Tag Archives: Woodstock Music and Art Fair

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

Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

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Remembering Alan Blind Owl WilsonRemembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson
Born July 4, 1943

On my Museum tours at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, when guest find out I was at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair they often ask, “Who was your favorite group?”

Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

Favorite?

My answer is that “It depends.” At the time of the concert, the Who had just released Tommy  and their performance at Woodstock included nearly their entire rock opera. The Who ended a long night of amazing music that greeted a sunrise which introduced the Jefferson Airplane. I loved all.

Remembering Alan Wilson

Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

Emerging favorites

Since I regularly listen to music from the festival, I now can hear and appreciate groups that at the time I didn’t notice as much.

Nowadays, my answer is Canned Heat: Bob Bear Hite rambling around the stage, Larry Mole Taylor on bass, Harvey Mandel just joining band on guitar, Adolfo de la Parra on drums, and Alan Blind Owl Wilson on guitar. A great line-up banging away with a great groove.

Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

Massachusetts-born

Alan Wilson was born on July 4, 1943 in Arlington, Massachusetts. Early on he developed a love not just of music (jazz in particular), but how music worked.

Like some other white kids of the 50s and 60s, Wilson also discovered the blues.  American norms had long-relegated the blues to the Jim Crow back roads of American society, whose arbitrary cultural mores considered it too rude and crude for “polite” society. The civil rights movement and the evolution of rhythm & blues into rock and roll exposed the blues to teenage white youth open to new views.

More interesting is that some British youth, like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Eric Burdon, had done the same thing and formed bands to expand that discovery.

Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

Blues

Not only did Alan Wilson develop a love of the blues, he began to develop relationships with blues legends as they came to Cambridge, Massachusetts where Wilson lived.  Skip James (whose vocal style Wilson imitated) and Son House in particular.

Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

John Fahey

Wilson also met John Fahey, a young white kid with an equal love of acoustic blues. Fahey convinced Wilson to  move to Los Angeles where Fahey was working on his master’s thesis. It was Fahey who lovingly gave Wilson the nickname “Blind Owl” because of Wilson’s extremely poor eyesight.

While in Los Angeles, Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson met Bob Hite. His collection of blues recordings immediately bonded them. They formed Canned Heat, a name  from Tommy Johnson’s 1928 “Canned Heat Blues.” Where else?!

Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

Festivals

Canned Heat played two of the most iconic festivals in American rock history: the Monterey International Pop Festival and the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Their recording of “Goin’ to the Country” became part of Woodstock film’s soundtrack.

Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

Love of Nature

Alan Wilson loved Nature, but Alan Wilson suffered from one of Nature’s worst illnesses: depression. Canned Heat was readying for a fall 1970 European tour when he did not show up for the flight.

On September 3, they found Wilson dead in Bob Hite’s Topanga Canyon backyard where Alan lived in a tent.

From the Wilson site: “We will never know what Alan Wilson was thinking that night, as he unrolled his sleeping bag and looked up at the stars one last time. What we do know is that he was a talented musician and musicologist who promoted the revival of early Delta blues and left his own permanent mark on the blues and the music of the late 1960s. …We hope that this web site is a fitting tribute to his life.”

Wilson was 27 and sadly became part of what now we refer to as the 27 Club.

Remembering Alan Wilson

NYT article
Remembering Alan Blind Owl Wilson

Remembering Alan Wilson, Remembering Alan Wilson, Remembering Alan Wilson

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

Tim Hardin 1 album

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Tim Hardin 1 Album

“Tim Hardin 1” album released July 1966

Tim Hardin 1 album

 

Ah, Tim Hardin

Born in Eugene, Oregon on December 23, 1941. High school dropout. Marine Corps enlistee. Heroin addict. New York City resident. Greenwich Village folk singer.

Not the same collection of events in every singer-songwriter’s resume, but familiar enough to merit a nod of recognition.

Many received the Village’s golden touch of success. Many. Not all.

Hardin didn’t feel that tap, surprising to others who knew him, loved his songs, and his talent.

At at time when composers were telling their tale with longer and more elaborate songs (Mr Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” a prime example), Tim Hardin typically stuck with the short: verse > chorus > verse format.

Tim Hardin 1 album

On his first release, Tim Hardin 1, “Reason to Believe” is perhaps the best known of the album’s many wonderful song. Others have covered the song, Rod Stewart’s in 1971 is perhaps the best known.

If I listen long enough to you
I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true
Knowing, that you lied, straight-faced
While I cried But still I’d look to find a reason to believe
Someone like you makes it hard to live
Without, somebody else
Someone like you, makes it easy to give
Never think of myselfIf I gave you time to change my mind
I’d find a way to leave the past behind
Knowing that you lied, straight-faced
While I criedBut still I’d look to find a reason to believe
If I listen long enough to you
I’d find a way to believe it’s all true
Knowing that you lied, straight-faced
While I criedStill I’d look to find a reason to believe.

Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Those whom Woodstock Ventures invited to their festival and art fair in Bethel, NY ranged from the little known to the famous. “Little known” to some, but loved by many. Hardin was of the latter. Bob Dylan reportedly described Hardin as, ““the greatest songwriter alive.”

