Category Archives: Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Birthdays, Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Singer Activist Joan Baez

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Singer Activist Joan Baez

Many Happy Returns!

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Báez was born in Staten Island, NY  on January 9, 1941. Although often associated with Bob Dylan, it should be that he is associated with her as Bob was Joan’s guest at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. It was she featured on the November 23, 1962 cover of Time magazine.

Singer Activist Joan Baez

…but associated they are.

Singer Activist Joan Baez

Many areas

To quickly explain Joan’s career would do a disservice to her.  Some associate Joan with the early 1960s civil rights movement. True. Some associate her with the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech movement. True. Some may even know of her participation in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. True again

In other words, Joan has had a lifetime of peace, love, art, and activism.

Singer Activist Joan Chandos Baez
Joan at Woodstock with Jeffrey Shurtleff
Singer Activist Joan Baez

David Harris

During the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, she was pregnant and married to David Harris. Authorities had jailed Harris for refusing to be drafted. That night, Baez played her hour set with Richard Festinger and Jeffrey Shurtleff.

Their set was:

  • Oh Happy Day
  • The Last Thing On My Mind
  • I Shall Be Released
  • Story about how the Federal Marshalls came to take David Harris into custody  
  • No Expectations
  • Joe Hill
  • Sweet Sir Galahad
  • Hickory Wind
  • Drug Store Truck Driving Man
  • I Live One Day at a Time
  • Take Me Back to the Sweet Sunny South
  • Let Me Wrap You in My Warm and Tender Love
  • Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
  • We Shall Overcome

Here is her rendition of International Workers of the World hero Joe Hill from that misty night. The lyrics are based on a 1925 poem by Alfred Hayes that Earl Robinson had put to music in 1936.

The compensation that each of the Woodstock performers received has long been of interest, but documents clearly showing the amount are hard to come by.

Joan Baez received $10,000 (approximately $71,000 in 2019 dollars) and here is the actual documentation:

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Letter to Joan

Dear Joan Baez,

We don’t love you because of all the albums you have released. And you have! We don’t love you because of that voice. And it is amazing! We don’t love you because are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And you are.

We love you for all you have contributed. We love for all you continue to contribute. We love you because you have been a role model to anyone willing to listen and watch.

From all of us to you.

We Shall Overcome.

Singer Activist Joan Baez

For more about Joan and her music, visit >>> Hubpages

Birthdays, Music et al, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Guitarist Stephen Stills

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Guitarist Stephen Stills

Happy Birthday Stephen Stills
January 3, 1945

The summer of 1966. I was 16 and Stephen Stills was 21. I sat and did my high school summer reading: Jules Vernes “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”  Since my dad was at work in Brooklyn and my mom busy with my younger siblings, I could listen to my parents’ mono FM radio–the only one in the house– and a station I’d just discovered:  WOR-FM.

The station’s music had a strong AM top ten feel to it, but the true attraction was that there were no DJs. I did not know why. All I knew is that without all that AM DJ chitter chat, the music seemed continuous.

The downside was that if I heard a song I did not know, there was no way to find out who it was. No Shazam then.

Guitarist Stephen Stills

Clancy Can’t Even Sing

Buffalo Springfield. That was who I heard. The first Buffalo Springfield single was, “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” and it stuck with me.

Neil Young wrote it, but shy of singing (perhaps for good reasons), Richie Fury and Stephen Stills sang. I never heard of Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, or Clancy. Like most Dylan songs, I had little notion of what the song sang:

And who's all hung-up
on that happiness thing?
Who's trying to tune
all the bells that he rings?
And who's in the corner
and down on the floor
With pencil and paper
just counting the score?

It sure sounds cool, but huh?

Guitarist Stephen Stills

C, S & N

I was sad when I heard that the Springfield had disbanded, but elated reading about this new group that David Crosby and Graham Nash had formed with Stills. Rolling Stone Magazine hinted at greatness on the way.

The band’s name on the Woodstock list was one of the main reasons I bought tickets to Woodstock and one of my toughest decisions to go home wet tired and hungry on Sunday afternoon without seeing them.

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – Bridge Benefit, 1989:

Thank you…
Guitarist Stephen Stills
January 3, 1945
and
Happy birthday to you.
Guitarist Stephen Stills
Birthdays, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Keyboardist Chick Churchill

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Keyboardist Chick Churchill

Keyboardist Chick Churchill

Classical studies

Michael George “Chick” Churchill was born on January 2, 1946 in Ilkeston, Derbyshire.

Chick  began playing piano when he was six and was doing classical studies until he met the blues in 1961.

While part of the Sons of Adam, he met Alvin Lee whose band then was called the Jaybirds.

Churchill joined first as a road manager and then as a keyboardist.

Keyboardist Chick Churchill

Ten Years After

The band evolved into Ten Years After and concert promoter Bill Graham invited the band to tour America for the first time in the summer of 1968. Ten Years After would ultimately tour the USA 28 times in 7 years, more than any other U.K. band.

Keyboardist Chick Churchill
Ten Years After
Keyboardist Chick Churchill

Summer of 1969

During the summer of 1969, they performed at  6 major festivals, including  the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Of course their performance of “Goin’ Home” at Woodstock and the song’s inclusion in both the film and on the album established their fame. (I wonder how many times the band performed that song that summer?)

I recently contact Chick and he generously responded with the following:  Woodstock seems so long ago now but I remember the huge audience and the helicopter journey. I think we went on after the rain storm. Everything was wet and I don’t think health and safety would allow it now but we survived. 

Keyboardist Chick Churchill

You and Me

In 1971, Chick released a solo album,  You and Me.

Keyboardist Chick Churchill

Post Ten Years After

When  Ten Years After disbanded in 1976 Chick Churchill became professional manager at Chrysalis Music.

In 1977 he began a partnership with Tim Whitsett as Whitsett Churchill Music Publishing. The company specialized in promoting American artists from southern states.

Neither Alvin Lee nor Ten Years After are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The band has a Facebook page.

Keyboardist Chick Churchill

Bio from TYA site >>> Churchill bio

Keyboardist Chick Churchill