Tag Archives: Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Birthdays, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Guitarist Lawrence Larry Lee

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Guitarist Lawrence Larry Lee

Remembering and appreciating

Larry Lee

March 7, 1943 — October 30,  2007
Friend of Jimi Hendrix
Vietnam Vet
Woodstock alum
Guitarist Lawrence Larry H Lee
Jimi Hendrix and Larry Lee at Woodstock Music and Art Fair
Guitarist Lawrence Larry Lee

Just in time

Some Woodstock Music and Art Fair performers got there by the skin of their teeth.

Lawrence H. Lee Jr. was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He met Jimi Hendrix in 1963 and became friends.  And like many musician friends, they found themselves learning from each other and helping find gigs for each other.

By 1969, Jimi Hendrix was going in a new direction and along with bringing in new musicians, he brought in a new friend.

Guitarist Lawrence Larry Lee

Larry Lee

The Jimi Hendrix Experience had dissolved by early August 1969 and Jimi called some friends to join his new band. Lee was one of those old friends. Gypsy Sun and Rainbows was the name of the new band.

At Woodstock, Jimi, of course, was THE main attraction closing the three-day event after four days. Interestingly, Lee played lead and sang on a two songs: Mastermind and Gypsy Women/Aware of Love with Jimi in the background. A cut from Mastermind is heard during this blog entry.

Gypsy Sun and Rainbows eventually became the Band of Gypsys and Lee was not part of that trio.

Larry Lee went on to play as part of Al Green’s touring band. According to Wikipedia, Lee wrote “Judy,” one of Green’s hits, but according to the All Music site, Green wrote it.

Such are the limitations of even the internet.

Lee playing a solo with a little help from his friend Al Green during a Green concert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IY64HT4Ivw

Guitarist Lawrence Larry Lee

Bethel Woods

The downstairs hallway at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts has a chronological listing of each group that played at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as well as a brief bio of those performers. For Larry Lee, the Museum displayed the following:

Guitarist Larry Lee
bio from exhibit at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

Lee died from stomach cancer in his hometown of Memphis on October 30, 2007.

Birthdays, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Edward Chip Monck

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Edward Chip Monck

Celebrating his birthday, March 5, 1939
Edward Chip Monck
Chip Monck (from chipmonck.com)

The above audio clip is from an interview with Chip Monck in 2009  on the 40th Anniversary of the Woodstock Festival. Glenn A Baker interviewed Monck as part of the Ovation Channel show ‘Monday Night Legends’

The chipmonck.com site starts with these questions:

  1. Have you heard of Woodstock?
  2. Monterey Pop?
  3. The Rolling Stones Tour?
  4. Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals?
  5. The Concert for Bangladesh?

And then answers those questions with this simple answer:

He staged them all
Edward Chip Monck

Chip Monck

Edward Herbert Beresford “Chip” Monck was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He became a lighting and staging designer, but as the above references suggest, he did those things for some of the most iconic musical events of the 20th century.

When he was 20, Monck began working at the Greenwich Village nightclub The Village Gate.  While at the gate, his young friend Bobby Dylan worked in Monck’s basement apartment. Reputedly, Dylan wrote “A Hard Rain’s a’Gonna Fall” and “The Ballad of Hollis Brown” there. 

Monck recalls about Dylan,  “He spied the IBM Selectric [typewriter]. He typed while I worked at the Gate. That gave him like six hours, he’d just drift in, I gave him a key and he’d sit down and type and then I’d come back in and he’d go, or we’d go and have a drink or something. We really never spoke much.”

Edward Chip Monck

Festivals

While still working at the Village Gate, Monck also began working with the  Newport Folk Festival, and  the Newport Jazz Festival.

If those credentials aren’t enough, in 1967 he lit the Monterey International Pop Festival where Jimi Hendrix’s American coming out party occurred.

He also worked with Bill Graham in renovating Graham’s Fillmore theaters.

