Travel back to 1970 for the concert that started Greenpeace

The hot news for those folks who made it though the 60s is the newly discovered Vancouver concert for Amchitka from October 17, 1970.

Remember when the world was young and we were young in it. When things were changing for the better, when old ways were destined to go, before we grew up and had families and houses and jobs, there were concerts where we celebrated life and our youth. This is one most of us missed.

When music has become a commodity, ever changing without end and without reality this CD can make your heart warm again.

Three people, no band, just three people alone on the stage with guitars and one dulcimer. Who would play a dulcimer in concert today?

Joni Mitchell, the Saskatoon songstress transplanted to LA, was in her prime when she donated her fees to help Greenpeace get started. I have never heard her more relaxed and happy. She plays and chats with the audience.

All the big songs sung with love and ease. Big Yellow Taxi, Carey, Woodstock, and Circle Game.

Mitchell is so relaxed and free it feels like a concert with friends. In the medley of Carey and Mr. Tambourine Man she forgets the lyrics half way through. She keeps strumming and invites James Taylor to the mic to help her.

What a transcendent  moment when James Taylor slides in beside her, they give him a mic to sing,

If … you hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun,
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’. (Bob Dylan)

The harmony on the chorus is pure Joni Mitchell, high and airy against Taylor’s warm baritone. Mitchell giggles at the end. The audience eats it up.

James Taylor does a great set of his own material: Fire and Rain, Carolina on My Mind, Something in the Way She Moves and my favourite lullaby Sweet Baby James.

The recording is so intimate you can hear finger squeaks on the guitar and the audience chat. This is a real concert recording, before lip sync and studio tricks. It comes complete with miss-steps and the odd booming guitar. The reverberation is natural and pure in the Pacific Coliseum.

A real treat is hearing Phil Ochs singing nine of his songs includingJoe Hill and Changes. Ochs was 1960s contemporary of Bob Dylan’s with folk broadsides and protest songs. Ochs died in 1976 and he is in fine form here, although this was probably the last concert he gave before depression and alcoholism took control of his life.

You can buy the CD with a booklet for $20 or download individual songs. Part of the money goes to Greenpeace who, love them or hate them, have been an important part of social advocacy for the past 4 decades.

If you can stand the slow and cloying Flash website, the music is available for streaming. Go to http://www.amchitka-concert.com/, Music, Play List and Streaming. The rest you know how to do.

I’m going to give them $20 bucks. They deserve to get paid for this concert.