JUKEBOX: Woodstock Turns 45
If you ask anyone to name the most famous music festival in history, there’s a good chance they’ll say — Woodstock. And why wouldn’t they? Everyone from age nine to 95 has heard of this massive event that brought slews of hippies to rural upstate New York for three days of Peace, Love, Music, and Mud. Lots and lots of mud.
Next weekend will mark the 45th anniversary of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, originally scheduled to take place in Wallkill, New York, until the town’s anti-hippie residents used legal action to ban the event altogether. Fortunately, local dairy farmer Max Yasgur saved the day by offering to host the festival on his land, and the rest was history.
From August 15th to 18th, 1969, over 400,000 people flocked to the tiny town of Bethel to witness performances by defining acts of the decade. Any old hippie will tell you they distinctly remember Joe Cocker’s emotional rendition of “With a Little Help from My Friends” or Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic cover of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
But the sets in between these famous routines tend to remain forgotten and ignored, as Woodstock becomes more shrouded in legend with each passing year. So for this special anniversary edition of JUKEBOX, I’ve decided to give everyone their due by including at least one song from each artist that performed at Woodstock.
To this day, there is still a significant amount of debate regarding the artists’ exact setlists and the order that they went onstage. This means the order in which the artists are arranged on this playlist is not necessarily 100% accurate to history, but I did cross-reference multiple sources to get as close as I could. I also tried to select songs that I was certain were played at Woodstock, and I’ve included the original Woodstock recordings where Spotify’s music library has allowed me to do so.
That said, my main goal was not to replicate the concert exactly, or even include all of the most famous performances, but pull some of my favorites from each artist in order to spotlight their unique contributions to 1960s music. Of course, I did utilize some of the big ones, like Country Joe’s “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die-Rag” and two live Hendrix tunes (because he’s Hendrix, man), but I also threw in some lesser-known gems like the rocking “Why Oh Why” by psychedelic pioneers Sweetwater and Bert Sommer’s hauntingly beautiful folk tune “Jennifer.”
There are a few artists, however, who, for whatever reason, are not included in Spotify’s music library. Because they deserve just as much recognition as their fellow performers, I will briefly highlight them below.
Quill – That’s How I Eat
Quill was the opening act on day two of Woodstock, and what an act they were with this fabulous performance of “That’s How I Eat.” Complete with the “insulin announcement” at the beginning, I would call this an ideal example of the great live jams that defined music festivals of the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Keef Hartley Band – Halfbreed & Leavin’ Trunk
Unfortunately, the official tapes of the Keef Hartley Band’s performance at Woodstock have yet to be released, and only a few scratchy, fan-made recordings can be found floating around the internet today. But you can guess from this studio recording that the British blues outfit must have put on a great show for the crowd at Yasgur’s.
Now without further ado, let’s take a trip back in time to one of the most spectacular festivals in music history, minus all that mud of course.
(Cover photo by Elliot Landy.)
