← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
We Are Stardust, We Are Gold-Certified
01:13:19
Sure, Woodstock was a legendary festival—but it also turned several performers into chart-topping stars.
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You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.
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Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanthe, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number one Series. On Today's show. It's August 2019, and if you've been following music news for the last few weeks, you probably know it's the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which took place not in Woodstock, New York, but in nearby Bethel in August 1969. You maybe also heard this year that attempts to mount a Woodstock 50 commemorative concert ultimately failed. Here at Hit Parade, we've been thinking about the legacy of Woodstock 2, but of course we have a particular quirky pop chart y prison through which we view music history. Woodstock was a cultural watershed, to be sure. A miraculous be in that should never have come off. But somehow not only happened people peacefully.
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We must be in heaven, man.
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But also produced a festival concert for the ages. This is basically indisputable, but Woodstock, which by the way took more than a decade to turn a profit for its organizers, was also a major event in the music business. Most obviously the live concert business. Woodstock, though hardly the first of its kind, codified the idea of the music festival and quite literally set the stage for multi act concerts in decades to come, from the US Festival to Live Aid to Lollapalooza to Coachella. But what interests us on Hit Parade is the knock on effect of this live event on the recorded music business. And yes, the pop char, as many performers on that stage in 1969 have attested in the years since, the quality of the music varied widely, But recorded music was a more unqualified success. Whether it was live recordings from the concert itself that became immortal, Or studio recordings by artists who gained exposure from appearing on the Woodstock stage.
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Lay down, lay down, lay down.
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A year or more after the concert, artists who performed at Woodstock found themselves dominating the charts, reaching heights they had never seen before. The so called Aquarian Exposition touched down in Bethel.
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You got to change your evil ways, baby.
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Conversely, acts already dominant on the charts going into August 1969 found themselves less popular in the months that followed. If their Woodstock set hadn't moved the needle. Today on Hit Parade, we will quite literally chart the changing fortunes of the performers of the original Woodstock. A countdown of the 10 acts who got the biggest boost from the festival, from the iconic. To the near forgotten. And that's where your Hit Parade marches today. The week ending August 16, 1969, when the Woodstock Music and Art Fair brought some three dozen live acts and hundreds of thousands of people to the fields of Max Yasgar's farm. Coincidentally, the number one album in America that week, according to Billboard magazine, was by an act that played a set on the stage in Bethel, New York that weekend.
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What Goes Up?
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The band Blood, Sweat and Tears Spinning wheel. However, as BST's own hit song said, what Goes up must come down. In the weeks and months that followed, the fortunes of this band and many other artists who performed at Woodstock would vary widely. Let's break it all down all alone.
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Talking about your troubles and your.
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If we're going to chart the impact of Woodstock on the recording industry, a few caveats, provisos and explanations are in order. Remember that the Billboard charts and the entire recording industry worked differently a half century ago. Things moved more slowly in this analog era of music. Billboard didn't even report on Woodstock as a live musical event until the magazine dated August 30, 1969, about a fortnight after the concert. And in an era when concertgoers had to drive to a record store to acquire the music they heard at Woodstock, any impact the festival would have had on the Hot 100 or the top LPs chart likely wouldn't have been felt until around September at the earliest.
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Who was so young?
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That's if the concert had any immediate chart impact at all. Honestly, when you talk about Woodstock's chart impact, you have to examine the year after the concert. That's because in the absence of social media and video sharing, it would take until well into 1970 for most Americans to experience Woodstock. The film Woodstock director Michael Wadley's three hour documentary of the festival, famed for its trippy and then innovative use of split screen, reached theaters in March of 1970, more than seven months after the concert. By the way, this film is the way the concert's most acclaimed single performance, Jimi Hendrix's searing take on our national anthem, became famous. Hendrix didn't play his set until after sunrise on Monday morning, August 18, 1969. Most concert goers had left the area by then, and Hendrix played to a crowd estimated at one tenth the size of the peak of the festival. Anyway. Not only was the movie a box office smash, the sixth highest grossing film in America in 1970 and the eventual Oscar winner for best documentary Feature, it was followed just a few weeks later by a smash album that served as both a movie soundtrack and a keepsake of the festival itself. This album topped the Billboard album chart for a month during the summer of 1970, remarkable given that it was a 3Lp set, which made it weighty and expensive. It was billed as Woodstock Music from the original soundtrack and more. And there was definitely more, including performances that were neither in the movie nor on the actual Woodstock stage. This Arlo Guthrie performance, for example, featured on the Woodstock album, was actually taken from a completely unrelated Guthrie gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, because Guthrie's actual Woodstock performance was marred by a microphone outage. Still, however spurious the contents, the Woodstock soundtrack album made the summer of 1970 as dominated by the music and the legend of Woodstock as the summer of 69 was. The festival cast a long shadow, especially on the charts. All of this backstory is an essential preamble to the list I'm about to count down. Most of these artists were featured on the album and in the film, burnishing their reputations as performers and expanding their pop profile. Conversely, several artists, particularly a few superstars who hated their own performances, were either omitted or asked to be left out of the movie or the soundtrack, which explains why some legendary performers will not be on our list.
