The spirit of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair of 1969 resonates 40 summers later, as if it were just yesterday.
In 1969, five acts recorded ...
The spirit of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair of 1969 resonates 40 summers later, as if it were just yesterday.
In 1969, five acts recorded albums for the Columbia, Epic, and RCA labels (divisions of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT) and brought their music to Max Yasgur’s farm that summer. For the first time, THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE couples those albums with music from the festival, providing a pocket portrait of what each artist and band was experiencing during 1969. Available at all physical and digital retail outlets starting June 30th – in newly-designed eco-friendly 2CD packages (see details below) – will be the following five titles:
· JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(RCA/Legacy) Includes Volunteers, their sixth and final album with the original lineup before all the changes came in 1970, with “We Can Be Together,” “Good Shepherd,” “Wooden Ships,” “Eskimo Blue Day,” and the title tune; coupled with 13 songs from their Sunday wee-hours set at the festival, including six previously unissued live tracks.
· JANIS JOPLIN - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(Columbia/Legacy) Includes I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, her first and only solo album released during her lifetime, with “Try (Just A Little Bit Harder),” the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody,” and Rodgers & Hart’s “Little Girl Blue”; coupled with her entire 10-song festival set, including three previously unissued live tracks.
· SANTANA - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(Columbia/Legacy) Includes the debut Santana LP, with “Evil Ways,” “Savor,” “Persuasion,” “Soul Sacrifice,” and Olatunji’s “Jingo”; coupled with their entire 8-song set, including one previously unissued live track;
· SLY & THE FAMILY STONE – THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(Epic/Legacy) Includes their breakthrough fourth album, Stand!, with “Every,,day People,” “Sing A Simple Song,” “Stand!” and “I Want To Take You Higher”; coupled with their entire 8-song set, including seven previously unissued live tracks.
· JOHNNY WINTER - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(Columbia/Legacy) Includes the debut Johnny Winter solo LP, with homages to Robert Johnson (“When You Got A Good Friend”), Sonny Boy Williamson (“Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”), Lightnin’ Hopkins (“Back Door Friend”) and B.B. King (“Be Careful With A Fool”); coupled with eight songs from his Sunday evening set at the festival, including seven previously unissued live tracks.
Each THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE disc will be packaged inside a mini-LP cover with inner paper sleeves: CD-one replicating the front and back covers of the original LP, and CD-two featuring iconic photography of the artist performing at the festival. These mini-LPs will be housed in a paper-board slipcase sharing continuity of design recognition across all five packages. The slipcase will also contain a two-sided 16x20-inch fold-out poster, with one side displaying iconic photography of the artist performing at the festival, and the other side displaying a classic crowd shot of the audience.
The upcoming 40th anniversary celebration includes such highly-anticipated projects as Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock (which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, starring Demetri Martin, Liev Schreiber and Emile Hirsch, via Focus Features); and Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang’s The Road To Woodstock, written with Holly George-Warren (on HarperCollins’ Ecco imprint).
Announced in April, Sony Music Entertainment has teamed with Woodstock Ventures to launch Woodstock.com, a a cutting edge live music social network for all concerts, including complete artist and event information, access to ticketing, concert reviews, music, blogs, and a forum to connect with other fan events throughout the world. There will be platforms for environmental initiatives, social issues, and other current topics. Visitors to the site can meet on a virtual village green, a platform for developing initiatives about global warming, carbon emissions, and responsible energy use.
The spirit of the Woodstock Generation continues to be a thriving and dynamic force in society because the communal ideas expressed in the music of those artists still resounds loud and clear. The social and political and cultural concerns that informed their lives and music in 1969 are still with us today. And there has never been any better way of experiencing the tumultuous events of 1969 than through the music.
