Hendrix defends his Woodstock anthem on live television
Weeks after closing Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix appeared on ABC's The Dick Cavett Show with his new band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, sitting for a soft-spoken interview before performing Izabella and a tight Machine Gun, per the official Jimi Hendrix site.
Pressed by Cavett about his distorted Star-Spangled Banner, Hendrix answered, "I didn't think it was unorthodox, I thought it was beautiful," turning his US network TV debut into one of psychedelic rock's most quietly candid interviews.
Hendrix defends his Woodstock anthem on live television
Weeks after closing Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix appeared on ABC's The Dick Cavett Show with his new band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, sitting for a soft-spoken interview before performing Izabella and a tight Machine Gun, per the official Jimi Hendrix site.
Pressed by Cavett about his distorted Star-Spangled Banner, Hendrix answered, "I didn't think it was unorthodox, I thought it was beautiful," turning his US network TV debut into one of psychedelic rock's most quietly candid interviews.
Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton release Just the Two of Us
RCA Victor released Just the Two of Us, the second studio album from Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, recorded earlier that year at RCA Studio B in Nashville and produced by Bob Ferguson, per Wikipedia.
The record spun off the Top 10 country hit Holding on to Nothin', cementing Parton and Wagoner as 1960s country music's defining duet act two years before Parton went solo.
The Who bring their instrument-smashing show to Honolulu
The Who played the Honolulu International Center Arena on their first extended American tour, opening for Herman's Hermits on a bill that also included the Strawberry Alarm Clock, per The Who's official tour archive.
The Who were riding Happy Jack up the charts that tour, closing the Honolulu night with their trademark gear-smashing finale that hauled British Invasion volume to Hawaiian audiences for the first time.
Soul Man enters the Billboard Hot 100
Sam & Dave's Soul Man, written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter at Stax as an anthem of pride after the Detroit riots, debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 79, per Stax Records.
It climbed all the way to No. 2 that fall, a defining 1960s soul single blocked from the top spot only by Lulu's To Sir with Love.
Judy Garland closes a sold-out Merriweather Post Pavilion run
Judy Garland played the second of two sold-out nights at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, backed by the Bobby Cole Orchestra with her children Lorna and Joe Luft joining her onstage, per setlist.fm.
Garland closed with an emotional Over the Rainbow, a reminder of how her 1960s pop vocal power still filled a 3,000-seat amphitheater in the last years of her career.
The Rolling Stones film their drag promo for Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts gathered on East 24th Street in Manhattan with director Peter Whitehead and photographer Jerry Schatzberg, filming footage of the band in drag around a wheelchair-bound Wyman, per ABKCO.
Rejected by outlets at the time as too strange for a rock promo, the film became one of the earliest and most subversive British Invasion music videos once ABKCO gave it an official release decades later.
Future comedian and musician Adam Sandler is born in Brooklyn
Adam Sandler was born in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of four children in a family that would later move to Manchester, New Hampshire, per Wikipedia.
Sandler grew up on the same British Invasion and pop radio filling 1966 airwaves, music he later folded into his own comedy songs on Saturday Night Live and beyond.
Quicksilver Messenger Service opens a two-night run at the Avalon Ballroom
Quicksilver Messenger Service headlined the first of two nights at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom, supported by the Great Society featuring a pre-Jefferson Airplane Grace Slick, with the show broadcast live on Pacifica's KPFA, per an archived KPFA broadcast recording.
The Bay Area bill, built around QMS's stinging guitar jam Pride of Man, captured psychedelic rock's Haight-Ashbury scene right as it was forming.
The Beatles' hurricane-diverted flight lands them in Key West
The Beatles' chartered flight to Jacksonville was diverted by Hurricane Dora, touching down in Key West at 3:30 a.m., where Ringo Starr started a pillow fight so wild that Paul McCartney grabbed the plane's PA to order everyone back to their seats, then broke into laughter, per Florida Memory.
Still touring behind A Hard Day's Night, the band spent an unplanned day relaxing at the Key Wester Motel before flying on to play their only Florida date of the 1964 tour.
The Rolling Stones play two shows at the Luton Odeon
The Rolling Stones performed two packed houses at the Odeon Theatre in Luton, part of a run of UK dates promoting their new single It's All Over Now, per setlist.fm.
The double booking captured the Stones' fast-rising British fanbase months before British Invasion mania sent them across the Atlantic for good.
John Coltrane drops in on Terry Gibbs' opening night in Toronto
On a break from his own tour, John Coltrane stopped by Toronto's Friars Tavern to catch the opening night of vibraphonist Terry Gibbs' quartet, according to a contemporary newspaper account cited by Toronto Journey 416.
