Glastonbury 50 also features contributions from stars including Adele, Jay-Z, Dolly Parton and Noel Gallagher
- Read an exclusive extract below
Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis and co-organiser Emily Eavis will tell the official story of the world-famous music and arts festival in a new book published to mark next year’s 50th edition.
Emily Eavis told the Guardian: “With our 50th anniversary fast approaching, we felt now was the time to put all of our memories and stories together in one place. It’s been a total joy to look back through piles of old photo albums and scrapbooks and to reflect upon what it meant at the time, and the incredible evolution of the event.”
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Music had always been a big part of my life. I discovered Radio Luxembourg when I was at boarding school, and I’d listen to it every Sunday night, when Pete Murray and David Jacobs were on. Bill Haley and Bob Dylan captured my imagination, and although I never really went to concerts, I fell in love with pop music.
Before I met Jean, I’d rigged up a very primitive sound system to play music to myself and the cows in the parlour. It was a nine-foot-long pipe connected to a speaker and it made a hell of a sound. I used to play Lola by the Kinks a lot – that was our big milking song. One day in 1970, our baker lady who used to deliver bread to the farm arrived late. She told me it was because she’d been held up in all the traffic going to the Blues festival. I had no idea what she was talking about. She told me it was this big event happening at the Bath & West Showground, a few miles from the farmhouse, and there were millions of people coming for it. “That sounds amazing!” I said, to which she replied, “No, it’s horrible!”
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