Nickyboy
Staff member
Here too.
Woodstock - Back To The Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive
- Thread starter Ojai Sam
- Start date
Nickyboy
Staff member
I am very disappointed.
For some reason replacing my monitor knocked out my speakers so today instead of Ravi Shankar...............
Worm
Staff member
I can't believe they're not ALL being stolen. Couldn't they wrap it in plain paper if the item is in such demand? 
Ojai Sam
Staff member
DAY ONE - Friday, August 15 to Saturday, August 16
Fifth Set - Ravi Shankar
10:00pm – 10:35pm
played in the rain
"Raga Puriya-Dhanashri/Gat In Sawarital"
"Tabla Solo In Jhaptal"
"Raga Manj Kmahaj (AIap, Jor, Dhun In Kaharwa Tal)"
Despite his Fab Four cred, Ravi was woefully miscast for Woodstock. The master musician was more used to performing with the likes of Yehudi Menuhin than Joe Cocker. His remarks to the audience come across as quite patronizing. We should therefore not be surprised that he really never liked the hippies despite their adulation. The Week quotes an NPR interview in which Ravi recalled:
“I thought that this thing is not going to live anymore because it was far gone. Music was just an incidental music to them. They were having fun. It was a fun place, picnic party. They were all stoned. It was raining. It was in mud. And as I said in my book, it reminded me of these water buffaloes we see in India who are, you know, they feel very hot and they sit there, get so dirty, but they enjoy it. So, I mean that was the thing I felt. But because it was a contractual thing, I couldn't get out of it. I had to go through it. But I was very unhappy.”
World Pacific released this LP in 1970 but it is not on Spotify.
Look at all those water buffaloes!
Fifth Set - Ravi Shankar
10:00pm – 10:35pm
played in the rain
"Raga Puriya-Dhanashri/Gat In Sawarital"
"Tabla Solo In Jhaptal"
"Raga Manj Kmahaj (AIap, Jor, Dhun In Kaharwa Tal)"
Despite his Fab Four cred, Ravi was woefully miscast for Woodstock. The master musician was more used to performing with the likes of Yehudi Menuhin than Joe Cocker. His remarks to the audience come across as quite patronizing. We should therefore not be surprised that he really never liked the hippies despite their adulation. The Week quotes an NPR interview in which Ravi recalled:
“I thought that this thing is not going to live anymore because it was far gone. Music was just an incidental music to them. They were having fun. It was a fun place, picnic party. They were all stoned. It was raining. It was in mud. And as I said in my book, it reminded me of these water buffaloes we see in India who are, you know, they feel very hot and they sit there, get so dirty, but they enjoy it. So, I mean that was the thing I felt. But because it was a contractual thing, I couldn't get out of it. I had to go through it. But I was very unhappy.”
World Pacific released this LP in 1970 but it is not on Spotify.
Look at all those water buffaloes!
Ojai Sam
Staff member
DAY ONE - Friday, August 15 to Saturday, August 16
Sixth Set - Melanie
10:50pm – 11:20pm
"Close to It All"
"Momma Momma"
"Beautiful People"
"Animal Crackers"
"Mr. Tambourine Man"
"Tuning My Guitar"
"Birthday of the Sun"
After the last four sets which disappeared from the collective consciousness immediately after the festival ended, we return to one of the artists who came to symbolize Woodstock. Melanie had gained scant attention before stepping onto the soggy stage that Friday night. She recalled for Best Classic Bands:
By the time I went on, I was so scared, because every once in a while, someone would come and say, “You’re next,” and then it would be a false alarm and I’d be waiting and waiting. Then it was night and Ravi Shankar went on and it started to rain and I thought, that’s it, I’ll be saved because people are gonna go home now because it’s raining. Of course, they’re going to go home! I mean, they’re not gonna sit there in the rain. I’m in this revelry of thinking that’s what’s gonna happen and they called me and right as I’m waiting I hear Wavy Gravy [actually John Morris] making an announcement about his collective passing out candles, and something inspirational happened: the crowd started lighting the candles. So when I got on the stage, the candles were being lit. So forever after, I was associated with the lighting of things at concerts.
