Sonny Bono
Laugh At Me
Atco
Trippers Strippers Hips Or Squares
Divide The Line And Tell Me Where
July 2007
Riot On Sunset Strip:
Rock'N'Roll's Last Stand In Hollywood
by Domenic Priore
Sonny & Cher
Saturday 10 December 1966
Sonny wears a CAFF armband
(Community Action for
Facts and Freedom)
"Where are the kids gonna go?
Hang out on the streets, go home
and get drunk or something with their parents?
No. But they've got to show
some form of expression,
something that they can say, well,
this is what's happening now."
"It's history.
Because like, maybe forty years ago
kids would have never done this, you know?
They would have never started rebelling for their own rights.
Because they are people and they are right."
"Beautiful. It was beautiful. It was . . . great.
I mean, you know, if there's nothing good
on the Saturday night movies, you can't beat it.
Nothing like a good clean cut riot."
PEOPLE OF THE SUNSET STRIP:
11250 Sunset Symphony 3:18
(The actual occurrence of the demonstration
on the Sunset Strip November 1966)
Produced by Sonny Bono & Bill Friedkin
No Publisher(s) Credited
SONNY'S GROUP:
11251 Trippin' 2:55
(Bono)
Instrumental
Produced by Sonny Bono
Arranged by Harold Battiste
Chris – Marc – Cotillion BMI
Masters assigned Thursday, 1 December 1966
Recorded Gold Star, Hollywood
~ Atco single 45-6458
Monarch Pressing
Delta Numbers
64700 / 64700 – X
THE BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD:
11252 For What It's Worth
(Stop, Hey What's That Sound) 2:37
Words And Music Registered With
The Library Of Congress Copyright Office
5 December 1966
11253 Do I Have To Come
Right Out And Say It 3:00
Masters assigned Monday, 5 December 1966
Recorded Columbia Studios, LA
~ Atco single 45-6459
Billboard review 31 December 1966
Monarch Pressing
Delta Numbers
64813 / 64814
Cash Box
Week ending 17 December 1966
The Niagara, which threatens to make this December the wettest in L.A.’s history, dampened the gush of teenage dissenters along the strip last weekend. But another deluge has engulfed the town -- a profluence of protest disks involving the Sunset rebellion. First to arrive was "S.O.S." by Terry Randall on Valiant, an unsophisticated blues styled ditty set to a repetitious but nevertheless provocative Morse code cry for deliverance. Sonny Bono’s "Sunset Symphony" (which will be released on Atco) is in the form of a documentary backed by the dissonance of stroboscopic sound. And latest release is by the Buffalo Springfield, composed by lead singer Steve Stills, last Wednesday [30 November], waxed at 4:00am on Thursday [1 December] and delivered to local stations on Friday [2 December].
"There's no way of stifling it.
It's just a new generation.
This is the way they want to live, you know?
They think we're all a bunch of squares
and we just have to realize it.
They want to be together.
That's the whole point.
They want to be together."
"You just can’t stand on the street for no reason, you know.
I mean, if you do, then you have this mess.
What are you gonna do, let this go on and on?
This is ridiculous.
Are you gonna spank their hands
or take away their library cards away from them?"
TRIPPIN'
on back cover of
1967 Dutch sheet music folio
Front cover of
1967 Dutch sheet music folio
Los Angeles Times
Thursday 15 December 1966
OUT OF PARADE
SONNY, CHER GET THE AIR --
NO FLOAT FOR LONG HAIR PAIR
The Monterey Park City Council wants to make it crystal clear:
Pasadena's famed Colorado Blvd is no Sunset Strip.
The council has voted 3 to 2 to recommend removal of folk-rock singers Sonny and Cher from the Monterey Park [Golden Trails] float in the New Year's Day Rose Parade.
Councilman Rod Irvine said he introduced the motion after seeing a newspaper photo of the long-haired team attending a Sunset Blvd demonstration Saturday night [10 December 1966]. 'I didn't want this sort of image representing Monterey Park,' explained Irvine, a grocery store manager.
Apparently the Monterey Park parade committee didn't either. They quickly acted on the council's request and hired someone who would present a better Monterey Park image - cowboy singer Buck Owens.
Owens reportedly did not attend the Sunset Blvd demonstration.
