OT: Woodstock -- 43 years ago this week

Joni had 8 gold and or platinum records in a row in the US. Sometimes I think pepple forget just how big she was.

She sold out halls and had a great rep for a live act with the great jazz musicians like Tom Scott on board. Mutchel and Steely Dan carried the flame for Jazz Rock with The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Aja.

Her best selling singles were covers by others--
Judy Collins Both Sides Now
The Neighborhood and Couting Crows Big Yellow Taxi
CSN Woodstock

Like wow, oh wow, bowwow!

LOL love it

Yup, but not arenas. I know just how big she was, not as big as she wanted.

I think of the Ramones. Now, everybody knows and loved the Ramones. But whenever they came to the Agora in W. Hartford, they played the small stage.

Heck, I thought you (Waquoit) were being facetious with your original post (".... That decision probably cost her superstardom....").

I (also) really don't think Joni was hurt all that much by missing Woodstock... the reason (as made by RS9999X) is the fact she became about as big a music star as you can get. Superstar?... Yes.

How many female (or male) singers of that era & style (Folk-Rock-Jazz-world/crossover) were bigger... in either sales, name recognition, or in respect from other musicians ? Joni's career started really small (folksinger in small bars & clubs) & grew (slowly) to about as big as any musician can get. And she played in many big festivals in England too. Her success was more a slow word-of-mouth growth instead of the (explosion>>crash & burn) variety so many acts have. I'd compare her path to an Elton John, who was well-known & respected in his early years, but hardly a star... but then grew really big in later years.

As to Woodstock, it was a little outside my radar at the time so I missed it. I've never been a big live-concert fan anyway... I prefer the magic a studio reveals. Most concerts suffer from rotten audio... and that means a lot to me. I also don't think I would've gone(?) because I was working at the time... however, if the right friend or situation had occurred back then... who knows? I do remember being interested in the Powder Ridge Rock Festival after seeing a huge full page ad in the NYTimes. It was nearer (CT), but never materialized. Turns out, it was much more of a debacle than Woodstock was.

Finally... the most brilliant song (relating to Woodstock) is Mountain's "For Yasgur's Farm." I'm still editing some text for that song in another (music related) project... so I'll spare ya all that (my longer, more serious) exploration on the entire (60's) era & the song itself. In short, I see it as a (sad) reflection of the end of the 60's dream. I quote Hunter Thompson among others. But I credit Felix, his wife, & the band (Mountain)... who I all love, as writing one of the singularly best songs of that era. It's quite brilliant & moving... on many levels.

I had passes for Powder Ridge, the best outdoor rock festival that never happened.

I remember coming close to sending in a check for tickets (early on)... money that all vanished into the ether. Luckily I didn't.

Thanks for this Jack...reminds me of Bill Graham's comments on the passing of the Fillmore West to the words of an old favorite.

I've read Bill's book... and it's good. But the fact you put up that video (by It's a Beautiful Day) is eerie. The reason is, it's one of the acts I also write about (within the comments I mentioned above). I went into some other songs of theirs, but the whole history is intertwined.

BTW, Patti Santos (the singer above) has a great back-story.... she was discovered at the age of 17 working in a grocery store as a check out clerk... and was voted best vocalist of 1968, before either Janis or Grace Slick. Unfortunately she died tragically in a car crash in 1989.

You'll notice I said passes. I had them from a local radio station. Fortunately, I didn't have any money in it, too.

She never was as big as Carole King or Carly Simon or Barbra Streisand. Linda Ronstadt was much bigger. That's the superstar level I'm thinking of. In fact, in her time she was never as big as Helen Reddy or Olivia-Newton John.

You are kidding, right?

I was fortunate to have been at the festival. I was just short of 15 years old, but I lived only 90 miles from the site. We arrived early Saturday and had to walk about 15 miles to get there. It was almost traumatic to see so many people in one place after such an exhausting walk. Drugs were sold openly and everyone was very kind. The music was, for the most part, very good. The group that benefited the most from Woodstock was Santana - at the time they were a West Coast band and had not yet released their first album; most people there probably had not heard of them. In my experience, the music reached its climax with Sly and the Family Stone and the Who, who played in succession before sunrise Sunday morning. I still have vivid memories of it.

I've had a crush on her for a long time...recently heard about her death and saw the video...bummer!

Never met Grace Slick...but Jack Cassidy and Jorma Kukkonen used to play at a lot of the local clubs in San Francisco during the '70's and did concerts as Hot Tuna.

Cool story, bro...seriously.

Redux note here... I didn't hear the Bill Graham comments (on the It's a Beautiful Day vid) until after I was offline (I usually save flash instead of running it when I surf... don't ask). Anyway, you're exactly right... what Graham said was just what I was getting at about Woodstock... what it represented (socially & culturally) about that era. Hunter Thompson wrote something similar about it... his generation reaching a "high water mark," then receding, as the 60's "dream" faded & died. He was speaking more to the politics too, but also the entire culture.

Bill was expressing a similar view... that the "love generation"... all about peace & love, etc... was (at it's core) a childish utopian dream. Woodstock remains a symbol of both that hope... and the reality. But it's largely been mythologized in our history today.

I was never part of the hardcore hippy-political-philosophy movement that many were. I was a musician & more into the music, the energy, and the cutting edge creative aspects of the music & poetry/lyrics/art. I was an early fan of Zappa and he summed up the whole hippy mindset with a brutal skewering... by satirizing probably the most well-known song of that ilk... the Beatles, "All You Need is Love." He did it with "Oh No" (from 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh').



It's one of Frank's best things, especially how (on the LP) he mixes it seamlessly into "the Orange County Lumber Truck" & then into (the genius) "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" with it's atonal noise platform, yet with a time-stopping spirituality that brings Coltrane's (beautiful & classic) "A Love Supreme" to mind. Brilliant. (PS: this edited version cuts off right where it amps up)

So... Mountain's great "For Yasgurs Farm" was a terrific reflection... a sad look at lost love... at reality over hope... of both us as individuals & of a generation... but that also expresses our timeless human yearning for love and it's importance to our souls.

BTW, I just saw this more recent (& quite nice) version of the song... seems Leslie West not only survived all that excess, but he looks pretty damn good (for his age). And I'm guessing the (old) drummer is Corky Laing (?) who I've heard on various radio talk shows over the years. He's still got chops too.