#keom

[thestorybehindourmusic]

Woodstock; Blood, Sweat & Tears

   The Story Behind our Music’s past few shows have been about some of the singers and bands that played Woodstock in 1969. Recently the lineup for Woodstock 50 was made public. It is an amazing list of now popular acts along with many acts that performed the show in 1969. The theme is very similar to the vision of the original festival, this time their catch phrase “Peace, Love, Music for the People, for the Planet.” One of the names that seems to have been left off the list of performers at Woodstock 2019 is Blood, Sweat and Tears. 

   There were some unusual acts at Woodstock and Blood, Sweat and Tears was definitely one-of-a-kind in 1969. The festival had it’s rock bands, it’s psychedelic bands, it’s folk bands, a doo-wop band and even a band called “The Band”, but that will be a later show. Yet Blood, Sweat and Tears really wasn’t any of those. The bands style was later labeled as Jazz-rock or “brass-rock” or even “Trumpet-rock”, but they were quite unique at the time. The only band that had attempted a blend like this was a group called The Buckinghams, and they only had some mild success. 

   The group came together in 1967 with members from both the US and Canada and started playing gigs in New York City. They were getting quite popular with the local crowds when Columbia records signed them to a contract and they released their first album. It was called Child is Father to the Man, and reached #47 on the Billboard magazine “Pop Album Charts”. It was an unusual album with an unusual cover, that must have taken quite some time cutting and pasting to create. The cover shows the band members holding children in their laps, the strange part is that the band members head’s have been morphed on to the child they are holding.I think it is actually a little creepy.

   As the album slowly gained popularity, behind the scenes the band was falling apart. The keyboardist and lead singer, Al Kooper, left because some of the other members didn’t want him to sing on any more recordings. The group’s trumpeters left to join another band leaving this “trumpet-rock” band without trumpets. But, as you figured, a new trumpet section was hired and with the help of singer Judy Collins, they found a new singer as well. Ms. Collins, who just happened to know about an amazing singer with an unusual voice and the fact that BS&T was looking for someone to fill that roll, brought David Clayton-Thomas and Blood, Sweat and Tears together. This was it, the sound that they had been wanting. In late 1968 BS&T released their second album. The record quickly hit the top of the charts and won Album of the Year at the Grammys. It had some serious competition for that award too, as the Beatles' Abbey Road, was among the other nominees. 

That album was simply titled “Blood, Sweat & Tears, and three hit singles were released from it. "You've Made Me So Very Happy", "Spinning Wheel", and "And When I Die". 

   So, when Blood, Sweat and Tears took the stage at Woodstock, they were at the top of their game and were one of the headliners at the music festival.

   The next few years were tough on the band and it struggled with many member changes in the next few years. The band did release more albums with catchy names like; “Blood, Sweat and Tears 3”, and “Blood, sweat and Tears 4” and had a few more hits like “Hi-De-Ho” in 1970. They also struggled with their image because after Woodstock they voluntarily went on a US Department of State sponsored tour in Eastern Europe, and that was seen as “selling out” to the “counterculture” of the 1960’s. Then in 1972 David Clayton-Thomas, took what had become their signature voice and left to pursue a solo career.

   But the band did survive and is still alive today. Although there are no remaining members from the glory days, they are still touring and making audiences smile by doing something very few bands had tried before them, and that is, combining Rock music with an amazing horn section to create a signature sound. It has been done since, but Blood, Sweat and Tears was the original to succeed at it. 

[thestorybehindourmusic]

WOODSTOCK!

       As I said in my last show about Creedence, I’m going to do some shows on “Woodstock” and the artists that performed there. This August will be the 50th anniversary of the festival and I don’t believe that you will find many music events that played this much of a role in modern culture. It won’t be an exhaustive list because I might not cover all the artists, but I believe you will find the ones that I do cover entertaining and maybe enlightening. But incase you have lived the last half century in a cave, I’ll explain just what woodstock was.

 In August 1969, the Woodstock Music & Art Fair took place on a dairy farm in Bethel, NY. Over half a million people came to a 600-acre farm to hear 32 acts play over the course of four days, August 15-18. Many of the groups were very popular, some became very popular, others never made it too big and one was even struck by a tragedy before they had a chance to make it. Some of the super groups were; Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, the Who, Janis Joplin and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Some of which you have listened to right here on KEOM. Woodstock is known as one of the greatest happenings of all time and some have called it “the most pivotal moment in music history.”(Everyday people) Michael Lang, and the three other young men who formed Woodstock Ventures to produce the festival expected a big crowd, they presold 100,000 tickets, but I don’t believe they had any idea just how big. 