Los Angeles Times
Friday 16 December 1966
'NOT MAD' OVER FLOAT BAN
SONNY AND CHER GIVE THEIR SIDE OF STORY
The flip side of Monterey Park's Rose Parade float controversy was aired Thursday when folk-rock singers Sonny and Cher, banned from the float earlier this week, held a press conference at the Beverly Wilshire.
'I'm not mad because this is not a thing to get mad about,' said Sonny. 'I admit at first we were somewhat hurt, shocked and a little upset. They never even gave us the courtesy of notifying us personally. I heard it on the news.'
'Apparently they didn't think we had clean hands or something,' said Sonny. 'They must be very insecure men to feel it necessary to reject us and clean their own hands.'
Although the wildly dressed couple have been snubbed before. 'We've been accepted by The Pope, Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Margaret,' he added.
'We dress neat and clean. We take great pains in our dress,' he said. Sonny, like his wife beside him, wore a wine colored suede suit with orange flowered vest.
Sonny and Cher denied taking part in a demonstration at Pandora's Box Saturday night.
'They saw I was there and I told them to be peaceful, that's all. There were ministers there and other adults,' Sonny said.
Los Angeles Times
Friday 16 December 1966
HOW PAIR WON, LOST FLOAT RIDE
SONNY AND CHER CHOSEN FROM OFFICIAL LIST, OUSTED FOR IMAGE
by Bob Diebold, Staff Writer
NME 24 December 1966
HOLLYWOOD
by Tracy Thomas
Sonny and Cher, who have done nothing but preach love for everyone, are the latest victims of the Sunset Strip unrest. They had been set as the first pop performers to ride on a float in the world-famous, nationally televised annual New Year's Day Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, California.
Then a photo of the two taken Saturday night on the Strip (where there was first a meeting, then later another gory holocaust) appeared here describing them as 'on hand and observing the action.'
The city on whose float they were to ride later voted them off as 'not the proper type of people to participate in the event.'
Sonny told me, 'I only feel sorry for those who voted against us. We had heard about the Strip situation and just wanted to see for ourselves before we formed any conclusions.'
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday 3 January 1967
STARS' ABSENCE FAILS TO DIM PARADE LUSTER
by Ronald Einstoss, Staff Writer
Many television and movie personalities rode floats Monday in the Rose Parade but two of the brightest stars expected to ride the five and a half mile route were missing.
Comedian Jerry Lewis was to have been on the Farmers Insurance Group's 'Around The World In 80 Days' float but a last minute professional commitment forced him to cancel.
However that entry was not without its celebrities; it still carried recording artists Sonny and Cher and actor Allan Hale of the Gilligan's Island series.
Sonny and Cher were to have ridden on the city of Monterey Park's float but were cancelled out after their pictures appeared in newspapers during a Sunset Strip demonstration.
Los Angeles Times
August 5, 2007
Club's Closing Ignited 'Riots' on the Sunset Strip
Young rock fans take to the streets after the shuttering of Pandora's Box in 1966.
The unrest inspired Stephen Stills' landmark anthem.
by Cecilia Rasmussen, Times Staff Writer
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
— "For What It's Worth" - Stephen Stills
Gangsters, nightclubs and rock 'n' roll make up much of the Sunset Strip's colorful history — along with a little-remembered tussle in 1966 that became known as "the Sunset Strip riots."
The melee erupted as young rock fans were protesting efforts to enforce a 10 p.m. curfew and to close nightclubs that catered to them — including Pandora's Box, at the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights boulevards.
The confrontation with police also inspired musician Stephen Stills to write "For What It's Worth," released two months later by Stills and the band he was in, Buffalo Springfield.
"Riot is a ridiculous name," he said in an interview. "It was a funeral for Pandora's Box. But it looked like a revolution."
The club, painted purple and gold, was perched on a triangular traffic island in the middle of the Strip. It drew a crowd of mostly clean-cut teenagers and twenty somethings wearing pullover sweaters and miniskirts.
Ensuing traffic jams annoyed residents and business owners, who pressured the city and county to get rid of the kids, the clubs and the congestion.
It's unclear from Times files whether Pandora's Box or other clubs had been closed by the time the protests began. But young rock fans interpreted efforts to enforce curfew and loitering laws as an infringement on their civil rights.
