Four festivals. Four icons. Four incredible performances.
Imagine it's 1969 and you got to experience at least one of these in person.
Imagine if you got to experience all four *
Mindblowing.
1) Love City (Live @ The Woodstock Festival, Bethel, New York, 16th August 1969): Sly & The Family Stone
2) Sunshine Of Your Love (Live @ Montreux Jazz Festival, Montreaux, Switzerland, 22nd June 1969) (Cover of Cream): Ella Fitzgerald
3) Tutti Frutti (Live @ The Toronto Peace Festival, Toronto, Canada, 13th September 1969): Little Richard
4) Four Women (Live @ Harlem Cultural Festival, New York, 17th August 1969): Nina Simone
* It's roughly a two hour drive from Bethel to Harlem, so getting from Sly & The Family Stone's set at Woodstock to catch Nina Simone the following day was doable in theory...provided you weren't so stoned that you slept through your alarm clock and were fit to drive in the first place!
Blimey. What a fantastic selection. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAs you said - mindblowing. Great selection to start my day. Thank you
ReplyDeleteThanks, both. I found the whole of Little Richard’s set (as individual songs), all highly recommended although mic/audio issues means his mighty voice is incredibly lost in the mix on occasion.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think I’ve seen a Little Richard clip where he is standing up, not at the piano, singing.
Amazing performers, all of them.
I've hesitated to comment, as it seems unlikely even to me at the age of 70, to say that I saw Little Richard in his mirrored outfit at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival in September 1969, along with all the rest on that glorious day and night of music, as a 13 and a half year old. I reckon you've already checked out the documentary Revival69: The Concert That Rocked the World: Directed by Ron Chapman.
ReplyDeleteFrom something I concocted about 35 years ago:
The year you were born,
I saw the Doors, and Jim the Lizard King
Called out for them to turn out the lights
And that's what they did
And there we sat in the dark
Trying to figure out
What he'd do to his mother
In the end
Why'd the idea cross his mind?
It's simple, like chickens
To get to the others side
That's what he did, he broke on through
He died, we all cried
Now he sleeps by Oscar Wilde's side
Isn't it strange, ain't it peculiar
What strange bedfellows make
When they're dead fellows, too?