Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

Morning’s twilight shone and sunrise was a few minutes away when the Paul Butterfield Blues Band came onto the stage around 6 AM. Their set would last until a little after 7.

There were four other Woodstock groups that preceded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band that had a horn section: the Keef Hartley Band, Janis Joplin’s Kozmic Blues Band, Sly and the Family Stone,  and Blood, Sweat and Tears.

For my money, the performance that tops them all (and they were all good) in terms of horn power is Butterfield. Perhaps because no other had five brass instruments, but such an advantage does not automatically mean a punchier performance.

Hopefully you can listen to this performance.

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

Personnel

• Paul Butterfield: harmonica, vocals
• Buzzy Feiten: guitar
• Steve Madaio: trumpet
• Keith Johnson: trumpet
• Gene Dinwiddie: tenor saxophone
• David Sanborn: alto saxophone
• Trevor Lawrence: baritone saxophone
• Teddy Harris: piano
• Rod Hicks: bass
• Phillip Wilson: drums

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

Setlist

• Born Under a Bad Sign
• No Amount of Loving
• Driftin’ and Driftin’
• Morning Sunrise
• All in a Day
• Love March
• Everything’s Gonna Be Alright

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

Born Under a Bad Sign

From Wikipedia: The lyrics to “Born Under a Bad Sign” were written by Stax Records rhythm and blues singer William Bell with music by Stax bandleader Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. & the M.G.’s). It became a signature tune by Albert King.

Bell recalled, “We needed a blues song for Albert King … I had this idea in the back of my mind that I was gonna do myself. Astrology and all that stuff was pretty big then. I got this idea that [it] might work.”

Paul Butterfield is just one of many who have covered this classic tune. For all of the white kids at Woodstock (like me), likely we’d first heard Cream’s version. Butterfield’s was on the The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw album. Elektra Records had released it in December 1967.

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

No Amount of Loving

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

Driftin’ and Driftin’

The song is based on another song called “Driftin’ Blues.” From Wikipedia: “Driftin’ Blues” or “Drifting Blues” is a blues standard, recorded by Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers in 1945. The song is a slow blues and features Charles Brown‘s smooth, soulful vocals and piano. It was one of the biggest blues hits of the 1940s and “helped define the burgeoning postwar West Coast blues style.”

Paul Butterfield cover was also on their The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw album.

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

Morning Sunrise

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

All in a Day

From the Keep On Moving album, Rod Hicks, the band’s bassist , wrote it.

When days are gray that’s the murmur of the day
When days are blue that’s a part of it too
When days are cold then your love calls
It’s all in a day, it’s all in a day
All in a day, baby
All in a day, all in a day, all in a day
When days are gray it gets a man on his way
When days are blue make a man very true
When days are cold then your lover come to call
It’s all in a day, let me tell you
It’s all in a day
All in a day, baby, all in a day
If days are gray make a man want to play
If days are blue don’t you try to tell me what to do
When days are cold then your lover come to call
All in a day, it’s all in a day
All in a day, let me tell you now
All in a day
Oh, baby, came to gray, came to blue, oh
All in a day, all in a day, baby
All in a day, wait for us tomorrow
All in a day
Oh, all in a day

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

Love March

Written by Gene Dinwiddie  and Philip Wilson, it was on the band’s Keep On Moving album.

Gene explains before the start: I got a little something I’d like to lay on yall…if you bear with me a minute, please. We’re gonna do a little march right along through now. It’s a love march. We don’t carry no guns and things in this army  we got and stuff. Don’t nobody got to worry about keepin’ in step. We ain’t even got no uniforms to wear. We’re a poor army. [crowd applause]. But we run around in order to keep our heads above the water and whatnot…we sing to one another and we play to one another and we try to make each other feel good.”

The music began and Gene says, “OK. Hep two three four. All yall out there, if you wasn’t so tired we could all get up and just mark around this whole area here and be happy and stuff. Bring your little sister...”

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

Everything’s Gonna Be Alright

Paul Butterfield had recorded several tunes for a debut album in December 1964, but the project was abandoned. In September 1965 Electra released The Paul Butterfield Blues Band album which became Paul’s debut album.

In 1995, The Original Lost Elektra Session album was released and Everything’s Gonna Be Alright was (finally) released.

I cannot find any reliable lyrics to the version the band did at Woodstock, but they aren’t too complicated anyway.

Butterfield Blues Band Woodstock

The next act is Sha Na Na.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

 

It was 3 AM Monday. Those still there had heard reveille about 15 hours earlier! I was home in bed and would be at my summer job in NYC in 5 hours. Crosby, Stills and Nash was one of the bands I hated to miss. Had I known that Neil Young would be there as well, I would have been more disappointed, but c’est la vie.

