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{{Short description|1969 music festival in Bethel, New York, US}}{{About|1=the 1969 music and art festival|3=Woodstock (disambiguation)}}{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2016}}{{Use American English|date=July 2016}}

factoids

. Originally, the bird was perched on a fluteweblink >FIRST=GRETA TITLE=PITCH PERFECT: WOODSTOCK NEEDED A POSTER AND ARNOLD SKOLNICK DELIVERED A CULTURAL ICON WORK=DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE ACCESS-DATE=AUGUST 18, 2019, | location = Bethel, New York41.70174.880region:US-NY_type:event|display=title,inline}}| attendance = 460,000 to 500,000 people (estimate)Artie KornfeldMichael Lang (producer)>Michael LangJohn P. RobertsJoel RosenmanWoodstock Ventures| dates = August 15–17, 1969 (scheduled)August 15–18, 1969 (actual)

• Folk
• rock
• blues rock
• folk rock
• hard rock
• jazz fusion
• Latin
• psychedelic rock
• progressive rock
• southern rock
• jam band

{edih}www.woodstock.com}}}}{{Location map|USA|relief = 1|label = Bethel |lat = 41.701|long = -74.880|caption = Location in the United States|marksize = 5|position = left|float = |background = |width = 230}}{{Location map|USA New York|relief = 1|label = Max Yasgur's farm |lat = 41.701|long = -74.880New York (state)>New York|marksize = 5|position = left|float = |background = |width = 180}}Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York,NEWS,weblink Max Yasgar Dies; Woodstock Festival Was on His Farm, February 10, 1973, The New York Times, October 31, 2019, en-US, 0362-4331, {{convert|40|mi|round=5||abbr=}} southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music" and alternatively referred to as the Woodstock Rock Festival, it attracted more than 460,000 attendees.BOOK,weblink Woodstock Music and Arts Fair., August 18, 2019, Oxford Music Online – Oxford University Press, Jesse, Jarnow, 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2258729, 978-1-56159-263-0, NEWS,weblink Spokane Daily Chronicle, (Washington), Associated Press, Peace and sharing dominate festival, August 18, 1969, 10, NEWS,weblink Chicago Tribune, UPI, Music, art fair ends; 2 are dead, August 18, 1969, 3, sec. 1, subscription, NEWS,weblink Eugene Register-Guard, (Oregon), Associated Press, Rock, Naomi, 'Great' rock festival ends without violence, August 18, 1969, 4A, Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite overcast and sporadic rain.NEWS, State Investigating Handling of Tickets At Woodstock Fair,weblink The New York Times, 45, August 27, 1969, subscription, It was one of the largest music festivals in history and became synonymous with the counterculture of the 1960s.NEWS, July 4, 2018, Music festivals: What's the world's biggest?, en-GB, BBC News,weblink October 6, 2022, WEB, Woodstock {{!, The Biggest Music Festival in History |url=https://www.english-online.at/music/woodstock/music-rock-festival.htm |access-date=October 6, 2022 |website=www.english-online.at}}WEB, London, Luxury, July 6, 2021, The most legendary music festivals of all time,weblink October 6, 2022, Luxury London, en-US, WEB, 2021-11-05, How Woodstock Became a Symbol of U.S. Counterculture • Madame Blue,weblink 2023-10-04, themadameblue.com, en-US, The festival has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, as well as a defining event for the silent and baby boomer generations.NEWS, Kilgannon, Corey,weblink 3 Days of Peace and Music, 40 Years Later, The New York Times, Arts, March 17, 2009, NEWS,weblink Baby Boomer Generation Fast Facts, CNN, November 6, 2013, The event's significance was reinforced by a 1970 documentary film,WEB, Woodstock, IMDb,weblink October 31, 2019, an accompanying (Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More|soundtrack album), and a song written by Joni Mitchell that became a major hit for both Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Matthews Southern Comfort. Musical events bearing the Woodstock name were planned for anniversaries, including the tenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, thirtieth, fortieth, and fiftieth. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine listed it as number 19 of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.MAGAZINE,weblink Woodstock in 1969, June 24, 2004, April 17, 2008, Rolling Stone, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20070209163601weblink">weblink February 9, 2007, In 2017, the festival site became listed on the National Register of Historic Places.WEB, National Register of Historic Places listings for March 10, 2017,weblink U.S. National Park Service, March 10, 2017, March 15, 2017,

Planning and preparation

Woodstock was initiated through the efforts of Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman, and John P. Roberts.BOOK,weblink Scott R., Benarde, Stars of David: Rock'n'roll's Jewish Stories, 126, Brandeis University Press, July 1, 2003, 978-1584653035, Four Jews organized the Woodstock Festival: Michael Lang (producer), Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, John P. Roberts, John Roberts, and Joel Rosenman, Roberts and Rosenman financed the project. Lang had some experience as a promoter, having co-organized the Miami Pop Festival on the East Coast the previous year, where an estimated 25,000 people attended the two-day event.BOOK, Lang, Michael, The Road to Woodstock, George-Warren, Holly, June 30, 2009, Ecco, 978-0061576584, New York, Early in 1969, Roberts and Rosenman were New York City entrepreneurs, in the process of building Mediasound, a recording studio complex in Manhattan. Lang and Kornfeld's lawyer, Miles Lourie, who had done legal work on the Mediasound project, suggested that they contact Roberts and Rosenman about financing a similar, but much smaller, studio Kornfeld and Lang hoped to build in Woodstock, New York. Unpersuaded by this Studio-in-the-Woods proposal, Roberts and Rosenman counter-proposed a concert featuring the kind of artists known to frequent the Woodstock area (such as Bob Dylan and the Band). Kornfeld and Lang agreed to the new plan, and Woodstock Ventures was formed in January 1969.{{page needed|date=August 2020}} The company offices were located in an oddly decorated floor of 47 West 57th Street in Manhattan. Burt Cohen, and his design group, Curtain Call Productions, oversaw the psychedelic transformation of the office.BOOK, Perone, James, Woodstock : an encyclopedia of the music and art fair, 2005, Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., 978-0-313-33057-5, 1. publ., {{page needed|date=August 2020}}From the start, there were differences in approach among the four: Roberts was disciplined and knew what was needed for the venture to succeed, while the laid-back Lang saw Woodstock as a new, "relaxed" way of bringing entrepreneurs together.BOOK, Robert Stephen, Spitz, Barefoot in Babylon,weblink registration, The Viking Press, New York, 1979, 978-0-670-14801-1, {{page needed|date=August 2020}} When Lang was unable to find a site for the concert, Roberts and Rosenman, growing increasingly concerned, took to the road and eventually came up with a venue. Similar differences about financial discipline made Roberts and Rosenman wonder whether to pull the plug or to continue pumping money into the project.{{page needed|date=August 2020}}In April 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival became the first act to sign a contract for the event, agreeing to play for $10,000 (equivalent to ${{inflation|US|10000|1969|r=-3|fmt=c}} in {{Inflation-year|US}}{{Inflation-fn|US}}).NEWS, Dowling, Stephen, 50 Facts about Woodstock at 50: Money,weblink January 25, 2020, BBC, August 15, 2019, The promoters had experienced difficulty landing big-name groups until Creedence committed to play. Creedence drummer Doug Clifford later commented: "Once Creedence signed, everyone else jumped in line and all the other big acts came on." Given their 12:30 a.m. start time and omission from the Woodstock film (at {{sic|hide=y|Creedence}} frontman John Fogerty's insistence), {{sic|hide=y|Creedence}} members have expressed bitterness over their experiences regarding the festival.BOOK, Bordowitz, Hank, Bad Moon Rising: The Unauthorized History of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Chicago Review Press, Chicago, 2007, 390, 978-1-55652-661-9, Woodstock was conceived as a profit-making venture. It became a "free concert" when circumstances prevented the organizers from installing fences and ticket booths before opening day.{{page needed|date=August 2020}} Tickets for the three-day event cost US$18 in advance and $24 at the gate (equivalent to about ${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|18|1969|r=-1}}}} and ${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|24|1969|r=-1}}}} today{{Inflation-fn|US}}). Ticket sales were limited to record stores in the greater New York City area, or by mail via a post office box at the Radio City Station Post Office located in Midtown Manhattan. Around 186,000 advance tickets were sold.NEWS, August 18, 1969, 1969: Woodstock music festival ends, BBC News, On this Day: 1950–2005,weblink April 17, 2008, The organizers had anticipated approximately 50,000 festival-goers would turn up.{{page needed|date=August 2020}}

