I'm only blogging this because the who-didn't-play-Woodstock article I found had this about Jethro Tull:
"I asked our manager Terry Ellis, 'Well, who else is going to be there?' And he listed a large number of groups who were reputedly going to play, and that it was going to be a hippie festival," Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson once told SongFacts, "and I said, 'Will there be lots of naked ladies? And will there be taking drugs and drinking lots of beer, and fooling around in the mud?' Because rain was forecast. And he said, 'Oh, yeah.' So I said, 'Right. I don't want to go.' Because I don't like hippies, and I'm usually rather put off by naked ladies unless the time is right."Anyway, I always called my father "Daddy," and I blogged about his records back in 2013. There are 6 posts: 1. "Make Love to Me" (Julie London), 2. "Velvet Carpet" (The George Shearing Quintet with String Choir), 3. "Memories Are Made of This" (Ray Coniff), 4. "Manhattan Tower" (Gordon Jenkins), 5. "Remember How Great...?" (a collection, presented by Lucky Strike cigarettes), 6. "$64,000 Jazz" (a collection in which my favorite track was Buck Clayton, "How Hi the Fi").
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I always enjoyed Tull. Ian Anderson's devastating rejoinder to his eager manager is classic.
De-mythologising Woodstock is long overdue. It was hyped as the "Woodstock nation", the hippy boomers' version of the world if governed by peace, love, flower-power, and the rest of that urban well-financed-by-daddy's-hard-earned-wallet-but-never-acknowledged-gratitude-for layabout crap. What was it? A long weekend? Three days? Four? A brief-lived nation of 500,000 with a daily mortality rate about triple whitebread straitlaced Salt Lake City's?
Ian Anderson only wants to see a woman naked if he’ll get to have sex with her?
My father didn’t have a record collection. He bought a nice stereo when I was about 13 and there was a baby grand in the living room, yet there was no music in the house.
Really don't mind if you sit this one out,
My words but a whisper, your deafness a shout.
If normalized for age and affluence the Woodstock Nation's death and injury rates were like Tokyo's under the B-29s, and the only bombers the boomers had to worry about came wrapped in Zig-Zag papers.
One group always conspicuously absent from the reminiscing- Sha Na Na. I like to mention them when I encounter a Woodstock attendee rattling off the list of bands. It’s funny how they never mention them themselves or how popular they were. Not like everyone went to the bathroom for their set. Bunch of squares.
"Ian Anderson only wants to see a woman naked if he’ll get to have sex with her?"
He didn't say that.
I took it to mean more that these mass events where people take off their clothes is more of a nudist camp type thing, demonstrating your freedom and it's specifically not about sex, or it's young women in crowds (like at concerts) getting tons of attention for having breasts when the musician is putting on a display of hard-won virtuosity.
If normalized for age and affluence
If normalized for extra-dopey meaningless comparisons you'd find that the death and injury rates were like a medium sized town which had a car accident.
I mean it's either: 1. Don't look, treat nakedness like it's totally normal, or you are not cool, or 2. Look at me! I'm a female!!!
And now, here they are, all greased up and ready to sing their brains out, Sha Na Na!
I liked their late-70s TV show. They had great singing and comedy talent.
It being December, we can recommend Julie London's "I'd Like You for Christmas."
And he said, 'Oh, yeah.' So I said, 'Right. I don't want to go.' Because I don't like hippies
Suddenly! I'm starting to LIKE Jethro Tull!
It was that lots of "notable acts" skipped Woodstock:
IF Woodstock was SO GOOD? WHERE WERE THE MONKEES? and WHERE WAS JOHNNY CASH?
I have all the boomer vinyl AND the Big Band and 50's be-bop vinyl of my parent's generation - great stuff that. I went to Michael Lang's Miami Pop Festival which was 100% better than Woodstock and finally Ive seen all yhye bands that didnt play Woodstock twice over. And lastly but not leastly the orange sunshine was better than the brown. Woodstock can go bugger itself.
"I always enjoyed Tull. Ian Anderson's devastating rejoinder to his eager manager is classic."
Sounds like after-the-fact excuse-making to me, possibly even tongue-in-cheek. Perhaps they weren't even really invited. In 1969, Tull were barely known in America.
"I liked their late-70s TV show. They had great singing and comedy talent."
Smart, too. They formed at Columbia University.
As for Woodstock, I can't imagine sitting in a pasture for three days and nights, even without rain. Simply spending those hours in the sun would have been intolerable. Add to that the hunger, the lack of bathroom facilities, etc. No fucking way.
I suspect you know about the availability of Remember How Great ...? on Amazon, but just-in-case ... https://amzn.to/2qbAG17
Simply spending those hours in the sun would have been intolerable
The secret secret is: They are FUCKING LUCKY it rained, or a LOT more people would have died
In 1969 I was 12. Friends and I were listening to The Beatles, The Monkees, Tommy James & the Shondells, Simon & Garfunkel, not sure what else. I don't recall being aware of Woodstock at the time it was happening. Came to appreciate Hendrix performance and those of Alvin Lee and Richie Havens.
