Jonathan Edwards is a singer-songwriter who had a hit with the song "Sunshine." It went all the way to Number Four in the U.S. singles chart in 1971. That makes him a one-hit wonder. But he was (and still is) a lot more than that. I especially like his first few albums, and I've posted a concert from him. We have six songs from him here, but they only make up about 18 minutes of this album. "Sometimes in the Morning" and "Train of Glory" are from the official live album from the festival. His other songs are from the same audience bootleg as most of the other songs I've posted from this festival.
The next three songs are from British blues singer Long John Baldry. I've posted a BBC sessions album from him, as well as music from a band he was in, Steampacket. He had his biggest success in 1967, when he put out a single, "Let the Heartaches Begin," that went all the way to Number One in Britain (though it barely made the U.S. singles chart). His career was still going fairly well at the time of this concert. He had a minor hit in 1971 with the song "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll." Interesting fact: half of his 1971 album "It Ain't Easy" was produced by Elton John, and the other half was produced by Rod Stewart. "Bring My Baby Back" made it to the official live album from this festival, while the other song here is from the same audience boot mentioned elsewhere.
Fran Ferrer & Puerto Rico 2010 was a salsa band from Puerto Rico. Apparently, some of their lyrics were political, but the meaning was generally missed by the mostly English speaking audience. There were other lesser known bands like this one that performed at the festival, such as Banda del K-rajo, Bang, Elephant's Memory, Michael Overly, Rubber Band, Stonehenge, and Malo. But we don't happen to have any recordings from them, and we happen to have two songs from this band. Both are from the same audience boot mentioned above.
The last song was by the band Osibisa, who were the last musical act to perform at the festival. This song made it to the official live album. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about them: Osibisa is a Ghanaian-Caribbean Afro rock band founded in London in the late 1960s by four expatriate West African and three London-based Caribbean musicians. Osibisa was the most successful and longest lived of the African-heritage bands in London... and was largely responsible for the establishment of world music and Afro-rock as a marketable genre." They would have a couple of hits in Britain later in the 1970s.
Here's their Wikipedia entry:
So that's the last of the music I have from this festival. But before I finish my write-up of this last album, I want to explain a bit about some interesting events that happened as the festival finished. As I mentioned in a previous write-up, the main promoter of the festival was Alex Cooley, who had promoted some other major rock festivals. But he ran into a lot of trouble with this one, including the fact that he failed to get the proper permits. The festival only happened because it would have caused more trouble for the government to have tens of thousands of angry fans who had paid to fly to Puerto Rico just to attend the festival.
Cooley later explained how the festival ended for him: "[A] guy who was working in the festival, came over to me, the last night of the festival, and said [the government] issued a warrant in San Juan and they were coming to arrest me. So they smuggled me out of there with a Volkswagen bus. I got in the bus and they put things on top of me and they took me to the airport and there were people at the airport that were very sympathetic towards this and they let them.... Of course, you'd never be able to do this now - they let them drive the Volkswagen out on to the runway. So I got out of the Volkswagen and got directly on the plane. So that's how I got out of San Juan, out of Puerto Rico."
He left in all sorts of trouble, including owing at least $40,000 in taxes that apparently never got paid.
Cooley wasn't the only one who had trouble leaving the festival. Creem Magazine reported, "People had begun making the long trek back to San Juan and points beyond after the first day of the festival, but even this steady exodus didn't avert the Tuesday tie-up at the airport. Many of the people who had purchased the $149 festival package found that their return plane tickets were good only for stand-by, thus effectively leaving the stranded until auxiliary flights could be arranged."
Luckily, the government helped take care of the people stranded at the airport. Tents were set up near the main terminal. The Red Cross, the government, and even some airline companies provided food, water and medical attention. Some bands performed for the stranded passengers. Pan American Airlines provided the flights for about 3,000 people who attended the festival from outside Puerto Rico who otherwise couldn't leave. It took several days before everyone was able to leave the country.
No wonder the government was mad at Cooley and the other festival organizers. It's also no wonder why Puerto Rico didn't have another rock festival like this until decades later.
This album is 55 minutes long.
01 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
02 Athens County (Jonathan Edwards)
03 Dues Day Bar (Jonathan Edwards)
04 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
05 Give Us a Song (Jonathan Edwards)
06 Shanty (Jonathan Edwards)
07 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
08 Sometimes in the Morning (Jonathan Edwards)
09 Train of Glory (Jonathan Edwards)
10 It Ain't Easy (Long John Baldry)
11 talk (Long John Baldry)
12 Bring My Baby Back (Long John Baldry)
13 Hemos Dicho Basta [Incomplete] (Fran Ferrer & Puerto Rico 2010)
14 Ya Se Van (Fran Ferrer & Puerto Rico 2010)
15 Y Sharp [Instrumental] (Osibisa)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZSLiFptp
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/iaLTJsYB36ObzqH/file
The cover image of Jonathan Edwards is from this exact concert.
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