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      Set the Table With This Thanksgiving Playlist

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      The Highwomen, James Brown and yes, the Cranberries.The Highwomen.Cody O’Loughlin for The New York TimesDear listeners,Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, so today’s playlist is all about gratitude, family, and … food. Heaps and heaps of steaming, delicious food.Maybe you’re hosting your own feast and need some mood music while you prep. Maybe you’re traveling somewhere and need a seasonal soundtrack to help pass the time. Or maybe your Thanksgiving looks a little unconventional this year and you’re looking for songs to get you into the holiday spirit. Regardless, this playlist has you covered.This mix contains old favorites (Little Eva; Big Star) and new classics (the country collaborators the Highwomen; the underground pop icon Rina Sawayama), a few rockers and a whole lot of soul, plus not one but two songs in tribute to that glorious Thanksgiving side, the mashed potato. (I am biased; it’s my favorite part of the meal.)And since it’s that time of year to share what we’re grateful for, I’d like to say a heartfelt thanks to all of you for reading and subscribing to this newsletter. It means the world to me to see how the Amplifier community has grown over this past year. An extra helping of mashed potatoes for each and every one of you.Also, if you need more music to last you through your Thanksgiving dinner or holiday drive, our reader-submitted Fall Playlist should do the trick. We’ll be taking the holiday off on Friday, but will be back on Tuesday with a fresh Amplifier.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. The Highwomen: “Crowded Table”“I want a house with a crowded table,” proclaim the Highwomen — the country supergroup featuring Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby — on this warm, rousing anthem from the band’s 2019 self-titled debut. Sounds like a lively Thanksgiving to me. (Listen on YouTube)2. Jay & the Techniques: “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie”Skipping right ahead to dessert, this upbeat 1967 hit from the Pennsylvania soul-pop group Jay & the Techniques celebrates the sweeter things in life — and on one’s plate. (Listen on YouTube)3. Little Eva: “Let’s Turkey Trot”Released not long after Little Eva scored a smash with her 1962 debut single, “Locomotion,” this ode to an old ragtime dance craze was another irresistible Brill Building confection, co-written and produced by the couple Little Eva used to babysit for, Gerry Goffin and Carole King. (Listen on YouTube)4. Big Star: “Thank You Friends”Alex Chilton doffs his cap to “all the ladies and gentlemen who made this all so probable” on this melodious highlight from Big Star’s third and final album — one of many should-have-been hits in the star-crossed 1970s band’s career. (Listen on YouTube)5. James Brown: “(Do the) Mashed Potatoes”In that rapturous moment when someone finally puts the fluffy bowl of them down on the table, my brain exclaims, in James Brown’s voice, “Mashed potatoes!” (Listen on YouTube)6. Dee Dee Sharp: “Mashed Potato Time”I know, I know: Both of these mashed potato songs are technically about that famous dance step. But like Brown’s kinetic ditty, the Philadelphia soul singer Dee Dee Sharp’s 1962 hit is also Thanksgiving appropriate. (Listen on YouTube)7. Bob Marley & the Wailers: “Give Thanks & Praises”Bob Marley shows some appreciation for the most high on this gently buoyant, horn-kissed track from the 1983 album “Confrontation,” released two years after the reggae legend’s death. (Listen on YouTube)8. Otis Redding: “I Want to Thank You”Another gone-too-soon icon, Otis Redding, expresses his romantic devotion and gratitude on this soulful ballad. (Listen on YouTube)9. Rina Sawayama: “Chosen Family”“We don’t need to be related to relate,” the Japanese-British artist Rina Sawayama sings, ready to soundtrack your Friendsgiving. (Elton John — with whom she later recorded a duet version of this song — seems to be a member of her own chosen family.) (Listen on YouTube)10. Sly & the Family Stone: “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”This funky salute to individuality and acceptance — which hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart in 1970 — inspired the title of Sly Stone’s recently released, miraculously existing memoir. (Listen on YouTube)11. Natalie Merchant, “Kind & Generous”Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of belated Lilith Fair nostalgia — I highly recommend this 2019 Vanity Fair oral history — and yet Natalie Merchant still seems curiously underappreciated. When the Merchaissance finally comes, and it must, I will be ready. (Listen on YouTube)12. The Cranberries, “Dreams”For some mysterious reason, whether you like them or not, it’s just not Thanksgiving without the cranberries. (Listen on YouTube)Let’s get it while it’s hot,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Set the Table With This Thanksgiving Playlist” track listTrack 1: The Highwomen, “Crowded Table”Track 2: Jay & the Techniques, “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie”Track 3: Little Eva, “Let’s Turkey Trot”Track 4: Big Star, “Thank You Friends”Track 5: James Brown, “(Do the) Mashed Potatoes”Track 6: Dee Dee Sharp, “Mashed Potato Time”Track 7: Bob Marley & the Wailers, “Give Thanks & Praises”Track 8: Otis Redding, “I Want to Thank You”Track 9: Rina Sawayama, “Chosen Family”Track 10: Sly & the Family Stone, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”Track 11: Natalie Merchant, “Kind & Generous”Track 12: The Cranberries, “Dreams” More

