Music Before the Money

With the death of Edward Kennedy another piece of the 1960’s falls. Many historians feel that the ’60’s began with the inauguration of President Kennedy  and ended with the botched Woodstock-style concert at Altamont Speedway in California on December 6, 1969. Just like the Rolling Stones pegged themselves as the “Anti-Beatles” the concert at Altamont was the “Anti-Woodstock.” In other words, everything that Woodstock brought to the world, Altamont tore down.

The organizers of Woodstock lost heavily on the concert but recouped their seed money many times over when the movie and three-record album was released. This never began the era of big money in music but it fueled a growing trend. The 1970’s began the time of “The Big Record Mogul.” The small independents were being gobbled up by the big labels and “selling out” became the order of the day. Many of the acts who never bought into the money machine fell by the wayside. Others like Elton John, the Bee Gees and Rod Stewart morphed from their blues roots into Disco Stars.

It was hard not to buy into the post-Woodstock era of music. In less than a month’s time groups that played in bars and packed their own gear from vans could be playing packed coliseums. Kiss and Super Tramp were examples of this new trend and so were former “Hippies” like John Denver became television stars.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with this. Marlon Brando went from being a motorcycle punk and leader of the new 1950’s youth movement to an overweight caricature of his former self. And maybe that’s exactly what happened to the music after Woodstock.

“It’s a trick I picked up from old Les Paul.”

- Gary Busey in The Buddy Holley Story when asked about overdubbing
the process of recording another track on the same piece of tape

Mid-way through my list of “Guitars-That-I-Should-Have-Kept”is the 1959 Les Paul “TV Special,” one that I got in a trade for a 1976 Wurlitzer electronic piano (I should have kept that piano but you still see them on on Ebay). This guitar was a step up from the least expensive Gibson electric, the Les Paul Junior.

Guitar virtuoso Les Paul brought a solid body to his friends at Gibson in 1941 but they rebuffed the famed player until Leo Fender designed and marketed such an instrument with the introduction of the “Broadcaster” in 1948. Renamed the Telecaster two years later, Fender’s creation remains a mainstay of country and rock musicians who like its clean, biting sound.In 1951, this initial rejection became a design collaboration between the Gibson Guitar Corporation and Les Paul.

It was agreed that the new Les Paul guitar was to be an expensive, well-made instrument in Gibson’s tradition. However, there was a large student population to think about, a group who were happily buying the inexpensive “Telecaster.” So Gibson countered with the “Les Paul Junior,” a one-pickup, single cutaway, mahogany-slab guitar.

(Picture from the Gibson Catalgue)

In 1959, Les Paul appeared on his TV show with wife, Mary Ford, with a double-cuaway, 2-pickup version of the Junior and it became known as the “TV Special.” Unfortunately, this version was discontinued because there were other products that were becoming popular like the SG’s and upper-echelon Les Paul’s.

The twin P-90 “black bitches” are astounding pickups. The use of the Alnico 5 magnet makes the P-90 a powerful pickup with a high, mid-range output making it more than suitable for rock. Pete Townsend used these pickups on the Who Live at Leads album and Leslie West played a Les Paul Junior to get the long, sustaining leads on Mississippi Queen with Mountain.

During my “acoustic phase,” in 1990, I sold my Les Paul T.V. for $800. Like my other old guitars it was refinished so the price was good for the time.

Generations of musicians and music producers also owe a debt of gratitude to Les Paul for his inventive spirit in electronics – even more than they should for his amazing guitar. This is because Les Paul developed the art of recording onto a narrow strip of recording tape while another piece of music is playing below it. This was called “overdubbing” and was the forerunner of multi-track recording.

And lastly, he was very good jazz guitarist!

I remember when the album Woodstock came out. It was a three-disc set that we quickly wore out (I still have the scratched copy) and I also bought it on 8-track. The only problem with that – besides obvious mechanical failures – was that I’m Going Home by Ten Years After was cut in half and you heard the last half of the song on the next track.

The other thing I remember even more than the music was the picture of a young couple hugging under a dirty sleeping bag or quilt of some kind. They were “The Woodstock Couple” and came to symbolize hippies everywhere. Well, the Woodstock couple are  Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, both now 60

They only met three months before and, to their complete  surprise, in 1970 the picture became the cover of the Woodstock album and was seen on  various posters as well as the movie artwork.

For many, the image of Nick and Bobbi wrapped in a blanket amongst a bunch of concert goers, garbage andgray skies represents the festival. Because even with the wetness, mud and hunger pains nobody fought or yelled. It was the most unique calmness in a summer that wreaked of death ( Brian Jones, the Manson Murders, the Vietnam death toll).

And guess what, Nick and Bobbi havebeen together ever since!

Good morning!  . . . What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000!

-  Hugh Romney, aka “Wavy Gravy,” at Woodstock

There are certain moments in a person’s life when a chance meeting, vocalization or other incident engraves that person’s name in history forever. For famous movie star Lana Turner, it was walking into a Hollywood drug store to get a chocolate malt at the same time a film producer was there. But for Hugh Nanton Romney, a so-so funny man once managed by Lenny Bruce, this happened three times.

The first such incident came at the Texas International Pop Festival. Romney was literally lying onstage when it was announced that B.B. King was going to play next. Romney began to get up when a hand appeared on his shoulder.  It was B.B. King, himself, who asked, “Are you Wavy Gravy?” …to which Romney replied somewhat sleepily, “Yes.” “It’s OK, Wavy, I can work around you,” said King.

Romney was a funnyman and real honest-to-goodness Hippie before it became popular. His first subculture caper and second rise to fame was with The Merry Pranksters when Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), some friends and he went on the road in 1964 in a 1939 International Harvester school bus to promote Kesey’s new book. The next year when Kesey was hiding out from U.S. authorities in Mexico, Romney and his wife enrolled and 40 of their closest friends in the  Merry Pranksters and posed for a photograph for a Life magazine cover.

And of course the third incident came when he became the unofficial spokesman for 400,000 wet, weary, dopey but happy campers at Woodstock in August of 1969.

For all his craziness his actions at Woodstock with his group of friends called The Hog Farm helped to maintain peace and order at the overcrowded event by just letting the people know that they were looking out for them.

On his website he says, “Once you realize the interconnectedness of all stuff, there’s no going back. I have an old Gravy line, ‘We are all the same person trying to shake hands with our self.’ Remember that the next time you say,‘pass the gravy.’”

And for all his modern day adventures in service to his fellow man (He’s still very active) Wavy Gravy will always be known as the voice of Woodstock.

Here he is at Woodstock: Wavy Gravy

I always loved the name “Canned Heat.” It came from an 1928 Tommy Johnson song about an alcoholic who couldn’t afford booze and had begun ingesting Sterno as a substitute, which is also called “canned heat.”

Joining together in 1965 Bob Hite, Alan Wilson, Henry Vestine, Larry Taylor and  Adolpho “Fito” de la Parra became one of the most popular bands  of the hippie era. Like many British bands Canned Heat rifled through old American blues archives and reworked them with more modern instrumentation and drumming.  Two of their songs, Going up the Country and On the Road Again, became international hits and anthems of a generation on the move.

The guys from Canned Heat – minus Vestine who quit the week before – arrived by helicopter on the second day at Woodstock and played their famous set at sunset including Going Up the Country, a song which which became the most memorable track and included on the triple-record Woodstock album. The sequel album, Woodstock 2 included Woodstock Boogie with the  25th Anniversary Collection including Leaving This Town.

Canned Heat, like Hendrix, CSN&Y, The Who and Joplin came to symbolize the big farm party 50 years ago. So, tune into Woodstock Boogie!