backup band including Richard Bock,
Steve Booker, Gilles Malkine, Glen
Moore, and Ralph Towner. The perfor-
mance started off well, but then at one
point, Hardin rattled his bandmates.
“He suddenly threw a title of a song at
us that he had not yet written,” recalled
rhythm guitarist Malkine (who now
tours with partner Mikhail Horowitz,
doing a satirical folk-parody act). “His
wife, Susan, had written a poem called
‘Snow White Lady’ about heroin, so he
said, ‘ “Snow White Lady” in F,’ and he
put this crumpled piece of paper on
the keyboard and started playing, and
so we just went along with him... Okay,
you might do that in a café somewhere,
but, Jesus Christ, the whole world was
looking at us! It was so disastrous that
afterward I quit the music business for
many years.”AFTER WOODSTOCK: Hardin didn’t
quit the business, but drug problems
and stage fright plagued the last decade
of his life. Shuttling between England
and the States, he recorded a few
albums—Suite for Susan Moore and
Damion: We Are One, One, All in One
(dedicated to his wife and son); Birdon a Wire; Painted Head; and Nine. On
December 29, 1980, Hardin was found
dead on the floor of his Hollywood
apartment; he was 39 years old.Ravi Shankar
10–10:45 PM
A thundering rain had begun to fall
when Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar
took his turn, along with bandmates
Ustad Alla Rakha and Maya Kulkarni.
At 49, Shankar had enjoyed a richly suc-
cessful career in India and Europe as a
leading interpreter of his country’s clas-
sical canon. During the 1960s he came to
prominence in the United States, thanks
in large part to his work with violinist
Yehudi Menuhin and his most famous
sitar pupil, George Harrison; two years
earlier, Shankar had performed to great
acclaim at the Monterey Pop Festival.
In 1968, he had composed the score for
the film Charly, for which actor Cliff
Robertson won an Academy Award.
Meanwhile, the music of India was
growing increasingly popular among
young fans, embraced by the Byrds and
the Rolling Stones as well as the Beatles.
At Woodstock, Shankar faced a sympa-
thetic audience, but he was nervousTHE MUCH-CELEBRATED BUS
named Further (opposite),
once used by Ken Kesey and
his Merry Pranksters and made
famous in Tom Wolfe’s 1968
book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test, was a fitting visitor at
Woodstock. A less comfortable
attendee was the singer and
brilliant songwriter Tim Hardin
(above), who resisted a request
to be the festival’s opening
act; he eventually gave a
performance that, in the end,
left his bandmates baffled.
33