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Woodstock Two

To further capitalize on the global success of this music festival, which quickly rose to a cultural and sociological event thanks to the success of the namesake film, the record label released, a year after the publication of the famous triple album containing the soundtrack of the event, a new collection. This time a double album containing another eighty minutes of music from those three and a half days of mid-August, which immediately and forever became the epitome of the outdoor musical happening, and at the same time the emblem of a certain way of being together in freedom and tolerance.

However, this card was played rather poorly: among the various artists featured, only two of them were absent on the first album (and therefore in the film); the rest of the material present here immortalizes additional repertoire, performed those evenings by artists already considered in the original triple album, namely Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills & Nash, Paul Butterfield, Joan Baez, and Canned Heat.

Fortunately, one of the two new entries is absolutely excellent: the performance of the New Yorkers Mountain stands out among all the others for power and lyricism. They perform a couple of tracks quite different from one another: the first of these, "Blood of the Sun," in the studio version, opened the formation's first album and is a rocky blues rock centered on a long and effective riff, a real American answer to the heavy British blues of Led Zeppelin, Free, and company. Guitarist Leslie West lays down two perfect, sharp, and vicious but very melodic solos, almost like songs within the song.

The other contribution is the cover of a Jack Bruce track that appeared in his first solo album "Songs for a Taylor" from '69. Mountain's bassist Felix Pappalardi, after all, was the producer of Cream, so he knew Bruce's work like the back of his hand. Mountain's version of "Theme for an Imaginary Western" is magnificent, much better than the original and more effective than the studio recording that appears on their second album "Climbing!". Pappalardi’s voice is passionate and harmonic, the splendid descending chord sequence is rendered even more remarkable by the roar of Steve Knight's Hammond, while West’s solos are devastating and liberating.

The other "novelty" is less interesting: a folksinger named Melanie, who made a certain name for herself in those years and still performs and publishes work, but has completely disappeared from the Italian and even European radar for decades. All alone with her guitar, the singer-songwriter performed for half an hour on the festival’s first day, dedicated to acoustic and folk music (Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, and others before and after her). Immortalized on this album are "My Beautiful People" and "Birthday of the Sun", honestly not unmissable.

The rest, as mentioned, is nothing more than an expansion of performances already considered in the previous album dedicated to the event: as usual, Jimi Hendrix towers with three contributions; Jefferson Airplane has two songs, although they are particularly "high" and imprecise in playing; the endless improvised boogie by the Canned Heat titled to Woodstock is then boring... and finally, a minute is left to the performance of the vast audience present, who during the downpour that erupted in the afternoon of the third day, right after Joe Cocker's performance, sings a chorale and auspicious "Let The Sunshine In" (from the musical "Hair," then at the peak of its fame).

It's a pity that this album did not include (probably for commercial reasons) contributions from so many excellent artists who performed at Woodstock and were excluded from the film. I’m talking mainly about Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Blood Sweat & Tears.