Five stirring performances at Woodstock

I first saw "Woodstock" in the mid-'80s, when most rock and pop was weightless and overproduced, with all the shelf life of a stale fart.

As a teen bohemian-in-training trapped in what was in many ways a plastic, reactionary era, I found the movie fascinating. For over three hours I was transported to a time when personal growth and exploration didn't take a backseat to getting ahead, when brotherhood was more prevalent—and infinitely more hip—than greed, when the young men didn't look like frat boys and the women had long, straight, natural hair instead of those godawful '80s perms.   

Musically, Woodstock remains a rock festival without peer, a distinction which is likely to stick due to the scale of the event and the quality of the bands. The list of soulful, high-caliber acts that performed on those four days 45 years ago is staggering:  Jimi Hendrix; The Who; Santana; Sly & the Family Stone; The Band; Ravi Shankar; Janis Joplin; Johnny Winter; Creedence Clearwater Revival; Ten Years After; Crosby, Stills, & Nash; Jefferson Airplane; Blood, Sweat, & Tears; Joe Cocker; Joan Baez; Arlo Guthrie. 

Woodstock's high points could fill multiple posts, but I will focus on just five key moments. 

Richie Havens, one of the lesser-known acts at Woodstock, opened the festival. The first performance that appears in the documentary is Havens' closer, "Freedom." Never before have I seen a musician move an audience of 200,000 with just an acoustic guitar, his voice, and a lone conga player.

This turbo-charged rendition of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" features the Who early in their career, firing on all cylinders (see:  Pete Townshend's windmills, Keith Moon's kinetic drumming, Roger Daltrey's microphone lassoing). Added bonuses include Townshend's sonic performance art at the conclusion of this video and the heady split-screen footage spliced together from seven cameras positioned around the stage.

The backdrop to Woodstock was the United States' futile and bloody involvement in Vietnam. Country Joe, the relatively obscure leader of Country Joe & the Fish, captured the zeitgeist with an anti-war protest song, the "I Feel I'm Fixin' to Die Rag." Interesting historical footnote:  a young Martin Scorsese, serving as an editor of the documentary, came up with the bouncing ball-on-white lyrics effect that comes in at 1:42.

 

Ten Years After was one of my most potent Woodstock discoveries. Other than hearing "I'd Love to Change the World" every once in a while on classic rock radio, I had no familiarity with the band. After I saw this rousing clip, Ten Years After—and virtuoso lead guitarist Alvin Lee—became a permanent part of my musical landscape.

Alvin Lee was not the only bonafide guitar hero at Woodstock. Carlos Santana, then just 22 years old, led his band through an epic version of "Soul Sacrifice." From the sheer size of the crowd to the percussion orgy break (2:11) to the most bad-ass rock drum solo this side of "Moby Dick" (3:07) to the molten guitar solo that followed and the random shots of audience members caught in musical ecstasy, it doesn't get any better than this.

                                                 More music posts at "Truth and Beauty":

Angelic voices, #1: Ella sings "Summertime"

Angelic voices, #2: Marvin Gaye sings "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Angelic voices, #3: Janis Joplin sings "Cry Baby"

There must be something in the water: the magic of "Muscle Shoals"

The Second Coming: Stevie Ray Vaughan

"Otis Spann is the Blues"

Ray Manzarek (1939-2013)

"Searching for Sugar Man"

Great Guitar Solos, #2: Frank Zappa

Great Guitar Solos, #5: Alvin Lee

"His speed and dexterity...was scary and exciting. He was daring enough to play and sing close to his limit every time. As a man off-stage, his persona was modest and gentle. On stage - a giant who will be missed greatly."

-Queen's guitarist Brian May, on Alvin Lee

I remember the first time I saw "Woodstock" on PBS, many moons ago. I came to the initial viewing with an intense sociological curiosity about late '60s America, which seemed so much more happening and free and authentic than the plastic, reactionary, hyper-corporatized '80s I was living in.   

But most of all, I watched "Woodstock" for the music. In an era loaded down with drum machines, synthesizers, and slathered-on production, it was refreshing to witness a moment in time when the distance between musician and listener was shorter, when technological crutches were absent and real musicians spoke directly from the heart with real instruments.

There were famous performances I knew about in advance (Jimi Hendrix doing "The Star-Spangled Banner," Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help from My Friends") and acts I was familiar with who I didn't know were in the movie (Santana, Crosby, Stills, and Nash). And there were artists I discovered for the first time, including Alvin Lee of Ten Years After.

The general public best knows Ten Years After for the single "I'd Love to Change the World," but Alvin Lee was a touring musician first and foremost, a guitarist's guitarist who proved himself night after night on the road.  

This video from "Woodstock" is Lee's moment in the sun.

  

(Click on box in lower right for full screen)

Lee steers this epic performance from the get-go with hot opening licks which show that he means business. Once the verse comes in, he effortlessly shifts between rhythm guitar/belted-out blues vocals and fluid, rapid-fire fills reminiscent of Johnny Winter.