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You know, it's just music. Music's music's supposed to be different than that.
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Janis Joplin, for example, the blues rock icon, was so unhappy with her Wee Hours performance performance on the festival's second night, in which she was under the influence of several inebriates, that she demanded to be left out of both the movie and soundtrack. Footage of Joplin, like this fiery take on Try Just a Little Bit Harder, would not be added to the film until a 1994 director's cut. Like Joplin, several other superstars received no material career boost from Woodstock, and all were absent from both the film and the soundtrack. These included the Grateful Dead, whose performance was also generally agreed to be subpar by both the band and their fans. Or the band whose set got a subdued reaction from a crowd secretly hoping Bob Dylan would join them.
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If your memory serves you well, we're going to meet again and wait.
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Or the aforementioned Blood, Sweat and Tears, who were among the highest paid acts on the bill given their current chart topping status in the summer of 69, but whose manager refused to let them be filmed unless they were were paid in advance for. Even Credence Clearwater Revival, a band to which we devoted an entire Hit Parade episode earlier this year and reportedly the top selling American act of 1969, were omitted from the film and the album by their headstrong leader John Fogarty, despite general agreement that they actually played well. So once we eliminate these megastars as well as some acts that would never be big sellers like Quill, the Incredible String Band, Keith Hartley and Burt Sommer, we're left with a list of 10 acts who could arguably be said to have gotten a chart boost from Woodstock. I'll start the list with a performer who was already possessed of a string of top 10 hits with an old group, but was rather untested as a solo artist. Like several acts on our list, for him, Woodstock served as a reintroduction. And he wasn't even supposed to supposed to be on the stage in the first place.
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Why must every generation think that folks are Square?
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Number 10, John Sebastian. John Sebastian can thank the terrible weather at Woodstock for how he got a performing slot. Sebastian had come to the show as a mere spectator, but he was no ordinary concert goer. Sebastian was the former lead singer of future Rock and Roll hall of famers the Lovin Spoonful.
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Do you believe in magic In a young girl's heart?
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By 1968, Sebastian had left the Lovin Spoonful but not yet launched a formal solo career. When he got to Woodstock, Sebastian was famous enough to hang out backstage, but not established enough to be on the bill. So he made himself useful all weekend, welcoming other artists watching their equipment. But the organizers asked him for an even bigger favor. As is infamous in Woodstock lore, Bethel was beset that weekend by a series of rainstorms that turned the fields into mud and drenched the concertgoers. The rains also made the Woodstock stage loaded with instruments, amplifiers and cables everywhere, extremely dangerous. So dangerous that in the middle of the day on Saturday, August 16, the concert organizers made a split second decision. Unsure when the rain would stop, they needed a performer who could play acoustically with a minimum of electrical equipment beyond a simple microphone to keep the crowd occupied while they swept off the gallons of water collecting on stage. So they spotted John Sebastian backstage and asked all but begged him to play. So Sebastian borrowed a guitar from prior stage performer Tim Hardin and strolled out on stage.
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I don't know if you can really tell how amazing you look, but you're truly amazing. You're a whole city.
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The set could have been a disaster. Sebastian was extremely high. So high that the organizers more than once thought maybe they should usher him off stage. But then he began to play. Songs like Darlin Be Home soon were well known chestnuts from the Lovin Spoonfuls old repertoire. But John Sebastian used the occasion to introduce three new songs he'd been working on.
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I had a dream last night, what a lovely dream it was.
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In essence, this accidental Woodstock set wound up launching John Sebastian's solo career. I had a dream, how have you been? And rainbows all over your blues would all wind up on vinyl the very next year on 1970s self titled album John B. Sebastian, I'll Paint Rainbow.
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The.
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Eponymous debut album wound up being Sebastian's highest charting solo LP, reaching number 20 in April of 1970. While the Woodstock film was in movie theaters, and though he never became as big a hitmaker as his former band, Sebastian's Woodstock set lay the groundwork for a long steady solo career. He even scored a fluke number one hit in 1976 with the theme song to the smash TV sitcom Welcome Back.
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Call Welcome Back, you, dreams were your ticket.