But this is what happened at Woodstock: I left my body. I actually had an out-of-body experience, having no alteration with any kind of drug. I was a purist—I didn’t hang out and smoke a lot of grass with people and so I was completely alone, and so terrified. I was certain this was my doom and I left my body. I came back to myself singing 'Beautiful People,' but I did have this experience of separating from my body. I went exterior. That experience was never reported. I’ve done radio interviews and they’ve always left that out, because they don’t want people to think they’re spirit and not bodies. You can control bodies but you can’t control spirits.
Of course she would later write "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" about her Woodstock experience, which would became her signature hit. Nothing in it about departing her body, though.
Sixth Set - Melanie
10:50pm – 11:20pm
"Close to It All"
"Momma Momma"
"Beautiful People"
"Animal Crackers"
"Mr. Tambourine Man"
"Tuning My Guitar"
"Birthday of the Sun"
After the last four sets which disappeared from the collective consciousness immediately after the festival ended, we return to one of the artists who came to symbolize Woodstock. Melanie had gained scant attention before stepping onto the soggy stage that Friday night. She recalled for Best Classic Bands:
By the time I went on, I was so scared, because every once in a while, someone would come and say, “You’re next,” and then it would be a false alarm and I’d be waiting and waiting. Then it was night and Ravi Shankar went on and it started to rain and I thought, that’s it, I’ll be saved because people are gonna go home now because it’s raining. Of course, they’re going to go home! I mean, they’re not gonna sit there in the rain. I’m in this revelry of thinking that’s what’s gonna happen and they called me and right as I’m waiting I hear Wavy Gravy [actually John Morris] making an announcement about his collective passing out candles, and something inspirational happened: the crowd started lighting the candles. So when I got on the stage, the candles were being lit. So forever after, I was associated with the lighting of things at concerts.
But this is what happened at Woodstock: I left my body. I actually had an out-of-body experience, having no alteration with any kind of drug. I was a purist—I didn’t hang out and smoke a lot of grass with people and so I was completely alone, and so terrified. I was certain this was my doom and I left my body. I came back to myself singing 'Beautiful People,' but I did have this experience of separating from my body. I went exterior. That experience was never reported. I’ve done radio interviews and they’ve always left that out, because they don’t want people to think they’re spirit and not bodies. You can control bodies but you can’t control spirits.
Of course she would later write "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" about her Woodstock experience, which would became her signature hit. Nothing in it about departing her body, though.
Unsomnambulist
Staff member
All these artists that I have never really heard of from the Sixties...
axolotl
Nunquam non paratus
Ojai Sam
Staff member
DAY ONE - Friday, August 15 to Saturday, August 16
Seventh Set - Arlo Guthrie
11:55pm – 12:25am
"Coming into Los Angeles"
"Wheel of Fortune"
"Walkin' Down the Line"
The Story of Moses
"Oh Mary Don't You Weep"
"Every Hand in the Land"
"Amazing Grace"
Arlo told the Smithsonian Magazine:
Oh, sure. I got there the first day and I was under the impression that I was gonna play the second day. . . We got there, they ferried us in by helicopter. So I was just goofing off the first day, not thinking I had to do a performance. I was out behind stage walking around for hours, and I went out into the crowd just to be a part of it. Just to get a sense and a feel on a rainy, muddy level, you know what I mean? It was a visceral recording, as it were. I wanted to remember it.
Visceral? Well, Arlo sounds pretty stoned to me. After Melanie's high energy if eccentric performance, the crowd was ready to roll but Guthrie promptly squashed their requests by saying "we know what we're going to play." Oddly, he didn't perform his signature song, "Alice's Restaurant" despite the fact that the film would be released a week later. Nearly half of his brief 38-minute set consisted of a rambling monologue, including an largely incoherent story about Moses and some brownies.
Trivia note for @axolotl: Arlo's drummer was the redoubtable jazzer Paul Motian.
Seventh Set - Arlo Guthrie
11:55pm – 12:25am
"Coming into Los Angeles"
"Wheel of Fortune"
"Walkin' Down the Line"
The Story of Moses
"Oh Mary Don't You Weep"
"Every Hand in the Land"
"Amazing Grace"
Arlo told the Smithsonian Magazine:
Oh, sure. I got there the first day and I was under the impression that I was gonna play the second day. . . We got there, they ferried us in by helicopter. So I was just goofing off the first day, not thinking I had to do a performance. I was out behind stage walking around for hours, and I went out into the crowd just to be a part of it. Just to get a sense and a feel on a rainy, muddy level, you know what I mean? It was a visceral recording, as it were. I wanted to remember it.
