By far the most common questions called into the archives department at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville relate to the Mississippi River Festival. There's not even a close second.
"Mostly it's people who went to a concert and they can't remember what the opening act was or they can't remember the date," said Amanda Bahr-Evola, senior library specialist.
"Or people will ask if Bob Dylan (or some other artist) played there. Or they'll request a complete performance list."
MRF was a summer performing-arts series that became a cultural phenomenon from 1969 to 1980.
Legendary singers and musicians performed folk, jazz, classical, rock, bluegrass and country under a circus-like tent on the SIUE campus. Audiences brought blankets and lawn chairs.
It was the venue where Janis Joplin, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger continued their Woodstock momentum in 1969; where Peter, Paul and Mary performed the first concert of their 1978 reunion tour after being apart for eight years; where Jackson Browne appeared in 1977, just before writing the song "Cocaine" in his hotel room; and where The Who played to a record St.
Louis concert crowd in 1971.
"They don't really know how many people were there," said Steve Kerber, SIUE archivist, special collections librarian and associate professor. "They'll never know.
They sold about 34,000 tickets, making it significantly larger than any other concert in the St. Louis region. But some people came in without tickets (through a broken fence).
"
Kerber, 58, of Edwardsville and Bahr-Evola, 33, of Brighton have compiled "The Mississippi River Festival," a 128-page pictorial history, as part of Arcadia Publishing's "Images of America" series ($19.99, softback).
The book is available at Piece of Mind Books in Edwardsville, University Bookstore at SIUE and major bookstore chains.
Bahr-Evola and Kerber will sign copies from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Monday at University Bookstore.
Most of the photos were taken by Charlie Cox, who worked for University News Services from 1961 to 1986, and his student assistants. He remembers squatting in aisles in sweltering heat on some summer nights. His legs would fall asleep and sweat would run down his face.
"The tent gathered heat during the day and retained it at night," said Cox, 82, of Edwardsville. "They had fans on poles, and there was air conditioning that came up through the floor of the stage to cool (performers) off. .
.. It was so hot at the Bette Midler concert that she took off her dress and sang in her slip.
She was very young."
Cox was a little intimidated during St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concerts.
He got disapproving stares from musicians, who didn't like the shutter noise. Once, he was caught standing near a stack of instrument cases that tumbled down.
"One of the first concerts that was exciting for me was Janis Joplin," Cox said at an MRF exhibit in 1999.
"She was a screamer. She had a whiskey voice, and she wore outlandish costumes. .
.. Those were some of the best pictures I ever took.
I had a lot of close-ups of her, and you could really see the torment in her personality."
Bahr-Evola and Kerber also have developed an MRF page on the SIUE archives Web site, where people can do their own research. It includes a historical slideshow, list of all performances, artist index and digitized versions of promotional films from 1969 and 1975.
The address is .
Neither Kerber nor Bahr-Evola knew about MRF until joining the SIUE staff. Both were surprised at the caliber of artists, size of crowds and level of continuing interest by people who attended.
"The more I heard about it, the more I was astonished that no one had ever written a book about it or drawn any attention to it," Kerber said. "There were anecdotal accounts, but that's it. .
.. You had nationally and internationally known artists performing at the festival and, retrospect, it's not widely known outside the region.
"
Bahr-Evola was particularly fascinated by the venue on the north side of campus. Acoustics were considered excellent in the canvas tent, which measured 170 by 140 feet around and 65 feet tall with a crushed-limestone floor and state-of-the-art sound system.
The Mississippi River Festival was created in 1969 as a summer home for the St.
Louis Symphony Orchestra. It later expanded to include popular music, as well as dance troupes, actors, impersonators such as Hal Holbrook and comedians such as Bob Hope.
"There's such an astonishing variety of genres of music and performers," Kerber said, noting the festival even featured barbershop.
"It was just incredible, something that could not happen again today."
MRF hosted 100 St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concerts and 253 other shows during its 11-year history.
At its peak in the mid-1970s, it employed about 200 SIUE students, who ushered, collected tickets, parked cars and hosted performers.
The university got out of the festival business in 1978 and leased the MRF site to a private company, which produced concerts for three more summers. Today, the only remaining evidence is an overgrown foundation where the tent stood.
SIUE has about 3,000 MRF photos in its archives. Bahr-Evola and Kerber narrowed it down to 200 for the book. Judy Collins and Harry Chapin are the only solo artists in more than one shot.
"(They) each performed five times, as did Henry Mancini, and they were the most beloved performers at the MRF from what I've read," Kerber said. "They gave more of themselves than anyone else, particularly Harry Chapin.
"He once did a three-hour concert, came back for three encores and then he stayed around after the show and signed autographs until no one was left.
Even at that time, most performers were not that generous."
For more information or to order copies of "The Mississippi River Festival," visit the Web site at or call (888) 313-2665. Royalties from the book will go to the Friends of Lovejoy Library, which houses the Louisa H.
Bowen University Archives at SIUE.
Contact reporter Teri Maddox at or 345-7822, ext. 26.
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