Woodstock: Massive Box Set Planned For August

Rhino Records has announced the Aug. 2 release of Woodstock 50—Back to the Garden—The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive, a huge, 38-disc boxed set containing nearly every note played at the 1969 Woodstock festival.

The set will include 432 tracks, 267 of which have never before been released. Only three songs performed at the festival are not included. The set will even include the stage announcements that arrived between acts.

The package will also include a Blu-ray of the director’s cut of the Woodstock film, a hardcover book written by original festival promoter Michael Lang, and various collectibles, including a replica of the original program, a guitar strap, replica posters, photos by Henry Diltz and more.

The material will all be housed in a screen-printed plywood box with a canvas insert. The set will be released in a limited, numbered edition of—very clever, Rhino—1969 pieces. The retail price of the box is set for a whopping $799.98.

Complete performances of the Who, Joe Cocker, Sly and the Family Stone, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and others, along with acts who weren’t in the movie or the original Woodstock album, like the Band, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Janis Joplin will be available for the first time. The tracks are also arranged chronologically, by day and set times, from Richie Havens’ opening set that August Friday in 1969 to Jimi Hendrix’s festival-closing set on Monday morning. To ease the overwhelming listening experience, each act is accorded its own disc.

“There have been large boxed sets devoted to particular eras or tours — the Grateful Dead do a great job of that sort of thing — but there’s never, to my knowledge, been an attempt to present a large-scale durational experience of this sort,” says Andy Zax, the Los Angeles producer and archivist who co-produced the set with Steve Woolard. “The Woodstock tapes give us a singular opportunity for a kind of sonic time travel, and my intention is to transport people back to 1969. There aren’t many other concerts you could make this argument about.”

Rolling Stone Magazine- DAVID BROWNE / Best Classic Bands Staff

Janis Joplin: New Biography Coming in Fall

A new Janis Joplin biography, simply titled Janis: Her Life and Music, is set to be published Oct. 22 by Simon & Schuster. The book is authored by Holly George-Warren, a two-time Grammy nominee whose previous books include bios of Alex Chilton and Gene Autry, as well as The Road to Woodstock (with Michael Lang).According to the pre-publication promotional material, “This blazingly intimate biography of Janis Joplin establishes the Queen of Rock & Roll as the rule-breaking musical trailblazer and complicated, gender-bending rebel she was.”

The publicity material continues: “Janis Joplin’s first transgressive act was to be a white girl who gained an early sense of the power of the blues, music you could only find on obscure records and in roadhouses along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But even before that, she stood out in her conservative oil town. She was a tomboy who was also intellectually curious and artistic. By the time she reached high school, she had drawn the scorn of her peers for her embrace of the Beats and her racially progressive views. Her parents doted on her in many ways but were ultimately put off by her repeated acts of defiance.

“Janis Joplin has passed into legend as a brash, impassioned soul doomed by the pain that produced one of the most extraordinary voices in rock history. But in these pages, Holly George-Warren provides a revelatory and deeply satisfying portrait of a woman who wasn’t all about suffering. Janis was a perfectionist: a passionate, erudite musician who was born with talent but also worked exceptionally hard to develop it. She was a woman who pushed the boundaries of gender and sexuality long before it was socially acceptable. She was a sensitive seeker who wanted to marry and settle down—but couldn’t or wouldn’t. She was a Texan who yearned to flee Texas but could never quite get away—even after becoming a countercultural icon in San Francisco.”

The bio is “based on unprecedented access to Janis Joplin’s family, friends, band mates, archives and long-lost interviews. In a back-cover blurb, Rosanne Cash says, “I’ve been waiting for the right person to write the definitive biography of Janis Joplin! All fans should be grateful it’s finally here. Janis lives and breathes freedom and soul, and Holly George-Warren captures that spirit perfectly.”-by Best Classic Bands Staff

Mark Knopfler Opens Extensive 2019 Tour

In celebration of his upcoming ninth solo studio album, Down The Road Wherever (released last Nov. 16), Mark Knopfler opened a world tour in Barcelona, Spain, on April 25. The European leg continues through July 22 followed by an extensive run of North American dates.

On tour, Knopfler is performing with an expanded 10-piece band, most of whom have been working with him for more than two decades: Guy Fletcher (keyboards), Richard Bennett (guitar), Jim Cox (piano), Mike McGoldrick (whistle and flute), John McCusker (fiddle and cittern), Glenn Worf (bass), Danny Cummings (percussion) and Ian Thomas (drums). New additions include Graeme Blevins (saxophone) and Tom Walsh (trumpet). Tickets are available through StubHub and Ticketmaster for more details.

For more info: https://www.markknopfler.com/by Best Classic Bands Staff

Billy Idol and Bryan Adams Launching Joint U.S. Co-Headlining Tour

Billy Idol and Bryan Adams are hitting the road together this summer for their first-ever joint U.S. tour. The Live Nation-produced co-headlining outing will hit eight cities, beginning on Aug. 1 with a show in Gilford, New Hampshire, wrapping up on Aug. 12 in Bristow, Virginia.

Tickets for the shows will go on sale to the general public beginning on Friday (May 3) at 10 a.m. local time here. Citi is the official presale credit card of the tour, with Citi cardmembers gaining access to presale tickets beginning on Wednesday (May 1) at 10 a.m. local time until Thursday (May 2) at 10 p.m.

Gil Kaufman / Billboard Magazine