The initial band’s three members were familiar to most because of the well-known bands they’d recently left: David Crosby from the Byrds, Stephen Stills from Buffalo Springfield, and Graham Nash from the Hollies.

They’d been together informally the year before and found they harmonized well. In early 1969 they signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records, recorded an album in February and March, and Atlantic released the eponymous album on May 29, 1969.

As they famously say at Woodstock, this was only the second time that they’d performed live and they were “scared shitless.” They’d perform for about an hour and a quarter.

Personnel:

• David Crosby: guitar, vocals
• Stephen Stills: guitar, vocals
• Graham Nash: guitar, vocals
• Neil Young: guitar, vocals (from middle of acoustic set}
• Greg Reeves: bass
• Dallas Taylor: drums

Setlist:

Acoustic

• Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
• Blackbird
• Helplessly Hoping
• Guinnevere
• Marrakesh Express
• 4 + 20
• Mr. Soul
• I’m Wonderin’
• You Don’t Have to Cry

Electric

• Pre-Road Downs
• Long Time Gone
• Bluebird
• Sea of Madness
• Wooden Ships

Acoustic encores

• Find the Cost of Freedom
• 49 Bye-Byes

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Acoustic Set

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

From that first album, Judy Collins inspired Stephen Stills to writer the song. This was the opening track to their first album.

 

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Blackbird

Once again, the Beatles are part of the Fair if not in actual presence, then in their music. The crowd loves their cover.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Helplessly Hoping

Another song by Stephen Stills and the third song on side two of their first album. He jokes as the song begins, “Helpless hoping as a helicopter hovers nearby.”

They start and restart.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Guinnevere

David Crosby wrote the song. It the third song on side one of their first album.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Marrakesh Express

A Graham Nash song and again from their first album. Someone calls out to get off the projector. Nash says that they’d like to do “a medley of our hit.” The band had released the song as a single with Helplessly Hoping on the B-side. It had reached 28 on Billboard.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

4 + 20

A Stephen Stills song that would appear on their next album, Déjà Vu which they’d already started to record, would finish recording in January 1970, and release on March 11, 1970. The album would include Neil Young. This performance is sung alone by Stills.

Four and twenty years ago, I come into this life,
The song of a woman and a man who lived in strife.
He was tired of being poor and he wasn’t into selling door to door
And he worked like the devil to be more.
A different kind of poverty now upsets me so.
Night after sleepless night, I walk the floor and I want to know- why am I so alone?
Where is my woman can I bring her home? Have I driven her away? Is she gone?
Morning comes to sunrise and I’m driven to my bed.
I see that it is empty and there’s devils in my head.
I embrace the many colored beast. I grow weary of the torment, can there be no peace?
And I find myself just wishing that my life would simply cease.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Mr. Soul

A song well-known Neil Young song to Buffalo Springfield fans and Neil Young comes out on the stage. He refused to be filmed, thus there are no pictures of him at Woodstock. Young sings. It was the A-side of a Springfield single that Atco Records had released on June 15, 1967. It had been on their Buffalo Springfield Again album.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

I’m Wonderin’

A Neil Young song that would not appear on an album until 1983, Everybody’s Rockin’ a version will have a rockabilly feel.

At the end of this song, David Crosby says, “As you’ve gathered by now, our shows are very easy, it’s just the music that counts.”

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

You Don’t Have to Cry

A Stephen Stills song, the song closed side one of their debut album and the last song of this first acoustic set.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Electric set

Pre-Road Downs

A Graham Nash song, it closed side one of their debut album. Graham Nash introduced the two other band members at this point: Dallas Taylor and Greg Reeves.

I have kissed you
So I’ll miss you
On the road I’ll be wantin’ you
But I have you
‘Cause I love you
And you have me ’cause you love me too, yeah

Felt forsaken
You’ll awaken
To the joys of livin’ hand in glove
And then I will
Lend you my will
And your days will be filled with love

Don’t run, the time approaches
Hotels and midnight coaches
Be sure to hide the roaches

Felt rejected
As expected
You rejected all the thoughts of words
So I’ll pray with
You to stay with
Me forever and we’ll make it work, whoa-oh-oh!

Elevated
You’re elated
‘Cause I’ve waited a year for you
If you’re thinkin’
What I’m thinkin’
Then I’m gonna make my love to you, whoa-oh-oh!

Don’t run, the time approaches
Hotels and midnight coaches
Be sure to hide the roaches

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Long Time Gone

A David Crosby song from their debut album.

