40 Years Ago
40 years ago…..1969….the greatest year in Rock.
The final year of the most tumultuous, historic, incredible, violent, divisive, controversial… (List goes on)…decade.
First…the Beatles, as far as any one knew, were still together, still on target, and still the guys…
Second…the Stones were kicking major rock and roll *ss, despite the loss of Brian Jones.
Third, if the Stones didn’t satisfy enough rock and roll thirst, you could go to CCR, or the new young upstarts like Led Zeppelin and Detroit’s Grand Funk Railroad.
A concert bill could feature Freddy King or Albert King with Spirit, Chicago Transit Authority, Bob Seger System, or England’s Fleetwood Mac or John Mayall.
A summer outdoor festival in New York would advertise that acts like Jimi, Janis, the Who, the Dead, the Airplane, Iron Butterfly, Mountain, Ravi Shankar, Keef Hartley, Joe Cocker, Tim Hardin, Johnny Winter, the Band, the Moody Blues, and Jeff Beck Group would appear. Some did…Some didn’t…it was called The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair.
Later in the year you may have bought an album buy a new band called the Allman Brothers, or “Puzzle People” by the Temptations. Or “In a Silent Way” by Miles Davis.
You’d listen to the latest Three Dog Night Hit on the A.M. dial, and when the FM rock station broadcast…(you’d have to buy a radio with FM…the transistor radio you listen to in bed was defunct.) you could hear established folkies spreading wings like Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton. Names like Fred Neil, Tim Buckley, Tom Rapp’s Pearls’ Before Swine, Fugs, Prunes, Elevators, Quicksilver, Mothers, Profitt, Pentangle, Fairport Convention. an ex-Springfield called Young…another Canadian called Mitchell.
Heady times. heady times…an embarrassment in riches…
More to follow…
