Fifty-one years ago this past weekend, a crowd of half a million converged at Max Yasgur's Farm in Bethel, New York for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. The four-day event became a cultural touchstone and mythical ideal, strengthened even more by the Woodstock film and soundtracks that proliferated the marketplace during the early '70s and beyond. While performers, fans, and countless supposed attendees participated in even more myth-building, a small group of historians and researchers worked
Fifty years ago this summer, more than 400,000 fans convened at Max Yasgur's farm for a music festival that would come to define not only the era, but the entire ethos of music festivals to come. With every passing decade, the magic of Woodstock has been celebrated and, indeed, re-marketed to new generations of music fans. The '90s saw two new Woodstock-branded festivals and an array of 25th anniversary products, including a compilation called Woodstock Diary and a 4-CD box set. To mark the
Woody Guthrie remains one of the most significant figures in folk music. His legendary songs of freedom and struggle laid the groundwork for the folk revival that arose in the fifties and sixties, and his music endures as part of America's rich musical heritage. In 1970, renowned folk artists like Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Country Joe McDonald, Odetta, Richie Havens, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Earl Robinson, The Band, and Woody's son Arlo Guthrie, convened to pay tribute to the legendary songwriter,
Rolling Stone has broken the news this morning that Rhino Records is getting back to the garden in a big (make that BIG) way. Woodstock 50 - Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive, due August 2, will live up to its name as the last word on the legendary festival. This 38CD/1BD set, limited to 1,969 copies, will include every note performed onstage by every act at Yasgur's Farm over those three days of peace and music, save two tracks by Jimi Hendrix (omitted at the request
Bob Dylan once said that, upon hearing Woody Guthrie's songs, "it was like I had been in the dark and someone had turned on the main switch of a lightning conductor." Steve Earle opined that "Woody is my hero of heroes and the only person on earth that I will go to my grave regretting that I never met." No less a literary eminence than John Steinbeck noted, "Woody is just Woody," before explaining, "Harsh voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing
Between 1986 and spring 2015, Anton Fig could be found on a nightly basis behind the drum kit of The World's Most Dangerous Band and, then, The CBS Orchestra. Part of Paul Shaffer's band for David Letterman's NBC and CBS late-night talk shows, Fig would be glowingly acknowledged by the host as "Buddy Rich, Jr." for his ferocity and prowess with his instrument. In 2002, the South Africa-born music great ventured out on his own to record his first solo album, appropriately entitled Figments.