STEALING DYLAN FROM WOODSTOCK: COOL NEW BOOK!

Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970

“I think the great gathering of youth in America and the Isle of Wight might have just been a pop concert to some people but they were a lot more than that. They were youth getting together and forming a ‘new church’, as it were, and saying, We Believe in God, we believe in hope and truth, and here we are, 200,000 of us – all together in peace.”John Lennon

In 1969, the world was rocked by the announcement that Bob Dylan would come out of retirement to perform at a tiny, unknown UK event: the Isle of Wight Festival.After a three year withdrawal from live performances following a motorcycle injury, the ‘voice of a generation’ was back.

What followed was the event of a lifetime; over 150,000 Dylan fans flocked to the island, blocking roads, overloading ferries and starting the greatest party the Isle of Wight had ever seen.

Celebrities including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Keith Richards, George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, Jane Fonda and cricket star Bob Willis joined the massive crowds.

For the first time, festival founder Ray Foulk tells the behind-the-scenes story of how three young brothers stole the world’s biggest music star from the infamous Woodstock Festival (placed in Dylan’s backyard to coax the legend to come out and play), and launched one of the UK’s biggest music events.

Through a collection of the author’s personal memoirs, as well as never-before-seen photographs and surprising backstage anecdotes about rock’s biggest legends, Stealing Dylan from Woodstock recreates the pivotal summer of ’69 when festival culture began.

Ray Foulk was born in Derbyshire in 1945. After leaving school at 16, he went on with his brother to found the Isle of Wight Festival at the age of 23. Following the festival’s incredible popularity, Ray went on to become a successful music promoter, opening Wembley Stadium as a music venue for the first time, and staging major concerts around London.

Later on, Ray became interested in social planning after being head-hunted by the developing city of Milton Keynes and was responsible for introducing the ideas of revolutionary architect Buckminster Fuller- an interest that led Ray to read architecture at Cambridge University. He now lives and works in Oxford.

Caroline Foulk, Ray’s daughter, was born on the Isle of Wight in 1966. Passionate about the festivals that shaped her childhood, Caroline aided her father with research for the book. A former teacher and an established researcher and writer, Caroline lives in Oxford with her husband and three children.

KURT TEK: THE ROLLING STONES PLAY ABU DHABI!

Mick Jagger (Reuters) of the Rolling Stones perform during a concert in Abu Dhabi, Feb. 21, 2014.

Vintage rockers, the Rolling Stones played their first-ever concert in the Middle East on Friday on Yas Island - a gig to 30,000, mostly Western fans in culturally conservative Abu Dhabi.

Ronnie, Mick and Mick Taylor (Reuters)

Some thoughts on the concert from Kurt Tek 

(Senior F-16 Advisor at Global Aerospace Logistics)

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Mick Jagger (C), Charlie Watts (L) and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones perform during a concert in Abu Dhabi, Feb. 21, 2014. (Reuters)

KURT TEK:

Number 1: They were on time, like they had their watches hacked at the Greenwich Observatory or something.

Number 2: No warm-up band- just the 'Stones! That was a nice surprise...

They opened with Start Me Up, a bit too "common" for my taste, but they hit most of the greats- Midnight Rambler, Brown Sugar, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Satisfaction, Tumblin' Dice, You Can't Always Get What you Want, Gimme Shelter, Honky Tonk Women... Plus two encores, starting with Sympathy for the Devil.

Mick was in great form, very good mood, articulate and knowledgeable about the local area and spoke some Arabic. Moved like a 30-year old, and had great crowd interaction.

Keith played great but made a point of stopping one song, Slippin' Away, and starting over when he wasn't happy with the intro.

Charlie was solid as ever, and Ronnie did well. I never noticed before, but he uses his middle finger a lot when playing lead- unusual (to me, anyway)- normally it's the index and ring finger, and pinky, just the way most blues scales are aligned on the fretboard...

Mick Taylor played on a couple too, most notably Midnight Rambler.

Excellent sound quality, without needing earplugs. Huge monitor screens all over so people everywhere could see. Tremendous show and opportunity overall! K

(They did NOT play (This May Be the) Last Time.)

 Kurt Tek: Stationed in Abu Dhabi the capital and second largest city in the United Arab Emirates. He is a senior F-16E instructor pilot over there. Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He plays guitar, is a huge Rolling Stones fan,is one of Deniz Tek's younger brothers, and was able to go see THE STONES play in Abu Dhabi! Kurthas contributed other articles on RK and you can read more here KURT TEK

BOB BAUER: THIS COUNTRY'S ROCKIN: MAY 22, 1989

WLLZ disc jockey Bob Bauer at This Country's Rockin

This was an interesting day... I spent time interviewing Detroit DJ Bob Bauer today... We discovered that we were both at "This Country's Rockin" 23 act concert at the Pontiac Silverdome..May 22, 1989.

Bob was a host and I was a show promoter watching from the audience...This concert had 23 legendary bands...but to me the audience was dead...I couldn't believe how few people actually showed up for this fabulous show..

I watched the gates all day and finally I couldn't take the stress anymore and I found the promoter and asked him why he wasn't upset with the poor attendance. He laughed abd told me they had sold the cable tv rights and they made a profit in advance!! So Bob and I talked about this show today...

PEOPLE MAGAZINE ARCHIVE STORY

With a cast and crew of some 500, a production tab of $2 million and tickets that sold as poorly as caviar at a K mart, the 23-act country-rock crossover hoedown in Detroit's Silverdome could have been a megawatt disaster. Instead, it turned into a 13-hour marathon of pickin' and riffin' that was as much celebrity bash as staged spectacle.

Dwight Yoakam

The fans, who numbered a peak 18,000 in late afternoon but even then rattled around in the 50,000-seat arena, had paid prices ranging from $22.50 (in advance) to an empty Coca-Cola can (at the gate) to see Gregg Allman, Ted Nugent and the Marshall Tucker Band on the same bill with the Stray Cats, Dwight Yoakam, Sawyer Brown and Ronnie Hawkins.

(L-R) Rock singer Ray Davies Carl Perkins & Ronnie Hawkins

But crowd size was irrelevant. The point of the This Country's Rockin' concert was to produce a 10-hour tape that will air on cable television July 4. The bill was designed, said promoter Jim Fitzgerald, "to break down the barricades and show how rock, country and blues have all been influenced by each other, and that good music is good music."

Ted Nugent

Emcee Ted Nugent teasingly threatened to make "everybody chewing tobacco swallow it at the door," but decided that "most country artists are just frustrated rockers anyhow." David Crosby and Stephen Stills performed separately but spoke briefly. The Band's Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko caught up with country rocker Ronnie Hawkins, whom they backed up in the early '60s.

Former Oak Ridge Boy William Lee Golden toted along sons Chris and Rusty, who perform as the country-rock group the Goldens. Country singer T. Graham Brown rented a Lear jet so he could keep a later gig in Austin, Texas. Gregg Allman, too, found it important enough to fly in for the afternoon.

And rockabilly granddad Carl Perkins, 57, accepted credit for inventing the genre when he wrote "Blue Suede Shoes" in 1956. "Somebody said, 'Carl, you really opened up that rock and roll door,' and I said, 'Yeah, and I stood in it and got run over by every damn one of y'all.'"

But Perkins saw the beauty of the musical merger as he took the stage at 3 A.M. for a hardy holdout crowd of 3,000. "It's like iced tea," he said. "You got tea to make it hot, ice to make it cold, sugar to make it sweet and lemon to make it sour, but it all comes out tastin pretty good."