Music - The Greatest Music Festival EVER?????

So on reading that heading WHICH festival came to your mind? Please share below ....

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I am sure you all guessed it. Woodstock 1969 .... over 400000 music lovers, hippies and others gathered to hear some amazing artists. This is going to be a long post and there will be a 'Festival part two' blog as well.

Joe Cocker - With a little help from my friends

Woodstock, in full The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, the most famous of the 1960s rock festivals, held on a farm property in Bethel, New York, August 15–18, 1969. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was organized by four inexperienced promoters who nonetheless signed a who’s who of current rock acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Jefferson Airplane, Ravi Shankar, and Country Joe and the Fish.

What a line up .... and that excludes Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Richie Havens and many more

Richie Havens - Freedom

This must surely rate as one of the GREATEST jamming songs ever. Richie was never scheduled as an opening act but due to the masses and traffic jams the musicians were all held up. He performed every song he knew ... and this was an ad lib ... I paraphrase him here ' I ran out of songs... I looked out at the crowds and thought that was what freedom looked like.... and the rest is history

Sly and the Family Stone - Higher

The festival began to go wrong almost immediately, when the towns of both Woodstock and Wallkill, New York, denied permission to stage it. (Nevertheless, the name Woodstock was retained because of the cachet of hipness associated with the town, where Bob Dylan and several other musicians were known to live and which had been an artists’ retreat since the turn of the century.) Ultimately, farmer Max Yasgur made his land available for the festival. Few tickets were sold, but some 400,000 people showed up, mostly demanding free entry, which they got due to virtually nonexistent security. Rain then turned the festival site into a sea of mud, but somehow the audience bonded—possibly because large amounts of marijuana and psychedelics were consumed—and the festival went on.
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This next act I want to include is an immense talent who I have revered for many years and those who follow my blog will know this. Ravi Shankar may not be mentioned in the same breath as Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and the others of that ilk but he does not need to bow to anyone.

Ravi Shankar - Evening Raga Note to self.... Ravi Shankar and Ravi's collaboration for a blog post !!!

Although it featured memorable performances by Crosby, Stills and Nash (performing together in public for only the second time), Santana (whose fame at that point had not spread far beyond the San Francisco Bay area), Joe Cocker (then new to American audiences), and Hendrix, the festival left its promoters virtually bankrupt. They had, however, held onto the film and recording rights and more than made their money back when Michael Wadleigh’s documentary film Woodstock (1970) became a smash hit. The legend of Woodstock’s “Three Days of Peace and Music,” as its advertising promised, became enshrined in American history, at least partly because few of the festivals that followed were as star-studded or enjoyable.
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This blog could go on for 100 pages and at least 80 music videos .... phewwww.... I am going to end it with the absolute legend rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by the one and only James Marshall Hendrix..... aka Jimi

Say no more say no more ... man I am so glad I was alive at that time and got to listen to ... for me .... Gods of music !!

Thank you for stopping by, thank you for the support .... stay safe, stay free and keep stacking those sats !!