Most people known Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” by the famous cover by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Though Mitchell was connected to CSNY because she was dating Nash at the time, the two versions sound quite different; Mitchell’s is quiet and only features her vocals and a piano, whereas the CSNY version is bombastic and aggressive, featuring typically barbed playing from Neil Young and the band’s trademark harmonies on the chorus. It’s no surprise that many covers follow the CSNY version, as it’s far more well known.
Singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe is mostly known for her distinct fusion of folk music with more extreme forms of music such as industrial, doom metal and drone. These are not styles you think of when you think of the hippies or either version of “Woodstock,” but Wolfe has chosen Mitchell’s version as her inspiration on a new cover. Continue reading »
Rock music has always idolized and iconicized those seen to be casualties. If you sing and/or play, premature death and/or mental illness always seems to add to the luster of flickering creative flames. Conversely, good health and a productive work ethic is sometimes demonized, until old age brings about a respectability to earlier derided middle-aged output. Roky Erickson fell firmly into the former category, a wide-eyed and vibrant presence in the 1960s, knocked down by the all too familiar cocktail of which came first, drugs or mental instability. The answer, as always, and as with Syd Barrett, Peter Green and Brian Wilson: probably a bit of both.
