Michael Murphy's Blog, page 12
September 16, 2012
The best song performed at Woodstock?
Many musical historians and fans consider Canned Heat’s song “Going Up the Country” to be the best song performed at Woodstock. It’s hard to put one of the great performances at the top, but the song became the unofficial anthem of 1970 documentary Woodstock. The group almost didn’t make it to Woodstock, but the band’s manager Skip Taylor managed to secur a helicopter that flew the group to the event in the nick of time.
The blues rock band was formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson and Bob “The Bear” Hite. The group specialized in updating obscure old blues recordings and blended electric blues, rock and boogie into their music. Performances at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock earned Canned Heat international fame. They became one of the most popular and influential acts of the hippie era with hits such as “Let’s Work Together” and “On the Road Again”.
After the deaths of Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, Adolfo de la Parra, who joined the group in 1967, kept the band going. Canned Heat survived the change and saw renewed success in the upcoming years and continues to perform today. Fito’s book, Living the Blues tells the complete “Canned Heat story of music, drugs, death, sex and survival.”
Canned Heat’s song Going Up the Country plays a key role in the plot of my return to Woodstock novel Goodbye Emily. The novel conveys that song and others as more than mere music. Woodstock performances are music history and part of our culture that I hope I captured in the upcoming book.
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September 9, 2012
The Grateful Dead play Woodstock
In 1964 Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron McKernan, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann formed a group they called the Warlocks. After realizing another band had the name, the group changed their name to the Grateful Dead and began performing in 1965. Over the years, the band evolved from being California blues-oriented and added rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae and country influences.
Although the Grateful Dead became the premier psychedelic band in the sixties and seventies, Woodstock was not the group’s finest hour. The festival’s torrential rain made the stage a potential electrical hazard, resulting in a delayed starting time, long breaks between songs and created what many described as a notoriously long and sub-par performance for the quintessential hippie jam band.
Day 2 at Woodstock
The performance in no way tarnishes the thirty year legacy of Jerry Garcia with the Grateful Dead. They’re undeniably one of the greatest bands of all time. Deadheads continued to follow the group for decades, even after the death of Garcia.
Although people hardly associate Woodstock with the Grateful Dead and they don’t appear in my Woodstock novel, Goodbye Emily, I rarely look back at the sixties without the song “Truckin’” coming to mind.
The group’s success contined through the eighties and nineties. In 1994 the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack at age 53 in 1995, but the group, their music and the deadheads live on. What a long strange trip it’s been.
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August 30, 2012
Janis Joplin Queen of the Psychedelic Blues
High school was not a happy time for Janis Joplin, noting at one point that her classmates, “laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state.” More on the high school visit later.
High School was not a happy time
Even before leaving conservative Port Arthur, Texas, Janis Joplin’s look and outlook on life was changing. An outcast, she traveled to California and joined the hippy/music scene of sixties San Francisco. She caputred national attention at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival with what many consider one of the greatest rock performances of all time, a stunning blues performance of “Ball and Chain.”
At Woodstock Janis performed a ten-song set early Sunday morning at about 2 am. , singing a ten-song set that included such tunes as: “To Love Somebody,” “Summertime,” “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder),” Piece of My Heart,” and “Ball & Chain.” Some reported that without her normal band, Joplin’s performance lacked its usual punch, but others found it a solid performance.
Janis’s popular and critical success continued unabated. At age 27, in October of 1970 she began work on a new album that would include two of her biggest hits “Me and Bobby Magee” and “Mercedes Benz.” On Sunday, October 4, Janis Joplin was found dead in her hotel room of a heroin overdose, a blow coming just weeks after Jimi Hendrix death.
But her music lives on as she’s recognized even in the town that rejected her. Port Arthur now proudly proclaims its link to Janis Joplin with billboards, brochures, even an annual concert, and local tours of various Joplin landmarks.
Janis at Woodstock
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August 27, 2012
First Goodbye Emily Review
Dumaurier is a successful actor with roles in The Prince of Tides, A Perfect Murder and many more.
Imagine my delight when he agreed to read an advance copy of Goodbye Emily. He said, "... I was touched by the beauty of the story, Michael Murphy's easy natural flow of words on the page, and the obvious integrity, respect and love which the author displays for the spirit of what became a turning page in modern American culture."
Read the entire review on the Goodbye Emily website, www.goodbyeemily.com
First review of Goodbye Emily
I received an advance copy of GOODBYE EMILY a couple of days after the 43rd anniversary of the original Woodstock Festival where I spent my first weekend ever in America, and I have to say that – besides the perfect timing – I was touched by the beauty of the story, Michael Murphy’s easy natural flow of words on the page, and the obvious integrity, respect and love which the author displays for the spirit of what became a turning page in modern american culture.
Those of us who were actually there will be happily brought “back to the garden” while the book is a perfect road map for those who wish they did. Unlike other attempts which were written from the outside looking in, the contemporary story of GOODBYE EMILY was written from the inside looking out … and that’s probably why I could not put it down.
Do yourself a favor : get your own copy NOW and enjoy the wonderful and “long strange trip it’s been”.
