The Summer of ’69 — Remembering Woodstock Musically

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 29 August 2009 23:47

Written by Lloyd Carroll

Every summer is special, but it seems as if the summer of 1969--and yes, I know it’s hard to believe that was 40 years ago — was particularly memorable. Canadian rocker Bryan Adams knew it when he did his huge 1985 hit “Summer of ’69,” in which he recollected memories of learning to play his first guitar and his first summer crush. That tune still gets a lot of play on classic rock stations. But when most of us think of that year, we think of the Miracle Mets, men walking on the moon, maybe the Manson murders — and certainly the most famous rock concert of all-time, Woodstock, the three-day festival held in upstate New York.

Various Artists
Woodstock
Woodstock Two
(Rhino)

Rhino Records has just reissued the long out-of-print triple vinyl albums, Woodstock and Woodstock Two that were originally released on Atlantic Records in the fall of 1970 and the spring of 1971, respectively. They’re now double-CD sets.

The Woodstock Music & Art Fair, also called the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, was held from August 14 through 17 on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel. It was supposed to be a traditional for-profit concert, but it became a free event when security could not handle the nearly half-million fans who showed up. Promoter Artie Kornfeld was able to recoup some of his costs by selling the rights for a Woodstock movie to Warner Bros. Pictures.

It should be noted that both the Woodstock soundtrack and its sequel contain just a small portion of the music actually played at Yasgur’s farm. While the biggest rock acts of the day, such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Doors, passed on Woodstock, the Who, Blood, Sweat & Tears, the Jefferson Airplane, the Band, the Grateful Dead, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young and Creedence Clearwater Revival all played full sets.

CCR has always been involved in record company litigation, so it’s not surprising that none of their performances are on these albums. Capitol Records also refused to give up their rights to the recordings of the Band, so none of Robbie Robertson and company’s songs are here either. But a lot of great tunes are.

Neither Richie Havens nor Jimi Hendrix were well-known going into Woodstock, but they were legends after it. Hendrix’s behind-the-neck blistering guitar rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” is, for my money, the most memorable take ever on Francis Scott Key’s tribute to American valor during the War of 1812. It’s tragic that Hendrix would live just barely more than a year after Woodstock.

The Vietnam War was certainly on the minds of everyone at Woodstock, and it’s safe to say that no one who made the trip to Sullivan County that weekend supported it. Folk singer Joan Baez certainly made her feelings known from the stage. A band called Country Joe & The Fish took a page out of the Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer book of satire with “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag,” which you can be sure was not a favorite of draft boards or President Nixon. Keeping the humor going was the ’50s doo wop revival group, Sha Na Na, formed at Columbia University, who played such anachronistic warhorses as “At The Hop” and “Teen Angel.” Both songs were only about a decade old at the time but seemed as if they were recorded in the Stone Age given the Woodstock atmosphere.

One New York-born band certainly played its part at Woodstock. Mountain, a so-so rock band that would have its lone hit a year later with “Mississippi Queen,” was led by Forest Hills High School alum Leslie Weinstein, known by the showbiz moniker Leslie West. Mountain played a dozen-song set on Woodstock’s second day.

No one epitomized the sunny disposition of “flower power” better than Astoria native Melanie Safka, better known simply as Melanie. Although she only sang three songs, one of them, the melodic “Beautiful People,” captured the egalitarian spirit of the hippie movement better than any other tune from Woodstock.

Sly & The Family Stone/Santana
The Woodstock Experience
(Columbia/Legacy)

Columbia Records’ Legacy division dug deep into the vaults to find the entire sets played by two of the label’s great performers at Woodstock, Santana and Sly & The Family Stone, and put them on two separate CDs that are part of a five-artist series.

 At the time, few outside of San Francisco had heard of Santana and namesake lead guitarist Carlos Santana. The band debuted their signature song, “Evil Ways,” to a national audience at the show. The fusion of rock and Latin soul on Santana staples like “Jingo” also was warmly received.