Selection of the venue

The original venue plan was for the festival to take place in the town of Woodstock, possibly near the proposed recording studio site owned by Alexander Tapooz.{{rp|40}} After local residents quickly rejected that idea, Lang and Kornfeld thought they had found another possible location at the Winston Farm in Saugerties, New York.NEWS, Anderson, Stacey, 3 Days of Peace, Music and a Concierge,weblink January 27, 2022, The New York Times, Section C, Page 1, July 10, 2014, But they had misunderstood, as the landowner's attorney made clear, in a brief meeting with Roberts and Rosenman.{{page needed|date=August 2020}} Growing alarmed at the lack of progress, Roberts and Rosenman took over the search for a venue, and discovered the {{convert|300|acre|ha sqmi km2|adj=on|lk=on}} Mills Industrial Park ({{coord|41.648088 |-74.179751|}}) in the town of Wallkill, New York, which Woodstock Ventures leased for US$10,000 (equivalent to ${{inflation|US|10000|1969|r=-3|fmt=c}} today) in the Spring of 1969.NEWS, Tiber, Elliot,weblink How Woodstock Happened ... Part 1, Times Herald-Record, Reprint from "Woodstock Commemorative Edition", 1994,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100127055604weblink">weblink January 27, 2010, Town officials were assured that no more than 50,000 would attend. Town residents immediately opposed the project. In early July, the Town Board passed a law requiring a permit for any gathering over 5,000 people. The conditions upon which a permit would be issued made it impossible for the promoters to continue construction at the Wallkill site.{{page needed|date=August 2020}} Reports of the ban, however, turned out to be a publicity bonanza for the festival.NEWS, Tiber, Elliot,weblink How Woodstock Happened ... Part 2, Times Herald-Record, Reprint from "Woodstock Commemorative Edition", 1994,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100201054600weblink">weblink February 1, 2010, File:Yasgur farm in 1968.jpg|thumb|Max YasgurMax YasgurIn his 2007 book Taking Woodstock, Elliot Tiber relates that he offered to host the event on his {{convert|15|acre|ha sqft m2|adj=on|lk=on}} motel grounds, and had a permit for such an event. He claims to have introduced the promoters to dairy farmer Max Yasgur.BOOK, Tiber, Elliot, Elliot Tiber, Tom, Monte, Taking Woodstock, SquareOne Publishers, 2007,weblink 978-0-7570-0293-9, {{page needed|date=August 2020}} Lang, however, disputes Tiber's account and says that Tiber introduced him to a realtor, who drove him to Yasgur's farm without Tiber. Sam Yasgur, Max's son, agrees with Lang's account.NEWS, Bill, Bleyer, The road to Woodstock runs through Sunken Meadow State Park., August 8, 2009,weblink Newsday, August 25, 2009, April 30, 2021,weblink dead, Yasgur's land formed a natural bowl sloping down to Filippini Pond on the land's north side. The stage would be set up at the bottom of the hill with Filippini Pond forming a backdrop. The pond became a popular skinny dipping destination. Filippini was the only landowner who refused to sign a lease for the use of his property.{{page needed|date=August 2020}}The organizers again told Bethel authorities they expected no more than 50,000 people.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020}}Despite resident opposition and signs proclaiming, "Buy No Milk. Stop Max's Hippy Music Festival",NEWS, Richard F., Shepard, Pop Rock Festival Finds New Home, July 23, 1969,weblink The New York Times, September 7, 2009, subscription, Bethel Town Attorney Frederick W. V. Schadt, building inspector Donald Clark and Town Supervisor Daniel Amatucci approved the festival permits. Nonetheless, the Bethel Town Board refused to issue the permits formally.WEB,weblink Woodstock: Sex, Drugs, and Zoning, Matthew, Wills, May 9, 2019, JSTOR Daily, BOOK,weblink Woodstock: The Oral History, SUNY Press, Google Books, 329, 978-1-4384-2975-5, BOOK,weblink Woodstock: An Encyclopedia of the Music and Art Fair, James E., Perone, January 30, 2005, Bloomsbury Academic, Google Books, 104, 978-0-313-33057-5, WEB,weblink I, Ron, eek!: "What Can a Hippie Contribute to our Community?": Culture Wars, Moral Panics, and the Woodstock Festival, Ronald Helfrich, Jnr, April 5, 2013, Clark was ordered to post stop-work orders.WEB,weblink Stop Work Order, July 1969, Rosenman recalls meeting Don Clark and discussing with him how unethical it was for him to withhold permits which had already been authorized, and which he had in his pocket. At the end of the meeting, Inspector Clark gave him the permits.{{page needed|date=August 2020}} The Stop Work Order was lifted, and the festival could proceed pending backing by the Department of Health and Agriculture, and removal of all structures by September 1, 1969.WEB,weblink Letter to Woodstock Ventures, The late change in venue did not give the festival organizers enough time to prepare. At a meeting three days before the event, Rosenman was asked by the construction foremen to choose between (a) completing the fencing and ticket booths (without which Roberts and Rosenman would be facing almost certain bankruptcy after the festival) or (b) trying to complete the stage (without which it would be a weekend of half a million concert-goers with no concert to hold their attention). The next morning, on Wednesday, it became clear that option (a) had disappeared. Overnight, 50,000 "early birds" had arrived and had planted themselves in front of the half-finished stage. For the rest of the weekend, concert-goers simply walked onto the site, with or without tickets. Though the festival left Roberts and Rosenman close to financial ruin, their ownership of the film and recording rights turned their finances around when the Academy Award-winning documentary film Woodstock was released in March 1970.{{page needed|date=August 2020}}

Festival

(File:Woodstock redmond stage.JPG|thumb|Woodstock festival site with the stage)The influx of attendees to the rural concert site in Bethel created a massive traffic jam. The town of Bethel did not enforce its codes, fearing chaos as the crowd flowed to the site.NEWS, Tiber, Elliot, 1994, How Woodstock Happened ... Part 3, Times Herald-Record, Reprint from "Woodstock Commemorative Edition",weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100129132426weblink">weblink January 29, 2010, Eventually, radio and television descriptions of the traffic jams discouraged people from setting off to the festival.NEWS, Collier, Barnard L., 200,000 Thronging To Rock Festival Jam Roads Upstate,weblink The New York Times, 1, 31, August 16, 1969, subscription, Arlo Guthrie made an announcement that was included in the film saying that the New York State Thruway was closed,AV MEDIA, 1970, Woodstock, Motion picture, Warner Brothers, although the director of the Woodstock museum said that this closure never occurred.NEWS, Michael, Hill, Happy 40th birthday Woodstock baby, if you exist, July 17, 2009,weblink Associated Press, The San Diego Union-Tribune, To add to the problems and difficulty in dealing with the large crowds, recent rains had caused muddy roads and fields. The facilities were not equipped to provide sanitation or first aid for the number of people attending; hundreds of thousands found themselves in a struggle against bad weather, food shortages, and poor sanitation.WEB, Doyle, Michael William,weblink Statement on the Historical and Cultural Significance of the 1969 Woodstock Festival Site, September 25, 2001, Woodstock – Preservation Archives, On the morning of Sunday, August 17, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller called festival organizer John P. Roberts and told him that he was thinking of ordering 10,000 National Guard troops to the festival, but Roberts persuaded him not to. Sullivan County declared a state of emergency. During the festival, personnel from nearby Stewart Air Force Base helped ensure order and air-lifted performers in and out of the concert site.BOOK, Evans, Mike, Kingsbury, Paul, Woodstock: Three Days That Rocked the World, 2010, Sterling, New York, 978-1402780349,weblink {{rp|225}}Jimi Hendrix was the last to perform at the festival, taking the stage at 8:30 Monday morning due to delays caused by the rain. By that point, the audience had fallen to about 30,000 from its estimated peak of 450,000. Many of them left during Hendrix's performance, having waited to simply catch a glimpse of him.BOOK, Harry, Shapiro, Caesar, Glebbeek, Jimi Hendrix, Electric Gypsy,weblink 1995, Macmillan, 978-0-312-13062-6, 384–85, Hendrix and his new band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows were introduced as the Experience, but he corrected this and added: "You could call us a Band of Gypsies".BOOK, Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix, Charles R., Cross, Hyperion, 2005, 978-1-4013-0028-9, registration,weblink {{rp|270}} They performed a two-hour set, including his psychedelic rendition of the national anthem. The song became "part of the sixties Zeitgeist" as it was captured in the Woodstock film.{{rp|272}}The festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and the conditions involved, although there were three recorded fatalities: two drug overdoses and another caused when a tractor ran over a 17-year-old sleeping in a nearby hayfield.WEB, Maranzani, Barbara, 10 Things You May Not Know About Woodstock,weblink August 10, 2022, HISTORY, en, WEB, May 22, 2019, 50 Facts about Woodstock,weblink August 10, 2022, Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, en-GB, There were births claimed to have occurred among Woodstock attendees, one in a car caught in traffic and another in a hospital after an airlift by helicopter. Extensive research by a book author could not verify any birth claims, except that a potential attendee never arrived.WEB,weblink My search for the Woodstock baby | GreenBiz, www.greenbiz.com, There were a number of miscarriages (sources range from four to eight).NEWS, Barnard L., Collier,weblink Tired Rock Fans Begin Exodus, The New York Times, August 18, 1969, Over the course of the three days, there were 742 drug overdoses.NEWS, Engel, Currie, August 9, 2019, People Were Born and Died at Woodstock. Here Are Their Stories, Time,weblink live, April 11, 2021,weblink November 1, 2020, Max Yasgur owned the site of the event, and he spoke of how nearly half a million people spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. He stated, "If we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future".{{page needed|date=August 2020}}

