1968's Sky River Rock Festival revisited

Sky River Rock Festival 

That's the opening day of the weekend Festival of the River. Groups on Friday's bill include Big Brother and the Holding Company, Canned Heat, Buffy Sainte-Marie, It's A Beautiful Day, Jesse Colin Young, The Daily Flash and Jef Jaisun. A year before the more-famous 1969 summer spree, a core group from Seattle's blossoming counterculture produced the Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair over Labor Day weekend, 1968. The site was a 40-acre organic raspberry farm on the banks of the Skykomish River, just outside Sultan. Nobody seems to agree on who actually played — though the Grateful Dead, Santana, Big Mama Thornton and comedian Richard Pryor were definitely there, and so was the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Nor does anyone seem to know how many people came, since in addition to 13,000 paying customers, thousands of others sneaked in through the brush off an adjacent country road. Recently, Seattle promoter Terry Morgan decided he wanted to pay tribute to this iconic Northwest event by bringing together some of the musicians who played there 43 years ago. The result is "Sky River Revisited," a Friday show that kicks off Arlington's free, three-day Festival of the River, sponsored by the Stillaguamish Tribe. By Paul de Barros -Seattle Times arts writer Read More