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Speaking of acts whose career pinnacle took most of the 70s to arrive and involved television, the next Woodstock performer in our countdown not only leveraged the concert into a long career, they kicked off a cultural trend that was bigger than they were. Number 9 sha na na if you've ever seen the Woodstock film, the moment when Sha Na Na take the stage has got to be the most surreal. Which is saying something at a show like Woodstock. This gang of pretend hoodlums dressed as urban greasers are playing classic 50s style rock and roll. It's especially odd when you see the Woodstock audience all tie dyed, bell bottomed, long haired late 60s hippies dancing to these doo wop style covers of 50 50s oldies. How exactly did Shanana wind up at Woodstock? Believe it or not, the story involves Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix happened to catch Sha Na Na at several of their New York gigs in early 1969 when the gang of mostly Columbia University students were Adapting their kitschy 50s style singing revue into a touring club act.
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The heavies from the big city. Let's do it Please.
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Sha Na Na Fronted by a literally big mouthed Queens man named John Bauman who restyled himself into a skinny muscle T shirt wearing greaser named Bowser. The band had recorded an album on a tiny label. According to a recent Billboard interview with band co founder John Jocko Marcelino, it was Hendrix who recommended Sha Na Na to Woodstock co producers Michael Lange and Artie Kornfeld as a palate cleansing change of pace amid all those psychedelic rock acts. Remember, it's 1969 and the oldest baby boomers who had been tweens and teens in the 50s were now 20 somethings. Sha na na were satisfying their craving for the music of their pre adulthood. Typically, such pop nostalgia tends to work on a 20 year cycle, Sha Na Na were ahead of the 50s musical nostalgia curve. Before the 60s were even over, Sha Nana played next to last on the bill at Woodstock, not even hitting the stage until about 7:30 on Monday morning, right before Jimi Hendrix himself, Marcelino recalls. They were paid almost nothing, but the Woodstock crowd loved them. The crowd by Monday was a fraction of its original size, but even at that size, it was the biggest audience Shanana had ever played to. And crucially, they would later be included in Michael Wadley's 1970 Woodstock film. They would continue issuing albums into the early 70s 70s, each one doing a little bit better than the last one until their 1973 live album. The Golden Age of rock and roll cracked the top 40 and went gold. By then, the real impact of Sha Na Na would be visible in everything they were inspiring. Across popular culture, the band had opened the floodgates to 50s revivalism in the 70s. You could see it at the movies and on Broadway.
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Let's do the time on the air.
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On television, Sunday, Monday, Happy Days, and even on the charts, as represented by some much bigger 70s pop stars.
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I remember when rock was young.
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All of these hits were more lucrative than Sha Na Na. But don't feel bad for them. It took Most of the 70s for the band to fully cash in on the trend they kicked off, but when they did, it was a bonanza.
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Hey, you breathers. It's the Sha Na Na Na show.
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Yeah.
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Starring who else? Shannon.
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In 1977, Sha Na Na became the titular stars of their own half hour syndicated TV variety show. The show was a smash, running for four years and ensuring the members a lifelong career on the live circuit. In the middle of the TV show's hit run, the group was even given a showcase scene in the biggest 70s vehicle for 50s nostalgia, the 1978 movie Grease.
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What's that playing on the radio? Why do I start swaying to and fro?
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Next on the countdown, we'll run through two hard rocking bands who have Woodstock to thank for putting them in the classic rock Panther. Number eight. Ten years after, in a Woodstock weekend that was heavy with blues rock. From the Paul Butterfield Blues Band to Johnny Winter, few bands were as blues heavy as 10 years after. But more than most electric blues acts in Bethel that weekend, the British group, fronted by guitarist and singer Alvin Lee, got a serious career bounce from Woodstock. Ten Years after had been building a following in the uk, but in America their growth was much slower. Their early 1969 studio album StoneDhenge was a sizable British hit. Breaking into the top 10 on the UK album chart. In the US on the Billboard album chart, Stonehenge only cracked the top half, peaking at a modest number, 61. 10 years after was just falling off the American chart in the early summer of 1969 when the band was invited to play Woodstock. Alvin Lee took full advantage of the opportunity, wowing the crowd with a set closing face melting more than 10 minute version of their acclaimed track I'm Going Home. They had the good fortune to be issuing a brand new studio album that same month. And given Alvin Lee's penchant for loud, fierce rock, the album sported a rather ironic title.
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Shh.
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Album was an instant smash, breaking into the Billboard top 20 by September 1969 and finally making Ten Years After, a second staple on American radio by 1970. After the Woodstock movie showcased the band, they got even bigger. Their 1970 album Cricklewood Green made the top 15 in Billboard and its single Love Like a Man made the lower rungs of the Billboard Hot 100. By 1971, 10 years after even cracked the top 40, Casey Kasem counted it down.
