Best of Woodstock CD
Once again I have chosen to give my opinion on a CD instead of a B movie. Up for review today is the CD "The Best Of Woodstock." Just finished listening to it on my way to work this morning, and here is what I have to say about the disc:
This CD is a pretty good representation of some of the best acts at the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. This is more of a best of the festival as opposed to a best of the bands. A lot of the groups that performed at the festival were trying to make a change to their sound. Ecspecially The Who and Jimi Hendrix. The Who played a lot of their material from "Tommy" at the festival. "We're Not Gonna Take It" is the chosen Who song for this CD. The song is great, and Pete Townshend sacrifices his guitar at the end. "Tommy" was new and so was the sound. Jimi Henrdix's classic version of the "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Purple Haze" are his entries on the disc. They are definately great versions of both songs and the guitar solo at the end of "Purple Haze" will knock you out of your seat. As always Hendrix shines the brightest.
An extremely underrated guitarist named Alvin Lee from the band Ten Years After get the blood pumping with their blues rock hit "I'm Going Home." Lee is a little hard to understand, but his guitar playing makes up for the vocals. Another long jam is Santana's "Soul Sacrifice." This song starts at a full run, and never lets up. If you've ever seen the movie this song is a little more interesting on video. Carlos is playing with only five strings on his guitar. I guess he broke the third string on the song before "Soul Sacrifice" and they just keep on going. This also features Mike Shrieve's intense drum solo. Jefferson Airplane turns in a pretty decent version of "Volunteers" taking into consideration that their set began somewhere around six in the morning!
The first songs are from the acoustic acts that played early at the festival because the electric equipment could not set up as it had not arrived yet due to traffic. Richie Havens is the best of these guys for sure. He played for over three hours, and the song "Freedom" on this disc was made up on the spot. It's a loose version of "Motherless Child." It doesn't make a lot of sense, but Richie is so into the song the listener won't mind it at all. John Sebastian from The Lovin' Spoonful was another musician not on the original bill that ended up playing an acoustic set by himself. He is really stoned and his song "I Had A Dream" is just ok. Country Joe McDonald's timeless "Fish Cheer" is really great as it is the only time one may get to hear 400,000 scream F**K at the same time. His acoustic version of "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" is great. It really sets the tone for the war in Vietnam, and the state of the nation at the time of this concert.
Canned Heat, who are another underrated band play their classic "Goin' Up The Country. The last two good bands on the disc are Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and the great Joe Cocker. CSN&Y are represented with "Wooden Ships" from CSN's first album. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" from Woodstock is better, but Neil Young didn't play on that one, and it wouldn't be right to leave him off the disc. The cool thing about CSN&Y's set was this was the second time they had ever played together, and they were letting us know of the great things to come. Joe Cocker of course blows the crowd away with "With A Little Help From My Friends." As he finishes his set the famous cloud burst happens. The only part of this "Best of" I can't handle is Joan Baez's song "Joe Hill." She was signing it for her husband John St. Clair who was in prison at the time. She is extremely annoying to me. Arlo Guthrie was left off of this disc, and that is a real shame as his music at Woodstock was a lot better than the Baez material.
A lot of great bands were left off of this set. Some of the bands that played at Woodstock like Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead misses the movie and the soundtrack altogether. They still should have been on the soundtrack. Again, like I said earlier it is more of the best of the festival than a best of the bands. I'm sure by 1969 Jimi was tired of playing "The Wind Cries Mary" day in and day out. Woodstock was the last great music festival of the 60's. It is really hard to decide which songs were the best, but I think this disc is a fair representation of the bands at Woodstock. Although Mountain and Paul Butterfield's Blues Band should have been on this disc.
This CD is a pretty good representation of some of the best acts at the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. This is more of a best of the festival as opposed to a best of the bands. A lot of the groups that performed at the festival were trying to make a change to their sound. Ecspecially The Who and Jimi Hendrix. The Who played a lot of their material from "Tommy" at the festival. "We're Not Gonna Take It" is the chosen Who song for this CD. The song is great, and Pete Townshend sacrifices his guitar at the end. "Tommy" was new and so was the sound. Jimi Henrdix's classic version of the "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Purple Haze" are his entries on the disc. They are definately great versions of both songs and the guitar solo at the end of "Purple Haze" will knock you out of your seat. As always Hendrix shines the brightest.
An extremely underrated guitarist named Alvin Lee from the band Ten Years After get the blood pumping with their blues rock hit "I'm Going Home." Lee is a little hard to understand, but his guitar playing makes up for the vocals. Another long jam is Santana's "Soul Sacrifice." This song starts at a full run, and never lets up. If you've ever seen the movie this song is a little more interesting on video. Carlos is playing with only five strings on his guitar. I guess he broke the third string on the song before "Soul Sacrifice" and they just keep on going. This also features Mike Shrieve's intense drum solo. Jefferson Airplane turns in a pretty decent version of "Volunteers" taking into consideration that their set began somewhere around six in the morning!
The first songs are from the acoustic acts that played early at the festival because the electric equipment could not set up as it had not arrived yet due to traffic. Richie Havens is the best of these guys for sure. He played for over three hours, and the song "Freedom" on this disc was made up on the spot. It's a loose version of "Motherless Child." It doesn't make a lot of sense, but Richie is so into the song the listener won't mind it at all. John Sebastian from The Lovin' Spoonful was another musician not on the original bill that ended up playing an acoustic set by himself. He is really stoned and his song "I Had A Dream" is just ok. Country Joe McDonald's timeless "Fish Cheer" is really great as it is the only time one may get to hear 400,000 scream F**K at the same time. His acoustic version of "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" is great. It really sets the tone for the war in Vietnam, and the state of the nation at the time of this concert.
Canned Heat, who are another underrated band play their classic "Goin' Up The Country. The last two good bands on the disc are Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and the great Joe Cocker. CSN&Y are represented with "Wooden Ships" from CSN's first album. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" from Woodstock is better, but Neil Young didn't play on that one, and it wouldn't be right to leave him off the disc. The cool thing about CSN&Y's set was this was the second time they had ever played together, and they were letting us know of the great things to come. Joe Cocker of course blows the crowd away with "With A Little Help From My Friends." As he finishes his set the famous cloud burst happens. The only part of this "Best of" I can't handle is Joan Baez's song "Joe Hill." She was signing it for her husband John St. Clair who was in prison at the time. She is extremely annoying to me. Arlo Guthrie was left off of this disc, and that is a real shame as his music at Woodstock was a lot better than the Baez material.
A lot of great bands were left off of this set. Some of the bands that played at Woodstock like Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead misses the movie and the soundtrack altogether. They still should have been on the soundtrack. Again, like I said earlier it is more of the best of the festival than a best of the bands. I'm sure by 1969 Jimi was tired of playing "The Wind Cries Mary" day in and day out. Woodstock was the last great music festival of the 60's. It is really hard to decide which songs were the best, but I think this disc is a fair representation of the bands at Woodstock. Although Mountain and Paul Butterfield's Blues Band should have been on this disc.
posted by Sam at 6:54 AM
1 Comments:
Sam,
I hope you see this - your blog seems to be inactive, which is a shame, its really good! If you decide to start it up again let me know and I will do a post on you on my blog (like that will make a big difference - but its a start!)
Anyhow, thank you for the comment on Skip Spence - I just now found it! Blogger won't send me comments for some reason.
Anyhow I will add him this week!
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