Edward Chip Monck

Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Woodstock Ventures hired Monck to do the lighting at their Fair. The last minute change of venue from Wallkill, NY to Bethel, NY forced Monck to eliminate much of his planned lighting. Spotlights became the primary source.

But to those who attended the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Chip Monck’s voice along with John Morris’s became the reassuring threads that connected each band. Both men took turns not just introducing performers, but giving advice, recommending choices, and explaining what was going on at a time when social media didn’t exist as a term.

Perhaps the most famous quote of that weekend was Monck’s: ““The warning that I’ve received, you might take it with however many grains of salt you wish, that the brown acid that is circulating around is not specifically too good. It is suggested that you stay away from that. But it’s your own trip, be my guest. But please be advised that there’s a warning, okay?”

Edward Chip Monck

A LOT more after Woodstock

For years he helped light Rolling Stone tours and he received Tony nominations in lighting for The Rocky Horror Show and Bette Midler’s Divine Madness.

Edward Herbert Beresford Chip Monck
Playbill

He was always busy working many major venues. In 1989 he helped set up Pope John Paul’s papal mass at L.A.’s Dodger Stadium.

In the early 90s, Monck moved to Australia, his wife’s home country, where he continued in the lighting and design business. (Monck’s wife died in 2002)

Edward Chip Monck

Honors

He continues to live Melbourne, his focus mainly on corporate and retail work. In 2003, he received the  Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes pioneering, influential professionals and their contributions, honoring both individuals and companies. It is the Oscar of the live event industry.Here is the video that introduced that presentation.

Edward Chip Monck
Birthdays, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Who Roger Daltrey CBE

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Who Roger Daltrey CBE

Happy birthday

March 1,  1944
Who Roger Harry Daltrey CBE

Who Founded Who?

In a sense, Roger Daltrey founded the Who.  It was he who recruited  John Entwistle in 1961 to form a band.  It was Entwistles suggestion to ask Pete Townshend to join the new band, the Detours.

Who Roger Daltrey CBE

Early on…

Daltrey’s daytime job was in a sheet metal factory, even making the band’s guitars. Interesting, since Pete’s later smashing of his guitars obviously required wooden ones.

The young band went through the usual young band growing pains adding members, firing others, changing its name to The Who, then changing it to The High Numbers, before changing it back to the Who in November 1964.

By that time, Pete Townshend was the leader of the band because of his ability to compose songs, but Roger Daltrey became the front man to sing Townshend’s songs. The famous swirling mic became Daltry’s signature.

Who Roger Daltrey CBE

1965 Who released

On December 3, 1965, the Who released their first album, “My Generation.”

Who Roger Harry Daltrey CBE
My Generation album cover
Who Roger Daltrey CBE

1967 breakout

1967 was a break-out year in the US where they appeared for the first time. One of their performance was well-timed. On June 18 they appeared at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival and were included on both its movie and soundtrack album.

Having said that, during a July – August tour that year, they opened for Herman’s Hermits.

In 1968 they began to headline and in 1969 Pete Townshends “Tommy” with Roger Daltrey embodying the character on stage, put them among the elite of rock groups.

Who Roger Daltrey CBE

Who Woodstock

Invited to perform at Woodstock, the band wasn’t certain whether to, but finally did. Like Monterey, it became a huge piece of that famous festival.

The Who’s Woodstock encore: My Generation

Who Roger Daltrey CBE

Roger Daltrey

Like many groups, members began to release solo albums, and Daltry released his first, Daltrey,  in 1973.  He has released eight solo albums, but others in collaboration as well as a children album, The Wheels on the Bus.

The Who continued, sometimes sporadically,  despite the death of Keith Moon in 1978 and John Entwistle in 2002.

The Who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Who Roger Daltrey CBE

Teenage Cancer Trust

Since 2000 he has been a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity that builds specialized wards for teenagers with cancer in the UK and in   November 2010, Roger and Pete Townshend launched Teen Cancer America.