On this day in 1969 — 54 years ago — the Woodstock Music Festival drew to a close in upstate New York
Bobbi Kelly and Nick Ercoline greet the dawn on August, 17, 1969 at Woodstock
Photo by Burk Uzzle
On this day in 1969 — 54 years ago — the Woodstock Music Festival drew to a close after three days of peace, love and rock 'n' roll in upstate New York.
Conceived as "Three Days of Peace and Music," Woodstock was a product of a partnership between John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang.
Their idea was to make enough money from the event to build a recording studio in Woodstock, New York.
When they couldn't find an appropriate venue in the town itself, the promoters decided to hold the festival on a 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York — some 50 miles from Woodstock — owned by Max Yasgur.
By the time the weekend of the festival arrived, the group had sold a total of 186,000 tickets and expected no more than 200,000 people to show up. By Friday night, however, thousands of eager early arrivals were pushing against the entrance gates.
Fearing they could not control the crowds, the promoters made the decision to open the concert to everyone, free of charge. Close to half a million people attended Woodstock — jamming the roads around Bethel with eight miles of traffic.
Soaked by rain and wallowing in the muddy mess of Yasgur's fields, young fans euphorically took in the performances of acts like Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
The Who performed in the early morning hours of August 17, with Roger Daltrey belting out "See Me, Feel Me," from the now-classic album, Tommy, just as the sun began to rise.
The most memorable moment of the concert for many fans was the closing performance by Jimi Hendrix, who gave a rambling, rocking solo guitar performance of "The Star Spangled Banner."
With not enough bathroom facilities and first-aid tents to accommodate such a huge crowd, many described the atmosphere at the festival as chaotic. There were surprisingly few episodes of violence, though one teenager was accidentally run over and killed by a tractor and another died from a drug overdose.
A number of musicians performed songs expressing their opposition to the Vietnam War, a sentiment that was enthusiastically shared by the vast majority of the audience.
Later, the term "Woodstock Nation" would be used as a general term to describe the youth counterculture of the 1960s.
Here, Jimi Hendrix closes Woodstock, 1969, with his version of the “Star Spangled Banner.”
Robert De Niro, 2010
Photo by Hedi Slimane
Robert De Niro is 80 years old today.
An actor, director and producer, De Niro’s first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973. In 1974, he played the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, a role that won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
His critically acclaimed, longtime collaborations with Martin Scorsese began with 1973's Mean Streets, and earned De Niro an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film, Raging Bull. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and Cape Fear (1991).
In addition, he received nominations for his acting in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) and Penny Marshall's Awakenings (1990). Also in 1990, his portrayal as Jimmy Conway in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas earned him a BAFTA nomination. His other films include New York, New York (1977), Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000).
De Niro directed A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006).
De Niro received an Italian passport in 2006. His Italian citizenship was granted by the Prime Minister despite strong opposition by the Sons of Italy, who believed that De Niro damaged the public image of Italians by portraying criminals.
De Niro, who has long resided in New York City, has been investing in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood since 1989. He has residences on the east and west sides of Manhattan. He also has a 78-acre estate in Gardiner, New York, which serves as his primary residence.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, De Niro was an outspoken critic of candidate Donald Trump, calling him "so blatantly stupid" and stating "I'd like to punch him in the face" in reference to the similar desire Trump expressed towards the DNC speakers at one of his rallies.
On June 10, 2018, while introducing a performance by Bruce Springsteen of his song "My Hometown" at the 72nd Tony Awards, De Niro brought the audience to a standing ovation with this denunciation of President Trump:
I'm gonna say one thing. Fuck Trump. It's no longer "down with Trump." It's "fuck Trump."
Rod MacDonald, the Gaslight, New York City, 2012
Photo by Frank Beacham
Rod MacDonald is 75 years old today.
A singer-songwriter, MacDonald was a major part of the 1980s folk revival in Greenwich Village clubs, performing at Gerde’s Folk City, the Speakeasy, The Bottom Line and the Songwriter's Exchange at the Cornelia Street Cafe for many years.
Co-founder of the Greenwich Village Folk Festival, MacDonald is best known for his songs "American Jerusalem," about the "contrast between the rich and the poor in Manhattan" (Sing Out!), "A Sailor's Prayer," "Coming of the Snow," "Every Living Thing" and "My Neighbors In Delray," a description of the 9/11 hijackers' last days in Delray Beach, Florida, where MacDonald has lived since 1995.
His songs have been covered by Dave Van Ronk, Shawn Colvin, Four Bitchin' Babes, Jonathan Edwards and Garnet Rogers.
A self-proclaimed non-commercial artist, MacDonald has released ten solo recordings on several record labels in the U.S., eight in Europe on the Swiss label Brambus and 21 songs with Smithsonian Folkways (through the Fast Folk Musical Magazine). As with many independent artists, his recordings are often sold directly at concerts, with no definitive sales figures.
He has appeared on stage with fellow artists, including Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Odetta, Tom Paxton, the Violent Femmes, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Dave Van Ronk, Emmylou Harris, Richie Havens, Ani DiFranco, Tom Chapin, Jack Hardy and David Massengill.
He has performed at the Philadelphia, Winnipeg, Florida, Riverhawk, Boston, Kerrville, Greenwich Village, Falcon Ridge, New Bedford Summerfest, Port Fairy (Australia) and Trowbridge (UK) festivals, and on the radio program, Mountain Stage.
MacDonald was the first American singer to tour the newly-liberated Czech Republic in 1991, and has made 35 tours in Europe since 1985, nearly all of them with Mark Dan, a bassist from New York City.
Here, MacDonald performs Dylan’s “Masters of War” at WLRN Radio, 2011.
Ed Sanders — poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author, publisher and longtime member of the band, The Fugs — is 84 years old today.
Born in Kansas City, Sanders dropped out of the University of Missouri in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City's Greenwich Village to attend New York University. He graduated in 1964 with a degree in Greek.
Sanders wrote his first notable poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting the launch of nuclear submarines armed with nuclear missiles in 1961.
In 1962, he founded the avant-garde journal, Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts.
Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore at 383 East Tenth Street in what was then the Lower East Side. The store became a gathering place for bohemians, writers and radicals. On January 1, 1966, police raided Peace Eye Bookstore and charged Sanders with obscenity, charges he fended off with the aid of the ACLU.
Notoriety generated by the case led to his appearance on the February 17, 1967 cover of Life Magazine, which proclaimed him "a leader of New York's Other Culture.”
In late 1964, Sanders founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984. On October 21, 1967, Sanders helped The Fugs and the San Francisco Diggers in an attempt to "exorcise" the Pentagon.
In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He attended the Manson group's murder trial, and spent time at their residence at the Spahn Movie Ranch. There have been two updated editions of The Family, the most recent in 2002.
The Process Church of the Final Judgement sued Sanders's U.S. publisher for defamation over a chapter linking them with Manson's activities. The case was settled by the publisher, who removed the disputed chapter from future editions.
The Process Church then sued Sanders's British publisher, but lost the suit and were forced to pay the defendant's legal fees. Sanders is the founder of the Investigative Poetry movement.
His 1976 manifesto, Investigative Poetry, published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books, had an impact on investigative writing and poetry during the ensuing decades. In the 1990s, Sanders began utilizing the principles of Investigative Poetry to create a series of book-length poems on literary figures and American History.
Among these works are Chekhov, 1968: A History in Verse and The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg. In 1998, Sanders began work on a nine-volume America, A History in Verse. The first five volumes, tracing the history of the 20th Century, were published in a CD format with over 2,000 pages in length.
Sanders received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry in 1983, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry in 1987. His, Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century, Selected Poems 1961–1985, won an American Book Award in 1988.
In 1997, he received a Writers Community residency sponsored by the YMCA National Writer's Voice through the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund. The same year he was also awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In 2000 and 2003, he was Writer-in-Residence at the New York State Writers Institute in Albany, New York.
Sanders lives in Woodstock, New York, with his wife of over 50 years, Miriam R. Sanders, the writer and painter. He publishes the online Woodstock Journal.
He also invents musical instruments, including the Talking Tie, the microtonal Microlyre and the Lisa Lyre, a musical contraption involving light-activated switches and a reproduction of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
Here is Sanders in a reading for his book, “Fug You.”
Mae West was born 130 years ago today.
West was an actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. Known for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in vaudeville and on the stage in New York before moving to Hollywood to become a comedienne, actress and writer in the motion picture industry.
In consideration of her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named West 15th among the greatest female stars of all time. One of the more controversial movie stars of her day, West encountered many problems, including censorship.
When her cinematic career ended, she continued to perform on stage in Las Vegas and in the United Kingdom, on radio and television and she recorded rock and roll albums. Asked about the various efforts to impede her career, West said, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."
During World War II, allied aircrew called their yellow inflatable, vest-like life preserver jackets "Mae Wests" partly from rhyming slang for "breasts"and "life vest" and partly because of the resemblance to her torso.
A "Mae West" is also a type of round parachute malfunction (partial inversion) which contorts the shape of the canopy into the appearance of an extraordinarily large brassiere.
West has been the subject of songs, such as in the title song of Cole Porter's Broadway musical, Anything Goes, and in "You're the Top," from the same show.
One of the most popular objects of the surrealist movement was the Mae West Lips Sofa, which was completed by artist Salvador Dalí in 1938 for Edward James.
The graph depicting the probability of uranium or other fissionable materials producing specific fission products has two peaks with a "valley" in the middle, and is known as the Mae West curve.
When approached for permission to allow her likeness on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, West initially refused stating that she would never be in a "Lonely Heart's Club."
The Beatles wrote her a personal letter declaring themselves great admirers of the star and persuaded her to change her mind.
Miles Davis’s masterpiece — Kind of Blue — was released 64 years ago today.
Recording sessions for the album took place at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City. Production was handled by Teo Macero, who had produced Davis's previous two LPs, and Irving Townsend.
The sessions featured Davis’s ensemble sextet, which consisted of pianist Bill Evans (Wynton Kelly on one track), drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley.
Kind of Blue was one of fifty recordings chosen in 2002 by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.
Fess Parker as the television version of Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett, 19th century folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician, was born 237 years ago today.
Crockett is commonly referred to as the "King of the Wild Frontier.” He grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. After being made a colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee, he was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821.
In 1825, Crockett was elected to the U.S. Congress, where he vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, most notably the Indian Removal Act. Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1831 elections.
He won again in 1833, then narrowly lost in 1835, prompting his angry departure to Texas (then the Mexican state of Tejas) shortly thereafter. In early 1836, Crockett took part in the Texas Revolution and was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in March.
Crockett became famous in his own lifetime for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs. After his death, he continued to be credited with acts of mythical proportion.
These led in the 20th century to television and movie portrayals, and he became one of the best-known American folk heroes. Walt Disney reprised the legend in his 1950s TV, which also introduced his legendary coonskin cap. The show starred Fess Parker as Crockett.
"The Ballad of Davy Crockett" from the Disney TV show had four different versions of the song hit the Billboard Best Sellers pop chart in 1955. The versions by Bill Hayes, Fess Parker and Tennessee Ernie Ford charted in the Top 10 simultaneously, with Hayes' version hitting #1.
Crockett died fighting at the Alamo on the morning of March 6, 1836 at the age of 49.
Actor James Dean in a coffin, early 1955
Photo by Dennis Stock
It was a gag picture made when Dean visited a high school friend in his home town of Fairmount, Indiana. The coffins were at Hunt’s Furniture Store.
Dean would return to Fairmount in his own coffin only seven months later after dying in an auto accident at age 24.