Sound

(File:Woodstock Music and Art Fair.jpg|thumb|Joe Cocker performs on stage at left before crowd and huge lighting/sound towers.)Sound for the concert was engineered by sound engineer Bill Hanley. "It worked very well", he says of the event. "I built special speaker columns on the hills and had 16 loudspeaker arrays in a square platform going up to the hill on {{convert|70|foot|adj=on|disp=sqbr}} towers. We set it up for 150,000 to 200,000 people. Of course, 500,000 showed up."NEWS,weblink Parnelli Innovator Honoree, Father of Festival Sound, Front of House Magazine, Front of House, September 2006, ALTEC designed marine plywood cabinets that weighed half a ton apiece and stood {{convert|6|ft|m}} tall, almost {{convert|4|ft|m}} deep, and {{convert|3|ft|m}} wide. Each of these enclosures carried four {{convert|15|in|mm|adj=on}} JBL D140 loudspeakers. The tweeters consisted of 4×2-Cell & 2×10-Cell Altec Horns. Behind the stage were three transformers providing 2,000 amperes of current to power the amplification setup.BOOK, Jerry, Hopkins, Festival! The Book of American Music Celebrations, Macmillan Publishing, 1970, New York, 978-0-02-580170-7, {{page needed|date=August 2020}} For many years this system was collectively referred to as the Woodstock Bins.WEB,weblink From Live Peace in Toronto to the Thin End of Wedgies in Soweto, 3rd Ear Music, The Hidden Years, July 30, 2011, The live performances were captured on two 8-track Scully recorders in a tractor trailer back stage by Edwin Kramer and Lee Osbourne on 1-inch Scotch recording tape at 15{{Nbsp}}ips, then mixed at the Record Plant studio in New York.MAGAZINE,weblink 22, Waddell, Ray, Peace and Prosperity: How A Three-Day Festival Became A Four-Decade Business, August 8, 2009, Billboard (magazine), Billboard, Nielsen Business Media, 121, 31, 0006-2510,

Lighting

Lighting for the concert was engineered by lighting designer and technical director E.H. Beresford "Chip" Monck. Monck was hired to plan and build the staging and lighting, ten weeks of work for which he was paid $7,000 (equivalent to ${{inflation|US|7000|1969|r=-3|fmt=c}} today). Much of his plan had to be scrapped when the promoters were not allowed to use the original location in Wallkill, New York. The stage roof that was constructed in the shorter time available was not able to support the lighting that had been rented, which wound up sitting unused underneath the stage. The only light on the stage was from spotlights.NEWS, Campbell, Rick, Chip Monck: The man who shined light on Woodstock,weblink October 12, 2011, Houston Chronicle, August 18, 2009, Monck used twelve 1300 Watt Super Trouper-follow spots rigged on four towers around the stage. The follow spots weighed {{convert|600|lb|||}} each and were operated by spotlight operators who had to climb up on the top of the {{convert|60|ft|adj=mid|m|-high}} lighting towers.BOOK,weblink 278, The oral history of Woodstock, Joel Mankower, SUNY Press, 9781438429755, Monck also was drafted just before the concert started as the master of ceremonies when Michael Lang noticed he had forgotten to hire one. He can be heard and seen in recordings of Woodstock making the stage announcements, including requests to "stay off the towers" and the warning about the "brown acid".

Artists

Thirty-two acts performed over the course of the four days:WEB,weblink Woodstock, woodstock.com, July 2, 2015, {| class="wikitable"|+Friday, August 15 – Saturday, August 16! Artist! Time! Notes|Richie Havens|5:07 pm – 5:54 pm|Was moved up to the opening performance slot after Sweetwater were stopped by police en route to the festival and other artists were delayed on the freeway.Swami Satchidananda Saraswati>Swami Satchidananda|7:10 pm – 7:20 pmWORK=SRI SWAMI SATCHIDANANDA, July 2, 2015, Sweetwater (band)>Sweetwater|7:30 pm – 8:10 pm||Bert Sommer|8:30 pm – 9:15 pmAmerica (Simon & Garfunkel song)>America".|Tim Hardin|9:20 pm – 9:45 pm||Ravi Shankar|10:20 pm – 10:35 pm|Played through the rain.Melanie (singer)>Melanie|11:00 pm – 11:20 pm|Sent onstage for an unscheduled performance after the Incredible String Band declined to perform during the rainstorm. Called back for two encores.|Arlo Guthrie|11:55 pm – 12:25 am||Joan Baez|12:55 am – 2:00 am|Was six months pregnant at the time.{| class="wikitable"|+Saturday, August 16 – Sunday, August 17!Artist!style="width:148px"|Time!NotesQuill (band)>Quill|12:30 pm – 12:45 pm||Country Joe McDonald|1:20 pm – 1:30 pm|Brought in for an unscheduled emergency solo performance when Santana was not yet ready to take the stage. Joe performed again with the Fish the following day. Santana (band)>Santana|2:00 pm – 2:45 pmDATE=2019-08-06 LANGUAGE=EN-US URL=HTTPS://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2019/08/06/ARTS/MUSIC/SANTANA-WOODSTOCK.HTML ISSN=0362-4331, |John Sebastian|3:30 pm – 3:55 pmTITLE=WOODSTOCK FAQ: ALL THAT'S LEFT TO KNOW ABOUT THE FABLED GARDEN YEAR=2019 LOCATION=LONDON, Keef Hartley>Keef Hartley Band|4:45 pm – 5:30 pm||The Incredible String Band|6:00 pm – 6:30 pm|Originally slated to perform on the first day following Ravi Shankar; declined to perform during the rainstorm and were moved to the second day.For a detailed account by a band member, see Rose Simpson, Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden: A Girl's Life in the Incredible String Band (Strange Attractor Press, 2020), pp. 128–44.|Canned Heat|7:30 pm – 8:30 pm|Mountain (band)>Mountain|9:00 pm – 10:00 pm|This performance was only their third gig as a band"West, Leslie." Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed. Ed. Colin Larkin. Oxford Music Online.Oxford University Press. Web|Grateful Dead|10:30 pm – 12:05 am|Their set ended after a 36-minute version of "Turn On Your Love Light".|Creedence Clearwater Revival|12:30 am – 1:20 am|Janis Joplin with the Kozmic Blues BandHTTP://WWW.BRITANNICA.COM/EBCHECKED/TOPIC/306112/JANIS-JOPLIN DATE=SEPTEMBER 24, 2006 ENCYCLOPEDIA=ENCYCLOPæDIA BRITANNICA, |2:00 am – 3:00 am||Sly and the Family Stone|3:30 am – 4:20 am||The Who|5:00 am – 6:05 amAbbie Hoffman.HTTPS://WWW.NEWYORKER.COM/MAGAZINE/1994/08/15/THE-WOODSTOCK-WARSWEBSITE=NEWYORKER.COM ACCESS-DATE=JULY 2, 2015, |Jefferson Airplane|8:00 am – 9:40 am|Joined onstage on piano by Nicky Hopkins.{| class="wikitable"|+Sunday, August 17 – Monday, August 18!Artist!Time!Notes|Joe Cocker and the Grease Band|2:00 pm – 3:25 pm|Played "With a Little Help From My Friends"."Cocker, Joe". Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed. Colin Larkin (ed.). Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. After Joe Cocker's set, a thunderstorm disrupted the events for several hours.|Country Joe and the Fish|6:30 pm – 8:00 pm|Country Joe McDonald's second performance.|Ten Years After|8:15 pm – 9:15 pm||The Band|10:00 pm – 10:50 pm|Called back for an encore.|Johnny Winter|Midnight – 1:05 am|Winter's brother, Edgar Winter, is featured on three songs. Called back for an encore.|Blood, Sweat & Tears|1:30 am – 2:30 amFIRST1=WADE FIRST2=SCOTT DATE= PUBLISHER= BETHEL WOODS CENTER FOR THE ARTS QUOTE=, |Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young|3:00 am – 4:14 am|An acoustic and electric set were played. Neil Young skipped most of the acoustic set.Paul Butterfield>Paul Butterfield Blues Band|6:00 am – 6:45 am||Sha Na Na|7:30 am – 8:00 am|Guitarist Henry Gross was the youngest musician performing at the festival|Jimi Hendrix / Gypsy Sun & Rainbows|9:00 am – 11:10 amWEBSITE=WPI ARCHIVE-DATE=SEPTEMBER 11, 2015 URL-STATUS=DEAD,

