Art & Music | Music Interviews

Mixed Media Woodstock 40th Anniversary Online Supplement

Back to the Garden
Interview with Pete Fornatale

Pete Fornatale, of WFUV and Sirius XM and once part of the legendary WNEW-FM, is back with another book. To coincide with the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, Touchstone has just published Back to the Garden. This informative oral history includes interviews with many of the performers and many others who were behind the scenes. Those interviewed contributed to making the Woodstock festival the seminal 60s cultural event of the age. All of the interviews were culled from Fornatale’s personal interviews that he either recently conducted or amassed over his 40-year radio career. Few books can match the distinctive voice of this book or reflect the same level of understanding of how important the event was from a musical, social, cultural or political standpoint. Fornatale, who has previously been profiled in these pages, took time out from his busy schedule to answer questions about Woodstock, his new book and how his own radio career parallels the history of the Age of Aquarius.

SM: When you first heard about the concert, did you think it was going to be such a major cultural event?

PF: Absolutely not! Monterey Pop in ’67 had about 50,000 people. Miami Pop and Atlantic City in 1969 hovered around 100,000. There was no reason (until Friday, August 15th, 1969) to think that that many people would descend on Yasgur’s Farm!

SM: Why didn’t you go?

PF: I started at WNEW-FM on July 26th, 1969. My first live commercial was for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. I was the new kid at the radio station and they asked me to stay in town for possible fill-in work, but I also shuttled news reports from the WNEW-AM newsroom when Woodstock went from being just a music story to an international news event.

SM: Were you on the air while the festival was taking place and what do you recall of your on-air reaction to it?

PF: Mike Eisgrau was the WNEW newsman sent to cover Woodstock. He was as straight as an arrow and a very good conventional radio reporter. But when he filed this report from a helicopter flying over the crowd, it made the hairs on my wrist stand up:

ME: “This sight is hard to believe. We’re over White Lake in the midst of this music festival encampment—we’re up over the trees now—we’re coming in over the top of the main stage of this music festival and for easily a half a mile all we can see on this hilltop are people—fifty, a hundred, possibly two hundred thousand people sitting there—the music going on day and night and despite the rain, despite the mud, despite the water, despite the hardship, these people, apparently, are going to stick it out.”

SM: Were you the only WNEW-FM DJ who did a commercial for the event and how did it come about?

PF: No, it was just a live 60 minute read from the copybook in the studio and probably ran at least once per show for awhile, so everybody got a chance to do it. This is the actual printed copy that I read on my very first show:

“The Woodstock Music and Art Fair is a three day Aquarian exposition at White Lake in the town of Bethel, Sullivan County, New York. Friday, August 15th, you’ll hear and see Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Tim Hardin, Richie Havens, The Incredible String Band, Ravi Shankar, and Sweetwater.

“Then on Saturday, August 16th, it’s Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater, The Grateful Dead, Keefe Hartley, Janis Joplin, The Jefferson Airplane, Mountain, Santana, and The Who (the hottest group on the scene right now).

“Sunday, August 17th, The Band, Jeff Beck, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Iron Butterfly, Joe Cocker, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Jimi Hendrix, The Moody Blues, Johnny Winter, and that’s not all. Tickets are available by mail or at your local ticket agency for any one day at $7.00, two days at $14.00, and for all three days, just $18.00. A special two-day ticket is available by mail for only $13.00.

“For tickets and information, you can write The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Box 996, Radio City Station, New York, one-zero-zero-one-nine, or phone Murray Hill 7-0700. M-U-seven-zero-seven-zero-zero. Remember, The Woodstock Music and Art Fair is being held at White Lake in the town of Bethel, Sullivan County, New York.

“They’ve had their hassles, but it looks like everything’s gonna be okay.”

SM: Did you interview any of the performers right after the event?

PF: Not immediately after the event (I was still the new kid, remember) but for the next twenty years at NEW, I collected first person stories from anyone who participated in the event, recorded them, archived them, and used them as the foundation for Back to the Garden.

SM: Do you remember talking to anyone who was there right after the event?

