing for a matter of weeks. Hendrix’s old Army buddy Billy Cox was on bass. Fellow Army and Chitlin’ Circuit veteran Larry Lee, who had returned from Vietnam two weeks earlier, played rhythm guitar. Rounding out the rhythm section were percussionists Jerry Velez and Juma Sultan. They were joined by Experience holdover Mitch Mitchell on drums.

The band’s set that morning was among Hendrix’s longest at 140 minutes, and it highlighted his new focus as a songwriter, bandleader and sonic chemist. It also showcased a performance that for many represents Woodstock itself.

If Cox’s recollection is correct, Hendrix hadn’t planned to play “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, an assertion backed up by Mitchell in his book “Inside the Experience.” It was included in a medley that included “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” “Purple Haze” and a free-form jam that became known as “Woodstock Improvisation.”

If Hendrix was planning on making a generational statement, he didn’t let on. “You can leave if you want to,” Hendrix told the crowd near the end of the epic “Voodoo Child.” “We’re just jammin’, that’s all.”

Creating the legend

“The Star-Spangled Banner” quickly became more than “just jammin’.” The performance was Hendrix’s vision, but he had some help in making the moment iconic.

By the time Hendrix took the stage, the crowd at Woodstock was far from the “half a million strong” immortalized in the Joni Mitchell song. He had been offered a Sunday-night slot during the rain-plagued festival, but Hendrix insisted on keeping his position as the closer. As a result, he didn’t play until Monday morning.

Estimates vary, but conservatively the crowd occupying the disaster area that 72 hours earlier had been farmer Max Yasgur’s alfalfa field was half the size it had been at its peak. It’s possible that only a 10th of the attendees remained. Exponentially more people saw it in the theatrical release of the “Woodstock” film or in its countless airings during PBS pledge weeks over the years. One clip of the performance on YouTube has more than 3 million views.

Thelma Schoonmaker, a three-time Academy Award winner for film editing on “Raging Bull,” “The Aviator” and “The Departed,” received the first of her eight Oscar nominations for her work on “Woodstock.” (Incidentally, all three films were directed by her fellow “Woodstock” editor Martin Scorsese.) Whatever Hendrix’s intent, the editors definitely drew a parallel between what was happening on stage and what was happening in Southeast Asia.

“We had decided to go out in the field and film the remnant of the field like it was Vietnam,” Schoonmaker said in Clara Bingham’s “Witness to the Revolution.” “We got beautiful footage, and we used that against Jimi Hendrix playing, massacring ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ with Vietnam sounds.”

The moment, a highlight of the film, might never have happened if not for a bit of good luck.

“Woodstock” director Michael Wadleigh, who was filming Hendrix’s set, was relieved to capture the moment for posterity. In a 2012 interview with NBC’s “Today,” he recalled that he was dealing with an overheating camera and that the volume of Hendrix’s Marshall amplifier kept him from determining if the camera’s motor was running.

“If it weren’t as powerfully photographed, it may not be as famous as it is today,” Wadleigh told NBC. “I remember people literally tearing their hair out. I looked out [from the camera] with one eye and I saw people grabbing their heads, so ecstatic, so stunned and moved, a lot of people holding their breath, including me.

“No one had ever heard that. It caught all of us by surprise.”

“The Star-Spangled Banner” had been heard by Hendrix’s concert audiences. He played the song live nearly 50 times, with more than two dozen of those versions coming before Woodstock. Wisconsin National Guard Sgt. Maj. Brian Bieniek, a Gulf War and Iraq War veteran who is researching a book he hopes to write about Hendrix, believes the Woodstock version is a cut above.

“The Woodstock version had more impact, I think, based on the event it was played at,” said Bieniek, 46, of Madison. “Some of those other [versions] don’t sound as good, and I don’t know if it’s because he was getting the feedback better at Woodstock or depending on what venue he’s at, but … I honestly think that one stands up there at the top.”

Lasting legacy

PHOTO: Jimi Hendrix performs at Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt, West Germany, on January 17, 1969. Rolling Stone ranked Hendrix No. 1 on its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists. 

STARS AND STRIPES

Hendrix has long been synonymous with the electric guitar, and his legacy has been burnished since his death from drug-induced asphyxiation in September 1970. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Rolling Stone ranked Hendrix No. 1 in its most recent list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists. The writeup in that issue, by Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, referenced the “riots in the streets and napalm bombs” in Hendrix’s “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In 2011, Guitar World magazine ranked the Woodstock version of the national anthem No. 1 among Hendrix’s 100 greatest performances.