The solos at 5:30 and 9:18 blaze, but they're just one part of the bigger picture. Lee was among the many British invasion musicians who'd assimilated the foundational blues and rock of post-World War II America. Here he tips his hat to his rock 'n' roll forebears with short quotes from "Blue Suede Shoes," "Baby Please Don't Go," "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," and "Walk that Walk," ultimately showing how a resourceful interpreter can turn a simple 12-bar blues progression into a dynamic piece.

While "I'm Going Home" is Lee's most renowned performance, the version of "I Can't Keep from Crying" below is a better showcase of his guitar chops.

(Click on box in lower right for full screen)

Lee starts with a classical riff that segues into finger-picked arpeggios and back into the riff. After striking a big meaty resonant chord, he dishes blues licks doubled with scat-like vocals before bringing in the main theme and opening verse. Within two minutes, he is let loose in jamland. 

Book-ended by short vocal sections is a sprawling, free-flowing quarter hour where Lee's advanced intimacy with the fretboard emerges in endless variations. There's a jazzy chord fragment line that gives way to a smoking lead, tapping, brief nods to Cream and Jimi Hendrix, pick slides, a tuning peg experiment, a microphone-stand-as slide maneuver, and intermittent injections of molten Pentatonic runs over a steady organ-bass-drums vamp. The only thing that isn't in this recording is the bow from "Dazed and Confused."

R.I.P. Alvin Lee (December 19, 1944 - March 6, 2013)

At a twenty-minute running time, "Crying" is not for people who feel most at home with a hook-based verse-chorus, verse-chorus song structure they can hum in their car on the morning commute. 

But guitarists, jam band fans, and patient listeners are grateful for the Alvin Lees of the world, the imaginative improvisers who draw from within to offer spontaneous combustion that can transcend scripted, notation-based music. 

**Click here for Great Guitar Solos, #1:  Eddie Hazel (of Funkadelic)

here for Great Guitar Solos, #2:  Frank Zappa

here for Great Guitar Solos, #3:  Hiram Bullock 

and here for Great Guitar Solos, #4: Dweezil Zappa Nails "Eruption"

It was 70 years ago today: an appreciation of Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix would have turned 70 today. 

As we fly our freak flag high in tribute, let's take an audiovisual peek at one of America's greatest artists.

The first video below was filmed at the Monterey International Pop Festival, the capstone of 1967's Summer of Love. At this point in his career, Hendrix had made it in England, but he wasn't well-known in his home country.

Though the general American public wasn't yet hip to Hendrix, rock musicians on both sides of the Atlantic were aware of his otherworldly skills and sound. Legend has it that Hendrix and Pete Townshend almost came to blows backstage over who would go first at Monterey, as neither band wanted to follow the other. The Who won the coin toss and set the bar high with their usual balls-out show, which ended in ritual instrument destruction.

Remarkably, Hendrix took the stagecraft even further at the end of his set by burning his guitar, in a performance that would put him on the map in the United States.  

Below is the Experience's opening song at Monterey, the Howlin' Wolf classic "Killing Floor." Note the hyperkinetic drumming, matching Afros, and white-hot rhythm guitar intro.

                                                 (Click box in lower right for full screen)

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released that same summer. Hendrix was a Beatles fan, and within days of the album's release he tipped his hat with a live version of the title track:

By the time Woodstock rolled around (1969), Jimi Hendrix had attained superstar status. The promoters scheduled him on the final day, presumably to save the best for last, but the audience had thinned by the time he came on thanks to rain, mud, and insufficient accommodations for the hundreds of thousands who attended. 

Those who stayed until the end of the three-day festival were witness to Hendrix's most renowned musical moment, his interpretation of "The Star-Spangled Banner." It's possible that Jimi's time in the military may've contributed to his uncanny talent for eking dive-bomber sounds out of this pretty white Stratocaster. 

Last, but not least, there's the New Year's 1970 "Machine Gun." 

Ted Nugent once claimed that Hendrix didn't have it at the end, that he was burned out. But just nine months before his untimely death, Jimi fathered this sonic masterpiece, a heavily-improvised epic that could qualify as telepathic guitar playing. The titanic feedbacking bend that starts this solo (below) deserves its own place in the Electric Guitar Hall of Wail. 

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace"

-Jimi Hendrix

***

Other "Truth and Beauty" guitar hero essays:

          Click here for "The Second Coming:  Stevie Ray Vaughan," a first-hand                                                                                account of Vaughan's final concert

                     

  here for "Link Wray's 'Rumble'"          
                  

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #1:  Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic)"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #2:  Frank Zappa"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #3:  Hiram Bullock" 

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #4: Dweezil Zappa Nails 'Eruption'"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #5:  Alvin Lee"

and here for "Great Guitar Solos, #6: Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My'"