5 Woodstock Myths, Debunked

Woodstock was really the spinal tap moment for the Dead. Helicopter radio on Phil’s bass, stage collapsing and everything. Comment from jerry walking of the stage. ”Well, it’s nice to know you can blow the most important gig in your career and it doesn’t really matter.” Pure Jerry!

Neil Young was not yet part of Crosby, Stills, and Nash when they performed at Woodstock so perhaps the article should be corrected to reflect that fact.

Who cares. It was an iconic cultural moment.

The Band, Sly Stone, The Who and Jimi Hendrix were the heavyweights there. Sly and Jimi were paradigm shifters. The Who and The Band The two poles of white rock and roll, giving birth to Americana and metal. Had Joni made it we could add her name. Most of the rest were good to embarrassing,

For all those out there who like myself, were either too young or unable to go -- check out the brilliant PBS video "Woodstock" from the series The American Experience: https://www.pbs.org It's almost like being there... but without the mud.

The '69 "Woodstock" was not the first. The first actual Woodstock Festival was held in Woodstock a year or two earlier. If I remember rightly, Paul Krassner was the MC. There were maybe 1000 people. I don't remember any of the groups. We had backstage tickets for '69 as my friend's sister was an assistant to Albert Grossman. We forgot them. Stuck in the monster traffic jam we walked 12 miles to the grounds, were about a mile away from the stage, had no food or sleeping bags, stayed about an hour, walked back to the car, and spent the night going about 1 foot an hour.

I attended Woodstock with my wife and drove up from DC in a just barely roadworthy 26-year-old school bus with 18 others from the area. Spur of the moment trip with a bus that had the wheels driven off by the past owners. We had a tape deck hooked up to the battery and we rocked all the way up (14 hours at least) to Bethel. Thursday morning things were still moving, but just and when we parked first outside the festival for a fee from some townspeople, the plan developed into survival mode. With only a few supplies ourselves, we walked 17 miles into town to buy what we could. Having an extensive first aid kit we soon found ourselves helping others with minor injuries. We ran into a friend of a friend and were then able to move our bus onto the festival grounds with a parking spot overlooking the entire area. 50 years later I remember standing hip-deep in mud Saturday night helping to unload food trucks that had managed to make it to the site, while the crowd listened and rocked on. For all the issues I do remember that people worked together, not like now. We are a divided country more than ever. Peace and Love is not dead, just trying to remember where I put the car keys.... I still have the original tickets to remind me the bus had no key the lock was broken....

Myth #6: I was there (along with an entire generation of hippie wannabees). Actually, I was a mere 12 miles away counseling at a summer camp. My co-counselor borrowed my sleeping bag that week end for an overnight off-camp, Woodstock. It returned to me a muddy, filthy mess. So, guess I was closer than most in living this myth.

So did Schultz name Woodstock for the festival or not?

The Grateful Dead, please. I could never understand the devotion to that band. They were like visiting a friend and being forced to listen to them play their guitar.

I'm confused. If Schulz named the bird "Woodstock" after the festival, rather than the festival being named "Woodstock" after the bird, then how is "The Peanuts comic strip took inspiration from Woodstock, not the other way around" a myth?

Surprise! No one cares! Baby Boomers remain self absorbed and still think they matter. Please go back to scolding millennials.

These "myths" are the best you can come up with?? Townsend bopping Abbie Hoffman in the head? The "Peanuts" bird? Apparently the "myths" are mostly true.

With regard to Joni Mitchell, you leave out the fact that Crosby Stills and Nash played Woodstock, but made it back in time to crash Mitchell's slot on the Cavette show, effective stealing the slot because everyone wanted to talk to them about Woodstock. Of course, she gets the last laugh with a classic song, but at the time, what a bummer for her

Yes, I can see how these questions challenge both the historically and culturally illiterate. Payouts really could do better, NYT.

So many great performances have gone unmentioned in the Times's coverage. Alvin Lee of Ten Years After managing to be hyper and nearly unconscious at the same time. Jimi's "Star Spangled Banner" is, for my money, the best rendition of that song ever. Country Joe leading the Fish Cheer. And Joe Cocker! When I saw the film and his number finished, it was the first time I ever heard a movie audience applaud.

Of course it all never really happened - strictly a Hollywood sound stage and back lot production, just like the moon landing a month before. :))

Fortunate to see Hendrix at Isle of Wight festival in 1970. Unique performance. Not nearly so muddy or aggressive.

Jimi Hendrix was a U.S. Army vet of the 81st Airborne mold before he became an incomparable rock star. It seems a telling thing that far more often than not and in both hip or square periodicals, to use two U.S coinages pertinent to the roiling culture war of 1969, that fact is omitted or overlooked. A contemporary of his and also, like him, a vet opposed to the Vietnam War at the time of Woodstock, I like to think the worst thing one can do to his legend is omit or overlook his Army veteran's status when referencing his visceral closure of the Woodstock show that changed the world and arguably eventually led to the Iron Curtain parting for freedom in the Germany he had earlier experienced as his active duty Airborne billet.

Biggest musical moment? I’ll stick with Soul Sacrifice (especially the drum solo) and Sly going “higher.”

I'm glad the Grateful Dead actually did put on a good show. The story I heard was that Jerry et al were getting shocked on stage and had to quit.

Think one can speak a bit more about Hendrix at Woodstock. It's probably one of the most famous performances in rock and roll history, to start. Even that is an understatement. Few have come close. :-)

QUOTE: "He had done the American national anthem dozens of times before, but this electrifying version, three minutes and 46 seconds..." I covered Woodstock for WALL and WMCA, reporting on the phone in those pre-internet days. Got the Posh accommodations: slept on the floor of the Press Trailer. I missed Jimmy's live performance of the Anthem, but I edited it and set it up as the late night sign-off tape at 1AM after the WALL Saturday night Rock&Roll show. It ran for a couple of months. Who thought the VFW guys would listen to that "RockAndRollCrap"?? But they complained to management and I had to change it back to something that would cause the usual listener "Click" at that point. It IS an amazing, creative performance, and you should listen to it, even today. Regards, Terry King

The Jeff Beck Group was advertised to appear, but Beck decided the newly formed group wasn't ready to follow groups like Sly and the Family Stone. He then abruptly left his U.S. tour and returned to London. The group disbanded, leaving Rod Stewart quite disappointed. They both admitted recently that it was all probably for the best, as they didn't want to be defined by that one show. Too bad though, it would be fun to have the short lived supergroup's performance documented.