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Our survey starts with a debut tune. It's the first time in the top 40 for this popular four man English group. They're Alvin Lee, Rick Lee, no relation, Leo Lyons and Chick Churchill. Together they're 10 years after and their song at number 40 is I'd Love to Change. Change the World.
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10 years after were not hit makers for long. The band was essentially broken up by the mid-70s as Alvin Lee formed other bands and launched a de facto solo career. But they were one of the first bands to see their chart fortunes instantly improve in the wake of Woodstock. And arguably they weren't even the loudest blues rock band on the bill that week. Number seven, mountain, much as 10 years after was mostly a showcase for Alvin Lee, the American proto heavy metal band Mountain was essentially a vehicle for its guitarist, Leslie West, a literal mountain of a man who weighed in at roughly 250 pounds. But mountain were hardly West's first group. At first they weren't actually a group at all. Leslie west had played with mid-60s blues rockers the Vagrants, a popular band from Long Island, New York that never achieved national fame.
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I can get. This fashion.
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Before the Vagrants broke up, west caught the attention of Felix Popularity, producer and songwriter for Eric Clapton's chart topping power trio Cream in a white room with.
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Black curtains in the Station.
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Pappalardi agreed to not only produce but play bass on West's 1969 solo album whose title was Mountain on that album, west honed his much harder sound, which prefigured the development of what became early 70s metal.
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Standing on My Pillow.
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The Mountain album, again credited to Leslie west, came out in July 1969, one month before Woodstock. Just as they were invited to play the festival, West's group decided to rename themselves Mountain, and Woodstock would be only their third ever gig as an official band.
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You out there. Louder. Well, clap your hands.
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The concert introduced Mountain to hard rock fans, and in the wake of Cream, Led Zeppelin and other power blues combos, Mountain caught a wave and exploded onto the charts. It also didn't hurt that in early 1970 they were sitting on an enormous, soon to be hit song. Mississippi Queen, punctuated by a relentless cowbell, remains a classic rock staple. It even reached number 21 on the Hot 100 in the spring of 1970. Remarkable at a time when other hard rock acts like Black Sabbath were not scoring hit singles, Mountain's albums did even better on the charts than fellow woodstock performer. Ten years after both their 1970 album, Mountain Climbing and 1971's Nantucket Sleigh Ride made the top 20 and quickly went gold. If Mountain burned Even brighter than 10 years after, they burned out even faster, the band was broken up by 1972, as Leslie west formed a new group with Cream bassist Jack Bruce. He would revive the Mountain moniker several times in the decades to come with various combinations of instrumentalists. But Mountain will remain deathless on classic rock radio as long as bar bands, karaoke singers and fans of more cowbell keep Mississippi Queen alive. Keep in mind, Mountain thrived despite not being included in the Woodstock film or album. Neither did our next performer. But she had a different way to parlay her Woodstock exposure into a career. She made the concert itself the subject of her breakthrough style hit. Number six, Melanie.
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Hey, Mr. Tambourine.
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Singer songwriter Melanie Sawka, who performed simply as Melanie, came up in the folk clubs of the late sixties in New York and New Jersey. Her fortunes waxed and waned through 1968 and early 69. Briefly signed to major label Columbia Records, Melanie was dropped when none of her material connected with US Audiences. Signed to a new label, Melanie's career finally took off in Europe, where her dark hippie anthem Bobo's Party topped the charts in France.
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One side for the Curious Bottle.
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Melanie's quavering, braying voice became her trademark. Billboard called it wise. Beyond her years as she played clubs and TV shows across Europe, Melanie's manager, a friend of Woodstock co organizer Artie Kornfeld, suggested that her Acoustic balladry might be a good fit for the festival they were planning, Perhaps because she wasn't well known in her home country. Even less well known than other emerging acts on the stage. Like ten years after, Melanie was not included in the film or soundtrack of Woodstock. This could have been the commercial death knell for the tender folk artist. But by 1970, Melanie didn't need the film or its soundtrack. She had found an earnest but also clever commercial side door, a way to capitalize on her Woodstock experience. The 1973 single Lay down, subtitled Candles in the Rain, was not just inspired by Woodstock, it was literally about Woodstock. Melanie Sawka was moved to write it when, during her nighttime set at the festival, just after one of the weekend's many rainstorms, she saw thousands of concertgoers lighting matches and lighters, which to her resemble a religious experience. Accordingly, the song that would take Melanie into The Billboard top 10 had a strong gospel flavor. The backing vocals were by the legendary gospel group the Edwin Hawkins Singers, better known for their arrangement of the standard oh Happy Day. Lay Down Candles in the rain reached number six in July of 1970, finally breaking Melanie in America. It also reached the top 10 across Europe, Canada and Australia, in essence spreading the gospel of Woodstock worldwide. For roughly the next two years, Melanie scored a small flurry of hits as both a singer and a songwriter.