My dad had records of the Righteous Brothers, Herb Alpert (Whipped Cream, now THAT was an album cover for pre-teen boys), Frank Sinatra, etc. I love all that music to this day.
Been a huge fan of Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick and Aqualung are still in my regular listening rotation.
Sounds like a busted version of the "It's not your Dad's blah, blah, blah..." trope. Of course Ann, you're the "dad" generation of which he speaks, just like me. The author's point is stupid. There were some good acts at Woodstock but a lot were "meh" for me (YMMV).
My Dad was a music major at UCLA before and after WWII (he took a break to serve in the Merchant Marine), a high school music teacher, and a church choir director, despite his agnosticism. His record collection was mostly classical, in particular JS Bach, but he introduced us to Joan Baez, the Kingston Trio and Tom Lehrer. He had an abiding hate of almost all popular music, which was one of the greatest sources of friction between us.
I still sing songs he taught me to my grandchildren
He died last summer at 94, virtually deaf, which was one of the saddest things, that in his dementia he couldn't really listen to music. I have no idea what happened to his record collection; it probably didn't survive one of their moves, or it may still be in a closet in his house, which is being sold now.
If normalized for extra-dopey meaningless comparisons...
The boomer self-image defense reflex stimulated.
flautism is to rock music as flatulism is to an elevator.
Herb Alpert (Whipped Cream, now THAT was an album cover for pre-teen boys)
I've never seen it so on to Google images I go. HA! Apparently a shared opinion given the number of spoofs. Honorable mention to the Sour Cream ladies...
[My best John Lennon voice]: Checked out me photo for "Desperate Measures" lately?
The whole playlist is here if maybe you're not a Dylan Fan and are more into rock....
There's a British Guitarist (google Wings of Pegasus) who analyzes various music videos on youtube. In just the last two days I watched his analyses of Santana and Alvin Lee at Woodstock. Both of those performances were remarkably good technically and Santana (the group) was tight, tight, tight. With so much going against them, the insane atmosphere, the drugs, the weather, etc., they did a great job musically.
Both Dylan and Jethro Till played Isle Of Wight Festival in late August that year in front of 250,000.
Herb Alpert (Whipped Cream, now THAT was an album cover for pre-teen boys
Teen boys, too. And adult men of all ages.
That cover sticks with me.
That cover sticks with me.
My cover got pretty sticky... Must have been the Whipped Cream
My Dad had every Gordon Lightfoot album. He hated Sinatra and all the other crooners. In highschool, we would listen to Tull's Locomotive Breath before swim meets.
Howard said...
"My Dad had every Gordon Lightfoot album."
I flipped him for this song. I'm also a huge fan of his work.
No Tull tag? One of those bands I didn't care much for in the '70's but later gained an appreciation. Somehow, I've ended up with three copies of Stand Up!
Tank, thanks for the tip about the Wings of Pegasus videos. I'm on my third one just this morning. Really interesting stuff.
Tull was great up until Passion Play, and spotty since (not that I have followed closely).
Stand Up, Aqualung, TAAB--those will be appreciated for a long time IMHO. Anderson was right about hippie schweinerei, of course.
Some of my friends were at the Atlanta Rock Festival, held a month before Woodstock; their stories made me glad I missed it.
Narr
No fool Ian Anderson
As for my father, he was many things I am not, including a musician--trombone, and had his own spiffy little big band in high school/college (pre 7 Dec 1941)--matching suits, stands, logo--never learned much about it, unfort.
Oddly, or maybe not, we didn't have much of a record player and he didn't have much of a collection--too busy I suppose. I know he liked Dixieland and The Ink Spots--my mother used to complain that their (few and early) romantic trips to New Orleans usually meant going from loud smoky bar to louder smokier one, with too much booze.
My own tastes come much more from his parents (esp. Oma) than him, though I loves me some big band and swing.
Narr
And marches!
Tank said...
There's a British Guitarist (google Wings of Pegasus) who analyzes various music videos on youtube.
I've watched a number of these in the past. What's interesting to me is the respect he gives to country pickers like Glen Campbell, Roy Clark, Jerry Reed, and Chet Atkins. He very much admires their clean technique.
Another great musician who missed Woodstock, but wrote a song about it, was Joni Mitchell. Woodstock
Ann-
Interesting aside...
Was listening to a podcast interview earlier this year with long-time San Francisco sportswriter Bruce Jenkins where he was talking about growing up in LA when I finally made the 'duh' connection that his father was musician Gordon Jenkins. He wrote a book about his father some years back - interesting 2005 interview to accompany the release of the book:
A son journeys into his father's musical heart to trace the rhythms of a quiet virtuoso
Speaking as a huge Tull fan, the interesting thing is that I find it completely plausible that Ian would turn down an offer to play Woodstock that way and equally plausible he'd make up a story about doing so if they hadn't been asked.
(PS I think some of the people here are too quick to dismiss their post-Passion Play work. Songs from the Wood is one of the band's very best albums, and the two that followed it while not as good as a whole still contain some fantastic songs.)
Thanks, dwick!
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