Declined invitations or missed connections

• The Beatles were recording Abbey Road at the time and on the precipice of breaking up. Promoter Michael Lang, realizing the Beatles were not an option, invited John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band. Due to Lennon's position on Vietnam and 1968 drug bust in England, Richard Nixon and the U.S. government reportedly did not want him in the country. Apple Corps sent a letter to the promoters offering the Plastic Ono Band, but the letter arrived as promoters were losing the location in Wallkill, so distractions did not allow arrangements to be finalized.WEB,weblink Why John Lennon Couldn't Play at Woodstock: 'Our Government Was Not Interested in Having Him', January 10, 2022,
• The Jeff Beck Group disbanded prior to Woodstock. "I deliberately broke the group up before Woodstock," Beck said. "I didn't want it to be preserved." Beck's piano player Nicky Hopkins performed with Jefferson Airplane.BOOK, Carson, Annette,weblink Jeff Beck: Crazy Fingers, San Francisco, Backbeat Books, 2001, 96, 9781617744846,
• Blues Image agreed to appear at the Woodstock festival, according to a 2011 interview with percussionist Joe Lala. Their manager did not want them to go and said, "There's only one road in and it's going to be raining, you don't want to be there". The band instead took a gig at Binghamton.INTERVIEW, Ray Shasho, Joe, Lala,weblink An Unplugged Interview With The Silent- Giant Of The Music Industry -Joe Lala, Classic Rock Here And Now, October 7, 2011, April 9, 2018, mdy,
• The Byrds were invited but chose not to participate, believing that Woodstock would be no different from any of the other music festivals that summer. There were also concerns about money. Bassist John York later said, "We had no idea what it was going to be. We were burned out and tired of the festival scene."BOOK, Johnny, Rogan, The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited, Rogan House, London, 293, 978-0-9529540-1-9, 1997,
• Chicago had initially been signed to play at Woodstock, but they had a contract with concert promoter Bill Graham which allowed him to move their concerts at the Fillmore West. He rescheduled some of their dates to August 17, thus forcing them to back out of the concert. Graham did so to ensure that Santana would take their slot at the festival, as he managed them as well.NEWS, Cetera lends voice to SuperPops opener,weblink The Spokesman-Review, September 21, 2008, Features,
• The Doors were considered but canceled at the last moment. According to guitarist Robby Krieger, they turned it down because they thought that it would be a "second class repeat of Monterey Pop Festival" and later regretted that decision.WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20060715100724weblink">weblink dead, July 15, 2006, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger Live Chat Log-July 3, 1996, Transcript, The Doors, July 3, 1996, July 30, 2011,
• Bob Dylan lived in the town of Woodstock but was never in serious negotiation to appear. Instead, he signed in mid-July to play the Isle of Wight Festival of Music on August 31. He intended to travel to England on Queen Elizabeth 2 on August 15, the day that the Woodstock Festival started, but his son was injured by a cabin door and the family disembarked. Dylan and his wife Sara flew to England the following week. The Band accompanied him in his Isle of Wight appearance.BOOK, Bob, Dylan, Chronicles Volume One, 116, 978-0-7435-4309-5,
• Free was asked to perform and declined. They did play at the Isle of Wight Festival a week later.
• The Guess Who were invited to perform and declined.WEB,weblinkweblink December 11, 2021, live, Why did The Guess Who miss Woodstock?, YouTube, May 16, 2020, {{cbignore}}
• Iron Butterfly was booked to appear, and is listed on the Woodstock poster for a Sunday performance, but could not perform because they were stuck at LaGuardia Airport.WEB,weblink Original Woodstock Wallkill Poster, Woodstock Story, July 30, 2013, According to Production Coordinator John Morris, "They sent me a telegram saying, 'We will arrive at LaGuardia. You will have helicopters pick us up. We will fly straight to the show. We will perform immediately, and then we will be flown out.' And I picked up the phone and called Western Union ... And [my telegram] said: For reasons I can't go into / Until you are here / Clarifying your situation / Knowing you are having problems / You will have to find /Other transportation /Unless you plan not to come.'"BOOK, Fornatale, Pete, Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock, Sweetwater,weblink August 17, 2017, 54–55, 978-1-4165-9119-1, June 23, 2009, Simon and Schuster,
• It's a Beautiful Day had a verbal agreement with Michael Lang to perform at the festival. Violinist and band leader David LaFlamme said their manager Bill Graham wanted Santana, who he also managed to play the festival instead. Lang and Graham agreed to flip a coin to decide which band would play, Graham won, and Santana performed instead.WEB, Iwasaki, Scott, It's a Beautiful Day will burst onto the Egyptian Theatre stage,weblink Park Record, 26 October 2023, 8 October 2014, WEB, Thompson, Dave, It's a Beautiful Day – interview with David LaFlamme,weblink Goldmine Magazine, July 28, 2016, 26 October 2023, en,
• Tommy James and the Shondells claimed to have declined an invitation. James stated: "We could have just kicked ourselves. We were in Hawaii, and my secretary called and said, 'Yeah, listen, there's this pig farmer in upstate New York that wants you to play in his field.' That's how it was put to me. So we passed, and we realized what we'd missed a couple of days later."AV MEDIA NOTES, Tommy James and the Shondells: Anthology, Tommy James and the Shondells, 8, 12, Rhino Records Inc., R2 70920,
• Jethro Tull also declined. According to Ian Anderson, he knew that it would be a big event, but he did not want to go because he did not like hippies and had other concerns, including inappropriate nudity, heavy drinking, and drug use.WEB, Moraski, Lauren,weblink CBS News, Acts that almost made it to Woodstock, August 15, 2014, August 15, 2014,
• Led Zeppelin were asked to perform. Their manager Peter Grant stated: "I said no because at Woodstock we'd have just been another band on the bill."BOOK, Lewis, Dave, Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, Omnibus Press, 1997, 978-0-7119-5307-9,
• Lighthouse declined to perform at Woodstock.WEB, Bush, John,weblink Lighthouse Artist Biography, AllMusic, July 31, 2013,
• Arthur Lee and Love declined an invitation, in part due to turmoil within the band.
• Mind Garage declined because they thought that the festival would be a minor event, and they had a higher paying gig elsewhere.
• Joni Mitchell was originally slated to perform, but cancelled at the urging of her manager to avoid missing a scheduled appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. She later composed the song "Woodstock" inspired by what she saw on television.NEWS,weblink Salon.com, April 4, 2000, Joni Mitchell, Frank, Houston, NEWS, Joni-Come-Lately,weblink Daily News, Jim, Farber, August 13, 1998, July 31, 2013, February 2, 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140202104153weblink">weblink dead,
• Essra Mohawk was scheduled to perform at the festival, but her driver took a wrong turn on the way. “We got there in time to see the last verse of the last song of the last act of the first night, and then the stage went dark before we got to it from the parking lot,” she recalled in a 2009 video interview.Essra Mohawk Dies: Singer-Songwriter Who Performed With Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia, But Missed Woodstock Was 75 Retrieved December 27, 2023
• The Moody Blues were included on the original Wallkill poster as performers, but they backed out after being booked in Paris the same weekend.WEB, Passing On Woodstock: Who and Why,weblink Woodstock Story, April 15, 2009,
• Poco were offered a chance to perform at the festival, but their manager turned it down for a concert at a Los Angeles school gymnasium.WEB,weblink Poco Performs at Iron Horse, Courant, November 16, 2012, May 18, 2021,
• Procol Harum were invited, but refused because Woodstock fell at the end of a long tour and also coincided with the due date of guitarist Robin Trower's baby.WEB,weblink Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Advanced Placement American History, July 31, 2013,
• The Rascals were invited to play, but declined because they were in the middle of recording a new album.WEB,weblink About The Rascals, www.therascalsarchives.com, August 19, 2019, September 8, 2019,weblink dead,
• Raven turned down an invitation to play because they played at one of the Woodstock Sound-Outs the year before and it did not go well.Angelo, Marty, Once Life Matters: A New Beginning (Impact Publishers, 2005–2006), {{ISBN|0-9618954-4-6}}
• Roy Rogers was asked to close the festival with "Happy Trails", but he declined.NEWS,weblink Woodstock producer: Roy Rogers, not Hendrix, could have closed, Washington Examiner, Jeff, Dufour, March 16, 2012, July 4, 2013,
• The Rolling Stones were invited, but declined because Mick Jagger was in Australia filming Ned Kelly, and Keith Richards' girlfriend Anita Pallenberg had just given birth to their son Marlon.WEB,weblink 10 Rock Stars Who Didn't Play Woodstock, Nick, Deriso, August 15, 2014, Ultimate Classic Rock, August 17, 2019,
• Simon & Garfunkel declined the invitation, as they were working on their new album.Joe Morella et Patricia Barey, Simon & Garfunkel: Old Friends, Carol Pub. Group, 1991, 261 p. ({{ISBN|1559720891}})
• Spirit also declined an invitation to play, as they already had shows planned and wanted to play those instead, not knowing how big Woodstock would be.AV MEDIA NOTES, Clear, Spirit (band), Spirit, 1969,
• Strawberry Alarm Clock declined an invitation because they did not think Woodstock would be "that big of a deal".WEB,weblink An Interview with drummer Gene Gunnels of Strawberry Alarm Clock: Live life to the fullest without regrets, Limnios, Michael, July 24, 2013, Blues.Gr, July 17, 2021,
• According to Michael Lang, Apple Records wanted to send some of their acts to Woodstock. "Apple sent me a letter saying they were going to send an art installation from the Plastic Ono Band and also offered James Taylor and Billy Preston," Lang continued to Billboard. "All three would have been great, but the letter arrived around the time we were losing the site in Wallkill and we were kind of distracted, so those never got finalized."WEB,weblink Why John Lennon Couldn't Play at Woodstock: 'Our Government Was Not Interested in Having Him', January 10, 2022,
• Zager and Evans were invited to play Woodstock and appear on American Bandstand, but Rick Evans was injured by a drunk driver in a crash.Drummer on only No. 1 hit to come out of Lincoln dies at 72, L. Kent Wolgamott, Lincoln Journal Star, November 19, 2015, accessed June 17, 2020.
• Frank Zappa was then with The Mothers of Invention; he said, "A lot of mud at Woodstock ... We were invited to play there, we turned it down."