On Nov. 12, 1966, fliers were distributed along the Strip inviting people to demonstrate. And hours before the protest, "One of L.A's rock 'n' roll radio stations made an announcement that there would be a rally at Pandora's Box and cautioned people to tread carefully," wrote Domenic Priore, author of the 2007 book "Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood."
As many as 1,000 people turned out, along with such celebrities as Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda.
"[Nicholson] just showed up to see what was happening," said lifelong Sunset Strip denizen and Hollywood historian Marc Wanamaker. Wanamaker played drums in a band called Mike and the Mad Men, which sometimes performed at Pandora's Box, and was there that night as an observer.
"Everyone called them hippies just because some had long hair," Wanamaker said. "But they weren't the flower-power types from San Francisco, just rock 'n' roll fans, mostly students."
The event began peacefully. Protesters sat on the Strip blocking traffic, holding hands and singing. Trouble began when a car full of off-duty Marines got into a fender-bender. The Marines got out of their car and at least one punched the driver of the other car, The Times reported. Fighting spread.
Police and sheriffs' deputies closed off part of the Strip and ordered everyone to leave, but some protesters ran amok.
They rocked a city bus until passengers and the driver got out. Then they knocked out the windows, dented the roof with an uprooted street sign and let the air out of the tires.
One youth tried unsuccessfully to drop lighted matches into the fuel tank, The Times reported. He was booked for attempted arson.
Protesters hurled rocks and bottles and smashed storefront windows and car windshields. Fonda, son of actor Henry Fonda, was handcuffed.
But when he said he was merely filming the melee, he was released without charges.
The unrest continued the next night and off and on throughout November and December. Some clubs shut down within weeks.
"These kids weren't looking for trouble; they were simply going out to see their favorite bands and hang out with friends," Priore wrote.
Demonstrators carried signs that read, "We're Your Children! Don't Destroy Us" and "Ban the Billyclub." Mayor Sam Yorty showed up and invited the protesters to City Hall. Los Angeles County Supervisor Ernest Debs called the youths "misguided hoodlums."
Sonny and Cher, who got their start on the Strip as Caesar and Cleo, made an appearance in front of Pandora's Box in December.
The ensuing publicity got them kicked off the Rose Parade float they were supposed to ride two weeks later. The float sponsor, the City of Monterey Park, figured this was not the image it wanted to show the world.
"I admit at first we were somewhat hurt, shocked and a little upset," Sonny Bono said at a news conference after the duo was bumped. "They never even gave us the courtesy of notifying us personally. I heard it on the news."
Bono denied being part of the protest. "[The demonstrators] saw I was there and I told them to be peaceful, that's all," he said.
On Christmas Day, Pandora's Box reopened for one night only, according to Priore. There, Stills first publicly performed "For What It's Worth."
The Los Angeles City Council condemned Pandora's Box, claiming that it had to be demolished to realign the streets.
On Aug. 3, 1967, a wrecking ball turned Pandora's into rubble. "Hippies Pout, Politicians Cheer," The Times reported.
No sign of the triangle occupied by Pandora's remains today; it was eliminated by the street rerouting.
As for Stills' song, many fans saw it as an antiwar anthem, but he says that was only part of the equation.
"It was really four different things intertwined, including the war and the absurdity of what was happening on the Strip," he said in the interview. "But I knew I had to skedaddle and headed back to Topanga, where I wrote my song in about 15 minutes. For me, there was no riot. It was basically a cop dance."
Highs In The Mid-Sixties
Volume Two - L.A. '66
Riot On Sunset Strip
(A.I.P. AIP 10004) 1983
01. People Of [The] Sunset Strip
Sunset Symphony
02. Terry Randall - S.O.S.
03. The Sandals
Tell Us Dylan
04. The Chymes
He's Not There Anymore
05. The Bees
Trip To New Orleans
06. The Roosters
One Of These Days
07. Tangents:
Hey Joe,
Where You Gonna Go?
08. Ken & The Fourth
Dimension:
Rovin' Heart
(or 'See If I Care')
09. The W.C. Fields
Memorial Electric String
Band:
I'm Not Your
Stepping Stone
10. The Satans
Lines And Squares
11. The Dirty Shames
I Don't Care
12. The No-Na-Mees
Gotta Hold On
13. Opus 1
Back Seat '38 Dodge
14. The Second Helping
Let Me In
15. The Grim Reepers
Two Souls
16. The Nite Walkers
High Class