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      Taylor Swift Fan Falls Fatally Ill at Brazil Concert Amid Heat

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      Many fans fell sick at the show, where temperatures broke records and concertgoers complained of a lack of water. The pop star postponed Saturday’s show.One fan died and many others fainted at Taylor Swift’s concert on Friday in Rio de Janeiro, where temperatures felt like nearly 140 degrees Fahrenheit, a record for the city, and fans said they struggled to get water.Ana Clara Benevides, 23, lost consciousness at the concert and later was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest after being taken to the hospital, according to city officials and the Brazilian company organizing the show, Time for Fun.There were widespread complaints about the extreme heat and lack of water from fans inside the open-air soccer stadium, where Ms. Swift was performing for more than 60,000 people on Friday in the first of three sold-out shows in Rio this weekend as part of the South American stretch of her record-breaking Eras Tour.Hours before she was set to take the stage on Saturday night, Ms. Swift announced on social media that the show was being postponed because of the extreme temperatures in Rio.“The safety and well-being of my fans, fellow performers and crew has to and always will come first,” she wrote.Ms. Swift’s fans said on social media that they were prohibited from bringing water into the stadium on Friday, while other fans said vendors struggled to reach the people near the stage. Videos showed Ms. Swift throwing a water bottle to one fan and instructing stadium staff to get water to others as people in the crowd chanted for water.The tragedy paired two of the year’s major story lines: rising temperatures and the hysteria for Ms. Swift’s global tour.In Argentina, where Ms. Swift played last week, some fans camped out for more than five months to try to get a spot closer to the stage. In Brazil, a day after Ms. Benevides’s death, fans lined up early for entry to Saturday’s show even as temperatures continued to soar. It is the second show Ms. Swift has had to postpone because of extreme weather in the past week — her Nov. 10 show in Buenos Aires was moved to Nov. 12.In an online post, Ms. Swift said she was “devastated” by her fan’s death. “I’m not going to be able to speak about this from stage because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it,” she said.A fan waiting for entry into the Taylor Swift concert in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday lay on the ground after the extreme heat made her feel sick.Pilar Olivares/ReutersWadih Damous, the head of Brazil’s consumer protection agency, said his agency had ordered the concert’s organizers to provide free water at various locations at Ms. Swift’s shows on Saturday and Sunday.“The decision to prevent thousands of people from drinking water in 60-degree Celsius heat is insane and irresponsible,” Mr. Damous said. He said the government would investigate Time for Fun.The company said on Saturday that it would add staff, provide free water and allow fans to enter the stadium with water and food.Parts of Brazil have been suffering under a sweltering heat wave this week, with temperatures breaking records and the national meteorological institute issuing safety alerts to 15 states. In Rio, temperatures surpassed 106 degrees Fahrenheit, or 41 degrees Celsius, on Friday. The heat index, a measure of how hot the air feels because of humidity, hit 139 degrees Fahrenheit, a record for the city.It appears almost certain that 2023 will be Earth’s hottest year on record, with global temperatures hitting record highs in each of the past five months, from June through October. Scientists have said that the year’s record heat has been driven by the continued emissions of heat-trapping gases, mostly from the burning of oil, gas and coal, as well as the return of El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern.Brazilian government institutions have said that since June, El Niño has changed the region’s weather patterns, increasing temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near South America by three degrees Celsius, while bringing more rain to the south and droughts to the north.Felipe Galvão, 28, a systems analyst, was on the field level near the stage on Friday when people started getting sick from the heat even before the concert started. By the time the show began, so many people had gotten sick and left their places that he was able to reach the railing along the stage.“I’ve been going to concerts since 2011, but I’ve never experienced anything like this,” he said. “There was little staff and unfortunately they couldn’t do much for the fans. You could tell that even they were a little lost.”Paulo Motoryn More

