Alvin Lee at Woodstock

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by progrocker, Feb 15, 2015.

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  1. rockledge

    rockledge Forum Resident

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    I thought that looked like about a 1968 poster. Too bad about I'm Goin Home not being on it. Did they do The Hobbit then?
     
  2. John Fell

    John Fell Forum Survivor

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    They could just incorporate some of Alvin's solo stuff and make an Alvin Lee box.
     
  3. pool_of_tears

    pool_of_tears Searching For Simplicity

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    Oy vey! :)
     
  4. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

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    No, Summertime was the drum solo
     
  5. rockledge

    rockledge Forum Resident

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    I am thinking they don't need one, simply because TYA fans are all over the board as far as what they like.
    Many fans like the very early Deram stuff. Others like the stuff after Woodstock.
    I am probably in the minority, I like R&R Music To The World, About Time, and Recorded Live in their entirety much more than Watt, for example.
    I also don't think TYA released a lot of singles. Any box set configuration would likely only appeal to a segment of TYA fans.
    A greatest hits package would also be pointless, as every TYA fan likely has a different opinion of what their GH are.
     
  6. John Fell

    John Fell Forum Survivor

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    I am assuming if they released an Alvin Lee/TYA box set it would have some unreleased material on it. That is why they need one.
     
  7. rockledge

    rockledge Forum Resident

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    That is a consideration. But there is quite a bit of live stuff available I think, so perhaps not. I would suspect there is probably more unreleased Alvin Lee stuff than TYA. He seemed to like the studio and like doing a lot of different things.
     
  8. John Fell

    John Fell Forum Survivor

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    There is a lot of TYA live stuff they could release. I already mentioned the complete Woodstock, Isle Of Wight and probably the Atlanta Pop Festival. Don't know if they have access to the Winterland 1975 show in the vaults or not. In addition, there is more material that they recorded for the Recorded Live album. There are also the BBC sessions which have not been officially released.
     
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  9. Thomas Brophy

    Thomas Brophy Forum Resident

    Location:
    ireland
    I don't think that the complete Woodstock concert will be released. It's been mentioned earlier how the set was plagued with technical problems. One of the major bugbears is the drums. It seems while the Goin' Home segment was being prepared for the film they tried to get Ric Lee in to redo the drums but he was not available so they got Corky Laing from Mountain to redo the drum track for the film. Seems it would need a lot of work soundwise. Seems there is access problems to the Isle of Wight and Atlanta material but you'd feel that if there is money to be made from it someone would be interested in putting it out there. Maybe there are other issues that we are not aware of.
    With Alvin having his own studio and some talented neighbours he naturally utilised them in his studio. Alvin said that he had lots of material of himself and Gary Moore jamming away. Then there was Jon Lord, Mick Ralphs and others of a similar ilk. Probably no polished finished songs but lots of interesting stuff for Alvin fans. Whether his estate goes down the road of releasing this is a question only they can answer. If you subscribe to Alvin's site you get some unreleased stuff each month.
    Regarding "Undead" mentioned earlier. Having been a fan of this on vinyl I bought the expanded version on vinyl. The sound is less raucous than on the original and funnily enough seems somewhat toned down. There is over 70 minutes of music spread over three sides of vinyl with the fourth blank. To my mind it would have been better to spead it over four sides. It is obviously taken from a master prepared for cd as some of the song intros spoken by Alvin are omitted. This was probably done to fit this on to cd. If it had been done for vinyl they could have left in the chatter and utilsed the four sides. It is nicely packaged with a gatefold version of the original sleeve. It is worth buying just not the killer package it could have been. The sound and tone from Alvin's guitar on Undead is just so wonderful.
     
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  10. rockledge

    rockledge Forum Resident

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    My Recorded Live on CD is the version they deleted Hobbit on.
    I think I have one that is live Wight. It would be nice if there was some unreleased studio stuff.
    Another problem might be the remaining 3 members, who were touring as TYA for a while.
     