Francis Dumaurier
Francis Dumaurier spent his first weekend in America at Woodstock
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August 24, 2012
Day Two of Woodstock
While Woodstock Day One concentrated on folk legends like Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez, day two focused on mostly psychedelic bands. Music started just after noon on Saturday, August 16 with the Boston Band Quill and continued pretty much non-stop until 9 am Sunday morning.
The day and night was filled with legendary bands, The Who, The Grateful Dead, Santana, Canned Heat and Credence. But perhaps the most unexpected and legendary performance was by John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful.
John Sebastian’s unscheduled but memorable performance
John Sebastian was a successful singer/songwriter during the mid-to-late-sixties when Woodstock came around. After writing and composing a string of hits for the Spoonful including Do You Believe In Magic? You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice, Younger Girl, Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind? Summer In The City, Rain On The Roof and Nashville Cats, Sebastian left the group in June of 1968 to pursue a solo career.
With legal battles interfering with the next stage of his career, Sebastian hitched a ride to Woodstock and showed up with a change of clothes and a toothbrush. Although a member of the audience he ended up backstage since most of his friends were musicians. When the stage filled with water from the torrential rains, preventing the use of electrical instruments, he was asked to perform with an acoustic guitar while equipment dried.
Sebastian borrowed a guitar from folk singer Tim Hardin and the rest, as they say, is history, Woodstock history. Check out his performance of “Darlin’ Be Home Soon” which happens to be a scene in my novel Goodbye Emily.
Speaking of Goodbye Emily, I opened a new website where I’ll be featuring reviews of the book before and after its January 20, 2013 release. If you haven’t read their comments before, check out the website to see what Woodstock icons Country Joe McDonald and Wavy Gravy said about the novel after they read it.
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August 15, 2012
43rd Anniversary of Woodstock
Woodstock’s 43rd Anniversary
Today is the 43rd anniversary of Day One of Woodstock. We may have aged over the years, but Woodstock Nation still retains the we can change the world attitude we had back then.
What’s a little rain and mud among friends?
Hope you’ve enjoyed my posts about some of the memorable performances of the first day of Woodstock, Country Joe McDonald, Richie Havens, Wavy Gravy, Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez, the final performer who took the stage at approximately one am. Also providing memorable performances day one was Sweetwater, Bert Sommer, Tim Hardin, Ravi Shankar.
The answer to one of my previous trivia questions was which female performer besides Joan Baez and Janice Joplin performed solo at Woodstock, is Melanie. When Melanie Safka arrived at the chaotic venue she didn’t have a performer’s pass. She had to prove who she was by showing her driver’s license and singing her hit “Beautiful People.”
When Melanie realized that she would be playing in front of so many people she developed a nervous cough that was so loud, someone in the next tent sent her a cup of soothing tea. That neighbor was Joan Baez.
Melanie sang Beautiful People. She still is one.
Melanie’s performance before so many people inspired her to write “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain“), which sold more than one million copies in 1970. If you didn’t know her hit was about Woodstock, you do now from these lyrics:
“So raise candles high cause if you don’t we could stay black against the night.
Or raise them higher again and if you do we could stay dry against the rain.”
Fortunately for us she continues to tour. I regret I missed her recent stop in Phoenix. If you’d like to learn more about Melanie, there’s a great bio by John Lambo.
Hope you’re enjoying my Woodstock blog that rose from my upcoming return to Woodstock novel, Goodbye Emily that will be released January 20, 2013. Like this blog, I sought in the novel to capture the magic of Woodstock, or as Tim Oliver said in his comment on my last post, “It was the coming together of a generation, under adverse circumstances, in the worst of times, and making the absolute best of the whole thing. We never shined quite as brightly again.”
One final roadtrip. One last chance to say Goodbye Emily
I hope I’ve accomplished that. You can read an excerpt on this blog and on my website.
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August 13, 2012
Woodstock’s Enduring Legacy
Give me an F…
During my critique group meeting today,we walked about my upcoming Woodstock novel, Goodbye Emily. One of the members asked why the group felt Woodstock has had an enduring legacy. Why, 43 years after the event did a recent movie come out, and why did I write a novel that would appeal to not just baby boomers, but young people as well? What is it about Woodstock that makes it different from the other festivals in the sixties?
… half a million strong
Seriously, it wasn’t a rhetorical question. Why is Woodstock still relevant? The music, the politics, the counter-culture? Hope you’ll post your ideas by leaving comments. Looking forward to what you all feel.
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August 8, 2012
More Woodstock Trivia
The 43rd anniversary of Woodstock is rapidly approaching. If you want to brush up on your Woodstock trivia, here’s a few. Answers are posted on my website:
1. Three female artists performed solo acts at Woodstock, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin were two. Who was the third?
2. What Oscar-winning Hollywood director worked as a film editor on the 1970 documentary Woodstock?
3. Which performer famously informed the crowd. “The New York State Thoroughfare is closed, man. Isn’t that far out?”
4. Which act, known for its long concerts, had to end their performance during the fifth song when their amps overloaded?
5. Which came first, the Woodstock Music Festival or the Woodstock character in Charles Schultz’s Peanuts cartoon strip?
6. When political activist Abbie Hoffman climbed on stage and interrupted a performance, what Woodstock perform knocked him off the stage with his guitar?
For the answers, click here.
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