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      Black Thought of the Roots Is Here for ‘The Gilded Age’ and ’1883’

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      Tariq Trotter, the Roots frontman and author of the new book “The Upcycled Self,” loves a period drama when it’s done right.Despite earning worldwide acclaim as the frontman of the Roots and achieving a degree of ubiquity when they became the house band for “The Tonight Show,” Tariq Trotter, also known as Black Thought, is an introvert and a bit of an enigma. There’s a good chance that fans who know every Roots verse still know little about the man behind them.That could change with the release this month of his memoir, “The Upcycled Self.” In it, Trotter, 50, reflects on growing up in Philadelphia during the 1970s and ’80s, zeroing in on how experiences like losing both parents by the age of 16 hardened him, and how his passion for the arts gave him much-needed direction. “The final frontier was to delve deeper into myself and become more introspective,” he said during a phone interview.Looking back, even to revisit his most painful memories, helped Trotter to move forward. He shared a few sources of creative inspiration, favorite works of art and timeless fashion pieces. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1DocumentariesThere’s a historical aspect to whatever story I’m telling, whether it’s my own or I’m talking about the world. My inspiration often comes from documentaries. Anything that Ken Burns touches — I just appreciate that style of storytelling. I’ll get a nugget from something in there that will spark the bar that leads to the song or whatever the composition evolves from. I recently watched “The American Buffalo,” and it makes you think about how much of the history of this country meets at that intersection.2‘The Source of Self-Regard’ by Toni Morrison“The Source of Self-Regard” is one of my go-tos. It really helped me get through the pandemic when the world shut down. It’s one of the first books that I took off the shelf, and in it, Toni Morrison said something about the role of the artist during turbulent times. It really put a battery in my back.3My Mom’s MusicGeorge Benson; Earth, Wind & Fire; Marvin Gaye. If I hear any of that stuff, or funk music like Parliament, Rick James, Teena Marie — anything post-disco through the ’80s is the music that really impacted me. The same stuff that I listen to when I’m making a meal, we’re having guests over or during a long drive, the sonic safe space for me is the music my mom used to play.4Stevie Wonder AlbumsIt’s definitely “Songs in the Key of Life” as an adult. But the Stevie album I heard the most growing up was probably “Hotter Than July.” Then, sometimes, you have to take a deep dive and do “Fulfillingness’ First Finale.” But in just talking about these three compositions, I appreciate the fact that there was space within the artist for all three to exist. The fact that that much range could exist within one person gives me hope as an artist and compels me to create more.5FunkI’m going to gravitate more toward Sly and the Family Stone and then maybe more toward Ohio Players. Midwest funk? Yeah. I think there’s something avant-garde; it’s almost like organized chaos. It feels very improvised and scattered sonically in a way that might seem all over the place to the untrained ear. But when you’re able to recognize those elements and tap all the way into them, it’s the ultimate liberty.6Historical Drama, When Done RightI really rock with shows like “The Gilded Age” or even some of the Westerns that are coming out. I’m not a huge “Yellowstone” fan, but I am a huge fan of both “1883” and “1923.” Because they’re done right, I feel like I’m transported to a place that I may have never seen.7Spike Lee JointsSometimes, I feel like “Mo’ Better Blues” is my favorite Spike joint. That, “Malcolm X,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle Fever” are probably my favorites from him. You know how people say, “in no particular order”? If you asked me tomorrow, I might give you that exact same list in a different order.8Scorsese Movies Starring De NiroIf you’re talking about Martin Scorsese, strangely enough, “Cape Fear” is one of my favorites, if not the favorite. I’m also a huge Robert De Niro fan, and I feel he’s often underutilized. “Cape Fear” was a rare instance of us seeing De Niro moving in a different way. It was a much-needed curveball.9HeadwearI have a bunch of fedoras that were made by a brother named Isaac Larose who used to have a company called Larose Paris. The tan fedora that people see me wearing on that Funkmaster Flex freestyle? I have multiple versions.10Vintage ShirtsI’ve got this olive green military Gucci shirt with epaulets on the shoulders. It’s hand-painted with butterflies, flowers and all types of leaves. I’ve had it since 2000 and still rock it to this day. My wife does not like it, but I love it and feel like it’s never going out of style. More

