Jimi Hendrix and Larry Lee at Woodstock Music and Art Fair
Guitarist Lawrence Larry Lee
Just in time
Some Woodstock Music and Art Fair performers got there by the skin of their teeth.
Lawrence H. Lee Jr. was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He met Jimi Hendrix in 1963 and became friends. And like many musician friends, they found themselves learning from each other and helping find gigs for each other.
By 1969, Jimi Hendrix was going in a new direction and along with bringing in new musicians, he brought in a new friend.
Guitarist Lawrence Larry Lee
Larry Lee
The Jimi Hendrix Experience had dissolved by early August 1969 and Jimi called some friends to join his new band. Lee was one of those old friends. Gypsy Sun and Rainbows was the name of the new band.
At Woodstock, Jimi, of course, was THE main attraction closing the three-day event after four days. Interestingly, Lee played lead and sang on a two songs: Mastermind and Gypsy Women/Aware of Love with Jimi in the background. A cut from Mastermind is heard during this blog entry.
Gypsy Sun and Rainbows eventually became the Band of Gypsys and Lee was not part of that trio.
Larry Lee went on to play as part of Al Green’s touring band. According to Wikipedia, Lee wrote “Judy,” one of Green’s hits, but according to the All Music site, Green wrote it.
Such are the limitations of even the internet.
Lee playing a solo with a little help from his friend Al Green during a Green concert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IY64HT4Ivw
Guitarist Lawrence Larry Lee
Bethel Woods
The downstairs hallway at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts has a chronological listing of each group that played at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as well as a brief bio of those performers. For Larry Lee, the Museum displayed the following:
bio from exhibit at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
Lee died from stomach cancer in his hometown of Memphis on October 30, 2007.
It was March 6, 1970. While the calendar may have indicated that the 60s were over, they weren’t. Drugs continued. Festival music continued. Civil rights demands continued. The Vietnam War continued.
The issues of the 60s had simply morphed into the 70s’ issues, just as many of them continue today.
Weather Underground
SDS
Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins were part of the Weathermen, a radical offshoot of the Student for a Democratic Society. The Weathermen’s mission permitted violence and Gold, Oughton, and Robbins were constructing a bomb that day in a Greenwich Village townhouse. The plan was to bomb a non-commissioned officers’ dance at Fort Dix, NJ.
The bomb accidentally exploded, killing all three. At first the explosion was thought to have been the result of a gas leak (NYT article).
Weather Underground
Weathermen
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” was a line from Bob Dylan’s 1965 “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” That line was the genesis of the group’s first name.
By 1969, like other frustrated groups whose mission was thwarted by the Establishment’s power and control, the Weathermen emerged when Bernardine Dohrn and others split with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Weathermen felt that the SDS’s peaceful protests against the continuing Vietnam War were futile.
The ultimate goal of the Weather Underground was to overthrow the US Government. From its June 18, 1969 Manifesto: “…people in this country must ask in considering the question of revolution…where they stand in relation to the masses of people throughout the world whom US imperialism is oppressing.”
from the movie, The Weather Underground
Chicago
On October 6, 1969, the Weathermen had planted a bomb that blew up a statue in Chicago built to commemorate police casualties incurred in the 1886 Haymarket Riot (NYT article).
Chicago rebuilt the statue and unveiled on May 4, 1970 ironically, the same day as the Kent State massacre The Weather Underground blew it up again on October 6, 1970 (NYT article)
Chicago repaired the statue again and placed it under round-the-clock surveillance before cost considerations brought about the decision to put the statue in the Police Headquarter lobby (NYT article).
Days of Rage
Three days after the first bombing, theDays of Rage (October 8 – 11, 1969) in Chicago followed. To the Weathermen, protest meant direct action and direct actions included vandalization and confrontation. A huge Chicago police and State militia presence prevented most demonstrations from achieving their goals. Dozens were injured, and more than 280 protesters were arrested.
FBI wanted poster
Judge’s home bombed
Early in the morning on February 21, 1970 gas bombs exploded in front of NY Supreme Court Justice John M. Murtagh’s home. Murtagh was presiding over the pretrial hearings of Black Panther Party members regarding a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. No one was hurt.
Into hiding
from the movie, The Weather Underground
At that point, the Weathermen went into hiding and re-named the group the Weather Underground.
On May 19, 1972, North Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, the Weather Underground placed a bomb in the women’s bathroom in the Air Force wing of the Pentagon. No one was hurt.
