By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – It is scary to think what could have happened on Jewish dairy farmer Max Yagur’s field in August 1969. Yet, it’s inspirational to realize what actually did happen.
I’m talking about the Woodstock Music & Art Festival, which commenced Friday, August 15th with folk music, and continued to the early morning of Monday, August 18th, when Jimi Hendrix played a haunting, electric-guitar version of “The Star Spangled Banner,” in which you could almost hear the rockets over Fort McHenry, and the bombs and missiles over Vietnam.
Film maker Barak Goodman with associates Jamila Ephron and Mark Samuels, the producers of the documentary, Woodstock: Three Days That Defined A Generation, posit that the festival was, on one hand, a protest against racial hatred, the Vietnam War, and restrictive marijuana laws. On the other hand, it was a demonstration of peacefulness and goodwill by some 400,000 or more youth in their late teens and early 20s. However screwed up the world might have been at that particular moment, the youth, by their willingness to help one another and the townspeople who welcomed them proved that even in the most cynical of times, kindness is firmly encoded into humanity’s DNA.
What drew the hundreds of thousands to Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York, was an all-star line-up of musicians. What follows is a representative, rather than a comprehensive list, of those whose appearances were advertised: On Friday, the 15th, the performers included Richie Havens, who was the first to perform; Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Tim Hardin, Sweetwater, Ravi Shakar and The Incredible String Band – together, comprising the folksong part of the festival. The next day was dedicated to rock, and on the bill were The Who, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Keef Hartley, Canned Heat, Credence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin. The music went into the early hours of Sunday morning. The third day (which actually continued into the fourth with Hendrix) offered The Band; Blood Sweat and Tears; Joe Cocker; Crosby, Stills & Nash; Iron Butterfly; the Moody Blues; and Johnny Winter.
Originally, the cost for this incredible, continuous concert was just $6 a day, or $18 for the entire festival. Even at 1969 prices, this was a great bargain. However, in actuality, many if not most of the people who attended didn’t pay anything. This was because concert promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld, and Michael Lang didn’t have time to build a fence around the property, and therefore had no entry points at which tickets could be sold and collected. Why not? Originally, the festival was planned to be held in Wallkill, New York. But buzz kill, Wallkill killed the festival by passing an ordinance restricting attendance to 5,000. The promoters had to scramble to find another venue, which Yasgur obligingly provided on his farm alongside White Lake in Bethel. However, by the time arrangements were being made, it was a race against time to construct the stage and light towers before the crowds started arriving. Eventually workers told the promoters, it had come down to a choice. They either could get the fence up in time, or the stage, but not both. The promoters, realizing that tickets had been sold by mail, and that the performers were en route, wisely chose to complete the stage and to forego the fence.
Their willingness to take a financial bath was not lost upon the crowd, who “grooved” to the music, and buzzed in acceptance to more than one speech reminding them that the world was watching, and that Woodstock was an opportunity to demonstrate what peace and harmony were all about. Instead of hiring a police force for security, the promoters hired a “please force,” members of a New Mexico commune called “The Hog Farm,” which was led by the charismatic, if somewhat whacky and always polite fellow named “Wavy Gravy.”
Lack of fencing was only one problem. Traffic to the festival was so heavy that people had to abandon their cars and walk for miles to get there. Arrangements had to be made to transport performers to the venue by helicopter. After delays, Richie Havens was the first to get up on the stage, and without all his backup musicians there with him, he promptly improvised a song, “Freedom,” that might have been the watchword of the Festival.
But problems continued. The drugs, and the nudity (especially on the shores of White Lake) alarmed New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller who at one point threatened to call in the National Guard. It’s hard to imagine what they would have done with 400,000 people. Instead, cooler heads prevailed, and the military airlifted medical supplies to the festival, winning cheers. At another point, vendors ran out of food, and a call went out to the townspeople, who took food from their own pantries and sent it along with home-made sandwiches and thousands of hard-boiled eggs to the festival goers. The Hog Farm, which established a commune headquarters nearby, set up a huge kitchen, cooking up rice and vegetables for thousands. Max Yasgur came through too, supplying free milk and yogurt from his dairy farm.
In a memorable moment, Yasgur was introduced on stage, and said that he is a farmer who doesn’t know how to speak in front of 20 people, much less a crowd like the one before him – could it have been as high as a half million kids? – but Woodstock had shown that “young people can have three days of fun and music, and nothing but fun and music, and God bless you for it!” As he cheered them, so too did they cheer him, a self-described Republican who believed in individual freedom.
And then on Sunday came the rain, a whipping storm, which Country Joe and the Fish tried to allay by chanting “No Rain! No Rain!” but nature didn’t cooperate. There was a scramble to cover the sound equipment, and 50,000-volt cables became unearthed. With so many people there taking cover from the rain, there could have been a mass electrocution. Luck was on the side of the people.
Even the rain did not dampen their spirits. Some went mud sliding, others danced and tumbled in the muck. When the rain at last subsided, the crowd began to thin out – Monday, after all, was a workday for many.
After Hendrix’s memorable guitar solo on Monday morning, the festival came to an end. The site, in the words of one narrator, “looked like Civil War pictures of battlefields.” Rotted sleeping bags, tent covers, and various flotsam and jetsam exuded a terrible smell. Organizers and volunteers pitched in to clean the field up, removing tons of garbage.
Did the festival define a generation, as the title of this documentary suggests? You can decide for yourself after Woodstock: Three Days That Defined A Generation opens June 7 at Landmark’s Ken Cinema at 4061 Adams Avenue, San Diego.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
A reader who prefers anonymity, writes “The Moody Blues did not appear at Woodstock. They were supposed to do so but canceled in favor of a European date they felt would be bigger and better! Ha ha.”