Barefoot in Babylon

by Bob Spitz

  So did Alvin Lee and Ten Years After, who took to the stage around eight o’clock, and tore through a two-hour set of gut-wrenching progressive blues. Most of the kids sitting in the damp amphitheatre had seen the group before, Ten Years After holding the distinction of having toured the United States more than any other of the British blues breakers. But Alvin Lee had come to play—and play he did. Dressed in a black short-sleeved T-shirt, jeans and white leather boots, wide studded leather straps lashed to his right wrist, Lee stepped into the spotlight with his cherry-red guitar and exhibited the technique that had earned him his reputation as “the Fastest Fingers in the West.” His small hands effortlessly performed formidable lead riffs like a well-oiled machine, a thin adequate voice pulsating in counterpoint to the astonishing fingerwork. If, indeed, Lee’s back was aggravating him, it certainly was not affecting his playing. Opening with three seemingly identical versions of twelve-bar blues, Ten Years After eased into some of their more well-known anthems, icing the cake with a nine-minute rendition of “Goin’ Home.”

  At 10:30, the Band took over, making as inconspicuous an entrance as anyone could have imagined. Looking much like a collection of moonshiners on leave from the Ozarks, they slipped behind their instruments and simply began to play a medley of their legendary compositions. Michael and Artie glowed throughout the Band’s relaxed set—Michael because to him the Band represented the soul of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, its down-home sensitivity, its intelligence; and Artie because he had fought so hard to bring them to national attention during his stint at Capitol Records. That most of the crowd waited for Bob Dylan to walk out and join them in a few numbers was a foil to their interpretive genius and songwriting ability. (Dylan, who had planned to sail for Europe over the festival weekend, had returned to his home in Woodstock on Friday to be with his ailing son.) But the Band hadn’t been up for the show, and it soon became evident to those in the bowl. Their set was flat and spiritless, with none of the folksy, grinning demeanor usually associated with their music. Nor did they try to compensate by pushing their personality to the fore. It was as if they hid behind their tight arrangements, intimidated by the clamor of public expectation that preceded their appearance.

  Just after midnight, while Blood, Sweat and Tears’ road men set up the group’s equipment on the front end of the revolving platform, Michael and Artie went back to their trailer and took care of some last-minute business. Much to his relief, Lang discovered that Mike Jeffries had finally lured Jimi Hendrix to the site where he was afforded the luxury of an attended private trailer behind what was once the employees’ mess hall. Hendrix was still in a panic over the “cave of despair” he had heard so much about on the news, but Jeffries assured the promoters there was nothing to worry about. If Jimi hadn’t intended to perform, he never would have consented to making the trip. “Just give him some time to relax and get adjusted. He’ll be ready in time to close the festival.”

  John Morris sat across from them, frantically attempting to convince Ed Goodgold, Sha Na Na’s skittish manager, that his group couldn’t possibly be assured they’d go on in the dark. In fact, it looked pretty good that they wouldn’t. Sha Na Na was virtually unknown to even the au courant of rock lore. A few months before, they had been students at Columbia University who had banded together for fun to parody the doo-wop classics of the 1950s. Lead by a spunky guitarist named Henry Gross, from Queens, New York, they became a local phenomenon and turned professional to satisfy the growing demand for their uproarous personal appearances. “My boys’ show is strictly visual,” Goodgold insisted. “If they can’t be guaranteed a spot at night, they might as well not go on.”

  “Suit yourself, man,” Morris said. “Look, I’ve got a half dozen top acts in line to go on and, frankly, Sha Na Na is shit compared to their reputations. They’ll go on when I can fit ’em in.”

  As Goodgold forlornly slunk away from the production trailer, Lang went over the remaining bill with his production manager. The rest of the evening’s acts were all present and accounted for, including the unexpected arrival of Paul Butterfield who brought his band of blues journeymen by for an unannounced show. All that in order, Michael and Artie rode over to the heliport where they boarded a plane to take them into New York City, along with a few of the junior production staff. They were scheduled to be interviewed by veteran talk-show host David Susskind at Metromedia Studios, and their mutual decision was that to hang around for any length of time after the Band performed could only result in a king-sized downer. For Lang/Kornfeld, the wild ride—from Woodstock, to Wallkill, then on to White Lake—was about to conclude its final leg. The gig had gone down in style. Tomorrow was another day.

