Dave Nattress… “Let’s go to San Francisco” – for me, 14 at the time, musically awake since The Beatles and Please Please Me in 1963, this record really brought a new or renewed musical awakening and typified for me the start of Flower Power although quite a few other tracks may be able to be credited to this era as pre-dating or more important than this particular one. Then for me at least very many more great songs followed in the Summer of Love or maybe it was more than just the one Summer of Love. Great memories, some fabulous songs, peace and love and hippies and all that stuff, seemed like the world really was changing for the better…but did it in the end? Yes for some, perhaps many of us, it did change for the better and the euphoria went on for quite some long time, but then, all too soon it was time to leave school and start work and reality dawned. But….for sure it was good to be there back in the days when this song was in the charts. When I hear it I’m right back there.
Wendy Belton… Love the flower power era and especially The Flowerpot men and this song. Sadly I never got to see them when they were here though. Really wish I could go back and live those times again.
Nick Prince… This has come as quite a surprise that The Flowerpot Men even appeared live, let alone on Hastings Pier. They were to my knowledge studio and session musicians put together almost as a sideline to the Ivy League to produce a British version of the San Francisco sound of 1967 (if that is the correct description). The singers were predominantly from the South East, including Petworth and the Flowerpot Men and Ivy League were two more acts that Tony Burrows can add to his amazing CV.
Peter Fairless… The band was put together after the single, Nick – loads of info. on wiki…
Chris Fagg… used to be a little weed at their gigs – until the blue meanies turned up in a yellow submarine !
Lyn Humphrey… You’re right, Dave. For me, that record in particular brings back Flower Power and the Summer of Love like no other. The sheer exuberance of the Swinging Sixties is unmatched in any other decade.
Dave Nattress… Well Lynn you and I were both at the Downs back then – such a long, long time ago. The swinging sixties and then flower power – one leading almost unnoticed into the other? We were there maybe more as observers – a bit too young? Nevertheless the experiences of both the sixties scene and then flower power were such that we could participate to maybe a limited extent. Seemed like London was the place to be (in the UK at least). A little while later, in my case, I guess it would be 1970 – 1972 it would be visits to Kings Road, Chelsea, The Chelsea Drugstore, (a pub), Kensington Market and Canarby Street. These were the places to go. Whatever happened to my Afghan jacket bought in Ken Market – smelly old thing!