Alvin Lee at Woodstock

My favorite performance from the festival. Loved The Who, Hendrix and Joe Cocker too. Just blown away by this guy's chops. What a player. The rest of the band were really crankin too. I don't hear his name mentioned among the greats. Underrated or does he get his due?

 

He totally wails on Woodstock, agreed. I think poor management may be the reason 10 Years After wasn't bigger.

 

Ten Years After are one of my favorites as well. They were a great combination of rock, blues & jazz/improvisation.

 

I remember the theater in Pasadena had people up and free-form dancing in the aisle. Theater had 4 track mag & cranked.

 

They were fantastic but got caught up in the endless cycle of album tour tour album tour tour tour album tour tour album tour tour tour album. I caught Alvin a few times in the 80's and always thought I'd be able to see him again. Lots of great albums and songs, much more than the two everyone knows.

 

Alvin showed his speed and precision at Woodstock. One of my favorites, just bought the expanded 2 disc " Recorded Live" loving it!

 

William do you have the expanded Positive Vibrations as well? It has some bonus live tracks from the same series of shows.

 

He and the band are definitely underrated.

 

My next purchase! Thanks for reminding me John.

 

Not just your favorite performance, it was also Jimi Hendrix's. He felt Alvin Lee topped even his legendary performance at that festival. And that's saying something. Or... is it?

Hendrix also once stated that Alvin Lee was the only guitarist he was ‘frightened of’, even if they had been good friends. Frank Zappa called him "the fastest fingers in Rock."

Underrated or does he get his due? Go check out his tribute page and puruse the names of those who've paid their respects. When you get everyone from Joe Satriani to Joe Bonamassa, from Brian May of Queen to Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, and even Slash for good measure adding comments, you're definitely a first tier guitar god.

http://alvinlee.com/tributes.htm

 

Well, the Woodstock movie and soundtrack was a blessing and a crux at the same time. Both made them BIG in 1970 but they were forever tied to this number. And unfortunately they (or Alvin for that matter) were neber really able to shake off this number and the flash guitar image it branded them with.

Aside of their endless touring routine mentioned earlier in the thread, I think it was that what finished the band in the end.
Alvin did sense there was a need to change by 1973 and start all over with another formula. Eventually, he recorded his first pretty relaxed solo album "On the Road to Freedom" and founded Alvin Lee & Co. in early 1974, the only band and tour he ever did without playing Going Home (aside of his 20 min. ets along the "Night of Guitars" tour in late 1988).
And look here: he got encouraging reviews, the audiences were appreciative of his new sound, but at the latest by 1978 and him founding "Ten Years Later" he returned to the same old thing...
Too bad, such a missed opportunity. In a interview of a few years back, he even stated that he regarded his "Alvinn Lee & Co."-venture as a "mistake". :-(
Well, Led Zep were clever and used to hide "Whole Lotta Love" in a long medley, same goes for "The Who" and "My Generation", for example...

 

My favorite Woodstock performance as well.

 

The version from Undead is my go to "I'm Going Home" version.
But the woodstock version is cool too,i love it when he picks the watermelon

 

I don't think there was anything wrong with the management (Chris Ellis, later of Chrysalis, handled them while Terry Ellis focused on Jethro Tull). They followed the money and were one of the first stadium bands. I think the problem was more that they had a limited sound and retreated from any form of experimentation after the Stonedhenge album. Once blues/boogies fell out of fashion, there was nowhere for them to go.

 

A Space In Time was fairly experimental compared to some of their albums.

 

Wonder why TYA with Alvin Lee never played "I'd Love to Change the World" live?

 

anybody ever hear what routine operation he was having when he passed away ??

 

A surgical procedure to correct an atrial arrhythmia (normally an abnormal heartbeat pattern).

 

Personally, I thought Sly & the Family Stone gave the best performance at Woodstock, but Ten Years After wasn't too far behind. In addition to Lee's speed & precision as noted above, I was struck by the tone he got on his guitar. It really had an aggressive edge to it that I liked.

 

absolutely love your avatar
Gypsy's first album is a largely unknown and unappreciated treasure

 

As flash guitarist, Alvin got his due. Problem is TYA just didn't have the creativity to transcend the old blues/boogie cliches. This is sort of a legacy of the sixties guitar players - some managed to move well beyond the influences, others just maintained status with good chops.

 

The expanded `Undead' (from 1968) is a must-have, in my opinion.

 

I can't recall a bad Alvin Lee concert ever, and I saw quite a few of them back in the day. It seemed that man always delivered and never "mailed them in" as it were. Didn't matter whether the gathering was big or small, arena or clubhouse. Lee was always consistent - and hot.

Quite true. And yet he was never comfortable with that branding and style, even if audiences came to expect it of him (whether with TYA or solo). At heart he fancied himself a blues and rockabilly guitarist and musician more than anything else.

Alvin did sense there was a need to change by 1973, but also wanted that change. He was burned out of fronting TYA, tired of being upheld as the "fastest guitarist in the west" and sought comfort and refuge in retro and rockabilly. Thus the Alvin Lee & Co. In Flight retro-revival tour he put together after he left TYA (which by the way also didn't see I'm Going Home being played). Was a memorable concert though.

Alvin always felt TYA was somewhat self-limiting. They were good players but he carried that outfit almost wholly on his shoulders. No one else composed in earnest or could contribute lead vocals for example.

The best album they ever did IMO, for just that reason. A perfect blend of electric and acoustic with a quasi psychedelic draping. I consider it one of the best R&R albums of that entire era.

Somewhat ironic in that it was TYA's most popular and famous song, and the only one to chart in Top 40 territory. Alvin did play it a few times live acoustically but only sparsely from what I gather. Not sure if TYA ever did it as a whole (I know I never saw them perform it). The reason for the scarcity might be due to the electric and acoustic tradeoffs the song demands, if you were to do it authentically. Or perhaps it was the ambiguity and concerns for misinterpretation of some of the lyrics. Not sure. The recently "reformed" Ten Years After with Joe Gooch does an interesting version of the song in concert - a YMMV proposition in the end however (not quite the same without Alvin's vocals and his famed "Big Red" ES-335 '59 Gibson blazing away.

 

I agree! The original release was great, the expanded version is superb.

 

I hope they will release some more live vault releases by Ten Years After. I assume they might have the Atlanta Pop Festival and Isle Of Wight shows in vaults along with the complete Woodstock performance.