Visceral? Well, Arlo sounds pretty stoned to me. After Melanie's high energy if eccentric performance, the crowd was ready to roll but Guthrie promptly squashed their requests by saying "we know what we're going to play." Oddly, he didn't perform his signature song, "Alice's Restaurant" despite the fact that the film would be released a week later. Nearly half of his brief 38-minute set consisted of a rambling monologue, including an largely incoherent story about Moses and some brownies.
Trivia note for @axolotl: Arlo's drummer was the redoubtable jazzer Paul Motian.
Ojai Sam
Staff member
DAY ONE - Friday, August 15 to Saturday, August 16
Eighth Set - Joan Baez
12:55a.m. – 2:00 a.m.
"Oh Happy Day"
"The Last Thing on My Mind"
"I Shall Be Released"
Story about how the Federal Marshals came to take David Harris into custody
"Joe Hill"
"Sweet Sir Galahad"
"Hickory Wind"
"Drug Store Truck Driving Man" duet with Jeffrey Shurtleff
"One Day at a Time"
"Take Me Back to the Sweet Sunny South"
"Warm and Tender Love"
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
"We Shall Overcome"
Joan Baez had been an established folk singer for nearly a decade when she took the stage near 1:00 a.m. to close the first day at Woodstock. She also happened to be six months pregnant with her husband, David Harris, in federal prison on draft resistance charges. The result was a set stunning in its warmth and intimacy despite the size of the crowd. Her selection of material covered a wide range from gospel to folk to country to pop, closing with a moving sing along on "We Shall Overcome". In a 2009 interview for Rolling Stone Joan recalled:
Everybody was crazy. I guess the collective memories that people have, I have in a sense. It’s the mud and the cops roasting hot dogs and people wandering around in the nude. And the fact that, looking back, it was in fact a huge deal. I think of the events that happened around that time, it was a perfect storm, which is why people wish they’d been there. And not just Woodstock, but the whole time period when it was music and people feeling community with each other because they had either been in the civil rights movement or the movement against Vietnam.
It was like a perfect storm and I realized that Woodstock was like the eye of the hurricane because it was different. It was this weekend of love and intimacy and attempts at beauty and at caring and at being political. And because it was isolated like that, somehow it was safe and those things could happen. That’s why a cop could roast hot dogs and put his gun in the front seat of his car and not worry about it because it was this extraordinary safe place.
Baez is accompanied by Jeffrey Shurtleff, whose comment about "Ronald Ray Gun...Zap!" still makes me smile. RYM sez:
Jeffrey Shurtleff was born January 20, 1945 in Vallejo, California at Mare Island Naval Hospital.
He entered Stanford University from the Choate School in Connecticut in September 1962. In 1964, he took a year off in Mexico and worked with a Quaker project. Returning to Stanford, he lived in a commune with his brother Bill and friend David Harris named Peace and Liberation, which advocated resistance to the war in Vietnam. In 1968-69, he played folk guitar and sang with Joan Baez in concerts including Woodstock and made four albums in Nashville, Tennessee, including Jeffrey Shurtleff/State Farm.
In 1970-72, Jeffrey hitch-hiked all throughout South America starting from California. He later started Printers Inc. bookstore in Palo Alto, California and later became the owner of a new Central Park Bookstore in San Mateo, California which was a success for several years but later was run out of business by larger corporations. Many years later he married his wife Maria De Jesus Flores and had two sons, Justin and Gabriel. They divorced in 1999. He has been both the Director and Head Instructor at several Youth Schools in San Francisco. He moved to San Bruno, California and has a new wife and daughter.
Happily, Joan's entire set, complete with dialog is available on Spotify:
Eighth Set - Joan Baez
12:55a.m. – 2:00 a.m.