It’s a performance that remains subject to speculation. Because so much of the music played at Woodstock was politically charged (Richie Havens’ “Freedom,” Country Joe McDonald’s “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” and the Jefferson Airplane’s “Uncle Sam Blues“), it’s easy to read a statement of protest into Hendrix’s “The Star-Spangled Banner.” From there, it’s not a stretch to draw a straight line to former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s silent anthem protests.

“I think, in retrospect, it divided,” said Williams, who is black. “You had the hippies and you had the non-hippies and then you had the right and you had the left. And so everybody on the left looked at it as a protest, [and] everybody on the right looked at it as almost like kneeling at the national anthem during a football game, as unpatriotic. There was no middle ground. No one just said it was a performance of music, and let’s leave it alone. So as we’ve gone through societal changes ... it’s usually up to somebody far right or somebody far left to decide for the rest of us what is patriotic, what is not, what is an insult and what is not, and the rest of us kind of have to deal with it.”

Hendrix’s performance started an enduring debate, and it has stood the test of time. It came to represent the apex of the hippie ideal, which for many died as a result of the violence at the Rolling Stones’ ill-fated show at Altamont Speedway in December 1969. Whatever Hendrix might have meant on that Monday morning has, as Greil Marcus said, its own integrity.

“I’m pretty sure [the] Woodstock [version of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’] was a protest song, but there’s so many different versions of that, and they range from protest to comradeship to fear to fury, and many, many things besides that,” music journalist, author and SiriusXM radio host Dave Marsh told Stars and Stripes in a 2016 interview. “Of everything in the psychedelic era that was really just out there, musically, and sonically, that is the greatest achievement because he managed to put into it, at various points, so many different perspectives.

“It WAS a generational statement, but it was a generational statement not of protest but of compassion -- for everybody, including the Vietnamese. I think it was the most spiritual moment of his entire career, when he would do that song. It wasn’t a gimmick. Not to my ear.”

moores.sean@stripes.com

Bay Shores Recollections - June 1969 with Candy

Bay Shores as I remember it when I graduated from high school.

Many thanks to Mitch Goodwin who wrote:

Subject: Bayshores ect. Summer of 69

 

Bill Kelly;  Following  up on your request about my recollections  of the summer of 69 at AC Pop Festival, playing with my group Candy at Bayshores ,Tony Mart and The Dunes plus some pics. I have a Youtube video some pics and a bio.https://youtu.be/V9IzqKDceXA If you are interested in more music or stories from this group let me know.  Bill.  Regards, Mitch Godwin

When you walked in the front door of Bayshores there was a storage room on the left and then a wall that ran behind the grill - this wall contained dozens if not hundreds of black and white glossy promo photos of the bands that played there. This was one of them.

AC Pop Fest and Woodstock Recollections #1

BK Notes: My old - and now we are old - high school mate Jerry Montgomery wrote down theses recollections of Woodstock. There were four of us - besides myself there was Jerry, Marc Jordan and Bob Katchnick (spelling may be wrong), all Camden Catholic High School grads in the Class of '69. We lost track of Bob - and can't find him over the internet because we can't spell his last name. Marc went to NYU, joined the USMC ROTC, became a USMC officer and a DC area attorney. I think he is now retired in Florida and we are trying to find him for a reunion this weekend. I will write my recollections over the next few days. 

Summer 1969'

I spent the summer of 1969 in Ocean City NJ, (a summer resort used by many in the Philadelphia area), along with a few friends. The parents of one, Bill Kelly, owned a large house there and rented rooms to vacationers. They allowed us all to crash for free that summer. Whenever the house was fully rented we stayed in a small shed, with bunk beds in the backyard, and with no facilities other than an outdoor shower. Consequently, as August 15, 1969, also my 19th birthday, was approaching, we were well positioned geographically to attend a rock concert.

Atlantic City Pop Festival

Outdoor concerts with multiple acts had a lot of appeal for enthusiastic adolescents who could handle the heat, humidity, and generally uncomfortable summer conditions in the North East. We proved our mettle living out in the shed. In early August we attended the nearby Atlantic City NJ Pop Festival. 

I still remember Joni Mitchel walking off stage complaining that no one was listening. I was. I remember her saying that. I also remember, later in the day, making my way and crawling under the stage and sitting there while Procol Harum and others played. 

That was a fun concert but the acts couldn’t compare with those advertised in New York State scheduled a couple of weeks later.

