Saturday, August 15, 2009

Woodstock - Kesäpäivä


We interrupt this Finnpick Humour Week for a special announcement. Today is the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock Festival. Woodstock Music & Art Fair (informally known as Woodstock Festival) was held at Max Yasgur's 240 ha dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York - 69 km southwest of the town of Woodstock. Joni Mitchell was originally booked to perform, but canceled at the urging of her manager to avoid missing a scheduled appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. However Joni was so impressed about the festival that he afterwards wrote a song to honour the event, a song simply called "Woodstock". She wrote this song in a hotel room in New York City, watching the reports of the Festival on television. "The deprivation of not being able to go provided me with an intense angle on Woodstock," she told an interviewer. The song was later released on her third album, Ladies of the Canyon in 1970. The Finnish pop-rock group Karma, very popular in the 70's, recorded it on their 1976 album "Huomenta suomi". It was called "Kesäpäivä" (Summer day) and the lyrics were by another popular Finnish artist Erkki Liikanen. It was never released as a single and is sadly forgotten becouse it is a decent version of the song.. The most famous version of "Woodstock" was done by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who themselves played in Woodstock. The song become a hit and the recording most associated with the festival.

Updated on 02.10-2009: added Joni Mitchell's original

Here's the triplet:

1 comment:

Arrowman said...

Thanks for this...
Didn't remember that Karma had this stylish songs too. I'm more familiar with their country songs and rockier style like they had on their firs album "Wig wam bam" and Uriah heeps "Pakoon pahaa maailmaa"
This post was great!!!