Sunday night
The Blues Project
Danny Kalb—Lead guitar, vocals
Steve Katz—Rhythm guitar, vocals
Andy Kulberg—Bass, flute
Roy Blumenfeld—Drums
John McDuffy—Keyboards, vocals
Founded in New York City in 1965, The Blues Project had one of the most eclectic sounds in music, and one of the loudest as well. Unafraid to turn up their instruments, or to experiment with songs that mixed the influence of Chess-style blues, Memphis-style rock ‘n’ roll, elements of small-group jazz improvisation, and traditional folk sources, they cut a swathe through Greenwich Village in 1965-66, and landed a recording contract courtesy of producer Tom Wilson at Verve Records, MGM’s jazz imprint. With Tommy Flanders as lead singer, Al Kooper on keyboards and vocals, Danny Kalb on lead guitar and vocals, Steve Katz on rhythm guitar and vocals, Andy Kulberg on bass and flute, Roy Blumenfeld on drums, the group was a prodigiously talented outfit. The Blues Project released a handful of singles, but their real strength lay in their two classic albums, Live at the Cafe Au Go Go and Projections, which remain among the most exciting and inventive LPs of the mid-1960s.
With their solid base in New York, and the support of what was then a major record label, The Blues Project could have fulfilled the same role in New York City that the Grateful Dead did in San Francisco, but unfortunately their lineup wasn’t nearly as stable. Tommy Flanders quit almost as soon as their first album was in the can, which meant that Kooper, Kalb, and Katz ended up sharing the lead singing chores. By the spring of 1967, Kooper was gone, a result of health problems and Kalb’s adamant refusal to entertain his notion of adding horns to the band’s sound. His replacement was John McDuffy, a singer and keyboard player from a band called the King Bees—but the group never really recovered from Kooper’s departure in May of 1967. Monterey proved one of the last major appearances by The Blues Project in any form—by July of that year, they’d all agreed to go their separate ways. An attempt at reforming, with Tommy Flanders back in the lineup, led to a fair studio album, and a 1973 reunion concert in Central Park by Kooper, Kalb, Katz, Blumenfeld, resulted in a live album.
Danny Kalb—Lead guitar, vocals
(1942 - )
Other than Al Kooper, Danny Kalb was the most well-established member of The Blues Project, having played guitar on numerous folk recordings (primarily in association with Elektra Records) and on stage with various Greenwich Village-based acts from the early 1960s onward. A tremendously talented musician, the Brooklyn-born guitarist had a special love of the blues that manifested itself in his playing—by 1964, he’d begun emerging on his own as a performer, and it was his suggestion to a friend, Roy Blumenfeld, that the drummer bring his kit and accompany him to a gig on Long Island, that marked the beginning of The Blues Project. Once the band got going and Tommy Flanders resigned, Kalb took over as lead singer on the group’s blues repertory. At various times from 1966 onward, however, Kalb was sidelined by various health problems, which led to his brother replacing him at the band’s last major gig in late 1967. In the decades since, he has re-emerged as a performer and recording artist, as well as a guitar teacher, and he is one of the most respected and revered players of his generation for most veteran New York music hands.
Steve Katz—Rhythm guitar, vocals
(1945 - )
Brooklyn-born guitarist Steve Katz had played in The Even Dozen Jug Band in Greenwich Village during the early 1960s, but had never played electric guitar until the day that Danny Kalb approached him in a music store and asked him replace Artie Traum in his backing group, then known as The Danny Kalb Quartet—he wasn’t comfortable working with an amplifier but Kalb liked what he heard. The next thing he knew he was in the band permanently, as it evolved into The Blues Project with the addition of Al Kooper. Katz had a special feel for folk songs and he took over singing them when Tommy Flanders left the group. Al Kooper recruited Katz for the original Blood, Sweat and Tears lineup late in 1967, and he remained with that band through its major lineup shifts of 1968, and into the mid-1970s. By way of Kooper’s association with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Katz also came to play harmonica on their debut album.