  • • •

  Approximately two thirds of the audience sadly followed Michael and Artie’s lead between midnight and 3:00 A.M. Monday morning. Leaving most of their worldly possessions behind in the mud, standing tearfully beneath the boundless, star-lit sky, the Children of Woodstock bade new friends goodbye and joined the silent exodus out the main gate and along either Hurd or West Shore Road to search for a way back home. They had fleetingly tasted their cherished freedom, experienced life as it had been meant to be lived during their brief stay at Yasgur’s farm. Their metamorphosis had come full cycle; they had spread their wings and soared, and now, they would return to their respective homes to attempt to build on what they had learned in flight.

  The state police had restricted traffic on Route 17-B to outbound vehicles and emergency equipment heading for the festival site. Roads slowly became unclogged, abandoned cars were towed to the shoulders, and by sunrise, the Quickway was reported to be moving toward New York City with only minor delays.

  • • •

  John Roberts and Joel Rosenman knew when it was time to stop pressing their luck. They had survived a near-riot of 400,000 hippies, a gargantuan medical disaster, an underground revolt, what was thought to be a certain holocaust, a massive food shortage, and mass electrocution—not bad for a three-day celebration of peace and music. By midnight, both young men admitted that they had suffered enough, and they began transferring the contents of their desks to the trunk of the green Porsche.

  Conferences had been called with their executive staff, and a timetable had been worked out which would allow for a smooth and gradual transition at the close of the show. Mel Lawrence agreed to remain behind in White Lake to supervise the clean-up detail until Max was reasonably satisfied that his land had been returned to its “rightful” state. He’d have the Hog Farm to assist him until Tuesday night, and then the salvage companies would take over. The Red Cross and Salvation Army had been alerted to stand by so that they might sift through the rubbish and recondition the discarded sleeping bags for their own profit; a local Boy Scout troop had volunteered to rake the land of trash and begin a program for planting new grass. Wes would close up the administrative office with Don Ganoung and Lee Mackler, settling selected accounts with the corporation’s last six thousand dollars which Roberts had slipped him in an envelope. Likewise, Bill Abruzzi would stay on the site with a skeleton staff for as long as he was needed, evacuating all those who were unable to get home by themselves or were in need of additional medical transition. The entire process was expected to take no longer than a week.

  Goodbyes were exchanged with long-faced affection, addresses and phone numbers passed on tiny slips of paper, promises hastily made, regards extended to other staff members, thanks expressed in no uncertain terms—it had been an incredible experience. The family was breaking up; the Children of Aquarius stood together for perhaps the last time. It was an uncomfortable moment, better cut short. With no more than a wistful smile of farewell, Roberts and Rosenman slipped out the front door of the security building and joined the anonymous string of cars out of the city they had helped to create. The ride back to New York City took them nearly four hours and was passed in unmitigated silence. Neither of them knew what to say.

 
• • •

  John Morris and Chip Monck handled the stage chores for the remainder of the concert. The early morning hours were devoted to the blues, with two of America’s most proficient interpreters of the idiom on hand to demonstrate its soulfulness: Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.

  Winter was an albino from Beaumont, Texas, who, along with his brother, Edgar, had recently emerged as one of the most influential rural blues guitarists on the scene. Johnny’s first album was only months old, but it was rapidly gaining the type of following usually bestowed upon legends. Paul Butterfield, the harp player most responsible for the Chicago blues revival, had been recording in the city and brought his band to White Lake for a possible jam with some of the other virtuosos. John Morris begged him to do a long, drawn-out show to hold the audience until morning. Morris wasn’t sure how long Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Jimi Hendrix would play, and he knew “Butter” could filibuster anywhere from two to five hours if necessary.