Sly & The Family Stone, whose soulful rock generated such hits as “Dance To The Music,” “Everyday People” and the concert-ready “I Want To Take You Higher,” got a heroes’ welcome from the Woodstock nation. It’s a shame the band didn’t play “Hot Fun In The Summertime,” a feel-good summer song if there ever was one, which was climbing the charts at the time. But what’s here is fun to listen to in any season.

Swiss Filmmaker Beatrice Minger Grapples with the Legacy of Irish Designer Eileen Gray

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Friday, 15 August 2025 13:33

Written by Brad Balfour

Irish designer Eileen Gray built a refuge on the Côte d‘Azur in 1929. Though she built the house for herself, it turned out to be a masterpiece and many people wanted to experience it years after she was gone. This first house was a discrete, avant-garde masterpiece. She named it E.1027, a cryptic marriage of her initials and those of Jean Badovici, with whom she built it.

Upon discovering the house, Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer Le Corbusier, a pioneer of what's now considered modern architecture, became intrigued and obsessed. He later covered the walls with murals and published photos of them. Gray described these paintings as vandalism and demanded restitution. He ignored her wishes and instead built his famous Cabanon directly behind E.1027, which dominates the narrative of the site to this day.

Swiss director Beatrice Minger decided to make a film, “E.1027-Eileen Gray and the House By the Sea,” about this narrative and transform it into a story about the power of female expression, and men’s desire to control it. Sleek and serene, the film captures the poetry of the house and of Gray's vision. 

In order to make the film — a hybrid of documentary and fictional narrative performed by actors — she cast Natalie Radmall-Quirke — an Irish actress, articulate in French. As Minger said, “She struck us as capturing a nucleus of Eileen Gray in a way that felt right. We didn’t look for a one-to-one representation, but instead sought a more abstract, more free interpretation. With Axel Moustache as Jean Badovici and Charles Morillon as Le Corbusier, we found the perfect counterparts.”

With co-writer/director Christoph Schaub, they crafted an unusual film to tell about a very unusual woman and creator. Writer /director Minger is based in Zurich and it was there, and in Berlin and Lausanne, that she studied Film, German Studies and Modern History. After graduating, she worked as Assistant Director and Script supervisor on various projects and directed short films and video clips.

Though the film enjoyed a short theatrical run, in coming to Amazon, Apple and Kanopy it is now having its streaming & home video launch on September 9, 2025.

Q: It took a lot to break out of the restraints of society at the time. What do you think made her such a different person?

Beatrice Minger: I think a big part of it comes from her personality. She was a nonconformist and a non-heterosexual who tended to stay out of any artist groups or associations. She was an introvert with an ambivalent relationship to the public. Coming from an aristocratic background, she had the privilege of not having to get married or make a living from her art. That doesn’t mean she didn’t have collaborators. She opened a workshop with Ethel Wyld and later opened a gallery to sell her furniture and carpets. Yet, she wasn’t dependent on making a profit. She didn’t have to comply with any commercial standards or business rules. This allowed her to be very independent and create outside the system, making her truly avant-garde.

Q: Making any film is hard enough but choosing to do this story takes a lot to get it made. What led you to be convinced to make this?

Beatrice Minger: I was fascinated by her life, spirit, strong artistic voice, and choices. She spoke to me. The same was true of the story surrounding the house and Le Corbusier’s violent intervention at its center. I had very strong and complex feelings about it and wanted to understand it. Moreover, I felt that the 1920s and the 2020s had a lot in common. There are many historical parallels, as well as similarities in terms of what preoccupies and moves people. I felt that I could tell a story with a deep emotional connection to the present day.

Q: How much do you think that Gray’s Irish heritage and experience informed her as an artist and as an individual?

Beatrice Minger: As I am not Irish myself, I can only make assumptions shaped by my conversations with Natalie Radmall-Quirke and Jennifer Goff. Goff is the curator of the NMI and is probably most familiar with Eileen Gray’s Irish heritage and her life in general. First, her aristocratic heritage shaped her life on an existential level. Although she never identified with the title, she felt the great responsibility that comes with being born into wealth.

She was well aware that without her privilege, she might not have been able to become an artist. She left Ireland early in life, supposedly because she disapproved of the renovations to her childhood home by her brother-in-law, which she considered completely tasteless.