Andy Kulberg—Bass, flute
(1944 - 2002)
The Blues Project was a new experience for Andy Kulberg—he’d rarely played any rock before he joined up with Danny Kalb and company, much less any blues, and bass was only his secondary instrument. Kulberg was a classically trained flautist from Buffalo, who’d mostly played in polka bands before heading to New York City. By the time Al Kooper joined to fill out the original band’s lineup, he was proficient on bass and comfortable playing the blues. He and Roy Blumenfeld were Al Kooper’s preferred rhythm section on his occasional solo projects of the era and, with Steve Katz on rhythm guitar, had a solid reputation as the core of The Blues Project’s sound. Kulberg briefly emerged as one of rock’s premiere flautists thanks to an instrumental number—“Flute Thing”—written for him by Kooper for the group’s second album, Projections. Following the break-up of The Blues Project, Kulberg co-founded Seatrain with Blumenfeld. Kulberg subsequently played with David Grisman, Stephane Grappelli, and Sylvia McNair, as well as returning to work with Al Kooper on several occasions. His health had declined at the turn of the new century, and he died of lymphoma in early 2002.
Roy Blumenfeld—Drums
(1944 - )
Drummer Roy Blumenfeld was the first musician to join up with Danny Kalb in the group that became The Blues Project. He also worked with Andy Kulberg on one of Al Kooper’s early solo projects, the four tracks that he recorded in 1966 for the Elektra Records sampler What’s Shakin’. In 1968, following the dissolution of The Blues Project, Blumenfeld and Andy Kulberg co-founded Seatrain, a blues-jazz-rock fusion group who released their first album, Planned Obsolescence, under the “Blues Project” name to fulfill a contractual obligation. Blumenfeld has also played with Robert Hunter and Nick Gravenites and Animal Mind, and was the drummer on Al Kooper’s extraordinary 1995 live career retrospective album Soul of a Man.
John McDuffy—Keyboards, vocals
John McDuffy had the thankless task of replacing Al Kooper in The Blues Project’s line-up in May of 1967; in the weeks leading up to the Monterey Pop Festival, even Lou Adler and John Phillips weren’t aware that Kooper wasn’t in the band, until he showed up at their offices. Previously a member of a New York blues-based rock band called The King Bees—whose lineup also included future James Taylor/Carole King/Fugs alumnus Danny Kortchmar—McDuffy brought songwriting ability as well as his organ skills to the group. As it was, the band was partly showed up by Kooper’s own performance at the festival, but McDuffy's “Lost in the Shuffle” was in their repertory at the Festival and ended up on their next single.
Buffalo Springfield
Stephen Stills—Guitar, vocals
Richie Furay—Guitar, vocals
Doug Hastings—Guitar, vocals
Bruce Palmer—Bass
Dewey Martin—Drums
David Crosby—Rhythm guitar, vocals
Very few groups ever showed more promise, or enjoyed more talent in their midst but saw less reward for it than Buffalo Springfield. This was due, in part, to their own internal stresses—the personal foibles and egos of the quintet’s members seemed to boil over with regularity. Their formation was as spur of the moment as their periodic bouts of disunity—supposedly, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay were driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and passed a hearse that Stills believed belonged to Neil Young; it did, indeed, and in it was not only Young, but also Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin. The five of them agreed to form a group, initially designated the Herd and later renamed Buffalo Springfield. They were only together for about two years, enjoying one huge hit with the topical single “For What It’s Worth” and generating a string of excellent songs that encompassed a folk-rock sound in a leaner, more articulate form.
