by Last week, I wrote a blog recognizing the 42nd anniversary of the Manson Family murders. I now want to spend some time commemorating the other event of 1969 that forever changed the culture and perception of the times.
From Aug. 15 through 18, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Three Days of Peace and Music, was held on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York (the town of Woodstock actually is 43 miles away from where the concert was held!).
At the time, the event was seen as just another festival featuring many of the nation’s top singers and groups, similar to the Monterey Pop Festival held two years earlier. Around 186,000 tickets were sold beforehand, and promoters assured the landowners no more than 200,000 people would attend the event. City officials were told the number of attendees would not exceed 50,000.
Instead, 500,000 people showed up and the festival was forever cemented into the consciousness of not only the counterculture, but our nation’s history, as well. A documentary and soundtrack of the event both become hugely successful, and still sell well today. Joni Mitchell‘s ode to the event became one of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (sometimes) Young’s biggest hits.
And suddenly, everyone was telling magazines, news broadcasts, and Reader’s Digest about their experiences at Woodstock, meeting celebrities, playing in the mud, and sharing a bond of love and peace with strangers that instantly became friends.
Click here to hear one of the counterculture’s biggest anthems performed at Woodstock!
One of the things I cannot help but think of every time I hear “Woodstock” is a scene from one of the FUNNIEST movies of all time, Parenthood. After just hearing she is going to be a grandmother, Dianne Wiest’s character, Helen, has a meltdown that still cracks me up.
HELEN’S DATE: You’re going to be a grandmother?
HELEN: I’m too young to be a grandmother. Grandmothers are old. I was at Woodstock, for (bleep) sake!! I peed in a field!! I hung onto the The Who’s helicopter as it flew away!!
HELEN’S DATE: I was at Woodstock.
HELEN: (hysterically) Oh yeah??? I thought you looked familiar!!!
Crosby Stills and Nash unleashes Suite: Judy Blue Eyes on the world during Woodstock here!
With intermittent breaks, acts performed nonstop for three days. Established performers such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sha-Na-Na, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and Joan Baez renewed their popularity among music fans, while many people got their first exposure to “newer” acts Crosby, Stills and Nash, Richie Havens, and Melanie.
For many, Woodstock also serves as a poignant memorial for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, both of whom would be dead the following year.
In what could be seen as one of the poorest business decisions in music history, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Moody Blues, The Byrds, and Tommy James and the Shondells all turned down invitations to perform, most vastly underestimating the importance of the festival.
The Beatles (close to disbanding anyway) at one point were looking to perform, but John Lennon‘s legal problems prevented his entry into the United States. Meanwhile, The Beach Boys, putting out wonderful and progressive music in the late 1960s, were desperately trying to reinvent themselves and regain their popularity by 1969, and not appearing at Woodstock was no doubt devastating to their career (as can be seen by their dismal chart performance throughout the 1970s).
As the festival drew to a close, what was left behind was a physically ravaged farm, lots of trash, and an indelible mark on the pulse of pop culture that will last forever.
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