Arrests were often made, but mistrials and dropped charges often followed due to the illegal methods the government had used to gather evidence.
Documentary
poster from The Weather Underground documentary
In 2002, The Weather Underground documentary told the story of the organization’s rise and fall. (Snag films dot com)
A faction of the Weather Underground continues today as the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. Their official site apparently read (though the site no longer is extant): We oppose oppression in all its forms including racism, sexism, homophobia, classism and imperialism. We demand liberation and justice for all peoples. We recognize that we live in a capitalist system that favors a select few and oppresses the majority. This system cannot be reformed or voted out of office because reforms and elections do not challenge the fundamental causes of injustice
Weather Underground
Today
Ironically, today if you Google search “Weather Underground,” the top result is the commercial weather service. The Establishment has co-opted Che again.
JB Lenoir was born in Monticello, Mississippi. Before moving to Chicago and its musical influences in 1949, Lenoir had New Orleans’s musical cauldron to simmer in.
When he moved to Chicago he met Big Bill Broonzy who introduced Lenoir to the that town’s amazing blues scene.
“Born Dead”
(photo from All About Jazz site)
Korean Blues
We typically don’t associate the blues with protest music (unless we expand the definition of blues to mean just that…and in some ways that would be an easy expansion). JB Lenoir was occasionally a blues protest musician.
In the early 50s he wrote “Korean Blues.” Bordering on a protest song, JB Lanior’s high-pitched vocals fooled some to think it was a woman’s. The song is a straightforward statement of concern about his future in Korea as well as his woman’s future without him.
Lord I got my questionnaire, Uncle Sam’s gonna send me away from here
Lord I got my questionnaire, Uncle Sam’s gonna send me away from here
He said J. B. you know that I need you, Lord I need you in South Korea
Sweetheart please don’t you worry, I just begin to fly in the air
Sweetheart please don’t you worry, I just begin to fly in the air
Now the Chinese shoot me down, Lord I’ll be in Korea somewhere
I just sittin’ here wonderin’, who you gonna let lay down in my bed
I just sittin’ here wonderin’, who you gonna let lay down in my bed
What hurt me so bad, think about some man has gone in your bed.
Blues Activist JB Lenoir
Eisenhower Blues
It was Lanoir’s “Eisenhower Blues” that caused a bit of a rumpus. Parrot Records, his label at the time, had to re-record the song and substitute the lyrics “tax-paying” instead of “Eisenhower.” Here’s the “controversial” original:
Hey everybody, I was talkin' to you
I ain't tellin' you jivin', this is the natural truth
I got them Eisenhower blues
Thinkin' about me and you, what on earth are we gonna do?
My money's gone, my fun is gone
The way things look, how can I be here long?
I got them Eisenhower blues
Thinkin' about me and you, what on earth are we gonna do?
Taken all my money, to pay the tax
I'm only givin' you people, the natural facts
I only tellin' you people, my belief
Because I am headed straight, on relief
I got them Eisenhower blues
Thinkin' about me and you, what on earth are we gonna do?
Ain't go a dime, ain't even got a cent
I don't even have no money, to pay my rent
My baby needs some clothes, she needs some shoes
Peoples I don't know what, I'm gonna do
I got them Eisenhower blues
Thinkin' about me and you, what on earth are we gonna do?
Blues Activist JB Lenoir
Vietnam Blues
He continued to sporadically release music and before his death [following a poor treatment from a car accident injuries] Lanoir released “Vietnam Blues.” It is a song lost among the dozens of songs written during that time protesting that war. It is powerful and important, nonetheless.
Vietnam Vietnam, everybody cryin' about Vietnam
Vietnam Vietnam, everybody cryin' about Vietnam
The law all the days [?] killing me down in Mississippi, nobody seems to give a damn
Oh God if you can hear my prayer now, please help my brothers over in Vietnam
Oh God if you can hear my prayer now, please help my brothers over in Vietnam
The poor boys fightin', killin' and hidin' all in holes,
Maybe killin' their own brother, they do not know
Mister President you always cry about peace, but you must clean up your house before you leave
Oh how you cry about peace, but you must clean up your house before you leave
How can you tell the world how we need peace, and you still mistreat and killin' poor me.
In 1965, he performed in the annual American Folk Blues Festival that toured Europe with top acts that were more popular in Europe than in the performers own USA.