Media coverage

(File:6908-woodstock-ad.jpg|thumb|upright|Magazine advertisement promoting the Woodstock Music & Art Fair's "Aquarian Exposition", to be held in Wallkill, NY)Very few reporters from outside the immediate area were on the scene. During the first few days of the festival, national media coverage emphasized the problems. Front-page headlines in the Daily News read "Traffic Uptight at Hippiefest" and "Hippies Mired in a Sea of Mud". The New York Times ran an editorial titled "Nightmare in the Catskills", which read in part, "The dreams of marijuana and rock music that drew 300,000 fans and hippies to the Catskills had little more sanity than the impulses that drive the lemmings to march to their deaths in the sea. They ended in a nightmare of mud and stagnation ... What kind of culture is it that can produce so colossal a mess?"The 60s: The Story of a Decade, The New Yorker, Random House, 2016, p. 231 Coverage became more positive by the end of the festival, in part because the parents of concertgoers called the media and told them, based on their children's phone calls, that their reporting was misleading.AV MEDIA, Woodstock Now & Then, VH1,weblink 2009, Documentary, July 31, 2013, August 22, 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140822000147weblink">weblink dead, {{page needed|date=August 2020}} The New York Times covered the prelude to the festival and the move from Wallkill to Bethel. Barnard Collier, who reported from the event for The New York Times, asserts that he was pressured by on-duty editors at the paper to write a misleadingly negative article about the event. According to Collier, this led to acrimonious discussions and his threat to refuse to write the article until the paper's executive editor, James Reston, agreed to let him write the article as he saw fit. The eventual article dealt with issues of traffic jams and minor lawbreaking, but went on to emphasize cooperation, generosity, and the good nature of the festival goers.BOOK, Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock, Pete, Fornatale, Simon & Schuster, 2009, 9781416591191, {{page needed|date=August 2020}} When the festival was over, Collier wrote another article about the exodus of fans from the festival site and the lack of violence at the event. The chief medical officer for the event and several local residents were quoted as praising the festival goers."BOOK, Andy, Bennett, Simon, Warner, Remembering Woodstock, Reporting Woodstock: Some contemporary press reflections on the festival, Aldershot, UK, Ashgate Publishing, May 2004, 978-0-7546-0714-4, {{page needed |date=July 2013}}Middletown, New York's Times Herald-Record, the only local daily newspaper, editorialized against the law that banned the festival from Wallkill. During the festival, a rare Saturday edition was published. The paper had the only phone line running out of the site, and it used a motorcyclist to get stories and pictures from the impassable crowd to the newspaper's office {{convert|35|mi}} away in Middletown.NEWS, Romm, Ethel Grodzins,weblink Sex, Drugs, Rock 'N Roll in Redneck Country, The Huffington Post, August 15, 2009, NEWS,weblink In His Own Words: The 'Record' on Woodstock, David E., Romm, The Times Herald-Record, August 14, 2009, July 30, 2011, November 3, 2018,weblink dead, NEWS,weblink Woodstock: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary, The Times Herald-Record, July 30, 2011, {{failed verification |date=July 2013}}

Releases

Films

1970 documentary

The documentary film Woodstock, directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited by a crew headed by Thelma Schoonmaker, was released in March 1970. Artie Kornfeld (one of the promoters of the festival) went to Fred Weintraub, an executive at Warner Bros., and asked for money to film the festival. Artie had been turned down everywhere else, but against the express wishes of other Warner Bros. executives, Weintraub put his job on the line and gave Kornfeld $100,000 (equivalent to ${{inflation|US|100000|1969|r=-4|fmt=c}} today) to make the film. Woodstock helped to save Warner Bros at a time when the company was on the verge of going out of business. The book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls details the making of the film.Wadleigh rounded up a crew of about 100 from the New York film scene. With no money to pay the crew, he agreed to a double-or-nothing scheme, in which the crew would receive double pay if the film succeeded and nothing if it bombed. Wadleigh strove to make the film as much about the hippies as the music, listening to their feelings about compelling events contemporaneous with the festival (such as the Vietnam War), as well as the views of the townspeople.WEB,weblink How Woodstock Came To Be ... (continued), April 17, 2008,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20020106071119weblink">weblink January 6, 2002, Woodstock received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature.WEB,weblink The Official Academy Awards Database, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, July 30, 2011, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080921143432weblink">weblink September 21, 2008, mdy-all, In 1996, the film was inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry. In 1994, Woodstock: The Director's Cut was released and expanded to include Janis Joplin as well as additional performances by Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Canned Heat not seen in the original version of the film. In 2009, the expanded 40th Anniversary Edition was released on DVD. This release marks the film's first availability on Blu-ray.

Other films

Woodstock Diaries was produced by D. A. Pennebaker in 1994 as a three-part TV documentary miniseries. It was intended to commemorate Woodstock's 25th anniversary and includes rare performances and interviews with many of the concert's producers, including Joel Rosenman, John Roberts and Michael Lang.(Live at Woodstock (Jimi Hendrix album)|Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock) was produced in 2005 as two-disc set that includes all available footage of Hendrix's Woodstock performance, in two different edits. The release also includes a mini-documentary with members of Hendrix's band, and footage of a September 1969 news conference where he discussed his Woodstock set.Taking Woodstock was produced in 2009 by Taiwanese American filmmaker Ang Lee.{{IMDb title|1127896|Taking Woodstock}} Lee practically rented out the entire town of New Lebanon, New York, to shoot the film. He was initially concerned with angering the locals, but they ended up being very welcoming and willing to help with the film.NEWS, Schoemer, Karen, Turn on, Tune in, Turn Back the Clock,weblink The New York Times, August 21, 2009, December 2, 2014, The movie is based on Elliot Tiber, played by Demetri Martin, and his role in bringing Woodstock to Bethel, New York. The film also stars Jonathan Groff as Michael Lang, Daniel Eric Gold as Joel Rosenman, and Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton as Jake and Sonia Teichberg.WEB, Synopsis,weblink Focus Features, December 2, 2014, Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation is a documentary by Barak Goodman, produced in 2019 by PBS. It focuses on Woodstock's social and political context and contains previously unseen footage supplemented by voice-over anecdotes from festival attendees. It focuses more on the scene in the crowd (and around the country) than on the stage.Creating Woodstock was directed by Mick Richards and produced in 2019. It looks at how the festival came together, with interviews with producers elucidating some of Woodstock's myths, and what it took to get many performers to attend. (Janis Joplin, for example, apparently required a personal supply of strawberries).

