May 1st, 1970 On The Strip in Kent, Ohio

By Jason Prufer

Easily the darkest chapter in the history of Kent, Ohio is the weekend of May 1-4, 1970. It's actually one of the darkest chapters of the Vietnam War era which in and of itself is one of the darkest chapters in American history. If you live or have ever lived in this town it's a subject that nobody will ever stop talking about.

I've never really been interested in doing any formal writing about the shootings. These events happened five years before I was born and there's literally a few thousand people who are still alive who experienced that weekend who would have a few thousand times more insight than I could ever bring to the table. Also there's like 40 books on the subject. Some of them done by real scholars and eyewitnesses. What more could I possibly add to this story? 

Also the story is so dark and so sad -- not to mention divisive -- I don't like delving too deep into these kinds of narratives. I'm interested in the cool moments in history. That's why most of my writings have been about the coolest aspects of Kent history: DEVO and The Numbers Band and Joe Walsh and the likes. That shit is cool and that shit is as real a part of the history of Kent, Ohio as May 4.

The trash fire in the middle of North Water Street in Kent, Ohio on the

night of Friday, May 1, 1970. Photo by Richard Carlton.

Here's the thing though -- there's one piece of that May 4 story that has intersected with my rock & roll research that I have long needed to flesh out -- no less than seven of my stories have taken place on the old North Water Street bar strip. These stories have included the likes of Emmylou Harris, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bo Diddley, Aerosmith, The James Gang, Tin Huey and Dan Auerbach all having epic nights on that strip in periods before and after the time of the shootings. So on the 50th anniversary of this horrible weekend I have finally felt compelled to dig into this strip's most famous story and it's the one that directly relates to the Kent State shootings -- the night of Friday, May 1, 1970.

The general narrative of this night goes like this:

Friday, May 1 was the first warm night of Spring 1970, after a long, cold winter. North Water Street was normally packed on a weekend night, attracting not only Kent students, but young people from as far away as Cleveland. This particular evening, the throng is bigger than usual, an eclectic mix of college kids, townies from surrounding hamlets, music fans, drunks, and bikers. The bars are full, the sidewalks outside are packed. The previous evening, President Nixon stunned the nation when he announced, in a speech that was nationally televised, that US forces in Vietnam had just invaded neutral Cambodia. Nixon had vowed to end the war, and now here he was dramatically escalating it. 

All day long, a small group of 25 or so student radicals, the remnants of the Kent SDS chapter, which had been crushed and banished by the university administration and local authorities, have been spreading the word, “Shit is going happen on Water Street tonight!” As the evening wears on and the beer flows, they move through the crowd, whipping up the simmering anger with chants and yells. The crowd starts to fill the street, hurling bottles and cans at any car that tries to force its way through. A rock sails through the window of a loan company. The bikers dump a couple garbage cans in the middle of the street and set the contents on fire. 

At this moment, the Kent police chief makes a huge tactical blunder. He orders all the bars closed. Officers storm the bars, turn on the lights and order everyone out. This swells the crowd on the street by tenfold! Led by the radical contingent, the crowd begins to move down Water Street toward the central intersection with Main Street, chanting antiwar slogans and pumping their fists. When the crowd reaches a cluster of banks, the radicals unleash a hail of rocks and bricks, smashing a total of 56 windows. A phalanx of cops and deputies meet the marchers head on and drive students up the alleys, back toward campus. It is over in minutes. Observing all this is the new Kent mayor, Leroy Satrom, inexperienced, conspiracy minded, and terrified that all 21,000 Kent State students will rise up as one and burn his town to the ground.

An hour later he phones the National Guard and begs for help, setting in motion the chain of events that would lead to the Monday, May 4, 1970 shootings on Kent State's campus which left 4 dead and 9 wounded.

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My personal encounters with this night have involved pondering over the smattering of photos that have surfaced over the years and talking to several local musicians who were down on the strip that night. The photos are fascinating. All taken from a rooftop on North Water Street and appeared to come from two different sources. I followed these photos to their photographers. The first of the photographers I talked to was Ralph Solonitz. A terrific guy and an engaging music fan who I coincidentally knew because of my many years work with The Numbers Band. This is what he told me:

---------------------------------

Ralph Solonitz

"I started at Kent State in 1968 having transferred from Cuyahoga Community College as an art major – graphic design was my interest. In those days we had our classes in the old barracks. That’s where a lot of the art classes were held. One of my classes was Photojournalism with Charlie Brill and that one was in Taylor Hall -- for that particular class I had this assignment which was to go out and do pan-shots, stop action and night shots.

