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Zabriskie Point /zəˈbrɪskiː/ is a 1970 American film by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, widely noted at the time for its setting in the counterculture of the United States in the late 1960s. Some of the film's scenes were shot on location at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley.

It was the second of three English-language films that Antonioni had been contracted to direct for producer Carlo Ponti and to be distributed by MGM. The other two were Blowup (1966) and The Passenger (1975).

Zabriskie Point was an overwhelming commercial failure and panned by most critics upon release. It has, however, achieved somewhat of a cult status and is noted for its cinematography, use of music, and direction.

Music

The soundtrack to Zabriskie Point included music from Pink Floyd, The Youngbloods, The Kaleidoscope, Jerry Garcia, Patti Page, Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones and John Fahey. Roy Orbison sang the theme song, over the credits, called "So Young".

Unused music

Richard Wright of Pink Floyd wrote a song called "The Violent Sequence" for inclusion in the film. Antonioni rejected the song because it was too subdued and instead synchronized a re-recording of the band's "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" with the film's violent ending scene. Roger Waters states in Classic Albums - Pink Floyd - Making The Dark Side Of The Moon that while Antonioni loved the song, he said it made him "feel sad". Eventually it was reworked into a new song known as "Us and Them", which was released on their album Dark Side of the Moon in 1973. "The Violent Sequence" remained unreleased until it was included on a 2011 boxed set of Dark Side of the Moon, where it was named "Us and them (Richard Wright Demo)". John Fahey was flown to Rome to record some music for the movie, but that was not used. However, a portion of his Dance of Death was used in the film. Antonioni visited the band The Doors while they were recording their album L.A. Woman and thought about putting them in the soundtrack. The Doors recorded the song "L'America" for Zabriskie Point but it was not used.


(https://en.wikipedia.org)




18 March 1970
Michelangelo Antonioni's counter-culture movie Zabriskie Point was premiered in New York.


(http://www.pinkfloyd.com)

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John Edmund Andrew Phillips (August 30, 1935 – March 18, 2001), was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter and promoter (The Monterey Pop Festival in 1967). Known as Papa John, Phillips was a member and leader of the singing group The Mamas & the Papas. He was the father of Jeffrey Phillips, Mackenzie Phillips, Chynna Phillips, Tamerlane Phillips, and Bijou Phillips.

The Mamas & the Papas

Phillips longed to have success in the music industry and traveled to New York to find a record contract in the early 1960s. His first band, The Journeymen, was a folk trio, with Scott Mckenzie and Dick Weismann. They were fairly successful, putting out 3 albums and several appearance on the 1960s TV show, Hootenanny. All three albums, as well as a "Best of the Journeymen" were reissued on CD. He developed his craft in Greenwich Village, during the American folk music revival, and met his future The Mamas & the Papas bandmates Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot there. Lyrics of their song "Creeque Alley" describe this period.

While touring California with The Journeymen, he met his future second wife, the teenage Michelle Gilliam. Their affair finally forced the dissolution of his first marriage. Phillips was married to Michelle Phillips from 1962 to 1970. They had one child together, Chynna Phillips, vocalist of the 1990s' pop trio Wilson Phillips.

His The Journeymen were the house band of the hungry i on Broadway in San Francisco for many years.

Phillips was the primary songwriter and musical arranger of The Mamas & the Papas. Early in the band's history, John and Michelle were responsible for writing most of the band's songs. John would often come up with a melody and some lyrics and Michelle would help him complete the lyrical portion of the song. After being signed to Dunhill Records, they had several Billboard Top Ten hits during the group's short lifetime, including "California Dreamin'", "Monday, Monday", "I Saw Her Again", "Creeque Alley", and "12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)". John Phillips also wrote "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)", the 1967 Scott McKenzie hit that was to become the Summer of Love anthem. Phillips also wrote the oft-covered "Me and My Uncle", which was the song performed more times than any other over 30 years of Grateful Dead concerts.

John also helped promote and played in The Monterey International Pop Music Festival held June 16 to June 18, 1967 in Monterey, California. The festival was planned in just seven weeks and was developed as a way to validate rock music as an art form in the way jazz and folk were regarded. It was the first and most important Pop-Rock event of its era.

