Woodstock 50th Anniversary

Photo courtesy of Mark Goff

The Woodstock music festival of August 15th-18th, 1969, was one of the defining events of 1960s counterculture.  In the days before the festival began, 500,000 music fans from all over the country descended on the small, sleepy town of Bethel, NY. The three-day festival included an enormous lineup of acts, some already famous and some relatively unknown. They included The Who, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, the Jefferson Airplane, and countless others. The very successful documentary Woodstock – 3 days of peace and music, which came out the following year, made many of these musicians world famous. 

If you want to read more about the Woodstock festival, the Mercer County Library System has many books that cover this historic event:

50 Years: The Story of Woodstock Live: Relive the Magic, Artist by Artist by Julien Bitoun goes through a very detailed rundown of the festival. It goes artist by artist, starting with Ritchie Havens at 5pm on Friday to Jimi Hendrix at 9am on Monday, noting what time each artist started to play, how long they played, the names of all the musicians including the backing groups, their complete setlist, and notes about the performance of each artist.

The Road to Woodstock by Mike Lang is an account of the festival from one of its co-producers. It covers in detail everything from the preliminary planning of the festival to the aftermath, including the story of how the festival almost didn’t get off the ground. In July of 1969, the organizers lost permission to stage the festival at the original site, and had to quickly move to find a new venue. They eventually found it at Max Yasgur’s farm. 

Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock by Pete Fornatale is an oral history that tells the story of Woodstock through interviews and reminiscences by many of the key performers and organizers, as well as many of the music fans who attended the concert.

And of course, there are the CDs highlighting the music festival’s best performances, such as Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More.

If you want to see for yourself where the concert took place, the Woodstock Music Festival Site in Bethel (including Max Yasgur’s farm) is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Museum at Bethel Woods features exhibits and events related to the Woodstock 50th anniversary.

Over the years attempts have been made to keep the spirit of Woodstock alive. Mike Lang also produced two other Woodstock festivals in 1994 and 1999, although the 50th anniversary festival called Woodstock 50 planned for this year had to be cancelled. However, it seems certain that the original Woodstock festival in 1969 will always be the one most vividly remembered in the popular imagination, and will remain the high point of the 1960s counterculture.

- Michael Kerr, West Windsor Branch