I was born more than two decades after the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. And yet, its influence has reverberated throughout my life. The festival had an extraordinary impact on American culture.
Vividly, for example, I recall watching for the first time the video of “Soul Sacrifice” by Santana and the improvised song “Freedom” by Richie Havens. Woodstock defined my parents’ generation. It was a phenomenon that’ll never happen again. Music like that doesn’t ever go away. Instead, it lingers for centuries, nudging culture and influencing the next great performers. Of course, there was a lot more to the festival than its music.
Woodstock represented a counter-cultural backswing to political turmoil fueled by the ongoing Vietnam War and the Nixon presidency — a distraction from the headlines of war that splashed daily across newspapers from coast to coast. For example, The Greenfield Recorder’s front page on Aug. 18, 1969 (the last day of the festival) led with two stories: “Music, Drugs, Mod Life Mark Rock Fete” and “Enemy Regiments Threat to Saigon Area.” While the festival was initiated by the free-love hippie movement, it was appropriated by a nation tiring of the war. Musically, as history remembers, Woodstock’s headliners were iconic — The Who, Creedance Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix, to name a few — and the performances hugely influenced the musical styles of today. Those who played at Woodstock are remembered like Queen is recalled at Live Aid and the Beatles are remembered playing on the Apple Rooftop.
The festival’s influence reached far and wide, tempting youngsters of myriad walks of life to upstate New York from all corners of the United States, including from Franklin County’s rural corner of Massachusetts.
But while it was certainly memorable, Woodstock wasn’t all peace, love and rock and roll. Thunderclouds rolled over that weekend and Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, which played host to the event, turned into a sea of mud. The festival’s organizers didn’t anticipate that it would draw 400,000 people and there wasn’t sufficient infrastructure or food to accommodate the masses. Water was scarce, sanitation was nonexistant and roadways became clogged with traffic jams. The crowd became so large that many people turned back before reaching the festival. Others camped so far away they couldn’t hear the music.
Regardless of the less-than-ideal conditions, Woodstock lives on because of its music. As you’ll read in the personal accounts contained in the following pages, it changed the lives of many people who call Franklin County home. Thursday marks the festival’s 50th anniversary. In honor of the occasion, I’ve compiled stories sent in by readers who remember what it was like (at least a little bit).
Read on.
Andy Castillo is the features editor at the Greenfield Recorder. He can be reached at acastillo@recorder.com.