The Woodstock Festival

By Carlos Casquete, Oriol Sentís and Antón Tendero

The Woodstock Festival was the biggest rock festival in the history. It took place on a farm in Bethel, New York, from 15th to 18th August 1969. Its slogan was “three days of love and peace”.

It brought together 500,000 “hippies”. The local population did not want this event to place there, but it did. There were some problems but it never came to a halt. Important bands like the Who, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker and Carlos Santana played sets. It was so successful that ten years later a second festival was organized, with Bob Dylan and other important bands of the time taking part.

Woodstock stood as a big hippy gathering with nothing more than peace, love, flowers, colored dresses and happiness. One of the most important reasons for holding the festival was the war in Vietnam, which was going on at the same time. The organizers thought that 60,000 people would come to the festival but because of the price of the tickets – they only cost $6 – there were 500,000.

There are a lot of amazing and beautiful stories about the festival and it was an event that changed the lives of thousands of teenagers in the 1970s.

On the evening of the first day, Woodstock began with sets by Richie Havens and other artists, such as the Incredible String Band and Joan Baez, in a peaceful and calm atmosphere. The second day was the most representative day of the entire festival, because Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin, the Who and Jefferson Airplane all played. The last day of the festival was incredible because Jimi Hendrix played for around two hours and improvised a great deal.

Nina by Nina!

By Nina Vanishvili

For me, Nina Simone is one of the best musicians in history. She was a singer, composer and pianist in various styles of music, including jazz, blues and soul. Her nickname was “High Priestess of Soul”.

There is one curious point that not everybody knows: her real name was Eunice Kathleen Waymon, not Nina Simone. She started calling herself Nina Simone in 1954. Nina comes from the Spanish word “niña” and Simone from her favourite artist, Simone Signoret, whom she saw in the film Casque d'Or.

She began playing the piano when she was 3 years old and had a classical training in the Juilliard School in New York for one year. She wanted to attend the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia but she was rejected; she always thought this was because of racism.

She had to start working in bars as a singer because she and her family needed money. After that Nina debuted as a singer but at first she was not successful. She became famous with the song I Love You Porgy and then with one of my favourite songs My Baby Just Cares For Me, which became a big hit in Britain.

In 1970 Nina left the United States on account of racism and other issues, although racism was the foremost. She went to Barbados, where she did little of any significance, merely acting and singing in jazz clubs.

Two important events occurred after she left the United States. On July 24th 1998, Nina Simone was invited to Nelson Mandela’s 80th birthday and on October 7th 1999, she received a prize in Dublin for her lifetime’s artistic achievements.

Her last awards were: In 2000 she received Honorary Citizenship of Atlanta, the Diamond Award for Excellence in Music from the African American Association of Music in Philadelphia and the Honourable Musketeer Award from the Compagnie des Mousquetaires d'Armagnac in France. She died in her sleep in Carry-le-Rouet in 2003.

Who wrote IMAGINE?

By Nina Vanishvili

Imagine, John Lennon's most famous song, was voted Britain's favourite song of all time. It is an idealistic song about peace and the hope for a better world. Imagine all the people living life in peace. The song was a big hit in 1971, and again in 1980 when Lennon was murdered in New York . It become a hit for a third time after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001. But who really wrote the song? Until recently the answer to this questions was always John Lennon. But on a TV programme Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, spoke for the first time about how she, in fact, helped to write it. Ono said that the inspiration for Imagine came from some of her poems, which John Lennon was reading at that time. The poems began with the word “Imagine”: Imagine a raindrop, Imagine a goldfish. Ono said: “When I was a child in Japan during the Second World War my brother and I were terribly hungry. I imagined delicious menus for him and he began to smile. If you think something is impossible, you can imagine it and make it happen”. In an interview just before he died, Lennon admitted that Yoko deserved credit for Imagine. He said: “A lot of it – the lyrics and the concept – came from her, from her book of poems, Imagine this, imagine that”. Lennon said that he was too macho to share the credit with her at the time. Ono said that some of the song was written when they were flying across the Atlantic and the rest was written on the piano in their bedroom at their home in England. Ono said: “The song speaks about John's dream for the world. It was something he really wanted to say”. Imagine became a popular song for peace activists everywhere. In March 2002 the airport in his home town of Liverpool was renamed the John Lennon Airport. A sign over the main entrance has a line from Imagine: “Above us only sky”.