Joni Mitchell sings Woodstock in public for the first time
Joni Mitchell was not even on the bill, but she walked onto the stage at the Big Sur Folk Festival at the Esalen Institute and played her new song Woodstock in public for the first time, a performance her Big Sur chronology dates to September 14.
She had skipped the festival that inspired the song and built the lyric from Graham Nash's account of it, and within a year Woodstock had become a defining anthem of folk rock.
Joni Mitchell sings Woodstock in public for the first time
Joni Mitchell was not even on the bill, but she walked onto the stage at the Big Sur Folk Festival at the Esalen Institute and played her new song Woodstock in public for the first time, a performance her Big Sur chronology dates to September 14.
She had skipped the festival that inspired the song and built the lyric from Graham Nash's account of it, and within a year Woodstock had become a defining anthem of folk rock.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience headline the Hollywood Bowl
The Jimi Hendrix Experience headlined the Hollywood Bowl, with a water-filled moat set in front of the stage to keep fans from climbing up, as the setlist records.
The full set was recorded and later released on the 50th-anniversary edition of Electric Ladyland, catching the trio near its live peak in the middle of psychedelic rock.
The Doors play two sets at Frankfurt's Kongresshalle
The Doors played an early and a late show in one night at the Kongresshalle in Frankfurt on their first major European tour, with parts of both sets filmed for the German television show Beat-Club, per the tour date.
The Frankfurt crowd, thick with American servicemen stationed nearby, saw Jim Morrison at his most theatrical months before the band's troubles deepened at home.
A fire at Roy Orbison's home kills his two young sons
A fire tore through Roy Orbison's house on Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tennessee, killing his sons Roy Jr. and Tony, aged 10 and 6, while their three-year-old brother Wesley was pulled to safety, as Wikipedia recounts.
Orbison was on a concert tour of England when the blaze broke out and chose to keep working, still closing shows with ballads like Crying.
The Archie Show brings bubblegum pop to Saturday mornings
The Archie Show premiered on CBS on a Saturday morning, an animated series built around the Archie comics with a studio band put together by Don Kirshner, as Wikipedia details.
Kirshner, fresh from the Monkees, used the cartoon to push bubblegum pop out of the Brill Building, and the house group topped the chart the next year with Sugar, Sugar.
The Beatles film the tent scene for Magical Mystery Tour
On the fourth day of filming Magical Mystery Tour, the Beatles shot the sequence of their coach passengers squeezing into a tiny tent, in a field near Newquay in Cornwall, as The Beatles Bible logs.
In the finished film the tent opens onto the small theatre where George Harrison's Blue Jay Way sequence plays, and the crowds that gathered that day drew police to clear the traffic.
George Harrison flies to Bombay to study sitar with Ravi Shankar
George and Pattie Harrison landed in Bombay so George could study the sitar intensively with Ravi Shankar and take up yoga, hiding from Beatlemania at the Taj Mahal hotel under false names, as The Beatles Bible records.
He had just recorded Love You To, and the six weeks in India pushed Indian classical music further into the psychedelic sound of the late decade.
Barbra Streisand records her first self-written melody
Barbra Streisand returned to Columbia's New York studio to tape seven French and English numbers for Je m'appelle Barbra, among them Ma Premiere Chanson, the first tune she had written the melody for, as Wikipedia notes.
The album, arranged largely by Michel Legrand, produced the single Free Again and moved her from Broadway belter toward international pop and vocal music.
The Rolling Stones play Munich and Brian Jones meets Anita Pallenberg
The Rolling Stones tore through two shows in one night at the Circus Krone in Munich on their first West German tour.
Backstage between the sets, Brian Jones met the model and actress Anita Pallenberg, beginning a relationship that shaped the band's look and mood for years, as Wikipedia records.
Judy Garland finishes her last Greek Theatre show with a broken arm
Judy Garland came back to the Greek Theatre for her second night with a broken arm, having tripped over her dog the day before, and got through only five songs, as Judy Garland News details.
Mickey Rooney, Martha Raye and Johnny Mathis came onstage to carry her through, and the rest of the engagement was cancelled, ending a bittersweet run in pop and easy listening.
The Beatles play their only Pittsburgh concert
The Beatles played their only Pittsburgh show, a quick afternoon house at the Civic Arena for 12,603 fans, then were driven straight back to the airport, as The Beatles Bible recounts.
The screaming buried the 12-song set, as it did everywhere on the 1964 North American tour.
The Beach Boys' Surfer Girl reaches No. 7 on the Hot 100
The Beach Boys' ballad Surfer Girl reached its peak of number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 dated September 14, 1963, as Wikipedia notes.
It was the first record Brian Wilson produced on his own, a surf rock song he said he wrote in his car at nineteen.
The Beatles headline Operation Big Beat V in New Brighton
The Beatles topped a six-band, five-and-a-half-hour bill called Operation Big Beat V at the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton, Wallasey, promoted by Sam Leach, as The Beatles Bible logs.
It was three weeks before Love Me Do reached the shops, with the band still a Merseyside draw rather than a national one at the front of the British Invasion.
The Porter Wagoner Show premieres in syndication
The Porter Wagoner Show began national syndication, a half-hour country variety program taped in Nashville and sponsored by a patent-medicine company, as the Tennessee Encyclopedia records.
It ran until 1981 and gave classic country a weekly television home, later making a star of Dolly Parton after she joined the cast in 1967.
Roosevelt Sykes cuts The Honeydripper at Van Gelder Studio
The blues pianist Roosevelt Sykes recorded the album The Honeydripper at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, for Prestige's Bluesville label, as Wikipedia details.
The date teamed him with saxophonist King Curtis, whose own instrumental Soul Twist would top the R&B chart within two years.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened in 1960s music on September 14?
September 14 produced 15 verified music events across the decade, headlined by Joni Mitchell's first public performance of Woodstock at the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1969.
The same date also saw George Harrison fly to India to study sitar, the Jimi Hendrix Experience headline the Hollywood Bowl, and a fire kill two of Roy Orbison's sons.
When did Joni Mitchell first perform Woodstock?
Joni Mitchell performed Woodstock in public for the first time at the Big Sur Folk Festival at the Esalen Institute on September 14, 1969.
She was not on the official program, had missed the Woodstock festival itself, and had written the song from Graham Nash's account of it.
Why did George Harrison go to India in 1966?
George Harrison flew from London to Bombay on September 14, 1966 to take intensive daily sitar lessons from Ravi Shankar and to study yoga, staying at the Taj Mahal hotel to escape Beatlemania.
The six-week trip deepened the influence of Indian classical music on the Beatles and on late-1960s psychedelic rock.
What happened at Roy Orbison's house on September 14, 1968?
A fire destroyed Roy Orbison's home on Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tennessee, on September 14, 1968, killing his two oldest sons, Roy Jr. and Tony.
Orbison was touring in England at the time, and his youngest son, Wesley, was saved by his grandparents.
Where did the Jimi Hendrix Experience play on September 14, 1968?
The Jimi Hendrix Experience headlined the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on September 14, 1968.
The concert was recorded in full and released decades later as part of the 50th-anniversary edition of Electric Ladyland.
What was the Beach Boys' highest chart position for Surfer Girl?
Surfer Girl peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 dated September 14, 1963.
It was the first Beach Boys single that Brian Wilson produced on his own.