Woodstock Festival

Posters advertising the Woodstock Festival were hung everywhere along the board walk in Ocean City. We weren’t sure exactly how we’d get to the concert since none of us bothered to get a job that summer and hadn't a car or much cash between us. Bill's mother, Mary Kelly, generously lent four of us the family car and with me at the wheel we headed out, early Friday morning on August 15th, for Bethel New York. (Mrs. Kelly later regretted that decision while watching TV coverage of the event. It focused on all the hallucinogenic drugs and orgies taking place. I can say for myself that I didn’t see even one orgy). 

The ride for most of the 200+ miles was uneventful until traffic began to slow greatly as we got closer to the concert area just a few hours before it was set to begin. Fortunately, we picked up a hitchhiker who had been to the concert site the night before. That turned out to be especially fortuitous.

On The Road

Traffic on the four lane highway into Bethal was at a virtual standstill, at least for the two lanes heading in the direction towards the concert. There was absolutely no one coming the other way. I don’t remember much about our co-rider but the young long-haired hitch hiker we had picked up assured us that all four lanes were going the same way the night before. At the rate we were going, well we weren’t moving much at all and were concerned we'd never get there. So with as much safety as I could manage, considering that I was heading into an oncoming traffic lane, I casually steered into that unoccupied section of the, very long and straight, highway and we began to make very good time indeed! Yes we were a happy crew and weren't deterred by such an insignificant detail as a solid white line in the middle of the road. Besides it was a clear day and we could see a great distance ahead. We passed many cars and were making great time. Though eventually, as might be expected, we could see a car approaching us from the other direction. From a safety standpoint this was not a problem it was far away. I just stopped the car to move back into a more 'correct' highway lane. Then I noticed something and began to feel a bit troubled. I remember thinking, "Shit, is that a cop car?"

Arrested Development?

And yes it was a officer of the law and he had no trouble spotting us on the wrong side of the highway. He pulled directly in front of the car and stopped. He sat and patiently waited while I very slowly maneuvered back in line as traffic inched forward. Now, realigned with thousands of fine upstanding fellow citizens, I’m imagining the worse. So, we were fairly dumbstruck when the officer restarts his patrol car and continued driving on down the highway to, I suppose, head off the next idiot! But we're still stuck, albeit well ahead of our previous position, in a long slow moving line. Once again our hitchhiker has some valuable information.

Parking

We were approaching a small country dirt road that everyone was ignoring. And we would have done the same since there was no way to know how close we were to the concert entrance or what relationship that side road had to anything! But our hitchhiker was more informed and was certain, from his previous day’s experience, that it was a back door, so to speak, that eventually leads to the concert area. Of course considering his previous brilliant advice, we turned off the highway and make our way down the dirt road. It felt good to be moving again and before long we were passing parked cars on both sides of the road continuing to search for a better parking spot for a few miles. Vehicles quickly became so tightly squeezed together that there seemed to be virtually no parking anywhere. Though I did spot a very small patch of real estate, not big enough to park in, unless perhaps you had a small car and were willing to extend out just a touch into the road and are squinting. So I wedged us in. We get out and find ourselves with an elevated view of the stage, still a work in progress, about a half mile away. I believe we found the last first-rate parking space at Woodstock just hours before the concert was set to begin. Now, if only we had tickets.

Tickets Anyone?

If I remember correctly, concert tickets were just $18.00. However, that was not an insignificant amount of money at the time and only one of us actually had cash with him. Possibly he also had a credit card, I don’t remember. Although construction was still underway, an enclosing fence around the entire viewing area was about complete and an entrance gate provided the only reasonable means of access. Bill, cash in hand, was actively looking for ticket sales. A fair amount of people were milling about entering and exiting and we couldn’t see anyone either selling tickets or collecting them. So we casually entered through the gate and found a nice place to sit in the middle of a gigantic field near a metal tower with huge speakers. Sometime later an announcement came over those speakers. Everyone would need to exit and re-enter but with tickets in hand this time. I thought, oh hell, do we even have money? At that time the grounds were not very full with just a few thousand people sitting in place. Everyone just sat and stared. No one moved an inch. Later that day it was announced that it was a free concert. But we already knew that.

Really Good View

Although we had a fine close centered view on the field, Bob - a fellow traveller, wanted me to go with him and try to get closer. So we made our way towards the high fence separating the stage from the crowd. You couldn’t sit or stand close to it and see anything, so that space was being used as a pathway from one side of the field to the other. We found a small spot and sidled in. I’m not completely certain but I believe every single one of the people making their way along the stage wall were completely spaced out on something. 