By Wednesday, August 13, two day before the actual start of the show, some 60,000 people had already arrived and set up camp. By Friday, the roads were so clogged with cars that performing artists had to arrive by helicopter. 

Even though all those tickets were sold prior to the festival weekend, they became unnecessary as swarms of people descended on the concert grounds to take part and overwhelmed the venue. That weekend, Bethel temporarily became the third largest city in New York State, twice the size of Buffalo. Feeding a half million people was a logistical nightmare. A New Mexico commune, called The Hog Farm was initially hired to help keep the peace, but peace wasn’t a problem. They quickly switched gears, and started recruiting new members, on the spot to help cook and serve to the crowds. A local Jewish Community Center and a Restaurant in town heard about the food shortages, they too sprung into action, supplying thousands of sandwiches, many that were peanut butter and jelly, that were eventually flown into the festival.

Joni Mitchell, who did not perform at Woodstock but chose to appear on the Dick Cavett television show instead, said, “Woodstock was a spark of beauty” where half-a-million kids “saw that they were part of a greater organism.”  She was so moved by the stories that her then boyfriend Graham(gram) Nash told her, that she penned the song “Woodstock”. It’s the song that you are hearing now and it became a big hit for his band, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Michael Lang said about the festival, that was advertised as “3 days of peace and music” ,“That’s what means the most to me – the connection to one another felt by all of us who worked on the festival, all those who came to it, and the millions who couldn’t be there but were touched by it.”

It was a historic and peaceful happening, three days of music, half a million people, some rain and mud and the rest is history.

[blingblinkyoftexas]

#TexasSummer and #MorningCoffee listening to #MotownMusic #KEOM #Hydrangeas #DetroitMug #motown #coffeelover #Michigan #Texasebayer #collectibles #travelgram #BlingBlinky #Music https://www.instagram.com/p/CDOoi2Qnbvc/?igshid=wopp487ws6oe

[thestorybehindourmusic]

American Pie

     If you are a regular listener to my show you will know that for the last several weeks I have been concentrating on the music and artists of Woodstock; as the 50th anniversary of the festival is coming up this summer. I have been filling you in on some of the behind the music stories, both good and bad, of the acts at the show billed as 3 days of “Peace and Music”. However this week I’m going to take a break from Woodstock, because 4 years ago last week the manuscript of a true american musical icon was sold at auction for 1.2 million dollars. The manuscript was the lyrics in the original writing of Don McLean’s biggest hit. At 8 and ½ minutes long the song was considered an anthem and many radio stations would only play a shortened version of the song. I believe that most people are familiar that with the song that I’m referring to, American Pie. I think we have all heard his crazy and cryptic lyrics about “bye bye Ms. American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry”, and the repeated line about “the day the music died”, but what was his meanings?

     McLean said in a Christie’s catalogue ahead of the sale, “I thought it would be interesting as I reach age 70 to release this work product on the song American Pie so that anyone who might be interested will learn that this song was not” just a game to see who could remember all the lyrics.  He said it was actually “an indescribable photograph of America that I tried to capture in words and music.”

     That photograph was always a little bit blurry. At more than 800 words, the meaning of “American Pie” proved elusive except for maybe the part about when “the Music died”. That being when three up and coming musicians were killed in an airplane crash in 1959. Those 3 musicians were Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. Holly was just 22 and Valens a mere 17.

What does it all mean? According to Mclean; the end of the American Dream.

     “Basically in ‘American Pie,’ things are heading in the wrong direction,” he also told Christie’s, “It is becoming less idyllic. I don’t know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense.”

     “I was around in 1970 and now I am around in 2015,” McLean said, to People Magazine. “There is no poetry and very little romance in anything anymore, so it is really like the last phase of ‘American Pie'. ”

     Well, truth be told there was no romance in Mclean’s decision to sell the manuscript either, it was simply about the money. He told Rolling Stone Magazine “I’m going to be 70 this year, I have two children and a wife… I want to get the best deal that I can for them. It’s time.” (American pie)

     Just as a side note in 2017, McLean's original recording was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant".

