In an odd and roundabout way, Nick Drake is partially responsible for my career in music journalism. In 1972, I bought a copy of Pink Moon, Drake's third and final completed album. I had no idea who he was; I bought it because it had a cool cover and it was in the import bin (and my best "music pal" and I loved haunting the import bins to find obscure stuff from around the world). A few days later, my friend asked me about the album, and I replied, "The guy is so underwhelming I can't stop listening to him." He said that would make a really good line in a record review. What fortunate timing; that day's assignment in my creative writing class at school was a piece of critical writing, so I went ahead and submitted a review of the album, using the "underwhelming" line as the review's close (I also remember saying it was "obvious and still subtle" and "simple in a complex kind of way"). When I got the assignment back, it had the dreaded "see me" note on it. When I did, my teacher said it was a very well written review, to the point where I should consider music journalism as a potential career. She also asked to borrow my copy of the album, as she was unable to find one to buy, which is pretty high praise for the first review I ever wrote. When she returned it, she said, "I'm not sure I'm hearing in the record what you're hearing." About a decade later, I bumped into her by chance and one of the first things she said to me was that she was "still a huge Nick Drake fan, thanks to you!" Who knew that an aspiring high school writer would experience such a perfect analogy for Nick Drake's career? If you don't count the Family Tree album (and it's best to not), you're looking at a man who released three albums, none of which sold even 5,000 copies at the time of their release. He released 31 songs, not even two hours of music... yet now, he's named by a myriad of artists as a major influence on their work, his albums are easily gotten and they post better sales figures now than they ever did on their release. That's a wonderful story of hope that ought to be held dear to the heart of any and all aspiring artists out there, especially considering some of the facts of Drake's short and tragic life.

Nick was born on June 19, 1948 and died on November 25, 1974. His years were filled with an olio of solitude, creativity and depression; his death, in fact, was the result of an overdose of the prescription antidepressant amitriptyline. Whether the overdose was intentional or accidental is a question still debated, never answered. He had the fortune of being born to a talented family; while neither did so professionally, both his parents (Rodney and Molly) were decent musicians and composers, and his older sister Gabrielle (his only sibling) became a successful film and television actress. Nick was particularly encouraged and inspired by his mother, and due largely in part to her influence, he learned piano at a young age. He even began writing songs and recording them on a reel-to-reel recorder his mother kept near the piano. Some recordings of Molly Drake's songs came to light over the course of time; I've never heard them myself (add to bucket list...), but those who have say Nick's work bears a strong similarity in style and tone to his mother's. In 1962, Drake began attending Marlborough College and, while still quiet and private, seemed to blossom in the college atmosphere. Somewhat surprisingly, he developed a taste for sports, competing both as a sprinter and on the rugby team; he achieved notable success in both sports. He also played piano in the school orchestra and learned to play clarinet and saxophone. He formed a band circa 1964/5, and it was obvious the music bug had bitten him hard. In 1965, he bought his first acoustic guitar; by then, his academic performance was beginning to suffer due to the time and attention he was paying to music. While he still earned a scholarship to study English literature, he put off those studies, instead spending six months at a French University, avidly practicing guitar. By now, he was already fascinated with open tunings and fingerpicking techniques, which became trademarks of his recorded music. Besides guitar, Drake also discovered pot while in France and became a regular and heavy user of such; it is also likely that he experimented with LSD during this time. 

When he returned to England, he enrolled at Cambridge University. He was an intelligent man who had the capability to be an outstanding student, but instead was described by teachers and tutors as unenthusiastic and unwilling to apply himself to his studies. He was already becoming withdrawn, preferring to spend his time in his room with music and dope. Drake had discovered for himself both the American and British folk scenes and did some performing in coffee houses around London. He managed to land a gig opening for Country Joe and The Fish in February of 1968; one of those in attendance was Ashley Hutchings, bassist for Fairport Convention. Hutchings was impressed with Drake and introduced him to producer Joe Boyd. Boyd had a production and management company with ties to Island Records, and by early 1968 was impressed enough with Drake's work that he wanted to begin working on a record. Drake had apparently already decided to not complete his third year at Cambridge in favor of music, so his decision to accept Boyd's offer was most likely a very easy one to make.

Five Leaves Left (1969)

Later in 1968, Drake (with Boyd as producer) began working on his debut album. Reportedly, the initial sessions did not go well, and tension began to grow between Drake and Boyd. Boyd wanted a full and produced sound for the sessions (he was a huge advocate of George Martin's style of "studio as an instrument" method of recording); Drake wanted a simpler approach to the songs. A man named Richard Hewson initially provided string arrangements for the songs, and neither Drake nor Boyd were happy with them. Nick suggested they let Robert Kirby, a music student he befriended in college, take a shot at the arrangements, and while Boyd wasn't sure about letting a student with no experience whatsoever into a recording studio, he was taken with Drake's uncharacteristic assertiveness about it. "The Kirby experiment" worked so well that he would go on to do arrangements for the second album as well.