"Oh Happy Day"
"The Last Thing on My Mind"
"I Shall Be Released"
Story about how the Federal Marshals came to take David Harris into custody
"Joe Hill"
"Sweet Sir Galahad"
"Hickory Wind"
"Drug Store Truck Driving Man" duet with Jeffrey Shurtleff
"One Day at a Time"
"Take Me Back to the Sweet Sunny South"
"Warm and Tender Love"
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
"We Shall Overcome"
Joan Baez had been an established folk singer for nearly a decade when she took the stage near 1:00 a.m. to close the first day at Woodstock. She also happened to be six months pregnant with her husband, David Harris, in federal prison on draft resistance charges. The result was a set stunning in its warmth and intimacy despite the size of the crowd. Her selection of material covered a wide range from gospel to folk to country to pop, closing with a moving sing along on "We Shall Overcome". In a 2009 interview for Rolling Stone Joan recalled:
Everybody was crazy. I guess the collective memories that people have, I have in a sense. It’s the mud and the cops roasting hot dogs and people wandering around in the nude. And the fact that, looking back, it was in fact a huge deal. I think of the events that happened around that time, it was a perfect storm, which is why people wish they’d been there. And not just Woodstock, but the whole time period when it was music and people feeling community with each other because they had either been in the civil rights movement or the movement against Vietnam.
It was like a perfect storm and I realized that Woodstock was like the eye of the hurricane because it was different. It was this weekend of love and intimacy and attempts at beauty and at caring and at being political. And because it was isolated like that, somehow it was safe and those things could happen. That’s why a cop could roast hot dogs and put his gun in the front seat of his car and not worry about it because it was this extraordinary safe place.
Baez is accompanied by Jeffrey Shurtleff, whose comment about "Ronald Ray Gun...Zap!" still makes me smile. RYM sez:
Jeffrey Shurtleff was born January 20, 1945 in Vallejo, California at Mare Island Naval Hospital.
He entered Stanford University from the Choate School in Connecticut in September 1962. In 1964, he took a year off in Mexico and worked with a Quaker project. Returning to Stanford, he lived in a commune with his brother Bill and friend David Harris named Peace and Liberation, which advocated resistance to the war in Vietnam. In 1968-69, he played folk guitar and sang with Joan Baez in concerts including Woodstock and made four albums in Nashville, Tennessee, including Jeffrey Shurtleff/State Farm.
In 1970-72, Jeffrey hitch-hiked all throughout South America starting from California. He later started Printers Inc. bookstore in Palo Alto, California and later became the owner of a new Central Park Bookstore in San Mateo, California which was a success for several years but later was run out of business by larger corporations. Many years later he married his wife Maria De Jesus Flores and had two sons, Justin and Gabriel. They divorced in 1999. He has been both the Director and Head Instructor at several Youth Schools in San Francisco. He moved to San Bruno, California and has a new wife and daughter.
Happily, Joan's entire set, complete with dialog is available on Spotify:
Zeeba Neighba
Staff member
^
Was delighted to discover she opened the set with "Oh Happy Day". Always enjoyed the Edwin Hawkins Singers top 10 single from '67
Was delighted to discover she opened the set with "Oh Happy Day". Always enjoyed the Edwin Hawkins Singers top 10 single from '67
Ojai Sam
Staff member
And Melanie later recorded “Lay Down (Candles In The Rain”) with them.
It’s like Joni said:
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.
Ojai Sam
Staff member
As I enjoy once again Sweetwater's astoundingly good set, let's run Friday through the old Sam-O-Meter:
1 Richie Havens
Solid contemporary folk, the perfect opener.2 Sweetwater
Electrifying! We are all the poorer for the sad future in store for the crowd-pleasing group.3 Bert Sommer
The interruption for crowd control was more entertaining.4 Tim Hardin
5 Ravi Shankar
He's done a lot better shows than this one.6 Melanie
What she lacks in polish, she more than makes up for in enthusiasm and sincerity.7 Arlo Guthrie
Shut up and sing.8 Joan Baez
Perfect 2 a.m. music for the multitude, greatly enhanced by her engaging personal observations.Tomorrow we move on to Saturday's bill of fare for Day Two.
Zeeba Neighba
Staff member
^
Love the summaries/ratings, Sam!
Love the summaries/ratings, Sam!