Here are the complete Lyrics, see what you think.

American Pie

Don McLean

A long long time ago I can still remember how That music used to make me smile And I knew if I had my chance That I could make those people dance And maybe they'd be happy for a while

But February made me shiver With every paper I'd deliver Bad news on the doorstep I couldn't take one more step

I can't remember if I cried When I read about his widowed bride Something touched me deep inside The day the music died

SoBye, bye Miss American Pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye Singin' this'll be the day that I die This'll be the day that I die

Did you write the book of love And do you have faith in God above If the Bible tells you so? Do you believe in rock and roll? Can music save your mortal soul? And can you teach me how to dance real slow?

Well, I know that you're in love with him 'Cause I saw you dancin' in the gym You both kicked off your shoes Man, I dig those rhythm and blues

I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck With a pink carnation and a pickup truck But I knew I was out of luck The day the music died I started singin' Bye, bye Miss American Pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye Singin' this'll be the day that I die This'll be the day that I die

Now, for ten years we've been on our own And moss grows fat on a rolling stone But, that's not how it used to be

When the jester sang for the king and queen In a coat he borrowed from James Dean And a voice that came from you and me 

Oh and while the king was looking down The jester stole his thorny crown The courtroom was adjourned No verdict was returned And while Lennon read a book on Marx The quartet practiced in the park And we sang dirges in the dark The day the music died

We were singin' Bye, bye Miss American Pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye And singin' this'll be the day that I die This'll be the day that I die

Helter skelter in a summer swelter The birds flew off with a fallout shelter Eight miles high and falling fast It landed foul on the grass The players tried for a forward pass With the jester on the sidelines in a cast

Now the half-time air was sweet perfume While sergeants played a marching tune We all got up to dance Oh, but we never got the chance' Cause the players tried to take the field The marching band refused to yield Do you recall what was revealed The day the music died?

We started singin' Bye, bye Miss American Pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye And singin' this'll be the day that I die This'll be the day that I die

Oh, and there we were all in one place A generation lost in space With no time left to start again So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick Jack Flash sat on a candlestick 'Cause fire is the devil's only friend Oh and as I watched him on the stage My hands were clenched in fists of rage No angel born in Hell Could break that Satan's spell And as the flames climbed high into the night To light the sacrificial rite I saw Satan laughing with delight The day the music died

He was singin' Bye, bye Miss American Pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye Singin' this'll be the day that I die This'll be the day that I die I met a girl who sang the blues And I asked her for some happy news But she just smiled and turned away I went down to the sacred store Where I'd heard the music years before But the man there said the music wouldn't play And in the streets the children screamed The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed But not a word was spoken The church bells all were broken And the three men I admire most The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost They caught the last train for the coast The day the music died

And they were singing Bye, bye Miss American Pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye Singin' this'll be the day that I die This'll be the day that I die

They were singing Bye, bye Miss American Pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye Singin' this'll be the day that I die

Source: LyricFindSongwriters: Don McLeanAmerican Pie lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Songtrust Ave, Spirit Music Group

[thestorybehindourmusic]

Woodstock; Sha-na-na

My The Story Behind our Music shows for the last several weeks have been about Woodstock ‘69 and reflecting on some of the acts that performed there. There were rock bands, folk bands, and maybe one or two “experimental psychedelic pop fusion really doesn't fit into a genre bands”, but the band that was so different from any of the other bands was Sha-na-na. Sha-na-na wasn’t a band with a hippie, counterculture, anti-war, anti establishment kinda band, in fact they were a ‘50’s cover band, meaning all of the songs that they performed were already made famous by someone else. 

The group started as an acapella group called the Kingsmen from Columbia University in New York City, kinda like the ones you might be familiar with from the movie “Pitch Perfect”. They had a name change because another group with the same name had a hit song “Louie, Louie”. (play Get-a-job) One of their favorite songs to perform was this one called “get a job” and they took some of the nonsensical words from that and used it for their new name, Sha na na.

Sha-na-na was kind of a novelty at Woodstock and the producers only included 90 seconds of their set in the original Woodstock film. But it must have been a good minute and a half because it launched their career. They, as some people say, were the catalyst that created the huge 50’s nostalgia of the 1970’s. After Woodstock they opened for groups like The Grateful Dead and even headlined a show where a guy named Bruce Springsteen, you might have heard that name, opened for them. 

