It's a Beautiful Day

It's a Beautiful Day was formed in San Francisco, California, in 1967, featuring vocalist Pattie Santos along with violinist David LaFlamme and his wife, Linda LaFlamme, on keyboards, plus Hal Wagenet on guitar, Mitchell Holman on bass and Victor Fuentes behind the drum kit.  The band created a unique blend of rock, jazz, folk, classical, and world-beat styles during the initial seven years they was officially together.

Interestingly, they wrote their most famous song, White Bird, while living in an attic in Seattle, caged there by their manager Matthew Katz who said they were not ready for prime time yet. Katz managed Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape but those bands were trying to escape him, unbeknownst to It’s a Beautiful Day. At this point in time, they were still 5 months away from the release of their first album in 1969 but they had stirred up a lot of local attention in San Francisco. While Woodstock promoter Michael Lang was negotiating with Bill Graham to get the Grateful Dead on the bill, Graham insisted he take one of the new SF groups, It’s a Beautiful Day or Santana. Lang listened to and loved both so he flipped a coin. Santana won and became huge breakout stars at Woodstock.

Check out a nice video of a full It's a Beautiful Day concert live at Tanglewood in Massachussets back in 1970 where they are introduced by the legendary Bill Graham. Watch it here!