"So a buddy and classmate of mine Rick (Richard) Carlton and I decided to take a lot of different shots around campus and then we decided to do some night shots because that was part of the assignment. So it happened to be a Friday night --- it was a nice night so we decided to go downtown and shoot some photos down there for our night shots. When we got down there we found a spot where we climbed onto a rooftop that was over on the corner of Portage and North Water Street and we started pointing our lenses on the crowds that were outside of that strip of bars that used to be down there. We had no intentions of going into any of the bars that night, we were downtown strictly to take some photos for this class.

Friday, May 1, 1970 showing a crowd in the middle of North Water

Street outside of the old bar strip in Kent, Ohio. Photo by Ralph Solonitz.

"Suddenly all these motorcycle guys start zooming up and down the street, screeching and doing wheelies and people were coming out of the bars to see what was going on. There were cars going up and down the street – turning around and coming back. And then somebody lit a garbage can on fire. So then the police decided that they wanted to break all of this up so they emptied out the bars which was the stupidest thing they ever did because then all of a sudden you had 2000 people out on the street.

"The photos that I took are blurry and at that time I didn’t know how to push film. So that’s what I got. I was using a Minolta Hi-Matic 11 rangefinder. So Rick was up there with me and I believe he had an Asahi Pentax single lens reflex and we were both on the roof there and all of a sudden these events start to unravel.

"So we’re taking these photos and people start marching up and down the street yelling 'get out of Cambodia' – This must have been right around that time that Nixon had U.S. troops invade Cambodia. So what we were witnessing was turning into a drunken, wild, protest, motorcycle – empty out the bar kind of thing and then people start smashing out windows. The next thing I know they start bringing out state police with buses and they start arresting people to break everything up. They brought in these buses that were like what they would use to transport prisoners. I seem to remember seeing chicken wire mesh on the windows. I think that’s what I remember. Sometimes you remember things and you wonder if you are misremembering because these events happened so long ago. All of this happened while we were up on that roof – we were probably up there for maybe 45 minutes to an hour.

"So after that we went back to my house at 927 1/2  South Water Street and we had these photos of the Friday night riot so we call up the Plain Dealer because we thought this was newsworthy and they didn’t really seem interested but they said why don’t you put the roll of film on a Greyhound bus and send them up to us ---  and so we said ya know ---- fuck you (laughs).

Richard Carlton's photo as it

appeared on the front page of

the Akron Beacon Journal 

following the Friday, May 1,

1970 riot on North Water

Street in Kent, Ohio.

"So then we called The Akron Beacon Journal and they said that they hadn’t heard anything about any kind of riot in Kent but they took my phone number and said maybe they’d call me back or something like that. So then at about 4 or 5 in the morning we get this call from the Akron Beacon Journal and they said 'hey come on down we want to see those negatives. We heard about the riots and we want to see the pictures you have – we’ll buy you breakfast too.' So we drive down to Akron and we give them the negatives and they process and print them. That I know of, we had the only photos of that Friday night. They printed Ricks, I don’t think they used mine because mine were slightly out of focus. But they used Rick's because they were decent. I don’t know what he did to make them come out like that but Rick knew his shit."

---------------

After I talked to Ralph he told me to try and track down Rick (Richard) Carlton. He said he hadn't seen him in years but he'd be interested to hear his take on the story since his photos were the ones that wound up in the newspaper. Richard was a little hard to track down but when I finally got a hold of him his story was pretty much identical to Ralph's but with less detail. Richard was a Vietnam veteran and from what I could tell in talking to him, this night seemed like a blip in time to him. He remembered taking the photos, he remembered being on the roof and he remembered handing the roll of film off to the Akron Beacon Journal but a lot of the other details seemed to escape him. It seemed as if (and I believe this to be so) I was the first person to ever interview him about these photos. He also told me that once he handed the roll of film off to the Beacon he never saw them again. He wasn't even aware that one of the photos ended up in the 1971 Chestnut Burr. Rick was a super nice guy though. Very humble and soft spoken but it seemed to me that compared to his experiences in Vietnam, his experiences at Kent State for that weekend of May 1-4 didn't leave nearly the same kind of impression. He told me that he's not the kind of guy that looks back but he seemed to appreciate being recognized for his photography all these years later.

