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Splatt Gallery's History of Michigan Concert Posters
Volume Seven - 1971 - Page Seven
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An ad by an unknown artist for Boutique ’71, a four-day festival at the Michigan State Fairgrounds, April 29, 1971 through May 2nd.
Looks like our earlier post about the demise of The Jagged Edge after the Grand Ballroom on April 14th, was premature as here they are (misspelled) on this non-database show a couple of weeks later. Additional bands on the bill were SRC, Third Power, Mutzie, The Coming, Frut, Assemblage, Universe, Iron Horse, and Virgin Dawn.
Mystery band of this show is Heresy.
Grand Funk Railroad played two nights in Detroit, Michigan at Cobo Arena, April 29-30, 1971. This entire tour is fairly well documented with live concert recordings, this track is from the Detroit show.
Grand Funk Railroad – Inside Looking Out (live in Detroit) (4/29/71)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSEFqrX--pQ
Newspaper ad for the addition of a second night for Grand Funk Railroad at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan, April 29-30, 1971.
Poster/full-page ad for Grand Funk Railroad at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan before the second show was added, April 29-30, 1971.
A full-page Capitol Records ad for the fourth studio album by Grand Funk Railroad in the April 30, 1971 issue of the LA Free Press newspaper.
Three posters from the Fifth Estate newspaper, for a March on the Warren Truck Plant, April 30, 1971. The one on the left is by Barbara & Tom Sincavitch, and the one in the center is by David Mosley.
The front cover of the newly risen Ann Arbor SUN newspaper, Issue #1, dated April 30, 1971, with photo by David Fenton.
The Ann Arbor Sun rose again, with a new Issue #1, April 30, 1971, and finally with regular publication (until 1976). Gary Grimshaw was back on board, with the return of fan-favorite columns like Dope-O-Scope, and Rock & Roll Crusader (Rock & Roll Dope), and a new regular feature called Paper Radio.
This first issue also formally announced the new organization of the Rainbow People’s Party, with the White Panther Party formally dissolved.
Rainbow People’s Party stationary designed by Gary Grimshaw.
A new column, called “Where It’s At!” started with Issue #1 of Ann Arbor Sun April 30, 1971, finally providing the most extensive band calendar in the area. The bands that were listed on this first edition were: Alice Cooper, Amboy Dukes, Assemblage, Blue Scepter (SRC), Boone’s Farm. Brat, Brownsville Station, Catfish, Cecil, Collection, Frijid Pink, Frost, Frut, Guardian Angel, Hollow Ground, Julia, Maxx, Mitch Ryder & Detroit Wheels, MC5, Ormandy, Plain Brown Wrapper, Rumor, Siegal-Schwall, Silver Hawk, Springwell, Stooges, Sunday Funnies, Swallow, Tea, Teegarden & Van Winkle, Third Power, Toby Redd, Universe, Up, Virgin Dawn, Werks, and Whiz Kids.
Gary Grimshaw's Nation symbol in the April 30, 1971 issue of The Ann Arbor Sun newspaper.
The first issue of what would finally become the regular publication for the next five-and-a-half years was published on April 30, 1971, with the logo masthead designed by Gary Grimshaw.
Here are the covers for all forty-nine issues of the Sun-Ray, the Sun, the Warren Forest Sun, the Ann Arbor Sun, and Sun/Dance that were published in the three-and-a-half years from April 1967 up through October 1970. When the first issue of the reborn Ann Arbor Sun was published on April 30, 1971, it had a history behind it that started with the Belle Isle Love-In in Detroit, Michigan on April 30, 1967.
The first two issues were published nearly simultaneously, with the Sun-Ray intended for free distribution at the Love-In, both issues featured outstanding Gary Grimshaw posters as front and back covers. The first three issues, all dated April 1967, were jam-packed with art by Grimshaw and also Jerry Yonkins. The first two issues were each 15 pages long, Issue #3 went up to 19 pages, and nearly every single page was a work of art.
The funds for such lavish publications must have dried up, as the next four issues were reduced to mimeographs, a four-pager with the “R&R Crusader” take in the local music scene, a full-page catalog of the Artist Workshop Press, and a full-page Grimshaw poster for a benefit dance for the Sun at the Hai-Ku Coffeehouse in Detroit. This was followed by a two-pager that detailed Grimshaw’s “kite incident” with the Detroit Police. A twenty-page issue was published in September 1967, that although still just a mimeograph, had a Grimshaw cover and some interior art.
After a period of inactivity, the publication returned to the newspaper format, with the March 1968 issue, which was also the first to be titled the Warren Forest Sun. The back cover was a full-page color print of Grimshaw’s poster for The Who at the Grande Ballroom. The next two issues also had Grimshaw Grande posters as the back cover, but it all came to an abrupt end in May 1968.
