Goodbye Emily

Yes, Woodstock Music lives on. We’re so fortunate that nearly 44 years after the event, Woodstock acts continue to perform their legendary music to Woodstock Nation and a new generation of music lovers. Below is a list upcoming dates from various tours. In addition, The Who is continuing the group’s European tour and will perform in Dublin on June 1. Many artists not on the list, such as Country Joe McDonald continue to perform but will not be appearing in the coming weeks.

John Fogerty

May 18 John Fogerty, formerly of Credence Clearwater Revival will perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio.

May 18 Arlo Guthrie will be on stage at The Dogwood Festival in Dowagiac, Michigan.

May 17 Check out the memorable harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash at the Florida Theater in Jacksonville, Florida.

May 19 Crosby, Stills and Nash will travel up the coast and perform in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Ovens Auditorium

May 26 Check out Canned Heat at the Blues Festival in Oroville, California.

June 1 The legendary Joan Baez will be at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder, Colorado.

June 9 and 10  John Sebastian has returned to touring and will be at the Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

June 23 Melanie continues her tour at The Peg Egan Performing Arts Center in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin.

How many Woodstock acts have you seen perform?

“We must have been in heaven, man,” Wavy Gravy at Woodstock.

Today (May 15) us Wavy’s birthday! He’s in Canada, Vancouver to be precise at the DOXA Film Festival to screen the fabulous documentary of his life, “Saint Misbehavin’.”

Happy Birthday, man!

“We must be in Heaven, man.”

Happy Mothers Day to my mother, still kickin’ it at 89, my wife Jennie, the mother of my two children and to all the mothers out there. This is your day.

Today seems an appropriate day to feature the three women solo acts at Woodstock, Joan Baez, Melanie Safka and Janis Joplin. I’ve featured them before, but if you haven’t read those posts, here’s a bit more.

Joan Baez was the featured act on day one of Woodstock which primarily focused on folk singers. Pregnant with her husband in jail, she took the stage and played her set, often interjecting social commentary between songs.  The songs themselves were filled with social commentary a pattern that continues today as Joan tours the world performing as she’s done for five decades.

Joan Baez closed day one at Woodstock

Melanie who’s performing at the Roxbury center in Roxbury today almost didn’t get to perform at Woodstock. Once she made her way through the crowds, she had to prove who she was by grabbing her guitar and singing. Melanie had a string of hits in the sixties and early seventies. Her fans (including me) are loyal. She’s sold more than eighty million records including the hit inspired by her Woodstock Performance, “Laydown (Candles in the Rain).

Melanie sang Beautiful People. She still is one.

Janis Joplin is a rock legend so what could I say that isn’t already known. Woodstock might not have been her best performance, but she was one of the stars and performed on day two. Listen and journey back to Woodstock.

Just a short note. If you’d like a chance to win a signed copy of my return to Woodstock novel, Goodbye Emily, you can enter by “liking” my Goodbye Emily Facebook page.

Not sure if it’s the book for you? Check out some of the fantastic reviews on the Goodbye Emily website including one from Country Joe McDonald and one from Wavy Gravy.

One final roadtrip

Sadly another Woodstock icon has passed away. If you haven’t heard Richie Havens died of a heart attack. To honor Woodstock’s initial performer, here’s my original post about his performance.

Tim Hardin is best known as an incredible songwriter. His music was recorded by artists such as Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez,  Bobby Darin, Bob Seger, The Youngbloods, even Frank Sinatra. Born in Eugene, Oregon in 1941, Hardin perused the Boston and Greenwich Village folk music scene and released two albums before Woodstock that included his biggest hit, Misty Roses.

Singer/songwriter Tim Hardin

Many people remember Hardin for writing If I Were a Carpenter, made into a hit by Bobby Darin. Darin returned the favor by writing the terrific anti-war song Simple Song of Freedom, a song Hardin performed at Woodstock.

Hardin’s performance at Woodstock and subsequent career was marred by tarnished addiction. Unfortunately, he died of an overdose in 1980, but his music lives on.

I’ve enjoyed sharing excerpts from Goodbye Emily with you as part of my fellow authors who’ve written novels that feature baby boomers, but I want to return to focusing on Woodstock. Kudos to Boomerlit Friday blog hop authors. Check out their wonderful excerpts.

Below, Sparky goes after Emily who has left Woodstock. He’s determined to find out whether she feels about him the way he feels about her. Just a couple of complications. He knows she’s a local girl, but doesn’t know where she lives or even her last name, but with Josh’s encouragement he has to find out.

What was I doing? I’d known Emily less than a day, a few hours really. Josh, Buck and I planned this roadtrip for months and now I planned to walk away from the festival.

“This is crazy, man.”

“You have to do this.”

“If Buck was here—”

“If Buck saw in your eyes what I see, how you feel about this girl, he’d tell you to go after her, too.”

“You think?”

