Woodstock @ 50: Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young + Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock
August 18, 1969
It's been 50 years since Jimi Hendrix caught up with Neil Young at Woodstock in the summer of `69.

On that helicopter day, a half-million stories were made. And here's one of our favorites -- Jimi & Neil trying to make it to the Woodstock concert along with the hordes of flower children at the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

We had long believed it to be an urban legend that Jimi and Neil stole a truck in order to make it to Woodstock. It turns out that is not too far off the mark.


Woodstock: 3 Days of Music, Peace & Love
From a radio interview program "On The Record" by Mary Turner in 1979, Neil was asked about what he remembered of Woodstock:

Young: "One of things I remember about Woodstock was trying to get there to play.

As it turns out, the charter plane I was on with Jimi Hendrix flew into the wrong airport. We were supposed to be picked by a helicopter. The roads were jammed and there was nobody at the airport, so we had no way to get to the concert.

So we're standing at the airport with Melvin Belli [an attorney] trying to figure out what to do. And Melvin Belli steals this pickup truck parked at the airport.

So it's the three of us in this stolen pickup truck trying to get to the Woodstock concert to play -- Jimi, Melvin & me.

That's what I really remember about Woodstock.

Another variation of the story appears in David Zimmer's CROSBY, STILLS & NASH: The Biography with Neil hot-wiring the truck and Elliot Roberts, Young's manager, is driving the pickup truck with Jimi Hendrix on the hood.

Elliot says: 'Jimi Hendrix was a hood ornament! It was insane.'"

As they say, if you remember Woodstock, you weren't there...

So how about the aftermath of Woodstock?

Woodstock: A "Hippie Dream"?

One of them solves the lingering mystery of the absence of Neil Young in Woodstock, the 1970 Michael Wadleigh-directed documentary. And it would seem that's Neil Young's feelings towards that "helicopter day" only seemed to harden over the years. A quote from biographer Jimmy McDonough's Shakey has been bouncing around the blogs driven by a look at the flip-side of Woodstock in The Globe and Mail:

“Woodstock was a bullshit gig. A piece of shit. We played fuckin’ awful.

No one was into the music. I think Stephen [Stills] was way overboard into the huge crowd. Everybody was on this Hollywood trip with the fuckin’ cameras. They weren’t playin’ to the audience as much as to the cameras…I could see everybody changing their performances for the fucking camera and I thought that was bullshit. All these assholes filming, everybody’s carried away with how cool they are…I wasn’t moved.”

In an interrview on Howard Stern Radio in 2014, Neil Young said about Woodstock:

“I didn’t like the fucking cameras, they didn’t have to be on stage. They’re cameras, ‘Hello! Use your zoom, dickhead!”

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter, I was there, I saw it. Who gives a shit? I couldn’t care less.”

From The Dick Cavett TV program that was filmed the day after Woodstock with Joni Mitchell and The Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner and Grace Slick.


And out walks David Crosby and Stephen Stills -- basically straight from Woodstock. Stills shows everyone the mud that is still caked to his jeans which everyone seems to find pretty groovy. Stephen then plays "4+20".

There are other clips from the summer and fall of 1969 including scenes from their home studio in Laurel Canyon, California. Song clips include Crosby's "Song With No Words", Stills' "Black Queen", "Find The Cost of Freedom", and Crosby's "Laughing".

Certainly there's a lot of folklore that's been built up about going down to Yasgur's Farm and joining in a rock and roll band. Like that story about Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young riding a stolen truck to Woodstock.

So it turns out that Neil Young was actually at Woodstock afterall even though he does not appear in the film.

There are a lot of stories about why Neil isn't in the film. Most commonly, it's because he didn't want to be filmed and the lights were cut during CSNY's performance.

Neil's had a lot of contradictory reflections to Woodstock over the years. He used the Woodstock stage announcements extensively during the 1978 Rust Never Sleeps tour. (Hey, if we think really hard, be the rain.)

Conversely, look closely at the desert scene in the film Journey Through the Past where there is a shot revealing The Graduate wearing a Woodstock shirt just before shooting up.

So it would seem that some of the ethos of the period didn't sit too well with Neil judging by the lyrics of 1986's "Hippie Dream" from Landing On Water

'Cause the tie-dye sails
Are the screamin' sheets
And the dusty trail
Leads to blood in the streets
And the wooden ships
Are a hippie dream
Capsized in excess

And it would seem that's Neil's feelings towards that day only seemed to harden over the years. A quote from biographer Jimmy McDonough's Shakey has been bouncing around the blogs driven by a look at the flip-side of Woodstock in The Globe and Mail:

“Woodstock was a bullshit gig. A piece of shit. We played fuckin’ awful. No one was into the music. I think Stephen [Stills] was way overboard into the huge crowd. Everybody was on this Hollywood trip with the fuckin’ cameras. They weren’t playin’ to the audience as much as to the cameras…I could see everybody changing their performances for the fucking camera and I thought that was bullshit. All these assholes filming, everybody’s carried away with how cool they are…I wasn’t moved.”