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The song we just heard on American top 40, look what they've done to my song Ma, was written by the girl who wrote and sings this next one, Peace Will Come According to Plan. Here's Melanie.
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Melanie's chart career peaked a year later when she traded in her folky, inspirational vibe for a song that was practically a novelty record. The childlike, slightly naughty double entendre, Brand New Key. It topped the Hot 100 for three weeks in December 1971 and January 1972. It proved to be Melanie's last top 10 hit. She scored her last Hot 100 hit in 1973. But Melanie's path was set. She continued to release albums and singles for decades to come. And her connection to Woodstock has been a bulwark of her career. In fact, Melanie is on tour right now commemorating the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. And unlike the ill fated Woodstock 50 concert, her 2019 gigs are actually happening. Entering our Woodstock top five, we move from performers with smaller or shorter lived careers to a list of multi decade legends. Wouldn't these artists have been just as big if Woodstock had never happened? Did they need Woodstock or did Woodstock need them? It's definitely debatable in fact, let's open the top five with a band that would debate you themselves about Woodstock's value. They hated the whole experience and are badmouthing it to this day.
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See Me.
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Feel Me Number five, the who. One knock on Woodstock from many critics was that it failed to garner the biggest rock acts of the 60s. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and even Bob Dylan all gave the festival a pass. But Woodstock did did have the who, arguably the biggest band on the bill. And by 1969 they were building a reputation as one of the best, if not the best live bands of their generation. It might surprise you to learn however, that the who were only a medium size US chart act. Unlike their British Invasion peers the Beatles and the Stones, they never came close to having a number one single or album. Want to hear a head scratching piece of trivia? The who's only top 10 hit in America ever was their trippy anthem I Can See for miles, a number nine hit in 1967, I can see for miles. But by 1969 the who were experiencing a major chart breakthrough. That year they helped to invent the idea of the rock opera with Tommy, bandleader Pete Townsend's album length story about a deaf, dumb and blind kid who improbably was an expert pinball player.
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Ever since I was a young boy.
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I've been the Tommy reached the Billboard album chart in the early summer of 1969. By mid July, just one month before Woodstock, it reached number seven, the highest any who album had gone to date. Although Tommy had slipped out of the top 10 by mid August the who arrived at Woodstock as conquering heroes with a hit album, and their plan was to play the Tommy album start to finish on the Woodstock stage. Barring a track or two, they mostly pulled it off. But the Woodstock experience for the who was less than ideal. The band was supposed to be one of the Saturday night headliners, but after all the weather issues and other random delays, the who waited backstage for hours and didn't take the stage until the very early morning of Sunday August 17th. While they delivered an amazing performance, singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townsend were tired and irritable when political activist and all around troublemaker Abby Hoffman interrupted the who's set and grabbed the microphone to protest the imprisonment of fellow activist John Sinclair. Townshend told Hoffman in no uncertain terms to vacate his stage.
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I think this is a polished shit.
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While John Sinclair rots in prison. Flashing forward 50 years, the who's opinion of Woodstock has not improved. In a recent series of interviews, Roger Daltrey doubled down on his belief that it was the worst gig the who had ever played, telling the New York Times Woodstock wasn't peace and love. So hang on, we've established that the who already had a hit album going into Woodstock. They didn't need the gig per se, and they had a terrible time. Why on earth would I claim the who got a boost from Woodstock? Because, well, no matter how Roger Daltrey feels, they did. One year later, when the Woodstock movie and its soundtrack album came out, the who were hailed as one of the event's highlights. And over the summer of 1970, that Afterglow began to make the who even bigger on the charts. Tommy had been off the album chart for months, but the acclaim for the who's deeply felt Woodstock performance of the Tommy song See Me Feel Me led their label, Decca Records, to issue the studio version as a single for the first time.
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See Me Feel Me Touch Me, See.
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Me Feel Me reached number 12 on the Hot 100 in the fall of 1970. Even more improbably, Tommy Re entered the album chart and by September of 1970 reached a new peak of number four. In short, after Woodstock, Tommy and the who were bigger than ever.
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I thought I was somebody table fear I just handed my bitch all proud.
