AAJ Review: Woodstock—Back To The Garden: 50th Anniversary Experience
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My review of Woodstock—Back To The Garden: 50th Anniversary Experience, today at All About Jazz.
First things first. For all but the most committed of fans, knowledge of what transpired, how it transpired and when it transpired at the now-legendary 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Fair has, despite a variety of initial, 25th and 40th Anniversary audio and video releases, been severely limited. As engaging, entertaining and well-constructed as these various snapshots have been of the event dubbed "Three Days of Peace and Music," the variety of releases to date have ranged from absolute truth to moderate inaccuracies and, even, a few flat-out lies.
The fact is, Michael Wadleigh's Academy Award-winning 1970 documentary, Woodstock, and its two associated soundtrack albums, the triple-LP Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (Cotillion, 1970) and double-LP Woodstock Two (Atlantic, 1971)--both audio releases also including bands and/or performances not included in the film--have ultimately failed to tell the real story, and on a number of fronts.
The good news? With 2019 representing Woodstock's 50th Anniversary, this historic event, attended by well over 400,000 people at Max Yasgur's farm (actually, in one of his hay fields about three miles from his home farm) in Bethel, NY over three days beginning on August 15, 1969, is finally getting the treatment--and verisimilitude--it deserves.
There are four different versions of Woodstock--Back to the Garden, representing three different sets of track listings. The 42-track triple CD and quintuple LP sets may not contain performances from every act that played the festival, but with music from 21 artists and a small but nevertheless significant variety of announcements, these more budget-friendly releases still provide a more accurate "you are there" experience than any prior audio or video release.
While intersecting with the original film and soundtrack albums, Woodstock--Back to the Garden: 50th Anniversary Collection finally corrects the order of events, using material only recorded at the festival, and providing either far less edited or, in most cases, complete versions of music previously more invasively altered. And that's not to mention a vast amount of music that has never been heard on any prior commercial Woodstock releases, audio or video.
Continue reading here...
AAJ Review: Woodstock—Back To The Garden: 50th Anniversary Experience
https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjaz...09532217ad.jpg
My review of Woodstock—Back To The Garden: 50th Anniversary Experience, today at All About Jazz.
First things first. For all but the most committed of fans, knowledge of what transpired, how it transpired and when it transpired at the now-legendary 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Fair has, despite a variety of initial, 25th and 40th Anniversary audio and video releases, been severely limited. As engaging, entertaining and well-constructed as these various snapshots have been of the event dubbed "Three Days of Peace and Music," the variety of releases to date have ranged from absolute truth to moderate inaccuracies and, even, a few flat-out lies.
The fact is, Michael Wadleigh's Academy Award-winning 1970 documentary, Woodstock, and its two associated soundtrack albums, the triple-LP Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (Cotillion, 1970) and double-LP Woodstock Two (Atlantic, 1971)--both audio releases also including bands and/or performances not included in the film--have ultimately failed to tell the real story, and on a number of fronts.
The good news? With 2019 representing Woodstock's 50th Anniversary, this historic event, attended by well over 400,000 people at Max Yasgur's farm (actually, in one of his hay fields about three miles from his home farm) in Bethel, NY over three days beginning on August 15, 1969, is finally getting the treatment--and verisimilitude--it deserves.
There are four different versions of Woodstock--Back to the Garden, representing three different sets of track listings. The 42-track triple CD and quintuple LP sets may not contain performances from every act that played the festival, but with music from 21 artists and a small but nevertheless significant variety of announcements, these more budget-friendly releases still provide a more accurate "you are there" experience than any prior audio or video release.
While intersecting with the original film and soundtrack albums, Woodstock--Back to the Garden: 50th Anniversary Collection finally corrects the order of events, using material only recorded at the festival, and providing either far less edited or, in most cases, complete versions of music previously more invasively altered. And that's not to mention a vast amount of music that has never been heard on any prior commercial Woodstock releases, audio or video.
Continue reading here...