Once the recording was finished, post-production held up the release even further. Upon release, it received generally enthusiastic reviews, got BBC airplay from some influential DJs and was backed by full page interviews with Drake in the pop press. The album's opening track was also included on an Island Records sampler album, so despite accusations that Island didn't support the album well, the foundation does seem to have been in place. The one element that was seriously lacking, however, was cooperation from Drake himself, particularly in the realm of live performances. His bouts of depression were beginning to grow, which only made his ineffectiveness as a live performer worse. Live shows were already inherently difficult. First, Drake's songs didn't fit neatly into any niche; he surely wasn't rock, folkies wanted something more of a sing-along nature and there just weren't that many places where his material would be effective live. Second, there was no way he could match the intricate arrangements of his material in concert, and the deep and simple beauty of his songs didn't necessarily transcend in a live setting. Third, he used so many different open tunings that there were often lengthy gaps between songs, and fourth, due to his nature and depression, Drake rarely if ever addressed or acknowledged his audience. That's a very poor recipe for a successful show, and after a lot of lukewarm receptions to his performances, Drake made the decision to simply eschew almost all live performing. I can't imagine Island Records was terribly happy with that decision.

Bryter Layter (1970)

For all that, Joe Boyd was anxious to record a second album. Drake's talent was undeniable, and even if he wasn't anything of a commercial success yet, he seemed to have the support of some prominent members of the music industry, including a lot of musicians. Five Leaves Left had featured excellent performances (including contributions from Richard Thompson, among others), and for the second album, he got more help from various members of Fairport Convention as well as contributions on two songs from John Cale. Drake was disappointed with the sales of the first record, so at Boyd's suggestion, he agreed to have bass and drum tracks included as part of Bryter Layter. "I imagined it as more commercial," said Boyd in a later interview. The feel of the album is more upbeat and a bit jazzier (though the songs still feature generally pastoral and often grey images), and there was a lot of confidence that the resulting album had a good chance at being a commercial success. It sold fewer than 3,000 copies. Reviews for the album ranged from praising Drake's beautiful guitar work and arrangements to calling the album "an awkward mix of folk and cocktail jazz." His label wanted desperately to back the album with the standard array of interviews, radio appearances and concerts, but Drake flatly refused all offers.

Soon after the album's release, Boyd sold his company to Island Records and decided to relocate to the States to work on film soundtracks. With two good albums that were commercial flops under his belt, the loss of his industry mentor signaled a deeper retreat into the depression that had already often consumed Drake. The very few live shows he gave were generally disasters; during one of his last shows ever, he simply walked off the stage halfway through a song and didn't return. As his depression grew deeper and more severe, he was finally convinced by his family to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed antidepressants. His sister recalls that this entire period of time was among the worst in Drake's life. He stayed home, withdrew from family and friends and essentially only ever left his place to buy drugs or, rarely, play a few songs live. 

Pink Moon (1972)

By now, Island Records neither expected nor really wanted a third album from Drake. However, somewhat surprisingly, in October of 1971 Drake approached John Wood (who had engineered the first two albums) with material for a third album. Drake was unhappy with the arrangements on both his previous releases, generally calling them too full and too intricate. He wanted a very barren sound to the recording of the new record and got his wish. The sessions for Pink Moon lasted only two nights, most likely made much easier by the length of the completed album (eleven songs, about twenty eight minutes) and the fact that except for a single piano overdub, the album is strictly Drake's voice and acoustic guitar. Wood later recalled that Drake was "determined to make this very stark, bare record," and obviously got what he sought. Still, the sheer emotional depth of the songs makes it a very powerful recording, perhaps even moreso in retrospect after learning more about Drake's life. When Island released the album (and after reading Drake's story and the history of recording Pink Moon, I'm shocked it was released at all), the label did so with a very unusual ad, declaring in print: "Pink Moon - Nick Drake's latest album. The first we heard of it was when it was finished." The rest of the story is very familiar; mixed reviews and a complete unwillingness on the part of Drake to promote the record in any way. With no momentum, no real track record, no artist cooperation and a very difficult album to sell, it's not surprising at all that Pink Moon was Drake's worst selling work.**

It's also not surprising that Drake retreated even further following his latest career disappointment. He went back to live with his parents, which was difficult both on Nick and on the rest of the family. He has been variously described by friends and fellow musicians as the most withdrawn person any of them had ever met; he had a habit of disappearing from his folks' home, turning up a few days later at a friend's house, crashing and saying nothing, then disappearing again. The downward spiral continued, with Drake's little bit of self-esteem seemingly eroded to the point where his personal appearance was no longer of concern to him. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1972 and was hospitalized for five weeks... yet, somehow, in February of 1974, Drake contacted John Wood again and stated that he was ready to work on a fourth album. Old friend/mentor Joe Boyd happened to be in England at the time and agreed to attend the recording sessions. While four tracks were completed, both Boyd and Wood noticed a severe deterioration in Drake's performance; vocals now had to be overdubbed, for example, as Drake seemed incapable of playing and singing at the same time. Drake's attitude not only hadn't gotten better, but now anger at being told he was a genius while remaining poor and obscure were added to the mix. Still, for all that, his mother recalled that the sessions seemed to somewhat raise Drake's spirits for the first time in recent memory, and family and his few friends were encouraged by that.

On November 24, 1974, Nick spent the afternoon visiting a friend. He returned to his parents' home and went to his room early. His mother recalls hearing him in the kitchen near dawn the next morning; most likely, he had been up for hours and perhaps all night, as was his custom. Due to depression and insomnia, it wasn't unusual for him to stay up late and sleep well into the following morning. On November 25, his mother checked in on him about noon and found him lying in his bed, dead. There was no suicide note. The coroner determined that the cause of Drake's death was an overdose of his prescribed antidepressants and labeled the death a suicide. Family members dispute the finding; however, there is little doubt that even though he was in the midst of recording a new album, he had pretty much given up on life in general. The world lost a musical genius... even if his genius was still years and years away from being discovered by the masses.

