40 Year Itch: Campus Report for Late August 1973

As reported to Billboard Magazine for their August 25, 1973 issue.

[Purchase]

WTUL -FM

Tulane University

Blues rock supergroup West, Bruce and Laing ( made up of two members of Mountain and Jack Bruce of Cream) are getting the most airplay at Tulane. The Section is a band comprised of session musicians who played on all the great 70's singer songwriters albums. Sunflower is one of vibraphonist Milt Jackson's best selling jazz albums.

1. West Bruce and Laing : Whatever Turns You On

2. The Section: Forward Motion

3. Milt Jackson: Sunflower

[Purchase]

KALX-FM

U. California Berkeley

Coulson, Dean, McGuiness and Flint created a sensation by recording Dylan tunes before they were released on his Basement Tapes album. The Etta James album has already been featured this month. The Andrews Sisters enjoyed a revival when Bette Midler had a hit with their "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"

1. Coulson Dean McGuinness, Flint : Lo and Behold

2. Etta James : Etta James

3. Andrews Sisters : Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

[Purchase]

WUAL-FM

University of Alabama

Bloodshot was the best selling J Geils album until Freeze Frame came along. Don Nix was a songwriter and session musician who worked on the Concert for Bangladesh. George Harrison contribute some slide guitar on this album. Yeah contained Brownsville Station's biggest hit "Smokin in the Boys Room" which would peak at #3 later in the year.

1. The J Geils Band Bloodshot

2. Don Nix : Hobos, Heroes and Street Corner Clowns

3. Brownsville Station: Yeah!

40 Year Itch : The Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

Is this the rock fest that killed the Woodstock nation?

 The Erie Canal Soda Pop fest on Indiana's Bull Island certainly drew a huge crowd -- an estimated 200,00 hippies who came from all over the country Labor Day Weekend of 1972 to see Santana, Foghat, Canned Heat , Black Sabbath, the Allman Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Joe Cocker and Nazareth.

 That's not who showed up though.

 Black Sabbath was a no show. So were the Allman Brothers. Nobody saw Fleetwood Mac. When Joe Cocker saw the crowd he reportedly asked for more money and left when organizers turned him down.

 The traffic was a nightmare.

So were the drugs. Somebody was selling bleach. Two people died. And it rained.

 One very entertaining blogger who claims to have been there writes:

 If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would swear that the festival was a set-up, a sort of psyops to put an end to the ideal of the Woodstock nation. If it wasn't, then it was the biggest f**k up in the history of rock festival promotions.