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Splatt Gallery's History of Michigan Concert Posters
Volume Seven - 1971 - Page Four
A poster by “Jann” in the March 2, 1971 issue of the Second Coming newspaper in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
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Poster/ad for Three Dog Night with Bloodrock and “special guest star” Stevie Wonder at Madison Square Garden in New York City on March 5, 1971.
An ad for Pepperland in San Rafael, California with John Lee Hooker opening for Steve Miller with Bronze Hog, March 5-6, 1971.
Poster by David Singer and Jim Marshall, for Aretha Franklin at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, California, March 5-7, 1971. As noted on the poster, the concerts were recorded, and the album “Aretha Live at Fillmore West”, her third live album, was released in May.
As the following video shows, the concerts were apparently filmed as well.
Aretha Franklin – Live at Fillmore West (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyx34kgHGng
A nice, large poster to promote the 2006 Rhino Records re-issue of Aretha Franklin’s “Live at Fillmore West” album that had been recorded March 5-7, 1971. The photo is a great interior shot from the stage of the Fillmore West, and the re-issue also included an additional 13 tracks over the original 1971 release.
A pair of ads in The Daily Egyptian, the campus newspaper of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, for an appearance by Mitch Ryder "& his Detroit Wheels" on March 5-6, 1971 at the local watering hole, the Golden Gauntlet. Promoters were doubtlessly confused about the band Detroit, without the Wheels.
A strange ad in The Daily Egyptian campus newspaper that caught our eye because of Rare Earth. From what we’ve gathered, Zwick’s was a shoe store in Carbondale, Illinois, and Projections was the name of a company that made clogs.
Another great poster by Mark Behrens for an appearance by John Lee Hooker at Pepperland in San Rafael, California, March 5-6, 1971. Behrens has an extensive body of great poster work, including the well-known 1970 poster for Iggy & the Stooges, with Alice Cooper, Commander Cody, and the Flamin’ Groovies at the New Old Fillmore.
A Polydor Records ad in the March 6, 1971 issue of Billboard magazine promoting the first album by comedian Lily Tomlin. Born in Detroit, a graduate of Cass Tech High School, she enrolled at Wayne State University as a biology major, but after performing in a school play, she caught the acting bug and changed her major to theatre arts. She began doing stand-up comedy at clubs around Detroit, and later in New York City, continuing her studies, and landing appearances on television, her first was on The Merv Griffin Show in 1965.
She took over for Judy Carne on the highly popular Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In in 1969, and was an instant success. This first album, “This is a Recording” won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording, the first solo woman to win the award, and remains the highest-charting comedy album by a solo woman when it peaked at #15 on the Hot 200 Albums chart.
An Ampex Stereo Tapes ad in the March 6, 1971 issue of Billboard magazine which may lay claim to an iconic “70’s” font.
Here’s one for our Bloodrock fans – a two-page spread in the March 6, 1971 issue of Billboard magazine. The ad plays off of the then currently running, extremely popular movie “Love Story” that had the slogan “love means never having to say you’re sorry”. Sounds like the kind of thing that manager/producer Terry Knight would do and would later make the band cringe.
Graphics from the Ann Arbor Argus with ad for March 6, 1971 concert with UP, Brat, and Mountain Wind.
Motown Records ad in the March 6, 1971 issue of Billboard magazine promoting the first British female white artist signed to the UK branch of the Tamla-Motown label. She traveled to Detroit to record an album’s worth of material, including this single, which was a cover version of Ann Arbor’s Deon Jackson’s 1966 hit.
Upon returning to the UK, she sought career advice from John Reid, the nineteen-year old Tamla-Motown representative in London, who told her about his new live-in boyfriend, whom he had met at a Motown Christmas party, an up and coming singer named Elton John. Reid became his manager as well, and later, when they formed The Rocket Record Company, he signed Dee to the label (after being turned down on an offer to sign Iggy and The Stooges).
Kiki Dee – Love Makes the World Go Round (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if7jZAN-P00
Appreciation for the Ann Arbor Blues Festival extended beyond Ann Arbor, and even beyond the state of Michigan, as this poster from Madison, Wisconsin shows. The Wisconsin Union Theatre hosted a Benefit Blues Revival on March 7, 1971 to raise funds for the 1971 Ann Arbor Blues Festival. But this inter-state effort, as well as the local benefits that we’ve seen in Ann Arbor, still failed to raise sufficient revenue, and the 1971 Ann Arbor Blues Festival was cancelled.
A full-page ad for CREEM magazine in the March 8, 1971 issue of the Other Scenes newspaper in New York City.
Newspaper ad for an appearance by Theodore Bikel at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, Michigan on March 9, 1971. Later in the year, Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels” movie will be released, with Bikel cast as Rance Muhammitz. The first clip below features one of his classic scenes, and the second clip has Bikel leading the cast in the movie’s closing number.