----------------

Some notes here before we move on:

Of all the photos that Ralph Solonitz took that night only two survived and you can see those right here. Of all the photos that Richard (Rick) Carlton took, only nine survived and they ended up being scattered across several varied sources in varying quality. You can see all of those in one place right here. And when we combine the two albums you can see all of the known photos that exist that were taken that night. 

Could there be more photos out there from the May 1 riot? Sure -- and I haven't looked at every single May 4 source that exists but these photos right here represent every single one that has crossed my path in my decades study of the history of Kent, Ohio and as far as I can tell this is the first time the lot of these photos has been put in one place. If you are aware of any more photos I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to see them so that we can add to this collection.

Ralph and Richard took their photos on top of a now long gone old ramshackle building that used to be on the northeast corner of North Water and Portage Street. You can see a photo of that building right here. The building was torn down by at least 1973 but it shows up at the bottom left of this ancient photo of Kent. Currently where the building once stood is the blacktop parking lot for Bent Tree Coffee. Here's what that lot looks like today.

Also I went back to that lot and took some photos of what the old strip looks like now from that point of view. Obviously I was not able to raise myself 20 feet up so this is a little off but here's what that view looks like today.

Also there is a photo that has floated around for years that has been credited as being taken from this night and it is not. I REPEAT -- THE PHOTO I AM ABOUT TO LINK TO IS NOT FROM MAY 1, 1970!! THE PHOTO IS FROM A COUPLE YEARS LATER. The mis-attributed photo can be seen right here.

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A few years ago a couple of the Richard Carlton photos surfaced on Facebook and one of them triggered a story by musician Bruce Fulper who was an eyewitness to the events that went on that night. Bruce was just 16 years old on the night of May 1, 1970 and that old bar strip was within throwing distance of his childhood home on Fairchild Ave. Here's what Bruce wrote about what he experienced.... 

-----------------------

Bruce Fulper

"May 1, 1970 was a Friday and Friday nights in Kent, Ohio -- home of Kent State University, was THE happening place to be in northern Ohio.

"I was lucky enough to have been raised there. And by lucky I’m mainly referring to the fact that as a guitar player, from an early age I was surrounded by many, many talented musicians. Most people know the famous ones who called Kent home: Joe Walsh, Phil Keaggy, Chrissie Hynde. Later, the band DEVO who formed in Kent invented an entire new genre of music and began to inspire a new generation of hip cats. In 1970 every band that played downtown played original music so it was simply THE place to go. Every Friday and every Saturday through the entire year there was always something interesting going on down there on the Kent bar strip.

"This particular Friday night started like so many. I didn’t have to work late at the new Acme/Click store so I ended up getting downtown fairly early. Probably around 7:30, 8:00-ish. Being sixteen and not able to get in most clubs, I hung out on the sidewalk just to hear what the bands were playing. If you stood in the right place by the front door at JB’s 'upstairs' you could see part of the stage. When I couldn’t sneak in, I’d just look and listen.

Crowd in front of JB's and the Ren-De-Vou on North Water Street 

in Kent, Ohio on Friday, May 1, 1970. Photo by Richard Carlton.

"Getting there early the typical thing to do was to hang around on the sidewalk in front of JB’s, killing time, looking for friends and of course, girls. Kent was also a huge hot bed of mean street machines. Street/Strip race cars were always on the prowl. I used to hang out at the local burger places where guys would meet and challenge each other to a race. Looking back it was nuts. At the time it was simply something everyone did and the excitement was addicting. At a time when a thirteen second quarter mile pass was respectable, and a twelve second street car was bad ass, Kent boasted a few eleven second cars and a handful of unreal ten second machines.

