Woodstock Music & Art Fair (informally, Woodstock or The Woodstock Festival) was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition", held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre (2.4 km²; 240 ha, 0.94 mi²) dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County.
Thirty-two music acts appeared during the sometimes rainy weekend in front of nearly half a million concertgoers. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history and was listed on Rolling Stone's 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.[2]
The event was captured in a successful 1970 documentary movie, Woodstock; an accompanying soundtrack album; and Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock", which commemorated the event and became a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Woodstock was initiated through the efforts of Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld. It was Roberts and Rosenman who had the finances. They placed the following advertisement in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal under the name of Challenge International, Ltd.: "Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions."[3]
Lang and Kornfeld noticed the ad, and the four men got together originally to discuss a retreat-like recording studio in Woodstock, but the idea evolved into an outdoor music and arts festival. There were differences in approach among the four: Roberts was disciplined, and knew what was needed in order for the venture to succeed, while the laid-back Lang saw Woodstock as a new, relaxed way of bringing business people together.[3] There were further doubts over the venture, as Roberts wondered whether to consolidate his losses and pull the plug, or to continue pumping his own finances into the project.[3]
Woodstock was designed as a profit-making venture, aptly titled "Woodstock Ventures". It famously became a "free concert" only after it became obvious that the event was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had prepared for. Around 186,000 tickets were sold beforehand and organizers anticipated approximately 200,000 festival-goers would turn up.[4] The fence was purposely cut by the UAW/MF Family in order to create a totally free event,[5] prompting many more to show up. Tickets for the event cost US$18 in advance (approximately US$75 today adjusted for inflation)[6] and $24 at the gate for all three days. Ticket sales were limited to record stores in the greater New York City area, or by mail via a Post Office Box at the Radio City Station Post Office located in Midtown Manhattan.
Woodstock Ventures made Warner Bros. an offer to make a movie about Woodstock. All Artie Kornfeld required was $100,000, on the basis that "it could have either sold millions or, if there were riots, be one of the best documentaries ever made," according to Kornfeld.[7]
The influx of attendees to the rural concert site in Bethel created a massive traffic jam and was said to have closed the New York State Thruway, [4] though that claim has been disputed.[8] The facilities were not equipped to provide sanitation or first aid for the number of people attending; hundreds of thousands found themselves in a struggle against bad weather, food shortages, and poor sanitation.[9]
The festival was held during a time of military conflict abroad and racial discord at home, and participants quickly became aware that the event had taken on a meaning beyond its original intent. The site of Woodstock became, for four days, a countercultural mini-nation. Minds were "open", drugs were used, and "love" was "free". Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman crystallized this view of the event in his book, Woodstock Nation, written shortly afterward.
Although the festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and the conditions involved, there were two recorded fatalities: one from what was believed to be a heroin overdose and another caused by an occupied sleeping bag accidentally being run over by a tractor in a nearby hayfield. There also were two births recorded at the event (one in a car caught in traffic and another in a helicopter) and four miscarriages.[10] Oral testimony in the film supports the overdose and run-over deaths and at least one birth, along with many colossal logistical headaches.
Yet, in tune with the idealistic hopes of the 1960s, Woodstock satisfied most attendees. Especially memorable were the sense of social harmony, the quality of music, and the overwhelming mass of people, many sporting bohemian dress, behavior, and attitudes.[11]
After the concert Max Yasgur, who owned the site of the event, saw it as a victory of peace and love. He spoke of how nearly half a million people filled with possibilities of disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. He states that "if we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future..."[3]
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival
"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is a suite of short songs written by Stephen Stills and performed by Crosby, Stills and Nash. It appeared on the group's self-titled debut album in 1969. It was also released as a single (edited and in mono), going to #21 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. The song is ranked #418 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The group has performed this song many times, most famously at the Woodstock and Live Aid festivals. The title may be a play on words for "Sweet Judy Blue Eyes"; also, the song may be considered a suite in the classical music sense (i.e., an ordered set of musical pieces, usually four in number).