Side one
  1. “Don’t Make Promises” – 2:26
  2. “Green Rocky Road” – 2:18
  3. “Smugglin’ Man” – 1:57
  4. “How Long” – 2:54
  5. “While You’re On Your Way” – 2:17
  6. “It’ll Never Happen Again” – 2:37
Side two
  1. “Reason to Believe” – 2:00
  2. “Never Too Far” – 2:16
  3. “Part of the Wind” – 2:19
  4. “Ain’t Gonna Do Without” – 2:13
  5. “Misty Roses” – 2:00
  6. “How Can We Hang On to a Dream?” – 2:04

Personnel

  • Tim Hardin – vocals, guitar, keyboards
  • Gary Burton – vibraphone
  • Bob Bushnell – bass
  • Earl Palmer – drums
  • Buddy Salzman – drums
  • Jon Wilcox – drums
  • John Sebastian – harmonica
  • Phil Kraus – vocals
  • Walter Yost – bass

Woodstock Ventures also scheduled Hardin to open. First day. First performer.

Many wonder what it was like to be in that crowd of 400,000 on Max Yasgur’s 40 acre field, but few ask what it was like to perform in front of that throng. For Hardin the challenge was initially too great a burden and Richie Havens famously filled in.

Hardin did later perform in that day’s gloaming. His short songs filled his short set:

  • (How Can We) Hang on to a Dream
  • Susan
  • If I Were a Carpenter
  • Reason to Believe
  • You Upset the Grace of Living When You Lie
  • Speak Like a Child
  • Snow White Lady
  • Blue on My Ceiling
  • Simple Song of Freedom
  • Misty Roses

Left out and off

Not appearing on the Woodstock album, nor the movie, addiction, and sometimes leaving the country to seek medical help kept Hardin out of the public eye for years. The New York Times described him in a 1976 show, “he is a nervous, self‐absorbed performer who phrases in a wildly unpredictable manner. Sometimes his improvisations are exciting, but sometimes they are simply aimless.”

Hardin died four years later on December 29, 1980, 6 days after his 39th birthday. His addiction finally killed him, but his songs continue to inspire.

Tim Hardin 1 album
Birthdays, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Canned Heat Larry Mole Taylor

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Canned Heat Larry Mole Taylor

Played with…
Jerry Lee Lewis, The Monkees, Canned Heat, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, and many others
Monterey Pop Festival
Woodstock
June 26, 1942 – August 19, 2019

Canned Heat Larry Mole Taylor

Canned Heat @ Monterey Pop Festival, “Rollin’ and Tumblin'”

Early years

Larry Taylor was born in New York City and seems to have played music his whole life. It was his brother, Mel, drummer for the Ventures, who led Larry into music. Larry played on a few of the Ventures’ albums.

He played in an instrumental surf band, the Gamblers, in the mid-’60s

Larry Taylor toured with Jerry Lee Lewis and was the session bassist for The Monkees. He also worked as a session musician for artists like Albert King, Solomon Burke, Buddy Guy, JJ Cale, Ry Cooder, Harvey Mandel and Charlie Musselwhite.

Canned Heat Larry Mole Taylor

Canned Heat

His career went into high gear when he joined Canned Heat in 1966 at the request of Henry Vestine, its original guitarist (Harvey Mandel later replaced Vestine). Taylor received his nickname from Skip Taylor, Canned Heat’s manager. Each of the band’s members had one. “The Mole” came from Skip Taylor thinking that a split in Larry’s front tooth made him look like a mole.

I suppose it could have been worse.

Woodstock

He described his Woodstock Music and Art Fair experience: It’s still the biggest crowd that I’ve ever played.  It’s hard to explain and to put into words.  You’d kind of have to have been there to really understand it.  I don’t really remember much.  It went by real fast.  In a way, it was like a shock. [Pop Addict interview]

Canned Heat Larry Mole Taylor

Post-heat

He left Canned Heat in 1970. He and Mandel joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers for a stretch.

He later played with the Sugarcane Harris Band and The Hollywood Fats Band.

He had also played with Leo Kottke, Tom Waits, John Lee Hooker, Ry Cooder, Charlie Musselwhite, John Hammond, JJ Cale, Tracy Chapman, Al Blake, and many others [All Music credits]

Taylor rejoined and exited Canned Heat on several occasions, and, beginning in 2010, became one of the members of the 2019 lineup of the band, along with de la Parra, the only consistent member since 1967.

Canned Heat Larry Mole Taylor
CANNED HEAT 2018: FITO DE LA PARRA, JOHN PAULUS, DALE SPALDING & LARRY TAYLOR

He died at his Lake Balboa, California home on August 19, 2019. The band’s manager and one-time producer, Skip Taylor, confirmed on Canned Heat’s Facebook that Taylor’s death after a 12-year battle with cancer. He was 77.

“Larry told great stories, funny jokes, was a foodie, wine, record, and rock poster collector, computer whiz and a special human being who really ‘lived for music,’” Skip Taylor wrote in a statement. “Music was his religion! He influenced many of us in different ways and he will be missed by many throughout the music industry. Condolences to his wife, Andrea, his son Danny and his two daughters, Rebecca and Molly.” [Rolling Stone Magazine article]

Canned Heat Larry Mole Taylor