Unsomnambulist
Staff member
axolotl
Nunquam non paratus
Heaven forfend, my friend!Holy shit, this set is selling on Discogs and Amazon for between $2,000 to $4,000. Maybe that's why @Ojai Sam never finished this, he sold his copy?
If Sam needed money, he wouldn't have taken out a second mortgage on his vacation home to purchase the set in the first place.
Unsomnambulist
Staff member
It supposedly sold for $800 when released.
This record company wants $800 for their Woodstock 50th anniversary box set
Spread across 38 compact discs and 36 hours, "Woodstock - Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive" features almost every note of music performed at the iconic 1969 festival.
Ojai Sam
Staff member
Yes, it did sell for $800. Thanks to Paypal Credit, Mrs. Ojai felt no budgetary pain. :nunja:It supposedly sold for $800 when released.
This record company wants $800 for their Woodstock 50th anniversary box set
Spread across 38 compact discs and 36 hours, "Woodstock - Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive" features almost every note of music performed at the iconic 1969 festival.www.cnbc.com
I don’t buy music as an investment, but this was a no brainer. Boomers have lots of dough and everyone loves Woodstock.
Ojai Sam
Staff member
DAY TWO - Saturday, August 16 to Sunday, August 17
First Set - Quill
12:15pm – 12:45pm
"They Live the Life"
"That's How I Eat"
"Driftin'"
"Waiting for You"
Quill was a journeyman hard rock group whose fan base was limited to the Boston area. How did this glorified bar band wind up on stage at Woodstock among such luminaries as Jefferson Airplane? They were managed by Michael Lang, who produced the festival.
First Set - Quill
12:15pm – 12:45pm
"They Live the Life"
"That's How I Eat"
"Driftin'"
"Waiting for You"
Quill was a journeyman hard rock group whose fan base was limited to the Boston area. How did this glorified bar band wind up on stage at Woodstock among such luminaries as Jefferson Airplane? They were managed by Michael Lang, who produced the festival.
Ojai Sam
Staff member
DAY TWO - Saturday, August 16 to Sunday, August 17
Second Set - Country Joe McDonald
1:00pm – 1:30pm
"Janis"
"Donovan's Reef"
"Heartaches by the Number"
"Ring of Fire"
"Tennessee Stud"
"Rockin' Round the World"
"Flyin' High"
"I Seen a Rocket"
"The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag"
"I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (Reprise)"
Country Joe McDonald's destiny seemed to be set at birth. Named after Joseph Stalin, McDonald was politically active from a young age and even became a card-carrying Communist. After three years in the U.S. Navy, Joe went to college and began singing in Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement. Forming a psychedelic band in 1965 with his friend Barry "The Fish" Melton. Joe's famous "F-I-S-H" cheer became a signature moment at Woodstock, reflecting his bona fides as a Berkeley activist.
Country Joe & The Fish were scheduled for Sunday but this 30 minute solo set on Saturday wasn't planned at all. However, when Santana wasn't ready to play, someone handed a guitar with a rope serving as the strap to Joe, who was just hanging around backstage shooting the S-H-I-T. Thedisjointed (sorry, poor choice of words given the atmosphere) scattered nature of his set shows how little time for preparation he had.
Second Set - Country Joe McDonald
1:00pm – 1:30pm
"Janis"
"Donovan's Reef"
"Heartaches by the Number"
"Ring of Fire"
"Tennessee Stud"
"Rockin' Round the World"
"Flyin' High"
"I Seen a Rocket"
"The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag"
"I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (Reprise)"
Country Joe McDonald's destiny seemed to be set at birth. Named after Joseph Stalin, McDonald was politically active from a young age and even became a card-carrying Communist. After three years in the U.S. Navy, Joe went to college and began singing in Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement. Forming a psychedelic band in 1965 with his friend Barry "The Fish" Melton. Joe's famous "F-I-S-H" cheer became a signature moment at Woodstock, reflecting his bona fides as a Berkeley activist.
Country Joe & The Fish were scheduled for Sunday but this 30 minute solo set on Saturday wasn't planned at all. However, when Santana wasn't ready to play, someone handed a guitar with a rope serving as the strap to Joe, who was just hanging around backstage shooting the S-H-I-T. The