As stated before, Nick Drake's legacy is only three albums. The four songs he had recorded at the time of his death made it to a boxed set of Drake's work, entitled Fruit Tree (after a song from the first record), and in 2007 Island released Family Tree, essentially a cleaned up version of several bootleg recordings of very early Nick Drake. Like most projects of that nature, the material was never meant to be released in any form, and probably shouldn't have been; it adds nothing to Drake's legend. The man's obscurity was so pervasive that his funeral was attended by his family and best friends... and not only had his family met virtually none of those friends, but they hadn't met one another. He hated performing, he wouldn't talk to the press, he suffered from a silent and debilitating disease that is as tragic as any medical condition known, yet somehow he became revered for his musical talent, his insight and his brilliance. He has been publicly cited as a major influence by artists as diverse as Robert Smith (The Cure), David Sylvian (Japan and solo), Peter Buck (REM), Kate Bush, Paul Weller, Beck, and even The Black Crowes. "Life In A Northern Town," a significant hit for The Dream Academy, was an homage to Drake, as was John Martyn's brilliant song "Solid Air."

Obviously, I'm personally glad for it. Once I bought my copy of Pink Moon, it was a chore, but I finally acquired copies of both Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter (though in the wrong order, I believe) and immersed myself in those three albums. They're not perfect by any means; of the 31 total songs released, I can pick out five or six that I'd call clunkers, either because they just aren't of the quality of the rest of the catalog or because I'd agree that they were ruined in the recording and arranging of them. Still, even those are tolerable and I can find a little something about every one of them to appreciate. Of course, when he was good, he was very, very good, and in fact "brilliant" is not too strong a word to describe his art. Of the three albums, I still have a special place in my heart for Pink Moon, both because of the accidental jumpstart it gave to my writing career and because of the natural tendency to most appreciate the first work one hears by any great artist. I consider it a near-perfect record and it's high on my list of favorite albums of my lifetime. I really did do Nick Drake backwards, hearing his most bleak and bare work first before experiencing the more produced records, and I have wondered how I would have reacted had I heard them in proper order. I can't help but thinking that I'd have been a lifelong devotee of his regardless; no matter the treatments, the music is just that good.

* * * * *

** When I discovered that the album sold fewer than 3000 copies, I found myself shocked that a high school kid in Orlando, Florida somehow wound up with one of those copies. Such an influential album in my life, both as a journalist and as a music appreciator! The world can indeed work in strange ways...

The song "American Pie" says it was when Buddy Holly's plane crashed; I know some serious hip-hop people who feel it was because of Tupac's assassination; for me, and for a lot of people who bought into Woodstock Nation, December 6, 1969 was The Day The Music Died.

How does one event take on so much significance in our collective psyche the the mere mention of it conjures a catalog of images and meanings? I guess because we as people need starting and ending points; a lot of religions and philosophies have been built around that premise. I don't really believe that America lost it's collective innocence on the day Kennedy was assassinated... but it's a lot easier to say that then it is to have a long discussion about civil rights and boiling tempers and some people feeling that God-given rights were being taken away while others were saying that God-given rights were finally being granted and the expansion of media and the abandonment of lemming culture and and and and and and and... Nobody flipped a switch that day so that suddenly, Americans were no longer innocent, but it also cannot be disputed that things were never again quite the same afterwards. The Hippie Movement wasn't really born during the Summer of Love, Woodstock wasn't perfect... but again, there's really no arguing that things were just not the same after those focus points. For all the flaws in the reasoning and the lifestyle that came with being a hippie, a lot of good things happened, a lot of positive changes were made, and an awful lot of fun was there to be had.

Then came Altamont.

The What, Part One
In its purest factual terms, The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a one-day freebie rock concert/festival/counterculture event. It took place on Saturday, December 6, 1969 in northern California. The acts scheduled to appear were, in order, Ike and Tina Turner, Santana, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones. It was attended by approximately 300,000 people (I've read various accounts of the show, some of which claim a half million people attended, but 300,000 is the figure I most often see quoted). Partially because of the era and largely by design, it was referred to in the buildup to the show as "Woodstock West." It is generally accepted that The Rolling Stones were the major organizers of the event with quite a bit of initial input from The Grateful Dead. The show was to be at the tail end of the Stones 1969 tour; the band had already done a lot of concert, studio and behind-the-scenes filming during the tour for a documentary on the band, and a large part of the original purpose of Altamont was that the event be a very grand finale to both the Stones tour and film.

The Why
As with many iconic events, much of "why" depends on which stories you care to believe, though over the course of time, there's a general consensus as to how the festival came about (for the most part, at least). Spencer Dryden of Jefferson Airplane says the idea for a "Woodstock West" began when he and Jorma Kaukonen discussed the idea of a free show featuring Airplane, The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones. Airplane, of course, performed at Woodstock. The Grateful Dead did not, reportedly because they were leery of the event being too much of a mudbath to be a success (they were at least half right!). The Stones didn't play Woodstock either; Jagger was in Australia honoring his contract to film "Ned Kelly." Though Jagger starred in the film, it was a massive flop. I've read hints and allegations that Jagger could have taken a few days holiday from the filming for the Stones to play Woodstock, but that he wasn't interested because he really didn't think it was going to be all that big a deal. I also read that his being so wrong played heavily in his decision to perform at and organize Altamont.