Rance Muhammitz - 200 Motels Excerpt (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pHEc9YbIPo
Frank Zappa – Strictly Genteel (from the movie 200 Motels) (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XXpP9761-0
Alice Cooper’s third album, Love It To Death, released on March 9, 1971.
Alice Cooper – Ballad of Dwight Fry (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfqrZvKI_1g
Checking in with our fifteen-year old self:
“My mom and dad had decided it would be a good time for me to go on my first “date”, with a girl. They hatched a plan with family friends, the Fields, that on our next visit the parents and the other siblings would go an outing after they dropped off myself and their daughter Cathy at a birthday party in their neighborhood.
“They dropped us off and Cathy and I walked up the driveway to the people’s back yard, where a garage had been decorated with balloons and streamers, the large door rolled open, showing a gaggle of kids inside with the sounds of records playing but not much chatter. The birthday girl’s mom greeted us and offered cans of soda. We stood just inside the entry and surveyed the scene, the boys were lined up against one wall with the girls lined along the opposite wall. Birthday mom and a couple of other neighbor ladies were working the room from the middle trying to coax partners to dance to the music. Cathy looked at me and say, “This is stupid, our parents are going to be gone for a while, let’s go back to my house.”
“We walked the couple of blocks back to her house, Cathy went to the secret spot where they kept the key and we went inside. “Let’s go to my room”, she said, “I’ve got something to show you.” She pulled out a record album from an impressively large stack of them and handed it to me. The cover had a stark photo of some pretty-ugly guys, caught in a search light. She saw my eyes widen and said, “It’s his thumb.”
Alice Cooper – Is It My Body (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlzwX7Ddexc
A full-page Warner Bros. Records ad for the third album by Alice Cooper, released on March 9, 1971. From the Sick Things website:
The exact date is hard to work out as the album was withdrawn and reissued at least twice because of cover and label issues. It seems the accepted date is March 9th (quoted by Dennis Dunaway)
An ad for the University Inn from the March 10, 1971 issue of the student newspaper at Oakland University in Auburn Hills, Michigan that uses the center section of Gary Grimshaw’s poster for the 1969 Detroit Rock & Roll Revival.
An amazing poster/handbill by an unknown artist that cops a portion of Carl Lundgren’s 1968 poster for Lyman Woodard to use for a show at the Grande Ballroom on March 10, 1971, with Teegarden & Van Winkle, Universe, Maxx, and the ever mysterious, yet ubiquitous, Tacklebox.
An ad for the Supremes at the Elmwood Casino in in Windsor, Ontario, Canada for ten nights, March 11-20, 1971.
Poster and ad for Grand Funk in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on March 12. 1971.
Gary Grimshaw poster for Ike & Tina Turner with SRC at Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 12, 1971.
An ad for the Ike & Tina Turner Revue with SRC at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 12, 1971, and an ad for the following night at the University of Detroit.
Poster by Doug Huston, for the Grateful Dead at the Jenison Fieldhouse in East Lansing, Michigan, March 13, 1971.
Poster by an unknown artist R. Wagner, for the Grateful Dead at the Jenison Fieldhouse in East Lansing, Michigan, March 13, 1971.
Poster by Hugh Surratt, for the Grateful Dead at Jenison Fieldhouse in East Lansing, Michigan, March 13, 1971.
Newspaper ad by Hugh Surratt for the Grateful Dead at Jenison Fieldhouse in East Lansing, Michigan, March 13, 1971, re-using the snake from his poster for this show and a third poster/ad, also by Hugh Surratt.
Teaser ad that had appeared in the East Lansing, Michigan Joint Issue newspaper at the beginning of March that turned out to be for the March 13, 1971 concert.
Poster artist Hugh Surratt was a member of Pop Entertainment, which promoted concerts at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Eventually, he would become an executive in various departments at RCA Records, including artist development, creative marketing, and management, working closely with the Dave Matthews Band and others.
As we’ve seen, posters for these events were also being regularly made by Doug Huston, and with him and Surratt each making multiple versions for a particular event, this is a rich period for Lansing area rock concert posters. They also created dozens of “teaser ads”, small column-width boxes with little to no information, just to plant the seeds of anticipation, such as this series that ran in the local papers weeks before the March 13, 1971 Grateful Dead concert.
One more poster/ad for the Grateful Dead at Jenison Fieldhouse in East Lansing, Michigan, March 13, 1971, probably by Doug Huston.