"My first real potential killer machine I bought from fellow Acme/Click employee Ken Smith. It was a black primer 1955 Chevy two door sedan with a 327, cross ram log dual quads and some kind of hot cam. It needed a good trans and rear end. Neither of which could I further afford. Every time I’d get the car running I’d take it out on Fairchild Ave. and promptly blow the stock transmission or rear end out of it. The highlight of my mechanical career was winning the biggest drag race the National Hot Rod Association holds at Indianapolis each year. The U.S. Nationals.

"I tell you of my love for drag racing in order for you to understand what I’m about to reveal. This is exactly what transpired that night on Water Street that began the 'US vs. THEM' and the eventual mini bonfire in the middle of the street.

"One of the local gear heads from Hudson, a rich kid who always had some hot car rolled down Water Street from Main Street (very important to the story) in an almost new 1969 AMC Scrambler. You gear heads will know what kind of car this is. For those that don’t know, Rambler was doing their best to compete in the muscle car wars and this particular machine came stock with a 390 cubic inch engine, a four speed and positraction. It was painted red white and blue and had a large factory hood scoop.

"This guy was out to show off and Water Street supplied an enthusiastic audience. I’ve told this story many times over the years and I have been disappointed as opportunistic writers tried to put their spin on what went on that weekend. Sure, some of what has been written is true, but this occurrence -- this was the impetus that got the cops downtown which pissed off all those students, partiers and bikers who just wanted their usual fun Friday night.

"Imagine a fair amount of people walking up and down Water Street. Then imagine a guy in a hot car rolls by, slowing down to a crawl and revs his engine and then floors it. He slams second gear, peels rubber and heads for a stop sign just a few hundred feet ahead. (The crowd goes wild.) Spectators know the stop sign is coming but this guy is a well known wild and crazy young man. He nails the brakes just in time. And, much to our surprise, he makes a U-turn. Usually after making that kind of car ruckus downtown you would get a ticket or even towed. (I know. That’s another story for another time.) The fact that this guy decides to tempt fate is of course very exciting.  Understand that the distance from downtown Main Street’s intersection to the front of JB’s (heading south,) is less distance than the distance to the stop sign heading north. But this crazy new age roman gladiator slows to a roll headed southbound and just as before lands in the throttle and fishtails towards the Main Street intersection! Actually, it’s scary. The excitement was thrilling. Did any cops hear it? Was he going to wreck? Holy Mackerel. Now what?

"Well, 'now what' turned into something more wild than we could imagine. The locals who are reading this will no doubt remember a well-known 'rogue' Kent cop who I will not name. He was kind of a big guy and he had a bad reputation for unfairly harassing people. Kids in general received his kind of  'justice.'  I’m sure if you talk to enough people you’ll get plenty of stories. He was sneaky and everyone knew of him. You wanted to avoid this guy. During this time, the Kent police force was using light blue full sized 1969 Buick four door sedans as their cop cars. Not fast. Not agile. But I’m sure they hauled a lot of donuts.

Composite photo showing the trash fire and the crowd in front of JB's

and the Ren-De-Vou on North Water Street in Kent, Ohio on Friday, 

May 1, 1970. The arrows point out the tire tracks. Other tire tracks

are also visible in this photo. Photos by Richard Carlton.

"In recent years the photos that have surfaced from that night have allowed my story to return to life. Actually I feel vindicated because I realize my story that I have told for years differs from the 'official' version of what happened on that Friday night but you can see those skid marks on the street in several of those photos. And remember -- since I couldn't get into the bars because of my age (16) I was out on the street for the entirety of what went down. This was what I witnessed without any pauses to go in JB's or wherever to drink some beers.

"I don’t remember exactly how long it was before the gladiator returned. Seems like just a few minutes. Our gladiator comes again heading northbound. And this time we know what to expect -- or so we thought. No, this time he comes to a complete stop just past Columbus street.  A half block or so north was an old rough alley way.

"This time, deciding to really show off, our free entertainment driver pushes in the clutch pedal, wails on the gas and side steps the clutch. Boiling tire smoke this time he smashes second gear and really, the crowd went nuts! Just then from behind a building about half way up that alley comes our well-known cop in one of those aforementioned 1969 Buick cop cars.