By now, most accounts of the festival's genesis credit the Stones as being the main organizers, again with a lot of input from the Grateful Dead. It's not unreasonable to think that Jagger and Company failing to appear at Woodstock was a major factor in presenting Altamont; with the Beatles having broken up, the Stones were the unquestioned kings of the rock world, and they missed out on playing to the biggest audience ever assembled for a rock show. Besides the potential error in judgement, Jagger is certainly known to have quite an ego and it's certainly within the realm of possibility that organizing a show that drew more people than Woodstock would be a very solid "we showed THEM!" sort of thing. The Stones had toured much of America in '69, and there were multitudes of complaints about ticket prices being so high, and many accounts of the reasoning behind Altamont include the idea of the band ending the tour and the decade with "the biggest free show of them all;" again, ego and the added attraction of placating any criticisms the band might have received for gouging. Finally, the potential of having some incredible footage of the Stones playing to a massive adoring crowd, as well as behind-the-scenes footage showing the band's solid business acumen, would be an irresistible conclusion to the documentary they had been filming for most of the year. 

Woodstock, remember, was not originally intended to be a free show. It simply became absolutely impossible to demand a ticket for entrance, partially because the weather gods just wouldn't cooperate and partially because about a bazillion more people than anybody anticipated in their wildest dreams showed up. Making Altamont a free show from the start circumvented any need for that, turning it into a tidy little package of ease and a PR masterwork all at once.

The How
This is where things began to go horribly wrong, even before the day of the show. I don't know what the exact timeline was in regards to when the decision was actually made to hold the show and thus how much time anybody and everybody had to actually prepare for it. I do know that the FIRST announcement to the public about a free rock festival featuring the Rolling Stones and others was made only four days before the event was to take place. It is known that the originally desired site was the San Jose State practice field; there had been a recent outdoor free festival held there which accommodated 52 bands and 80,000 people over three days, but the city of San Jose turned down the request. Next on the list was the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco; however, Kezar Stadium (located in Golden Gate park) already had a 49ers game scheduled for that weekend, so the venue became completely impractical. The Sears Point Raceway was settled upon; again, I could not find a date for when the venue decision was made. It was an attractive venue - huge, and the president had offered his land at no cost, assuming various conditions were met. Most of those conditions were pretty standard and easy to agree to; however, during negotiations for the lease contract, two major snags surfaced. First, a huge sum of money was demanded by the raceway as a deposit against potential damages (I've read $100,000, $200,000 and $300,000 in various accounts), and the Stones were very hesitant to put that money up. Second, and probably the dealbreaker, was the raceway's insistence that ANY film revenues resulting from the day's concerts be split 50/50 between the raceway and the band. Game, set, match, fail... there was no way the Stones were ceding that to anybody.

Here's a very interesting little bit of intrigue in regards to the negotiations about film rights. Sears Point Raceway was owned by a large holding company that did business under the name of Filmways. Another of the companies Filmways owned was a promotional firm called Concert Associates. They were the promoters of the Stones concert near Los Angeles during the 1969 tour of America, and like every other promoter, agreed to some very demanding concert terms. Obviously, ticket sales were brisk and one of the ways the Stones reportedly exacted a lot of concessions from Concert Associates was via an unwritten promise to return to Los Angeles for a second show within a matter of weeks (which Concert Associates, of course, would promote). The Stones reneged on the promise. Even as there was no way the Stones would budge on film rights to the upcoming show, there was equally no way Filmways was going to cut any leeway at all in their demands. Touché!

It certainly looked like Filmways would exact quite a revenge. The festival was scheduled for December 6, the stage was already built at the Sears raceway, and pow! As of Thursday, December 4, there WAS NO VENUE for the show. Then, local businessman Dick Carter, who had recently taken over a facility some 65 miles away called Altamont Raceway, got involved. The track had gone broke three times before Carter took it over, and through contacts at the Stanford Business School, he was able to offer his facility for free to the festival. In his eyes, the publicity the raceway would receive would translate into community goodwill and plenty of future dollars. Thus, a man with absolutely zero experience in anything remotely resembling music or rock promotion who ran a facility that had never hosted an event with an attendance of over 6,500 people offered up his place for a concert that was supposed to be the size of Woodstock. Uh-oh...

On the night of December 4, the location for the show was officially switched (though some reports say it wasn't actually announced until only 20 hours before the show was to begin). 

The Pre-Show Problems
Maybe we're all a little wiser or more worldly now, maybe there were too many egos on the line... but simple common sense should tell ANYONE that you cannot, in 36 hours, properly prepare a facility to accommodate over a quarter million people AND seven very prominent performers, including the most famous, notorious rock and roll band in the world. It can't be done... or perhaps far more brutally honest, it can't be properly done. There is simply no way sanitation facilities can be arranged and installed that quickly. There is simply no way proper medical facilities can be arranged and installed that quickly. There is simply no way a proper stage and sound system can be designed and installed that quickly. It mattered not, apparently... they tried to do it all, and while technically they got it done, they did not get it done right, and in the bitter reality of things, they didn't come within a couple of galactic miles of getting it right.