On this poster/handbill for the Palladium in Birmingham, Michigan, that we find the artist signature Chad Hines, for a show on March 13, 1971, with Detroit featuring Mitch Ryder, Mutzie (misspelled), Assemblage (formerly the Stuart Avery Assemblage), and Salvage. A newspaper blurb commented that with all these musicians, “leave just enough room for an audience”.
Poster for Grand Funk Railroad with Bloodrock in Louisiana, March 13, 1971.
A somewhat passive aggressive Motown Records ad following the 13th Annual Grammy Awards held on March 16, 1971, the first, by the way, to be telecast live. Yet, up to this point, Motown had incredibly earned only two Grammys, for the Temptations’ “Cloud Nine” in 1968, and the award for Spoken Word Recording for Martin Luther King’s “Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam” album in 1970.
As Adam White points out in his West Grand Blog, the Academy’s conservatism that worked against Motown in the Sixties worked in their favor in later decades. And, of course, Stevie Wonder’s total domination of the Academy awards is just around the corner.
Here is a link to White’s excellent work in regards to all things Motown related to the Grammys:
https://www.adampwhite.com/westgrandblog/2018/11/16/motown-grammys
Handbill for Grand Funk Railroad at the Montreal Forum in Quebec, Canada on March 17, 1971.
A poster/full-page ad in The Fifth Estate newspaper for a benefit show at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, Michigan on March 17, 1971. The performing bands were Frut, Mike Quatro’s Jam Band, John Drake Shakedown, Mutzie, and UP.
Poster for Alice Cooper, Detroit featuring Mitch Ryder, and Lucky Dog at the Sherwood Forest in Davison, Michigan on March 17, 1971.
Newspaper ad for Wishbone Ash at the Eastown Theater in Detroit, Michigan, March 19-20, 1971.
Ad for an appearance by the Detroit Emeralds in Oakland, California, March 19-21, 1971. An ad that would drive researchers crazy were it not for the word “Oakland”. Detroit had a Showcase Theater, but not until 1975 when it becomes the name of the resurrected Eastown Theater, and Detroit has a Telegraph Road, nowhere near the Showcase Theater, and the Detroit Emeralds are definitely Detroit.
The Showcase in Oakland, California was one of the premier venues for the black community in the Bay Area, along with the Sportsman’s Club, also in Oakland, both were owned by basketball star Don Barksdale.
The Emeralds had just released their first album, on the Westbound Records label, this is the title track:
Detroit Emeralds – Do Me Right (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps-p0kLhHcI
Poster/handbill confirmed to be by artist Chad Hines, for the Palladium in Birmingham, Michigan, March 19, 1971. There will be a series of these, using simple geometric designs, so to keep track, we’ll dub this as the “Shaper” series. Bands were Fleetwood Mac, with local openers, Julia and Mike Quatro’s Jam Band.
In the Spring of 1971, a venue in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania called the Psyche-Dilly Lounge hosted a small parade of Michigan acts, starting with Cradle on March 19, 1971, the MC5 followed five days later on March 24th, the Amboy Dukes on April 7th, and Iggy & the Stooges on May 5th.
Second poster/handbill in the “Shaper” series by artist, Chad Hines, for the Palladium in Birmingham, Michigan, March 20, 1971. Bands were SRC, Julia, and Mike Quatro’s Jam Band.
Record company ad in the March 20. 1971 issue of Billboard magazine for “Music for the People” single by Frijid Pink, a non-album track which was the last release to feature the band’s original line-up.
Frijid Pink – Music for the People (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4jZsT2-ORk
Poster by NYC poster artist David Byrd that was offered as a promo give-away with the purchase of the “Jesus Christ Superstar” album, advertised in the March 20, 1971 issue of Billboard magazine. The image used in the full-page ad was cropped, this is the image of the full poster, which was 16 x 30 inches in size.
The album was released prior to the stage play, the album’s success led to stage productions. The album topped the U.S. Billboard Top LP's chart in both February and May 1971 and ranked number one in the year-end chart ahead of Carole King's “Tapestry”.
A full-page Atco Records ad in the March 20, 1971 issue of Billboard magazine for “One Way…Or Another”, the second album by Cactus.
Poster by “mozip” for the Four Tops in Scranton, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1971.
A show preview for the Cleveland debut of Alice Cooper, at Cyrus Erie West on March 20, 1971. The author states that she detests the single “18”. I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard when my fifteen year-old self was first “exposed” to the “Love It To Death” album in my first date’s bedroom.
Poster for Alice Cooper in Toledo, Ohio on March 21, 1971.
Poster by an unknown artist for Alice Cooper in Columbus, Ohio, March 24, 1971.
Volume Seven - 1971 - continues - HERE
An ad for Rare Earth in New Orleans on March 6, 1971.
Poster for the International Women’s Day on March 8, 1971, by Detroit Annie in the Chicago Seed newspaper.
