Category Archives: Woodstock Music and Art Fair

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

Drummer Bobby Wayne Colomby

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Drummer Bobby Wayne Colomby

Happy birthday Bobby

Woodstock Music and Art Fair alum Bobby Colomby was born in New York City on December 20, 1944.

After Al Kooper and Steve Katz left the Blues Project in 1967, Colomby joined them to found the original Blood Sweat and Tears. In addition to Colomby,  Kooper, and Katz, there was Jim Fielder, who had played with the Mothers of Invention and Buffalo Springfield. The band recruited horn players from New York jazz and studio bands.

Drummer Bobby Wayne Colomby
The original Blood, Sweat and Tears
Drummer Bobby Wayne Colomby

Sessions drummer

Previously, Bobby Colomby had drummed behind folksingers Odetta and Eric Andersen. When Kooper left for a solo  career, many felt that the band was over, but Colomby and Katz continued with the others (NYT BST)

After dozens of personnel changes in the group Colomby became (in the end) the de facto owner of the Blood Sweat & Tears name. He maintains ownership of the “Blood, Sweat & Tears” band name and, although he no longer plays with the band, he still manages and oversees a tribute band that performs under that name. (BST  Home site)

Drummer Bobby Wayne Colomby

What else has…

Bobby Colomby done?
Drummer Bobby Wayne Colomby
Bobby Colomby

Colomby produced Jaco Pastorius’ first solo album (NYT article on the movie “Jaco”); The Jacksons’ Destiny (NYT article on Jackson including Colomby quotes); Chris Botti’s albums December, When I Fall in Love, and To Love Again and Italia; and Paula Cole’s album Courage.

For a few years in the late 1980s Bobby Colomby was a reporter for the television programs Entertainment Tonight and “The CBS Morning Program.”

In 2000, Colomby and Richard Marx created short-lived Signal 21 Records.

In a December 2016,  BroadwayWorld.com article stated that Colomby is always looking to keep Blood Sweat & Tears more than a band playing its old hits. “I no longer want to target just one generation. That would be a mistake. With this updated version, I want this band to gain recognition with a wider audience. I want people of all ages to experience what this music has to offer.” And none of the original member are in the current line up. Why? “I think of this band like baseball’s Yankees. When you’re at a Yankee game you’re not going to see Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle or Lou Gehrig. What you do come to expect is a team of top-notch players upholding a tradition of winning. That’s the Yankee legacy. It what people expect from BS&T as well… brilliant musicians, singers, songs and arrangements.”

Drummer Bobby Wayne Colomby
Birthdays, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Bluesman Paul Vaughn Butterfield

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Bluesman Paul Vaughn Butterfield

December 17, 1942 – May 4, 1987
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Remembering Paul Butterfield

Paul Butterfield was born in Chicago on December 17, 1942. He initially started playing the flute, but the magnetism of Chicago’s blues pulled him in and the harmonica became his instrument.

Butterfield began performing with fellow blues enthusiasts Nick Gravenites and Elvin Bishop and with the addition of a few others, including Michael Bloomfield, formed the Butterfield Blues Band.

Bluesman Paul Vaughn Butterfield

Newport 1965

Bluesman Paul Vaughn Butterfield
Paul Butterfield Blues Band at Newport

It was at that famous Newport Folk Festival of 1965, that Butterfield first met fame. Well-received by many there (electric blues was not what some came to hear), particularly by a young guy named Bob Dylan, Dylan invited some of the band to back him on part of his performance. Electric Dylan! Definitely not what some came to hear.

Like Paul Revere, Paul Butterfield helped deliver the big news: Dylan ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more:

Bluesman Paul Vaughn Butterfield

Vinyl Butterfield

Butterfield released seven albums with Elektra Records and later four albums for manager Albert Grossman’s Bearsville Records.

He also performed at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair on Monday morning after Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and before Sha Na Na. Quite a placement! Here’s a great video from that performance:

Solo

The Blues band ended and he went solo. In 1976 he was part of the amazing line-up for The Band’s Last Waltz.

Bluesman Paul Vaughn Butterfield

Sessions

Over the next few years, Butterfield mostly confined himself to session work. He began to play more gigs in Los Angeles during the early ’80s, and eventually relocated there permanently; he also toured on a limited basis during the mid-’80s, and in 1986 released his final album, The Legendary Paul Butterfield Rides Again.