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To be that same year, the band issued its first ever live album, the now classic Live at Leeds. And by the fall of 1970, both Tommy and Live at Leeds were riding the Billboard album charts top 10. Simultaneously, Woodstock had made the who one of the biggest rock bands, period in America. Maybe they hated the gig, but arguably the who's Majestic 1970s was kicked off in the early morning hours in Bethel, New York in August 1960. However painful the experience, they took a bow for the new revolution. So was any live performer at Woodstock more acclaimed? For many, the best performance of the festival came from the band who performed just before the who. And they came to party. Number four, Sly and the Family Stone. Like the who, Sly and the Family Stone were already having a great year even before they got to Woodstock. By the middle of 1919, Sylvester Sly Stewart and his multiracial, multi gender band had one of the year's top hits. Everyday People topped the Hot 100 for four weeks in February and March of 1969. It was only their second top 10 hit after their 1968 breakthrough single, Dance to the Music.
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Say get up and Dance to the Music.
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But if any concert goers arrived at Woodstock thinking of sly Stone & Co. As merely an act with a couple of fun hits, they left the festival with much deeper respect for the Family Stone. Woodstock attendees largely agreed that Sly and the Family Stone's performance of I want to take you Higher played around four in the morning to a muddy mind altered crowd eager for a cathartic release was one of the festival's all out highlights. Not unlike what it did for the who, Woodstock both affirmed the Family Stone's status as a top live act, and it made them even bigger hitmakers. By coincidence, waiting in the wings in August 1969 was an idyllic Sly Stone single that was made for summer and a perfect follow up to their triumphant performance. Epic Records dropped the single literally days after Woodstock. Hot Fun in the Summertime reached number two on the Hot 100 in October. Sly and the Family Stone went from a band that occasionally cracked the top 10 to one that routinely commanded the charts. Thank you for letting me be myself again helped redefine the sound of funk for the 70s. It reached number one in February of 1970, backed by the equally acclaimed B side Everybody is a Star. A couple of months after the double sided hit peaked on the charts, the Woodstock movie and soundtrack arrived, giving a cultural boost to Sly's I Want to take you Higher. In its original release in early 1969, higher only got as high on the charts as number 60 and then only as a B side to the single stand. But in May 1970, capitalizing on Woodstock's command of both the box office and the album chart, Epic Records finally gave I Want to Take youe Higher a proper release as an A side and it cracked the the top 40. When Sly and the Family Stone issued their now classic greatest hits album just before Christmas 1970. The album led off with I want to take you Higher, a song that most Americans now associated with woodstyle. The concert had made Sly Stone a king of the hit parade. The next performer on our list was not quite as big a hitmaker either before or after the concert, but Woodstock observers agree. Possibly no performer was more defined in cultural lore than this Brit with a very mild speaking voice and a totally wild singing voice. Number three, joe cocker. If you are generation X or a millennial, you might only know Joe Cocker as the guy who sang the theme song for the late 80s TV show the Wonder.
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Years. What would you do if I.
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Said attitude to baby boomers who remember the 60s. This song, originally recorded by the Beatles for their album sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, was utterly redefined by Joe Cocker, a mild mannered white Englishman who when he stepped in front of a microphone. Turned into a raving, flailing, gritty, mesmerizing and utterly soulful R and B singing. Cocker's cover of With A Little Help From My Friends was a number one hit in his native England in late 1968, but attracting American audiences would be harder work. His Beatles cover only reached number 68 on the Hot 100. However, Cocker doubled down on America by spending much of early 1969 touring the U.S. by July 1969, the With a Little Help From My Friends LP finally cracked the U.S. album chart's top 40, reaching a respectable number 35. Cocker now had just enough of a U.S. profile that it made sense for the Woodstock organizers to give him a slot on the bill. And man, did Cocker make the most of it. It's called Something's Coming.
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On. I don't know what it Is, But It's Getting.
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B
Strong. It was a star making performance only enhanced the following year in the Woodstock film. This image of Joe Cocker, the frenzied soul man, was etched in stone at Woodstock, and it finally made him an American hitmaker. In 1970, in the space of just seven months, three Cocker LPs were all certified gold in the U.S. his second album, Joe Cocker, his live LP Mad Dogs and Englishmen, which by the way, reached number two on the album chart. And belatedly, the With A Little Help From My Friends lp, which finally went gold. Two years after its original release, the self titled Joe Cocker LP was let off by another Beatles company. And in a sign of Cocker's before Woodstock and after Woodstock popularity, this cover of the Abbey Road track she Came in through the Bathroom window reached the US top 40. Just a couple of months later, Cocker scored his first top 10 hit when his live cover of the Box Tops the Letter, backed by his friend pianist Leon Russell, reached number seven. Once Joe Cocker became a hitmaker in 1970, he never really went away. Audiences grew to love his distinctive, impassioned singing style, giving him big hits like the number five hit you are so beautiful in 1975, you are so Beautiful, Or the number one smash up Where We Belong in 1982, a duet with Jennifer Warnes from the Oscar winning film An Officer and a.
