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I have met 2 people who swear they were at Woodstock. I had no reason not to believe them.

The singer turned her experience at the 1969 concert into "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)," a top-10 hit in 1970Singer Melanie Safka, who turned a 1969 performance at Woodstock into a hit song and a five-decade career, died Tuesday at the age of 76. Safka’s death was announced on her Facebook page with a letter from her three children, Leilah, Jeordie, and Beau Jarred: Dear Ones, This is the hardest post for us to write, and there are so many things we want to say, first, and there’s no easy way except to say it… Mom passed, peacefully, out...

Billed as “three days of peace and music," The Woodstock Music and Art Fair began on August 15, 1969. Overall the event was considered a success despite many setbacks. On the 54th anniversary of the event, we explore the long list of interesting stories and facts from Woodstock. Although it is difficult to accurately calculate, up to half a million people attended the “Aquarian Experience: 3 Days of Peace and Music,” held Friday, August 15 through Monday, August 18, 1969. Referred to as Woodstock, the event began when four men, all in their 20s, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld,...

Bobbi Kelly Ercoline, who, along with her boyfriend (and later husband) Nick became an iconic, if unwitting, symbol of the Woodstock generation when their bedraggled, blanketed and poignant image was featured on the music festival’s 1970 soundtrack album, died Saturday following a lengthy illness. Her death was announced by husband of 54 years, Nick Ercoline. Neither a specific cause of death or age were disclosed, but Ercoline wrote that his wife was surrounded by family when she passed. “She lived her life well, and left this world in a much better place,” Nick Ercoline wrote. “If you knew her, you...

“I still believe that love is all you need,” Paul McCartney continues to proclaim, “I don’t know a better message than that.” And yet John Lennon took that love-uber-alles ethos to such an extreme in the 1970s that even his old rose-tinted mate was retorting, “Too many people preaching practices.” So it’s no surprise that the sardonic duo in Steely Dan rolled their eyes when they heard the ‘Smart One’s’ prayer for peace with ‘Imagine’ and a string of pious talk show appearances in the early 1970s. Steely Dan’s bold response to Lennon’s all-white evangelism signified that the prominent days...

1. The Dance 2. Sundance 3. JL 13 (Earth Blues) 4. Star Spangled Banner

Arnold Skolnick, the artist best-known for creating the iconic poster for Woodstock, has died at the age of 85. Deadline, citing Skolnick’s son, Alexander, said the artist died June 15 due to respiratory failure. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Skolnick was reportedly just five years old when he began dreaming of becoming an artist. As an adult, he worked as a freelancer serving many of New York’s ad agencies. In 1969, he received a phone call from John Morris, the production coordinator of Woodstock. The festival had initially enlisted David Edward Byrd -- known for designing rock concert posters for the...

Snow plow truck becomes fully engulfed in flames in Woodstock Firefighters arrived and found a fully involved pickup truck fire in the southbound lanes of Route 14. The fire is believed to have begun in the engine compartment of the vehicle and was mechanical in nature

Leslie West, co-founder and guitarist of pioneering hard rock band Mountain, has died at age 75. The Los Angeles Times confirmed his death through a publicist. Rolling Stone and Variety are also reporting that West has passed. The news was initially shared by West's long-time associates at Dean Guitars, though no other details were given. The Times report mentioned heart issues, while Rolling Stone said West went into cardiac arrest on Monday at his home near Daytona, Fla., and "never regained consciousness" after being taken to the hospital. Dean Guitars CEO Evan Rubinson also offered personal condolences, describing West as...

Poll: Do you think they should have canceled the 1969 Woodstock music festival because of the 1969 flu pandemic that killed more than 100,000 people in the U.S., and more than 1 million worldwide?

Yes, I remember Woodstock when I was in high school.  Worse than that, I have the 3-disc L.P. somewhere in a box.  I listened to it one time and wished I had sought a refund. Woodstock was awful in more ways than one.  It was dirty, and people behaved very strangely. My mother, who turns 91 today on Mother's Day, looked at the TV news back then and said in Spanish that all of those people were going to get sick so close to each other.  Then she added that it was a natural place for some pandemic to break out. Well,...

