Category Archives: Music et al

Birthdays, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Freddie Jerome Stewart Stone

Leave a comment

Freddie Jerome Stewart Stone

From his Facebook page in 2012…”For Trayvon Martin”
Sly and the Family Stone
Woodstock alum
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
born June 5, 1947
Happy birthday and many more
Freddie Stone, “You’ve Got to Love” from his 2001 Everywhere You Are album
Freddie Jerome Stewart Stone
photo from freddiestone.com
Freddie Jerome Stewart Stone

A true family affair

How that Stone family has added to our musical menu for nearly 50 years!

Today we celebrate Freddie Stone’s birthday. Many more Freddie.

Freddie and the Stone Souls

Frederick Jerome Stewart was born on June 5, 1947 in Vallejo, California and grew up there until he moved to San Francisco in 1965.

According to his web site’s bio, “Freddie studied music theory and composition, and acquired skills on many of the wind and string instruments.”

He later formed Freddie and the Stone Souls,  a top 40 hits band that played in nightclubs, dances and private parties.

Freddie Jerome Stewart Stone

Sly and the Family Stone

In 1967, Freddie and his older brother, Sly , decided to join their bands and Sly & The Family Stone was born.  The original members were sister Rosie Stone,  Cynthia Robinson, Gregg Errico,  Jerry Martini, and Larry Graham. They were Rock’s first integrated, multi-gender band.

Freddie Jerome Stewart Stone

Woodstock

The band had limited early success, but “Everyday People” put them on the map. Their rousing performance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair put them on the triple album, in the movie, and onto continued success until Rock’s potholes dented this magnificent musical machine. 

Getting out      

By the mid-70s those disruptions had begun to slice the band apart. At at point, according to Freddie, “…I was on stage and realized that I don’t wanna do this anymore. Reality seemed to slip in. I was playing a song and I realized all of a sudden, how out of key everybody was and it seemed like nobody could tell it. People in the audience were holding up weed asking us if we wanted some more weed. We were all loaded and when I came down, I realized that we were all playing off key and when that happened I just said I’m done, I’m through.” (Interview link)

Frederick Freddie Jerome Stewart Stone

Pastor Freddie

In 1994, Freddie Stone became Pastor Frederick Stewart at Evangelist Temple Fellowship Center in his hometown of Vallejo, Ca.

Following the death of sister and band mate Cynthia Robinson, Freddie was part of a celebration concert.

And here’s a video of him with Sheila E…

Freddie Jerome Stewart Stone

 

Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history

Hendrix Plays Sgt Pepper

Leave a comment

Hendrix Plays Sgt Pepper

or

A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

June 4, 1967

Hendrix @ Olympia, London December 1967

Hendrix plays Sgt Pepper

Geniuses plus

We all acknowledge the genius of  both the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, but we typically don’t associate the two together. Hendrix famously covered Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” but not Beatle songs.

Ironically the British Beatles, particularly Paul McCartney, helped put the Yankee Jimi Hendrix on the American map.

Hendrix plays Sgt Pepper

Long time coming

The talented Hendrix had already been an excellent guitarist backing up the Isley Brothers, Rose Lee Brooks, Little Richard, and Curtis Knight.  In 1966 in  Greenwich Village, he fronted Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, but it’s lack of success made it an easy decision for him to accept Chas Chandler’s offer to come to the UK. Chandler had just left the Animals and in the UK was able to connect Hendrix with various members of the British rock royalty such as Eric Clapton (nearly speechless after his initial experience hearing Hendrix),  Pete Townshend, and Paul McCartney.

Great Britain

Noel Redding came into Hendrix’s orbit because Redding was auditioning as a guitarist for the renovating Animals. Mitch Mitchell, a jazz drummer, fit the type of power trio Chandler and Hendrix were building.

Hendrix plays Sgt Pepper

Beatles

The Beatles had completed recording Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on April 21, 1967 and the world received it on June 1. How Hendrix first heard the album, whether he purchased his own copy or Paul McCartney had given an copy to him, isn’t important. What is interesting was the Experience’s opening number at their concert only three days later: “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.” Hendrix may not have even known that McCartney and Harrison were in the audience.