The visit captured the tight camaraderie among jazz's touring elite in 1963, the same year Coltrane's quartet was cutting the Impulse! sides that became Afro Blue Impressions.
Cattle Call songwriter Tex Owens dies in Texas
Tex Owens, the cowboy singer and radio host who wrote Cattle Call in 1934, died at his home in New Baden, Texas, at age 70, per the Texas State Historical Association.
His yodeling range song became a signature hit for Eddy Arnold, whose version kept climbing 1960s country charts and radio playlists a full generation after Owens wrote it.
Sam Cooke headlines a Harlem breakfast dance at Rockland Palace
Sam Cooke topped an all-night "Breakfast Dance" at Rockland Palace in Harlem, on a bill with Maxine Brown, Chuck Jackson, Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Olympics, and the Jive Five, per a surviving original handbill.
Cooke worked the crowd with his new single Cupid, part of the pre-Motown soul and R&B touring circuit that packed Harlem ballrooms until sunrise.
Opera tenor Jussi Björling dies at his Swedish summer home
Swedish tenor Jussi Björling died in his sleep of a heart attack at his summer home on the island of Siarö, Sweden, at age 49, per Britannica.
Celebrated at the Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden for one of the most technically perfect voices of the twentieth century, his death was a stunning loss just as the operatic tradition he embodied gave way to the decade's new pop and rock sounds.
Three tenor sax giants record the soul-jazz classic Soul Battle
Oliver Nelson, King Curtis, and Jimmy Forrest convened at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, to cut Soul Battle, backed by pianist Gene Casey, bassist George Duvivier, and drummer Roy Haynes, per Wikipedia.
The session, later released on Prestige, paired King Curtis's rare pure-jazz outing with Nelson and Forrest's hard bop chops on a set of gospel-inflected blues that still ranks among 1960s jazz's great sax showdowns.
Eric Dolphy joins John Lewis for The Wonderful World of Jazz
Pianist John Lewis, best known as the Modern Jazz Quartet's musical director, led a session at Atlantic Studios in New York featuring Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone alongside Benny Golson, Gunther Schuller, and Jim Hall, per Wikipedia.
The date produced Afternoon in Paris for Lewis's 1960s jazz album The Wonderful World of Jazz, capturing Dolphy's soaring alto work months before his own landmark recordings as a bandleader.
Sam Cooke cuts Swing Low, Sweet Chariot at RCA Studios
Sam Cooke recorded Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and other spiritual-rooted tracks at RCA Studio B in New York under conductor Sammy Lowe, the first of a two-day session that shaped his album Swing Low, per Wikipedia.
The sessions marked one of Cooke's earliest attempts to fuse traditional African American spirituals with lush pop orchestration, a blueprint 1960s soul singers would build on for the rest of the decade.
Dave Brubeck and Carmen McRae record Paradiddle Joe
The Dave Brubeck Quartet and guest vocalist Carmen McRae recorded the playful Paradiddle Joe in New York, pairing McRae's sharp vocal jazz phrasing with Paul Desmond's alto sax and Brubeck's signature odd-time piano, per Wikipedia.
The track landed on 1961's Tonight Only!, a rare full-length teaming that remains one of 1960s jazz's most celebrated vocalist-and-quartet collaborations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened in 1960s music on September 9?
September 9 saw 18 verified music events across the decade.
They're headlined by Jimi Hendrix's soft-spoken 1969 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show weeks after Woodstock.
What did Jimi Hendrix say about the Star-Spangled Banner on Dick Cavett?
On September 9, 1969, Hendrix told Dick Cavett, "I didn't think it was unorthodox, I thought it was beautiful."
He was defending his distorted Woodstock rendition of the national anthem.
Why did the Beatles end up in Key West in 1964?
Hurricane Dora forced the Beatles' chartered flight to Jacksonville to divert to Key West, landing at 3:30 a.m. on September 9, 1964.
The band spent an unplanned day off there before flying on to their Jacksonville show.
When did the Rolling Stones film their drag photoshoot?
The Rolling Stones filmed the drag photoshoot and promo footage for Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? on September 9, 1966, in Manhattan.
ABKCO gave the footage its first official online release in 2022.
Who wrote Cattle Call?
Tex Owens wrote Cattle Call in 1934.
He died on September 9, 1962, having lived to see Eddy Arnold's version become a country standard.
What was Soul Man about?
Sam & Dave's Soul Man, written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter, entered the Billboard Hot 100 on September 9, 1967.
It was written as an anthem of pride in the wake of the Detroit riots.