The title refers to Stephen Stills' former girlfriend, singer/songwriter Judy Collins, and the lyrics to most of the suite's sections consist of his thoughts about her and their imminent breakup. Collins is known for her piercing blue eyes, which are referenced in the title. Stephen Stills on NPR, 15 July 2007, in talking about the release of demo tapes he made in 1968, called Just Roll Tape, reveals that Judy Collins was with him in the studio when these tapes were recorded. She told him "not to stay [at the studio] all night", Stephen said. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is one of the demo songs. When the interviewer asked if he and Judy were still a couple then, because the interviewer had always thought the song was a breakup song, Stephen, after deferring an answer, went on to say that "the breakup was imminent." "We were both too large for one house." Stills said that he liked parts of this demo version of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" better than the released version.
The song has four main sections.
[edit] First section
This section of the song is a traditional pop song. It has the chorus "I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are." It runs for approximately 2:55. It features a solo sung by Stephen Stills. David Crosby and Graham Nash, meanwhile, sing harmonies.
[edit] Second section
This section is much slower and features a solo sung by Stephen Stills. It runs from 2:55 to 4:43.
[edit] Third section
This section becomes more upbeat and features more poetic lyrics. It starts at about 4:43 and runs until 6:25. It leads directly into the fourth and final section.
[edit] Final section
The final section (the coda) is sung in broken Spanish. The section starts at about 6:34 and runs until the end of the song. The "doo-doo-doot" backing vocals make the lyrics difficult to make out for some listeners. Stills has been cited, perhaps apocryphally, as saying that he intentionally made the final stanzas unexpected and difficult, even using a foreign language for the lyrics, "just to make sure nobody would understand it".[3]
This section has been parodied many times, notably in Frank Zappa's compositions "Billy the Mountain" and "Magdalena" on The Mothers of Invention's album Just Another Band From L.A.
In the mid-1960s, Stephen Stills attended Lincoln School in San Jose, Costa Rica. The private school was attended mainly by upper-class Costa Ricans and had many foreign teachers and students. Stills's longtime musical collaborator, the Cuban percussionist Joe Lala, plays on the recording of the song.
The lines might be transcribed as follows:
- Que linda me la traigo a Cuba
- La reina de la Mar Caribe
- Quiero solo visitarle allí
- Y que triste que no puedo vaya
- O, va! O, va!
- La reina de la Mar Caribe
A rough translation into English might read:
- How happy it makes me to think of Cuba
- The queen of the Caribbean Sea
- I only want to visit her there
- And how sad that I cannot go.
Oh, go! Oh, go! - The queen of the Caribbean Sea
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes Lyrics
Where I'm no fun anymore
I am sorry
Sometimes it hurts so badly
I must cry out loud
I am lonely
I am yours, you are mine
You are what you are
And you make it hard.
Remember what we've said and done and felt
About each other
Oh babe, have mercy
Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now
I am not dreaming.
I am yours, you are mine
You are what you are
You make it hard.
Tearing yourself away from me now
You are free and I am crying
This does not mean I don't love you
I do, that's forever,
Yes and for always
I am yours, you are mine
You are what you are
You make it hard.
Something inside is telling me that
I've got your secret.
Are you still listening?
Fear is the lock, and laughter the key to your heart
And I love you.
I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are
You make it hard
And you make it hard (x 3).
Friday evening, Sunday in the afternoon
What have you got to lose?
Tuesday morning, please be gone I'm tired of you.
What have you got to lose?
Can I tell it like it is? (Help me I'm suffering)
Listen to me baby.
It's my heart that's a suffering (Help me I'm dying)
It's a dying, that's what I have to lose
I've got an answer
I'm going to fly away
What have I got to lose?
Will you come see me Thursdays and Saturdays?
What have you got to lose?
Chestnut brown canary
Ruby throated sparrow
Sing the song don't be long
Thrill me to the marrow.
Voices of the angels, ring around the moonlight
Asking me, said she so free
How can you catch the sparrow?
Lacy, lilting, leery, losing love, lamenting
Change my life, make it right
Be my lady.
Que linda me la traiga Cuba,
La reina de la Mar Caribe.
Cielo sol no tiene sangre allÃ,
Y que triste que no puedo vaya,
Oh va, oh va, va.
Translation:
(Oh, what beauty Cuba brings me,
The queen of the Caribbean Sea,
Sunny sky has no blood over there,
And how sad that I cannot go,
Oh go, oh go, go.)
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
__._,_.___
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