'Summer Of Love' 40th Anniversary Celebration Gets Underway With Releases From Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and The Remains

The Summer Of Love that brought Sgt. Pepper, "White Rabbit," "Brown Eyed Girl," "Up, Up and Away," "Ode to Billie Joe," Monterey Pop, and other musical touchstones is approaching its 40th anniversary. With commemorations in the works at nearly every media outlet, Legacy Recordings, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, is letting its freak flag fly with a campaign in celebration of an era that changed the world.

  (Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060130/LEGACYLOGO )
  Three brand new titles are set to arrive in stores on May 15th.

Sweeping Up the Spotlight: Jefferson Airplane Live at the Fillmore East 1969 (RCA/Legacy) was recorded in November, the same month the band's landmark Volunteers was released. This previously unissued 61-minute set finds the classic lineup at their peak, performing a great set list ("Volunteers," "Good Shepherd," "Plastic Fantastic Lover," "The Ballad Of You & Me & Pooneil," "White Rabbit," much more), plus several songs not found on any JA albums. The package includes introductory liner notes by band member Jorma Kaukonen.

Listen My Friends! The Best of Moby Grape (Columbia/Legacy) is Moby Grape's first new anthology in 14 years, and it's the perfect 20-song overview of this first generation San Francisco band, from their four highly-prized Columbia albums of 1967-'69, with two well-chosen rarities (one of them previously unissued). The package includes an introduction by David Fricke of Rolling Stone and a 1,200-word liner notes essay by Santa Clara-based writer Jud Cost;

The Remains (Epic/Legacy) is the first new look (in 16 years!) at the beloved Boston band who opened the Beatles' final tour in the summer of '66, opening with the 10 songs of their one-and-only LP (in stereo, with "Diddy Wah Diddy," "Heart," "Lonely Week-End," and the all-time nugget "Don't Look Back"), followed by the other 10 songs they cut for CBS in '65-66 (on CD in stereo for the first time), topped of with an introduction by vocalist/guitarist Barry Tashian and a 1,200-word liner notes essay by Jeff Jarema.

It was the best of summers, it was the worst of summers - but one thing for sure, it was a summer that no one ever forgot. As U.S. troop strength in Southeast Asia surpassed a half-million and Surveyor spacecrafts touched down on the moon - the first Be-Ins took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities. Against a backdrop of psychedelia, free love and acid rock, whose cheerleaders urged everyone to "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out," 1967s' Summer Of Love collided with The Long Hot Summer - and all hell broke loose. A year later, the Rolling Stones put it into words: "But what can a poor boy do, except to sing for a rock and roll band?"

The same parks that hosted anti-war rallies in the spring of '67 were the sites of Be-Ins that went on all summer, even while some of the worst race riots in U.S. history were taking place on the streets of Newark, Detroit and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The soundtrack of the summer - "All You Need Is Love," "Light My Fire," "Respect," "Let's Live For Today," "Cold Sweat," "Funky Broadway," "San Francisco (Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)," "A Whiter Shade Of Pale," "Groovin'," "Windy," "Somebody To Love," "Baby I Love You," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Reflections," "The Letter" - was as chaotic as the events themselves.

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SOURCE: Legacy Recordings

CONTACT: Tom Cording of Legacy Media Relations, +1-212-833-4448,
Tom.Cording@sonybmg.com

Web site: http://www.legacyrecordings.com/