Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music 27-28th June 1970


PW: Henry's Archive

5 comments:

: said...

The festival was captured on both film and on video, in varying quality, but a lack of post-festival organisation led to the footage being lost for many years. Much of it has now been recovered, but the black and white footage is of poor quality and is in many different hands. It is considered unlikely that it will ever see the light of day as a legitimate release since no one can agree on who owns the copyright.

The festival was widely bootlegged, and several audience tapes are now in circulation. It is rumoured that excellent soundboard tapes also exist, though to this point they have not publicly surfaced.

MACIEJBLUES said...

Really? I have a audio bootleg but never watched video version. Who was this video?

Anonymous said...

Film of Bath
    For years we've been wondering if there was any footage taken of the festival. Finally Henrietta Bannister cleared up the matter.
she wrote
"I regret we do not have any film of the Bath Festivals. There was a professional film made of the 1970 festival by a company called Gentle Ghost and Paradise Films ( for which we still own the rights) but goodness knows what has happened to it. If you hear anything your end I should be really grateful if you would let me know."
  However, thanks to the intrepid Steven Lyons , who dug up its resting place in a record 24 hours , several thousand feet of colour 16mm film footage surfaced in 2004 . The only problem was that the film footage had only a few performances, mostly interviews . This wasn't a lot of good on its own as far as a commercial release was concerned (although there are many out there who would pay good money to see it ). However , when a large chunk of black and white video footage emerged , the possibility of a documentary being made raised its head once more .
  The problem was, it gradually became clear that the video footage was in possession of at least three separate parties, spread widely around the globe .The Bannisters were not one of these parties, so there was a split- would the forces combine their efforts to make one definitive project that we the public would get an eyfull of before we were all wheelchair bound ?
  Well, you can hope, but don't hold your breath , since we found the footage (now over five years ago) , nothing much has happened. Theres a classic impasse , with all parties involved claiming that they own the rights to the footage. The black and white footage varies in quality. Much of it was shot by people who were dosed, the technology was in its infancy and now its deteriorated over the years. Apparently there is good quality audio out there, but those who are in possession of those items have put them onto the back burner for now.
Apparently the festival was the first in the UK to be videotaped. Given that 42 years have now passed and that if we wait much longer a goodly portion of those who attended will have snuffed it, we would have thought that it was high time that everyone just got together and made some sort of commercial release before someone DOES get hold of the footage and puts it up on YouTube . So far the only footage out there for people to buy is the Pink Floyd Atom Heart Mother stuff. For details of the video company that was at Bath and which acts were filmed , visit the Festival video link .
  There are also a couple of very short 8mm films of Bath, we have copies of two but are always looking for more, we can't pay anything for them , but those people who have entrusted copies into our hands have NOT been ripped off, apart from using stills on the site we have never distributed them for trade or cash and we won't sell you copies. We will put people in touch with those who have the originals if we think you are on the level and will pay the people with the footage to use their work in documentaries or legitimate projects.

MACIEJBLUES said...

thanks, I hope that a film will be edited soon.

Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson said...

Were can i get the canned heat at bathfest ? email me at jimmy.palafox811@gmail.com