Description
Woodstock was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur‘s dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as “an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music” and alternatively referred to as the Woodstock Rock Festival, it attracted an audience of more than 400,000. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite sporadic rain.
The festival has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history as well as a defining event for the counterculture generation. The event’s significance was reinforced by a 1970 documentary film; an accompanying soundtrack album; and a song written by Joni Mitchell that became a major hit for both Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Matthews Southern Comfort. Music events bearing the Woodstock name have been planned for anniversaries including the tenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, thirtieth, fortieth, and fiftieth. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine listed it as number 19 of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll. In 2017, the festival site became listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More is a live album of selected performances from the 1969 Woodstock counterculturefestival. Originally released on Atlantic Records‘ Cotillion label as a triple album on May 11, 1970, it was re-released as a two-CD set in 1994. Veteran producer Eddie Kramer was the sound engineer during the three-day event.
A second collection of recordings from the festival, Woodstock Two, was released a year later. In 1994, the songs from both albums, as well as numerous additional, previously unreleased performances from the festival (but not the stage announcements and crowd noises) were reissued by Atlantic as a four-CD box set titled Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music. In 2009, Rhino Records issued a six-CD box set, Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur’s Farm, which includes further musical performances as well as stage announcements and other ancillary material. Rhino Records also reissued a remastered version of the original double CD album in 2009. Target issued a version exclusive to their stores that included a bonus disc of 14 tracks, including one previously unreleased track, “Misty Roses” by Tim Hardin.
Track listing
Most of the tracks have some form of stage announcement, conversation by the musicians, etc., lengthening the tracks to an extent. Times are listed as the length of time the music was played in the song, while times in parentheses indicate the total running time of the entire track.
CD One
1. “I Had a Dream” (John Sebastian) – 2:38 (2:53)
Performed by John Sebastian.
2. “Going Up the Country” (Alan Wilson) – 3:19 (5:53)
Performed by Canned Heat
3. “Freedom (Motherless Child)” (Richie Havens) – 5:13 (5:26)
Performed by Richie Havens.
4. “Rock and Soul Music” (McDonald, Melton, David Cohen, Barthol, Hirsh) – 2:09 (2:09)
Performed by Country Joe & the Fish.
5. “Coming into Los Angeles” (Arlo Guthrie) – 2:05 (2:50)
Performed by Arlo Guthrie.
6. “At the Hop” (Artie Singer, David White, John Medora) – 2:13 (2:33)
Performed by Sha-Na-Na
7. “The “Fish” Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” (McDonald) – 3:02 (3:48)
Performed by Country Joe McDonald.
8. “Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man” (Roger McGuinn, Gram Parsons) – 2:08 (2:38)
Performed by Joan Baez & Jeffrey Shurtleff.
9. “Joe Hill” (Alfred Hayes, Earl Robinson) – 2:40 (5:34)
Performed by Joan Baez.
10. “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” (Stephen Stills) – 8:04 (9:02)
Performed by Crosby, Stills & Nash.
11. “Sea of Madness” (Neil Young) – 3:22 (4:20)
Performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Recorded in September 1969 at the Fillmore East auditorium, New York City, New York.
12. “Wooden Ships” (Stills, David Crosby, Paul Kantner—Kantner not credited on original release) – 5:26 (5:26)
Performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
13. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (Pete Townshend) – 4:39 (6:54)
Performed by The Who. (The performance on the album picks up mid-song at the very end of the “We’re Not Gonna Take It” portion and then finishes with the “See Me, Feel Me” and “Listening to You” sections.) The final 1:50 of the track is an emergency announcement and the statement that declared “It’s a free concert from now on”.
14. “With a Little Help from My Friends” (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – 7:50 (10:06)
Performed by Joe Cocker. In the CD version, the first disc would close with this track, with a 1:30 long recording of the rainstorm.
Side four
CD Two
1. “Soul Sacrifice” (Santana, Rolie, Brown, Carabello, Shrieve, Areas) – 8:05 (13:52)
Performed by Santana. The first 3 minutes of the track is the “Crowd Rain Chant,” a chant started by the crowd as an attempt to stop the rainstorm.
2. “I’m Going Home” (Alvin Lee) – 9:20 (9:57)
Performed by Ten Years After.
3. “Volunteers” (Marty Balin, Kantner) – 2:45 (3:31)
Performed by Jefferson Airplane. The final 34 seconds or so of the track is a speech by Max Yasgur, praising the crowd for coming to the festival.
4. “Medley” (Performed by Sly & the Family Stone) – 13:47 (15:29)
. “Dance to the Music” (Sylvester Stewart) – 2:11
. “Music Lover” (Stewart) – 4:50
. “I Want to Take You Higher” (Stewart) – 6:46
5. “Rainbows All Over Your Blues” (Sebastian) – 2:05 (3:54)
Performed by John Sebastian.
6. “Love March” (Gene Dinwiddie, Phillip Wilson) – 8:43 (8:59)
Performed by Butterfield Blues Band.
7. “Medley” (Performed by Jimi Hendrix.) – 12:51 (13:42)
“Star Spangled Banner” (Traditional, arrangement, Jimi Hendrix)– 5:40
“Purple Haze” (Hendrix) – 3:28
“Instrumental Solo” (Hendrix) – 3:43 (retitled and re-edited when Hendrix’s Woodstock show was released more fully in the 1990s. The improvised, fast solo section immediately following “Purple Haze” was heavily cut in the original Woodstock film and soundtrack, and most of the track here is what would later be titled “Villanova Junction”, a slow bluesy ballad with the band joining in the background. The uncut version of the solo was restored in the director’s cut of Woodstock and on the video of Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock and titled “Woodstock Improvisation”)
Video: Woodstock 1969