The Phillipses became Hollywood celebrities, living in the Hollywood Hills and socializing with stars like Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and Roman Polanski. The group broke up largely because Cass Elliot wanted to go solo and because of some personal problems among Phillips, Michelle, and Denny Doherty. Michelle had been fired briefly in 1966, for having had affairs with both Gene Clark and Denny, and was replaced for two months by Jill Gibson, their producer Lou Adler's girlfriend. Although Michelle was forgiven and asked to return to the group, the personal problems would continue until the band split up in 1968. Cass Elliot went on to have a successful solo career until her death from heart failure in 1974.

Later life

Phillips released his first solo album John, the Wolf King of L.A. in 1970. The album was not commercially successful, although it did include the minor hit "Mississippi", and Phillips began to withdraw from the limelight as his use of narcotics increased.

Actress Geneviève Waïte became his third wife in 1972. The couple had two children, Tamerlane and Bijou Phillips. Reportedly, both parents were drug addicts and infidelity marked their marriage. Phillips produced a Genevieve Waite album, Romance Is On the Rise and wrote music for films. Between 1969 and 1974, Phillips and Waite worked on a script and composed over 30 songs for a space-themed musical called Man On The Moon, which was eventually produced by Andy Warhol but played for just two days in New York after receiving disastrous opening night reviews.

Phillips moved to London in 1973; Mick Jagger encouraged him to record another solo album. It was to be released on Rolling Stones Records and funded by RSR distributor Atlantic Records. Jagger and Keith Richards would produce and play on the album, as well as former Stone Mick Taylor and future Stone Ronnie Wood. The project was derailed by Phillips' increasing use of cocaine and heroin, substances that he shot into his body, by his own admission, "almost every fifteen minutes for two years".  In 2001, the tracks of the Half Stoned or The Lost Album album were released as Pay Pack & Follow a few months after Phillips' death.

In 1975 Phillips, still living in London, was commissioned to create the soundtrack to the Nicolas Roeg film The Man Who Fell to Earth, starring David Bowie. Phillips asked Mick Taylor to help out; the film was released in 1976.

In 1981 Phillips was convicted of drug trafficking; subsequently, he and his television star daughter Mackenzie Phillips made the rounds in the media, instructing kids and their parents how not to become addicts. This public relations campaign helped reduce his prison time to only a month in jail. Upon release, he re-formed The Mamas & the Papas, with Mackenzie Phillips, Spanky McFarlane (of the group Spanky and Our Gang) and Denny Doherty. Throughout the rest of his life, Phillips toured with various versions of this group.

Phillips was divorced from Waite in 1985. In 1986, his best-selling autobiography, Papa John, was published. With Terry Melcher, Mike Love and his former Journeyman colleague Scott McKenzie, he co-wrote the number 1 single for the Beach Boys, "Kokomo", which was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Song Written specifically for a Motion Picture or Television category (it lost to Phil Collins's "Two Hearts", from the film "Buster").

In the 1990s, his years of addiction led to the need for a liver transplant in 1992. Several months later, however, he was photographed drinking alcohol in a bar in Palm Springs, California, as published in the National Enquirer newspaper. Phillips was questioned about the photo on the Howard Stern radio show, and explained, "I was just trying to 'break in' the new liver".

The Mamas and the Papas were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame on Jan 12th, 1998.

John Phillips died on March 18, 2001 in Los Angeles of heart failure at the age of 65. He is interred in an outdoor crypt at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California, where he had lived with his fourth wife, Farnaz. He died just days after completing sessions for a new album. Phillips 66 was released posthumously in August 2001.

Allegations of sexual relationship with daughter

In September 2009, John's daughter Mackenzie Phillips claimed in a memoir, High on Arrival, that she and her father had a ten-year incestuous relationship. She stated that the relationship began when she was 19 years old in 1979, after Phillips raped her while they were both under the influence of heavy narcotics on the eve of her first marriage.

Phillips appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on 23 September 2009 in which she told Winfrey that her father injected her with cocaine and heroin. According to Phillips, the incestuous relationship ended when she became pregnant and did not know who had fathered the child. These doubts resulted in an abortion, which her father paid for, "and I never let him touch me again."

Genevieve Waite, John's wife at the time the abuse allegedly occurred, denied the allegations and said they were totally incongruous with his character. Michelle Phillips, John's second wife, also stated that she had "every reason to believe [Mackenzie's account is] untrue."