  By 3:00 A.M., however, it became evident that the balance of the acts were good for another six or seven hours of music—especially since Sha Na Na had finally consented to perform a daylight show. Crosby, Stills and Nash became Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at 3:30 after the trio opened with “Suite: Judy Blue-Eyes.” Neil Young had been added to the group at the suggestion of Ahmet Ertegun, president of Atlantic Records, to allow Stills to double on keyboards, thus reuniting the two ex-members of Buffalo Springfield for the first time in over two years. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s performance at Woodstock became, for many, the musical symbol of the festival. Theirs was a new sound, a soft, harmonious blending of voices that resounded above the cries of revolution and the vociferousness of acid rock. It was also, according to rock historian Charlie Gillett, “a new advance in the genealogy [of folk music] which went from the Weavers, through the Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, and Simon and Garfunkel, to the Mamas and Papas.”

  At 6:00 A.M., following a now-historic set of their songs and a venerative ovation from the audience, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young jubilantly retired to the performers’ pavilion to toast their newly consecrated fellowship. A few minutes later, Chip Monck departed on a helicopter headed for Manhattan, along with Stephen Stills, David Crosby and Grace Slick. They were due at ABC-TV Studios on West Fifty-seventh Street at 11:00 that morning to tape a segment of the Dick Cavett Show.

  Sha Na Na went on as the sun rose behind the stage, providing the fledgling group with a more dramatic backdrop than even they had hoped for at night. The audience looked puzzled at the troupe of fifties greasers, not quite knowing what to make of their antics. It had to be someone’s idea of a joke!

  John Morris, looking shell-shocked and a bit silly in his sixth white bush jacket, introduced Jimi Hendrix at 8:30 Monday morning to a small gathering of 30,000 who had remained until the end. Hendrix epitomized the Electric God–image conferred upon him by a hardcore group of adoring fans. He was splendidly attired in a beaded, white leather vest, blue jeans, miles of gold chain, and a red scarf tied, crownlike, in his bristly Afro. If Janis Joplin was the pearl, Hendrix was unquestionably the diamond in the rough, the patron saint of psychedelic rock.

  Hendrix surprised everyone there with a free-form version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” leading into “Taps.” Before anyone knew what was happening, they were on their feet for an equally supercharged version of “Purple Haze.” Then, he suddenly brought the crowd’s emotions back to earth with an instrumental prayer—a final tribute to the Nation that had breathed a moment of eternity and passed out of the picture forever.

  Afterword

  On Monday morning, August 18, 1969, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman arrived precisely at ten o’clock for their cheerless appointment with officials from the Bank of North America. Billy Roberts had gotten there ahead of them and discovered that, in all the confusion, the bank’s lawyers had neglected to formalize Woodstock Ventures’ “Line of Credit” agreement. That oversight empowered the promoters to simply declare bankruptcy and walk away, leaving the bank legally responsible to cover the outstanding checks with its own funds.

  The overdraft was estimated to be somewhere around $1,600,000, not including refunds which the attorney general deemed should be made to ticket holders who were not able to reach the site. The bank was appalled. All that its president, officials from the CIT, and a full team of bankruptcy attorneys wanted to know was: “What do you intend to do about it?”

  Billy Roberts volunteered the solution. The Roberts family, he said, intended to assume the debt in full; there was never any intention of declaring bankruptcy, nor would they involve the bank in scandal. On behalf of his father, Billy agreed to secure the entire amount by signing the lien agreement against John’s trust fund. It was a matter of family pride. “You can lose your money a dozen times,” John explained to a reporter, “but you can only lose your name once.”

  One of Alfred Roberts’s stipulations, which had to be complied with before he guaranteed the liability, was that Woodstock Ventures enter into an immediate agreement with Warner Bros. Pictures in order to recoup a portion of the loss. Warner’s received exclusive distribution rights to the Woodstock film in return for a flat sum of $1 million plus a fractional participation in the net box office receipts. It was a wretched deal for Woodstock Ventures, considering they had a finished product that was rumored to be “dynamite” and fifty percent of all profits going into the negotiating meeting. As of January 1979, the movie had chalked up a worldwide box office gross of over $50,000,000 and was about to be re-released. Needless to say, none of the promoters got rich off their percentage.