Albums

Soundtrack albums and 25th anniversary releases

Two soundtrack albums were released. The first, (Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More), was a 3-LP (later 2-CD) album containing a sampling of one or two songs by most of the acts who performed. A year later, Woodstock 2 was released as a 2-LP album. Both albums included recordings of stage announcements (many by Production Coordinator John Morris, e.g., "[We're told] that the brown acid is not specifically too good", "Hey, if you think really hard, maybe we can stop this rain") and crowd noises (i.e., the rain chant) between songs. In August 1994, a third album, Woodstock Diary was released, containing music not included on the earlier two albums.WEB,weblink Lee Zimmerman, Revisiting Woodstock's original soundtrack release, August 14, 2019, Goldmine, November 15, 2021, Tracks from all three albums, as well as numerous additional, previously unreleased performances from the festival (but not the stage announcements and crowd noises) were reissued by Atlantic, also in August 1994, as a four compact disc box set titled (Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music).NEWS, Weiner, Natalie, August 9, 2019, How to Relive Woodstock From the Comfort of Your Couch,weblink The New York Times, November 15, 2021, An album titled (Woodstock (Jimi Hendrix album)|Jimi Hendrix: Woodstock) was also released in August 1994, featuring only selected recordings of Jimi Hendrix at the festival.

30th anniversary releases

In July 1999, MCA Records released Live at Woodstock, an expanded, double disc set featuring nearly every song of Hendrix's performance, omitting just two pieces that were sung by his rhythm guitarist Larry Lee.

40th anniversary releases

In June 2009, complete performances from Woodstock by Santana, Janis Joplin, Sly & the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, and Johnny Winter were released separately by Legacy/SME Records, and were also collected in a box set titled The Woodstock Experience.In August 2009, Rhino/Atlantic Records issued a six-disc box set titled (Woodstock 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm), which included further musical performances as well as stage announcements and other ancillary material.PRESS RELEASE, Woodstock—40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm boxed set, Rhino Entertainment, August 16, 2009, June 5, 2009,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20090905043240weblink">weblink September 5, 2009, In October 2009, Joe Cocker released Live at Woodstock, a live album of his entire Woodstock set. The album contains eleven tracks, ten of which were previously unreleased.

50th anniversary releases

On August 2, 2019, the Rhino/Atlantic released (Woodstock – Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive), a massive 38 disc, 36-hour, 432-song completists' audio box set of nearly every note played at the original 1969 Woodstock festival (including 276 songs that were previously unreleased), a "CD collection [co-produced for Rhino by archivist Andy Zax] that lays the '69 fest out in chronological order, from the first stage announcements to muddy farewells." The only things missing from this 38-CD edition are two Jimi Hendrix songs that his estate did not believe were up to the required standard and some of Sha Na Na's music that missed being captured on tape. Due to various production and warehousing issues, the release of the box set was delayed dramatically, causing massive backlash and dissatisfaction toward Rhino and Warner Music.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} More condensed versions — (Woodstock – Back to the Garden: 50th Anniversary Experience|a ten disc deluxe set) and (Woodstock – Back to the Garden: 50th Anniversary Collection|a three disc or five LP sampler set) — were also released. The full version was limited to a run of only 1,969 copies.WEB,weblink Coming This Summer Woodstock—Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive, June 2019, Rhino Records, June 9, 2019, MAGAZINE,weblink Back to an Even Bigger Garden: Massive Woodstock Box Set Planned for August, David Browne, May 8, 2019, Rolling Stone, June 9, 2019, MAGAZINE,weblink Woodstock '69 Getting a Completists' 38-Disc, 36-Hour Box Set for 50th Anniversary, Chris Willman, May 8, 2019, Variety (magazine), Variety, June 9, 2019, WEB,weblink All 433 songs played at Woodstock to be released in epic 38-disc box set, Andrew Trendell, May 13, 2019, New Musical Express, June 9, 2019, Also released in 2019 was Live at Woodstock, an official album of all 11 songs played by Creedence Clearwater Revival, from "Born on the Bayou" to "Bad Moon Rising" and "Proud Mary". John Fogerty had originally thought the band's performance was unworthy but this album was finally released both on CD and as a double vinyl LP.

Aftermath

File:Woodstockpla.jpg|thumb|right|Peace and Music Woodstock monument with plaques by sculptor Wayne C. Saward and erected in 1984 on the festival site (note that John Sebastian's surname is misspelled as "Sabastian" and Bert Sommer's name is missing)NEWS, Graff, Gary, Knight-Ridder,weblink Love was the word but what was the truth?, The Day (New London), The DayThe Day (New London), The DayIn the years immediately following the festival, Woodstock co-producers John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, along with Robert Pilpel, wrote Young Men with Unlimited Capital: The Inside Story of the Legendary Woodstock Festival Told By The Two People Who Paid for It, a book about the goings-on behind the scenes during the production of the Woodstock Festival.BOOK, Roberts, John, Rosenman, Joel, Pilpel, Robert H., Joel Rosenman, John Roberts, Robert Pilpel, Young Men with Unlimited Capital: The Inside Story of the Legendary Woodstock Festival Told By The Two People Who Paid for It, 1974, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 9780151559770, 1st, 922819, Bethel voters did not re-elect Supervisor Amatucci, in an election held in November 1969, because of his role in bringing the festival to the town and the upset attributed to some residents.How Woodstock Happened..., Sullivan County Historical Society; Catskill Shopper ad, Oct. 1, 1969 Although accounts vary, the loss was only by a very small margin of between six and fifty votes.Woodstock: The Oral History, p. 329; National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, p. 63 (Section8, page 45); Ron Helfrich Blog at note 33 (citing The Monticello (NY) Republican Watchman, November 6, p. 1; Monticello (NY) Evening News, November 13, 1969, p. 4; The Liberty (NY) Register, November 6, 1969, p. 1) The New York State Legislature and the Town of Bethel also enacted mass gathering laws designed to prevent any more festivals from occurring.Approximately 80 lawsuits were filed against Woodstock Ventures, primarily by farmers in the area. The movie financed settlements and paid off the $1.4 million of debt (equivalent to ${{inflation|US|1.4|1969|r=1|fmt=c}} million today) Roberts and Rosenman had incurred from the festival.WEB, Cunningham, Rachel, Woodstock Was Almost The Fyre Festival Of Its Day,weblink vinylmeplease.com, August 14, 2019, Max Yasgur refused to rent out his farm for a 1970 revival of the festival, saying, "As far as I know, I'm going back to running a dairy farm." Yasgur died in 1973.NEWS, Max Yasgur Dies; Woodstock Festival Was on His Farm, February 9, 1973,weblink The New York Times, July 4, 2013, subscription, In 1984, at the original festival site, land owners Louis Nicky and June Gelish put up a monument marker with plaques called "Peace and Music" by a local sculptor from nearby Bloomingburg, Wayne C. Saward.WEB,weblink Woodstock Music and Arts Fair monument, The Historical Marker Database, August 1, 2013, Attempts were made to prevent people from visiting the site. Its owners spread chicken manure, and during one anniversary, tractors and state police cars formed roadblocks. Twenty thousand people gathered at the site in 1989 during an impromptu 20th anniversary celebration. In 1997 a community group put up a welcoming sign for visitors. Unlike Bethel, the town of Woodstock made several efforts to capitalize on its connection. Bethel's stance eventually changed and the town began to embrace the festival. Efforts were undertaken to forge a link between Bethel and Woodstock.NEWS, Steve, Israel,weblink Woodstock at 40: A tale of two towns, Times Herald-Record, August 13, 2009, August 14, 2009, June 16, 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110616202246weblink">weblink dead,

Legacy

Woodstock site today

{{multiple image }}The field and the stage area remain preserved and are open to visitors as part of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts after being purchased in 1996 by cable television pioneer Alan Gerry for the purpose.NEWS, August 5, 2009, Woodstock: A Moment of Muddy Grace,weblink New York Times, Bethel, New York, June 2, 2014, WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120522122655weblink">weblink dead, Profile: Alan Gerry, May 22, 2012, The center opened on July 1, 2006, with a performance by the New York Philharmonic on a newly constructed pavilion stage located about {{convert|500|yd|m}} SSE of the site of the 1969 stage.NEWS, Midgette, Anne, July 1, 2006, New York Philharmonic Plays Summer Guest at Bethel Woods Arts Center,weblink New York Times, June 2, 2014, (The site of the original stage is vacant except for a commemorative plaque which was placed in 1984.)BOOK,weblink 116, Woodstock: An Encyclopedia of the Music and Art Fair, Perone, James E., January 1, 2005, Greenwood Publishing Group, June 2, 2014, 9780313330575, In June 2008 the Bethel Woods Center opened a museum dedicated to the experience and cultural significance of the Woodstock festival.PRESS RELEASE,weblink the Museum at Bethel Woods to Open June 2, 2008, April 9, 2018, June 5, 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140605054204weblink">weblink dead, Notable events since the opening of the center have included an August 2006 performance by Crosby, Stills, Nash & YoungWEB,weblink Remembering August 15–17, 1969, WOODSTOCK, 40 Years Ago!, September 5, 2019, and the scattering of Richie Havens's ashes in August 2013.NEWS, Richie Havens' ashes scattered across 1969 Woodstock site,weblink CBS News, Woodstock, New York, August 19, 2013, June 2, 2014, In late 2016 New York's State Historic Preservation Office applied to the National Park Service to have {{convert|600|acre|ha}}, including the site of the festival and adjacent areas used for campgrounds, listed on the National Register of Historic Places,WEB, LaFrank, Kathleen, National Register of Historic Places nomination, Woodstock Music Festival Site,weblink New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, November 2016, December 3, 2016, and the site was listed on the register in February 2017.

