Incredible String Band Woodstock

The Incredible String Band was supposed to be part of Friday’s folk-oriented lineup, but circumstances pushed their performance to Saturday.  Unfortunately the so-called psychedelic-folk group using mainly acoustic instruments  followed the rousing electric and brass performance of the Keef Hartley Band. It was about 6 PM and for some in the crowd who hadn’t had “lunch” it was dinner time. They went in search, often unsuccessfully, for that dinner.

Incredible String Band did make it to the Monument, but not into the  initial release of the movie or the soundtrack.

A 2020 BBC article says that comedian and banjo-player Billy Connolly, who was a massive fan and who got to know them when they played the folk clubs of Glasgow, described the band as “hairy, exotic and interesting“.

The band consisted of: Mike Heron, Robin Williamson, Christina “Licorice” McKechnie, and Muse, Odalisque, HandmaidenISR Rose Simpson. They would be on stage for about a half hour.

Their setlist was:

• Invocation (spoken word)
• The Letter
• Gather ‘Round
• This Moment
• Come with Me
• When You Find Out Who You Are

And before we get to the set, here’s a picture that David Marks took of ISR’s performance. He was part of Bill Hanley‘s sound crew that weekend (as well as a few other time’s). David took lots of pictures when he had the chance.

Incredible String Band Woodstock

Invocation

For some this band is too difficult to approach. Their instrumentation is proficient, but their lyrics require attention. For many the huge setting was not the intimate setting to appreciate this band.

Mike Heron began with a poem.

I make a love peace with you
Lifers that move the heart
In fur and scale
Ancient associates
And fellow wanderers
You that place yourselves in this space.
You that strengthen the horn
And make quick the eye
You who run the swift fox and the zigzag fly
You sizeless makers of the mole and whale
Aid me and I will aid you
I make a peace with you
You that lift the blossom and the green branch
You that weave symmetries more true
You who make time slower,
And watch the patterns
You who eat deep 
And eat water stretching high    
You rough-coated
Your green blood
My red blood
We will mingle them
But I harm you not
That you shield me.
I make a pact with you
You who are unconfined
And have no shape
Who are not seen
But only in your action
Who have no depth
But choose direction
Who bring what is willed
That you blow my ship to pleasant harbors
I make a pact with you
You who are the liquidness of the waters
And the spark of flame
I make a pact with you
You who make fertile the soft ground
And guard growth
I make peace with you
You who are the blueness of the sky
And the wrath of the storm
I take the cup of deepness with you
Earthshakers
And with you the sharp and the hollow hills
I make reverence to you
Round wakefulness we
Call the earth
I make wide eyes to you
You who are also awake
Every created thing both solid and sleepy
Or airy light
I weave colours round you
You who will come with me
I will consider it beauty

Incredible String Band Woodstock

The Letter

The Letter typifies what ISB did. In some ways, its simplicity and beauty is comparable to a Richard Brautigan poem. The song would appear on their 1970 album, I Looked Up.

Keef Hartley Band Woodstock

It was around 4:45 PM when Chip Monck introduced the Keef Hartley Band. One of the common questions asked by visitors to the Museum at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is, “Why weren’t the Beatles here in 1969?” The simplest answer is that they had stopped touring three years earlier and by August 1969 cracks in the band’s cohesiveness were wide.

Having said that, the Beatles aura was frequently felt.  Richie Havens’s opening set had two Beatles songs: With a Little Help From My Friends (also covered even more famously at Woodstock by Joe Cocker) and Strawberry Fields. Early Monday morning, Crosby, Stills and Nash would cover Blackbird.

Many Beatle fans know that before he joined the Beatles, Ringo was the drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Who was later a drummer in Rory Storm? Keef Hartley.

Maybe you’ll win a drink someday with that Woodstock trivia.

The Keef Hartley Band released its first album, Halfbreed earlier in 1969. The album personnel who also played at Woodstock were: Keef Hartley (25), Miller Anderson (24), Gary Thain (21), and Henry Lowther (27). Jimmy Jewell was not on the album, but at Woodstock.

Their instruments were: Keef Hartley: drums
Miller Anderson: guitar, vocals, Jimmy Jewell: saxophone
Henry Lowther: trumpet, violin, and Gary Thain: bass.

Their 47-minute setlist was:

• Spanish Fly
• She’s Gone
• Too Much Thinkin’
• Believe In You
• Halfbreed Medley: Sinnin’ For You (Intro) >Leaving Trunk > Just to Cry > Sinnin’ for You

The band undeservedly encountered Woodstock’s triple whamie: not on the movie soundtrack, not in the movie, and not on the Monument.

Keef Hartley Band Woodstock

Spanish Fly

While Woodstock fans may associate acts with horns with Janis Joplin, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Sly and the Family Stone, and Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Keef Hartley Band stands equally beside those great bands’ brass sound.

Spanish Fly is an instrumental and features those horns as well as  Miller Anderson’s great guitar. Unfortunately, the crowd response is minimal.

Keef Hartley Band Woodstock

She’s Gone

The band paused just a moment before Keef Hartley drummed the intro of She’s Gone. The whole song is powerful.

Keef Hartley Band Woodstock

Too Much Thinking

No patter. A bit of tuning. A quick mention that Too Much Thinking is from their Halfbreed album and into the song.

John Sebastian Woodstock

Other than music and rain, it seems the Woodstock’s one common thread was the nearly constant between-set requests to those who had climbed on the light towers to please come down. Whether it was Chip Monck or John Morris doing announcements, there was always a typically polite request to get off the towers.

And so Monck did several times before John Sebastian, an unscheduled guest, the third of the festival (Melanie and Country Joe), and the second of the day appeared.

John was a spectator. Not planning on playing,  but ready and willing to jump in and help out. He performed solo.

It was about 3:30 PM and his 24-minute set was:

• How Have You Been
• Rainbows All Over Your Blues
• I Had A Dream
• Darlin’ Be Home Soon
• Younger Generation

John Sebastian Woodstock

How Have You Been

Reprise Records would not release John’s first solo album, John B Sebastian,  until January 1970, but three of the five songs he sang would be on that album. This was one.

Because the songs were still young, because John was still young (25), because life at Woodstock was often enhanced, the published lyrics of songs and the lyrics John sang do not always co-inside.

“Thank you. I don’t know how amazing you look, but you’re truly amazing, you’re a whole city. And somehow you’re something that an awful lot of us talked about 8 and 10 years ago in little living rooms…I have a song for you.” John Sebastian

He begins singing a cappella, then uses his guitar.