This seems to have started a pattern throughout her life: once she left, she never went back, except when her mother died. Once she arrived in Paris, her life was also shaped by being a foreigner, albeit she had a network of mostly English-speaking artists. Being a foreigner always comes with a feeling of not belonging, which I think was part of her motivation to create “E.1027.” It was a place far away from home, different in light, colors, and climate, yet it was a place where she could belong. Yet, as we know, she left this house, too, and never went back.

Q: How did her family react to her iconoclastic ways and behavior?

Beatrice Minger: As far as I know, there wasn’t as much friction as one might assume given Eileen Gray’s nonconformist lifestyle. Her mother was eccentric and decided to marry outside her class — to a painter. Her father, who presumably shared her sensitivity and introverted character, supported her decision to become an artist. He often traveled to Europe to paint and took her with him. She was the youngest of five siblings, and, as she says in the film, nobody really cared what she was doing all day. This gave her a great sense of independence, as well as a sense of self-sufficiency — and probably also loneliness.

Q: I would assume that commercial consideration didn’t play much of a role in the making of this film but did you have an idea of what audience it would find?

Beatrice Minger: From the beginning of the project, the producers considered commercial aspects, such as appealing to an audience in the field of design and architecture. This audience appreciates artists’ biographies and the experience of seeing films in theaters. As the film changed topics and perspectives, we felt that we could bring the same audience with us and also speak about discourses around gender, patriarchy, and, not least, the formative decade of modernism: the 1920s.

There are many parallels between that time and today. I hoped the film would speak to a broader audience, mostly women who are hungry to see their point of view represented on the big screen. However, these are mostly conclusions from hindsight. To be completely honest, I was prepared to accept that an experimental film like this one would perhaps find its audience at film festivals, but who dares to dream of this response in cinemas?

Q: What kind of a response have you had now that the film has been released?

Beatrice Minger: The film was overwhelmingly well-received. It was popular at festivals and in cinemas across Europe and is now popular in the UK, Ireland, and the US. Most reviews were positive, appreciating the fascinating story told in such a different, experimental form. But I must give most of the credit to her. Her life and art continue to speak to us decades later.

Q: Looking back, were there things about her life and history you would like to have included?

Beatrice Minger: Oh, I had to leave out so many things! It’s always painful because you want to paint the most complex character possible. However, we didn’t want to simply create an artist’s biography; we wanted to weave the story threads around “E.1027.” This focus made it easier to leave things out and gave us the freedom to create space for other things –– for architecture and reflection.

Q: It must have been tough to organize all this info and make it coherent — who all the players are, etc. How did you meet the challenge?

Beatrice Minger: I read everything I could find and talked to everyone who knew her work better than I did. I absorbed all the information like a sponge. From all this information, I created something of an amalgam. Then, at one point, I had to let go of all the knowledge and create something from it.

Yet, I made sure to check in with the documents to ensure that I wasn’t getting carried away. I was careful to always have a document or story at hand that I could tie the text back to. I didn’t want to impose my own narrative on her; I wanted to listen carefully to what was there and follow her lead.

Music Promoter Chris Keaton Launches a New Venture “The Song Inside You” For 2025

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Wednesday, 30 July 2025 14:01

Written by Brad Balfour

Through Chris Keaton’s efforts as a song promoter, his writers have had songs recorded by George Strait, Brooks and Dunn, Reba McIntyre, Trisha Yearwood, Sir Cliff Richard and more. As a 30-year voting member of The Recording Academy (Grammys) and a 2016 inductee into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, this Nashville resident puts his experience to use.

Thanks to his savvy, Keaton has also written three books — “Seven Stupid Mistakes People Make Trying To Break Into The Music Business,” “Dapper” and “Confidence on The Fly.” In addition, he began hosting a podcast series, Random Acts.

As he explained, “From March to late September 2021, I recorded and released 22 episodes (Season 1) of my podcast. In January, 2025, Season Two begins. Season 1 was audio only and the second season will be available in audio and video formats. The Random Acts podcast will include upcoming guests: Warner Music artist, Cale Dodds and Grammy-nominated Dance/Remix Producer, Dave Aude.