It’s been a long time comin’
It’s goin’ to be a long time gone

And it appears to be a long
Appears to be a long
Appears to be a long time
Yes, a long, long, long, long time before the dawn

Turn, turn any corner
Hear, you must hear what the people say
You know there’s something that’s goin’ on around here
That surely, surely, surely won’t stand the light of day, no

And it appears to be a long (yes it does)
Appears to be a long (mm)
Appears to be a long time
Such a long, long time before the dawn

Speak out, you got to speak out against the madness
You got to speak your mind, if you dare
But don’t—no, don’t no—try to get yourself elected
If you do you had better cut your hair, mm

And it appears to be a long (yes it does)
Appears to be a long (mm)
Appears to be a long time
Such a long, long, long, long time before the dawn

It’s been a (long) long (time) time (comin’) comin’
It’s going to be (long) a long (time) time (gone) gone
But you know the darkest hour
Is always, always just before the dawn

And it appears to be a long
Appears to be a long
Appears to be a long time
Such a long, long, long, long time before the dawn

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Bluebird Revisited

A follow-up to another well-known Stephen Stills song from the Buffalo Springfield canon and the single referenced above. Graham Nash introduced the song as on their new album, but it was not there.

The pain of losing you well it made me an angry man
Was there something else that I could do? or was it over?
Had I the chance?

So I listened once again to my bluebird sing
Oh yes and children how she made the mountains ring
Now when hearts be stilled that gentle voice is spring
Oh my precious my soul says to my blue eyed sparrow
Come back, come back. I can peel away the cages
Come back, come back. I can put away the rages
Come back, come back. Can we turn the next page together?

Listen to my bluebird laugh she can tell you why
Deep within her heart you see she knows only cryin’
There she sits aloft at perch strangest color blue
Flying is forgotten now thinks only of you

Get into all those blues must be a thousand years
And each is differently used you just know
You sit there mesmerized by the depth of her eyes
I can tell you no lies
She’s got soul, she’s got soul she’s got soul, she’s got soul
She’s got soul

Soon she’s goin’ to fly away sadness is her own
Give herself a bath of tears and go home
So I listened once again to my bluebird sing
Oh yes and children how she made the mountains ring
Now when hearts be stilled that voice is spring
Oh my precious my soul says to my blue eyed sparrow
Fly back home, fly back home, fly back home

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Sea of Madness

A Neil Young song. Interestingly, as the band tunes the little riff from the Byrds famous cover of Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man can be hears and one assumes Crosby was just having some fun. The song will sort of appear on the Woodstock album the following year. Sort of because the producers of the album actually used a recording from a September 1969 performance at the Fillmore East.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Wooden Ships

Written by Stills, Crosby, and the Airplane’s Paul Kantner. It was about 4 AM Monday at this point and the Airplane had done a 20+ minute version of the song about 19 hours before.

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Back to Acoustic

Find the Cost of Freedom

A song by Stephen Still that he’d written  for the movie Easy Rider. The song would sadly become the B-side of Neil Young and the band’s sadder Ohio in less than a year.

Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down

Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

Encore

49 Bye-Byes

Written by Stephen Stills, the song was the closing track of side two on their debut album. It takes a bit to get going, but get going they do.

Forty Nine reasons all in a line
All of them good ones
All of them lies
Driftin’ with my lady
We’re oldest of friends
Need a little work, and there’s fences to mend

Steady girl, be my world
`Till the drifter come, now she’s gone
I let that man play his hand
I let them go, how was I to know?
I’m down on my knees
Nobody left to please

Now it’s over, they left in the spring
Her and the drifter, looking for beautiful things

Steady girl, be my world
`Till the drifter come, now she’s gone
I let that man play his hand
I let them go, how was I to know?
I’m down on my knees
Nobody left to please

On my knees
Feeling wrong
Mama’s gone
Bye bye baby

Write if you think of it, maybe
Know I love you (Know I love you)
Go if it means that much to you
Hey, but you can run, baby
If the feeling’s wrong before too long it’s crazy
And you’re trapped, babe
And you know that’s not where it’s at, babe
You’re just seein’ things through a cat’s eye, baby
That’s not my old lady

Come on and tell me, baby
You better tell me, baby
Who do you
Who do you love?
Time will tell us
Who is trying to sell us
Bye, bye, baby
Write if you think of it, maybe
Hey, but you can run, baby
If the feeling’s wrong, before too long, it’s crazy
And you’re trapped babe
And you know that’s not where it’s at baby
You’re just seein’ things through a cat’s eye, baby
That’s not my old lady

Come on and tell me, baby
You better tell me, baby
Who do you
Who do you love?

Crosby Stills Nash Young Woodstock

The next act was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.