PF: Again, not me, but an NEW reporter spoke to Jimi Hendrix at LaGuardia Airport after his performance that morning, and got this spontaneous reaction from Jimi which is the first clip I saved and archived. Pretty rare stuff:

Reporter: “Jimi, what do you think was the truthfulness of the festival?”
Jimi: “The non-violence. The very, very, very good brand of music. I don’t mean good, I mean the very true brand of music; the acceptance of the long awaited crowd. How they had to sleep in the mud and the rain, get hassled by this, hassled by that and still come through saying that it was a successful festival. That’s one of the good things. There are so many stories you can add up on this thing. If you added them all up, you’d feel like a king!”

Reporter: “What brought people to do that?”

Jimi: “Listen. They’re tired of joining street gangs. They’re tired of joining militant groups. They’re tired of having the President gab his gums away. They’re tired of this, tired of that. They want to find a different direction. They know they’re on the right track, but where in hell is it coming from? So they try different things. They’re being fair. So they tried the music thing. Now look what’s happening. It’s right, isn’t it? It has no name. It’s nothing but life – living in harmony, happiness, you know, the regular things everybody wants. There’s a whole lot of bad days you’re gonna see. There’s a whole lot of good days you’re gonna see too. It’s a crusade, right? And every single person here is an island AND a continent!”

SM: What was your reaction to first seeing the film and hearing the soundtrack album?

PF: Life doesn’t come with an owner’s manual. At birth, children are not handed a survival guide. Existence does not have an instruction booklet. But aspiring members of Woodstock Nation had all three by the spring of 1970: an owner’s manual, a survival guide and an instruction booklet. This all happened with the simultaneous release of Woodstock (the movie) and Woodstock (the album). Everyone who was at the event could relive it on the big screen. But even more important, everyone who was not at the event could claim legitimate citizenship in Woodstock Nation, all across the country and all around the world.

SM: Why did you decide to do the book as an oral history?

PF: To get as many voices with as many different points of view as possible to illustrate the chameleon like quality of all things Woodstock as the reality of it transformed into the mythology.

SM: Was there anyone you couldn’t get for the book?

PF: Bob Dylan, of course. But that didn’t stop me from writing about how his aura was draped all around that entire weekend.

SM: How would you compare your book to other new books on Woodstock?

PF: Do you think Michael Lang can write an objective book about Woodstock? Or Max Yasgur’s grandchildren? I put on my objective journalist’s cap and tried to put together a portrait of Woodstock that will outlive all of the artists who performed there and all the people who flocked to see them and hear them and celebrate them and each other.

SM: Was Woodstock ultimately the beginning of the end of the counterculture?

PF: The saddest thing about Woodstock is that all of the issues were the right ones (peace, the environment, brotherhood/sisterhood, freedom of speech and self-expression), but most of those promises went unfulfilled even in the hands of the generation that made Woodstock the historical touchstone that it still is 40 years later. Just pick up a newspaper or log on to CNN.com and you’ll see in an instant what I mean.

SM: How did Woodstock fit in with the other major events of the time (the moon landing, the Mets, Jets, etc.)?

PF: There is a case to be made that 1969 was the most important year of the 60’s. If you listen very hard, you can still hear the rumble of the rollercoaster ride that we all took together that year. High highs, and low lows that are etched into our consciousness and will stay there for the rest of our lives.

SM: Have you been to any of the anniversary events over the years and are you going to any this year?

PF: No, no, no and no! The real Woodstock and the only Woodstock was the one that happened for those three days on Yasgur’s Farm in Bethel, New York. Bethel, by the way, means sacred place. Coincidence? I don’t think so!

SM: Any other thoughts?

PF: If your readers are looking for one fresh, inclusive view of what Woodstock meant, means and will continue to mean, they will find it in Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock. Oh, and by the way, as far as I know The New York State Thruway is OPEN, man! Can you dig that?