But I now have a new venture going live called “The Song Inside You.” This is meant to be an unparalleled experience for those who started out as songwriters but parked their dream to focus on a career. Now that they are nearing or at retirement age, they have realized that one never ages out as a songwriter. This once in a lifetime experience is for them.

The following day, our clients fly home with a copy of the co-written song and memories to last a lifetime. Packages, which start at $5,000, also include two nights at a deluxe hotel on Music Row, just minutes from the famous downtown honky tonks and nightlife attractions.”

Q: Have you done this already as a test case?

Chris Keaton: No. It’s a brand new idea. The sign-ups for registrants so far have come from my social media feed.

Q: Do you have people already booked for this?

Chris Keaton: We began on January 1 to take bookings of registrants.

Q: Obviously, this is something you curate. What’s the process of picking who you focus on and how are you promoting the idea (beyond a story I can write)?

Chris Keaton: Yes, I curate only to make sure that the talent level of the registrants is at least adequate (my judgement call) and they are agreeable to terms created by my attorney. The registrant does share ownership of the copyright with the hit songwriter.

Songwriters already committed to the project include Kent Blazy (hits with Garth Brooks, Chris Young, etc.), Trey Bruce (Randy Travis, Diamond Rio), Cale Dodds (Warner Music Artist with numerous TV/blm placements including the latest ABC TV NYE commercial).

Q: Do you have ideas about how this community will grow?

Chris Keaton: Social media, advertising and focusing on meeting our audience where they are. The target demographic is professionals from all walks of life. People who are either approaching or at retirement age. Emerging songwriters who would like to engage in following their dreams by having the unique opportunity to co-write with some of Nashville’s best and most successful songwriters. Think Fantasy baseball camp or Rock and Roll Fantasy camp.

This one-of-a-kind songwriter experience allows registrants to make memorable moments and follow their dreams. The packages include deluxe accommodations on World Famous Music Row in Nashville; an in-person songwriting session with a bona fide hit songwriter in a professional setting; a recording session with top Nashville studio musicians, engineers and singers in a top tier, professional recording studio. The registrant leaves with not only a professional recording of her or his co- written song but also the memory of a lifetime. Travel to and from Nashville is not included.

Q: Will this model create a new force among the songwriting community?

Chris Keaton: I believe it already has. Several professional songwriters with whom I have shared the idea are doing similar but smaller scale versions: offering their time and expertise to emerging songwriters without access to the industry via Zoom songwriting sessions. The professionals are paid for their time, energy and talent and the emerging songwriters get a wonderful and valuable experience, a lesson in how songs get written on a professional level, and a co-written song which is better than they could have written on their own.

Most everyone understands how difficult it is to have access to those who have successful songwriting careers. It is nearly impossible. With The Song Inside You program, not only do registrants gain this one-to-one access. They can also learn how to grow their songwriting craft.

Q: Do you think it will create an online distribution network out of the result of the songwriting creations?

Chris Keaton: That remains to be seen.

Q: How did you get involved with music in the first place?

Chris Keaton: On February 9, 1964, along with millions of other young people, I saw The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Their performances that evening shaped my life and career path like nothing else. The very next day, my brother and I started lip syncing to The Beatles. About a year later, we started a neighborhood band.

At the time, I was learning to play piano but the band already had a piano player. They insisted I play something, so my dad took me to the local music store. He pointed out a trumpet and I was like, “Not so much.” He pointed out a sax and before I could object, he said “Ladies love sax players.” So I said “Let’s get one of those!” I learned to play sax in band classes in school and never looked back. I was a touring musician for many years — playing in bands with Gary U.S. Bonds and then Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, among others.

Q: How did you become a song plugger?

Chris Keaton: When I moved to Nashville in 1993, I noticed that people in the business with the nicest houses, nicest cars and year-round tans were music publishers and song pluggers. I immediately decided that was for me and found my way into the business. The fact that I didn’t have a clue about what to do never stopped me from learning.

For more information or to sign up for a free weekly newsletter at www.chriskeaton.com. Registrants can reach out or get more information including pricing via: www.thesonginsideyou.com. You can see more at https://www.youtube.com/@chriskeatonrandomacts