Two months later, the Sun reappeared as a text-only mimeograph and the address for Trans-Love Energies was now on Hill Street in Ann Arbor. It continued in this minimalist format for the next fourteen months, until September 1969, cranking out thirty “issues”, often only a two-sided, single-sheet to announce a free concert, or some call to arms.
A smattering of art sometimes appeared, a couple by Grimshaw, and also some by Victor and Detroit Annie. They were reduced to serving as paper stock for printing event flyers. During this run, issues sometimes reverted back to the Warren Forest Sun title, and with John Sinclair’s incarceration in July 1969, Trans-Love Energies morphed into the White Panther Party.
A strange, out-of-place issue of the Warren Forest Sun appeared in early 1970, by a group unaffiliated with Trans-Love, or the White Panthers. There appears to have been only the one issue.
The ambitious, 40-page, seven-color SUN/Dance was published in July 1970, intended to become a national newspaper, as we chronicled earlier. The second, and final, SUN/DANCE was published in October 1970. In between the two SUN/DANCE’s, there were a final six small issues, the last three titled as the Ann Arbor Sun.
“Survival of the Fittest”, the fifth album by the Amboy Dukes, and the first to be billed as Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes, was released in April 1971. It was a live album that had been recorded at the Eastown Theater in Detroit, Michigan on July 31 – August 1, 1970. The back cover featured a nice collage by Vita P. Solomon, who was the mother of the Duke’s keyboardist and vocalist Andy Solomon.
Vita P. Solomon is a highly regarded, multiple award winning illustrator and art teacher in her native state of Pennsylvania. Her illustrations of notable Pennsylvanians such as Governors, Judges, college Deans, and other dignitaries hang in prestigious locations such as the state capitol, courthouses, universities and institutes, and of course, museums throughout the state. Her commissioned portrait of author Pearl Buck is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.
Vita also had a son named Andy who made his way to Ann Arbor, Michigan where he joined a band called The Apostles as a keyboardist and vocalist. He joined the Amboy Dukes in 1967, replacing keyboardist Rick Lober, before the recording of the band’s second album “Journey to the Center of the Mind”, and he remained with them for three more albums, up through the live album “Survival of the Fittest”, recorded at the Eastown Theater in Detroit in the summer of 1970.
Vita Solomon created the collage art portrait of the band on the back cover of that album. And apparently, she had previously illustrated her son’s band when they performed at the Fillmore East in New York City in September 1968. There was series of five drawings in the set, we managed to get our hands on three of them, the one shown above and the other two in the comments below.
One of Andy Solomon’s highlights while with the Amboy Dukes, was the spot-on vocals that he contributed to a cover version of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers’ doo-wop classic, “I’m Not A Juvenile Delinquent” that appeared on the third Amboy Dukes’ album “Migration”. After leaving the Dukes, Solomon released a full album of cover tunes along with Dukes’ ex-drummer Dave Palmer, under the name Godfrey Daniel in 1972.
The Amboy Dukes – I’m Not A Juvenile Delinquent (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UddWOQaeUU
The second from the series of five portraits of the Amboy Dukes at the Fillmore East by Vita P. Solomon.
The third in the series of five portraits of the Amboy Dukes at the Fillmore East by Vita P. Solomon, unfortunately we do not have images of the fourth and fifth portraits.
This block of photos captioned “THE FOUR MEN who make up the Alice Cooper rock-music group” appeared above a show preview in the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper on the day of the show in St. Louis, April 30, 1971. Think they are missing guitarist Michael Bruce. This error lives on, the main photo on the Wiki page for “Alice Cooper (band)” is a live shot from the 1972 Killer tour and it is captioned “All four members live in concert”. Michael Bruce is out of the shot, but you can see the complete neck of his guitar poking into the frame stage left.
This show is also notable for an all-Michigan line-up, with the Amboy Dukes, Brownsville Station, and the Mike Quatro Jam Band in addition to Alice Cooper.
Illustration for Mr. Flood’s Party in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 30, 1971, possibly by John Copely who will later form the design team Crow Quill with Zeke Mallory in 1973.
The cover of the May 1971 issue of CREEM magazine with the artwork by Joel Nank from Frut’s “Keep On Truckin’” album which had been released in the summer of 1970. The issue carried a ten-page story on the band. The issue also featured an eight page story on the Velvet Underground by Lester Bangs, not yet a member of the staff.
