Pic one - Sporting short skirts and bare midriffs, three girls are seen dancing in a cage suspended from the ceiling at the nightclub Whiskey A Go Go, in Hollywood, Calif., on January 25, 1965. (AP Photo)
Pic two - ‘Them’ at L.A’s Whiskey-A-Go-Go May 1966. Van Morrison leader band.
Pic three - Jayne Mansfield at the Whisky a Go Go - 1964
Pic four - 1966 Photo of The Doors, 1966, California, Los Angeles, Whisky a Go Go, L-R Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison, John Densmore.
Just three days before The Beatles hit the U.S. charts with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” bringing along with them the British invasion, a musical revolution of its own began on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.
Johnny Rivers opened the famed nightspot the Whisky a Go Go 50 years ago on Jan. 15, A month later, as the Fab Four made their big splash in America on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the singer-songwriter-guitarist released his debut album, “Johnny Rivers at the Whisky à Go Go” produced by Lou Adler. It went gold.
Rivers’ route to the Whisky was an unexpected one, with some strange twists, including his refusal to play on the night of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. As it turned out, though, the performer found himself at the forefront of a new era on the Sunset Strip.
Little more than a year later, The Byrds had already taken flight, and it wasn’t long before such seminal rock groups as The Doors, The Mothers of Invention, Love, the Seeds, Buffalo Springfield and The Mamas and the Papas became part of the crazy scene. Even the Grateful Dead moved from the Bay Area for a while to play the Strip in order to secure a record label.
Within a couple of years, the 1.7-mile, then-unincorporated area that connects Hollywood and Beverly Hills had become a mecca for the 1960s counterculture. Due to a curfew imposed by local businesses to suppress the “hippies,” the Sunset Strip riots erupted on Nov. 12, 1966. The melee, which included actor/protesters Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda, inspired the Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth,” written by Stephen Stills.
That there was a crackdown was somewhat ironic, considering that the Sunset Strip always seemed to have a dual personality. Once a Native Indian trail, the area was built up in the Prohibition Era with casinos and night clubs, where the anti-liquor law wasn’t as strictly enforced as other places. Though it also became known for its high-class restaurants and hotels, over the years, the Strip has been home to gangsters, strippers and some rather nasty behavior.
The area had once been a favorite of the Rat Pack crowd, but by the late 1950s, Las Vegas had become the place to go and most of the clubs were losing business. By the time the Whisky opened, the Strip was ripe for change.
In 1963, Rivers, a young songwriter and studio musician, was in Gazzarri’s — not the night spot that would later appear on the Strip, but a small jazz club on La Cienega Boulevard.
When the owner, Bill Gazzarri, asked him to fill in while his house band was on the road, “I told him ‘I don’t think I play the kind of music you want hear,’ ” says Rivers, who is performing a concert with his friend songwriter Jimmy Webb on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of that first night at the Whisky.
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