Monthly Archives: May 2016

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

Drummer Bruce Rowland

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Drummer Bruce Rowland

 May 22, 1941 — June 29, 2015

Drummer Bruce Rowland
photo from http://www.udiscovermusic.com/
Drummer Bruce Rowland

500,000 Stories

If there were 500,000 people surrounding the Woodstock Music and Art Fair that 1969 weekend, then there are 500,000 stories after their Bethel experience.

The same is true for the more than 160  performers. It is easier to track some of their trails away from that momentous event because fame can leave a scorched path. And it is easy to assume that anyone who played there forever feasted on its fame.

Of course that’s a false assumption.

Drummer Bruce Rowland

Grease Band

Bruce Rowland played drums with Joe Cocker’s Grease Band and later with the Fairport Convention.

Rowland was born in the UK and early on taught drumming. It is rumored that he taught Phil Collins how to play.

Drummer Bruce Rowland

Woodstock Music and Art Fair

For those who were there that Sunday for  Joe Cocker’s performance we likely remember watching Cocker and being amazed at his vocal and physical styles. That was me, but with a bit of hindsight, I now realize that Rowland’s drumming was integral to that power. I use a picture I took of Joe (through binoculars) as my computer’s desktop and it wasn’t until I wrote this blog entry that I realized that right behind Joe is a nice shot of Bruce Rowland (click on the picture for an enlarged view).

Drummer Bruce Rowland
Sunday 17 August 1969. Joe Cocker and the Grease Band. (photo by J Shelley)
Drummer Bruce Rowland

Queen’s Golden Jubilee

And you can see Bruce a few times thanks to the split-screen used in the movie Woodstock (in June 2002 when Joe Cocker sang “With a Little Help From My Friends” at the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Phil Collins stuck close to Rowland’s pounding fills and parts)

Drummer Bruce Rowland

Life after Grease

After the Grease band dissolved (shortly after Joe Cocker left the band), Rowland worked on various projects including the Jesus Christ Superstar album.

Initially he drummed intermittently with Fairport Convention before becoming their only drummer.  He left that band in 1979 and moved to Denmark.

Bruce Riowland
UNITED KINGDOM – MARCH 01: Photo of FAIRPORT CONVENTION; posed, group shot – L-R: Dave Pegg, Dave Swarbrick, Simon Nicol, Bruce Rowland (Photo by Estate Of Keith Morris/Redferns)
Drummer Bruce Rowland

Fairport Convention

From the Ultimate Classic Rock site: Fairport multi-instrumentalist Dave Pegg commemorated Rowland’s passing with a post at the band’s official site, calling him a “lovely man and a great drummer” whose “playing and ‘feel’ for music was superb.” Recalling their last conversation, Pegg added, “I spoke to him on the phone a couple of weeks ago when I heard that he was terminally ill and I was scared to make the call. Bruce said – ‘No tears Peggy. I’ve had a great life and have wonderful memories. This hospice is the best hotel I have ever stayed in and the staff are wonderful. No tears.’ We will miss you, Bruce.” [Telegraph obit]

Drummer Bruce Rowland
Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

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Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

May 21, 1967
Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Jimmy Who?

I doubt any of us know that on May 21, 1967 Reprise Records signed a guy named Jimi Hendrix. Would we have even known the name Jimi Hendrix in May 1967?

An American kid from Seattle who’d joined the Army not so much out of a sense of patriotism, but an alternative to jail. That hadn’t gone well, but he made a friend with Billy Cox.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Apollo Theater amateur

That in 1964 he’d won first prize in an Apollo Theatre amateur contest or that he’d worked with the Isley Brothers, Rosa Lee Brooks, Little Richard, or Curtis Knight?

Maybe you saw him (accidentally?) as Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in Greenwich Village when Jimi decided he needed to be himself, not a back up guitarist.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

NYC Unknown

You may know now, but didn’t know then, that Keith Richard’s girlfriend Linda saw him playing in New York and recommended Hendrix to Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones’ manager. Oldham declined.

One did accept. Some of you do know that it was the Animals’ bassist Chas Chandler who was leaving the Animals and looking to produce did think Hendrix was a good choice, particularly for the song “Hey Joe.”

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Chas Chandler

Chandler brought Hendrix to the UK and from that point the road to fame was relatively short. In no time Hendrix was impressing people. We might find that an understatement. How could he not have impressed. Keep in mind, “we” here State-side weren’t that impressed and an English woman had to convince a second English man the Hendrix had great talent.