- [54:20]
C
Gentleman. The Lift is up where we Belong, we're the.
- [54:29]
B
Ego. Right up to his death in 2014, Cocker was modest about his famed Woodstock performance, even claiming in some interviews that he did all right but was, quote, not the greatest, but he knew it had changed his career. The year before his death Cocker told the Guardian. We came off looking pretty good that day. A lot of other artists didn't enjoy themselves at all. In our runner up spot, a supergroup that basically used Woodstock to introduce its most iconic, most successful chart toppingist lineup, even if one of the members was almost invisible. Number two, crosby, stills, nash and young. Crosby, Stills and Nash were formed in 1968 from the ashes of three prior hit making groups. David Crosby from the Byrds, Stephen Stills from the Buffalo Springfield and Graham Nash from the Hollies. All three men had scored top 10 hits with their prior bands. So it stood to reason that Crosby, Stills and Nash would be welcomed as demigods the moment they teamed up, helplessly hoping her.
- [56:26]
C
Harlequin. Others nearby, you're waiting a word.
- [56:34]
B
And that's more or less what happened. The trio's self titled titled debut album arrived in June of 1969 and soared into the top 10. Within a month, in fact, the very week of Woodstock, CSN had reached number seven on the album chart. And they were one of the few acts to perform at the concert with a current top 40 single. Their top 30 hit, Marrakesh.
- [57:02]
C
Express. Would you know where riding on the Marrakesh.
- [57:08]
B
Express? But Crosby, Stills and Nash arrived that weekend with a fourth member, Stephen Stills, former bandmate from the Buffalo Springfield, Neil.
- [57:20]
C
Young. How can I bring you to the sea of.
- [57:27]
B
Madness? Neil Young prized his independence since launching his solo career away from the Buffalo Springs one year earlier. He had carved out his own iconoclastic path as a singer songwriter, And when asked to join Crosby, Stills and Nash as an instrumentalist and occasional singer, he negotiated a contract that would allow him to record with the trio while maintaining a separate career with his own backing band, Crazy Horse. At Woodstock, Young refused to be filmed by Michael Wadley's crew, believing the film to be a distraction and an over commercialization of the concert. Young didn't even join the group for most of the first half of its set. In essence, the first half dozen songs were an all acoustic Crosby, Stills and Nash.
- [58:35]
C
Concert four and 20 years.
- [58:40]
B
Ago. Come into this life. Young also left the stage announcements to his three friends who revealed live in front of the Woodstock audience that they had their share of jitters. Thank.
- [58:56]
C
You. We needed that. This is our second.
- [59:00]
B
Gig. This is the second time we've ever played in front of people. Man, we're scared shitless. Stills and his bandmates were anxious for good reason. This was in essence, the public debut of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The four member version of the group had only come together weeks earlier. And they had only played their first gig two days earlier. It was only near the end of the acoustic set that Neil Young finally joined them. He stayed on stage with them through an even longer electric set that peaked with Wooden Ships, a song from CSN's debut album that Young electrified on stage. Just as a commercial prospect. This debut of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at Woodstock has to be regarded as one of the most potent launches of a chart topping act in rock history. Just eight months after the festival, Deja Vu, the debut album by this version of the group, became one of, if not the most anticipated albums of.
- [60:24]
C
1970. Teach your children well. Their father's help did slowly go by and.
- [60:38]
B
Feed. CSNY's debut opened on the album chart all the way up at number nine. Highly unusual for the early 70s record industry when albums rarely debuted in the top 10 and it hit number one a little over a month later. In addition to three songs written or co written by their newest member Neil Young, Deja Vu included a song written by the band's friend Joni.
- [61:18]
C
Mitchell. By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong and everywhere there.
- [61:29]
B
Was. Joni Mitchell wrote Woodstock only as imagining what the festival had been like. Her managers advised her not to go to upstate New York that weekend so she could make other appearances in New York City. Regretting her decision, she based the song around the stories that her boyfriend Graham Nash told her about the event. Mitchell's version of the song appeared on her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon, but the version her boyfriend recorded with his group was even bigger. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Woodstock reached number 11 on the Hot 100 in May of 1970. All three of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's early 70s LPs hit number one on the album chart. Deja Vu, the live album Four Way street and the compilation album so Far, a mark that no trio album by CSN.
- [62:46]
C
Ever equaled. A house is a very, very, very.