Neil Young seemed to be absent from the lineup as much as he was there—he’d made one of his exits a week before Monterey—and Bruce Palmer’s uncertain immigration status got in the way of more than one gig. What’s more, though their recordings, especially the group’s second album, embraced a huge array of sounds, from country to psychedelia, the underlying reality was that they were less a cohesive band than a creative collective. For the Monterey performance, newly recruited guitarist Doug Hastings was standing in for Young. Additionally, David Crosby of The Byrds decided to show his enthusiasm for the Springfield by joining them on stage on rhythm guitar and vocals. The group struggled through another year of intermittent success before splitting up—in addition to freeing Neil Young to begin a solo career, the group’s breakup led directly to the formation of Crosby, Stills and Nash and Poco who, in turn, provided the core members of such renowned acts as The Eagles and Manassas.
Stephen Stills—Guitar, vocals
(1945 - )
At one point in the early 1970s, Stephen Stills was as widely recognized and imposing a music talent as any member of The Beatles or The Rolling Stones—record companies and music critics hung on his every song and nuance, and fans by the millions waited for his work to show up in stores. Stills was born in Dallas, Texas, and was already a professional musician in his mid-teens. He moved to New York City just in time to get in on the tail-end of the folk music revival as a member of The Au Go Go Singers, which was where he first met Richie Furay—it was also while touring with The Au Go Go Singers that he first crossed paths with Neil Young, who at that time was playing with a band called The Squires. Stills soon relocated to Los Angeles in 1965 and, among other activities, had an unsuccessful audition to be in the cast of The Monkees. It was Stills’ idea to form Buffalo Springfield, and as much as the group had a “leader” he was it—he subsequently discovered a good creative foil in Neil Young, whose erratic genius and idiosyncratic songwriting and playing became as prominent in the group’s sound as Stills’ and Furay’s voices and guitars. On stage, the group became known for extended lead guitar “duels” between Stills and Young, but backstage personal problems and the same egos that fueled their musicianship made it impossible to hold the lineup together for any extended length of time.
Stills landed on his feet from the breakup of the Springfield in 1968, partnering up with David Crosby and Graham Nash in what became Crosby, Stills and Nash, providing most of the instrumental muscle on that trio’s records and producing. By the time they were ready to play live, Neil Young—whose own solo career had gotten off to a slow start—was with them, and suddenly both musicians were in a group that had “made it” in a way the Springfield never had.
Stills’ self-titled solo album only bore out the depth and range of his talent, and in 1972, with CSNY on hiatus, he linked up with another ex-Byrd, Chris Hillman, to form Manassas. By the mid-1980s, he was no longer considered an important artist in his own right, in the way that Neil Young still was. Most of Stills’ major activities in the years since have been in association with Young, Crosby, and Nash.
Richie Furay—Guitar, vocals
(1944 - )
Richie Furay had first come to music as a teenager, playing clubs during the early 1960s folk music revival, which led him to become a member of The Au Go Go Singers, where he met Stephen Stills. He was, in essence, the first man that Stills recruited for what became Buffalo Springfield, and shared the lead vocal spot with Stills as well as playing guitar in tandem with Stills and Neil Young. In 1968, while he was struggling to hold the Springfield together for what became their final album, he and the group’s new bassist, Jim Messina, began talking about doing a slightly different brand of music—the two of them began working up a new band, initially named Pogo but rechristened Poco. Furay remained with Poco for five years and made some superb music, and on leaving them formed Souther-Hillman-Furay with Chris Hillman of The Byrds and J.D. Souther. He found religion during the mid-1970s and formed The Richie Furay Band as a vehicle for Christian music, which became the main focus of his work from the 1970s onward.
Bruce Palmer—Bass
(1946 - )
Ontario-born Bruce Palmer was one of the musicians that Neil Young brought into Buffalo Springfield. He had played in Toronto-based bands like The Sailor Boys and The Swinging Doors, and in 1964 had his first taste of chart success as a member of Jack London and The Sparrows. In 1965, he and Young were both members of the Mynah Birds, a group formed by expatriate American Rick James. When they split up, Young and Palmer both set out for Los Angeles, where they co-founded Buffalo Springfield. Palmer’s tenure with the band was filled with unfortunate events, mostly by virtue of his shaky immigration status. He contributed the bass on the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album and turned up on the subsequent Deja Vu record. He cut a solo album in 1970 but otherwise participated mostly in the background of other peoples’ projects, converting to the Sikh religion along the way. In 1983, he re-emerged briefly in conjunction with Neil Young’s Trans album and tour.
