The Woodstock music festival, a popular rock festival.Beginning with the Woodstock music festival history, the town of Woodstock was founded in 1901 by Ralph Whitehead in 1901. In the early sixties many songwriters like Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin were living in Woodstock because it was only about one hundred miles from New York City. Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful, and Paul Butterfield wrote many musical songs and the, "Music From the Big Pink", came from their house which they called the Pink House in Woodstock. Bob Dylan's album, titled "John Wesley Harding" was written their while he was getting well after his motor cycle accident. The Woodstock music festival was held at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, on the 15th, 16th and 17th of August, 1969. It was originally scheduled to take place in the town of the same name, in Ulster County but because of local opposition it was moved to Sullivan County. The promoters said they were expecting around fifty to one hundred thousand people, but nearly half a million showed up for the concert, it was very hard to count the amount of people on the concert site. The highways were jammed with trafic for at least nine miles from the site, as people tried to make it to the concert on foot. It is said it was one of the biggest traffic jams in rock history. They were charging to get in, but most of the people didn't pay because there were just too many people entering at the same time. The fence was pushed down, and the ticket takers quit and went to watch the show. The rain started friday night at the Woodstock music festival. It rained nearly all weekend the facilities were overcrowded, and people shared food, alcoholic drinks, and drugs. The people made love, and some made money selling drugs and other things like raincoats made of garbage bags. There was no violence reported and the people were well behaved, for such a large number of people without enough food and drink and very poor sanitary conditions. One young boy who was sleeping, was killed when he was run over by a truck that was hauling garbage. Everybody seemed to be happy as they were present at one of the biggest music festivals of the sixties. The Woodstock music festival had cost over two million dollars and was promoted by John Roberts, Michael Lang, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld all young men under 26 years old. Their Company was named Woodstock Ventures Inc. The Company paid The Who, $12,500, the Jefferson Airplane the sum of $12,000 Dollars, and Credence Clearwater Revival $11,500 dollars, not much compared to todays rates. Artists and groups that performed at the Woodstock music festival were, Joan Baez, Joe cocker, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, and many others. There was a film released in 1970, and the film won the Academy Award for a Documentary Feature. Jimi Hendrix will be releasing a DVD in the UK in September of 2005 tiled, "Live At Woodstock". This DVD will also have the full list of favorites from the Jimi Hendrix Experience such as Foxy Lady, Purple Haze, Spanish Castle Magic and many more.
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