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Splatt Gallery's History of Michigan Music Posters
Volume Ten - 1974 - Page Twelve
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Poster/ads by Hugh Surratt for Tim Buckley with Return To Forever at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan on July 15, 1974. It was Buckley’s 17th Michigan show, going back to the Grande Ballroom in July 1967, on the eve of the riot. He would be back in two more weeks for a return appearance at the Rock & Roll Farm in Wayne, Michigan, where he had performed two shows in May.
An ad for Diana Ross in Los Angeles, California, July 15-21, 1974, followed by the Temptations, July 25-28.
A full-page ad promoting a new single and album by Melanie with supporting tour dates, including a show at the Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan on July 16, 1974, and also quoting a show review in the Detroit News from her previous Michigan show, at the Ford Auditorium in Detroit in April.
Illustration by Chris Frayne, aka Ozone, for the 1974 Ann Arbor Art Fair in Ann Arbor, Michigan, July 17-20, 1974. The original South University Street fair was the granddaddy of art fairs, originating in 1959. Gradually, it expanded to include State Street, Liberty, and Maynard Streets. In 1971, the Free Arts Festival was formed on Main Street and East University to provide a more egalitarian opportunity for artists who wouldn’t pass the juried-selection for South University.
A tour-blank poster by Chris Frayne, aka Ozone, for the Friends Road Show, a commune of performance artists who had relocated from England and Amsterdam to a farm in Milan, Michigan. They busied themselves doing street theater on the Diag of the University of Michigan campus, conducting classes at the Art Worlds studio in Ann Arbor, and performing at private corporation parties, at the United Farm Bureau in Saline, and regularly at Ann Arbor’s Blind Pig.
They were planning a cross-country tour for the summer, starting at the International Mime Festival in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, alongside Red Skeleton and Dick Van Dyke. Upon their return, they planned to move into an old warehouse near Greektown in Detroit, where they would run a theater school during the day and put on performances by night.
Poster/ad by Chris Frayne, aka Ozone, for a three night performance at Schwaben Hall, above the old Primo Showbar, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by the Friends Road Show, July 17-19, 1974.
An ad for Richards in Atlanta, Georgia with the James Montgomery Blues Band appearing with Spencer Davis, July 18-20, 1974.
A promo shot of the band Golden Earring in the Fifth Estate newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, used for a review of their show at the Masonic Auditorium on July 19, 1974. It was the Dutch band’s fifteenth Michigan appearance, going back to the Grande Ballroom in 1969, where they performed seven shows that year.
A schedule of free live music at the Ann Arbor Music Mart during the annual Ann Arbor Art Fair, with Howard Roberts, Maurice Anderson, Iris Bell, Rockets, RFD Boys, Cruiser, Fast Eddie and Common People on July 19, 1974, and with Madusa, Uprising, Chopper, Lightnin’, and Sky King the next day.
Found this quote on the Western Michigan Hysterical Society webpage:
“My brother, friends and I saw Bob Seeger (sic) on Thursday, July 18, 1974, @ the Thunder Chicken. At the concert, he announced the next day he would be the opening act at The Ozark Mountain Festival in Sedalia Missouri. So at about 2:00 am we went home got some supplies and headed to Missouri. We were there to see him open the festival.”
It confirms another show at the Thunder Chicken in Comstock Park, Michigan, near Grand Rapids, and it also confirms Seger’s appearance at the Ozark Music Festival, held July 19–21, 1974 on the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, Missouri. Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes were the other Michigan act to perform at the festival.
A documentary on the festival, with the great title “Force Fed The 60’s – Threw It Up in The 70’s”, can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GfrpJMMV00
Poster/ad for the fourth album by Brownsville Station, “School Punks” which was listed as a new release in the July 20, 1974 issue of Billboard magazine.
Gary Grimshaw’s and Leni Sinclair’s “show blank” poster for the Sunday Free Concerts in Ann Arbor, Michigan with the line-up for the July 21, 1974 concert, featuring Sky King, Sojourner Wolf, Mixed Bag, and Pegasus.
Once again, another great poster from Dome Productions at the Grand Valley State Colleges near Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a concert by Poco with Golden Earring on July 21, 1974, with a an artist signature by “Snider”
Poster/flyer with John Lee Hooker appearing with Les McCann and Tim Weisberg in Santa Barbara, California on July 21, 1974.
Poster/ad with Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen opening for the Grateful Dead and Maria Muldaur at the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California on July 21, 1974.