Woodstock 40th anniversary

There was worldwide media interest in the 40th anniversary of Woodstock in 2009.WEB, Steve, Israel,weblink Woodstock media frenzy as date draws closer, Times Herald-Record, August 13, 2009, July 30, 2011, June 8, 2020,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20200608164422weblink">weblink dead, A number of activities to commemorate the festival took place around the world. On August 15, at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts overlooking the original site, the largest assembly of Woodstock performing alumni since the original 1969 festival performed in an eight-hour concert in front of a sold-out crowd. Hosted by Country Joe McDonald, the concert featured Big Brother and the Holding Company performing Janis Joplin's hits (she actually appeared with the Kozmic Blues Band at Woodstock, although that band did feature former Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew), Canned Heat, Ten Years After, Jefferson Starship, Mountain, and the headliners, the Levon Helm Band. At Woodstock, Levon Helm played drums and was one of the lead vocalists with the Band. Paul Kantner was the only member of the 1969 Jefferson Airplane lineup to appear with Jefferson Starship. Tom Constanten, who played keyboard with the Grateful Dead at Woodstock, joined Jefferson Starship on stage for several numbers. Jocko Marcellino from Sha Na Na also appeared, backed up by Canned Heat.NEWS,weblink Back to the Garden, Without the Shock, or All That Mud, Jon, Pareles, August 16, 2009, The New York Times, Richie Havens, who opened the Woodstock festival in 1969, appeared at a separate event the previous night.NEWS,weblink Woodstock 40th anniversary: Richie Havens kicks off festivities, John W., Barry, Poughkeepsie Journal, August 14, 2009, subscription, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Arlo Guthrie also marked the anniversary with live performances at Bethel earlier in August 2009.Another event occurred in Hawkhurst, Kent (UK), at a Summer of Love party, with acts including two of the participants at the original Woodstock, Barry Melton of Country Joe and the Fish and Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band, plus Santana and Grateful Dead cover bands.WEB,weblink Return to the Summer of Love Soulstock 2009, Deadhead UK, August 1, 2013, On August 14 and 15, 2009, a 40th anniversary tribute concert was held in Woodstock, Illinois, and was the only festival to receive the official blessing of the "Father of Woodstock", Artie Kornfeld.NEWS,weblink Kornfeld gives event blessing, Daily Herald (Arlington Heights), Daily Herald, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130801110837weblink">weblink August 1, 2013, Kornfeld later made an appearance in Woodstock with the event's promoters.Also in 2009, Michael Lang and Holly George-Warren published The Road to Woodstock, which describes Lang's involvement in the creation of the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival, and includes personal stories and quotes from central figures involved in the event.

Woodstock 50th anniversary

In May 2014, Michael Lang, one of the producers and organizers of the original Woodstock event, revealed plans for a possible 50th anniversary concert in 2019 and that he was exploring various locations. Reports in late 2018 confirmed the plans for a concurrent 50th anniversary event on the original site to be operated by the Bethel Woods Centre for the Arts. The scheduled date for the "Bethel Woods Music and Culture Festival: Celebrating the golden anniversary at the historic site of the 1969 Woodstock festival" was August 16–18, 2019. Bethel Woods described the festival as a "pan-generational music, culture and community event" (including some live performances and talks by) "leading futurists and retro-tech experts".Michael Lang told a reporter that he also had "definite plans" for a 50th anniversary concert that would "hopefully encourage people to get involved with our lives on the planet" with a goal of re-capturing the "history and essence of what Woodstock was".NEWS,weblink Democrat Chronicle, December 29, 2018, Woodstock: 50th anniversary festival to be held at original site, December 30, 2018, On January 9, 2019, Lang announced that the official Woodstock 50th anniversary festival would take place on August 16–18, 2019 in Watkins Glen, New York.MAGAZINE,weblink Three-Day Woodstock Festival From Original Organizer Coming This Summer, Greene, Andy, January 9, 2019, Rolling Stone, en-US, January 29, 2019, On March 19, 2019, the proposed line-up for Woodstock 50 was announced. This included some artists who performed at the original Woodstock festival in 1969: John Fogerty (from Creedence Clearwater Revival), Carlos Santana (as Santana), David Crosby (from Crosby, Stills & Nash), Melanie, John Sebastian, Country Joe McDonald, three Grateful Dead members (as Dead & Company), Canned Heat, and Hot Tuna (containing members of Jefferson Airplane).NEWS, Kreps, Daniel, Woodstock 50 Details Full Lineup With Jay-Z, Dead & Company, Killers,weblink Rolling Stone, March 19, 2019, March 23, 2019, The event was to take place at Watkins Glen International, the race track in Watkins Glen, New York, the site in 1973 for the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen which drew an estimated 600,000 people.On April 29, 2019, it was announced that Woodstock 50 had been cancelled by investors (Dentsu Aegis Network), who had lost faith in its preparations. The producers "vehemently" denied any cancellation, with Michael Lang telling The New York Times that investors have no such prerogative.NEWS, Sisario, Ben, Woodstock 50's Backer Says the Festival Is Off. Its Promoter Is Holding Out Hope.,weblink The New York Times, April 29, 2019, April 29, 2019, MAGAZINE, Woodstock Organizers Cancel 50th Anniversary Festival,weblink Billboard, April 29, 2019, April 30, 2019, After a lawsuit with original financiers, the Woodstock 50 team then announced that it had received help from Oppenheimer & Co. for financing so that the three-day event can continue to take place in August despite the original financiers pulling out.On July 31, 2019, NPR reported that the concert had finally been cancelled.NEWS,weblink Woodstock 50 (Finally) Throws In The Towel, NPR.org, July 31, 2019, Tsioulcas, Anastasia, WEB,weblink Woodstock 2019: Bethel Woods ready for party 50 years in making, John W., Barry, Poughkeepsie Journal, The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts did organize a weekend of "low-key" concerts.WEB,weblink Woodstock Gets a Low-Key 50th Party With Ringo, Santana and That Album Cover Couple, August 19, 2019,

Local economic impact

Woodstock still acts as an economic engine for the local economy. A Bethel Woods report from 2018 indicates that $560.82 million of spending has been generated in New York. With 2.9 million visitors since 2006 and 214,405 visitors in 2018, an equivalent of 172 full-time jobs exist as a result, which includes direct wages of $5.1 million from Bethel Woods in Sullivan County.WEB,weblink Woodstock 2019: Hoping peace signs turn to dollar signs in along 17B in Bethel, Kramer, Peter D., www.poughkeepsiejournal.com, August 15, 2019, August 15, 2019,