Other recently released books on Woodstock include The Road to Woodstock (Ecco) by Michael Lang, one of the primary organizers of the event and Woodstock: Three Days That Rocked the World (Sterling) by Mike Evans and edited by Paul Kingsbury, a beautiful coffee-table book, which also includes a foreword by Martin Scorsese, who served as a cameraman for the Woodstock film.

Woodstock on CD and DVD

The summer of 1969 was a cultural tipping point. The central music event was, of course, Woodstock, which took place in August and is being roundly celebrated not only by those who were there physically or spiritually, but by those who wish they could have been. Of all the media hype and product put out to either mark or exploit the event, the best is the reissue of the film on DVD and Blu-Ray. The four-disc DVD Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director’s Cut (40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) contains the director’s cut on two discs, clocking in at over four hours. There are also over three hours of bonus content, over two hours of the complete performances of Santana, the Who, the Grateful Dead, and the Jefferson Airplane, and an hour-long collection of features and interviews, as well as memorabilia. The original soundtrack album has also been released by Rhino. The original three-album set is now available in its entirety on two CDs. Woodstock Two has also been reissued on two CDs. Legacy has issued the complete performances on two-disc sets of Janis Joplin, Sly & the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Johnny Winter as part of The Woodstock Experience collection. Legacy’s parent label Sony has also joined forces with Woodstock Ventures to launch the interactive social networking and music site woodstock.com.

Long Island Goes to Woodstock

There will be two Long Island-based concerts celebrating the 40th anniversary. Billing the show as “Heroes Of Woodstock,” The Capital One Bank Theatre At Westbury on August 13th will feature the Jefferson Starship, Canned Heat, Ten Years After, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Country Joe McDonald. On August 9th at Brookhaven Amphitheatre, Hippiefest returns, featuring the Turtles (starring Flo & Eddie); Mountain, featuring Leslie West and Corky Laing; Badfinger, featuring Joey Molland; Brewer & Shipley and Chick Negron of Three Dog Night.

Woodstock Veterans Still Going Strong
Three veterans of Woodstock have excellent new releases out: Levon Helm with Electric Dirt (Vanguard), Jorma Kaukonen with River of Time (Red House), and Buffy Saint Marie with Running For The Drum (Gypsy Boy), which also includes a DVD of John Prowse’s film, A Multimedia Life.

Woodstock Veterans Reissued

Graham Nash has two reissue releases out. The first is Reflections (Rhino), a three-CD, 64-track box set from Rhino. The set covers the best of Nash’s tenure with the Hollies, the various configurations of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, his solo works and “Two Hearts” from Nash and Carole King. There are two live tracks from 1993, two edited album versions, six alternate mixes, one alternate stereo mix, 15 new stereo mixes and one demo. Speaking of demos, check out Demos (Rhino) from Crosby, Stills and Nash (Rhino), which features twelve demos of the trio’s best-loved songs recorded from 1968-1971. There is also the two-CD, Deluxe Edition reissue of The Who Sell Out (Polydor), which includes the original mono and stereo mixes of the album and 27 bonus tracks.

Neil Young

Of course, as has been covered in these pages, there are two recent Neil Young releases: Fork In The Road (Reprise) and Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972 (Reprise).

Etc.

Another recent DVD that fans and members of Woodstock Nation should not miss is the recently released DVD Fillmore: The Last Days (Rhino). The July 4th, 1971 concert marked the closing of Bill Graham’s Fillmores East and West. This Fillmore West show includes performances from Hot Tuna; Jefferson Airplane; Jerry Garcia, solo and with the New Riders of the Purple Sage; the Grateful Dead and Santana, along with more obscure San Francisco-based acts of the period.

Often considered among the seminal pop music festivals of the late-60s and early-70s, alongside Woodstock, the Monterey Pop Festival and Watkins Glen, were the Isle of Wight festivals from 1968-1970. From the 1970 festival is Moody Blues: Threshold of a Dream Live At The Isle of Wight Festival (Eagle). This 20-song performance, which also includes a documentary, features the classic Moody Blues lineup and was the second year in a row that the group performed at the festival. A companion CD, which included 14 tracks, was released last year.

If you attended Woodstock and would like to share you recollections and/or photographs, please submit them below.