  11. jay.dee

    jay.dee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    I find the sound on the expanded CD version rather muddy compared to the original silver disc. It somewhat lacks clarity and dynamics, as if they had used a source tape of a worse quality. Strangely enough the bonus track "I Can't Keep From Cryin'" sounds slightly better, even though the booklet claims that all the material comes from the same gig at Klook's Kleek recorded on May 14, 1968.
     
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  12. zelox

    zelox Well-Known Member

    Location:
    SoCal
    Even here there remains some controversy. Who really did those overdubs? Inquiring minds would love to know! :laugh:

    The evidence: Take 1 :whistle:

    In the case of the tracks for Alvin Lee and Ten Years After, the drums were not picked up on tape, so these tracks could not be used. I enlisted studio percussionist Larry Bunker to "foley in” the drums. This was done on the Warner Brothers Scoring Stage. The good location tracks were mixed to magnetic sound film, so they could be played back as a guide track. An interlocked 3-track mag recorder was used for recording the new drum track. Mr. Bunker played along with these tracks while watching the picture, maintaining sync with the visuals. Alvin Lee personally approved of the final music mix.

    --Famed recording engineer Dan Wallin, who did the location recording, mixing and sound design for the Woodstock movie along with Larry "L.A." Johnson

    Source: tenyearsafter0.tripod.com

    Dan Wallin at the sound console of Scoring Studio M in Hollywood (before it was demolished)
    [​IMG]

    -----Take 2 :wantsome:

    [Corky] Laing remembers — barely - a gig at the now defunct Southampton Bowling Alley somewhere around that time. Mountain was on tour with 10 Year's After, and both bands performed one summer night. It was mayhem, the acid-crazed crowd spilling out onto Montauk Highway in the middle of the night into heavy traffic. "We did a lot of those shows. We shared the same agent." Laing even got a gold record for playing on the Woodstock album – with 10 Year's After at the three say love fest. Except, he didn't.

    It turned out the drum mic didn't work when 10 Year's After was playing "Going Home." Laing said the record producers came to him. "They wanted me to dub in the drums. The song is like 40 minutes long. Later they sent me a Gold record." A year or two later Laing said he received another gold record, for "Yasgur's Farm" which was also part of the album. "So I got two f***king gold records for Woodstock and I wasn't even there," he said with a laugh.

    Source: The Independent | By Rick Murphy | June 25, 2014

    -----

    Ric Lee admitted that his own performance on the Woodstock soundtrack's "I'm Going Home" may not be all that it seems. "They didn't mike up the whole drum kit," he recalled "and years later, (Mountain's Drummer) Corky Laing told me that he went in and overdubbed the bass drum for the movie and LP versions".

    Amazing - one of the best - loved moments of the entire event, and the guy who helped create it wasn't even at the Woodstock Festival.

    Source: Goldmine Magazine | By Dave Thompson | April 5, 2002

    -----

    When the producers of the Woodstock movie saw Ten Years After's performance of "Goin' Home" they absolutely had to put it in the movie. Only problem was TYA's drumset was not miked correctly so the drum part had to be overdubbed in the studio. Unfortunately Ten Years After was in England and touring, so Corky Laing was called in to do the drum overdub in a NYC recording studio. He had to watch a video of TYA's drummer and play that frantic beat to a T. Laing said it was the most difficult thing he has ever had to do as a musician. Mountain played Woodstock but Laing had yet to become a member of the group, although they did perform a tune he helped pen. Corky Laing received TWO gold records from Woodstock and was NEVER there.

    With Mountain Corky enjoyed immense success and even acquired two gold discs for the Woodstock album although he didn't actually play the gig with Mountain. One of his songs had been used as a basis for the song Yasgur's Farm and he had also been asked to overdub the drums on the Ten Years After track Goin' Home as for technical reasons the microphones on Ric Lee's drum kit had failed, strange but true.

    Mountain drummer Corky Laing (who played on the live Woodstock version) wrote recently, "Keeping time with Alvin Lee on this number was like following a runaway train that had PMT!"