“If you don’t try to find Emily,” Josh clapped a hand on my shoulder, “you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

I wiped rain from my eyes and glanced back at the hundreds of thousands and the empty stage. The once-green fields and brightly colored tie-dyed shirts now melded into a sea of gray, soupy mud.

I took a deep breath and stepped across the downed fence. At the road, I glanced back and waved.

Josh waved back and shouted over the din of the pounding rain.

“Go find Emily.”

Through the steady downpour, I walked away from Woodstock determined to see this through. No matter how illogical or impractical my quest might be, I had to find out how Emily felt about me.

I followed the twisting line of side-by-side cars that led away from Yasgur’s farm. I stepped into a puddle, and my shoe sank in thick sucking mud. I pulled and my foot came out of the shoe, which I reached down and fetched with my hand. I stumbled. Soaked, literally from head to toe, I laced back up and continued my slog in the rain and through the mud.

Hope you’ve enjoyed these excerpts from Goodbye Emily. This weekend, I’ll be blogging about the late Tim Hardin, singer and songwriter who performed on Day One.

Hope you’re enjoying the excerpts from Goodbye Emily and other baby boomer novels as part of Boomer Lit’s Friday blog hop.

In this scene, Sparky’s attractive next door neighbor, Meagan, has agreed to help him prepare a heart healthy meal to convince his daughter that he’s seriousl about dealing with his broken heart syndrome. He doesn’t understand Meagan’s interest in him and when she kisses him, Sparky feels a stab of guilt and chest pain.

Meagan’s hand ran up my leg and a stabbing jolt shot across my chest. I grimaced in pain, which seemed to excite her even more. Her breathing quickened and she kissed me again. She grabbed my hand and held my palm against one of her considerable breasts.

Oblivious to my distress, she pulled me down the hall. In my bedroom, she shoved me onto the bed. She slipped out of her satin blouse and revealed a black lace bra and a peace symbol on her right breast. The irony of the peace symbol wasn’t lost on me.

Weak and short of breath, the chest pain made it nearly impossible to move. My breathing grew short and ragged, which Meagan mistook for passion.

She crawled on top of me, unbuckled my belt and kissed me. I began to hyperventilate. I tried to ask her to stop, but the words came out of my mouth as squeaks and groans.

“Oh, Sparky.”

Face flushed with passion, Meagan pinned down my wrists then let go.

“Are you all right?”

I couldn’t answer but managed to shake my head “no.”

“Your heart?”

I nodded.

“Oh, my God!” Meagan leaped off the bed. “I could’ve killed you.”

One final roadtrip

Woodstock is not remembered as a significant anti-war event. There are many reasons for this, the great music and the media’s focus on the rain, mud and nudity.

Many believe a year earlier, the anti-war movement peaked with the massive demonstration at the Democratic Convention that resulted in the Chicago Seven trial.

Anti-war movement

In April of 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated; in June, Robert Kennedy. Many activists lost their enthusiasm. The Democrats chose Vice President Hubert Humphrey over Senator Eugene McCarthy. The result was the election of Richard Nixon, an escalation of the war and twenty thousand more American deaths.

Today Woodstock is remembered as three days of peace, love and music, yet during the festival many attendees burned their draft cards. Performers gave speeches against the war. Country Joe McDonald sang maybe the greatest anti-war song ever, I Feel Like I’m Fixin to Die Rag and exhorted the crowd “if you want to stop this fucking war, you’ll have to sing louder than that.” Even Jimi Hendrix’s famous National Anthem contained a musical reference to the war as I mention in my novel, Goodbye Emily.

In spite of political differences then and now, an accurate recap of Woodstock’s place in history can’t ignore the festival’s place in the era’s anti-war movement.

Continuing to blog hop with my fellow authors who write novels about and for baby boomers in the Goodreads group Booomer Lit. Check out excerpts from some great novels.

Below is a flashback scene to Woodstock. Emily and Sparky hooked up, and the next morning, she’s unexpectedly unhappy.

“Emily, wait.” The mud grabbed my shoe as I went after her. I lost my balance and fell to my hands and knees in the soft clinging sludge. I pulled myself up, wiped both hands on my already filthy jeans and hurried after Emily.

By the time I caught up, she’d arrived at the area where we left our friends the day before. Crystal sat alone on the side of the hill. Where were Buck and Josh?

Crystal scrambled to her feet with a sleeping bag draped over her shoulders. Mud streaked her hair and wet clothes. Missing one of her sandals, she hardly resembled the girl who caught my eye.

She hugged Emily and began to cry. “This festival sucks. I’m soaked. I haven’t slept all night. I could barely see the stage.”

Crystal’s stomach growled. “Where’s the food you went after?”

I reached into my jacket pocket. I handed her the cold hot dog and Emily’s panties dropped to the ground.

Crystal rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding me?”

Emily grabbed the panties, stuffed them in her jeans pocket and shot me a scorching glare.

A smirk crossed Crystal’s face. “Stan won’t be happy.”

Stan? “Who’s Stan?”

***

You can read what others think about Goodbye Emily on this website link, and my website.