Their fame continued to grow and in 1977 they starred in a syndicated variety TV show that lasted 4 years and was the most watched syndicated show at the time. 

The band probably reached the height of their fame when they were asked to be part of the 1978 film version of Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-john. They performed many of the songs on the soundtrack and were in the film as “Johnny Casino and the Gamblers”.

Though many members have come and gone the band is still active and is still doing some touring today. 

These guys made the Woodstock crowd smile and sing along with songs that they were already familiar with. They had no political message, no agenda, just the ability to make fun music and the charisma to pull it off, and that has been their claim to fame ever since. Fact is, they were scheduled to be back for the 50th anniversary of Woodstock Series at Bethel Woods, NY, the scene of the 1st festival. Sadly, the 50th Anniversary at Bethel Woods nor Woodstock 50 happened.

[thestorybehindourmusic]

Woodstock; Melanie

   I’ve been making episodes of The Story Behind our Music about singers and bands that played Woodstock in 1969. This week it is a much more light hearted story than the last show about Sweetwater and their tragic events. Melanie Safka, who very rarely used her last name  but simply called herself “Melanie”, was barely known outside of the coffeehouse circuit in Greenwich Village in New York City. She was the first solo girl act to take the Woodstock stage and most of the audience was not familiar with her songs. However when she sang her song "Beautiful People," it inspired the first audience participation of candles and cigarette lighters waving slowly above everyone's head at the event. Woodstock worked for Melanie the way that an audience of half a million people should work. The audience remembered her and things started to take shape for Melanie and her career.

    The young singer was so moved by the experience at Woodstock that she pinned "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain"), which sold more than one million copies in 1970. Along with that, Billboard and other music industry publications anointed her as female vocalist of the year.

   She would continue on making hits with songs that had a social message like “Peace Will Come (According To Plan)” but would be immortalized by a silly little song that she recorded to be a break from serious work. The story goes that Melanie's search for enlightenment, inspired her to go on a 27-day fast, and during that fast she drank nothing but distilled water. After fasting, she started eating transitional food like carrots when she felt an overwhelming urge to get a McDonald's hamburger and fries. Figuring it was some kind of a spirit voice guiding her, she gave in. On the way back to her house from McDonald's, she started to write the song “Brand New Key”.

   As her career continued, she was asked to be the spokesperson for UNICEF, and to play in the General Assembly of the United Nations, which on many occasions was met by a standing ovation from the delegates.

   Her records continue to sell -- more than eighty million to date. She's had her songs covered by many singers over the years. According to her website, “She's raised a family, won an Emmy, opened a restaurant, written a musical about Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane” and when speaking about her life said “a person shouldn't be allowed to have so much fun”!

   If you are interested in what Melanie is doing today, she did a session with Miley Cyrus, “The Happy Hippie” and is still touring and singing with stops in the US and Canada this summer. 

[thestorybehindourmusic]

Woodstock; Sweetwater

   If you are a regular listener to KEOM and in particular my show “The Story Behind our Music” you might know that I’ve been covering the acts that played at Woodstock. A music festival billed as “3 days of peace and Love” in August of 1969. 

   Today's show is a truly sad story about a band that really never realized its potential. It’s a band that you more than likely have never heard of, yet had the talent to be as big as The Grateful Dead or Jefferson Airplane. Sweetwater was the band, and they were supposed to open the show but ended up stuck in the huge traffic mess and were over three hours late getting to the stage. That band was a group of 7 out of Los Angeles that came from the Coffee House scene and was one of the founders of the psychedelic music genre. Unusual even by those standards as they had no guitar in the band. Their self titled first album had been released in 1968 and they were already working on a few songs for the next album. Their popularity was simmering and they were in big demand. Their website claims, “They toured with and/ or shared the bill with every major act of the time, including: Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Cream, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Jefferson Airplane, and even the Beach Boys.” They had guest appearances on numerous popular talk shows of the day and even played on American Bandstand. Being in front of half a million music fans there at Woodstock, could put them in a great spot for superstardom. 