    Source: alvinlee.com

    -----
    Soooooo....... whodunnit?? :yikes: Larry? :ed::thumbsup: or Corky? :edthumbs:
     
  13. Dondy

    Dondy Forumaniac

    Well, AFAIK Corky WAS at Woodstock but just as the roadie for Mountain' original drummer Norman D. Smart II.
    Th:)mas


     
  14. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    I always loved listening to "Goin' Home" on the Woodstock album, the speed and precision of Lee's guitar was phenomenal to a young guy. I've never got to hear any more of 10yrs After, and never understood why such a great performance and exposure didn't produce a higher profile.
     
  15. zelox

    zelox Well-Known Member

    Location:
    SoCal
    Yes I believe he officially joined Mountain very shortly after Woodstock ended. Smart went to work with Todd Rundgren as well as Ian & Sylvia, then seemingly disappeared from the music scene.
     
  16. zelox

    zelox Well-Known Member

    Location:
    SoCal
    :: A few final quotes from Alvin regarding Woodstock ::

    [​IMG]

    "Had it not been for the rain storm, we would have probably flown in by helicopter, played, and gone out again within two hours. But we were about to go on and the rain storm broke. There was no way anybody could play with the sparks flying up on the stage. The rain storm was actually the highlight of Woodstock for me.

    I thought it was better than all the bands. There's no way half a million people can run for shelter, so they just sat there and started singing, and I took a walk around the lake and kind of joined in with the audience and experienced it first-hand, which was good. I was walking around the lake, and people were offering me food and drinks and things. They didn't know I was a musician or anything, they just did it.

    When we finally did go on there was a lot of brouhaha, because nobody wanted to go on first 'cause of the risk of shock. I think we eventually took the plunge and said, 'Oh, what the hell, If we get electrocuted, we will get good publicity!' And we went out and actually had to stop playing during 'Good Morning Little School Girl' and retune because of the atmospherics. The storm had done so many changes in the atmosphere, the guitars went way out of tune. We had to stop and retune, but the audience didn't seem to mind, they were just having fun anyway.

    I feel that if they had used 'Ï Can't Keep From Crying, Sometimes' in the movie, it would have been a bit more helpful to us [Ten Years After], 'coz it would have spotlighted the more constructive stuff we were doing. All in all, I don't think it made that much of a difference."

    --Alvin Lee

    "We had played in St. Louis the night before with Nina Simone. We left about five in the morning, flew to New York and then flew to Woodstock by helicopter. We hadn't had anything to eat, but when we got to the site, Pete Townsend came up to us and said "Don't eat or drink anything, it's all spiked with acid!" And then, of course, it started raining and we were in the back of a truck for about seven or eight hours. By the time we hit the stage, it was pretty flooded."

    --Leo Lyons

    "'You can’t go on now, you might get electrocuted.' - there was still some rain, and I just said, ‘Oh come on, if I get electrocuted at Woodstock we’ll sell lots of records.”

    -- Alvin Lee

    "The Woodstock film was partially responsible for some of the misconceptions about the group. The film had a lot of people convinced that we were ‘I’m Going Home’ and that old rock syndrome that went with it, but it was just one facet of the band."

    -- Alvin Lee
     
  17. zelox

    zelox Well-Known Member

    Location:
    SoCal
    Another flash from the past :: AL's recollection of the Woodstock "vibe" - and his hunt for cigarettes

    Interview with Alvin Lee : Woodstock Excerpts : July 13, 2002

    From Nottingham to Woodstock [Part 1 - Excerpted]

    The story starts as a helicopter drifts over a sea of faces and heads towards the stage. 500,000 people, some naked, some on drugs, mostly hippies, were there to see some of the biggest names in rock and to celebrate peace and love. Man.

    Many shielded their eyes as they looked into the bright August sun towards the helicopter, as they wondered who might be inside.

    The helicopters had been ferrying the artists in and out all weekend long, as it was the only way. The two lane highway that led to this cow pasture in upstate New York was totally blocked for seventeen miles. Groups of youngsters had driven halfway across the country in their flower-daubed VW's in order to get there. But the fact remains, that less than half of them actually paid for tickets. Police stood helplessly by as the crowd, who were expected to reach 60,000 swelled, tore down fences, smoked pot, took acid, danced naked and listened to some of the best music on the planet.

