WOODSTOCK, MARCH 26 & 27, 2005

Some background info

Woodstock

John Simon

John Simon is of course the producer of Music From Big Pink, the tuba player on Rag Mama Rag, the musical director of The Last Waltz, and co-producer of Jericho. He is also the producer of many important albums by other bands, including Blood Sweat & Tears, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, David Sanborn, Michael Franks, and many others. He also made quite a few very good solo albums, mostly released in Japan only, so they're relatively unknown. I have all of his albums, and can recommend all of them. He's a good songwriter, and his arrangements are often quite unusual. For Band-fans, I'd say his first album (John Simon's Album) and his soundtrack work for Last Summer are probably the best albums to hear first. You can also hear some of his songs at his website: http://www.johnsimonmusic.net/ I'd been in touch with John Simon by mail a few times in the past, to buy some of his impossible-to-find cds, so he knew who I was, and he didn't mind spending some time with us. But our visit to his place was different from what I'd expected. He's very friendly, a good story teller with a dry sense of humor. I liked his story of Garth Hudson in Japan. Garth and John were travelling with Moto Sano, the Japanese equivalent of Bruce Springsteen, to do a few shows in Japan. Garth was a little nervous at first and didn't know what kind of luggage he should take with him, but the road manager told him not to worry, he'd take care of everything. When it was time to leave, Garth showed up at the airport carrying a huge aluminium case. When roadies offered to carry the heavy looking item, Garth said mysteriously, "No, I'll carry this one myself". Everyone was curious what the case would contain: special, sensitive equipment? Finally on stage the mysterious object finally appeared: Garth's famous hat! Many other interesting stories followed, but unfortunately I was so overwhelmed by the whole experience that I'm not able to reproduce the stories here. Then we spent some time in his backyard, lugging stones from downhill to his garden uphill. This was not what I'd expected to be doing on a visit to one of my musical heroes, and I had a great time. The weather was perfect, a neighbor was helping out, it made me feel like a neighbor too. Jan and I thought it was hard work, and despite the snow I was sweating like a race horse, but not John. I really felt like a weakly city guy trying to help a strong farmer. Woodstock residents are all part time gardeners and carpenters I suppose. Later on, I mentioned that all the recordings from the Bearsville area had a certain sound to them that set them apart from music recorded in other locations. I was thinking of thuddy drums, upright piano and slightly out of tune horns, a "living room" sound - not just on albums by the Band, but also on albums by Geoff & Maria Muldaur, early Todd Rundgren, John Simon, Paul Butterfield's Better Days, etc. John said that this was probably because all keyboard players had to play with splinters in their fingers! John then did a private mini-concert at his grand piano, playing and singing many new songs which I hope will be released eventually - beautiful songs like the jazzy love ballad Irresistible (I'm guessing the title) and a sardonic song that commented on the politics of George W. Bush. Afterward John's wife Caroline made us some terrific homemade soup. A perfect beginning to our Woodstock weekend. We had dinner at the Holiday Inn, and then drove off to Levon Helm's place for the Midnight Ramble. Levon Helm We first drove up the driveway in our rented car, but were sent to a parking area near a roadhouse by security personnel. A shuttle bus took us to Levon's house. It was rumored that Eric Clapton would show up as a guest but that didn't happen. The Midnight Ramble wasn't quite the intimate affair that I'd hoped it would be. About 200 people showed up, so the studio was packed. Also, lots of kids with Security shirts crowded the driveway, and lots of other personnel were there too; a very big contrast with our very private afternoon with John Simon. The show was being recorded and filmed, and the place was packed with engineers, musicians, guests, friends, and hangers-on. We didn't see too much of Alexis Suter's set, but the second band, Ollabelle, was incredible. Backstage I didn't get the chance to meet Levon, but I did experience the pleasure of having Levon's daughter Amy step on my toe. She's very beautiful (looks a lot like her mother Libby Titus) so I didn't mind too much. Anyway that's as close as I got to the Helm family. Amy's one of the singers in Ollabelle. What I hadn't realized before is that Ollabelle is one of the best bands performing today. They are obviously inspired in a big way by the old style American music as used in the film O Brother Where Art Thou, whose musical director T-Bone Burnette also had a hand in Ollabelle's debut album. Ollabelle did an excellent set, with Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell sitting in on guitar and violin. What an incredible musician he is! Afterward I spent some time talking with Byron, the bass player and a very interesting guy. He was surprised to hear that Ollabelle were getting a lot of attention in Holland; their album hasn't even been released in Europe. Then, after a short break, Levon took the stage. He looked very healthy and his voice was great, even if he only sang a few songs (Little Sammy Davis handled most of the vocals). When I watched the Midnight Rambles 2 dvd (which includes a few of this evening's performances) I marveled at how great Levon was sounding. He did quite a few songs that I'd never heard before, some of which are included on the dvd. It was so good to hear Levon singing with his old voice again, that it was a shame that his band was so underrehearsed. Levon had to shout the chord changes while singing Bring It On Home To Me: ONE - If you ever - FIVE - change your mind - ONE - about leaving, etc. All the musicians were big name sidemen - Larry Campbell and Jimmy Vivino on guitars; Mike Meritt on mostly inaudible, out of tune bass; Ollabelle's Glenn Patscha on keyboards - but following the very tight Ollabelle arrangements, this sounded more like a jam session. Nevertheless, everyone seemed to be having a good time, and some of the performances were magical, as you can tell from the Midnight Rambles 2 release. I felt very privileged to actually be there at his beautiful place by the lake in the middle of the woods. Still, we left at about 1.30 am. Possibly if we'd stayed a little longer they would have played a little more; maybe I'd even get the chance to meet Levon. Levon did spend some time with Jan, recognized him as an old friend and was very happy to see him. But I was somewhere else when that happened. Barbara (who co-organized the ramble) gave us some cool Levon Helm t-shirts, and then the shuttle bus returned us to our car. Well anyway, back at the hotel I quickly went to bed, tired and jet-lagged, but before I could fall asleep the phone rang. It was Jan. "You have to wake up! Garth's coming!" GARTH HUDSON, PART ONE I quickly put on some clothes, and walked into the hallway. Jan was standing beside me. At 2.40 am (!) in a Holiday Inn hallway I had my first encounter with the master, the keyboard genius, the incredible Garth Hudson! It was surreal. He was carrying four big pink (actual color) bags. "I have something you need," he said. Quickly shook our hands, and hopped away, jumping up and down. Inside the bags was a huge variety of sweets, candy, toys. It took some time before we realized that he was being an Easter bunny. We thought he was a hallucination of some kind - perhaps someone spiked our drinks earlier this evening? But no, this was reality - we had the bags to prove it! JIM WEIDER The next day we slept through the morning. John Simon called to ask how the Midnight Ramble had been. Then we had lunch with Jim Weider at the Black Bear in West Hurley. Jim is one of the most amazing guitarists today, and he proudly gave us copies of his new cd, Percolator. I proudly gave him a copy of my cd Bassman's Holiday! He was excited about working with his new line-up featuring Jesse Gress on guitar. He also had some good Band stories to tell. Like the time Rick Danko performed on his birthday. Someone in the audience had made a birthday cake which was an exact replica of his famous black Ampeg bass. It was offered while Rick was performing, so he quickly took a large bite, wondering why the whole band was cracking up. He then saw his reflection in the mirror and finally realized his whole face was black from eating the cake... Then it was time to do some shopping, take a quick nap, and get ready for an evening with Garth and Maud Hudson. GARTH & MAUD HUDSON Garth and Maud picked us up at the Holiday Inn at approximately 7 pm, and took us for a drive around the neighborhood. We spent some time overlooking a beautiful lake, while listening to a pre-release copy of Live At The Wolf. In the front seat, Maud was telling Jan stories about the recording and the artwork of their cd. Garth and I sat in the backseats. Garth was very talkative, and talked at length about disasters in recording studios, and other funny stories. He also talked about his plan to maybe teach approaches of learning music to conservatory students. He was carrying a bag filled with sheet music, and had many very detailed ideas of how he wanted to present his ideas. Personally, I think Garth would be a very inspiring teacher, and I hope he gets the chance to work as, say, an artist in residence at the Berklee College Of Music perhaps. We arrived at the restaurant fairly late, and stayed for many hours after the last customers had left! The personnel were very friendly, but I'm sure they were glad to finally see us go. We had a great time, and even after they'd brought us back to the hotel, we kept talking for a long time. I had many questions I'd always wanted to ask Garth - what's a peck horn? does he still have a Lowrey organ? on what song did Richard play baritone sax? who wrote the outtake "Nobody Sings Them Like Ray"? etc. - and Garth had answers to most of them. His memory is very good. (In case you need the answers too: a peck horn was a certain kind of horn with a curve in it; yes, he still has a Lowrey, but it's in Levon's studio so Garth doesn't use it very much; Richard played very little baritone sax; the Ray song was co-written by Jim Rooney, they didn't release it because they thought the lyrics were a little too obvious.) Garth also talked at length about the differences in construction between Lowrey organs and Hammond organs. Is there anything he doesn't know? Finally, we took a couple of pictures in front of the Holiday Inn. The next morning, Jan and I returned to Europe. We'd only been in Woodstock for a very short time, but an amazing time it was. And whenever I see the Midnight Ramble dvd, or hear the Live at the Wolf cd, it's as if I'm still there. Thank you very much Garth, Levon, John, Jim, and Jan!