The Miami Pop Festival was a rock festival that took place from December 28-30, 1968, at Gulfstream Park, a horse racing track in Hallandale,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, just north of

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

. It is sometimes confused with a separate event that took place seven months earlier, at the same venue, though the two events were unrelated. The earlier event was officially publicized on promotional materials and in radio ads as the "1968 Pop and Underground Festival," and "The 1968 Pop Festival," but later came to be referred to colloquially as the "Miami" Pop Festival, a practice which has led to confusion between the two events.

History

The Miami Pop Festival was the first major

rock festival A rock festival is an open-air rock concert featuring many different performers, typically spread over two or three days and having a campsite and other amenities and forms of entertainment provided at the venue. Some festivals are singular even ...

on America's east coast. It was produced by a team led by

Tom Rounds Tom Rounds (June 6, 1936 – June 1, 2014) was an American radio broadcasting executive, founder and chief executive officer of Radio Express in Burbank, California. Biography Early years After first entering the broadcasting profession at the c ...

and Mel Lawrence, who had previously produced the seminal KFRC

Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama. ...

Mount Tamalpais Mount Tamalpais (; ; Miwok: ''Támal Pájiṣ''), known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Moun ...

in Marin County, California. The crowd size for the three days was estimated to be around 100,000. Performers covered a wide range of music genres,Sander. and included: *

The Amboy Dukes The Amboy Dukes were an American rock band formed in 1964 in Chicago, Illinois, and later based in Detroit, Michigan. They are best known for their only hit single, " Journey to the Center of the Mind". The band's name comes from the title of ...

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...

* Blues Image * The Box Tops *

Paul Butterfield Blues Band Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and band leader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his n ...

Canned Heat Canned Heat is an American band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. The group is noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists and rock music. It was founded by two blues enthusiasts Alan Wilson and Bob ...

* Wayne Cochran * Cosmic Drum (aka Train of Thought) * James Cotton Blues Band * Country Joe and the Fish *

José Feliciano José Montserrate Feliciano García (born September 10, 1945) () is a Puerto Rican musician, singer and composer. He recorded many international hits, including his rendition of the Doors' "Light My Fire" and his self-penned Christmas song " F ...

* Fish Ray *

Flatt and Scruggs Flatt and Scruggs were an American bluegrass duo. Singer and guitarist Lester Flatt and banjo player Earl Scruggs, both of whom had been members of Bill Monroe's band, the Bluegrass Boys, from 1945 to 1948, formed the duo in 1948. Flatt and Scru ...

* Fleetwood Mac * Marvin Gaye * The Grass Roots * Grateful Dead * Richie Havens * Ian & Sylvia *

Iron Butterfly Iron Butterfly is an American rock band formed in San Diego, California, in 1966. They are best known for the 1968 hit " In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", providing a dramatic sound that led the way towards the development of hard rock and heavy metal musi ...

* Junior Junkanoos * Jr. Walker & The Allstars * The Charles Lloyd Quartet *

Hugh Masekela Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (4 April 1939 – 23 January 2018) was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as "the father of South African jazz". Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for ...

* Joni Mitchell * Pacific Gas & Electric *

Procol Harum Procol Harum () were an English rock band formed in Southend-on-Sea, Essex in 1967. Their best-known recording is the 1967 hit single " A Whiter Shade of Pale", one of the few singles to have sold over 10 million copies. Although noted for ...

* Terry Reid *

Buffy Sainte-Marie Buffy Sainte-Marie, (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941) is an Indigenous Canadian-American ( Piapot Cree Nation) singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. While working in these ...

* Steppenwolf *

The Sweet Inspirations The Sweet Inspirations were an American R&B girl group mostly known for their work as backup singers on studio recordings for other R&B and rock artists. A founding member of the group was Dionne Warwick, who was later replaced by her aunt, Ciss ...

* Sweetwater *

Joe Tex Yusuf Hazziez (born Joseph Arrington Jr.; August 8, 1935 – August 13, 1982), known professionally as Joe Tex, was an American singer and musician who gained success in the 1960s and 1970s with his brand of Southern soul, which mixed the styl ...

Three Dog Night Three Dog Night is an American rock band formed in 1967, with founding members consisting of vocalists Danny Hutton, Cory Wells, and Chuck Negron. This lineup was soon augmented by Jimmy Greenspoon (keyboards), Joe Schermie (bass), Michael A ...

The Turtles ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

Many of these musicians were cast as superheroes in a commemorative

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

distributed at the event. Interesting moments during the festival included: Joni Mitchell inviting former

Hollies The Hollies are a British pop rock band, formed in 1962. One of the leading British groups of the 1960s and into the mid-1970s, they are known for their distinctive three-part vocal harmony style. Allan Clarke and Graham Nash founded the band ...

member and new love interest

Graham Nash Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, photographer, and activist. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and the supergroups Crosby, Stills ...

, as well as Richie Havens to join her onstage to sing

Dino Valenti Chester William Powers, Jr. (October 7, 1937 – November 16, 1994) was an American singer-songwriter, and under the stage names Dino Valenti or Dino Valente, one of the lead singers of the rock group Quicksilver Messenger Service. As a songwri ...

's " Get Together"; Jefferson Airplane's

Jack Casady John William "Jack" Casady (born April 13, 1944) is an American bass guitarist, best known as a member of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna. Jefferson Airplane became the first successful exponent of the San Francisco Sound. Singles including " S ...

playing bass guitar with Country Joe & the Fish; and folksinger/songwriter icon and Coconut Grove resident

Fred Neil Fred Neil (March 16, 1936 – July 7, 2001) was an American folk singer-songwriter active in the 1960s and early 1970s. He did not achieve commercial success as a performer and is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material& ...

stopping in at the festival one day to hang out and enjoy the music. Several acts advertised in early promotional materials did not appear, and their names were removed from subsequent promotions, including John Mayall's Bluesbreakers,

and H.P. Lovecraft. Two bands who were expected to appear were unable to perform due to last-minute problems:

The McCoys The McCoys were a rock group formed in Union City, Indiana, United States, in 1962. They are best known for their 1965 hit single " Hang On Sloopy". Their name was changed from Rick and the Raiders to The McCoys, taken from the B-side of The ...

got snowbound in Canada and

Booker T. Jones Booker Taliaferro Jones Jr. (born November 12, 1944) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. & the M.G.'s. He has also worked in the studios with many well-known art ...

of Booker T. & the M.G.'s got the flu. This festival was unique in that it was the first rock festival to have two entirely separate 'main' stages several hundred yards apart (the Flower Stage and the Flying Stage), both operating simultaneously and offering performers of equal calibre.Kubernik, Harvey and Kubernik, Kenneth. ''A Perfect Haze: The Illustrated History of the Monterey International Pop Festival''. 2011. Santa Monica Press LLC. Pg. 57.

References

External links

Miami Pop Festival December 28-30, 1968, as chronicled by The Strip ProjectFacebook Miami Pop Festival community group page
{{Rock festival Music festivals in Miami 1968 in Florida 1968 in American music Counterculture festivals Music festivals established in 1968 1968 music festivals

History

See also

References

External links