Keyboardist Christopher Chris Stainton

Happy birthday

Woodstock alum via Joe Cocker’s Grease Band

Keyboardist Christopher Chris Stainton

Chris Stainton was born in England on March 22, 1944. He began playing bass in the late ’50s (using a guitar he made himself out of a plank of wood) and along the path of his his early musical history, he happened to meet his childhood friend, John Robert Cocker, who had become Joe Cocker.

Keyboardist Christopher Chris Stainton

Woodstock

Stainton became an important part of Cocker’s Grease Band, but that also included an eventual move to keyboards. It was on keyboards that Stainton performed with Cocker at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

Regarding Woodstock, Stainton said in a March 2021 Rolling Stone magazine interview:

What was it like to fly in on the helicopter and see the crowds below?
It was ridiculous. I had some acid just before I went into the helicopter and I threw up in the helicopter. I just remember it being so noisy and everything. It was colossal. It was a colossal experience to see the crowd, but it was a good feeling. There wasn’t any bad vibes or anything. It was all good. Everybody was being really great.

Keyboardist Christopher Chris Stainton

Post Woodstock

Stainton remained with Cocker after he left the Grease Band and became a part of the famous Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour that translated into both a triple-LP and a movie.

Chris  “Sessions” Stainton

As a sessions musician, he rivaled the output of Nicky Hopkins. 

Here’s a partial list of those he worked with:

On September 11, 2015 Stainton performed in a tribute/reunion concert for Joe Cocker. The concert honored Joe and the Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour. Alumni included from the 1970 Tour included Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge,  and Claudia Lennear.

Basically, Chris Stainton has contributed to great music his whole musician’s life.

Thank you Chris! And many many happy returns.

Here are some highlights of Chris playing with Eric Clapton at NYC’s Madison Square Garden in September 2017.

or…

How about his playing for the Ginger Baker tribute on February 17, 2020 with quite a line up? He’s on the far right.

In March 2021, Rolling Stone magazine published an interview. It began:

How has your pandemic year gone?
It’s the same for everyone, I think. You’re stuck home. You just go to the shops and come back. That’s it.

You were still playing when this thing hit.
Yeah. We had everything canceled. The last show that I did was February 2020, which was a tribute to Ginger Baker that we did in London. After that, the whole pandemic hit. They canceled last year’s tour of Europe and America. They tried to put the Europe tour for Eric back on sale for this year, but it got canceled again. They are looking to get an American tour for the fall. So, we’re waiting.

There’s a lot more.

• Related link >>> All Music bio
• Related link >>> Wheres Eric dot com
• Related link >>> phil broadie band dot com article

Keyboardist Christopher Chris Stainton

Rose Rosemary Stewart Stone

Happy birthday

March 21, 1945

Woodstock alum

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

Rose Rosemary Stewart Stone

Slim pickings…

When most Boomers here the word stone there is one of two things they think of and one of them is Sly and the Family Stone, the band that got 500,000 people up and stomping in the middle of the night at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

Rose “Rosie” Stone was part of that band.

I gleaned the information here from her Wikipedia entry and a few other varied sources. None are too extensive and 2007 seems to be the closest we can get to the present.

Rose “Rosie” Stone  is best known as one of the singers and keyboardists with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band, Sly and the Family Stone. Sly and band member Freddie are her brothers.

Rose Rosemary Stewart Stone

Reluctant Member

From a 2007 NPR interview, Rose said, “I was the last one to get in the group. I had been basically in the family band all my life. We started when we were five and six years old. So when I got in the group it was like, you know, it was like pulling teeth, in a way of speaking, because I was just so happy with being out of the musical group. 

Farai Chiideya was the host of that interview and asked whether the band felt that “something magical” was happening at the Woodstock festival?

Rose answered, “Well, we knew something magical was happening. I think after we realized that it was a sea of people in front of us. It was about 5:00 AM when we went on and it was dark, and we were playing, we were playing our best.”

It is always interesting to hear a Woodstock performer’s account of their experience. On tours at the Museum that sits near that famous field, we sometimes refer to inaccurate memories as part of the Woodstock Haze.

In this case, Sly and the Family Stone came on stage around 3:30 AM, not at 5. A minor detail, but one we try to softly point out in the interest of clarity.

Rose also recalls the sun coming up while they were playing. Since the Who came on after Sly and in the Woodstock movie one can clearly see the sky beginning to lighten as they played, the sunrise belongs to them (and Jefferson Airplane).

We all need answers to oft-asked questions and sometimes we do our best to create one that is close enough rather than have no answer at all.

Rose Rosemary Stewart Stone

Post Woodstock

After the band broke up in 1975, Rosie married Sly Stone’s former manager/co-producer, Bubba Banks. She later recorded a solo album on Motown Records, billed as Rose Banks.

Rose worked as a backup singer appearing on recordings by Michael Jackson, Phish, and Ringo.

She was apparently part of the Family Stone in 2003 according to a Billboard article that read in part: Undaunted by the absence not only of Sly but also of his cousin Graham on bass guitar, five of the original members of the group have been in the studio recording some 16 new songs. The new tracks are being written and sung mostly by Sly’s brother Freddie Stone and sister Rosie Stone. Freddie Stone and Errico are producing the album, which does not yet have a label home.

Rose Rosemary Stewart Stone

More

She does have a site, but it is difficult to be sure of how old the information is. In lead sentence of the site she says, “I’m doing my part to make the world a better place.”

Site also talks about her “latest project,” her “Already Motivated” album. She released that album in 2007, so…

Rose Rosemary Stewart Stone

Rose Stone

Today, Rosie Stone is today part of the musical department at her brother Freddie’s church. She returned to her gospel roots in 1983 when she sang on Sandra Crouch’s album We Sing Praises, soloing on the old hymn “Power in the Blood.”

Rose appears at 1:16 in the video below:

In 2011 and 2012, Stone and her daughter Lisa toured with Elton John as members of his vocal backing group. The list of artists she has worked with is a long one (All Music credits)

Her Facebook page.

Rose Rosemary Stewart Stone