We passed the time looking for anyone who didn't look high and gave up. But we were in the front row for all the acts Friday afternoon and evening. Later when I heard there was going to be a movie I wondered if we would be viewable. At one point Bob even walked over to the fence and pulled himself up and peered over to get a closer view of Ritchie Havens. But if you’ve seen the movie you know that there are just crowd shots from the stage. Though, we must be in the last part of the scene at the very end of Richie Haven’s set when the camera pans out and shows a wide shot of the huge crowd. We’re in there somewhere in the very front row seated, a bit to Ritchie's right.

Zombies

Some of the acts that I actually remember on the 'Friday Folk' day were Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Melanie, Ravi Shankar and of course Richie Havens. But it was a relatively early night compared with Saturday and Sunday which continued to dawn the next day. So when the music came to an end I found myself walking along the perimeter of the enclosing fence towards the entrance gate with a hundred thousand or so who were also thinking that a night in a vehicle was preferable to a night outside on wet grass. It was very dark and slow going. But I noticed a small section of fence had fallen over. From a straight line standpoint here was a clear opportunity for a significant short cut. 

Well, it was as clear as it could be when viewed from the crest of a hill in complete darkness. No one seemed interested in taking advantage of this opportunity so I started alone and moved down a grassy, very slippery hill, praising myself for such a prudent decision, and I was in high spirits right up to the moment I plopped a foot into the marsh. Oh yeah. There was nothing separating me from the road except a large significantly boggy area. I decided it would be best to turn around and go back with the sensible people. When I turned around though I saw I couldn’t. What looked in the moonlight like a zombie army had followed the lead of one intrepid trail blazer, myself, and they were blocking reasonable egress back to the hill top. So, I lead many through the bog and added very muddy feet to my rain soaked attire. I did get to my destination earlier than I would have otherwise. I spent the night sleeping in an upright position in a small hot, humid, smelly vehicle with three others. 

Turns out that bunkbeds in a shed were a lot more comfortable in August and we were not remotely perpared for any of it. In retrospect, we should have stayed in the field.

All in all, it was a pretty good Friday - and 19th birthday. Saturday was interesting too. But I forget most of it. Maybe Bill will write something to fill it out.

Note to Bill. I remember this:

Don't forget to mention how you left the three of us and walked off by yourself Saturday night. Later I told the others I was going to 'find Bill'. Pretty laughable in a crowd of a few 100 thousand but nevertheless in my extremely tired state I began walking to the rear of the field and at one point actually shouted "Bill"! No answer of course. A few minutes later I shouted it again. After a second I heard, "What?". You were standing near by next to a small tree. I found you.

Dick Richards Boccelli - An Original Comet RIP

DICK RICHARDS BOCCELLI

Comets drummer, Ocean City resident Dick Boccelli dies at 95

VINCENT JACKSON Staff Writer

Press of Atlantic City

Jul 13, 2019

Dick Boccelli was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of Bill Haley’s Comets.

[Dick Boccelli, known as Dick Richards when he was the drummer for Bill Haley and the Comets, is pictured in a photo at his Ocean City home, Tuesday, May 21, 2019.]

[ Dick Boccelli, known as Dick Richards when he was the drummer for Bill Haley and the Comets, in this undated photo, Tuesday, May 21, 2019. ]

Dick Boccelli was the drummer for Bill Haley and His Comets but sometimes stepped out from the drum kit to sing. ‘That picture could have been taken in Wildwood,’ he said of the undated photo. Boccelli, 95, of Ocean City, is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dick Boccelli, who performed under the name Dick Richards as a member of one of the world’s first rock ‘n’ roll bands, died at 95 Friday morning in Ocean City, according to his oldest daughter, Beverly Walker.

Boccelli, who had lived in Ocean City since the 1960s, was the drummer for Bill Haley and His Comets when they recorded Haley’s most famous singles, “Rock Around the Clock” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll.”

“He just enjoyed everything he did with gutso,” Walker said. “Dad was lot of fun. He was really a great guy. ... Dad had the most amazing spirit.”

Your Morning Kickstart is delivered to your inbox 7 a.m. daily. Make sure you don’t miss out on the latest in news, entertainment, weather, and sports. 

Boccelli helped make musical history during Memorial Day weekend in 1954 when “Rock Around the Clock” was played for the first time live at the now defunct Hotel Hofbrau in Wildwood.

