The spirit of a generation!

One of the music releases I have been most looking forward to this year is the re-release of the "Woodstock" and "Woodstock Two" albums on CD.  While there have been many re-packagings of the Woodstock performances over the years (not to mention some disastrous attempts at re-staging the event itself), this is the first time the albums were re-issued in their original configuration and sequence.  In other words, the albums that made me fall in love with Rock and Roll. 

Two things really jumped out at me at my first listening in many years.  The first being how the original recordings were much better served by analog media rather than digital.  A lot of the ambient noise, mic pops, wind noise, etc. that never bothered me on the original LP's are much more prominent now.  The second is that the music is EXACTLY as I remembered it!

The reason why this is remarkable is because I have been going through a phase of revisiting many of the records that thrilled me in my youth, and they sound completely different!  I suppose it's to be expected; pretty much the same principle as reading a book at fifteen and reading it again at forty.  It's going to provide a different experience because you're a different person.  Similarly, I've been listening to old Beatles, Stones and Allman Brothers records that I thought I knew backwards and forwards.  It turns out I don't know them at all!

That said, the Woodstock records sound EXACTLY as I remember them! The only explanation I can think of is that every note of them is engraved on my soul.  I played those records over and over and over; wearing out several copies of the LP. They were my primer of what was then considered "Serious (i.e., non-Top-Forty) Rock." 

 

December 25, 1970: I got my first copy of "Woodstock" and my first bass.  My life has never been the same since!

I got my first copy of "Woodstock" on December 25, 1970 from my Grandma.  That day was also memorable because I got my first bass. My life hasn't been the same since! As a kid just starting to play, the music was magical and on a level I could never even imagine attaining.  Nearly forty years on I fully understand the mechanics of what they did, yet the music is just as magical.

Looking back, "Woodstock" was an album that made a deep impact on my young life.  Up until that point,  I had been an angry, hypersensitive kid who was always getting in fights.  But as I absorbed the music I learned to get attention in a positive way instead of acting out. I also began to slowly absorb the "Peace and Love" philosophy esposed on those records.  I learned to believe in the power of music to bring people together, and that all people could one day learn to live in peace.

Lo these many years later, my hope has been dashed many times but I still believe.  Please God let it one day be so.