October 16, 1970: The Concert that Launched Greenpeace

Taylor (left) and Mitchell, on the cover of the 2009 release

October 16, 1970: A concert is held at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The money raised is given to a new organization, named Greenpeace, and would fund its initial efforts, to protest the recent underground nuclear tests by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission at Amchitka, Alaska.

Irving Stowe, a lawyer and one of the founders of Greenpeace, introduced the acts. The 1st singer he contacted to perform was Joan Baez, but she was unavailable, due to a scheduling conflict. She did donate $1,000, and put Stowe in contact with Joni Mitchell, who agreed.

The 1st was Phil Ochs, who recited Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Bells," and sang, among other songs, his own antiwar piece "I Ain't Marching Anymore" and the classic American labor anthem "Joe Hill." (He did not, however, sing, "Love Me, I'm a Liberal.")

James Taylor sang George Harrison's "Something"; and his own songs, including "Fire and Rain," "Carolina in My Mind" and "Sweet Baby James." "Fire and Rain," with its line, "I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend," inspired Carole King to write "You've Got a Friend" with him in mind. While that song would hit Number 1 for him in 1971, he hadn't recorded it yet. Nor did King attend the concert, let alone perform at it. Nor did Carly Simon attend or perform: She wasn't yet a big enough star, but she was married to Taylor from 1972 to 1983.

Mitchell sang her own "Woodstock" (even though she was not at the music festival of that name) "Big Yellow Taxi," with its environmentally-friendly refrain of, "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot"; Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," and, somewhat out of character for her, Larry Williams' R&B shouter "Bony Moronie." The show was closed with Mitchell singing her song "The Circle Game" in a duet with Taylor.

Oddly, no official live recording of the show was released until 2009, well after the deaths of Stowe from cancer in 1974 and Ochs by suicide in 1976.

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October 16, 1970 was a Friday. Mehmet Scholl, the German midfielder of Turkish descent who starred for Bayern Munich in the 1990s and 2000s, was born on this day. This was also the day that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada invoked the War Measures Act, in response to the October Crisis in Quebec. I have a separate entry for that event.

The baseball season had ended the day before, when the Baltimore Orioles won Game 5 of the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

For the most part, football was in midweek. But there was 1 college game that night: The University of Tampa beat the University of Miami, 31-14 at the Orange Bowl in Miami. At the time, UT was ranked Number 5 among "small colleges," and went 10-1, losing only to the only other major college team they played, and that wasn't exactly a college football power: Vanderbilt. In contrast, Miami, not yet the power it would become in the 1980s, went just 3-8, though they did beat one of their main rivals, Florida. Unwilling to make a commitment to big-time football, UT dropped football after the 1974 season.

There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the San Diego Rockets, 127-119 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Elvin Hayes scored 34 for the Rockets, but the Sixers had 6 players score at least 14 points. The Rockets moved to Houston the next year.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls, 106-102 at the Chicago Stadium. Jerry West scored 29 points, while Wilt Chamberlain had 26 points and 31 rebounds.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the San Francisco Warriors, 120-106 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California. Jerry Lucas scored 31 points and had 16 rebounds for the Warriors, to no avail.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers, in the 1st game in franchise history, beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, another expansion team, playing its 2nd game, 115-112 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon. Jim Barnett led all scorers with 31 points. A 3rd expansion team, the Buffalo Braves, had debuted 2 days earlier. They are now the Los Angeles Clippers.

There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets beat the Miami Floridians, 105-92 at the Island Garden in West Hempstead, Long Island. And the Indiana Pacers beat the Denver Rockets, 115-103 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum). Anticipating their acceptance into the NBA, where Houston already had the Rockets, in 1974, the Denver Rockets became the Denver Nuggets.

And there was 1 game in the NHL: The Boston Bruins beat the California Golden Seals, 5-1 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Bobby Orr scored 2 goals, while Phil Esposito had a goal and 2 assists.