In regards to sanitation facilities, there were reportedly about 100 portable toilets brought to the site, which is not even 10% of what would be minimally sanitary for the expected crowd. Clean water was scarce and nearly impossible to come by on the day of the show. Medical facilities were barren, to say the least; a few tents, a few doctors and nurses, a little bit of medication, and essentially zero facilities on hand to deal with any major sort of disaster. The greatest parts of the efforts made were on the staging and sound system, and even here, both were more than a miserable failure. As I mentioned, there simply wasn't the time available to deisgn and build a new stage, so they took the only route available - the stage that had been built for Sears was moved in pieces to Altamont and reassembled there. Major problem: at Sears, the stage was built at the top of a rise, and so the 39-inch height of the construction was more than adequate for both the safety of the performers and the enjoyment of the audience. At Altamont, the stage sat at the bottom of a slope. You read that right... some of the top performers in the world were to perform on a stage 39 inches tall that was set at the bottom of several hills. There was no "clear area" between the stage and the crowd. There was no barrier between the stage and the crowd.

The sound system wasn't much better. From all reports, nobody heard the sound well that day - not the performers, not the people a hundred feet away from the stage, certainly not the people half a mile away from the stage. The system was nowhere near big enough, loud enough or good enough for a proper presentation of that much music to that many people. 

Directly quoting Rolling Stone magazine from their extensive coverage of the Altamont disaster published in their January 21, 1970 issue: 
"It was as if Altamont's organizers had worked out a blueprint for disaster. Like:
   1) Promise a free concert by a popular rock group which rarely appears in this country. 
       Announce the site only four days in advance.
   2) Change the location 20 hours before the concert.
   3) The new concert site should be as close as possible to a giant freeway.
   4) Make sure the grounds are barren, treeless, desolate.
   5) Don't warn neighboring landowners that hundreds of thousands of people are expected. Be unaware of their out-front
       hostility toward long hair and rock music.
   6) Provide one-sixtieth the required toilet facilities to insure that people will use nearby fields, the sides of cars, etc.
   7) The stage should be located in an area likely to be completely surrounded by people and their vehicles.
   8) Build the stage low enough to be easily hurdled. Don't secure a clear area between stage and audience.
   9) Provide an unreliable barely audible low fidelity sound system.
  10) Ask the Hell's Angels to act as "security" guards."

I'm sorry, what was #10 again??!!??

The Hell's Angels
Yeah... #10 is the one that gets the most notoriety in regards to Altamont. For all that was going wrong and for the entire disaster cocktail that was being brewed, the Stones were most concerned about security. This intensified when they found they'd be performing on a stage that was located in a virtual canyon only about a yard off the ground. Jagger especially had a lot of fears about his own safety, many of them justified; the persona(s) he was crafting were potentially dangerous when viewed or adored by the wrong, perhaps slightly unstable, perhaps slightly addled fan. Besides, it was a rock show and even outside of the Stones, a LOT of big name talent was scheduled to appear. Of all the problems, something had to be done about security.

In fairness, there were certainly extenuating circumstances behind the Stones decision to hire the Angels for security (I'm not going to put quotes around "security" because the people that paid the cash paid for security, plain and simple). Remember, earlier in 1969 came the tragic death of Brian Jones, and amid the grief and mourning, the Stones organized a free show at Hyde Park in London, which sort of doubled as Mick Jones' public debut as the new Stone. That show had its problems as well, but (especially when compared to Altamont) was relatively non-violent. At that show, the London chapter of the Hell's Angels were hired for security, and it went pretty well; they did a good job and they were easy to work with. Also, there was a sort of common knowledge that the Grateful Dead had used the services of the Hell's Angels at their shows before. All this seemed to make it a logical and convenient choice. That this resulted in problems is now the stuff of legend, but at the very least, the band seemed to have at least some justification for the action. Of course, what wasn't known to the band at the time was that the British Angel's weren't actually a real chapter of the Hell's Angels at all... they were a group of avid motorcycle fanciers who essentially christened themselves as a chapter. The real Angels had nothing to do with them in any way, shape or form. After the show, Mick Taylor was quoted as saying, "I think we expected probably something like the Hell's Angels that were our security force at Hyde Park, but of course they're not the real Hell's Angels, they're completely phony. These guys in California are the real thing - they're very violent."

Most accounts agree that the Angels were hired the day before Altamont, and that the "fee" was $500 worth of beer that the Angels could drink freely. Beyond that, it gets very, very, very murky, and it's unlikely that will ever change. Various sources on the side of the Stones and other festival authorities say a lot of things about the deal. Some vigorously claim the Angels were definitely hired as a standard security force, some say they were hired strictly to surround the very low stage and make sure nobody climbed on to the stage who wasn't supposed to be there; Sam Cutler, who at the time was the Stones' road manager, declared that the only agreement ever in place was that the Angels make sure nobody tampered with the power generators. From the Angels' side, they have always denied that they were hired as or ever agreed to provide any sort of security, and again in fairness, that would be extremely consistent with every event the Angels have ever attended or been asked to be a part of. They're NOT a police force, and they make no bones about it. However, written deeply into their own code is the idea that when a deal is made, they adhere to their end of it. From everything I've read, my very best guess would be that the basic deal was indeed that the Angels got $500 worth of beer and that their responsibilities were to surround and protect the stage. I would further guess that when the Angels asked about what means they were supposed to use to protect said stage, in some form or another, "any means necessary" was the agreement. Keep in mind, again... from the Stones side, they had a very successful experience with the Hells Angels back home, and their idea of "any means necessary" was almost certainly not how the Angels on this side of the pond interpret the phrase.

And as such, the stage was set, so to speak. Fairly early on Saturday morning, the first of probably around 300,000 music fans began filing into the Altamont Speedway for what they most likely hoped and dreamed would be an event, maybe the show of a lifetime. It was, just not in any of the ways they were hoping.

