I wrote this as a novel. Follow my man with no name as he weaves through the entire history of Rock Music. Here he is in 1967 at one of the greatest Rock Festivals of all time! What a line-up!!
The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books
Windsor
The Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival was three days of Rock and Blues and was fairly typical of the festivals going round. I went to as many as I could. The Windsor one stuck in my mind because it cost me £2 for the three days. Seeing as I was going to get to see a whole bunch of people I’d seen or worked with that seemed good value.
It was much slicker than the Free Festivals in Hyde Park but had the same vibe. Just like in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco it was the gathering of the tribes. All the Freaks came together to groove, smoke and share. The camp-site was a mass of guitars and friendly groups. At the festival there were groups sharing, laughing and getting to know each other. This was the new generation with the new ideas, the generation that was going to change the world, blow away the old outmoded establishment warmongers and set up a world based on different principles. This was the new generation of young kids with big ideas and the ideals to match. If the music hadn’t been so fabulous we would have all been happy enough to just hang out together.
Friday night set the tone with the Small Faces, Move, Marmalade and Tomorrow.
I don’t know about Marmalade. They were a big too commercial for my liking but the others were great. It was good to see Steve Marriott and the boys Itchycooing it up. Tomorrow were well suited to a big festival with dancers in long robes and dresses, smoke, light shows and strobes. They blew minds. The Move were the loudest sound I had ever heard. They weren’t so much heard as felt. The bass was vibrating my belly in time.
I went back to my tent and spent the entire night rapping and laughing. That’s what music does to you. It pumps you up with adrenalin and endorphins and makes you high on life.
The Saturday continued with a string of top quality acts. Pink Floyd had to pull out but were replaced with the Nice. Arthur Brown did his Fire, Aynsley Dunbar attacked the Blues, Paul Jones was in need of some real Blues to get his teeth into, Zoot Money, who was one of the originals, showed us what it was like and was amazing ion the keyboards, Amen Corner and Timebox were solid and Ten Years After demonstrated that Alvin Lee could play the guitar at twice the speed of everyone else and that everyone having a long solo was at least two solos too long. The stand-out for me was the Nice. Emmerson theatrically stabbing his keyboards with great long knives and making it squeal, burning the American flag at the climax of the wonderful interpretation of America that they had transformed into an anti-war anthem and the incredible driving arrangement of their adaptation of the epic Rondo.
It sent us back to our tents breathless.
Not that our speechlessness lasted long. Once again we were most of the night rapping and laughing.
For Day Three I and a couple of the guys decided that we’d like to see the bands, particularly Cream, up a little closer. We cut up fag packets and wrote PRESS on them in biro. Arriving as the day was about to begin we were waved through into the Press enclosure. We were ecstatic.
This was the big day for me. I got to see Donovan, PP Arnold was magisterial backed by the Nice, Denny Laine, Alan Bown and Blossom Toes were good but I couldn’t wait for what was to come. I watched Pentangle with interest. It was great to see how Bert Jansch and John Renbourn had teamed up with Jacqui McShee and Danny Thompson to create a new sound. Jacqui’s voice was sublime, Danny’s bass was jazzy and brilliant and those two guitars playing off each other were stupendous. I wouldn’t call it FolkRock, JazzRock or Folk. It was something else.
But then it was down to the non-stop genius. Jeff Beck started it. His guitar seemed capable of anything. John Mayall with Mick Taylor followed and demonstrated a different technique. Then Fleetwood Mac with Pete Green blew us all away. Finally it was Cream with Eric Clapton.
I stood in the Press enclosure right in front of Eric as he played. I watched his fingers move. I looked behind him and Ginger was pounding out his intricate patterns with all limbs following different rhythms, his mouth pouting, brown in a frown and eyes shut as he concentrated on achieving perfection. Looking to the side Jack Bruce provided the most amazing bass and his voice was amazing. That night they hit the heights. They were tight and together.
I went back to my tent, not having slept for three days, and was so exhilarated. I knew that never in my lifetime would I have got to see three of the most amazing guitarists of their day performing one after the other – I was so privileged. All I needed was for Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher, Elmore James and Jimmy Page to have materialised out of nowhere and I would have happily passed away.
No other festival got close to that. Though seeing Jimi at Woburn was one of life’s great experiences and getting to see Ginger Baker and Phil Seaman do a drum off was another. For anything else on a par I had to wait for Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, the Band and Crosby Still Nash and Young to do their thing.