"Mind you our hero in the AMC Scrambler has a decent head start. And brother, he doesn’t let up this time. He knows he’s being chased and well, you know, 'Fuck that!' The cops Buick bounces and bottoms out coming down the alley then nose dives the front bumper into Water Street as he makes the right turn, flips on the lights and mashes the quadrajet carb wide open. Imagine a sound that’s similar to saying the word Buick and hold the U sound for about ten seconds. Our very own Barney Fife in the Queen Mary was off to chase a light weight red white and blue rocket and everyone was jeering and cheering.

"The stop sign is actually a five way stop. Locals will know that if you make an easy right turn you head northeast on Lake Street. This is a two mile long straightaway before you hit the old bridge by the dump and Boyle's junk yard. Our wild man turns onto Lake Street and we can hear him winding it out. The Buick disappeared behind him. We went back to hanging out, wondering the outcome.

"I can still see the beer can bouncing off the police car's hood as it slowly, defeatedly came back down Water Street. I bet it was a solemn drive for our cop friend. He had either given up the chase or knew he couldn’t or shouldn’t try to catch that fucker so he simply came back downtown. Not a smart thing to do. All of the way past the strip where the bulk of the bars were located the crowd of people were yelling at him. And the crowd was even larger now. The excitement from the chase had brought more people out of the bars and onto the sidewalk. And when the beer can bounced off his hood he slammed on the brakes eager to confront the perpetrator. But there was easily 150 or more people yelling at him and for probably the first time in his career  -- he had to back down. Can you imagine? A policeman known for a mean spirited attitude had twice in a few minutes suffered defeat.

"He roared off southbound, (do the Buick sound again) presumably headed for the Police station located further down on Water Street. The crowd was really feeling their oats and I remember a guy came by me dragging a trash can, dumped it in the middle of the street and set the paper on fire. Someone else dragged another trash can out and dumped it fueling the fire. I don’t think the fire burned all that long. The pictures shows a fairly decent fire going and several trash cans along the curb. But the fire was put out and most people went about their business.

"Roughly around 11 o’clock or shortly after, a few police cars came up Water Street, parked, and the police went into the bars to tell the owners to close down. They also told the customers they were imposing a curfew and to go home. The attempt was inflammatory. It was insane. You don’t tell a couple of hundred drunks to go home for no reason. The outcome was understandable. As the bars were emptied the crowd grew very large on the small sidewalk. Anything that could be thrown at the cops landed all over the place. The street became littered. The police cars got hit. Bottles were being broken everywhere.The scene grew crazier and crazier, and crazier as the cops corralled the kids to Main and Water, then turned them up Main towards the college. It became total mayhem.

"Closing and pulling people out of the bars was a senseless idea. Just because earlier the cop had his ego hurt it’s my opinion that he rounded up some allies at the station and decided to show the kids 'who’s boss.' There wasn’t a reason; in fact there was no OTHER reason to close the bars that night. Even if the police used the fire in the street as a reason it wasn’t a good reason to close all of those bars. The cops created a bad situation and then they lost control."

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Back a couple years ago while I was in the midst of writing my book I was contacted by a gentleman named Chas Madonio who thought I should hear some of his early stories in the Kent music scene. He said he had worked with Joe Walsh and he sounded legit. He asked to meet me down at Tree City Coffee and we had a wonderful conversation. Chas was super engaging and his stories were the real deal. Over the course of our discussions he told me that he was playing in a band on the night of May 1, 1970 down on the strip when everything went haywire. It was a fascinating story that I had never heard before. Some time later when I was trying to put together this story I asked him to write down his recollections for me since they were so unique and not commonly known. Here is the story he gave me:

-------------

Chas Madonio

"As the 1960’s dawned on Kent and Kent State University, a new era of music was about to unfold. It would be an era that would put Kent on the music map and spawn a plethora of musicians -- several who would go on to national and world wide fame. The 60’s was a decade of significant change in all phases of the American lifestyle. In fact, many believe there were more changes in that ten year span than in any other decade before or since.

Photo showing 257 North Water Street in downtown Kent, Ohio 

on the night of May 1, 1970. Photo by Richard Carlton.

"Kent was a typical mid-western college town in 1960. The Beatles hadn’t hit the scene yet and Vietnam was generally unheard of in the bucolic post war years. Kent State had grown by leaps and bounds in the post Korean era and had become a sleeping giant, sitting on the hillside overlooking the city and the Cuyahoga River. There was no hint of the entertainment Mecca it would soon become.