The What, Part Two
Woodstock was Three Days Of Peace, Love and Music. Altamont was One Day Of War, Terror and Barely Audible Music. As with all things, it started innocuously enough. People, lots of them, showed up. There were plenty of drugs (most accounts say LOTS of low grade acid) and plenty of alcohol to wash the drugs down. The Angels were there, and while there was plenty of confusion as to exactly what they should do, there was of course no confusion about the beer that was provided for them to consume. Tensions mounted quickly, there was a lot of hostility between the Angels and the crowd, the Angels and the organizers, the crowd and the performers... the whole thing was a huge cauldron of bad vibes, bad drugs, bad planning and, predictably, bad results.

The most notorious incident of the festival happened late, during the Stones performance (which didn't start until after sundown, after making the crowd wait for 90 minutes. Jagger reportedly felt both his makeup and the lighting were more effective in the dark). The name Meredith Hunter will live forever as the ultimate symbol of the Woodstock Nation failure - he was the 18-year old man who was killed by a Hell's Angel while the Rolling Stones played live music. By the time the Stones had taken the stage, so much had already happened that neither the crown nor the Angels were in a particularly loving mood. Again, there are variations about what happened with and to Hunter, but in this case, there's actually film evidence to make much of it clear. Hunter was, from all accounts, a relatively passive young man, intelligent, well-spoken, responsible. However, for whatever reason, he also owned a gun, a fairly menacing-looking long barreled revolver. Who knows why, but for whatever reason, Hunter took his gun with him to the festival that day. By the time the Stones were on stage, he was extremely altered; his autopsy showed he had a significant amount of methamphetamine in his system when he died. Fairly early in the Stones set, Hunter and other fans made an effort to get up onstage with the Stones, and if nothing else was certain, it was VERY clear that the Angels were not to allow this. Hunter was grabbed, punched and chased back into the crowd. The next few moments are subject to various accounts; some say the Angels chased Hunter through the crowd, with the possibility that he was attacked with a knife during the chase, others say the Angels forgot about him after dragging him off the stage and chasing him back to the crowd. However, a few moments later are the moments etched into infamy, with film backup. After about a minute, Hunter reappeared by the stage, his girlfriend reportedly pleading with him to calm down and back off. More than one witness described Hunter as enraged, irrational and so high he could barely walk. He drew his long-barreled .22 from inside his jacket. Hell's Angel Alan Passero saw the revolver being drawn, drew a knife from his own belt, charged Hunter and stabbed him at least twice, which resulted in Hunter's death. The whole incident was a couple of seconds in time, and though caught on film, the cameraman was completely unaware that he had done so until about a week later when reviewing the raw footage. After the stabbing, the crowd closed around Passero and Hunter; it is possible that Hunter was stabbed up to five times, though only two are actually captured on film, and as with everything else, there are widely varying accounts as to what happened next. Some say Passero took his place back by the stage and resumed his job, others say he "stood guard" over Hunter's fallen body and angrily demanded the crowd leave him alone, some reporting the quote, "He's going to die anyways, just let him die."

It was a couple of seconds, but one young man and a whole lot of dreams, fantasies and fairy tales died in those couple of seconds.

While certainly the day's most notorious incident, it was far from the only ugliness of the day. Four people actually died that day; Hunter, two people in a hit-and-run incident outside of the speedway and a young man who jumped into an irrigation canal and was quickly overwhelmed by a very strong current; he drowned. There are legends that four children were also born during the festival, but what looked to be a pretty thorough investigation by Rolling Stone magazine found no evidence of it; nobody at any of the medical stations reported the birth of a child, and no area hospitals had any record of births that could be attributed to the timeframe of the festival and attended to after. The magazine seemed to conclude that the myth of four births was a sort of weak counter to the documented fact that four people died. What else?

   • During Santana's set, quite a few concertgoers were beaten by Angels carrying the preferred weapon of the day - sawed
     off pool cues. 

   • Skirmishes between the crowd and the Angels continued; during Jefferson Airplane's set, singer Marty Balin tried to
     intercede during a fight between a member of the audience and one of the Angels and was literally knocked out cold.
     When Paul Kantner took to the mic to say something about it, he was verbally and physically threatened by another
     Angel, and it took intervention to prevent Kantner from being possibly seriously hurt.

   • Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young gave a very half-hearted performance, only even consenting to perform at the sincere
     urging of David Crosby. There was continuous violence visible to them during most of their set, including one time where
     the Angels looked to make an almost military charge into the crowd, brandishing their pool cues and knocking cold
     anybody they felt they needed to. After the CSNY set, stretchers were taken into the crowd and a "significant number" of
     bloodied, wounded fans were taken from the crowd.

   • The Grateful Dead, who were supposed to perform after CSNY and just before the Stones, heard of all the violence and
     ugliness and simply refused to play. This prompted many journalists to comment that it was a perfect thumbnail of
     Altamont - that essentially the "home team" and one of the principal organizers of the event didn't even play.

   • Even Mick Jagger, for all his paranoia, fell victim. Shortly after the Stones arrived at the event via helicopter, a fan rushed
     up to him, reportedly screaming, "I hate you! I hate you!" and punched Jagger in the face.