In popular culture

As one of the biggest music festivals of all time and a cultural touchstone for the late 1960s, Woodstock has been referenced in many different ways in popular culture. The phrase "the Woodstock generation" became part of the common lexicon.JOURNAL, Mankin, Bill,weblink We Can All Join In: How Rock Festivals Helped Change America, Like the Dew, March 4, 2012, March 15, 2012, December 19, 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131219032259weblink">weblink dead, Tributes and parodies of the festival began almost as soon as the festival concluded. Cartoonist Charles Schulz named his recurring Peanuts bird character – which began appearing in 1966 but was still unnamed – Woodstock in tribute to the festival (see GoComics archive – 1970JUN22).Charles M. Schulz, The Complete Peanuts, 1967–1968, New York, Fantagraphic Books, pp. 41–42, 83, 207, 227–228. In April 1970, Mad magazine published a poem by Frank Jacobs and illustrated by Sergio Aragonés titled "I Remember, I Remember The Wondrous Woodstock Music Fair" that parodies the traffic jams and the challenges of getting close enough to actually hear the music.WEB, April 1970,weblink R.I.P. Richie Havens, Musician, Mad (magazine), Mad, April 23, 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130426150836weblink">weblink April 26, 2013, dead, mdy-all, Keith Robertson's 1970 children's book Henry Reed's Big Show has the title character attempting to emulate the success of the festival by mounting his own concert at his uncle's farm.In 1973, the stage show National Lampoon's Lemmings portrayed the "Woodchuck" festival, featuring parodies of many Woodstock performers.WEB, Clarke, Craig,weblink Original Off-Broadway Cast, National Lampoon's Lemmings, Green Man Review, March 22, 2010, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101028125348weblink">weblink October 28, 2010, mdy-all, Time magazine named "The Who at Woodstock – 1969" to the magazine's "Top 10 Music-Festival Moments" list on March 18, 2010.MAGAZINE, Fletcher, Dan, March 18, 2010,weblink The Who at Woodstock – 1969, Time (magazine), Time, August 1, 2013, In 2005, Argentine writer Edgar Brau published Woodstock, a long poem commemorating the festival. An English translation of the poem was published in January 2007 by Words Without Borders.WEB,weblink Edgar Brau, Words Without Borders, May 2, 2010, In 2017, the singer Lana Del Rey released a song, "Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind," in order to show her worries about the tensions between North Korea and the United States while she was at Coachella, expressing nostalgia by using the Woodstock festival as a symbol of peace.MAGAZINE, Reed, Ryan,weblink Hear Lana Del Rey's Somber New Song 'Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind', Rolling Stone, May 15, 2017, April 9, 2018, In 2017, Portland rock band Portugal. The Man released album Woodstock, inspired by the lead singer John Gourley's conversation with his dad about the Woodstock festival ticket stub.WEB,weblink Woodstock by Portugal. The Man, Apple Music, June 15, 2017, In August 2019, the United States Postal Service released a Forever stamp commemorating Woodstock's 50th anniversary.PRESS RELEASE,weblink Woodstock Rocks On Forever, United States Postal Service, August 8, 2019, August 20, 2019, The stamp was designed by Antonio Alcalá, Art Director of the USPS and was first issued at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on August 8, 2019.PRESS RELEASE,weblink Woodstock Forever Stamps, United States Postal Service, July 8, 2019, August 20, 2019, The museum was hosting Play it Loud, an exhibit co-organized with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame consisting of vintage rock and roll instruments, posters, and costumes.WEB,weblink Exhibition Overview: Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019, August 20, 2019, Attending the ceremony were Woodstock producers Michael Lang and Joel Rosenman. The ceremony began with a "stirring" electric guitar performance of The Star Spangled Banner by "Captain" Kirk Douglas of the Roots—"reminiscent" of Jimi Hendrix's performance at the original festival.WEB,weblink Woodstock Festival's 50th Anniversary Gets The Postage Stamp Treatment, Forbes, August 8, 2019, August 20, 2019, Chiu, David, In 2023, a South Korean organiser officially purchased Woodstock's license and tried to hold a festival in Pocheon, but there was a lot of controversy due to insufficient preparation in the process of preparing for the festival, and it was eventually cancelled.PRESS RELEASE,weblink 세계 최고의 음악 축제 우드스탁 페스티벌 티켓 오픈, khan shinmun, 2023-03-28, 2023-09-19, PRESS RELEASE,weblink [단독] 우드스탁페스티벌 기획사 임금체불 세금체납…행사는 연기, skydaily, 2023-07-25, 2023-09-19, PRESS RELEASE,weblink [단독] '우드스탁 페스티벌' 결국 취소, 출연 가수들에 통보, tvdaily, 2023-09-18, 2023-09-19,

Gallery

File:Swami opening.jpg|Opening ceremony at Woodstock. Swami Satchidananda giving the opening speech.File:Woodstock August 15, 1969.jpg|A rainy day (August 15, 1969)File:Woodstock redmond hair.JPG|Concert attendeesFile:Woodstock redmond cocker.JPG|Joe Cocker and the Grease Band performing at WoodstockFile:Woodstock-kids.jpg|Photo taken near Woodstock on August 18, 1969File:Woodstock redmond havens.JPG|Richie Havens performing at WoodstockFile:Woodstock redmond tents.JPG|Tents and cars of spectators at Woodstock

See also

• Harlem Cultural Festival, sometimes called the "Black Woodstock" that ran concurrently over the months of July and August 1969.
• Nambassa
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Sullivan County, New York
• Przystanek Woodstock (Woodstock Festival Poland)
• Sunbury Pop Festival
• Wattstax
• Woodstock '99, a rebooted version of the festival held in Rome, New York also marred by poor planning, sexual assaults, pollution

References

{{reflist|30em}}

Further reading

• BOOK, Bell, Dale, 2019, Woodstock: An Inside Look at the Movie That Shook Up the World and Defined a Generation, Rare Bird Books, 978-1947856271, Oral history with interviews of more than 40 crew members and performers.
• BOOK, Blelock, Weston, Blelock, Julia, 2009, Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to "Woodstock", WoodstockArts, 978-0-9679268-5-8,
• BOOK, Bukszpan, Daniel, 2019, Woodstock: 50 Years of Peace and Music, Imagine, 978-1623545314,
• BOOK, Greenblatt, Mike, 2019, Woodstock 50th Anniversary: Back to Yasgur's Farm, Krause Publications, 978-1440248900,
• BOOK, Hoffman, Abbie, Abbie Hoffman, 1969, Woodstock Nation: A Talk-Rock Album, Vintage Books, . Author's experience at the festival and his reflections on youth culture.,
• BOOK, Kane, John, 2019, Pilgrims of Woodstock: Never-Before-Seen Photos, Red Lightning Books, 978-1-68435-082-7, . Photobook with interviews.,
• BOOK, Kornfeld, Artie, Artie Kornfeld, 2009, The Pied Piper of Woodstock, Spirit of the Woodstock Nation LLC, 978-0-615-32599-6,
• BOOK, Landy, Elliott, Elliott Landy, 1994, Woodstock 69: The First Festival: 3 Days of Peace & Music, Squarebooks, 978-0-916290-75-7, . Photobook.,
• BOOK, Landy, Elliott, Elliott Landy, Woodstock Vision: The Spirit of a Generation, Afterword by Richie Havens, Woodstock, NY, Landy Vision, 1994, 978-0-9625073-4-2, . Includes 300 of Landy's classic photographs at Woodstock.,
• BOOK, Lang, Michael, Michael Lang (producer), 2009, The Road to Woodstock, The Road to Woodstock, Ecco Publishing, 978-0-06-157655-3,
• BOOK, Lang, Michael, Michael Lang (producer), 2009, Woodstock Experience, Genesis Publications, 978-1-905662-09-8,
• BOOK, Makower, Joel, Joel Makower, 2009, Woodstock: The Oral History, 40th Anniversary Edition, SUNY Press/Excelsior Editions, 978-1-4384-2974-8,
• BOOK, Perone, James E., 2005, Woodstock: An Encyclopedia of the Music and Art Fair, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 9780313330575,
• BOOK, Reynolds, Susan, 2019, Woodstock Revisited: 50 Far Out, Groovy, Peace-Loving, Flashback-Inducing Stories From Those Who Were There, Independently Published, 978-1081381608, . Collection of stories by Woodstock attendees.,
• BOOK, Roberts, John, Rosenman, Joel, Pilpel, Robert H., Joel Rosenman, John Roberts, Robert Pilpel, Young Men with Unlimited Capital: The Inside Story of the Legendary Woodstock Festival Told By The Two People Who Paid for It, 1974, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 9780151559770, 1st, 922819,
• BOOK, Tiber, Elliot, Elliot Tiber, 1994, Knock on Woodstock: The Uproarious, Uncensored Story of the Woodstock Festival, the Gay Man Who Made It Happen, and How He Earned His Ticket to Free, Joel Friedlander Pub, 978-0964180604,
• BOOK, Wolman, Baron, 2014, Woodstock, Reel Art Press, . Photobook containing author's Woodstock collection.,
• BOOK, Young, Jean, Lang, Michael, 1979, Woodstock Festival Remembered, Ballantine Books, 978-0345280039,

External links

{{Commons category|Woodstock Music Festival}}{{wikiversity|Woodstock Scholarship: An Interdisciplinary Annotated Bibliography}}

• {{curlie|Arts/Music/Concerts_and_Events/Festivals/Rock/Woodstock/|Woodstock}}

Articles

• WEB,weblink Pot, Skinny-Dipping, and Freedom Rock: Woodstock and the Year of the Outdoor Music Festival, Rob, Kirkpatrick, August 5, 2009, PopMatters,
• WEB, Michael Lang. The man behind the most important Music Festival in the History, Woodstock 1969,weblink La Escuela Superior de Audio y Acústica,

Attendees

• Artie Kornfeld Interview at NAMM Oral History Collection (2017)
• Ric Manning, weblink" title="archive.today/20220707125640weblink">Remembering Woodstock, 2009 weblink" title="archive.today/20220707124057weblink">Remembering Woodstock, 2019 (later, newspaper writer, uploader of (:File:Woodstock-kids.jpg))
• Elliott Landy:
  • Woodstock Festival Gallery
  • Woodstock Vision media CD-ROM
• Jim Shelley, woodstockwhisperer.info amateur photographer at Woodstock 1969

{{Woodstock|state=expanded}}{{Historic rock festival}}{{Rock festival}}{{Hippies}}{{Counterculture of the 1960s}}{{National Register of Historic Places in New York}}{{Authority control}}