Chynna Phillips, Mackenzie's half-sister, stated that she believed Mackenzie's claims and that Mackenzie first told her about the relationship during a phone conversation in 1997, approximately 11 years after the supposed relationship had ended.  Bijou Phillips, Mackenzie's other half-sister, said in a statement that Mackenzie had informed her of the relationship when Bijou was 13 years old, but also stated, "I'm 29 now, I've talked to everyone who was around during that time, I've asked the hard questions. I do not believe my sister. Our father is many things, this is not one of them."  Jessica Woods, the daughter of Denny Doherty, said that her father knew of the relationship.


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

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One more woman has spoken out in reaction to Mackenzie's story. Jessica Woods is the daughter of Denny Doherty, the other male singer in the Mamas & the Papas. In an e-mail to The Oprah Show, Jessica wrote: "I just watched your show with Mackenzie Phillips. Tears are running down my face. Everything she said is true. My dad told me the awful truth. He was horrified at what John had done and knew all of it."

Mackenzie says she is not surprised that Jessica knew what had happened. "It was absolutely known by other people, but I'm telling my story. So for me to put other people on the spot to have to comment on this, it's not fair," she says. "I can count on two hands the people that could corroborate my story. But put more people in the line of fire? No."

Now that her story is out, Mackenzie says she is ready to move forward. "The outpouring of support for survivors shows me that maybe I can help be a voice. I don't know. But my path is becoming clearer to me the more clarity I get on what people are saying."


(http://www.oprah.com/)

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"Me and My Uncle", often also written "Me & My Uncle," is a song composed by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, and popularized by the Grateful Dead and Judy Collins.

Origins

John Phillips originally wrote "Me and My Uncle" at a drinking session in a hotel room with Judy Collins and Neil Young (among others) in 1963. According to Grateful Dead Lyric & Song Finder

    John often used to tell the story behind "Me and My Uncle." Years ago he began receiving publishing royalties from a song on a Judy Collins record with which he was unfamiliar. It was titled "Me and My Uncle". He called Judy to let her know of the mistake because he hadn't written any such song. She laughed and told him that about a year before, in Arizona after one of her concerts, they had a 'Tequila Night' back at the hotel with Stephen Stills, Neil Young and a few others. They were running a blank cassette and John proceeded to write "Me and My Uncle" on the spot. The next day, John woke up to the tequila sunrise with no recollection of the songwriting incident. Judy kept the cassette from that evening and then, without informing John, recorded the song for her own record. Over the years the song was recorded by several people, and eventually became a standard of the Grateful Dead. John used to joke that, little by little, with each royalty check, the memory of writing the song would come back to him.

Story

The song constitutes a story, told in retrospect by one of the characters. The Narrator and his uncle ride from southern Colorado towards western Texas. They stop in Santa Fe, where, in the heat of the day, they stop into a bar. There, they meet a group of cowboys whose poker game the narrator's uncle joins. After the Uncle plays a few successful rounds, he is accused of cheating, whereupon a gunfight breaks out with the cowboys. In the confusion, the uncle grabs the gold and the pair "high-tails it down to Mexico." Finally, either as a result of wounds received in the fight or perhaps at the hands of the narrator himself (the lyrics are not clear), the narrator, takes the gold and leaves his uncle's corpse on the side of the road.
Performances

"Me and My Uncle" was first recorded by Judy Collins at some point in 1964, and performed at The Judy Collins Concert.

It was later heard by the Grateful Dead, who adopted it as one of their standard performances. Bob Weir is reported to have learned it from Curly Jim Cook, a member of the Bay Area A.B. Skhy blues band. According to Deadbase, the Grateful Dead first played the song in late 1966. The earliest commercially released performance of it is from the Electric Theater in Chicago, on April 26, 1969, and is available on Dick's Picks Volume 26. The song continued to be performed regularly until Jerry Garcia's death and the end of the band in 1995. According to Deadbase, it was the most-played song of all in the Dead's long concert career, with 616 performances.

Since the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, the song continues to be a staple of the surviving members' performances.

"Me and My Uncle" has also been performed by Joni (Anderson) Mitchell, John Denver, Dino Valente, Mike Wilhelm, Widespread Panic, Whisky Crick, Max Creek and by John Phillips himself.


(wikiipedia)

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Judy Collins - 'Me And My Uncle'
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