The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, with some anticipating that it would be a "Woodstock West". The Woodstock festival had taken place in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, almost four months earlier.
ABKCO Music & Records, Inc. is an American independent record label, music publisher, and film and video production company. It owns and/or administers the rights to music by Sam Cooke, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Herman's Hermits, Marianne Faithfull, Dishwalla, the Kinks as well as the Cameo Parkway label, which includes recordings by such artists as Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, the Orlons, the Dovells, Question Mark & the Mysterians, the Tymes and Dee Dee Sharp. Until 2009, ABKCO administered Philles Records and its master recordings, including hits by the Righteous Brothers, the Ronettes, the Crystals and others. The label is infamous for its management contracts and lawsuits by its founder Allen Klein, the latter of which persisted until his death.
Allen Klein was an American businessman whose aggressive negotiation tactics affected industry standards for compensating recording artists. He founded ABKCO Music & Records Incorporated. Klein increased profits for his musician clients by negotiating new record company contracts. He first scored monetary and contractual gains for Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen, one-hit rockabillies of the late 1950s, then parlayed his early successes into a position managing Sam Cooke, and eventually managed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones simultaneously, along with many other artists, becoming one of the most powerful individuals in the music industry during his era.
The Beatles were an English rock band, active from 1960 until 1970. From 1962 onwards, the band's members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Their break-up is attributed to numerous factors, including: the strain of the Beatlemania phenomenon, the 1967 death of manager Brian Epstein, bandmates' resentment of McCartney's perceived domineering, Lennon's heroin use and his relationship with Yoko Ono, Harrison's increasingly prolific songwriting, the floundering of Apple Corps, the Get Back project, and managerial disputes.
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is the fifth release of the Rolling Stones music by former manager Allen Klein's ABKCO Records after the band's departure from Decca and Klein. Released in 1996, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is a live album that captures the taping of their ill-fated 1968 TV special, which was not broadcast until almost three decades later.
Meredith Curly Hunter Jr. was an American man who was killed at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert. During the performance by the Rolling Stones, Hunter approached the stage, and was violently driven off by members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club who had agreed to prevent members of the audience from mounting the stage. He subsequently returned to the stage area, drew a revolver, and was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro.
Gimme Shelter is a 1970 American documentary film directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin chronicling the last weeks of The Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour which culminated in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert and the killing of Meredith Hunter. The film is named after "Gimme Shelter", the lead track from the group's 1969 album Let It Bleed. Gimme Shelter was screened out of competition as the opening film of the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
"Sweet Virginia" is a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and was the sixth song on the Rolling Stones' 1972 double album Exile on Main St. The song is a slow country-inspired composition with a saxophone solo.
Charlie Is My Darling – Ireland 1965, directed by Peter Whitehead and produced by the Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham, was the first documentary film about the Rolling Stones. It was intended as a screen test for the band, to see how their musical charisma would translate into film. The footage was shot during the band's second tour of Ireland that year, on 3 and 4 September 1965, and was finished in the spring of 1966. It was given its premiere at the Mannheim Film Festival in October 1966. But the film was never officially released, due to the legal fights between the Rolling Stones and Allen Klein and a burglary in Andrew Loog Oldham's office, which saw all prints disappear.
The Rolling Stones' 1969 Tour of the United States took place in November 1969. With Ike & Tina Turner, Terry Reid, and B.B. King as the supporting acts, rock critic Robert Christgau called it "history's first mythic rock and roll tour", while rock critic Dave Marsh wrote that the tour was "part of rock and roll legend" and one of the "benchmarks of an era." In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the tour among The 50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years.
Peter Bennett was a popular music promoter who worked with several prominent artists including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra and the Jackson 5.
"Shine a Light" is a song released by English rock band the Rolling Stones on their 1972 album Exile on Main St. about founding band member Brian Jones and was subsequently reworked and released after his 1969 death.
"All Down the Line" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, which is included on their 1972 album Exile on Main St.. Although at one point slated to be the lead single from the album, it was ultimately released as a single as the B-side of "Happy".
"Loving Cup" is a song by the Rolling Stones, which appears on their 1972 album Exile on Main St.
Sam Cutler was an English tour manager for The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, and other acts.
Ethan Allen Russell is an American photographer, author and video director, mostly of musicians. He is known as "the only rock photographer to have shot album covers for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who."
The Stones in the Park was a free outdoor festival held in Hyde Park on 5 July 1969, headlined by the Rolling Stones and featuring Third Ear Band, King Crimson, Screw, Alexis Korner's New Church, Family and the Battered Ornaments, in front of an estimated audience between 250,000 and 500,000 spectators.
Jesus East is the second album by Melbourne electronica band Black Cab, released in 2006. The album was described as "sitar-drenched, blending Indian instruments with driving rock’n’roll and country guitar stylings".
Michael "Mick" Gochanour is a Grammy Award-winning American film director, producer, composer, and entertainment executive. He is best known for his filmmaking and film restoration with The Rolling Stones, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Sam Cooke. As a sound designer, composer, and music supervisor, he specialized in nature videos for Turner Broadcast, World Wildlife Organization and the Discovery Channel. He has toured with such acts as Peter Gabriel and David Bowie, among others.