PITTSBURGH, Pa. (WKBN) – A Pittsburgh area pastor says he plans to organize a large, Woodstock-like outdoor Easter service to protest the stay-at-home orders amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Conservative Christian Pastor Jonathan Shuttlesworth made the announcement on social media after the arrests of pastors in the U.S. for failing to comply with state-at-home orders. “How do you lay hands on people online? How do you baptize people online? How do you anoint with oil and lay hands on the sick?” he asked. He said the government is infringing on the rights of people to assemble for religion. He said the...

A hidden video from 2014 showed nurses laughing as a World War II veteran repeatedly called for help and died while in their care. The family of James Dempsey, 89, of Woodstock, Ga., hid a camera in the late veteran’s room in the Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation Center which captured the night he died. The video showed the decorated WWII veteran repeatedly calling for help, saying he could not breathe. It also showed the nurses failing to take life-saving measures and laughing as they tried to start an oxygen machine.

This month marks 50 years since eight black-clad hippies snuck into a series of upscale Los Angeles homes and carried out the nine killings now known as the Manson Family Murders. Between July 25 and Aug. 9, 1969, the followers of cult leader and failed musician Charles Manson murdered pregnant starlet Sharon Tate and her four guests, stabbed a supermarket executive and his dressmaker wife, and gored a Ph.D candidate with a sword. Half a century out, the attacks continue to resurface in pop culture. Last month, Quentin Tarantino reimagined the Manson murders in his ninth feature, Once Upon a...

For an event described as an Aquarian exposition, its origins were remarkably mercenary. Two men, one a pharmaceutical heir, placed an ad in The New York Times: “Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions.” They eventually partnered with a record company executive and the promoter of the relatively small Miami Pop Festival. When plans for a music studio in Woodstock, New York, went awry, the quartet settled on the idea of an art and music festival. Established food vendors wanted nothing to do with Woodstock, so the promoters hired an inexperienced group called...

Of the rock festivals of the sixties, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was by far the most famous. Held on a 600-acre dairy farm near Bethel, N.Y. on August 15–17, 1969, the festival is the iconic representation of the drug-addled culture and sexual revolution that upended American life. This August marks the fiftieth anniversary of the era-defining event. Some have called for celebrating with another concert. The occasion is hardly a cause for celebration—so many of the cultural changes after Woodstock had catastrophic consequences. Most do not know that the concert was a disaster—even from an organizational point of...

Woodstock 50 music festival called off After trouble with obtaining permits and celebrity cancellations, Woodstock 50 has canceled the festival.

The revolution has been canceled, or at least postponed for a while. Apparently, we are told, there were some “unforeseen setbacks.” That’s the vague explanation provided for the catastrophic failure of Woodstock 50, a doomed attempt at recreating the famous 1969 music festival in upstate New York for its 50th anniversary. Michael Lang, a cofounder of the original Woodstock and the mastermind behind this recent planned reincarnation, endured months of nightmarish organizational impediments — bureaucratic issues, lagging enthusiasm, and the withdrawal of a host of significant investors and performers — before ultimately throwing in the towel earlier this week.

The Fifty-year anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival is at hand and millions are joyfully celebrating this upcoming anniversary! Events were being planned with the top pop musical artist of today for Woodstock 50 in August of 2019, but just of late this event was canceled! In light of this cancelation, promoters are now saying that Americans should reflect and remember the "spirit" of Woodstock which is "peace and love", or is it (1 John 4:1-10)? The original Woodstock Festival took place on August 16, 1969, and its spirit has been promoted, glorified, glamorized, sensationalized and etched into the very...

Music fans still talk about Woodstock to this day. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to a dairy farm in Bethel, New York in the summer of 1969 to see the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, and CCR grace the stage for the world's most iconic rock concert. They'll be talking about Woodstock 50 too - but for a much different reason. Just about everything went wrong for the organizers behind the Woodstock 50th Anniversary Festival, and it's now curtains closed. First, there was some trouble with the production company (which changed hands a few times.) Then the...