Motown Records ad for Stevie Wonder’s 17th studio album, released on July 22, 1974. The first single from the album is still (especially) apropos today. Featuring background vocals by The Jackson 5, “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” became Wonder's fourth Number #1 pop hit and his tenth #1 soul hit.
Stevie Wonder – You Haven’t Done Nothin’ (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji2ma2mfyhU
The gatefold album cover art for Stevie Wonder’s album “Fullfillingness’ First Finale” by Robert Gleason, his second creation for Motown Records, having made the cover for Smokey Robinson’s “Pure Smokey” in March. Rolling Stone magazine described the cover art:
“The cover of “Fulfillingness’ First Finale” depicts a staircase of keyboards rising — from the Motor Town Review and “Fingertips” through gold records, Grammies and an auto accident — to the sky. It’s remarkably apt, for the careers of few performers in popular music have been such uninterrupted ascents. Nothing, not even a brush with death, has interrupted Wonder’s progress toward ever higher ground, and FFF is a new plateau. As its title declares, the album is a culmination of what has come before, but it is by no means a final destination.”
Gleason will go on to create three more cover designs for Motown in 1975, and we’ll be bringing them all to you.
FFF was Wonder's first album to reach #1 on the Billboard Albums chart since his 1963 live album. On the Billboard Soul LPs chart it was his third #1 album in a row, with Innervisions and Talking Book before it. FFF won three Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal, and Best Male R&Blues Vocal Performance, edging out Marvin Gaye, with the "Boogie On Reggae Woman".
Stevie Wonder – Boogie On Reggae Woman (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylQMhYqSntk
A full-page Motown Records ad for the title track from the Commodores debut album, released on July 22, 1974. The band, which hailed from Tuskegee University in Alabama, were signed to Motown following gigs opening for the Jackson 5. The title track, an instrumental, peaked at #7 on the Billboard R&B chart and reached #22 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Commodores – Machine Gun (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0f2S4WwwRk
Poster for the Rainbow Room in the Shelby Hotel in Detroit, Michigan, with shows by the Rockets, July 25-27, 1974, and with Howlin’ Wolf, July 31 through August 3rd. Rockets logo by Gary Grimshaw, Rainbow Room logo by J.W. Kelly, unknown source for Howlin’ Wolf photo.
The ever-changing logo for the Paper Radio column in the Ann Arbor SUN newspaper in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in its form for the July 26, 1974 edition, along with an illustration by Gary Kell, an ad for W4 radio, and the Ann Arbor Discount Records store.
The first Michigan appearance by the British group Bad Company, opening for Black Oak Arkansas at the Masonic Auditorium in Detroit on July 27, 1974. The cover of this bootleg recording of the show has the incorrect date.
Bad Company – Live in Detroit (7/27/74)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPBLINo-lyg
Handbill by an unknown artist for a Farm Festival in Skidway Lake, Michigan, about an hour north of Saginaw, on July 27, 1974. Live performances by Bob Seger, Stretch Thomas, plus six more bands, one of which, looks to have been added to the poster after it was printed, was Wayne Kramer’s “new” MC5, which included Kramer on lead guitar, Mark Manko on guitar, bassist Tim Schafe, and two drummers, Melvin Davis and Frank Larneburg.
The “Guitar Battle of the Century” show came to Richard’s in Atlanta, Georgia on July 27, 1974, with Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes vs Cactus with Mike Pinera.
A full-page Casablanca Records ad for Parliament’s album “Up for the Down Stroke” in the July 27, 1974 edition of Billboard magazine, twenty-four days after the album’s release.
Suzi Quatro in wonderful acrylics on the cover of July 27, 1974 issue of the British magazine Look-In. The publication was a children’s magazine based on the ITV television network’s children’s shows, featuring them in comic strip form. The second most popular topic was pop music stars.
The distinctive covers were painted by Italian artist Arnaldo Putzu, who was well known for his movie posters in Italy and England in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Band bios for the groups scheduled to appear at the Sunday Free Concerts in Ann Arbor, Michigan on July 28, 1974 and for the following week on August 4th, including the Muskadine Blues Band, Possum Kreek, Leopards, Rockets, Lightning Red & his Blues Band, and Apple Core.
An ad for the Jackson 5ive at the Front Row Theatre-In-The-Round in Cleveland, Ohio, July 29, 1974 through August 4th, and an earlier ad for the Sahara-Tahoe in Lake Tahoe, Nevada in May-June, show the type of nightclub act gigs that Daddy Joe Jackson was producing for his sons and daughters as he became increasingly dissatisfied with Motown’s management.