   They started their set with their version of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless child”, an old spiritual standard and a song that is still used for sight reading in some high school UIL contests. After a forty minute set doing mostly songs from their album, they closed with another spiritual “Oh Happy Day”. They ended to a standing ovation but sadly, many fans say, and I agree, that this wasn’t Sweetwaters best set. Sweetwater should have benefited from their Woodstock performance and enjoyed a long, successful career as a group if it weren't for the sad part of the story.

  Less than four months later on a rainy evening in December of 1969, the lead singer for Sweetwater, Nansi (Nancy) Nevins’ car was stopped in traffic on a freeway in California. A drunk driver smashed into her car at around 65 mph, spinning her across the freeway. First responders stated that the impact almost pushed her head through the roof of the car. The neurologists treating her didn’t think Nancy would survive, and, if she did, she would be in a vegetative state. She did survive but suffered from seizures, brain damage and a permanently damaged vocal cord. The accident would effectively end Nevins singing career and silence Sweetwaters signature sound. 

   Sad item number 2; Remember, I said Woodstock was not Sweetwaters best performance? Well, the sound was bad enough that the producers of the documentary did not include any of Sweetwaters performance in the 1970 movie or soundtrack. 

   The band tried to recover and released 2 more albums. Those albums; Just For You (1970) and Melon (1971), had some tracks with vocals that Nansi had recorded before her accident, but their audience just wasn’t there. In 1971 the band went their separate ways and it was effectively the end of Sweetwater. (play Here we go again  starting about :11) According to “Amazon Music” this is Sweetwaters top selling song, it’s titled Here we go again and was from their first album. The driver who hit Nansi Nevins didn’t kill her, but he did kill, in part, this band and their unusual sound.

[thestorybehindourmusic]

Woodstock; Richie Havens

   Last week I explained a little bit about what the Woodstock Festival was and now I’m going to spend several weeks on some of the acts that played the concert. Some of the bands you will hear right here on KEOM, some you won’t, but nonetheless they are great music with an interesting story and perhaps music you should find out more about.

    Woodstock was billed as 3 days of Peace and Music. It was really 3 and a half days and ½ million young people descending on a tiny town in upstate New York. The venue was overwhelmed by the crowd and traffic was backed up... no, it was stopped for miles. If the acts hadn’t arrived early then many were stuck in that traffic. As the event went on, the only way for bands to reach the stage was to be ferried in by helicopter. This extra expense was bleeding the promoters dry, that and the fact that only about ¼ of the people attending had purchased tickets.

   It was time for the show to start, actually it was already running late, and the opening act, Sweetwater, was stuck in the traffic gridlock. It is said that the promoters approached a folk singer named Tim Hardin who was already there and he refused to go first. They then ask another folk singer named Richie Havens and he agreed to set in for Sweetwater. Havens had already had some success in music and released a few albums but was far from famous. What happened next was a set that included several encores, lasted over 3 hours, and was concluded with one of the most memorable songs of Woodstock.   

   Richie had an unusual style of playing the guitar as he said that his fingers were just too big to make cords the traditional way and so he played what is called an “open tuning”. That means that the guitar is tuned to play a G cord by just strumming the open strings and then he could hold all the strings down on a particular fret to play a particular cord. Also, the forceful fast way he strummed the instrument made his guitar almost into a kind of percussion instrument. By his last encore he had played all the songs he knew and so he did a rendition of “Motherless Child” changing some of the lyrics and the song later became known as “Freedom”. It was the song you were hearing at the beginning of the show. This performance and the 1970 movie/documentary about the festival really made him a legend with the Woodstock generation.   

   Havens's 1971 album, Alarm Clock, cracked the Top 30 and featured a stunning cover of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun." While Havens never again achieved the kind of popularity he experienced in the immediate aftermath of Woodstock, his career proved to be enduring.   

   He released 21 studio albums and played around the world, but the songs you would remember would more than likely not be the songs from the radio. They would be his songs from the television. He wrote and performed jingles for NBC, CBS, and ABC networks. He did work for Coke, Maxwell House Coffee and probably his most famous was for the cotton industry. (play 30 sec of recognizable part of Cotton by Richie Havens). He even played for a president. He was asked, and played at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993.   

   Havens once said of his career. "I really sing songs that move me. I'm not in show business, I'm in the communications business."

   Richie Havens died of a heart attack on April 22, 2013, at the age of 72.