What with all this reminiscing about the 60s and 70s in the USA I thought Id mention a few important musical highlights of my formative years over the pond in the uk. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The Isle of Wight Festival, July 1970. Catching the ferry from Dover to Freshwater Bay and taking the train to the festival site (sight?). Four days of wonderful music, except for Hawkwind playing every night in the canvas city. All the big names were there; Tiny Tim, a weird American singer who, as everyone knows, took his name from a character in a book by Thackeray. Who could forget his classic rendition of Tulips from Amsterdam? And then there was John Sebastian, former leader of the Turtles, who had decided on a solo career after the success of his single Young Girl. Unforgettable. He played an acoustic set because the roadies had problems with the snow and it took so long to set up the electric bands that they alternated electric and acoustic sets. Another acoustic set was played by Al Stewart (actually with the problems of running late he was only allowed to do one song, fortunately a wonderful 15-minute song called Love Chronicles). I would have loved to have heard the electric version. Im surprised he didnt make a new version when he joined the Faces but thats how musicians are, I suppose; they move on to new material, and I have to admit that Maggie May was a belting song. And lets not forget Jimi Hendrix, thrashing his guitar around the stage and doing a unique version of God Save the Queen, backed by the Sex Pistols. Of course, not all the people agreed with his histrionics and were relieved to see him a calmer man after he joined Lambert and Ross.
But lets cut to the chase; the reason we are all here Ms Mitchells appearance. I will never forget the way she strolled onto the stage, dressed entirely in green, her boyishly cut raven hair glinting in the early morning sunshine. There she was, hunched over the piano, hammering out the opening chords of Big Orange Taxi, the hit single taken for the Mingus album, the surprise success crossover album of 1969. When she was interrupted during the intro to A Case of Blue Nun by someone she met in Matala, she smiled benignly and told the audience that she had recently attended a Hippy Wedding ceremony and said that the guests were acting like Hopis and that the audience should respect tourists because artists put their souls into their performances. When the police dragged the intruder off the stage she picked up her trusty VG-8 and played Blue, which brought the house down and sent the audience back to their tents whistling while night fell over the mountains Unforgettable, and you know there may be more mike in bcn ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com.