The single “Dancing Machine”, released in February 1974, had seen the group return to the Top Ten, largely helped out by Michael Jackson’s sensational performance of the “robot” dance to the song on the Soul Train TV show in November 1973, but it was the group’s first big hit in nearly three years, since 1971.
By mid-1975, Joe had taken his brood out of Motown and over to Epic Records, except for brother Jermaine, who was married to Berry Gordy’s daughter Hazel, who stayed with Motown and was replaced in the group by youngest brother Randy. The group officially changed their name to the Jacksons, as Motown owned the name the Jackson 5.
Poster by Terry O’Conner for a show by Chris Jagger, younger brother of Mick, at The Brewery in East Lansing, Michigan on July 31, 1974, the second famous sibling to pass through town, after an appearance by Jackson Browne’s brother Severin in June.
An ad for Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom in Atlanta, Georgia with Parliament Funkadelic appearing for two nights, July 31, 1974 and August 1st.
The August 1974 issue of CREEM magazine, featuring Alice Cooper on the cover and a special report on Hollywood.
We began this second-half of 1974 with an essay that described how Detroit’s cultural symbiosis with the West Coast moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, perhaps coming full-circle back to a resemblance of the 1950’s.
The 1965 migration of a busload of Detroit Artists Workshop members, and their dog, to San Francisco, after a summer-long stop-over at the Red Dog Saloon in the desert of Nevada, struck up with a like-minded tribe from Austin, Texas, and mixing in with San Francisco locals, which included Michigan transplants Stanley Mouse, guitarist James Gurley, and DJ Jim Miller, to spark the acid-rock earthquake. In some ways, it is surprising that it lasted as long as it did, despite the Diggers throwing in the towel merely two years in, with their “Death of Hippie” in October 1967, the music permeated for a decade with psychedelic rock, psychedelic folk, psychedelic pop, psychedelic soul, psychedelic bubblegum pop, psychedelic blues-rock, and ultimately, Heavy Psych.
It weathered anti-war and civil rights movements, urban rebellions, political assassinations, murder cults, Altamont, Goose Lake, drug epidemics, sexual revolution and an increasingly shrinking world, but was eventually killed off by one thing – success. It was Big Business now.
The August 1974 edition of CREEM magazine featured a cover photo (seen in the comments below) of a rightfully smug Alice Cooper, flanked by two feather boa groupies standing in a driveway with cocktails in hand, overlooking the hills and the Hollywood sign as a back drop. The cover was stamped in stencil letters, “SPECIAL REPORT – The Girls of Hollywood – Complete with Instructions and Map” (seen above), and a headline story “Alice Cooper’s Tour of Tinseltown”.
The third “CREEM DREEM” poster, in the August 1974 issue of CREEM magazine, featuring Fanny with newest band member, Patti Quatro. The group had earlier turned down a request to be featured as the “CREEM Mate of the Month” as well as turning down Hugh Hefner's offer to appear nude in Playboy magazine.
Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes released their second album of the year in August 1974. It was their second, and last, to be released on Frank Zappa’s DiscReet record label, and it was the seventh and final album for the Amboy Dukes. It included the song “Great White Buffalo”, based off a riff while tuning up, and recorded in one take with improvised lyrics, which remained a popular live song in Nugent’s up-coming solo career.
The Amboy Dukes – Great White Buffalo (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy1PlyLmqjc
Poster by Dennis Preston for a show in Ionia, Michigan, about midpoint between Lansing and Grand Rapids, on August 2, 1974, featuring Northwind, Still Eyes, and Buzz Walker.
A Discount Records ad by Jive Comix, aka Ted Echterling, in the August 2, 1974 edition of the State News in East Lansing, Michigan.
Poster by Chris Frayne for Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen at the Lewiston Armory in Lewiston, Maine on August 2, 1974.
A Tribune Press poster for an appearance by Aretha Franklin in Chicago, Illinois on August 2, 1974. Her 20th studio album “Let Me in Your Life”, released in February, became her sixth album to reach #1 on the Billboard R&B Chart and it yielded two #1 singles, plus the single "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing", which although it peaked at only #6 on the singles chart, earned Franklin her eighth (consecutive!) Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
Aretha Franklin – Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVLWGi63oRo
A rather nicely designed ad by an unknown artist for a show at the Trading Post in Roseville, Michigan titled, “The New Guitar Army Makes An Assault Upon The Rock & Rollers Of Detroit” on August 2-3, 1974. Three bands participated, the Rockets with guitarist Jim McCarty, Van Coot with “the amazing” Bobby Sweet, and most interesting, Master Danse “for their first appearance in America” which is a tongue-in-cheek joke since they were a local band.
