"The festival did not have countercultural magma"

PalmaWith the name Take Off To The Scene of Scenes. First World Festival of Jazz and Popular Music, from July 22 to 27, 1968, the Palma bullring was to be the stage for top-level artists as well. On the bill were The Byrds, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Françoise Hardy, Georgie Fame, Gilbert Becaud, Donovan, Bill Evans Trio, The Count Basie Orchestra, Sandie Shaw, Scott Walker and The Tremeloes, although Scott McKenzie, The Incredible String Band, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Aznavour, Tom Jones and Ray Charles were also announced.

“I don't think it would have been a Woodstock for three reasons: it was planned to be held in an enclosed space; there was an intent for tourist promotion that festivals like Woodstock did not have; and there was no countercultural magma in its approach. I do think, however, that it would have been a predecessor to the festivals as we know them today because of its eclectic component,” argues historian Tomeu Canyelles.

“It was a bluff, unviable with all those artists. With the crowd that was at Woodstock, here there wasn't a tenth of the people to fill a bullring,” recalls journalist Miquel Vives.

An era

Although that festival failed and, on those same dates, the Jimi Hendrix concert was the only one that arrived, some of the names that appeared on the poster had already been to Mallorca.

“The Animals had already performed in Palma. In fact, Eric Burdon would later be the headliner of the 1980 Can Picafort Rock. Françoise Hardy had performed at Tito’s in 1964 and Gilbert Becaud was a regular at the Palma venues since the end of the fifties. The Tremeloes performed in the first season of Barbarela in 1969 and Julie Felix, at the festival that this nightclub organized the following year. Tom Jones performed several times in Mallorca: the first, in 1966. Lulu performed in Palma, at Tagomago and Tito’s, in 1968 and 1969. And Donovan would come to Mallorca many years later. Many of the incidental protagonists of the poster passed through Mallorca those years”, explains Canyelles.

“Jimi Hendrix was a very introverted guy, he didn’t talk much, at least with people he didn’t know, of course”, says Llorenç Santamaria. The person he did have contact with was Noel Redding. “He was a good guitarist, although he played the bass with him. We did many jams at the Haima, in Cala Major” –also owned by Jeffery. “The Z-66 played there for a week or two before inaugurating the Sgt. Peppers. Every night, Redding came with the guitarist from The Flower Pot Men and played with us”, recalls the singer.

About Redding, Vives also remembers: “I made friends with him. He said he wanted to see the station and one day I was doing radio and they called me live and told me there was an English musician. He sat beside me while I was doing the program, without saying a word, and then he left. The next day he returned. He came every day for a week. At the radio they told me: ‘The mute guy is here already’”.