A full-page ad by Gary Grimshaw for Morgan Sound Theater recording studio in Ypsilanti, Michigan in the May 1971 issue of CREEM magazine. Built by and for the band SRC, the head engineer was Brian Dombrowski, founder of the Wheel’s 4 Record label at his Dearborn, Michigan studio in 1965, and the studio contact was Peter Andrews, the Ann Arbor promoter later associated with the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz festivals. The most widely known recording to come out of Morgan may be the bootleg “Michigan Rehearsals” recorded in 1973 by Iggy & the Stooges.
Illustration by Francois Robert for a story by John Mendelsohn titled “Judy Garland is dead but the memory of Brian Jones lives on in all of us” in the May 1971 issue of CREEM magazine. Robert had created the front cover art for the previous issue of CREEM, a modern-day George Washington of a one-dollar bill for the feature story “Das Hip Kapital”. Mendelsohn also had a regular feature in the magazine called “We Are Normal and We Want Our Freedom”.
A photo of staff writer Dave Marsh in the May 1971 issue of CREEM magazine and a photo of Question Mark for Marsh’s review of the Mysterians’ recent show at Sherwood Forest. Both photos by Charles Auringer.
An ad for the “Love It To Death” album by Alice Cooper in the May 1971 issue of CREEM magazine.
A Westbound Records ad for the sole album by Assemblage in the May 1971 issue of CREEM magazine.
A Rare Earth record company ad in the May 1, 1971 issue of Billboard magazine for the first single by Stoney & Meat Loaf, Stoney was, of course, Shaun Murphy, previously with the “version two” of the Detroit band Wilson Mower Pursuit, and Meat Loaf, was from the Saginaw. Michigan bands Popcorn Blizzard and Floating Circus. The pair met when they became fellow castmates in the Detroit production of the musical “Hair”, and Motown Records offered them a record as a duo. Motown producers selected the tracks and provided the instrumentation of the Funk Brothers and Scorpion.
Unfortunately we couldn’t get the better image which shows the collection of the small ads that had run in the magazine as teasers in the weeks before, but here is a sampling of what they say:
“It takes two ears to handle this whopper”
“Plumps when they’re cooking”
“Get on the chart watchers diet”
“US Prime Choice, Grade A, Govt. Insp.”,
“It’s going to be #UN”
“Out to launch”
The main poster added “407 Pounds of Total Dynamite”, and “…will carry a lot of weight on the charts”, all of which give you the impression that Motown thought that fat-shaming was a hilarious marketing tool, incidentally, the lead-off track on the album was “(I’d Love To Be) As Heavy As Jesus”.
Stoney & Meat Loaf – What You See Is What You Get (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpnubtN2ZnY
Poster/flyer by an unknown artist for Charlie Musslewhite with Teegarden & Van Winkle and Dhobie’s Itch at the Factorie Ballroom in Waterford, Michigan, May 1, 1971.
Poster/flyer for Alice Cooper with Brownsville Station in Struthers, Ohio, May 1, 1971. Also on the bill was Biggy Rat, and the Velvet Underground.
The 1971 May Day Protests brought an estimated crowd of 35,000 to Washington DC to listen to speakers and rock bands, including Mitch Ryder pictured above, in protest of the Vietnam War.
On the second day, President Richard Nixon canceled the protestors permits and launched “Operation Garden Plot”, a government plan to respond to large domestic civil disturbances, which saw federal troops secure the major intersections and bridges while police made massive arrest sweeps. Over 12,000 people were arrested, making it the largest mass arrest in US history.
Ad by Asterisk Associates for Blood, Sweat & Tears at the Civic Center in Lansing, Michigan, May 2, 1971.
Poster/flyer by Dennis Preston for Blood, Sweat & Tears at the Civic Center in Lansing, Michigan, May 2, 1971.
A poster/ad by distributor Pie International hinting about the upcoming UK tour by Funkadelic which kicked off on May 4, 1971, and pitching the first single from their upcoming third album “Maggot Brain”.
Two posters for Funkadelic’s first UK tour, with eighteen shows from May 4, 1971 through May 23rd.
A poster/ad with the release of Funkadelic’s second album and their first UK tour, that lists 15 shows, from May 4-23, 1971. A show planned at the Royal Albert Hall in London was cancelled when the venue’s manager, Marion Herrod, a notorious prude who had also banned Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention and Mott the Hoople, freaked out over the photo of the naked woman on the cover of the album “Free Your Mind … And Your Ass Will Follow”. The band made a point of visiting the Royal Albert Hall, accompanied by a hired donkey who took a dump on the steps.