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      George Brown of Kool & the Gang Dies at 74

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      Mr. Brown kept time for a group that combined funk, disco, R&B and jazz to create some of the most memorable pop songs of the 1970s.George Brown, a founding member and drummer of the group Kool & the Gang, who played on funk, disco and pop hits that featured prominently in movies and have been sampled numerous times, died on Thursday in Long Beach, Calif. He was 74.His death, at a hospital, was confirmed in a statement by the band’s publicist, who said the cause was cancer. Mr. Brown had said publicly that he had lung cancer.Mr. Brown, known as Funky, was a key contributor to several of the band’s biggest hits, including “Ladies Night,” “Jungle Boogie” and the party anthem “Celebration.”In a July interview with NPR, he described Kool & the Gang as “the sound of happiness.”In 1964, Mr. Brown linked up with Ricky Westfield and the brothers Ronald Khalis Bell and Robert “Kool” Bell, as well as other friends — Spike Mickens, Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas and Charles Smith — to form a band that would combine jazz, funk, disco and R&B and create some of the most memorable pop songs of their era.Formed in Jersey City, N.J., the band first played jazz while members attended Lincoln High School. The band performed under several names, including the Jazziacs, but eventually settled on Kool & the Gang in the late 1960s.One of the band’s early names was Kool and the Flames but the group changed the Flames to the Gang to avoid confusion with James Brown’s group, the Famous Flames.Kool & the Gang in the 1970s. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesGeorge Brown was born on Jan. 15, 1949. His father, George Melvin Brown Sr., worked in the coal industry while his mother, Eleanor White Brown, was a maid in Fort Lee, N.J., and also worked as a key puncher.Both made music a constant part of Mr. Brown’s upbringing, Mr. Brown recalled in his memoir released this year, “Too Hot: Kool & the Gang & Me.”Mr. Brown, who took to drumming at a young age, wrote that he saved up from a newspaper delivery route to buy his first drum set.In a 2015 interview with Red Bull Music Academy, Mr. Brown described using butter knives as drum sticks when he first started playing.“Then I went down to a music store on Newark Avenue in Jersey City and took a $3 lesson from a gentleman who used to play with the Shirelles. He said, ‘Hey man, you’re a natural!’” Mr. Brown recalled. “So he gave me ‘Buddy Rich’s 16 Essential Snare Drum Rudiments’ book. I took one more lesson and never went back.”The band was signed by the producer Gene Redd to De-Lite Records 1969.The members were in an early recording session in New York for their instrumental debut album, “Kool and the Gang,” when Mr. Redd encouraged Mr. Brown and Ronald Bell to just “do something.” It led to a freewheeling recording session that produced songs like “Raw Hamburger” and the album opener, “Kool & the Gang.”“It just flowed. And we’re just grooving,” Mr. Brown told The New York Times in an interview last year.George Brown on drums in 1974.Getty ImagesThe sound carried over into the 1970s as the band found fame and added the vocalist J.T. Taylor.Songs like “Jungle Boogie” “Hollywood Swinging” and “Funky Stuff” became Billboard chart staples. “Celebration” — with its cheery chorus “Celebrate good times, come on!” — made it all the way to the top.The group would go on to release dozens of albums, tour worldwide and appeared on the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, which won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978.The group’s songs have frequently appeared on film and television soundtracks, including for “Pulp Fiction” in 1994.In 2015, the band was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Mr. Brown was a producer on an album that the band released this year, called “People Just Want To Have Fun” in anticipation of the group’s 60th anniversary.Kool & the Gang had a broad influence, particularly in hip-hop.According to the website WhoSampled, the band has been sampled in almost 2,000 songs, among the highest of all time. The band’s song “Summer Madness” accounts for 249 samples, by artists including Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige.Ronald Khalis Bell, a singer, songwriter and saxophonist for the band, died in 2020. Mr. Thomas, who played saxophone, died in 2021.Mr. Brown is survived by his wife, Hanh Brown, and five children: Dorian Melvin Brown, Jorge Lewis Brown, Gregory Brown, Jordan Xuan Clarence Brown and Aaron Tien Joseph Brown.Three years ago, Mr. Brown was diagnosed with lung cancer, according to an interview broadcast with the television station KCAL in Los Angeles. After surgery and chemotherapy, Mr. Brown recovered and returned to touring in 2022. But this year, the cancer returned.“I didn’t plan on being in a band known around the world, but I welcomed it when it came,” Mr. Brown wrote in his book. “I didn’t know where the music would lead me, but I knew that if I remained focused and persevered, it would happen as God had intended. And it did.” More

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      Who Is Cassie, the R&B Singer Suing Sean Combs?