Nevertheless, a duet with Stills on "Mr. Soul" from Woodstock was used on The Archives. So maybe the hippie dream wasn't so bad afterall?

But -- for many -- Neil seemed to really drive a stake into the '60's hippie vibe of "peace, love and music" culture with his "music can't change the world" comments last year. And based on the overwhelming reaction, not everyone agreed that the spirit of the 1960's was dead.

But we still think Neil loves hippies.


On the Greendale tour in 2003, we heard Neil say just before "Carmichael" that:

"It used to be that hippies were good and the cops are bad. Nowadays, it's the cops who are good and the hippies that are bad."

Recall how last fall Neil sported that hippie button?

Nostalgia dies hard.

peace. love. music.

We still think that's what it's all about. While just singing a song won't change the world, it's a start.

More on Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at Woodstock.

Also, see Woodstock: The Day After and whether it was all just a hippie dream?

August 16th, 1969: Neil Young appears with Crosby, Stills & Nash for the first time the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. They mention from the stage “they were going to someplace called Woodstock the next day, but that they had no idea where that was.” pic.twitter.com/ZlV3mDnjrD

— 107.5 The Breeze (@1075TheBreeze) August 16, 2019

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Neil Young Helps Complete Long Lost Film Starring Dylan and Hendrix

All Along The Watchtower - The Movie

Neil Young’s Archives aren’t the only ones containing works of fine cinema in various stages of completion. Hollywood notoriously has acres of film canister stacks that may never see a projectionist’s booth. Though starring or directed by the cinematic legends, uncompleted films languish as key creative personnel left a project hanging due to: scheduling conflicts, their death, rehab stints, or the cliché industry excuse “creative differences.” Other works simply over ran budgets and producers failed to find completion funding.

An uncompleted work can become a years or decades long passion project for others to finish. Orson Welles’ 15-year production odyssey of “The Other Side of the Wind” came to an end at his death in 1985. It was finally released in 2018, 35 years after his death. Director Peter Bogdonovich was a Welles confidant and friend and he is one of the film’s actors. He took up the mantle of director and editor from his Mentor Welles, finishing post production in 2017 after decades of work on it as a final tribute to him.

Robert Altman has a new film coming out 13 years after his passing in 2006, and almost 50 years after the death of it’s meteoric co star in 1970. All Along the Watchtower is Altman’s cinematic vision of one of rock and roll’s finest counter culture protest songs.

The film stars the two musicians most associated with the work, it’s writer Bob Dylan appearing as The Thief and the guitarist whose legendary performance of it made it iconic - Jimi Hendrix as the Joker. Dylan’s lyrics tells a story of disillusioned outcasts looking to challenge the establishment and change the system. That is the plot of the movie – the Joker and the Thief attempting to overthrow the corrupt economic and political structure of a western frontier territory in the 1800’s

Jimi Hendrix passed in 1970, months after the filming of his role was finished. He and Bob Dylan spent only a few weeks together filming in British Columbia. Altman was filming two movies there – Watchtower and McCabe and Mrs. Miller, which was released in 1971.

Hendrix’s passing brought the post production work to a stand still and tossed the movie into the courts. He and Dylan were supposed to write and perform the soundtrack for the movie. Decades of legal proceedings between Altman’s production company and Hendrix’s estate kept the project on the shelf. When Altman passed in 2006, legal proceedings ceased, unresolved, and the project became a mere glimmer in the eye of those who knew about it.

Fortunately, cinematic and musical projects with the cultural gravitas such as All Along the Watchtower sometimes are revived. Neverwuz Productions, backed by Wall Street Hedge Fund investment in the production company, reached a settlement with the estates of Hendrix and Altman several years ago acquiring it out right.

Making this film relevant to our Dear Readers and fellow Rusties is the involvement of Neil Young. One of the most contentious part of the decades long legal and creative wrangling was over the song AATW’s use in the film. Altman got Dylan and Hendrix to agree to a duet performance of the song. He did not want Dylan or Hendrix’s original recording appearing in the film which Dylan and Hendrix appreciated. Hendrix’s death ended that idea.

When Neverwuz Productions acquired the film the Soundtrack and playing of AATW was the key component of post production that would lead to the movie’s success or failure – it’s release or abandonment. T Bone Burnett was hired to produce the Soundtrack and address the Watchtower issue.

Burnett and his staff spent almost two years on the soundtrack and recording the appropriate sounding version of Watchtower. Burnett had several versions of the song done with his band but none of them captured his imagining. Burnett wanted the song’s emotional component to be true spiritually to Hendrix’s and Dylan’s recorded versions of it. He felt the entire movie would fall flat and disappoint audiences if AATW wasn’t inspiringly performed. Faced with a completion deadline for the soundtrack and no useful version of Watchtower from his recording sessions he went to the one source who he felt could satisfy his artistic ear of the song’s performance– Neil.

