Category Archives: Birthdays

Birthdays, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Animal Eric Burdon

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Animal Eric Burdon

The music I love was created by the sons and daughters of slaves. My life’s work has always been about honoring those people who suffered and thus, created a language of peace and salvation through music. 

Everything we believed in during the ’60s, everything people fought and died for, is being jeopardized today. [Eric Burdon]

May 11…Happy birthday and many more!
photo from Eric Burdon site

In 1966, friend Rob who attended Fordham Prep in the Bronx, NY asked me if I’d like to go to a concert there. The Animals were playing.

1964’s British Invasion did far more than introduce the Beatles to the Boomers.  On September 5, 1964 The Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun” became Billboard’s #1 single. It was likely the first time we’d heard of these Animals (what a great name!).

Sadly, most of us young Americans thought it was the Animals’ song.

Animal Eric Burdon
source: YouTube

We didn’t realize it may have had roots centuries deep–or at least decades deep in our own American history. And as few of us realized (as I assume few radio stations realized) that the song was about a whore house.

Animal Eric Burdon

Eric Burdon

Animal Eric Burdon

In any case, the voice of Eric Burdon became part of the 1960s soundtrack. For me, their Best of the Animals album was my introduction. I didn’t realize that they had produced the album because of personnel changes. I did notice that it seemed every time I bought a new Animal album, there seemed to be a replacement. Eric was there though. That was the main thing.

Even the 1967 Eric is Here album with its departure from rock and blues was OK. New way to hear stuff.

Burdon, like any rock musician, could read the Beatle writings on the wall, and when they went psychedelic, he did, too. He made politically-influenced music, well, that was OK, too. And there was that “New York 1963 — America 1968,” an 18-minute l track featuring vocals not by a group member, but a black engineer named Cliff, who recalls his experience as a fighter pilot during World War II.

Patience James. Patience.

Animal Eric Burdon

Drifted apart

Eric and I slowly drifted apart. More because of new responsibilities on my part than any disenchantment.

Eric forged ahead and continues to perform. To list the dozens of albums and songs and groups he’s been with for 50+ years is for Wikipedia or AllMusic.

He and the other original Animals (Chas Chandler, Alan Price , John Steel, and Hilton Valentine) were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Eric had a gig in Dusseldorf, Germany. Jancee Dunn in Rolling Stone asked “Artist of principle or crazy man?”

Suffice to say that Eric Burdon is still going, still singing, and we can still enjoy his presence.

Oh, yea. That concert at Fordham. It was pretty good. I think I remember that the Lovin’ Spoonful opened for them.

Cheers, Eric


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

Rock Star Steve Katz

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Rock Star Steve Katz

Happy birthday

Rock Star Steve Katz

Steve Katz was born in Brooklyn on May 9, 1945. His music career began in the late 50s when he appeared on a local Schenectady, New York television program called Teenage Barn. Accompanied by piano, Steve sang hits of the day such as “Tammy” and “April Love.”

Rock Star Steve Katz

Greenwich Village

Like so many young musicians of the early 60s, Steve Katz gravitated to Greenwich Village. There he listened to and played with others such as Dave Van Ronk (“The Mayor of MacDougal Street“), Stefan Grossman, Maria D’Amato (to be Maria Muldaur), David Grisman, and John Sebastian. With a number of those and others, he would become part of the Even Dozen Jug Band [Wirz  article] which released an album. A guitarist among many guitarists, Katz played washboard.

Rock Star Steve Katz

Danny Kalb Quartet

Next came the Danny Kalb Quartet. Still not confident enough as a guitar player, Steve Katz kept his amp turned down low for the audition and passed. Soon Al Kooper joined the band and it became Blues Project.

Rock Star Steve Katz

Blues Project

It was the music of Blues Project that I first heard Katz. I had never heard music like that or an album like Projections. It was so different than anything I’d heard, it sometimes confused me. Yes rock and roll. No, not rock and roll. It was also likely the first time I’d heard electric blues, albeit, white electric blues.

“Caress me baby…you can make love to me like the soft summer breeze.”

More than just hair-raising music. (“There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear” spoke to much more than just some Sunset Blvd event.)

All Music’s Richie Unterberger stated in his review that the band, “offered an electric brew of rock, blues, folk, pop, and even some jazz, classical, and psychedelia during their brief heyday in the mid-’60s.”

Rock Star Steve Katz

Blood, Sweat and Tears

The next thing I knew, Blue Project had become Blood, Sweat and Tears and Child is Father to the Man became another album that I couldn’t stop listening to and often wondering what the hell I was listening to.

Even without Al Kooper for BST’s second album, Katz was there and all was fine. Not so much blues, but all that jazzy brass opened up new doors for my ears.

Rock Star Steve Katz

Steve Katz

Rock Star Steve Katz

Quietude 

And then things faded. Certainly Steve was still around, but I could’t seem to find his oasis.