Much of the students’ leisure time was spent at on-campus activities – mixers, fraternity and sorority parties, dances, concerts and other university sponsored functions. The few rock bands played the top 40 music of the day – Ventures, Beach Boys and a variety of singles artists. Music in the early 60’s was transitioning from the Doo-Wop days and really hadn’t defined itself yet. Once the Beatles took the world by storm, everything changed.

"Some students made the short walk to the main part of the city, which has always been referred to simply as 'downtown'. There were a few bars with entertainment, but the choices were limited. The Deck and the Kove, were two basement bars, that featured rock & roll and 3.2% beer (18 was the legal drinking age for 3.2% beer). They were packed with freshmen & sophomore college kids and high school seniors, most with fake ID’s. For the more refined and older students and faculty, Eddie’s Stag Bar featured jazz, hard liquor and excellent food. There were other watering holes – most notably the seemingly ageless Ray’s and the Venice Café. There were “townie” bars like Walter’s Café, then known as Seaver’s or Orville’s, with its bohemian clientele of railroad workers during the day and “beatniks” at night. There were no other outlets for music. If you had a car, you could drive a couple miles to Brady Lake’s Big House, a biker bar. But just by being there, you ran the risk of being involved in fisticuffs.

"By 1963, like mushrooms after a rain, bands began to spring forth and needed places to play. After The Beatles and the British invasion, there was an explosion of new bands, new music and new bars. Within a year or two, Kent’s nightlife came of age. Music was everywhere. Rock clubs and coffee houses, like the Blind Owl, opened and thrived. It was a spontaneous transformation. I started frequenting these establishment, using a fake ID, when I was still in high school. While most guys were interested in dancing and picking up girls, I was more interested in watching the guitar players to figure out what chords they were playing.

"My dream was to become a rock & roll musician, and that dream became a reality when I formed a 3 piece group, which became known as the “Playboys”. This, of course, was several years before Gary Lewis had his group, the Playboys. Over the next 7 years, I was in the thick of the music explosion in Kent, playing is such groups as the Majestics (later the Styx – again, before the national group of the same name), The Measles and Hour Glass.

"Music was king in Kent. It was the hottest place to be in NE Ohio, more popular than Cleveland, Akron or any place else. There were so many great venues – the Kove, the Deck, the 5th Quarter, the Dome, the Exit, Big Daddy’s and more. It was the golden era of rock & roll, and it seemed as though those halcyon days would never end. But there were dark clouds on the horizon. Then came May 1, 1970, the day the music died in Kent.

"Spring arrived the last week of April in 1970. The weather turned unseasonably warm and everyone, including KSU students, were anxious to get out and soak up some sunshine and breathe some fresh air. April had been an eventful month on campus. YIP leader, Jerry Rubin had spoken at a rally and urged students to “kill your parents”. The SDS stormed the Administration Building with a list of demands but were repulsed by Campus Police. And then, on April 30th, President Nixon announced the military “excursion” into Cambodia. The beautiful day of May 1st was fraught with a great deal of tension and frustration boiling just below the surface. In a few hours, it would explode into violence.

Big Daddy's on North Water Street in Kent, Ohio on the night of

Friday, May 1, 1970. Photo by Richard Carlton.

"After many years of rock & roll, I found myself in a honky-tonk band called Mum’s Cameo on May 1st, 1970. We were the house band at a roaring twenties themed bar called Big Daddy’s. We played an eclectic mix of music – prohibition era oldies, country, folk and rock. It was in the heart of the bar district on N. Water St. and featured pizza and pitchers of beer served at picnic tables. It was a fun time sing-a-long bar that drew good crowds. On this night, the bar was about half full and because of the unseasonable warm weather, the front doors were propped open. When we started around 8:30, the street outside the bar was jammed with people, enjoying the ambiance of the first really warm evening of spring. Little by little, they filtered in and by our first break, the bar was pretty full.

"As I stepped out onto Water St., it looked like a big party was going on. The mood of the crowd was lighthearted. Some people walked their dogs, others just milled around. There was nothing to indicate the crowd was there for any other reason than it was a warm Friday night. We went back into Big Daddy’s to start our second set. It was a little past 9:30.