Paul Butterfield died on May 4, 1987.

R & R H of F

In 2015 he was (finally) inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (with band members Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Mark Naftalin, Jerome Arnold, Billy Davenport and Sam Lay) (New York Times obituary)

Bluesman Paul Vaughn Butterfield
Birthdays, Today in history, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Woodstock Ventures Michael Lang

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Woodstock Ventures Michael Lang

Remembering Michael Lang on his birthday
December 11, 1944 – January 8, 2022

If you’ve arrived here directly or via Facebook, I will assume that you are already familiar with Mr Lang and who he is. I’ll just bullet-point a few facts about him.

  • he was born in Brooklyn, New York
  • in 1967, he moved to Coconut Grove, Florida and  opened a head shop: papers, posters, black lights, and similar things to help enhance one’s day.
Woodstock Ventures Michael Lang
Woodstock Ventures Michael Lang
  • in 1968,  Lang assisted in the production of the 1968 Miami Pop Festival.” It featured Steppenwolf, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Mothers of Invention, Blue Cheer, Crazy World of Arthur Brown,Chuck Berry, The Blues Image, Pacific Gas and Electric, and Three Dog Night.
Woodstock Ventures Michael Lang
  • he left Miami and moved to Woodstock, NY. He also spent a lot of time in NYC where he and Artie Kornfeld came up with the idea to create a recording studio in Woodstock for the growing number of so-called “underground” musicians living there such as Paul Butterfield, Van Morrison, and others. Of course, Bob Dylan was there, too.
  • he, Kornfeld, John Roberts, and Joel Rosenman formed Woodstock Venturers for that purpose.
    Woodstock Ventures Michael Lang

    Woodstock Ventures Michael Lang
    August 18, 2013, Michael Lang and Joel Rosenman at memorial service for Richie Havens at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts (photo by James Shelley)
  •  he did not help produce the Altamont Free Concert in December 1969, but he did assist in the relocation of the event after it had to be moved.
  • Lang also managed several successful international recording artists, including Joe Cocker, Rickie Lee Jones, Willie DeVille, Tarkan, and Spanish recording artists El Ultimo de la Fila.
  • Lang owned and operated Just Sunshine Records, which produced and released more than 40 albums by such diverse musical artists as Karen Dalton, Betty Davis, and Mississippi Fred McDowell.
  • Today, Woodstock.com is a place where people can explore what Michael Lang and the others involved in Woodstock Venture are up to and offering now.

Death

Michael Lang died at Sloan Kettering hospital in New York. He was 77.

Michael Pagnotta, a rep for Lang and longtime family friend, confirmed the promoter’s death to Rolling Stone, adding that the cause was a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Remembrance

Michael Lang’s death was obviously in the news everywhere. Likely hundreds of obituaries and remembrances could be found. I chose the following from Bill Hanley, the person who did the sound at Woodstock:

Michael Lang died on January 8, 2022.

He was a friend of mine. We worked together at many festival gigs, most notably Woodstock ’69.
Because of my experience Michael believed I would deliver the best possible sound, and I did.
He told me decades later he knew I could be trusted to be fully conscious all the time because I didn’t do drugs or drink. He was right.
In the past month there has been much written and broadcast about Michael, all favorable and to which I don’t feel I could add anything more to this distinguished person’s character.
Except one thing…
For the summer of August, 2019, because plans for the 50th Woodstock Event were canceled, Michael came up to Yasgur’s Farm in Bethel, NY. Me, my wife, my son and all his friends, Rona Elliot and Henry Diltz were staying at Max Yasgur’s house (graciously offered to us by Jeryl Abramson, now owner of Yasgur’s Farm).
Michael was a celebrity when he came, everyone was thrilled to see him. With an extended hand shake he humbly spoke to everyone. After the drum circle and the place calmed down me, my wife Rhoda, Rona and Michael were left sitting around Max’s kitchen table. The four of us started talking about our childhoods, our families, telling stories. Some were so funny we were just bending over the table with laughter. Into the wee hours of the early morning we shared our past. I got to know Michael and he got to know us just as plain ordinary people. No rock ‘n roll, not show biz just human beings with stories, many just totally hilarious. I treasure this night.
I will miss Michael.
February 3. 22
Woodstock Ventures Michael Lang