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      The R&B singer was poised for a big breakout after her 2006 hit song “Me & U.” But her second album never arrived.Cassie, the singer, model and actress who is suing the music mogul Sean Combs for physical and sexual abuse, was supposed to be the next Britney Spears or Janet Jackson.Such a high bar for success was set by Combs, who in addition to dating the singer for more than a decade beginning around 2007 was also her label boss at Bad Boy Records until 2019. “Those two great artists have paved the way,” Combs said in 2008, while hyping up the singer’s much-anticipated second album.But it never came.After a promising start to her career in pop and R&B — including an infectious debut single, “Me & U,” that peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2006, and a well-reviewed first album — the singer, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, subsequently struggled for years to regain her footing as an artist. In pop music circles, she has long represented a “what if?” of unfulfilled artistic potential, even as she gained cult-favorite status among R&B obsessives and turned to releasing music independently.Ventura’s lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday, may cast her abbreviated career in a different, darker light. According to Ventura’s claims, Combs, whom she met when she was 19, began a pattern of control and abuse that fused the singer’s personal and professional life as he plied her with drugs, beat her and forced her to have sex with male prostitutes while he watched and recorded. As their relationship was ending in 2018, the suit says, he raped her after pushing his way into her home.Through a lawyer, Combs, 54, has denied the accusations, calling the lawsuit “riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’s reputation and seeking a payday.”When they first became acquainted, Ventura, now 37, was an aspiring singer and sometime model from New London, Conn., while Combs was a larger-than-life hitmaker — known as Puff Daddy or Diddy — who was credited with developing the careers of the Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige and more. In February 2006, according to the lawsuit, Ventura signed a 10-album deal with Bad Boy. That summer, her debut studio album was released, with writing and production from the R&B polymath Ryan Leslie.“Just what we need: a young singer and a young producer who want to be the next Aaliyah and Timbaland, or maybe the next Ciara and Jazze Pha,” the critic Kelefa Sanneh wrote in The New York Times, praising her minimalist R&B sound. “No, seriously: It is just what we need.”“Cassie,” released by Bad Boy and Atlantic Records, reached No. 4 on the Billboard chart, selling more than 100,000 copies in its first week. But promotional appearances on shows like MTV’s “Total Request Live” and BET’s “106 & Park” were rocky, with Ventura citing “significant performance anxiety” in her lawsuit.Combs, at the time, was her public defender, telling MTV, “It made me really appreciate what I really love about her: She’s a regular person.” He added, “You’ve got to understand that success for her is coming out of nowhere.”In the years that followed, despite singles featuring Lil Wayne (“Official Girl”) and Akon (“Let’s Go Crazy”), Ventura became known as much for her relationship and public appearances with Combs as for her music. A second album was routinely teased in the press — with Combs touting her artistic development: “she’s really cocooned into a butterfly” — but never materialized.Still, Cassie remained a pop culture presence. In 2008, she appeared as an actress and dancer in the film “Step Up 2: The Streets.” The following year, she signed a record deal with Interscope Records, in association with Bad Boy, but got even more attention for an experimental hairstyle in which she shaved half of her head. “I wanted to go all the way and kind of land in punk,” she said at the time.By 2012, with the release of the single “King of Hearts,” Ventura was still touting a comeback. “I’m just a laid-back person,” she told GQ of the six-year gap between albums. “Maybe laid-back to a fault.” She added, “It’s been too long, I know, but I got to start over and over again. It would be awesome to stay popular, but if I was only an underground artist, I would be OK with that.”In 2013, Ventura released a mixtape, “RockaByeBaby,” that was not promoted with the force of an official studio album, but was met with praise nonetheless. With appearances by the rappers Wiz Khalifa, Rick Ross and Meek Mill, the album showcased Ventura as “an on-mic presence that’s the equal to any of the rappers she’s recruited for features here,” a critic for Pitchfork wrote.It would be years before Ventura released music again. According to the singer’s lawsuit, on at least two occasions in 2009 and 2015, Combs beat her after seeing her speak to music managers at parties. “She had hoped speaking to this manager would allow her to further grow her career, and that Mr. Combs would be happy for her, but instead he became extremely angry,” the suit says of the 2009 incident.Following the filing of the lawsuit, two former Bad Boy artists expressed support for Ventura online. “Been trynna tell y’all for years,” the singer Aubrey O’Day, formerly of the Combs-backed group Danity Kane, wrote on Instagram. “Prayers up for this queen.” Dawn Richard, another former member of Danity Kane, wrote on X, “praying for Cassie and her family, for peace and healing. you are beautiful and brave.”In 2019, Ventura married the wellness consultant Alex Fine while pregnant with the couple’s first child; the “intimate backyard wedding,” with just 14 guests, was documented by Vogue. That year, Ventura also began releasing music again, putting singles online via her own Ventura Music label in what she called the Free Fridays Playlist.“I feel supported so I make decisions based on what’s best for me,” Cassie said in an interview about beginning a new creative phase as a mother. “I used to spend the most time overthinking the smallest things and always worrying about how people felt that I neglected how I really felt and what would make me happy. I wasn’t creating from the heart.”“The most valuable thing I’ve learned in starting a new chapter,” she added, “is that it’s OK to ask for help.” More