The litany goes on and on and on. Medical people report that there were so many freakouts from the combination of bad drugs and bad happenings that they pretty much abandoned their preferred method of trying first to talk people down; things got so crazy, doctors started immediately administering doses of thorazine to try to bring people out of it. There were so many freakouts the doctors had to send for emergency supplies of thorazine; they ran out. The fights never stopped, and once the mood of the crowd went from bad to worse to disastrous, the fighting wasn't just warfare between the Angels and the fans; the crowd turned on itself, with numerous injuries reported even far away from the mayhem of the stage. 

Nothing went right. Nothing. Woodstock had hopefully proven that a city-sized crowd could gather and exist together in difficult circumstances, and that caring and music would hold them together and provide a means for survival. Altamont proved that it just wasn't so.

Epilogue
Did the music really die that day? Not literally, of course not. Journalistic excess, guilty as charged... yes, I wanted very much for you to read this article. Much of the greatest music of my and many other lives was created from the seventies onward and continues to be made to this very day. Were things the same afterwards? No, they weren't. While they obviously didn't go away for good, the idea of festivals (at least in the U.S.) went away for a long, long time, and when they began to come back, you can bet your bottom dollar that Altamont was the primary case study of everything NOT to do if you want to survive, both financially and maybe even figuratively. While for the most part the Stones never said much about the whole thing, most of the other performers were very open about the trauma they suffered as a result of their world falling apart around them. Certainly there was an element of their profession, which by now was becoming established and (dare I say it?) perhaps even respectable, being seriously affected in a negative way by all this. However, reading over the quotes and watching some of the video footage of interviews with the performers... the pain on their faces and in their voices seems real. And seriously... who ever picks up a guitar and dreams of playing on stage in front of a whole lot of people and thinks, "Woah! Maybe some day I can even help get somebody killed!"

Alan Passero was eventually arrested and charged with murder. He was found not guilty, mainly because of the film evidence which plainly showed that Hunter drew his weapon first (there's even disputed evidence that he fired the gun before he was attacked). As of references I found from as late as 1973, nobody from the Rolling Stones organization and nobody from any of the systems involved with Altamont has contacted Meredith Hunter's family to offer even so much as a condolence. Though it was reported that the Stones were supposed to be carrying a $1,000,000 insurance policy for the event, I can find no documentation anywhere that anybody got any financial compensation from Altamont. Outside of the Hunter family, I have no doubt that some 300,000 people carried some pretty deep scars with them for a long, long time. December 5, 1969 - the Rolling Stones gift the music world with Let It Bleed. December 6, 1969 - Altamont, largely the brainchild of those same Stones, draws enough blood that the entire hippie movement goes on life support.

What a difference one damned day makes...

Like any lifelong fan of music (or anything, for that matter), I can point to a certain number of moments while I was discovering and falling in love with music that literally changed my outlook on things forever. In December of 1969, I was 14 years old and listening to the cool FM station in Rochester, NY, when the DJ got all excited and announced that he'd be playing the brand new Rolling Stones album in it's entirety. It took about the first minute of "Gimme Shelter," the album's opening track, for me to think that nothing, musically, would ever be the same in my life again. I was right.

While I didn't necessarily have the "personal database" to fall back on then that I have now, I knew right away I had never heard anything like "Gimme Shelter" before. It's still my favorite rock 'n roll song of all time, hands down, so I guess it's fair to say I've never heard anything like it since. From the haunting grab-your-ears-by-the-throat opening to that amazing female vocal to the power of the song itself to the lyrics and to every nuance of the song I've explored so many times over the years, it is indeed a perfect piece of music. I can't think of many other songs where a performance by a background singer (in this case, the amazing Merry Clayton) netted the singer a recording contract, but it did so here. The song was so powerful on first listen that I called the radio station to make sure of the album's title and did the unthinkable; I dipped into the piggybank, zealously hoarded for Christmas shopping, hiked up to the local mall and bought Let It Bleed on the strength of one song.

It was only after getting home and playing my newfound favorite rock song ever about a dozen times in a row that I let the needle continue on to track two... and for the next forty-ish minutes, was given for the first time the gift of my favorite rock 'n roll album of all time. To this day, I remember sitting and listening slack-jawed, astounded over and over and over again; nine perfect slices that embodied everything I wanted out of rock 'n roll, then and always. After the first listen to the complete album, I just sat there in silence, staring at the cover and truly appreciating having been given something astounding, groudbreaking... life-changing. The realization that something had shifted was immediate, and to this day, it's the feeling I always secretly hope for during the first few moments of every new release I hear. 

This is the Stones album that has it all. You get welcome peeks into music that fascinated the Stones - blues, with their cover of Robert Johnson's classic "Love In Vain" or country, with gems like "You Got The Silver," the title track and the brilliant album rework of what was already the best single of 1969, "Country Honk" (reworking, of course, "Honky Tonk Women"). You get badass boys with their tales of midnight ramblers flaunting social mores while imploring some chick to live with them. You get the Stones at their darkest and most doomsday-prophetic via "Gimme Shelter," and after we hear songs of love and lust and violence and uncertainty and braggadocio, the album closes with angelic voices and a magnificent tune advising us after all this that, while we can't always get what we want, if we look sometime, we just might find... we get what we need.

