Album Challenge - 1969 pt. 3 - Another Threesome

So here I am again discussing more records in my collection from 1969 that are part of the Album Challenge that influenced my taste in music. I'm looking at three albums here that I bought around the same time in the late summer of 1969 after seeing them perform at the Atlantic City Pop Festival. I had never heard of any of these three groups before seeing them on the stage that beautiful summer weekend.

There were a lot of groups and artists playing that weekend and I knew almost all of them but these three were all new to me but two of them would go on to influence my taste in music and the other was just a fun album. 

The first band from this group I saw in the late afternoon on Friday and was introduced as the Santana Blues Band from San Francisco. I didn't know this band but they were absolutely awesome on stage and immediately had the crowd going crazy. They put on a great show. This was a couple of weeks before their performance at Woodstock that would make them famous. I bought their album Santana about a week after the show and would eventually have about 30 Santana albums in my collection. I would especially love Santana as they moved into the 70's with their innovative sound and albums like Abraxas, Santana III, Caravanserai, Welcome and Borboletta.

The next band from this group I saw later that Friday night was Chicago and they put on a great show. As a sax player I was really impressed with their horn section. They were much wilder that day then they would be in their later 70's albums. I would get their first album Chicago Transit Authority that summer too. I have about 10 of their albums in my collection and I especially love the 4 LP live Chicago at Carnegie Hall from 1971. 

And then there was Three Dog Night. They played early in the evening of the last day of the festival and they were a lot of fun. Played mostly cover songs too. A song of theirs from their previous album "One" had been recently released as a single that was climbing the charts. I wasn't familiar with the band but I had heard that song. Their show was very exciting and they played a lot of songs from their newly released album Suitable For Framing including Celebrate, Eli's Coming, Easy To Be Hard, Feeling Alright, etc. that would all get a lot of airplay in the coming months. And I got their album shortly after the show too. I would end up with their first three albums plus a later compilation in my collection. I mostly lost interest in them as they moved into the 1970's with AM brainwash hits like Joy To The World and Old Fashioned Love Song.