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      John Morris, Who Brought Rock Legends to the Stage, Dies at 84

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      As a coordinator of the Woodstock festival and the hallowed New York venue Fillmore East, he helped showcase the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.John Morris, who brought an element of spectacle to the rock explosion of the 1960s as a coordinator and M.C. for the era-defining Woodstock festival, and who also helped run the storied rock venues Fillmore East in New York City and the Rainbow theater in London, died on Friday at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 84.The cause was complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease following treatment for lung cancer, his longtime partner, Luzann Fernandez, said.A New York native, Mr. Morris got his start as a lighting designer — first for theater productions in his home city and on London’s West End, and later for rock concerts — before he began producing concerts himself. He gained prominence in 1967 when he organized a free concert by Jefferson Airplane in Toronto that drew some 50,000 people, and he went on to mount tours by that band, as well as by the Grateful Dead and others.In 1968, Mr. Morris cemented his place in rock lore when he helped Bill Graham, the powerful and feared West Coast rock impresario, open an East Coast answer to his hallowed Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Fillmore East became a magnet for top acts like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers, who recorded a searing live album there, and was often called “the church of rock ‘n’ roll.”Still, no Fillmore East concert could come close to matching the impact of Woodstock, where legions of rock disciples turned a mass migration to a dairy farm in upstate Bethel, N.Y., into a pilgrimage that marked the apotheosis of the hippie era.The crowd on the first day of the festival. It was Mr. Morris who announced, as unanticipated masses converged on the festival, that Woodstock was “a free concert from now on.”Clayton Call/Redferns, via Getty ImagesMr. Morris served as the production coordinator for the three-day event, formally known as the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, which featured more than 30 acts. Organizers originally sold tickets for $18 (the equivalent of about $150 today), anticipating a crowd of about 50,000.Before the festival began, Mr. Morris helped the festival’s creators lure cutting-edge talent, using every means at their disposal given budgetary restraints. “We famously got the Who for $11,000 because that was all we had left in the budget,” he said in a 2019 interview with the music site Pollstar, “and we plied Pete Townshend with wine to get him to agree.” (Other sources give the amount as $12,500.)The festival, of course, became a signature event of the 1960s, a rain-soaked counterculture convention at which an estimated 400,000 people or more got high, listened to wailing guitars and lived communally in muddy fields, as memorialized in the Academy Award-winning documentary “Woodstock” (1970), directed by Michael Wadleigh.Mr. Morris, who usually worked behind the scenes, found his own taste of fame after Michael Lang, one of the festival’s organizers, without warning deputized him and Chip Monck, the lighting director, to serve as masters of ceremonies.It was Mr. Morris’s voice that echoed over the hillsides, in his famous announcement, as unanticipated masses converged on the festival, that Woodstock was “a free concert from now on,” to which he added: “That doesn’t mean that anything goes. What that means is that we’re going to put the music up here for free.”But, as he later clarified, it was Mr. Monck, not he, who made the equally famous announcement warning festival goers to avoid the unreliable batch of LSD known as the “brown acid.” “I did not do drugs,” he said, “because I was usually in charge and I didn’t feel I could. So me saying the brown acid is not particularly good would be very out of character, because I would not have the vaguest idea.”However transcendent Woodstock proved to be for the hordes of revelers, Mr. Morris had to deal with continual crises. “You can see me in that film announcing and coming as close to a nervous breakdown as humanly possible,” he said in a 2017 interview with The Malibu Times. “On Sunday, we had what was later on called a tornado that shot through the festival, poured rain, wind — the stage started sort of sliding, feeling dangerous.”However chaotic things got, Mr. Morris later expressed pride in pulling off the seemingly impossible.“We dealt with what became one of the largest cities in New York State at that point,” he said, and “managed to put on one of the best music concerts of all time.”Mr. Morris, center, shared his Woodstock memories at a 2019 panel discussion in Los Angeles with Bill Belmont, left, the festival’s artist coordinator, and Joel Rosenman, one of the festival’s producers.Alison Buck/WireImage, via Getty ImagesJohn Hanna Morris Jr. was born on May 16, 1939, in Manhattan, the elder of two sons. His father was a deputy New York City police commissioner and later an advertising executive. His mother, Louise (Edwards) Morris, had run national youth programs under the New Deal during the Great Depression.The family eventually settled in Pleasantville, a village in Westchester County. After graduating from high school in Somers, N.Y., Mr. Morris spent two years studying theater production at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh.Following his tenure at Fillmore East, Mr. Morris spearheaded the reopening of London’s Rainbow theater in Finsbury Park as a rock temple in its own right, starting with a fiery opening show by the Who in November 1971.In addition to Ms. Fernandez, Mr. Morris is survived by his brother, Mark.Mr. Morris continued producing concerts by major acts, including David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Stevie Ray Vaughan through the 1980s. He later produced antiques shows and was a dealer of Native American art and artifacts.For all his later accomplishments, he never stopped expressing pride in helping to make Woodstock, a festival created by the young and for the young (its principal organizers were in their 20s) an unlikely success.“I was the adult in the room, charged with keeping the thing running,” he told Pollstar. “I was older than most everybody else, all of 30 at that point.” More

