“I never saw a frown,” recalled Tom Robbins, who wasn’t yet a famous author but was writing for The Helix, Robbins also had a radio show on KRAB-FM, “Notes From the Underground.” “Everyone was happy and smiling. It was such a utopian event. There was a feeling of freedom and sharing and loving.” The germ of Sky River was an event that had as much kinship with the provocative 1920s art movement Dada as it did with music. That was the Great Piano Drop of April 28, 1968, on Larry Van Over’s farm, where a helicopter dropped an upright piano into a field just so everyone could hear what it would sound like. “We thought if we could do a Piano Drop and get 3,000 people to come, we could probably do a festival.”
– Pat Thomas is the author of the recently released work, Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975
The Seattle Times has a nifty article about the festival with photos here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/musicnightlife/2015887006_river12.html
Here’s some video about the festival:
And here are the Grateful Dead recorded live at the festival:
