The Woodstock Music and Art Fair
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair — commonly known simply as Woodstock — was a music festival held from August 15 to August 18, 1969 on a 600-acre dairy farm owned by Max Yasgur near the town of Bethel in Sullivan County, New York. It is widely considered the most significant music festival in history.
Organized by Artie Kornfeld, Michael Lang, Joel Rosenman, and John Roberts through their company Woodstock Ventures, the festival was billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: Three Days of Peace and Music." What they expected to be a ticketed event drawing perhaps 200,000 people became a free concert attended by an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 — the largest gathering in American history at the time.
Before the Festival: Finding a Home
The road to Woodstock was anything but smooth. The original venue, Mills Industrial Park in Wallkill, NY, was denied a permit when the town board objected that portable toilets would not meet local code. With weeks to go before the festival, the organizers scrambled for an alternative.
Elliot Tiber, owner of the El Monaco Motel in White Lake, NY, reached out to the organizers and offered his property. But 15 acres wasn't enough. Tiber suggested his friend and milkman Max Yasgur might be willing to rent his 600-acre dairy farm. Yasgur agreed, and music history was made possible.
The Festival: Four Days in a Field
From August 15 through August 18, 1969, Bethel, New York became the fourth-largest city in New York State by population. The New York State Thruway was officially closed due to traffic. Helicopters became the only reliable way in or out of the area. Food, water, and sanitation were stretched to the breaking point.
And yet, in what would become a defining moment of American cultural mythology, the half-million people who gathered in that field maintained the peace and goodwill that gave the event its name. Three people died (two from drug overdoses, one from a tractor accident), and two babies were reportedly born. The governor of New York considered declaring the area a disaster zone.
Thirty-two acts performed over four days, from Richie Havens' improvised opening anthem "Freedom" on Friday afternoon to Jimi Hendrix's transcendent closing set on Monday morning. In between, Janis Joplin wailed, Santana created with "Soul Sacrifice," The Who performed "Tommy" at 5 a.m., and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young played only their second concert together.
The Performers
The Woodstock lineup was assembled by Artie Kornfeld, who used his connections as vice president of Capitol Records to book the greatest collection of talent ever assembled in one place. The performers represented every strand of the late-1960s counterculture:
- Folk: Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Tim Hardin
- Psychedelic Rock: Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Country Joe & the Fish
- Blues Rock: Janis Joplin, The Who, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter
- Latin/World: Santana, Ravi Shankar
- Roots/Americana: The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Soul/Funk: Sly & The Family Stone, Joe Cocker, Blood Sweat & Tears
The Cultural Legacy
Woodstock immediately became a cultural touchstone. The 1970 Academy Award-winning documentary by Michael Wadleigh, assembled with Artie Kornfeld's help, brought the festival to millions who hadn't been there. The soundtrack albums did the same for the music.
The "Woodstock Generation" — the name given to the young Americans who came of age in the late 1960s — took Woodstock as their defining moment. Half a million people, no significant violence, just music and community: proof, they argued, that their vision of a better world was possible.
Critics were less charitable. They noted that Woodstock was made possible by the very commercial infrastructure the counterculture claimed to reject. The idealism of 1969 would quickly give way to the harder realities of the 1970s.
But the music endures. Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner," Santana's "Soul Sacrifice," Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help from My Friends," Richie Havens' "Freedom" — these remain among the most powerful recordings in rock history, and they were all captured live, in a muddy field, before 400,000 people, over four days in August 1969.
The Site Today
Max Yasgur's farm was eventually sold after Yasgur's death in 1973. The site changed hands several times before being purchased by entrepreneur Alan Gerry, who created the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. The Center includes a modern outdoor amphitheater, a museum dedicated to the 1960s and Woodstock, and the original festival site, which is preserved as a memorial.
A marker stands at the spot where the stage once rose, looking out over the natural bowl of Yasgur's field where the largest musical gathering in American history once took place.