Dewey Martin—Drums
(1942 - )
Ontario-born Dewey Martin had the longest experience in music of any of the Buffalo Springfield’s members, having toured with The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, and Patsy Cline. It was a stint in the Pacific Northwest band Sir Raleigh and the Coupons that got him to Los Angeles and into the lineups of The Modern Folk Quartet and The Dillards, and from there he joined Buffalo Springfield. When the group split up, he briefly formed Dewey Martin and Medicine Ball, which lasted for two albums during the early 1970s. In 1991, he organized a group called Buffalo Springfield Again, which revived the old band’s repertory around a new membership.
Doug Hastings—Guitar, vocals
(1946 - )
When Neil Young absented himself from the Springfield’s lineup in early June of 1967, Hastings was deputized and asked to pick up their repertory. He played well enough but never contributed fully to the group as, unlike Stills, Furay, and Young, he wasn’t a songwriter. When Young returned to the fold, Hastings was let go—he later became part of the psychedelic band Rhinoceros, and played with David Ackles and Dr. John, but later left the music business.
David Crosby—Rhythm guitar, vocals
(see The Byrds)
The Who
Roger Daltrey—lead vocals
Pete Townshend—Guitar, vocals
Keith Moon—Drums, percussion
John Entwistle—Bass
To look at the list of acts that played the Monterey Pop Festival, The Who would stand out, based not on their status at the time, but as one-third of that great triumvirate of British invasion bands, alongside The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The truth is that until two years after Monterey, The Who were little but a poor relation to The Rolling Stones (never mind The Beatles) in terms of success; and at the time of Monterey, they were struggling to find a permanent foothold in America. Their earliest singles, “I Can’t Explain,” “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” and “My Generation”—all written by guitarist Pete Townshend—seemed to give voice to teenage angst, from sexual awkwardness and doubt to defiant posturing. Spearheaded by Roger Daltrey’s powerful lead singing and Townshend’s highly animated guitar playing, the group had done well in England, but were mostly an unknown quantity in America, except for the publicity from their habit of smashing their instruments at the end of many performances. They didn’t disappoint at Monterey, which was the single most visible gig they would play prior to completing and releasing Tommy in 1969. In the wake of Tommy, The Who became one of the top selling rock acts and one of the biggest concert attractions of the late 1960s and ‘70s. The death of drummer Keith Moon on September 7, 1978, within days of the release of their Who Are You album, brought a halt to the group’s momentum—though they soldiered on for another five years, and played several farewell tours. Roger Daltrey’s burgeoning acting and solo music careers, and Pete Townshend’s successful transposition of Tommy to Broadway in 1993, coupled with his later success as an author, seemed to relegate The Who to a closed chapter in history. Though they officially broke up in 1983, they’ve regrouped sporadically to tour.
Roger Daltrey—Lead vocals
(1944 - )
Roger Daltrey was originally the lead guitarist as well as the lead singer of The Who when they were still known as The Detours. He had to give up the instrument, owing to the wear-and-tear on his hands from his day job, working in a sheet metal factory. Left to concentrate on vocals, he was a chameleon-like presence on the early records, a teenage everyman giving voice to the anxieties and passions touched on by Pete Townshend’s songs, a credible soul-shouter on R&B covers and a powerful, charismatic rock belter on numbers like “The Good’s Gone.” As Townshend’s songs got more complex, Daltrey’s control and subtle vocal shadings, as well as his range, grew exponentially. By the time of Lou Reisner’s orchestrated Tommy a couple of years later, Daltrey was capable of holding his own in front of an 80-piece orchestra and a choir of several dozen singers. Since the mid-1970s, he has also enjoyed a parallel solo career as a singer separate from The Who, and found success on screen and stage as an actor.