Chandler helped Hendrix form the Experience and in the fall of 1966 they began dates and recording singles. “Hey Joe” and “Purple Haze” did OK in the UK. In March 1967, Hendrix, in a way to “enhance” his stage performance, upped the guitar-smashing of  Pete Townshend to guitar-burning.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

UK Are You Experienced?

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

On May 12, 1967 the Are You Experienced album was released in the UK. It did very well and missed being the #1 album only because another album did better. Some album called Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

And that’s what we were all listening to this side of the pond.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Hey Joe?

As referenced above, Reprise Records signed Hendrix on May 21, 1967. The single “Hey Joe” failed to chart here!

Luckily one of the band members, a Paul McCartney, from that Beatles group strongly recommended Hendrix to the Mamas and the Papas who were helping to organize The Monterey International Jazz and Pop Festival. His legendary performance there that June 18 left mouths literally agape and in mesmerized wonder.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

US Are You Experienced?

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Reprise released the US version of Are You Experienced  on August 23 and Hendrix finally made his Billboard splash.

Richie Unterberger’s All Music review begins with, “One of the most stunning debuts in rock history, and one of the definitive albums of the psychedelic era. On Are You Experienced?, Jimi Hendrix synthesized various elements of the cutting edge of 1967 rock into music that sounded both futuristic and rooted in the best traditions of rock, blues, pop, and soul. It was his mind-boggling guitar work, of course, that got most of the ink, building upon the experiments of British innovators like Jeff Beck and Pete Townshend to chart new sonic territories in feedback, distortion, and sheer volume. “

He became the biggest rock and roll star of his time playing gig after gig, festival after festival.

But there would be a new member of the “27 Club.”

Three years and 26 days later after the release of his US album, Hendrix would be gone.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix
Greenwood Cemetery in Renton, Washington
Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix
Birthdays, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Joe Cocker OBE

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Joe Cocker OBE

May 20, 1944 — December 22, 2014

John Robert Joe Cocker OBE

Joe Cocker OBE

Not a singer-songwriter

At a time when the singer-songwriter was prominent, especially among the performers preferred by music fana of so-called underground music Joe Cocker was not a singer-songwriter.

Joe Cocker was an interpreter of that music like no other.

Joe Cocker OBE

Beatles at Woodstock

Everyone knows (and many have a theory) why the Beatles were not at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Most of those theories seem to forget that the Beatles as a group hadn’t played live for years and were all but disbanded by August 1969.

Be that as it may, the Beatles were present nonetheless. Their creative spirit help lead to large outdoor rock festivals and their music was there more than any other group that also wasn’t there.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash had sung “Blackbird.” Richie Havens had done “Strawberry Fields Forever” and had also sung “With a Little Help from My Friends,” but it was Joe Cocker’s “Friends” that topped all the covers.

Joe Cocker OBE

Golden touch

As I’ve written before in other blog entries, some performers didn’t need Woodstock to be propelled forward (e.g., The Who). Some performers got shot into stardom (e.g., Santana). Some got no push and continued in anonymity (e.g..  Quill).

Joe would likely have made it (as would have Santana), but being in the film and on the triple album was a career catalyst.

Why Joe at Woodstock?

Joyce Mitchell was an assistant to Michael Lang. In a message exchange with her, she mentioned this story.

The only performer I brought to Michael’s attention was Joe Cocker and John signed him up. He was performing in a club on the upper west side and someone I had worked with at my previous job had brought my attention to his great blues performance. I went to the club hoping Michael would join me but he never showed. It was a club on Columbus or Amsterdam Ave. They did not serve liquor, but Joe shook the club up.  

It always amazes me how such a little thing can lead to such a huge difference in someone’s career path.

Joe Cocker OBE

Mad Dogs > Solo

He left the Grease Band that had backed him at Woodstock and the famous Mad Dogs and Englishmen band–an amazing conglomerate of musicians that sometimes included George Harrison–whose concerts were always special.

His career included gold albums and hit singles. Sometimes solo sometimes with someone.

Life in the rock music lane has its many potholes and sometimes hitting a few at full speed provides an artistic jolt. At first, but eventually for most the toll outweighs the inspiration.

Joe Cocker made many comebacks and was still performing (having released 23 albums) when he died in 2014.

Thank you for all your music and those star-spangled shoes, too.

Wikipedia accolades link

Joe Cocker OBE