The Art of Rock 'n Roll

I am a product of the sixties. All of my teen years occured during that turbulent decade. I will forever love the music of that era.....and I will forever love long hair on guys. It's what I grew up with and what I love. So, when Lou said there was an exhibit at a local museum of some psychedelic posters from concerts of that time, I said, "Let's go."

Lou has collected several concert posters from the Bill Graham concerts in San Francisco....plus we saw an exhibit of hundreds of these posters in Denver (I think). Our living room is partly decorated with some relics from the sixties (besides us).....a lava lamp, Lou's framed posters, a large collage I made from old album covers & records and coasters with peace signs.

It is hard to comprehend that four decades have now passed since I was a teen-ager in the midst of the 1960s. I remember being slightly appalled in the early 1990s when my son was in high school and one of their history classes was "America in the Sixties"......geez, now it must be in the "ancient history" category!

Some of my sixties highlights include:

1) Taking the bus to Berkeley with two girlfriends when I was 15 and stumbling onto an appearance of the original Jefferson Airplane in a record store. I managed to scrape together enough money to buy their album and have it autographed by every one of them. I still have it!

2) Seeing the Yardbirds (with Jeff Beck) perform at the Rollarena in San Leandro (yes, it was a real roller skating rink)....and not having a clue what I was really experiencing. I just liked the Yardbirds and it sounded like fun.

3) Attending the Monterey Pop Festival for one day with a friend and her mother who wanted to see Ravi Shankar. Once he performed they were done and ready to head home. I was pissed off because I wanted to see the Jefferson Airplane. Little did I know (as Lou has often pointed out to me) that I missed all kinds of things that have gone down in rock and roll history......like Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire on stage.

All of these memories and lots more were stirred today as we wandered around the museum viewing the posters from more than 40 years ago........FORTY YEARS! How is that possible? Where does the time go? I still feel like that 17 year old girl but I'm almost 61 years old. This just simply cannot be true!

Anyway, while I try to wrap my brain around these thoughts, here are a few of Lou's photos from today.

Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin

Cream featuring Eric Clapton

Lou's favorite the Jimi Hendrix Experience

Here is a replica of the aforementioned guitar that Jimi Hendrix set ablaze at the Monterey Pop Festival.

Unfortunately, the concerts advertised by the above posters were just a year or two before both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin along with Jim Morrison of The Doors were all dead from drug or alcohol related issues. That was the bad part of the sixties......everyone thought they were invincible, but they weren't. BUT I am still here and came through the sixties relatively unscathed!