From The Star:

http://www.thestar.com/artsentertainment/article/216044

Five past and present Toronto residents shared memories of the Summer of Love with the Star's Raju Mudhar. He asked three questions: What is your best personal memory from that summer? What impact did that year have on your life? What do you think the utopian ideals of 1967 mean in 2007?


B.C. Fiedler

Bernie Fiedler owned the Riverboat, the city's central junction of hippie culture. He moved on to music management and concert promoting, and runs his own company.

Best personal memory: I owned the Riverboat coffee house and had persuaded Gordon Lightfoot to play my club for the entire month of January. That was big.... People lined up outside until 2 a.m. to see and hear Gordon perform.

Impact of 1967: The year started a friendship between Gordon and I that is still going strong today. 1967 also had a great impact on my career from club owner to concert promoter and later, in the early 1970s, to managing artists.

1967 vs. 2007: The summer of love was flower power, the hippie movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement. We believed we could change the world. We made the environment an issue that couldn't be avoided.

From The Star:

http://www.thestar.com/artsentertainment/article/216044

Five past and present Toronto residents shared memories of the Summer of Love with the Star's Raju Mudhar. He asked three questions: What is your best personal memory from that summer? What impact did that year have on your life? What do you think the utopian ideals of 1967 mean in 2007?


B.C. Fiedler

Bernie Fiedler owned the Riverboat, the city's central junction of hippie culture. He moved on to music management and concert promoting, and runs his own company.

Best personal memory: I owned the Riverboat coffee house and had persuaded Gordon Lightfoot to play my club for the entire month of January. That was big.... People lined up outside until 2 a.m. to see and hear Gordon perform.

Impact of 1967: The year started a friendship between Gordon and I that is still going strong today. 1967 also had a great impact on my career from club owner to concert promoter and later, in the early 1970s, to managing artists.

1967 vs. 2007: The summer of love was flower power, the hippie movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement. We believed we could change the world. We made the environment an issue that couldn't be avoided.

Thanks for the link, Annie. I read the article and there was one comment that jumped out at me: "A big integral part then was that music and life were inseparable..."

I know just how he feels.

The Toronto music/cultural scene today owes a lot to Bernie and his vision, his determination and his inate ability to know a major talent is knocking on his front door.
He's a sweet man who once told me that Lightfoot was a "sweetheart-a real sweetheart of a man"..here's to both of them all these many years later still doing their thing in a much different city than Torono was back in '67..
I certainly hope Bernie is in attendance on the 26th for the anniversary of another Toronto icon-CHUM radio. I'm getting quite hyped about it - the music I listened to on CHUM was my life as a kid..and as it was back then Lightfoot still leads the pack..

The Toronto music/cultural scene today owes a lot to Bernie and his vision, his determination and his inate ability to know a major talent is knocking on his front door.
He's a sweet man who once told me that Lightfoot was a "sweetheart-a real sweetheart of a man"..here's to both of them all these many years later still doing their thing in a much different city than Torono was back in '67..
I certainly hope Bernie is in attendance on the 26th for the anniversary of another Toronto icon-CHUM radio. I'm getting quite hyped about it - the music I listened to on CHUM was my life as a kid..and as it was back then Lightfoot still leads the pack..

That is such an important thought. Have had that feeling, and the those memories so many times. And then, there was the feeling that people were "one" and somehow "love", one day would conquer evil. Sometimes it was such a palpable feeling...such a togetherness, with all humanity.
Maybe it was due partly to the idealism and exumberance of youth. But the music of the time was inextricablely woven into the fabric of our lives.

Of course present company excepted but a great deal of the 'feelings' in 1967 had a lot to do with the type and amount of drugs everyone was 'experimenting' with. I can't remember one concert from the late 60s - early 70s where someone didn't offer me 'something', either for free or for sale. LOL

Bill :)

Oh boy! :) I meant to say "exuberance". LOL!!! ;) :) [img]tongue.gif[/img] ;) :rolleyes: :) And, the drugs I'm taking now are like Lipitor and atenolol. LOL! But, yes there certainly was that.