    Some who had already been and gone on the Friday and Saturday included The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who and Jefferson Airplane. Now it was Sunday August 18, 1969, the final day of this amazing, unique event, and the guests would include Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, The Band, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

    As the helicopter in question touched down in the backstage area, out trooped four lads from Nottingham, England, called Ten Years After.

    Says singer, songwriter, and guitarist Alvin Lee, “We were only there about five hours in all, and three of those waiting around because it had been raining, the stage was soaked, and electricity was sparking. It didn't look likely that anyone would be going on stage for an hour or two so I went for a walk through the crowd and around the lake. It was the best decision I could have made, I saw the festival from the other side. Backstage was utter confusion; bands and managers were vying for who goes on next, and during this, the whole backstage area had run out of cigarettes so I volunteered to go and find some. It was a different world out there, the people were fantastic. No one knew who I was but people were offering me food, drinks, joints, anything they had. They were happy to share."

    “I remember near the stage entrance area there was a police car with nowhere to go. It was totally wedged in by people so the two cops were sitting on the grass smoking a joint with some of the crowd. 'If you can't beat'em, join'em', a grinning cop said to me. I asked if he had any cigarettes. He said no and handed me a couple of joints. I walked off around the lake area, there were lots of naked people swimming, and it all seemed serenely natural in this setting. It reminded me of a native Indian scene with camp fires, and barbecues, and circles of people passing round pipes and stuff. I asked for cigarettes, and they handed me a couple of joints too. When I eventually arrived backstage after my adventures, it was still chaos. 'Have you got any cigarettes?' they asked. 'No, but I've got 18 joints.'" Alvin's walk seems to have done the trick.

    Ten Year's 90 minute set on that Sunday would change their lives forever. In fact, before Led Zeppelin came along, Ten Years After were Britain's biggest selling rock band. It was a nine minute version of their encore number called “I'm Going Home” that became a festival highlight, when the 'Woodstock' movie was released the following year. The reason was Lee's guitar wizardry. “I have watched it a few times since, and it's still pretty good,” he admits today. “Of course you see the mistakes, but that was all part of it."

    Source: Alvin Lee German Website
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2015
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  18. zelox

    zelox Well-Known Member

    Location:
    SoCal
    For TYA aficionados: TYA reunion, Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and more...

    Alvin Lee Interview - "Ten Years After"
    by Gary James | 1989

    [​IMG]
    Photo: David Redfern

    He gained his reputation after people started referring to him as the fastest guitar player on earth. Between 1967 and 1974, he did 30 tours of the U.S. He knew Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. He performed at Woodstock and was featured in the film of the same name. He is Alvin Lee and his band is TEN YEARS AFTER. It's been 15 years since the release of his last album, but make no mistake about it, Alvin Lee is back. ABOUT TIME (Chrysalis Records) is Alvin Lee and TEN YEARS AFTERS latest vinyl effort. Recently, Alvin Lee spoke with us about the music business he knows.

    Why did you feel now was the right time to put out an album?

    It was last summer and I got a call from a promoter in Germany, and he said is there any chance of getting TEN YEARS AFTER together for these four festivals in Germany? I called up the guys and they all said yeah, we'd love to do it. I kept in touch pretty much on a social level, but we hadn't done any work together. We did The Marquee Anniversary about 5 years ago. But, nothing much came of that. There wasn't much interest around at the time. It was all New Wave then. Anyway, we had a couple of rehearsals and played these festivals in Germany. Twenty thousand people at each gig! There were banners out saying "Welcome Back TYA!" Basically, it's by public demand. We would’ve been fools not to realize that people wanted to hear the band. I don't really know why. There seems to be a movement back towards the older bands now. It seems to be rampant in fact. But, I'm not going to complain about it.

    How were you able to support yourself all these years?