Monterey Pop invitation

Even more important was what Hendrix did two weeks later at the last when he played the Monterey International Jazz and Pop Festival and changed American music forever.

Why was he playing that event? The festival’s organizers had invited the Beatles to play, but they declined as they still did not want to be on a live stage. They did do an illustration for the event:

Hendrix plays Sgt Pepper

Jimi Hendrix Plays Sgt Pepper

Recommendation

Paul McCartney and the Beatles did something else. McCartney strongly recommended the “unknown” Jimi Hendrix Experience. And who would say no to a Beatle recommendation?

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr had first seen The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing on 11 January 1967 at the Bag O’Nails club in London.

So it was on June 4, 1967 that McCartney, George Harrison, Jane Asher and Pattie Boyd watched them headline a bill at the city’s Saville Theatre.

Hendrix plays Sgt Pepper

Beatles > Jimi

Thank you Jimi. Thank you Paul and the Beatles. We may have heard Jimi on this side of the pond without your help, but we certainly did because of your help.

#1 Song, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Rhythm and Blues

Aretha Franklin Respect

Leave a comment

Aretha Franklin Respect

Billboard #1 June 3 – June 30, 1967
Aretha Franklin Respect

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

Those of you who have visited the Museum at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts know that the Main Gallery is not a Woodstock museum–as in a museum that recalls the “greatest festival of all time.”

The Main Gallery sets up that momentous 1969 event by walking visitors through the turbulent 60s: the civil rights movement, the space race, technological innovations, the Vietnam War, Beatlemania, the counterculture, assassinations, fashion, politics, the change in family, nationalism, and the many other of that era’s crucial hallmarks.

As guests get about halfway through, album covers appear. Of course until then the little records with big holes dominated sales. By the end of the decade, the big records with the little holes began to outsell singles.

Aretha Franklin Respect
I Never Loved A Man the Way That I Love You

Among the first half-dozen albums that are displayed is Aretha Franklin’s  breakthrough Atlantic Records debut album, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.  It is the featured image atop this post. The single by the same name was a hit for Franklin and Atlantic Records selected “Respect” (can anyone write that title thinking of the song without mentally singing the letters like Aretha?) as her next single.

It was #1 song from June 7 to June 17, 1967.

Aretha Franklin’s career never looked back after that.

Aretha Franklin Respect

Otis Redding

Otis Redding had written the song and released it as a single in the summer of 1965. The song did well commercially and helped establish his presence on radio waves’ white side.

He continued to sing his version of the song and included it in his amazing performance at the Monterey International Jazz and Pop Festival on June 17, 1967. It was during his introduction (listen above) that he says, “that a girl took away from me, a friend of mine, this girl she just took this song.”

Aretha Franklin Respect

Muscle Shoals

Columbia Records had recognized Aretha Franklin’s potential, but had not been able to translate it.  Ahmet Ertegun and his Atlantic Records found a way. He brought her to  Muscle Shoals, Alabama and Rick Hall’s FAME Studios.

Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin produced the record and Tom Dowd engineered it. The musicians were the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, aka, the Swampers: Cornell Dupree (guitar), Willie Bridges (sax), Charles Chalmers (sax), Roger Hawkins (drummer),Tommy Cogbill (bass), Dewey ‘Spooner’ Oldham (keyboards), and King Curtis (sax). Franklin’s sisters Carolyn and Erma were the backing vocals.

That group lighted the fuse that launched Franklin. The song went from Redding’s covert plea for sex when he got home to Franklin’s proclamation of freedom, demand for R E S P E C T.

Aretha Franklin Respect

Anthem

Not only did the song establish Franklin as a star, it became an anthem of the times for civil rights and women’s liberation. As an NPR story said, ” ‘Respect’ Wasn’t A Feminist Anthem Until Aretha Franklin Made It One.”

That is why that album cover display is so appropriate for the Main Gallery.

Thank you Aretha.

Aretha Franklin Respect