Vietnam War Music

A Vietnam War rarity: The Avengers live at Ali Baba's Cavern, Wellington, New Zealand, 19 November 1968, playing to crewmen from the aircraft carrier USS America, on R&R after their first deployment at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin:



A video of their biggest hit:

Here's an even bigger rarity: It is commonly thought that David Bowie or the Yardbirds did the first live recordings of a Velvet Underground song, performing "Waiting For The Man" some time in 1967. However the first studio recording of a Velvet Underground song was done by members of the 127th MPs unit in 1967 in a hamlet in the Mekong Delta. I present the Electrical Banana doing Lou Reed's "There She Goes Again", off a rare acetate recorded in Qui Nhon, Vietnam, 1967:



And here's a video of them performing one of their original songs:



More live footage:

More great additions OTB!

That one's a classic Badmoon.

A perennial favourite. I recently found out he did two more LPs:

The Quin Tikis, one of the great Maori show bands, performing at Nui Dat, 1968.

A video of an earlier incarnation of them doing Guitar Boogie Shuffle:



That was a Ventures number. Here's one of their own:



And a recording of the 1968 line-up:

The Pleasure Seekers, from Detroit, featuring a very young Suzi Quatro, toured Vietnam in 1967.

One of their own songs:

James Brown toured Vietnam in March 1968. Here is what his show looked like then (footage from April 1968). The music starts at 6:50:

Is it just me, or does anyone else the "crazy feet shuffle" going when they hear James Brown?

Seeing the item on the Maori group above reminded me of an incident at our officers club at Long Binh in 1971 or 1972. There was a large room off the main bar that was used for shows once a week and movies the other nights.

One Saturday night I was there early, the only person there. A Maori band came in and started to set up. These guys looked nothing like those in the post above. They were the wildest, meanest looking guys I have ever seen in person in my entire life. Fortunately, their behavior was just fine.

I remember nothing about their performance except they had no female member. It is probably just as well. Who knows what she would have looked like.

Tom

Whooh - I wonder who they would have been.... There was another group that toured Vietnam called The Maori Volcanics. Does that ring a bell Tom?

Not at all. I don't remember the name of any bands that played our club. I was into jazz...Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Horace Silver, Ahmad Jamal, etc. Needless to say, I heard nothing like any of that over there.

Tom

The "Quin Tikis"! Love it!

Hanoi Jazz

Quyền Văn Minh is Vietnam's best-known jazz musician. He's from Hanoi. He discovered jazz listening to American Armed Forces Radio during the Vietnam War.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2010-08-06/bombs-came-jazz-and-musical-love-affair

He runs the Binh Minh Jazz Club (opened in 1997), which is located behind Hanoi's Opera House. Some of his live performances:

OTB!!! You found some jazz for me!!

I don't think I ever heard Armed Forces Radio when I was there. I'm surprised they played jazz at that time as it was at a low ebb then.

The alto player is good, but he needs a new bassist in a big way. At least it is an acoustic bass.

Nice post.

Tom

I thought you would like that Tom.

I was looking for some Hanoi café jazz from the 1950s as it was something I came across while I was there. It's still a thing there - I came across some old guys playing it by the lake. Sort of French-style (Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli) but with a Vietnamese twist. No luck so far....

I was thinking the same thing, in general terms. Not necessarily Hanoi, but French jazz in Vietnam. After the video you included in your post, the next one started to play and it was of a guitar and violin which was sort of jazzy, and very French. At least it was to a non-musician such as myself.

Tom

We're going country this weekend...



Kris Kristofferson's first recorded song, written when he was still a Captain in the US Army (he trained as a helicopter pilot, completed Ranger School and served with the 8th Infantry Division in West Germany in the early to mid 60s).

Merle Haggard tells the anti-war movement what he thinks of them:

Johnny Wright - Hello Vietnam:

Dinah Lee, performing at Nui Dat, 1967.

Her big hit was "Do The Blue Beat":


By the time of her South Vietnam tour, she definitely would have been doing this one live:


Dinah Lee is still performing today:

I'd never heard of Dinah Lee before. Alot of this music makes me wonder if it's obscure? Or I'm a music numpty. I generally pride myself on knowing lots (I mean LOTS) about music from many genres, but this thread has been VERY educational.

Dinah Lee was quite famous in NZ and Australia during the 60s - a lot of Australians think she's from there.

That pic you posted of Dinah singing infront of the boys, reminds me of a scene from that Long Tan movie Danger Close with Travis Fimmel.