    I’ve been a working musician all the time. I’ve been doing gigs under the name of the Alvin Lee Band. What I did, kind of my backlash against the business was, I wanted to earn a living as a musician without the interviews and the media stuff. But, it was good for me. The fact is, it's kind of club circuit. I've toured America 12 times over the last 10 years. Thing is, nobody really gets to hear about it on the club level. You hit town and maybe there's a thousand people there, and it doesn't actually get out into the papers. It's been enjoyable. My ambition was to be a working musician, and that's what I’ve been doing. I think this is an opportunity to get back into the mainstream, and kind of carry on where we left off. But, we've all had our ears open for the last 15 years.

    When you performed at Woodstock did you think it was a big deal?

    Not really. It was a good festival. It was a big deal personally. I enjoyed it. It was a spectacular event. The main thing to me that made it different was flying in by helicopter. I had a safety harness on and was hanging out over a half million people. Not the kind of thing you forget easily. Actual playing wise it didn't seem that special. It was just basically another gig. Even after we'd done it, apart from being declared a national disaster by the government, it didn't seem that big a deal. I think the movie is what made it big. And, that didn't come out till a year after we played. In fact, we were doing 5,000 seaters a year after Woodstock, and when the movie came out we were kind of catapulted to the 20,000 seat bracket.

    As I understand it, Sly and the family Stone and Janis Joplin were sandwiched between ten years after. Is that true?

    I don't think that was the way it happened on the actual gig. It may have been that way in the movie. I think we played after (Joe) Cocker, possibly before Country Joe. The reason I have any memories of the Festival at all, apart from the helicopter ride, was we were about to go on, Cocker had played, and the storm broke, which is still one of the highlights of the Festival to me. (Laughs) God's own light show. The stage got flooded and there were sparks jumping around. In fact, nobody wanted to go on. They thought it was dangerous. There was a 4 hour gap. I took a walk around the lake and kind of joined in the audience as it were, which was great. I got to see it from the other side of the fence.

    The groups and performers who played Woodstock were not as concerned with gimmicks and show-biz as many of today's performers are. You have to wonder how many of the people in attendance at Woodstock can relate to today's music.

    We were called underground movement in those days. It was the time when we could get on stage and play in street clothes, like jeans and t-shirts. You didn't have to bow and do the show-biz kind of thing. It was pure, one hundred percent music. That was what it was all about. It was about the playing, and of course the extended solos, and the ten minute songs. It might’ve been self indulgent but it was a very healthy situation for a band to be able to play just the way they wanted to play. I think that attitude is what is interesting people today. It's a good healthy attitude towards music.

    You knew both Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. What do you remember about them?

    I held them both in high respect. Jimi Hendrix was a phenomenal guitar player. He was an innovator. There's lots of good guitar players but I think he was the one guy I actually couldn’t pin down where his roots were.

    And Janis?

    Janis Joplin and I used to get along pretty well. She used to call me "Babycakes" whatever that meant. She was great. To me she was like one of the boys. I never hardly thought of her as a woman. She was like an ass-kicking rock'n'roller, a lot of energy, a lot of power. I first met here at the Fillmore East. I think it was TEN YEARS AFTER's first concert at the Fillmore East. We were supporting the Staple Singers and Janis. We all had a jam at the end. She was great. She turned me on to Southern Comfort--got me drunk as a skunk. I was watching the show from the wings, and saw people handing her bottles of the stuff. I saw here tip her head back and drink half a bottle. So I thought it probably was like Red Ripple, some wine or something. She came offstage and gave me a bottle and it tasted nice and sweet. I got very drunk. In fact, I woke up backstage at the Fillmore East about 2 hours later and everybody had gone home. I didn't even know the name of the hotel we were staying at. Some guy was sweeping up and I said, "Do you know where all the bands are staying?" Amazingly enough, he gave me three addresses and I found out where we were.

    Do you like the term superstar?

    Not really. No. I've always considered myself a musician. I was your actual reluctant rock star in those days when things kind of took off with TEN YEARS AFTER. I never felt comfortable being a superstar or a rock star. It's just something that people say. My idols have always been John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, the old blues guys and Chuck Berry. Those guys, they get to 60 years old and they're still playing. To me, that's what is important. Hopefully when I get to that age, I'll still be playing too.

    Source: FamousInterview.com
     
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  19. bRETT

    bRETT Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    And was previously the replacement drummer in Barry & the Remains.
     
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