- [62:53]
B
Fine house. The launch of this quartet, the gig that quote, scared them shitless, wound up generating more chart topping albums than any other band that made its debut at Woodstock. Well, actually all but one. There was one other band that showed up in Bethel that weekend in August 1969 having never issued an Al, not even to date a single. And they would go on to unimaginable musical and pop chart success. And they were really also a heap. One. Santana. Carlos Santana, leader of and guitarist for the band that bore his name, was all of 22 years old when he took to the stage at Woodstock. The Mexican American musical prodigy, son of a violin playing mariachi father from Outlaw de Navarro, had been gigging around San Francisco for several years before forming Santana in 1967. They were signed to Columbia Records in early 1969 at the behest of legendary manager and concert promoter Bill Graham. It was Graham who had been asked by the Woodstock organizers for help planning the festival, who agreed to help only on the condition that the then unknown Santana be allowed to play. It was a bold request. Santana had finished recording their self titled debut album, but it wasn't due for release until August 30, 1969, a fortnight after the festival. In essence, unless you counted the solo John Sebastian or the rechristened band Mountain, Santana had the least recorded material, basically none of any performer at Woodstock. Accordingly, Santana were among the lowest paid acts on the bill, earning just $750 for the gig. You might say the organizers got more than their money's worth. When he stepped on stage the afternoon of Saturday, August 16, 1969, several hours earlier on the schedule than he expected, Carlos Santana was contending with a powerful dose of mescaline that his friend Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead had given him just a couple of hours before. I was really, really on it, you know, carlos recounted in an interview last month with the New York Times. I asked myself over and over, just help me stay in tune and on time. Whatever Carlos was on, it apparently only helped his fierce, uncompromising performance. The Afro Caribbean polyrhythms of tracks like Jingo Waiting and Soul Sacrifice were psychedelic, intricate and enveloping. Simply put, the audience at Woodstock was witnessing the formal debut of one of the greatest guitarists in rock history. The release of Santana's self titled debut album two weeks later could not have been better timed. The Santana LP entered the Billboard album chart in mid September and flew up the chart, reaching the top 10 in under two months. Remarkably fast for a brand new group with no prior recorded history. And why not? More than half the album had been played at Woodstock. The album peaked at number four on the top LPs chart by November 1969. And by the winter of 1970, Santana scored its first top 10 single, sung by future Journey vocalist Greg Rowley. The number nine hit.
- [67:49]
C
Evil Ways Baby and Every word that I say is true, you got.
- [67:59]
B
Me running. What was remarkable about all this chart activity for Santana was it was still ahead of the release of the Woodstock film and its soundtrack album, which would spread the music of the festival to a nationwide audience. Their 13 minute performance of Soul Sacrifice took up most of one side of the three LP set. A dozen weeks after the Woodstock LP finished its run on top, Abraxas took over, becoming Santana's first number one album and spawning the top five hit Black.
- [68:42]
C
Magic Woman. Got a black magic woman Got a black.
- [68:49]
B
Magic woman. The band returned to number one on the album chart three more times between the 70s and the 2000s, and they scored more than a dozen other top 40 hits globally. All incarnations of Carlos Santana's self titled band have sold more than 100 million albums. This is why Santana rightfully and indisputably holds the top spot on the list of performers who rose to the greatest fame as a result of Woodstock, America's most celebrated music festival. By the way, the 1969 concert that launched this storied career wasn't even Carlos Santana's last Woodstock. 25 years later, he was invited to Saugerties, New York to perform at Woodstock 94. He even revisited Jingo, one of the highlights of his 1969 set. Five years after this performance, in late July 1999, the Woodstock organizers mounted yet another festival in upstate New York, the now infamous, mostly disastrous Woodstock 99. But Carlos Santana, by then in his early 50s, elected not to perform. Maybe he knew this festival, held on a military base, would not replicate the magic of the concert at Max Jasger's farm that launched his career. Actually, that wasn't it. Carlos didn't need Woodstock that summer. The same week Woodstock 99 kicked off, Santana was debuting on the Hot 100 with a new song, A song that would go on to top the charts for a dozen weeks more than any single that year. This number one hit, Smooth, featuring Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas, would win Carlos Santana Record Song and Album of the year at the 2000 Grammy Awards and ensure that Woodstock's favorite son would be a hit maker well, well into the 21st century. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. If you'd like to hear more and you'll be in New York City in mid September, please join me on Friday, September 13th at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of their Met Fridays series and their acclaimed exhibition Play It Instruments of Rock, I'll be talking about this Woodstock episode of Hitbury. They'll even be showing a restored print of the Woodstock film that day, and it's all free with museum admission. My producer for this episode is Chow Tu, and we had help from Danielle Hewitt. The managing producer of Slate Podcasts is June Thomas, and Gabriel Roth is the editorial director of Slate Podcasts check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts you can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slide Slate Culture Gabfest feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, peace and love and keep on marching on the one I'm.