Janis Joplin - Texas Pop Festival 1969

The Texas International Pop Festival was the first major rock festival in Texas. Held August 30 through September 1, 1969, at the Dallas International Motor Speedway in Lewisville, the event was produced in part by Angus Wynne III of Wynne Entertainment. The Texas festival was held only two weeks after the legendary Woodstock festival in Woodstock, New York. It was unusual in the wide variety of musical acts it attracted and in its atmosphere.
With a budget of only $120,000, the promoters booked twenty-six of the biggest names in blues,qv rock-and-roll,qv and psychedelic rock. Janis Joplin,qv Sam and Dave, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana, Canned Heat, the Grass Roots, B. B. King, Chicago Transit Authority, Tony Joe White, Spirit, Johnny Winter, Sweetwater, Ten Years After, Freddie King,qv and a virtually unknown British band, Led Zeppelin, all performed during the three-day festival. The musical acts were not paid much to perform; Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin were paid the most—$10,000 each. Some major groups that wanted to perform could not get in to play. A band from Michigan, Grand Funk Railroad, was allowed to perform only after the members agreed to play free and pay their own expenses.
The festival was extensively advertised through radioqv and newspaper and was promoted at Woodstock. Consequently, music enthusiasts from all over the United States, and from numerous foreign countries, poured into Lewisville to pay the admission fee of $6.50 a day. Although the promoters anticipated a crowd of over 200,000, actual attendance for the three days was more like 120,000. The festival lost money, but was generally considered a success by those who attended. The promoters created a "carnival-like" atmosphere that featured booths catering to "flower-children." Astrologers, painters, artists, craftsmen, and leather workers; sellers of incense, T-shirts, jewelry, and candles; and food vendors all peddled their wares. Most who attended the festival camped on the adjacent 10,000-acre lakefront. At night, many of the performers joined the campers and played without charge. Initially, police and local authorities were concerned about drug usage and traffic problems on nearby Interstate 35. Although there were a few drug overdoses and problems associated with the intense heat, in general the festival ran very smoothly. The primary complaint from local residents was that the festival participants swam naked in Lake Lewisville.
Interest in the Texas International Pop Festival remained years after the event. Various bootleg albums were released from live recordings of the performances, and decades later, bootlegs surfaced as sale items on the Internet. "Got No Shoes, Got No Blues," a video of some of the musical acts at the festival, was also available, as well as reproductions of festival posters and programs.

01 - Stage Announcement by Wavy Gravy
02 - Raise Your Hand
03 - As Good As You've Been
04 - Try
05 - Maybe
06 - To Love Somebody
07 - Summertime

SOURCE	AUD	SOUND QUALITY	A	FORMAT	Mp3	BITRATE	160	TRACKS #	07
LOCATION / VENUE		Lewisville		Dallas International Motor Speedway		DATE		1969
NOTES:		More about the Texas Pop bootlegs here

Led Zeppelin - Plays Pure Blues

Texas International Pop Festival August 31, 1969

Track List:
1 -  Train Kept a' Rollin
2 -  I Can't Quit You
3 -  Dazed and Confused
4 -  You Shook Me
5 -  How Many More Times
6 -  Communication Breakdown

 

 

 

                              

                             

 

Johnny Winter: Albino Blues

Johnny Winter (born John Dawson Winter III on 23 February 1944 in Beaumont, Texas) is an American blues guitarist and singer, well known for his albinism, as well as his musical skills. He is the first son of John and Edwina Winter who were very much responsible for Johnny and his younger brother Edgar Winter's early musical awareness.

He began performing at a young age with Edgar, who is also affected with albinism. His recording career began at the age of 15, when their band "Johnny and the Jammers" released "School Day Blues" on a Houston record label. During this same period, he was able to see performances by classic blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B. B. King and Bobby Bland.

In 1968, Johnny began playing in a trio with bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner. An article in Rolling Stone magazine helped generate interest in the group. The album "Johnny Winter" was released near the end of that year. In 1969 they performed at numerous rock festivals including Woodstock. Johnny's reputation was well cemented at this point that he can be heard performing with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison on the infamous Hendrix bootleg recording "Woke Up This Morning and Found Myself Dead" done at New York City's Scene Club.

In 1973, after struggling with a drug problem, he returned in classic form with "Still Alive and Well".

In 1977, he produced the Muddy Waters recording, "Hard Again". Their partnership produced a number of Grammy-winning recordings and he recorded the album "Nothing but the Blues" with members from Muddy Waters' band. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. He was on the cover of the first Guitar World in 1980.

There are quite a few Johnny Winter albums that are considered "non-official." A majority of these albums were produced by the late Roy Ames, owner of Home Cooking Records/ Clarity Music Publishing. According to a Houston Press article dated Aug 28, 2003, Johnny Winter left town for the express purpose of getting away from him. Roy Ames died on August 14, 2003 of natural causes at age 66. As Ames left no obvious heirs, the ownership rights of the Ames master recordings remains unclear.

As Johnny stated in an interview when the subject of Roy Ames came up, "This guy has screwed so many people it makes me mad to even talk about him."

In a recent interview for North Bay Bohemian, a Northern California weekly, Johnny explained his current approach to music:

"Most of the stuff I do is fairly old," he says, which befits the lifelong bluesman. But don't expect to hear "Rock 'n' Roll Hoochie Koo," even though that was one of his signature songs back in the day. On this tour, Winter says firmly, "we're not playing any rock and roll at all."

The Smashing Pumpkins paid a homage to Winter by recording an instrumental song titled Tribute to Johnny, in which they try to resemble Winter's unique sound. The song was originally intended for their highly acclaimed 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness but was rejected and eventually turned as b-side on their Zero single and also was included in their box-set The Aeroplane Flies High.

Johnny Winter - Texas Pop Festival 1969

Johnny Winter - Roskilde Festival 1984