Truth matters. Community matters. Your support makes both possible. LAist is one of the few places where news remains independent and free from political and corporate influence. Stand up for truth and for LAist. Make your year-end tax-deductible gift now.
Alvin Lee Is Going Home: 'Ten Years After' Guitarist Dies
Alvin Lee performing with Ten Years After in the early 1970s.
(
Lebre Sylvie
/
Dalle /Landov
)
Listen
2:12
Guitarist Alvin Lee, whose incendiary performance with the British band Ten Years After was one of the highlights of the 1969 Woodstock festival, has died.
Listen
0:00
A bit of "I'd Love to Change the World"
He was 68. Lee's website says he "passed away early this morning [Wednesday] after unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure." An assistant to his daughter also confirmed the news to NPR.
His band's biggest hit — "I'd Love to Change the World" — came a couple years after Woodstock. We'll embed a clip from that.
But for those of us of a certain age who wished they could play a guitar well, it's Lee's furious fretting on "I'm Going Home" — famously memorialized in the Woodstock movie — for which he'll be most remembered. Some have called it "guitar excess." This blogger can tell you that many, many teenage guys thought it was great.
Guitar Aficionado put it this way in a piece published last year:
"For a full-on blues-rocking experience, there's no beating Ten Years After's adrenaline-fueled reading of 'I'm Going Home.' The performance, an intense nod to vintage blues and '50s rock and roll, featured the lightning-fast fretwork of Ten Years After frontman Alvin Lee. 'The solo on the movie sounds pretty rough to me these days,' Lee told Guitar Aficionado late last week. 'But it had the energy, and that was what Ten Years After were all about at the time.' "
Sponsored message
If you haven't heard "I'm Going Home" in a while, click here.
According to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, a good source for Woodstock history, Ten Years After's set on Aug. 17, 1969, came right after the performance by Country Joe and the Fish and right before The Band.
Update at 8:15 a.m. ET, March 7. From Morning Edition:
Our friends on Morning Edition have more on Lee, including clips of him playing. According to host Steve Inskeep, Ten Years After never played "I'd Love to Change the World" in concert, preferring to stick to the blues.
Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDA1OTI3MjQ5MDEyODUwMTE2MzM1YzNmZA004))
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our connected community. We are free to tell the full truth, to hold power to account without fear or favor, and to follow facts wherever they lead. Our only loyalty is to our audiences and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen our community.
Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive before year-end will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.
If this story helped you today, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Your tax-deductible donation keeps LAist independent and accessible to everyone.
Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive before year-end will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.
If this story helped you today, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Your tax-deductible donation keeps LAist independent and accessible to everyone.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