Details of the five THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE titles are as follows:
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(Volunteers, RCA/Legacy 88697 48240 2, originally issued April 1969, as RCA Victor 4238)
Disc One – Selections: 1. We Can Be Together 2. Good Shepherd 3. The Farm 4. Hey Frederick 5. Turn My Life Down 6. Wooden Ships 7. Eskimo Blue Day 8. A Song For All Seasons 9. Meadowlands 10. Volunteers (Recorded Live at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Sunday, August 17, 1969: PART ONE) 11. Introduction (previously unissued) 12. The Other Side of This Life (previously unissued) 13. Somebody To Love 14. 3/15 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds (previously unissued) 15. Won’t You Try / Saturday Afternoon 16. Eskimo Blue Day.
Disc Two (Recorded live at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Sunday, August 17, 1969: PART TWO) – Selections: 1. Plastic Fantastic Lover 2. Wooden Ships (previously unissued) 3. Uncle Sam Blues 4. Volunteers 5. The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil (previously unissued) 6. Come Back Baby (previously unissued) 7. White Rabbit 8. The House At Pooneil Corners (previously unissued).
JANIS JOPLIN - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, Columbia/Legacy 88697 48243 2, originally issued October 1969, as Columbia 9913)
Disc One – Selections: 1. Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) 2. Maybe 3. One Good Man 4. As Good As You’ve Been To This World 5. To Love Somebody 6. Kozmic Blues 7. Little Girl Blue 8. Work Me, Lord.
Disc Two (Recorded live at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Saturday, August 16, 1969) – Selections: 1. Raise Your Hand (previously unissued) 2. As Good As You’ve Been To This World (previously unissued) 3. To Love Somebody 4. Summertime 5. Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) 6. Kozmic Blues 7. Can’t Turn You Loose (previously unissued) 8. Work Me, Lord 9. Piece Of My Heart 10. Ball & Chain.
SANTANA - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(Santana, Columbia/Legacy 88697 48242 2, originally issued August 1969, as Columbia 9781)
Disc One – Selections: 1. Waiting 2. Evil Ways 3. Shades Of Time 4. Savor 5. Jingo 6. Persuasion 7. Treat 8. You Just Don’t Care 9. Soul Sacrifice.
Disc Two (Recorded live at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Saturday, August 16, 1969) – Selections: 1. Waiting 2. Evil Ways (previously unissued) 3. You Just Don’t Care 4. Savor 5. Jingo 6. Persuasion 7. Soul Sacrifice 8. Fried Neckbones.
SLY & THE FAMILY STONE - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(Stand!, Epic/Legacy 88697 48241 2, originally issued April 1969, as Epic 26456)
Disc One – Selections: 1. Stand! 2. Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey 3. I Want To Take You Higher 4. Somebody’s Watching You 5. Sing A Simple Song 6. Everyday People 7. Sex Machine 8. You Can Make It If You Try.
Disc Two (Recorded live at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Sunday, August 17, 1969) – Selections: 1. M’Lady (previously unissued) 2. Sing A Simple Song (previously unissued) 3. You Can Make It If You Try (previously unissued) 4. Everyday People (previously unissued) 5. Dance To The Music 6. MEDLEY: Music Lover / Higher 7. I Want To Take You Higher (previously unreleased) 8. Love City 9. Stand! (previously unissued)
JOHNNY WINTER - THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE
(Johnny Winter, Columbia/Legacy 88697 48244 2, originally issued May 1969, as Columbia 9826)
Disc One – Selections: 1. I’m Yours And I’m Hers 2. Be Careful With A Fool 3. Dallas 4. Mean Mistreater 5. Leland Mississippi Blues 6. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl 7. When You Got A Good Friend 8. I’ll Drown In My Own Tears 9. Back Door Friend.
Disc Two (Recorded live at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Sunday, August 17-Monday, August 18, 1969) – Selections: 1. Mama, Talk To Your Daughter (previously unissued) 2. Leland Mississippi Blues 3. Mean Town Blues 4. You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now (previously unissued) 5. I Can’t Stand It (with Edgar Winter) (previously unissued) 6. Tobacco Road (with Edgar Winter) (previously unissued) 7. Tell The Truth (with Edgar Winter) (previously unissued) 8. Johnny B. Goode (previously unissued).