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      12 African Artists Leading a Culture Renaissance Around the World

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      In one of his famed self-portraits, Omar Victor Diop, a Senegalese photographer and artist, wears a three-piece suit and an extravagant paisley bow tie, preparing to blow a yellow, plastic whistle. The elaborately staged photograph evokes the memory of Frederick Douglass, the one-time fugitive slave who in the 19th century rose to become a leading […] More

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      ‘The Stones and Brian Jones’ Review: Sympathy for a Founding Rocker

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      A new documentary looks back at Jones’s rise and fall, but also underlines his crucial strand in the Rolling Stones’ DNA.There’s a particular indignity to being dropped from the band you founded.In the annals of tragic pop mythology, Brian Jones’s ejection from the Rolling Stones has continued to reverberate long past his exit; Jones died at home in England just one month later, at age 27, in July 1969. Nick Broomfield’s latest documentary, “The Stones and Brian Jones,” looks back at Jones’s rise and fall, lingering on the intra-band power plays and fast living that helped bring him down.Mick Jagger and Keith Richards today enjoy rock immortality, but Broomfield underlines Jones’s crucial strand in the Stones’ DNA. Jones’s love for blues set a fire burning in the band’s soul, even as it shifted gears musically. The Stones bassist Bill Wyman is on hand to praise (and sweetly act out) his bandmate’s inspired instrumental touch, from slide guitar work to his fluttering recorder on “Ruby Tuesday.”But the interviews (many audio-only) lean decisively into Jones’s personal instability. His rebellious streak led his family to throw him out; later, he fathered children by multiple women. The tender twist to this film is that some of his exes — who included Anita Pallenberg and Zouzou, the French actress — help narrate much of his drug-aided decline, most with fondness. Zouzou Gallically muses that Jones pursued women who resembled him though he disliked himself.Despite Broomfield’s having made investigative docs about Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, and Biggie and Tupac, he doesn’t reopen the case of Jones’s drowning. His announcer-like voice-over and sometimes dishy interviews might evoke a “Behind the Music” exposé, but he seems most like a fan with a rueful sympathy for his devil of a subject.The Stones and Brian JonesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More