Some shows listed on this one are not listed on the other tour poster. Between the two of them, plus concerts fandom Wiki, there are 20 shows. To try and sort out the confusion, here are the list of shows from both sources, with the unwieldy British venue names:
May 4 – Wintergardens, Cleethorpes (for Grimsby College of Tech)
May 5 – Speakeasy, London
May 7 – Civic Center, Coventry (Early show)
May 7 - Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry and Kinetic Circus, Birmingham
May 8 – The Lincoln Festival (Lincoln Race Course)
May 9 – Roundhouse, Chalk Farm
May 10 – Cooks Ferry Inn, Edmington
May 12 – Assembly Rooms, Tunbridge Wells
May 13 – Locarno, Leeds – or - Kinetic Circus, Birmingham
May 14 – Liverpool Polytechnic
May 15 – Kirklevington Country Club
May 16 – Blisworth Hotel, Northampton
May 17 – Quaintways, Chester
May 18 – Fox At The Starlight, Crawley
May 19 – Country Club, Haverstock Hill, N.W.3
May 20 – Kursel B/R, Southend
May 21 – University Cardiff
May 22 – Village Roundhouse, Dagenham
May 22 – Temple Club, Wardour St, London
May 23 – The Fox at the Greyhound, Croydon
We will try to assemble them here, rather than in the true chronology of this document.
An ad from Rolling Stone magazine that lists 18 shows for the Funkadelic UK tour, with two as “TBA”, and lists May 7th as “Devizes Corn Exchange”, and a second ad that lists ten shows and has a band photo.
A sweet Globe Poster for Funkadelic and Parliament at a “Civic Center” on “Friday May 7”, which is a source of confusion.
The date May 7th occurs on a Friday in 1971, which is the date that Funkadelic appeared at the Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry and Kinetic Circus in Birmingham, England, May 7, 1971, the third show of the 20 show UK tour.
The concerts fandom Wiki resolves this by listing two shows on May 7th, an “early show” at Civic Center, Coventry, ENG and a “late show” at Kinetic Circus, Birmingham, ENG. Adding this information to the list above now creates 20 shows.
An ad for Funkadelic at the Kinetic Circus in Birmingham, England, the “late nighter” on May 7, 1971, the second show for that day and the fourth show of the 20-show first UK tour.
Poster for Funkadelic at the Lincoln Arts Festival in Lincoln, England, May 8, 1971, the fifth of the 20 UK shows. Also on the bill were John Lee Hooker’s adopted band for his UK shows, the Groundhogs, Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come, Tea & Symphony, Dog that bit people, Hannibal, Indian Summer, and Scapa Flow.
Eye witness accounts of this show in our next post.
Here are some eye witness accounts of Funkadelic at Lincoln Arts Festival in the UK, May 8, 1971:
“I have good reason to remember this one day festival as it was the first gig I ever went to. Funkadelic definitely headlined and, if my memory serves me correctly, they got to the stage by making their way through the audience and they were all wearing nothing but nappies!”
“Funkadelic certainly played at Lincoln Racecourse. I remember them as very loud and some, not all wearing very little clothing and during one number with the chorus, 'I call my baby pussy - P - U - S - S - Y' gyrating very provocatively which may have been the reason why at midnight, the police came in - in force- and closed proceedings.”
“Great day, music not up to much-2nd and 3rd level bands, y'know, one album on Harvest and then back to working for the Trent Water Authority as a clerk. However....Funkadelic were something completely else. I'm still recovering 38 years later.”
A pair of poster/ads for Funkadelic at the Roundhouse Chalk Farm on May 9, 1971, the sixth of the 20 UK shows.
Poster for the Country Clubb in London, England, with a show by Funkadelic on May 19, 1971, the fifteenth show of the 20-show first UK tour.
An ad for Funkadelic at The Fox at the Temple Club in London on May 22, 1971, the 19th show of the 20-show first UK tour.
An ad for Funkadelic at The Fox at the Greyhound, Croydon on May 23, 1971, the final show of the 20-show first UK tour.
A collection of ads, posters, and news coverage of Funkadelic’s first UK tour, May 4-23, 1971.
Newspaper ad for Alice Cooper at the Town Hall in New York, New York on May 6, 1971.
Gary Grimshaw full-page newsprint ad and poster for the Union Ballroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 7, 1971. Bands were UP, Guardian Angel, and Brat.
The front cover of the May 7, 1971 issue of the Ann Arbor SUN newspaper with photo of Mitch Ryder at the May Day protest in Washington DC.
Gary Grimshaw cartoon illustration from the May 7, 1971 issue of the Ann Arbor SUN newspaper.
Joe Giacalone cartoon from the May 7, 1971 issue of the Ann Arbor SUN newspaper imagining John Sinclair’s life in prison.
Volume Seven - 1971 - continues - HERE
Poster by Randy Tuten for the two shows at the Winterland with Cactus opening for Ten Years on April 30, 1971, and on the following day, May 1st.
