Woodstock 1969

"Chicago," announced Rolling Stone magazine, "was only the labor pains.  The inheritors came to life outside the village of White Lake."

White Lake was where it happened.  Located near Bethel, New York, White Lake was the site of the four days of "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" that was the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, one of the most profound symbols of the 1960s counterculture and the antiwar movement.

According to Clark Dougan, author of A Nation Divided, "On the surface Woddstock was far from idyllic: rain, mud, broken portable toilets, scarcity of food and water, massive traffic jams, and three deaths" symbolized the chaos of Woodstock.  Yet these obstacles were nothing to the half million young people that congregated at White Lake on the weekend of August 15, 1969.  Amidst the downpour, the youth also found sunshine, drugs, sex, and music.

Among the list of Woodstock performers (see below) appear such names as he Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Jefferson Airplane.

During the concert, many performers sang songs of peace and antiwar.  In fact, the official slogan of Woodstock was "Three Days of Peace and Music." The promoters of the extravaganza intended the word "peace" to link the rock concert to the increasingly popular antiwar sentiment, as well try to create an atmosphere of peace and order within the concert itself.

Indeed, Woodstock remains a vivid remembrance of that unique culture of youth of the late 1960s, and has become part of the cultural lexicon.  It is today an instant representation of youthful hedonism and 1960s excess. "What we had here was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence," said Bethel town historian Bert Feldman. "Dickens said it first: 'It was the best of times. It was the worst of times'. It's an amalgam that will never be reproduced again."

Woodstock Performers

Richie Havens
Country Joe McDonald
John B. Sebastian
Incredible String Band
Sweetwater
Bert Sommer
Tim Hardin
Ravi Shankar
Melanie
Arlo Guthrie
Joan Baez
Quill
Keef Hartly
Santana
Canned Heat
Mountain
Janis Joplin
Sly & The Family Stone
Grateful Dead
Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Who
Jefferson Airplane
Joe Cocker
Country Joe & The Fish
Ten Years After
The Band
Blood Sweet And Tears
Johnny Winter
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Sha-Na-Na
Jimi Hendrix

Source for Text: The Music Festival Home Page
Source for Text: Dougan, Clark, A Divided Nation, Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1984
Source for Woodstock Performers List: "1969 Woodstock Festival & Concert"Web Site
Pictures: Photos courtesy of "1969 Woodstock Festival & Concert"Web Site

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