Route 66 - March 14, 2019

Next up on the Route 66 look back to 1994 is the landmark album from the band Hole: "Live Through This." Most people know Hole as Courtney Love's band. And of course most people know Courtney Love as Kurt Cobain's wife. Both she and the band are much more accomplished than that simple description. And the band Hole really produced some great music throughout the '90s.

Hole was formed in Los Angeles back in 1989. Their second album "Live Through This" was released on April 12th, 1994 - which was within a week after Kurt Cobain's death. This was the only album that was made while he and Courtney Love were married, and I definitely believe you can hear his influence throughout this entire work. Many tracks sound like Nirvana songs, especially from their later "In Utero" style. Hole was very successful as a band, and they were even featured as one of the headlining acts in that summer's 25th anniversary of Woodstock concert, known as Woodstock '94.

Hole's album "Live Through This" is a quintessential grunge rock album, featuring dirty guitars and growling, yelling vocals. The album went on to sell over one million copies in the US, and was named one of the Top Ten Albums of the year by Rolling Stone magazine. Even now it is repeatedly named one of the best albums of the 90s.  It's really a time capsule of that era.

Here now are two of the most famous songs from "Live Through This" -- "Violet" and "Doll Parts."

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For this evening's Woodstock Anniversary selection, we're featuring one of the most influential female artists of all time. That would be the folk musician Joan Baez.

She was the closing act of the first night of Woodstock, on Friday, August 15th, 1969. She performed fourteen songs including such folk anthems as "We Shall Overcome" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

Joan Baez was born in New York City back in 1941, and she has often been called the female Bob Dylan. She influenced many folk musicians and is best known for political songs that defined the 1960s. Her interpretations of various songs have become standard, including such classics as "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and even Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate." She didn't start writing and recording her own original songs until after Woodstock in the early '70s.

Unlike other Woodstock musicians, Joan Baez continues to record and perform to this day. She has had an amazing career and was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Here now is a song she performed at Woodstock, one of her first original compositions she wrote entitled "Sweet Sir Galahad."