38 (Now 53) Years Ago (When I Was 27)

Companion piece
with Ed Roger’s
post yesterday

[I discovered the February 10, 2008 post, “38 years ago (when I was 27),” when I was looking up Janis Joplin relative to Ed Roger’s re-post yesterday.
    I was also reminded that the original date of publication was my mother’s 100^th birthday.
    Note that I no longer maintain a list of movies watched; hence, the rewording of the opening.]

By Moristotle

[Fifteen years ago] my list of recently viewed movies...included the two items:

• Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival [1970 rock concert] (1997: Murray Lerner) [VG]
• Festival Express [1970 rock concert by train across Canada] (2003: Bob Smeaton & Frank Cvitanovich) [G]¹

What a nostalgia trip for someone of my generation! In 1970 my son was two and my daughter was in her first year. The decade of flower children was more background noise than reality for me as I embarked on marriage and family and <shudder to think of it> employment at the International Business Machines Corporation. But even without attending rock concerts I heard the music of Janis Joplin, The Band, Joni Mitchell, The Who, Grateful Dead...and a number of the other musicians represented in these two documentaries.

    I watched Festival Express a few days ago and at the time rated it VG. But after watching Message to Love last night and seeing that it was a lot better produced, filmed, and edited, I lowered that to G and [initially²] rated the Wight festival E to emphasize the difference between the two documentaries. Besides, there are many more interesting British voices to be heard from Wight than from the country lying alongside my own country [an aside to Romulus Crowe and Tom Sheepandgoats].

    Perhaps my favorite song from the two recordings was Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.” Her ecstatic performance of it on Wight affected me greatly, and I delighted in her apparently spontaneous drop to a lower register to deliver the final “And put up a parking lot,” which caused her to chuckle at herself. A delightful child she was at that moment.
____________

1. From IMDb.com, a partial list of performers represented:
   • Message to Love:
     Jethro Tull, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Donovan, Jim Morrison, The Doors, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Jimi Hendrix, Kris Kristofferson, Joni Mitchell, The Moody Blues, Tiny Tim, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, The Who, Ten Years After
   • Festival Express:
     Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy Blues Band, Ian & Sylvia & The Great Speckled Bird, Janis Joplin & The Full Tilt Boogie Band, Mashmakhan, Sha Na Na, Robbie Robertson, The Band, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
2. But after again watching Martin Scorsese’s movie about The Band’s final road concert, The Last Waltz (1978), I had to demote Message to Love’s E to VG, to make room for Scorsese’s yet better film. A partial list of IMDb’s list of performers in The Last Waltz [members of The Band in italics]:

   Robbie Robertson (Lead Guitar & Vocal), Rick Danko (Bass & Violin & Vocal), Richard Manuel (Piano / Keyboards / Drums / Vocal), Levon Helm (Drums / Mandolin / Vocal), Garth Hudson (Organ / Accordion / Saxophone / Synthesizers), Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Ringo Starr, Paul Butterfield, Dr. John, Van Morrison, Ronnie Hawkins, Mavis Staples, Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staples, Muddy Waters, Ron Wood, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (poet)

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