"We took our second break around 10:30. Things outside had started to turn in an unsettling direction. Our drummer, Jim Beal, reminded me later that I made a comment to him about the fact that there were a large number of people that I didn’t know in that crowd. We didn’t claim to know everyone every night, but there was something different about this crowd. By now, they were off the sidewalks and in the street, and the mood was no long pleasant. A car tried to drive thru the crowd on Water St., but that proved to be a bad idea. The crowd, who could now be labeled as a mob, surrounded the car, rocking it, beating on it and kicking it. Eventually, the car got thru, but I’m sure it suffered damages.

"As we went back in for our third set, it was evident this was not going to end well. When we came back out around 11:30, it was a full scale riot. There were literally hundreds of people now. Someone had started a fire in the middle of Water St. They dumped trash on the fire and anything else that was flammable. The demonstrators were hooting and hollering and it was apparent that there was a handful in charge and the vast majority were spectators/cheerleaders. Things were deteriorating very quickly. I don’t remember seeing any police at that time, but I knew they were on their way. We decided to go back inside and start our final set, not knowing it would really be our final set – forever.

A swelling crowd in front of Orville's, The Kove and Big Daddy's on 

North Water Street in Kent, Ohio on the night of Friday, May 1, 1970. 

Photo by Ralph Solonitz.

"We had only played a song or two when two law enforcement officers dressed in full riot gear came into the club and announced “This place is now closed. Everyone leave immediately.” Our first instinct, as it would be with any musician, was for the well-being of our equipment. The police didn’t share that concern and as we were packing up our gear, they came over to us and told us to get out. Ron Pisanello, owner of Big Daddy’s pleaded with them to allow us a few more minutes to help him close the bar, and they agreed. We quickly took the equipment into a storage room in the back of the kitchen and locked it up. Because the stage was right next to the front door, our concern was that if someone broke in, it would be very easy to steal our gear. I packed my guitar up and took it with me as I headed for my car, parked on Portage St., across from St. Patrick’s School. As I left the building, the riot police were herding the demonstration south on Water toward the heart of downtown.

"I took some side streets and reached my home on Morris Rd. in just a few minutes. That ended my night. The next morning, I drove thru town on my way to Big Daddy’s to see if I could get my amplifier. Downtown was strewn with litter and many buildings had broken windows. Big Daddy’s was locked up. It was announced there would be a curfew in effect, meaning the bars would all be closed.

"Little did we know that two days later, the whole town would close down after the shootings. The bars stayed closed for weeks. On May 4th, Kent State closed and all the students were sent home. They didn’t come back until September. There was no need for bands with all the venues shut down. Mum’s Cameo never got back together. We never finished our last song – which I can’t even remember what it was. Kent went to sleep for the summer. It was a long time before it woke up again. According to Don McClain in American Pie, February 3, 1959 was the day the music died, but in Kent Ohio, the day the music died was May 1, 1970."

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A couple notes at the end here:

Photos surfaced recently showing the North Water Street bar strip the following day and you can see those here and here.

You can read one of the "official" versions of what happened in downtown Kent on this night starting on page 239 in the The Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest which you can read right here.

The following day some of the students and the townspeople pitched in to help board up and fix the damage done to the local businesses. That evening the mayhem moved on campus and a sizable group of students watched and cheered as the ROTC building burned to the ground just in time for the National Guard to show up. I'm not going to go into all of those details and what followed after that --- there are many other places where you can get that story.

Also as I have stated many times in many of my other stories, the old North Water Street bar strip has been reduced to old ruins these days. If you never knew of its existence you would drive by what's left of it and not even have a clue that what you are looking at was once one of the greatest and most notorious entertainment districts in Ohio. Half the buildings have burned down since 1970 and there is really only one lone establishment left there. Here's a current google street view of what it looks like now.

Also I wrote a book on the rock & roll history of Kent, Ohio. You can purchase it right here.

And finally --- were you down on North Water Street that night? Do you have a story? Comment your story below or below the link on Facebook.

Big thanks to Chas Madonio, Bruce Fulper, Matt Napier, Laura Davis, Carole Barbato, Derf Backderf, Ralph Solonitz and Richard Carlton for their help on this piece.