Ocean City-based Rock and Rock Hall of Famer looks back on historic Wildwood gig.

For Dick Boccelli, the drummer for Bill Haley and His Comets, the group’s Memorial Day weekend….

“We knew what to do, just lay the beat down. That’s all. We didn’t do anything else but give the people what they want,” said Boccelli during an interview with The Press two months ago. “They (the girls) really got into it.”

Besides playing the song live during gigs, Boccelli sang background vocals during the recording session. The tune’s success was fueled by its inclusion in the Glenn Ford movie “The Blackboard Jungle,” which opened in March 1955.

Boccelli joined the Comets in 1953 and left the group at the end of 1955 with bassist Marshall Lytle and saxophonist Joey Ambrose to start their own band, the Jodimars, which lasted from 1955 to 1958.

During Boccelli’s time in the Comets, he appeared in the Universal Pictures 1954 short black-and-white film “Round Up of Rhythm,” which marked the first appearance by a rock band on film.

With the group, Boccelli appeared on “The Sammy Kaye Show,” “The Milton Berle Show” and, most importantly, “The Ed Sullivan Show.” The Comets did the first live rock ‘n’ roll performance on a major TV show when they appeared on Sullivan’s program live from Connecticut.

The Comets were also known for being the first American rock ‘n’ roll band to play in Europe and for having the first million-selling rock ‘n’ roll single with their cover of “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” according to bassist Walter “Wally” Bucks, who played with Boccelli in his last band, the Ready Rockers.

Boccelli wasn’t just a rock drummer. He also acted. He did local theater, including with the Ocean City Players during the 1960s. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was on Broadway, appearing in “The Ritz” with Rita Moreno and F. Murray Abraham.

Boccelli appeared on the now-defunct soap opera “The Edge of Night” in 1980, the movie “Shakedown” with Peter Weller and Sam Elliott in 1988, “My Blue Heaven” with Steve Martin and Rick Moranis in 1990 and the now-defunct HBO TV series “Oz” during the 1998-99 season.

The original members of the Comets who played with Haley reunited in 1989 and played until 2014. They entertained at the Ocean City Music Pier, the Wildwoods Convention Center, (the Flander’s Hotel in Ocean City), and the now-defunct Bubba Mac Shack in Somers Point and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.

Besides the Comets, Boccelli formed his own rock ‘n’ roll trio known as the Ready Rockers with Bucks, 56, of Linwood, and guitarist Tom Gargan, 61, of Ocean City. The trio played at the Ocean City Free Public Library and other places in Cape May and Atlantic counties from 2013 until September.

Besides the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2012, Boccelli also was honored with a mural of Haley and the Comets in 2014 on a building at Oak and Pacific avenues in Wildwood. There is also a plaque commemorating “Rock Around the Clock” where the Hofbrau once stood.

Bucks said Boccelli told him one day playing drums and music kept him alive.

“He was a classy person with a great outlook and a positive attitude. He was always laughing. He was a true gentleman,” Bucks said. “Music was truly his life. It was his inspiration.”

Comets drummer, Ocean City resident Dick Boccelli dies at 95

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dick Boccelli, who performed under the name Dick Richards as a m…

https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/greate-bay-country-club-to-host-service-for-former-comets/article_2da2fb76-83a8-531b-a77d-1654d00580a7.html?fbclid=IwAR2N_F7HeokdXQrHup53Wkr4Vi2C3Y0-7YVeC7vXctM2n1TwKVVl7ic3ClQ

A memorial service for Richard Marley “Dick” Boccelli, former drummer for Bill Haley and His Comets, will be held from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Aug. 7 at Greate Bay Country Club in Somers Point.

Boccelli, who used the name Dick Richards professionally, died at age 95 on July 12 at the Shores at Wesley Manor in Ocean City. He was a successful musician and actor for 60 years and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of the Comets.

Boccelli was on the drums when the Comets played “Rock Around the Clock” live for the first time Memorial Day weekend 1954 at the now defunct Hotel Hofbrau in Wildwood.

In 1963, Boccelli’s family moved to Ocean City, where he acted in local theater.

Besides playing with the revived Original Bill Haley’s Comets in 1987, Boccelli also founded his own group, the Ready Rockers, who performed in Atlantic and Cape May counties until he succumbed to illness in March.

On Aug. 7, friends, family and the general public will have the opportunity to reminisce and talk about Boccelli from 3:30 to 6 p.m. The main service will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the country club at 901 Mays Landing Road.