Tag Archives: Woodstock Birthdays

Birthdays, Music et al, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Guitarist Jeffrey Shurtleff

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Guitarist Jeffrey Shurtleff

January 20
Happy birthday, Jeff

Joan Baez is a name fans of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair all recognize. Jeffrey Shurtleff less so.

Guitarist Jeffrey Shurtleff
Shurleff and Baez from the Woodstock movie

According to the Rate Your Music site, “Jeffrey Shurtleff was born…in Vallejo, California at Mare Island Naval Hospital.

He entered Stanford University from the Choate School in Connecticut in September 1962. In 1964, he took a year off in Mexico and worked with a Quaker project. Returning to Stanford, he lived in a commune with his brother Bill and friend David Harris named Peace and Liberation, which advocated resistance to the war in Vietnam.

Here is his and Joan Baez’s wonderful performance at Woodstock on One Day at a Time.

Guitarist Jeffrey Shurtleff

State Farm

In the early 70s, he released an album, State Farm.

Guitarist Jeffrey Shurtleff
Jeffrey Shurtleff on cover of his State Farm ablum

[Also from Rate Your Music] In 1970-72, Jeffrey hitch-hiked throughout South America starting from California. He later started Printers Inc. bookstore in Palo Alto, California and later became the owner of a new Central Park Bookstore in San Mateo, California.

Guitarist Jeffrey Shurtleff

California

He was married to Maria De Jesus Flores and had two sons. He has been both the Director and Head Instructor at several Youth Schools in San Francisco. Jeff continues to live in California.

If his Facebook page is an indication of his current status, he remains an activist for many causes. Here are the titles of recent Facebook posts:

  • Demand San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon Charge SFPD Officers with Murder!
  • End Juvenile Solitary Confinement
  • We demand that the use of herbicides in any part of Lake Tahoe be prohibited.
  • Stop the Drills: Say No to Offshore Drilling in the Atlantic and Artic.

He is also active with Northern California Amnesty International.  Here he spoke about the conflict between China and Tibet and its importance.

Guitarist Jeffrey Shurtleff
Birthdays, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Remembering Janis Lyn Joplin

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Remembering Janis Lyn Joplin

January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970
(sound clip is from Janis on the Dick Cavett Show 18 July 1969)

Janis Joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. High school was an uncomfortable place for her as a teenager in the mid-1950s. Unlike her classmates, her tastes in music gravitated toward the blues and beatniks.

She sang in a local choir and expanded her listening to singers such as Odetta, Billie Holiday and Big Mama Thornton. In fact, years later Janis provided a headstone for Bessie Smith’s grave, who is buried in Philadelphia’s Mount Lawn cemetery.

Janis Lyn Joplin
Mount Lawn Cemetery, Sharon Hill, PA

After a couple of unsuccessful college ventures, visits to California, living in Texas again, going to NYC, and a failed marriage engagement, Janis arrived in San Francisco on June 4, 1966 to audition with Big Brother and the Holding Co. She became part of the band and her first performance with them was six days later at the Avelon Ballroom.

Remembering Janis Lyn Joplin

Big Brother & the Holding Co.

Janis and the band became local favorites and a year later on June 17, 1967 they hit the big time at the Monterey International Pop Festival. When the movie was released in December 1968, it was Janis on the poster.

Remembering Janis Lyn Joplin

Here she is at that festival performing Ball and Chain.

And 21 months later at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, she again starred.

Remembering Janis Lyn Joplin

Harvard Stadium

And only a year later, on August 12, 1970, was Janis’s last public performance. It was at Harvard Stadium, Boston with the Full Tilt Boogie Band. (story and photos from WBUR site)

Like too many of her time, the drug availability and sycophant fans were too easy to avoid. Perhaps Life seemed better with them. Life, perhaps, had become addicted to them.

On October 4, 1970 Janis Joplin was found dead of a drug overdose at the Landmark Hotel in Los Angeles at the age of 27 by her road manager John Cooke. (NYT obituary)

References: Joplin dot com

Remembering Janis Lyn Joplin
Birthdays, Music et al, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Family Stone Cynthia Robinson

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Family Stone Cynthia Robinson

Remembering Cynthia Robinson

January 12, 1944 – November 23, 2015

Cynthia Robinson was born in Sacramento, California. She played brass instruments in her high school marching band and was an original member of Sly Stone’s short-lived band The Stoners.

After that group broke up, she stayed with  him as part of the Family Stone.

According to the Family Stone home page,  he career included “Playing with P-Funk maestro George Clinton, Larry Graham, Prince, and Sinbad’s Aruba Summer Soul Festival with fellow S & TFS members, Rose Stone, Jerry Martini, Larry Graham & Graham Central Station.  In 2006, she along with the Original Family Stone members performed at the Grammy Awards in an All Star assembled band paying tribute to Sly & The Family Stone.

Family Stone Cynthia Robinson

Cynthia

Family Stone Cynthia Robinson

She is the only female, African-American trumpet player ever to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

In 2006, she began playing with the Family Stone which included her daughter , Sylvette Phunne Robinson, also known as Phunne Stone.  She and her daughter sang lead vocals on “Do Yo Dance,” a single released by the group the summer of 2015.

When asked in 2011 what she thought the future held for the band and her, she responded, “As long as we all stay healthy, it’s going to be a motha’! I love these guys…and girl. And we all care about each other off the stage. When we’re in our separate cities and our separate homes. We still care about each other.” Robinson died of cancer in Carmichael, California at the age of 71.

Family Stone Cynthia Robinson

Woodstock

It does not get much better than the classic “I Want to Take You Higher” from the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Cynthia is prominently featured:

From the Rolling Stone magazine obit : When news of Robinson’s death broke, Questlove penned a loving tribute to her, calling her music’s original “hypeman” in an Instagram post. “She wasn’t just a screaming cheerleading foil to Sly and Freddie [Stone]’s gospel vocals; she was a kick ass trumpet player,” he wrote. “A crucial intricate part of Sly Stone’s utopian vision of MLK’s America: Sly and the Family Stone were brothers and cousins, friends and enemies, black and white, male and female. saint and sinner. … Cynthia’s role in music history isn’t celebrated enough.”

Family Stone Cynthia Robinson