Pete Townshend—Guitar, vocals
(1945 - )
The co-founder and creative leader of The Who, Pete Townshend is one of the most successful rock music composers of the twentieth century, and among the few who has seen his music crossover successfully from records and the concert stage to Broadway. Born in London in 1945, Townshend entered rock music by way of skiffle music, and was originally a banjo player. He made the jump to rock ‘n’ roll in the early 1960s, and co-founded a band variously known as The Detours and The High Numbers, but which ultimately became The Who. Initially, Townshend played rhythm guitar to Roger Daltrey’s lead, but when Daltrey gave up the instrument and concentrated on singing, Townshend took over the lead guitar spot. On stage, his “windmill” style of guitar playing, coupled with the feedback from his amplifiers, and the smashing of his instrument at the end of many performances, became his trademarks. Townshend also sang backing vocals, but his major contribution to the group, perhaps even more so than his flamboyant guitar playing, was as a composer—starting with “I Can’t Explain,” he displayed an uncanny knack for expressing youth’s passions. By 1967, he’d begun expanding the canvas of his music, melding his lyrics and guitar pyrotechnics on songs like “Armenia—City in the Sky,” “I Can See for Miles,” and “Rael,” which utilized the new advances in recording techniques that accompanied the heyday of psychedelia. All of this culminated with Tommy, a dramatic narrative in the form of rock songs that captured the public’s imagination and elevated The Who to the front rank of rock bands. The 1970s saw Townshend push the group and his own writing into more complex projects—this despite his suffering from a progressive hearing loss. By the 1980s, he was a successful author as well, and in the early 1990s he made the jump to Broadway with Tommy.
Keith Moon—Drums, percussion
(1947 - 1978)
Keith Moon was much more than the drummer for The Who—if Pete Townshend was the band’s brain and Roger Daltrey its voice and its heart, then Moon was its soul. He was also one of rock’s most famous drummers. Moon was seventeen when he joined the group, by far the youngest member, but on The Who’s records his manic playing fit right in with the group’s hard, slashing sound. While on stage—where he sometimes abused his drum kit just as badly as Townshend did his guitars—he was a focal point of gloriously over-the-top musical kinetic energy. And in his public and personal life, Moon was the perennial resident “problem teen,” providing an essential ingredient to a band whose repertory seemed to speak for problem teens everywhere; he lived his life in excess— in his drinking, partying, and almost every other activity one might care to name, and was unashamed about it, even as it took a terrible toll on his health. When Moon died on September 7, 1978, most observers recognized the truth that it was over for The Who—the band might go on, but without Moon around to almost shamanistically embody what the band was about, the party and the real music were all but over.
John Entwistle—Bass
(1944 - 2002)
John Entwistle was the only member of the group with formal musical training, his early interest in jazz leading him to study the piano, trumpet, flugelhorn, and French horn before going into rock ‘n’ roll. His most distinctive trait, other than his brilliant bass work, was his utter disengagement from the flashier side of the group’s performances. Entwistle’s recognition as a member of The Who was such that he was able to sustain a significant solo career parallel to The Who’s work during the 1970s—the group’s original British label, Track Records, issued a compilation album on which one side was comprised of Entwistle originals recorded by the band. His first solo album, Smash Your Head Against the Wall, was virtually a lost Who album in sound and texture. Entwistle was unable to sustain a solo career, however, and was reportedly in such severe financial straits by the second half of the decade, that he was forced to sell off his legendary collection of bass guitars; it was that situation that persuaded the surviving members of The Who to join him on a reunion tour. Entwistle had played with Daltrey’s band and The Ringo Starr All-Star Band during the 1990s—he was set to rejoin Daltrey and Townshend for a new tour by The Who during the summer of 2002, when he was stricken with a fatal heart attack in Las Vegas on June 27th of that year.
Continued in Monterey Pop Artist Bios - part five
1967
78 min
Color
1.33:1
Categories: Film Essays
0 Comments
Add Comment