The liner notes for the “Michigan Meltdown” compilation album say that they were associated with an eastside Detroit record store called The New York Rock Exchange, and were managed by Alden Walker Gallup III, soon to become well known as Stirling Silver.
The link to their only known recording is presented below.
Master Danse – Feelin’ Dead (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1UTacDhB7g
Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes take the home field advantage in this Guitar Battle with Mike Pinera & Cactus in Allen Park, Michigan on August 3, 1974, a Steve Glantz production.
The announcement of a summer reunion tour of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was very enticing and seeing that a show on August 3, 1974 might be within striking distance just across the river, we took off. After hitch-hiking all the way to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, we learned that the Ontario Motor Speedway was in fucking California!
A full-page Motown records ad for Marvin Gaye “Live” with tour dates that start on August 3-4, 1974 in Washington DC and follow with eleven more dates through the month of August.
A Gary Grimshaw poster for the Sunday Free Concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan on August 4, 1974, featuring the Rockets, Catfish Hodge, Lightnin’ Red Blues Band, and Armageddon.
Catfish Hodge had not been given the band bio treatment prior to his appearance at the Sunday Free Concert on August 4, 1974 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, perhaps he had been a late addition, perhaps he did not need an introduction. When we posted his second solo album, back in May 1974, we noted that, as with his first album, Hodge had Funkadelic guitarist Garry Shider as a co-songwriter on half of the tracks, and that the record also featured Rockets guitarist Jim McCarty and Radio King’s saxophonist Crispin Cioe, and a shout-out to Fiddler’s Music.
What we didn’t mention was that there was one cover song on the album “Dinosaurs and Alleycats”, a seemingly unlikely cover of Jack Bruce’s “Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out Of Tune”. It’s a pretty refreshing take, as can be heard below, and if, unlike us, the original doesn’t permanently reside in your mind, we’ve linked to it as well.
Catfish Hodge – Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out Of Tune (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr9UTvNPS6M
Jack Bruce – Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out Of Tune (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGoPzOVxjr4
Poster/ad for Marvin Gaye with Kool & the Gang and the Ohio Players in Atlanta, Georgia on August 5, 1974. That $10 ticket price is a pretty commanding figure.
A pair of ads for the Municipal Auditorium in Atlanta, Georgia with Brownsville Station opening for Foghat on August 5, 1974.
Artwork by Chris Frayne (Ozone), plus whoever designed the cool logo for Rabbits, for a couple of benefit shows to help the Ann Arbor SUN newspaper, with said band Rabbits performing at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor on August 7, 1974, and DJ sets by Chinner Mitchell at Flick’s Bar the following week. Due to the activities surrounding the move of the newspaper, there would be a skip on the issues, making the August 9th edition the final one for the month of August, and, as such, there were not the customary, informative band bios for the groups scheduled to play at the upcoming Sunday Free Concerts, but the line-ups were provided as follow:
August 11 – Salem Witchcraft, Cloudburst, Denny Maury Band, Martian Entropy Band
August 18 – Riot, Nature, Okra, Naught Music
August 25 – Uprising, Mojo Boogie Band, Alfa Clintoris, Electric Express
You may recall the Martian Entropy Band from our story of the Barn Dance at the Animal Farm, but we could have used a bio on most of these bands (Alfa Clintoris?) that we will likely never see again.
Two weeks after the Republicans on the Ann Arbor City Council killed the up-coming annual Blues & Jazz Festival, a new location was secured when the St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, just across the river from Detroit, offered the use of their outdoor amphitheater for the event. Other options such as no festival at all, a one-day show, or a makeshift set-up on undeveloped farmland somewhere, became unnecessary by the graciousness of St. Clair College to save the festival, to be known as the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival “In Exile”. The one major pitfall, as would unfortunately bear out, were the words printed on the tickets and some advertisements that said “WATCH THE BORDER”.
Volume Ten - 1974 - continues - HERE
Three singles were released from Brownsville Station’s “School Punks” album - "I'm The Leader Of The Gang", "Kings Of The Party", and "Mama Don't Allow No Parkin'". Picture slleves for two of them are shown above.
An ad for Utopia in Cleveland, Ohio with Mike Quatro & His Jam band appearing on July 30, 1974 and a rescheduled Bob Seger show coming up.
An ad for Tommy James at Utopia in Cleveland, Ohio on July 16, 1974. All his listed hits are actually by Herman’s Hermits.