His path occasionally crossed with Kooper’s, but Katz found himself as an engineer and producer. One of the most famous albums he produded was Lou Reed’s Rock N’ Roll Animal. A secret Katz recently revealed in his autobiography, Blood, Sweat, and My Rock ‘n’ Roll Years: Is Steve Katz a Rock Star?, was that the great audience sound on that album was not from the Reed show. Technical issues resulted in a poor quality sound for the audience, so Katz “borrowed” an audience sound from another RCA record artist: John Denver.  Apparently Reed died never knowing.

You will see Steve Katz’s name all over rock and roll:

  • Lynyrd Skynyrd
  • McKendree Spring
  • Dion
  • Joni Mitchell
  • Elliot Murphy
  • Horselips
  • David Sanborn
  • Quincy Jones
  • Carol King
  • Stephen Bishop
  • Jon Anderson
  • Jaco Pastorius
  • Donovan
  • The Who
  • Danny Kalb
  • George Harrison
Rock Star Steve Katz

Still active

Rock Star Steve Katz

Steve Katz continues to play music and promote his wife Alison Palmer’s ceramic art. According to his site, “As time passed, Alison’s craft achieved popularity and recognition. Alison and Steve soon found that they had a thriving small business. Steve still performs [and]…is a professional photographer….”

Keep the Dream Flowing

Keep the Dream Flowing is a Woodstock-inspired podcast begun by three “young” (i.e., non-Boomers) Woodstock-enthusiasts. They have interviewed scores of people, all of whom have some kind of connection to the festival.

In 2023, KTDF released a two-part interview with Steve Katz. Here’s the link: Steve Katz on Keep the Dream Flowing.

Rock Star Steve Katz
Birthdays, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Dead Drummer Bill Kreutzmann

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Dead Drummer Bill Kreutzmann

Dead Drummer Bill Kreutzmann

Happy birthday to you!

William Bill Kreutzmann was born on May 7, 1946 in Palo Alto, California. Despite early criticism, Bill loved playing the drums.  Before he was legal, he, Jerry Garcia,  Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan formed a band.

Of course that band evolved into the Grateful Dead. Later Mickey Hart joined the Dead and he and Bill (“the rhythm devils”) drove the Dead’s beat.

Dead Drummer Bill Kreutzmann

All for one, one for all

Though there were sometimes solos during a show, it was never about an individual. Jerry Garcia may have been the axle  of the band’s wheel, the band  was greater than the sum of its parts.

Robert Hunter knew of what he spoke when he said in “Truckin'” What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been. That, of course, is a shibboleth for the Grateful Dead and many of the bands that the 1960s produced.

Dead Drummer Bill Kreutzmann

Always there

Bill Kreutzmann was there for all the Dead’s shows. The good and the bad. The ethereal. The cosmic. The highs and the lows.

In 2015, he and Benjy Eisen wrote about it in Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead  [NPR article].

The book begins with a story about Jerry Garcia and Bill going scuba diving in the late 80s. Touch of Grey, the Dead’s only big commercial hit. Like anything that brings public attention, Touch of Grey brought the good and the bad. Scuba diving in Hawaii seemed like a good place to get away from it all. No drugs. No attention. Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream.

Then a scuba instructor swam up to Garcia with a waterproof notepad and asked for his autograph.

Dead Drummer Bill Kreutzmann

Dead End

When Garcia died in 1995 [NYT obituary] the Grateful Dead did, too.  Without Jerry, the axle gone, the band could light a spark, could start a fire, but never burn as brightly as those previous 30 years.

Of course Bill Kreutzman has continued to play music. It is, it was, and always will be what his life is about.

Dead Drummer Bill Kreutzmann

Lifer drummer

He had helped form bands (The Other Ones, The Dead, The Rhythm Devlis, 7 Walkers, and most recently, Billy & the Kids) and has sat in at concerts (with Journey, Warren Haynes, Phish, David Nelson Band among others).

In 2015, a Grateful Dead formed to perform a series of concerts commemorating its 50th anniversary. Bill Kreutzmann, of course, was there and wanted more.

Also in 2015, he with Benjy Eisen so published a book: Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Deals and Drugs With the Grateful Dead.

Glide magazine wrote: During the course of the first person narrative of Deal, founding member/drummer of the Grateful Dead Bill Kreutzmann shows he’s (almost) as skilled a storyteller as he is a drummer. Particularly in the early going of My Three Decades,  his informal style lends itself well to the increasingly fast pace of his life as he discovers the pleasure of music, his passion for playing and his abiding devotion to the Dead as they coalesced in the mid-Sixties.

PBS NewsHour interview by Jeffrey Brown 

But in 2023…

Though Dead & Company embarked on their final tour, it was  without Kreutzmann.

Dead & Company announced: “After many long discussions and some good old-fashioned soul searching, we are letting you know that our brother Bill Kreutzmann will not be joining us on our final summer tour. Bill wants you to know that he is in good spirits, good health and he is not retiring.”

The band added, “This is the culmination of a shift in creative direction as we keep these songs alive and breathing in ways that we each feel is best to continue to honor the legacy of the Grateful Dead. The final tour will go on as planned with Bill’s full endorsement and support.”

Dead & Company’s farewell tour began in May and included a benefit show at Cornell University’s Barton Hall, set for 46 years to the day since the Grateful Dead played a legendary set at the venue.

Dead Drummer Bill Kreutzmann