  Six weeks after the Roberts family indemnified the Bank of North America, Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld negotiated a fairly hefty settlement of their own. Relations with their more conventional partners had broken down completely, and they wanted their wings. Until Roberts and Rosenman reached some kind of financial terms with them, Michael and Artie refused to co-sign any corporate checks or agree to the reconciliation with the bank. In typical festival tradition, they had Roberts and Rosenman over a barrel. Each dissenting partner was eventually paid $31,250 (Michael also got the Tapooz property in Woodstock, underneath which he had buried a nine-pound block of hash he claims to have had imported at John and Joel’s request) to relinquish all shares in Woodstock Ventures Inc. and any claim to the Woodstock name. Roberts and Rosenman agreed to repay John’s family and were subsequently free to exploit the festival to their hearts’ desire. Four months later, following a vigorous licensing campaign, they had broken even, and two years after that, Michael and Artie sued them for $10,000,000.

  Approximately eighty lawsuits were filed against the festival. Three were settled out of court (including a substantial payment to Food For Love); the rest were dropped quietly. John Roberts, in what must have been a moment of nostalgic folly, placed the following ad in a Sullivan County newspaper:

  By accepting those of us with long hair and peculiar garb, you set an example for the world to follow. You, as a community, looked beyond our exteriors to our actions and found there bonds of fellowship.

  To you who opened your hearts and your homes, we convey our gratitude and the gratitude of thousands of young people across the country.

  Peace and Love,

  John Roberts, President, Woodstock Ventures.

  In 1972, a few weeks before the statute of limitations elapsed, Woodstock Ventures was sued by the Town of White Lake for having disturbed the peace and having caused property damage. Such was the impression gratitude and fellowship had left on a community when opportunity availed. The suit was eventually dropped.

  But regardless of all the torment and aggravation heaped upon the promoters, the havoc wrecked on the citizens of White Lake, Town of Bethel, New York, despite the economic philandering or the conflicting interests disguised as some superhip jingoistic philosophy, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair stands as a reminder of how close we c
ame to utopia, and of our ongoing gamble with the vicissitudes of fortune.

  Two days after the Woodstock Nation dispersed and set out in search of their starry-eyed legacy, Max Yasgur, a dairy farmer, stood on the lawn of his farm home, and read meaning into the inexplicable, remarkable episode that had taken place just a few miles down the country road.

  He had come to terms with his life, he said, having experienced a dramatic victory for the spirit of peace, good will, and human kindness. “If a half million young people at the Aquarian Festival could turn such adverse conditions—filled with the possibility of disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe—into three days of music and peace, then perhaps there is hope, that if we join with them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future. . . .”

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all the friends and associates whose advice, assistance, and support throughout the preparation of this manuscript were a source of immeasurable wealth. I am deeply indebted to their generous contributions and hope that this treatment of the festival lives up to their expectations.

  Perhaps the most arduous task that confronted me at the start of this book was locating the original Woodstock staff. Nearly a decade had elapsed, and people had scattered, lost touch with one another, gone underground, started families, disappeared—a microcosm of evolution. Stanley Goldstein, assuming a role not unlike that of his festival assignment, helped to lay all the groundwork for me. He spent hours vividly reconstructing the events which took place between April and September 1969, and then wonderfully produced phone numbers, addresses, contacts, friends of friends, and informants, all of whom dusted off their memorabilia and invited me into their lives. For weeks—months!—after our initial conversations, Stanley’s calls, beginning with: “I just thought of someone else you should see” or “There’s someone passing through town who you must talk to,” were met with both enthusiasm and curiosity. His patience and understanding were the foundation of my research; my life will be richer as a result of our friendship.