6/30/88-Relive the vibrant 1967 Monterey Pop Festival

VICTOR STREDICKE — June 30, 1988 — Super nostalgia for all you grown-up hippies: One of the pivotal events in rock-music history, the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, lives again in a three-day radio program. “The Monterey Pop Radio Concerts” will reunite contemporary music stars who remember performing at that event along with the original music, introductions and announcements, as if the concert were happening this weekend. The first three-hour segment begins at noon Saturday on KZOK, 102.5 mHz. Additional segments are noon to 3 p.m. Sunday and Monday.
If you know your who’s who of pop culture, these participating celebrities should be enough: David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Grace Slick, Eric Burdon, Booker T. Jones, John Phillips, Art Garfunkle, and even non-musicians Dennis Hopper and Harry Dean Stanton. An original festival co-director was Lou Adler. He is serving as music consultant on the radio series on behalf of the Monterey Pop Foundation. The distributing company, Radio Express, said the program has been assembled from the original tapes, recorded with the then-state-of-the art eight-track equipment. Most of the music in the series has not been heard since it was recorded.

Holiday special events

— The Country Music Association’s male and female Vocalists of the Year, Randy Travis and Reba McIntire, are featured in a three-hour music special, at 8 p.m. Sunday on KMPS-AM-FM, 1300 and 94.1. Their musical style was described as fresh, back-to-basics approach. The program, part of the Country Six Pack series, is distributed by United Stations.

— Music to watch fireworks by will be depend on your choice of pyrotechnics sites. KING-FM, 98.1, provides classical accompaniment to the Fratelli’s fireworks show over Lake Union, while KSEA, 101, is the musical backup for the Ivar’s fireworks over Elliott Bay. The Lake Union simulcast is schedule to begin shortly after 10 p.m. with “Stars and Stripes Forever,” while the Ivar’s extravaganza begins at 10:30 p.m.

— After the holiday, the APR program, “Good Evening,” with Noah Adams, will be broadcast live (but on a three-hour delay in Seattle) from the Winnipeg Folk Festival, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, at 5 p.m. July 9 on KUOW-FM, 94.9. Performers scheduled include Bonnie Raitt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Loudon Wainwright III; radio-show guests may be selected from such headliners.

Radio veteran dies

James F. (Jim) Willis, a stalwart of Seattle radio who saw numerous format changes at KIXI before retiring last year due to failing health, died Sunday. He had been with the station since 1962, the last several years as program director. Willis had been in radio most of his adult life, working as an announcer at stations in Blackfoot, Idaho, Pasco and Wenatchee before coming to the Mercer Island-based KIXI. He was 57. The station’s music format that includes big-band sound was a personal favorite. Survivors include his wife, Jerry, a daughter, Mary Bowman, and three grandsons. The family home is in West Seattle.