From what I’ve read (the Pete Fornatale book on Woodstock) Sha Na Na’s performance was so good they ended up getting a song on both the movie and album to the surprise of the people in charge. One thing that may have helped them was a number of acts (Joplin, CCR, Grateful Dead, BST) refused to be on it.
Someone mentioned Rush opening for Sha Na Na in 1974. I saw them in the fall of 1972 and they had a loud, heavy metalish group whose name I can't remember as the opening act. Not quite what you'd expect from a group doing fifties songs.
Bill Graham was well known for having different styles of music on the same bill to educate the audience. The Woodstock people probably had the same; they strike me as having a certain naivety that luckily didn't get ugly like Altamont.
Look at the way that Sha Na Na differed from the actual rock and roll acts from, say, 1959:
That's from a concert on September 23, 1970.
That's from Woodstock.
What most of them are wearing are gold lame suits, which were something particular to Elvis:
O.K., first, they had the suit unbuttoned over a bare chest. Nobody in 1959 would have done that. It would have been considered a bit obscene. Second, they didn’t wear a consistent uniform. All groups in 1959 had consistent uniforms among their members. In fact, Sha Na Na didn’t even look like people who would hang out in the same social groups. Most obviously, one member was black. Rock groups in 1959 were always segregated. Even in 1969 it was unusual to have a multiracial group. Sha Na Na looked like somebody’s drugged-out memories of a 1959 rock and roll group.
And a zombie thread joke. Since my post was the last one in the old thread, about 10 years back, I feel guilty for not hammering in the stake firmly enough.
One other thing- in show biz, performers cross paths with all sorts of unexpected people they hit it off with.
Anyone who listened to both “Kiss on My List” and “Larks Tongues in Aspic Part 1” would scoff at the idea of Darryl Hall and Robert Fripp working together. But they did! Fripp produced and played on Hall’s solo Sacred Songs album
Likewise, a lot of people wondered how on Earth Neil Diamond ended up singing in ***The Last ***Waltz. Surely a schmaltzy pop singer like Neil couldn’t be cool enough to work with Robbie Robertson. But he DID! Robbie produced Neil’s Beautiful Noise album- and years earlier, Neil almost got Robbie a songwriting job at the Brill Building.
All kinds of musicians you can’t picture knowing each other- much less LIKING each other and liking each other’s work- often do.
I was alive during Woodstock (although not there), and I agree with the OP – Sha Na Na was an odd choice.
At the time of Woodstock there was no such thing as nostalgia. The 50’s were dead (even if remembered by the Woodstock generation). This was before American Grafitti, Grease and Happy Days --although (IMHO) Sha Na Na single-handedly spawned them.
Thanks, Shakester. I’m astonished to discover that there were any racially integrated rock groups in the 1959. Here’s the closest I’ve been able to find to a website about this. I presume you used this website to find those groups you give - The Crests, The Del Vikings, and the Impalas - since they are the only ones that would have been together in 1959:
That’s the one. Jazz bands were (sometimes) racially integrated at least as far back as the 40s, probably earlier. Benny Goodman’s bands for example.
Legendary Motown musicians the Funk Brothers started working together in 1959.
Musicians (and I am one, so I speak from some experience, though I’m not American) are usually much more interested in musical ability than skin colour.