By TRB
Jimi Hendrix once had this apartment, or maybe it belonged to his girlfriend in NYC not far from several clubs. He would keep his guitars there and do some practicing. He found some strange ways to occupy himself. One was to read Bob Dylan's songbook from cover to cover. He loved Bob Dylan.
Sometimes when Jimi was feeling a little restless at night he might show up at a club or two and just naturally the manager would clear the stage and let Jimi loose. It was during one of these occasions that he played Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower."
"Yes, "two riders were approaching and the wind began to howl," and then Jimi would make it howl on his guitar. He could re-create the weather right there for you. When the "bombs, were bursting in air," he would put those bombs up there for you. And he would flicker his long dark fingers downward as they fell upon the audience.
But Jimi wasn't weird or anything, He was just another musician from that generation who was trying to make something happen.The Allman Brothers would arrive a few months later in NYC, a group of absolute country homeboys from Florida, and occupy the Fillmore East for a couple of nights. And producer Tom Dowd would sit in an allyway next to the building and record them live right there at the Fillmore East and people would hear Duane Allman for the first time, unless they knew that was him playing the session behind Aretha on her album "Lady Soul." Eric Clapton is responsible for some overdubs on that same album,
People, mostly press, kept calling the Allmans "Southern Rock, as if there were such an animal. Well the blues originated in the South and so did Rock, "So," Gregg Allman said sarcastically to a news interviewer one night, "Why don't you just call it Rock Rock. It's all from the South."
There was the experimental group in Englend called Pink Floyd which was pushing forward with a sound that today would be called "trance music" because that is the only way to describe it. Of course Pink Floyd offered up a bit more difficult menu, one drenched in American Blues and something called Psychadelic music that they couldn't even describe. There was the meeting of the minds that had taken place on a train platform just a year before between Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, where Richards found his Muse carrying a dozen or so American blues albums and a band - the best traditional Rock group in history - was all but created before the train even arrived.
There was the pop group called the Beatles who wrote some interesting music, especially Harrison and Lennon. It was said The Beatles were millionaires on paper already. Then there were these guitarists Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page and yes, you can add Jeff Beck to that, who were playing something new something singular, it was theirs. I am not going to try to explain it all.This is a column not a book. And when the book of Rock is finally written, it will consist of many chapters.
There were great bands everywhere, and I won't try to mention all of them either. Just too many.
But there was the African American Motown artist named Marvin Gaye who was working on something he would call "What's Going On," and it would include some prophecy about the environment in a song called "Mercy Mercy Me" that could be written today and would be just as fresh as the morning dew if you can still find any of that stuff. Marvin Gaye had created a new kind of socially conscious Rock which, since his death no one has been able to replace. In fact, black artists, like Sly and the Family Stone, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and a dozen Motown artists (just to name a few) were just as responsible for the remarkable change that occured in the sound of music in the 1960s.
For a long time to come people will think of that weekend in Bethel New York on Max Yasgar's farm and they will surmise that Woodstock was our music "thing," that it was a full shot, But it wasn't. It was a giant concert of course, some of the top acts played. But the Doors sat it out, the Beatles were no where to be found, Zep, which was together in 1969, wasn't even invited. The Rolling Stones didn't make it. The biggest British act was the Who. Crosby, Stills and Nash offically became a band, with a reluctant Neil Young asking to be cut out of the film.
People saw Janis in a big way for the second time since the film "Monterey." She was not as good. Maybe the substance abuse, I don't know. Could have been cigarettes. She was hacking that day and her little body would almost be knocked over by her own coughing,
Come to think of it, there were just as many good bands there as there were not good bands there,
No one predicted Woodstock. It all boiled down to four words the producers never thought they would hear "They just kept coming."
I have written about Woodstock many times, but I could not have predicted that.To me it was just a way to go to a concert with some friends, go camping, and do some assignments for some papers. I didn't think anything was special about Woodstock, except for its size. The use of so much acid and mescaline made it perhaps a bit more interesting than your usual concert. All of those people tripping at the same time was an experience it is hard to forget. Fortunately, it is just as hard to remember.
I spent a lot of time back stage at Woodstock and saw firsthand the performers and roadies trying to make it as seamless as possible through torrential rain, and a lead singer who got his hands on some acid and all the problems bands have being families on vacation who have to work for their lunch. It had its moments, mostly gone from memory now, soaked up by whatever i was taking at the time.
I remember one year before we went to Woodstock I was watching The Who during one of their bombastic performances at a military armory. Cops lined the stage just below and in front of the band. I heard some laughter coming from the front so I moved myself up there to check it out. It was Roger Daltry, the lead singer, who was getting a kick out of spitting water down the backs of the cops who were sent there to guard him.
I remember thinking what a jerk he was. Not that cops were our favorites back then. It was just the sneaky part of it I guess, and the laugh at the expense of the cop. Didn't seem right, even then,
There weren't too many gentlemen in Rock back then. On the whole, the male stars, at least, were a tiresome lot of fakers, dummies and pretty boys with practiced pouts. I would exclude Jagger and Richards (and others too) from this lot because the Stones actually accomplished something much bigger than themselves. They took something, called in the UK Northern Blues and just a trace of Skittle just a glimmer of it, married it to what consisted of Americsan Rock and tied it all up with African American blues, creating a sound that even the bluesmen will tell you is at times beautiful.
Forget about your silly Beatles. Please please me, and do that. Think Stones, think Zep, think reluctant pop star. All the good ones were - reluctant I mean. Some of them could soak up the adulation, yes. But they were not in it for that. Think George Harrison who created his own sound. Think John Lennon and Strawberry Fields. Be my guest.
But back at Woodstock everything is over. Maybe there are a few thousand of us waiting for Jimi to make an appearance. Everything is dirty covered in mud. None of us really knows what is in that mud; we do know that we want to leave. And then he appears. He is wearing white or a very light blue. He is immaculate. The light costume, so light colored he glows as he crosses the stage. Someone, maybe Jimi himself has woven multi-colored glass beads all over his clothes. Or maybe I just thought I saw them.
He is like the magicman. But he is also more somber than usual. In fact, it is almost like he just wants to do the gig, pick up the money and leave. Then he shifts again. His eyes are alive now. He breaks out into an instumental that is both slow and fast, smooth and rough, broken and perfect. And somehow it describes precisely how I feel at that moment.
(The 43rd anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival is next week. Ed. Note)
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