Richie Furay on culture that’s grown around festivals:
Music just has such a place in peoples hearts that whenever there is an event they just want to gather and to have an opportunity to hear such a wide range of music — what are you gonna do? If it’s around your neighborhood, you’re gonna go.
Daniel Lanois on his process:
The laboratory is obviously a place of experimentation and a lot of my ideas are born there and I hope that never gets taken away from me. And the other end of the spectrum is when you finally get a chance to take it to the stage, there’s a resourcefulness that kicks in in that environment that doesn’t exist in the laboratory but I think they need to coexist for innovation to reach the stage. But at the stage we do have a responsibility that you only get one shot at it so it counts and you better communicate with your mates on stage. And I think there’s something really powerful about the spirit of the moment.
Jerry on if there was no Bonnaroo Buzz and people should only try one flavor:
You can’t do better than Cherry Garcia. It was a tie in with music, with the culture. It came about when we got an anonymous postcard from people who said they were big Ben & Jerry’s fans and big Dead fans and we want you to make a flavor called Cherry Garcia because it would be a hoot for the fans, plus Dead paraphernalia always sells. It’s still number one.
Kareem on Bonnaroo impressions:
Well I think it’s a great smorgasbord for musc fans but I’m not that far removed from the music world. My dad was a jazz musician and both my dad and mom sang. So we had music in the house and of course that was back in the 40s and 50s when Nat King Cole was a household name.
But music is a universal language and that really doesn’t change and it’s something that brings people together. And it brings all these people together and it’s brought America together many times so I’m all for what this is all about.
If I had my way I would have been Bud Powell but I didn’t practice the piano so I’ll just have to settle.
Stephen Stills on what “For What It’s Worth” means to him:
It’s been awfully good to me and I want to thank all these people that covered it and that helped but my children through college. [Laughs.]
Daniel Lanois in response:
Stephen, I have a question for you: That’s such an obscure title “For What It’s Worth” and to have such a great chorus — how did you get away with it?
Stills:
Repeat “There’s a man with a gun over there” or what about “What’s that sound?” That sounded like a million things.
But I don’t know, it was an era when trying to be obscure was kind of hip. And everything had a double meaning all of the time and there was always a little bit of pop culture in there. But the song stands on itself and Neil’s opening note is what everybody remembers the minute they hear it and it makes me jealous because it was a lot of trouble to make all these big riffs and big melodies and big hooks for the songs and you guys did it with two harmonics — ding, ding — [Laughs.] I only had a tile bathroom as a laboratory.
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