Burnett’s staff had been listening to covers as they watched the film’s climactic scene. He said that search for the right sound came to an immediate halt when they heard Neil’s cover that appears on Road Rock, Vol. 1: Friends & Relatives. Burnett told the Producers that Neil’s version of the song has the ideal emotional impact he was looking for.

Road Rock, Vol. 1: Friends & Relatives
by Neil Young

He said the recording from Red Rocks Amphitheater in a driving rain and thunderstorm “captures the song’s narrative and emotional elements. It has the perfect balance and tone between vocal and instrumental performances so why not use this version”, he said.

The Friends and Relatives Band with Neil, Ben Keith, Spooner Oldham, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Jim Keltner, Astrid Young, Pegi Young and guest vocalist Chrissie Hynde capture the entire essence of the song Burnett said. “Chrissie Hynde’s vocal was the perfect sound dueting with Neil on Old Black”. Burnett said he was awe struck by her clarion voice piercing through the sonic atmosphere the band created, bringing a female perspective to what is a male dominated movie. Old Black’s thundering earthly elemental sound feedback and crunch expressed and further heightened the emotion and the chaos of the movie’s climactic scene.

“That’s what you’re looking for when you score a movie. A musical performance that has the same emotional impact as the visual and narrative components of the film,” Burnett said. T-Bone continued, “I always felt that Dylan sang the song the best, his recording focuses on the lyrics to tell the story. Hendrix’s instrumental performance has no peer but over shadows the message of the lyrics. Then you have Neil Young.

Personally, Neil and the band's performance on that night is my all time favorite."

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Thanks to TW Tour Manager Hounds That Howl for separating the wheat from the chaff!

ps - Happy ARC Day!

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Neil Young Inducts Jimi Hendrix Experience Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Neil Young inducts Jimi Hendrix Experience into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during 1992 ceremony.

Have you ever been experienced?

Well, if so, than you would know that Neil's album title "Are You Passionate?" is a tribute to Jimi.


Jimi Hendrix Experience performs at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions 1992


More on Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young meeting at Woodstock in 1969.

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Neil Young To Induct at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony

Neil Young Inducting The Pretenders
2005 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony
Neil Young, along with Elton John, Paul Simon, Bette Midler and John Legend will be among the presenters at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 26th annual induction ceremony Monday, March 14, at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The incoming Hall of Famers include Alice Cooper, Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Tom Waits and Leon Russell.

Our bet? Neil Young will induct Tom Waits.

This marks at least Neil Young's fifth sixth time as an inductor of a Hall of Famer:

• The Everly Brothers in 1986
• Woody Guthrie in 1988 (Thanks Greg M!)
• Jimi Hendrix in 1992
• Paul McCartney in 1999
• The Pretenders 2005

Paul McCartney inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young - March 1999


Everly Brothers and Neil Young - 1988

On January 15, 1992, Neil Young inducted Jimi Hendrix into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In his induction speech for Jimi, Neil said:

Young: Guitar -- you can play it or transcend it. Jimi showed me that. He was at one with his instrument. I just looked at it, heard it, and felt it and wanted to do it.

Hendrix threw a Molotov cocktail onto rock & roll."

Later that night, Young would pay tribute to Hendrix's guitar legacy by performing "Purple Haze" with Keith Richards.


Jimi Hendrix (and Neil Young)

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Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young at Woodstock

Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock
August 18, 1969

It's been 40 years since Jimi Hendrix caught up with Neil Young at Woodstock.

On that helicopter day, a million stories were made. And here's one of our favorites -- Jimi & Neil trying to make it to the Woodstock concert along with the nearly half a million strong.

We had long believed it to be an urban legend that Jimi and Neil stole a truck in order to make it to Woodstock. It turns out that is not too far off the mark.

From a radio interview program "On The Record" by Mary Turner in 1979, Neil was asked about what he remembered of Woodstock:

Young: "One of things I remember about Woodstock was trying to get there to play. As it turns out, the charter plane I was on with Jimi Hendrix flew into the wrong airport. We were supposed to be picked by a helicopter. The roads were jammed and there was nobody at the airport, so we had no way to get to the concert.

So we're standing at the airport with Melvin Belli [an attorney] trying to figure out what to do. And Melvin Belli steals this pickup truck parked at the airport.

So it's the three of us in this stolen pickup truck trying to get to the Woodstock concert to play -- Jimi, Melvin & me.

That's what I really remember about Woodstock.

peace

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More on Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at Woodstock.

Also, see Woodstock: The Day After.

UPDATE 8/17: Another variation of the story appears in David Zimmer's CROSBY, STILLS & NASH: The Biography with Neil hot-wiring the truck and Elliot Roberts, Young's manager, is driving the pickup truck with Jimi Hendrix on the hood.

Elliot says: 'Jimi Hendrix was a hood ornament! It was insane.'"

As they say, if you remember Woodstock, you weren't there...

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