Micheal Shrieve - drums, percussion; Other percussionists - unknown
It was billed as the 10th Anniversary of Woodstock concert, and though it was held in Long Island, miles away from the original site of Max Yasgar's farm in Bethel, NY, the promoters got together whoever they could get of the 30-plus artists that performed at the original festival. Among those assembled were CSNY's Stephen Stills, the Band's Rick Danko, Paul Butterfield, Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen, Johnny Winter, Country Joe McDonald, Richie Havens, John Sebastian, and what was left of Canned Heat.
Whereas most of the aforementioned artists performed a great deal of the classic material they played at the original Woodstock, Michael Shrieve's performance was a horse of a different color. At the original festival he made history as the drummer for Santana, the Bay Area blues-rock group that became superstars after the filmed documentary of their performance was released. Shrieve had his own piece of history by playing a smoking hot drum solo in the middle of the band's closer, "Soul Sacrifice."
For this show, however, Shrieve essentially tries to re-capture that memorable segment with an entire set of percussion-only selections. He assembled an army of percussionists, conga players, and timbale players, spearheading several drum-driven jams.
At only 19, Shrieve was the youngest musician to perform at Woodstock. He stayed with Carlos Santana for nearly five years before heading out to pursue his own career in 1975. He worked with three innovative rock bands: Automatic Man (with Pat Thrall) in 1976; Novo Combo, in 1979; and a one-off supergroup that included Neal Schon, Sammy Hagar, and Kenny Aaronson. The rest of his work has been with a number of cutting edge progressive and New Age artists that includes Stomu Yamashta's Go (which also included Steve Winwood), Richard Wahnfried, and Klause Schulze. As an in-demand session drummer, he can be heard on recordings by Tina Turner, Joss Stone, Rob Thomas, Shakira, Sean Paul, and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler.