The Strange,Wonderful, and Not So Wonderful History of Woodstock

Welcome to Strange History, where we delve into the strange and wonderful history of

our world. Today, we delve into the most iconic music event ever to

happen, Woodstock. Some of the most popular acts included Jimmy Hendricks, Blood,

Sweat and Tears, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Joe Cocker,

and Crosby Stills, Nash and Young. Here are some facts about Woodstock you

may not know. The Woodstocks organizers originally wanted to build a studio, not

post a concert. In fact, only one of the four men who threw

the Party of the Century had any experience helming a music festival. Earlier that

year, Florida based promoter Michael Lange had organized the concert in Miami that drew

forty thousand people, the largest concert in history at that time. Lange's friend

Artie Cornfield worked for Capitol Records, but had never worked on anything the size

of Woodstock. Their partners had even less experience. John Roberts and Joel Rousman

were the ivy leag educated sons of wealthy businessmen, and Roberts was the heir

to a pharmaceutical fortune. The group came together when robertson Rosamond, looking for

investment opportunities, agreed to back Lang and Cornfield's ideas for a recording studio in

Woodstock, New York, a popular arts community in the New York's Ulster County

that was home to musicians Bob Dylan, the Band, Jimmie Hendricks, and

others. The four men soon abandoned the plans for the studio, however,

and instead decided to throw a large outdoor rock festival. They kept the Woodstock

name because of its connection to Bob Dylan, though Dylan himself never played at

the festival. Surprisingly enough, the festival actually took place seventy miles from Woodstock

in Bethel, New York. Unable to find a suitable spot in Woodstock itself,

the organizers signed a deal to hold the festival in an industrial park near

Wallkill. However, when local officials began to realize that the festival was expected

to draw fifty thousand people, they balked, and just the month before the

concert passed a law prohibiting the event. The organizers were then approached by Elliott

Tyber, a motel owner from Bethel, New York, who offered the use

of his farm, which was quickly deemed too small. Tyber, however,

introduced them to his friend Max Yascar, who finally agreed to lease them six

hundred acres of his sprawling alfalfa farm for seventy five thousand dollars. With the

estimates of the crowd size now surging well past fifty thousand, Yoscar faced increasing

pressure from local residents in the business communities to cancel, but he refused to

reneg on a deal he had made with the Woodstock organizers. Richie Havens was

not meant to be the first performer with Sweetwater, the concert's first scheduled performers.

Still stuck in traffic, organizers scrambled to find a replacement, finally selecting

folk singer Richie Havens. Havens started his set just after five pm on Friday

afternoon, and by some accounts, continued playing for nearly three hours. Every

time he tried to lead the stage, organizers convinced him to keep playing,

as they still hadn't rounded up the next act. When Havens began to exhaust

his repertoire, he threw in a few Beatles covers before finally improvising a new

song, Freedom on the Spot to close out his epics set Havens was finally

allowed to lead the stage after a US Army helicopter charted by the organizers arrived

with additional performers aboard. The music merely came to a hole on Saturday night,

just hours into the festival, Woodstock organizers were hemorrhaging money. The sheer

number of attendees and the logistics for collecting money and tickets at the gates had

forced them to abandon the idea of a four pay concert and instead let everyone

in for free. In addition, they were forced to spend tens of thousands

of dollars contracting helicopters to transport food and supplies and the musical acts to and

from the site. Weeks earlier, in an effort to attract music's biggest stars

to the festival, Woodstocks organizers had agreed to pay some artists more than twice

their going rate, and on Saturday, many of them demanded that they'd be

paid in cash before going on stage. Fearful of what the crowd would do

if the music came to a halt, organizer John Roberts agreed to use his

trust fund as as collateral for an emergency loan. Organizers finally convinced the manager

of a local bank to open up close to midnight on Saturday to get them

the funds. Jimmy Hendricks was the headliner at wood Stock, but a few

people actually saw him perform. Hendricks was one of those artists who demanded his

fee nearly two hundred thousand dollars in today's money, in advance. He spent

much of the weekend wandering around the festival grounds, despite the fact that he

was scheduled to be the final performer. By Sunday, it was clear that

the announced schedule had gone off the rails, with as finally appearing hours after

their intended start times. However, due to a clause in hendricks contract that

stipulated that no act could perform after him, organizers were unable to move him

to Sunday evening slot. By the time Hendricks took the stage nine am on

Monday morning, most of the festivalgoers had headed home and missed hendricks set,

including his legendary rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Martin Scorsese cut his chops

working on the Woodstock documentary just days before Woodstock began. Organizer Artie Cornfield struck

a deal with Warner Brothers Studio to film the festival for a possible release as

a documentary. Film. Director Michael Wadleigh hastily assembled a crew, including the

future Award winning director Martin Scorsese, a recent NYU film graduate with only a

handful of credits to his name. Over the course of three days, Widley

and his crew shot over one hundred and twenty miles of footage, which Scorsese

and others eventually edited down to three hours for release. The film went on

to win an Academy Award and became one of the most profitable films of all

time, but Cornfield's deal, which gave financial control to Warner Brothers, meant

Wadley and Scorsese received little money. The most famous song about Woodstock was written

by someone who wasn't even there. At the insistence of her then manager,

David Geffen, Canadian singer Joni Mitchell had been booked to appear on the popular

Dick Cabot Show on Tuesday after Woodstock. Geffen, fearful that Mitchell would be

unable to make it back to New York in time, refused to allow her

to attend the concert. Mitchell had a settle for watching the events unfold on

television. Mitchell made it to the Dick Cabot Show, but so did several

other artists who had traveled up to Oscar's farm, including Jefferson Airplane in the

newly formed rock supergroup Crosby Stills in Nash and Young, who had made one

of their first public appearances at the concert. Band member Graham Nash, Mitchell's

boyfriend at the time, vividly describes the weekend's events, leading Mitchell to pen

a new song, Woodstock, which even many attendants felt perfectly captured the experiences

of those who attended the festival. There were three deaths at Woodstock, but

no confirmed birth. Three young men died while attending Woodstock, two from a

drug overdose, and another just seventeen years old, was run over by a

tractor collecting debris while he was asleep and a sleeping bag. For decades,

rumors have swirled that several women gave birth while at the festival. No births

were recorded at the site itself, but eight miscarriages were. When the festival

was finally over, the New York State Department of Health recorded five thousand,

one hundred and sixty two medical cases over the nearly four days, eight hundred

of which were drug related. That weekend. Bethel was the third largest city

in the New York State. Feeding nearly five hundred thousand people was a logistical

nightmare. Members of the Hog Farm, a New Mexico based commune initially hired

to help keep the peace, quickly switched gears, recruiting new temporary members on

the spot help cook and serve to the masses. When a local Jewish community

center heard about the food shortages, they two sprung into actions, plying thousands

of sandwiches that were eventually flown into the area from a nearby Air Force base.

It took decades for the Woodstock organizers to turn a profit. All told,

Robert, through his mom laying in Cornfield, spent nearly three point one

million dollars which is fifteen million in today's money, on Woodstock and just took

in one point eight million. Robert's wealthy family agreed to temporarily cover the enormous

costs, providing they were repaid, but it wasn't until the early nineteen eighties

that Rosenmond and Roberts were finally able to pay off the last of their debt

at Woodstock. There was only one toilet for every eight hundred and thirty three

people. Established food vendors didn't want anything to do with the festival, mostly

because of its projected size, so organizers settled for three dudes who called themselves

Food for Love and had almost no experience as vendors. By mid Saturday,

they were running out of food, so they did what any self respecting capitalists

would do. They quadrupled their hotdog prices from twenty five cents to a dollar,

and then a bunch of peace loving hippies burned them down. They were

annoyed because of the long lines and the outrageous prices. Happily, the day

was saved by a group called the Hog Farm Collective, who passed out thousands

of cups of granola and saved everyone from starving to death. Here's another fun

fact about Woodstock. Kids actually burned their eyeballs at Woodstock. There was a

nurse at Woodstock who reported that burned eyeballs were actually a thing at the festival,

and that they appeared to have resulted from kids who were on LSD who

would lie down on their backs and just stare at the sun. Eventually,

it was enough of a problem that there was a whole medical area devoted to

treating burned eyeballs. And finally, The Grateful Dead was one of the worst

acts at the festival. Even Jerry Garcia's friend Phil Signar couldn't be charitable,

later declaring it was the worst show up theirs he'd ever seen. Perhaps it

was because they were standing in water and being electrocuted that played part in their

terrible performance. Well, this is another episode in the can and if you

like pun stay tuned in for another episode of Strange History next Tuesday. This

podcast was produced by Detity Productions and I, of course your host Amy Domestico,

hammered out this episode big thanks to Spreaker being such a great podcast and

platform. Love you guys, Ya

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