For me, this was also the Stones at their most bombastic, coupled with them being at their most creative. It's interesting to note that the band started recording "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in November of 1968 (even before the release of the previous album, Beggar's Banquet); they began work in earnest on recording the album in February of '69 and didn't finish until November of that year. It's almost a perfect storm of circumstances in allowing an already great band to blossom. While the Stones had, no doubt, been aware of the power they held as a great band for a while, certainly the attention they drew from tracks like "Sympathy For The Devil" only stood to magnify that power they held over the rock public's psyche; when you combine creativity, vision, talent and the perception of power, some amazing things can happen. It was also a personally volatile time for the band; the death of Brian Jones and all the swirling circumstances had, perhaps, slapped the Stones in the face with the reality that everything wasn't always going to be perfect and idyllic. Thus, in many ways, Let It Bleed is an insanely transitional record for the band. It's the last time Brian Jones would appear on any Stones recordings, of course, and even his very minimal contributions (congas on one song, autoharp on another) are at least haunting enough in memory to color the intensity of the release. It was the first appearance on record of Jones' replacement, Mick Taylor, but he only appears on two tracks as well; thus, for the most part, this most classic of albums was generated in the largest part by the Core Four of Jagger, Richards, Wyman and Watts. Of course, it's nice to have friends, too, and for a list of pals making appearances on one or two select tracks throughout, how's this for a hall-of-fame list: Ian Stewart, Nicky Hopkins, Byron Berline, Merry Clayton, Ry Cooder, Bobby Keys, Jimmy Miller, Leon Russell, Jack Nitzsche, Al Kooper and, of course, The London Bach Choir all contribute. Jimmy Miller also produced the album, reprising his excellent work from Beggar's Banquet, and it was pretty obvious that Miller understood the band, gave them the creative reign they needed and was able to take a lot of diverse sounds, moods and influences and help shape them into incredibly cohesive releases. His brilliance in the Stones legacy should not be understated.

Why? Because, no matter what was needed within the sound and mood of a song, Miller's production genius helped to get it across. A good song is a good song and the eight originals and one cover here are all good songs, but the individual care and treatment tendered to each track helps, in cohesion with the performances, to transcend them to brilliant. "Gimme Shelter" needs the near-mystic power of Clayton's vocal to drive home Keith's stinging guitar and Mick's half-pleading, half-warning vocal, just as the title track needs the sloppy, boozy rambling treatment it receives to compliment Jagger's purposely comical cloying. "Midnight Rambler" wouldn't have had half the scary power it has without the churning grind of the open and close, Jagger's harmonica doing a surprisingly good job of playing off a typically loose and effective performance from Richards. Of course, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is perhaps the band's absolute apex as a production piece. It takes more than just a little bit of genius to make Jagger sound convincingly innocent by this point, but everything about the track drives home the atypical wide-eyed optimism offered by Mick and company. For all this, the track which gets very little mention in retrospect is "Monkey Man," and I consider that to be a shame. This is a vintage Stones performance all the way through, from the slinky churn of the basic tune to the surreal and pretty damned funny lyrics within. "I'm a fleabit peanut monkey, all my friends are junkies... that's not really true." Bad boy hilarious! Jagger's vocal is a nice teasing compliment to the mood and tone of the song, but what really makes this a stellar track is Keith's guitar work. For all the guitar highs on this album, and there are plenty of them, this track is strangely my favorite. Especially with the extended instrumental break starting at about 1:45 of the song, this is Richard's at his aggressive, chunky, brutal, soaring and sloppy best, everything I love about his work and pretty much all his trademarks rolled into one nifty little package. That kind of work underneath lines like "I'm a cold Italian pizza, I could use a lemon squeezer... what do you do?" make me answer, "Well... me, I just kinda sit back and listen and chuckle in wonder... how 'bout you?"

If you're going to be the consummate bad-boy band of the sixties, and if you're going to release an album hoping to summarize the hopes and fears, the triumphs and sorrows, the agonies and the ecstacies of the decade before moving on, you best realize you're taking on a Herculean task. Obviously, the Stones met the challenge, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's life was never again quite the same. I adore this album. I did on the day of it's release, I do now, and if someday I can find a way to take a copy with me to the hereafter, I assure you, I will.

Lagniappe

I mentioned in a Strawbs retrospective a while back about that band having one of the most impressive four-album runs in rock history; how about Beggar's Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile On Main Street (1972)? I'd say that qualifies for inclusion on any "as good as it gets" list... Here's a line about a classic album you might have easily forgotten; "the album was originally released in the U.S on LP record, reel to reel tape and 8-track cartridge..." Delia Smith is pretty much the British equivalent to Julia Childs, in that she's usually acknowledged as the biggest star television chef in the country's media history. As a relative unknown back in '69, it was she who baked the cake used on the cover of Let It Bleed. As much as I've always liked the cover, I never understood the reasoning behind it until I found out that the cover design was actually for the album's working title, Automatic Changer. Personally, I'm glad they changed the title and didn't change the cover... The cover was, by the way, one of ten chosen by the Royal Mail in England for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January of 2010... Re-reading (after all these years; I didn't remember a bit of it) the original review of this album written by Greil Marcus that appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine made me really nostalgic for a couple of reasons. First, of course, it was nice to be reminded about what a great rock critic Marcus was; I loved his writing (even though he comically hates the cover of this album!). Second, it was good to read such a passionate, in-depth review of an instant classic. Marcus obviously had no word limit on the review; it takes the time to explore the potential social significance of the album, and in general is written in a way that reviews are rarely written any more. It was quite a vibrant reminder as to how much all this meant not just to us, but to the changing world and to art and culture. You can find the original review here; it's well worth your time, a nice reminder of how passionate a good critic can be in regards to his or her work.