8. Traffic -- Traffic

9. Otis Redding Live at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go -- Otis Redding

10. Music from Big Pink -- The Band

Rock 'n' roll is the only high-quality mass art form we have today and it would be a ghastly mistake to allow it to degenerate into the middle-class art form that classical music is, or into the cliquish limited-audience music that modern jazz became. It is disturbing to see many of the best musicians in America trying to remold rock in an alien jazz and classical music inspired cast.

After this lengthy introduction I move to the delicious business of describing the Miami Pop Festival. Held for three days in late December in a gigantic race-track cum park just outside Miami the Festival unrolled smoothly. It represented in its music a cross-section of the entire rock scene today: folk (Joni Mitchell, Buffy Ste. Marie, etc.), blues (James Cotton, Butterfield), jazz (Charles Lloyd), rock, progressive rock, Motown (Marvin Gaye, Jr. Walker) and even top-40 rock (the Boxtops, the Turtles). All this in a setting of serene scenic beauty.

There were two stages far enough apart so as not to interfere with each other's music, one in a meadow dotted with trees and the other in front of the racing track's grandstand. Vast open spaces in between with enormous Pop-Artifacts strewn along the way deliberately aimed at re-creating the Pepperland atmosphere of the movie "Yellow Submarine" and in the unfettered Florida sunshine amid throngs of healthy young people (46,000 on the last day) it came as close as is possible in real life to achieving its purpose.

Performers were carefully scheduled on each stage so as not to overlap, by catering to people's different tastes (thus Steppenwolf on one stage while Joni Mitchell was playing at the other, Ian and Sylvia in the meadow while Iron Butterfly played the grandstand) though even with diligent shuttling from stage to stage I inevitably missed some performances. This kind of sensible planning on the part of the Festival organizers marked most aspects of the three day show. Facilities were thoughtfully and adequately provided: free parking, food stalls, seating, elaborate and powerful sound systems. Not to mention the whimsical diversions on the site such as a "Meditation Grove," a display of walking fish (only in Florida . . .), and a giant three-layered slide. Above all, though, there was the music.

It was entirely appropriate that the Festival started with Chuck Berry playing early on the first day and very nearly stealing the whole show with his fervent affirmation, and confirmation of the values we hold so dear in rock and roll: dynamism out of steely simplicity. Doing songs that are nearly fifteen years old, Chuck Berry, like Elvis, nearly proves that supreme rock 'n' roll is, in fact, as timeless as it so often seems when you're listening and quivering to it. "We are going to do a number that everybody (high-pitched scream) knows. An old (English accent) one." He signals and the band goes into "Maybelline" slow and easy. The shuffling guitar riffs that he bequeathed to rock, still vibrant and powerful. The voice as reedy as ever, the knee-walk as wildly right as ever.

Rainwater all over my hood

But I know its doing my motor good

Chuck Berry was so much the Jimi Hendrix rolled-into-Mick-Jagger of his times in the sense of being a demonaic force, tinged with evil and unabashed about it. When he sings "Sweet Little Sixteen," about the girl with the 'woman blues" who loves to wear "tight dresses and lipstick, high heel shoes" but then must "change and go to school," the thought that he was jailed for years for statutory rape (Rage that he was sent to jail, delight that he knows what he's singing about)

I'm drinking tea and cheese

Smoking that dynamite

I wish some fuzz would come here

and try to start a fight