Catching up with Woodstock stars
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2009-08-12-woodstock-performers_N.htm
By Maura Dieringer, USA TODAY
8/13/2009
Most everyone knows what happened to Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and
even Santana, but what about the rest of the musicians who got their
big break at Woodstock? On the eve of the festival's 40th
anniversary, USA TODAY catches up with a few who have enjoyed
successful careers, not all of them in music.
COUNTRY JOE & THE FISH
Woodstock rewind: Country Joe McDonald performed both with his band
and in a solo acoustic set, but the latter performance is arguably
best remembered for what he describes as the "infamous cheer." "The
weather was great and the audience didn't pay any attention to me,"
he says. Out of desperation, he walked offstage mid-act and asked
road manager Bill Belmont if it was OK to do an obscene variation on
the call-and-response cheer that leads into I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-
to-Die. Belmont's response: "No one's paying attention to you, so
what difference does it make?"
Recent adventures: Country Joe is playing at the Heroes of Woodstock
show Saturday at the concert site in Bethel, N.Y. He has spent much
of the past five years doing a one-man speaking show about Woody
Guthrie and will be doing a show about the life of Florence
Nightingale. Barry "The Fish" Melton, who became a public defender in
Yolo County, Calif., recently retired. Fish and Joe have reunited
occasionally over the years to perform.
Does Woodstock still matter? "I think Woodstock is very important,
but I'm personally quite surprised by the response it's getting. The
change of generations took place at Woodstock politics, culture,
art, technology, lifestyle, everything and it's still extremely
controversial. Woodstock is the American dream manifested in a new chapter."
CANNED HEAT
Woodstock rewind: Drummer Fito de la Parra was so tired from the
band's gig at Fillmore East the night before in New York that he
literally had to be dragged out of bed. "I didn't want to go," he
says. "I didn't know how big it would be or how important. I even
tried to quit that day." To get to the site, the band caught a ride
on a press plane from which de la Parra could see the crowd. "I
thought, 'Oh, my God, this is the biggest show ever.' " When the band
arrived, "we were asked when we wanted to go on and we said 'now.'
Fifteen or 20 minutes after getting off the helicopter, we were
performing. It was great energy, we did an hour set or so, and we
played the famous Woodstock Boogie."
Recent adventures: The band has been active the entire time since
Woodstock, albeit with numerous personnel changes, playing an average
of 100 shows a year. "We're happy to be able to still make a living
and have a good, solid fan base," de la Parra says. They record an
album just about every year. "It's new music but very much
blues-oriented," he says. "We don't conform to the trends we stick
to the music we believe in."
• Founding member Bob "The Bear" Hite died of a heart attack in 1981.
• Co-founder Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson died in 1970 of a suspected suicide.
• Henry Vestine quit the band a week before Woodstock. He died in
1997 in a Paris hotel from respiratory failure as his European tour
with Canned Heat ended.
•Larry Taylor has occasionally played with the band and is a member
of the Hollywood Blue Flames, which is a band formed of the surviving
members of the Hollywood Fats Band.
Does Woodstock still matter? "It relates to the problems this
country has now," de la Parra says. "We were looking for peace in
Vietnam, and now we're desperate for peace in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We used to talk about caring for Mother Earth and (now) even our own
government is going green. The message of 'Let's work together' still stands."
SHA NA NA
Woodstock rewind: Sha Na Na was one of the newer bands on the bill,
and Woodstock was just its eighth gig. Most of the members hailed
from Columbia University and were a part of The Kingsmen, a glee club
ensemble. Woodstock paid the dozen-member band $350 and the check
bounced. The Woodstock movie paid the group $1. "It was the greatest
8 cents I ever made," says drummer Jocko Marcellino, now in his
fourth decade with the band. They played right before Jimi Hendrix
and heard his rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner as they drove off
in a rented van. "The feeling of brotherly love in the air made it so
magical that it became legendary," says bandmate Donny York.
Recent adventures: The band, best known to subsequent generations
for appearing in Grease, is in the midst of a 40-show tour for its
40th anniversary and recently released a collector's edition
anniversary disc. Many original members have gone on to have
impressive careers, the majority outside of music:
• Alan Cooper is a professor of theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
• Joe Witkin is an emergency room physician and plays keyboard for
The Corvettes.
• George Leonard is a professor of interdisciplinary humanities at
San Francisco State University. He has sold novels and screenplays to
Universal Pictures.
• Richard Joffe is a lawyer for Labaton Sucharow LLC.
• Elliot Cahn was the first manager of Green Day.
• Orthopedic surgeon Scott Powell is the team physician for the
United States Soccer Federation Women's National Team, a clinical
professor at the University of Southern California Keck School of
Medicine and on United Cerebral Palsy's board of directors.
• Denny Greene became vice president of production and features at
Columbia Pictures and later president of Lenox/Greene Films. He's a
professor of law at the University of Dayton.
• Robert Leonard is one of the founding fathers of forensic
linguistics. He's director of the Forensic Linguistics Project at
Hofstra University.
• Henry Gross had a hit with Shannon.
• Bruce Clarke is a professor of literature and science at Texas Tech
University.
Does Woodstock still matter? "I think it does," Marcellino says. "We
had our dreams and aspirations, and maybe that's overwhelming for a
younger generation now." Says York: "I find it remarkable that kids
today are interested, because in 1969, I can't think any of us were
nostalgic about 1929. The number of years between historical periods
seems to be not important as much as the texture that was so different."
MELANIE
Woodstock rewind: Since Melanie's performance was simply her and a
guitar, with no elaborate stage setup, her time slot changed several
times. Right before she went on, rain started falling and candles
were passed out. "I saw the whole hillside lit up, and it was the
most inspirational moment of my life," she says, prompting her to
write Candles in the Rain. Before her set, she developed a deep,
hacking cough, prompting Joan Baez to send an assistant over with a
pot of tea. "She was my hero, anyway, and I couldn't believe I was on
the same stage as her." Relatively unknown prior to the festival,
Melanie received many offers after. "They all wanted to sign me and
superimpose my voice, but I stayed true to who I was. I thought,
'It's hard enough for me to get up on the stage and do things I love,
but to get on the stage to do things I really don't even like would
be unbearable.' To me, I made it."
Recent adventures: She's on tour and writing songs with her son,
Beau. "I have never been more inspired because he's so musical and he
takes songs and brings them in a whole other direction." She's also
writing a play about a woman who has seven days to save the planet,
which she describes as being based on life's events and circumstances.
Does Woodstock still matter? "Woodstock is a living thing because
it's been coming with me all through my 40 years of performing. It
was more of a spiritual gathering than it was a rock concert, and
that's what promoters tend to forget. It was all the makings of peace
and love, but it's not just a catchphrase it has traveled with me."
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