FIFTY-FIVE YEARS ago on August 15, 1969, the Woodstock Music & Art Fair commenced at Max Yasgur’s Farm in Bethel, New York, at exactly 5:07 p.m., which was the very moment rhythmic folk ’n’ soul singer/songwriter Richie Havens took the stage. World culture—popular, political, and sociological—has never quite been the same ever since Havens strummed the opening chords of “From the Prison” on his battered Guild D40 acoustic guitar, and the first sounds of Woodstock rang out into eternity.
Indeed, the deeply felt vibes of three—well, technically, four—days of music, communion, and collective harmony instantly catapulted that long, heady, extended weekend of August 15-18, 1969, directly into the history books. The zeitgeist event that was Woodstock showed everyone how the counterculture ethos had spread and bled into the mainstream. Over a half-century-plus later, the core tenets of Woodstock are constantly being revisited and re-evaluated by generations old and new alike in their daily lives—not to mention by way of the voluminous related aural/visual offerings that have been shared across many a multimedia option in the interim.
We Are Stardust, We Are Golden
To say there were challenges in capturing both the sound and the vision during a weekend strewn with all sorts of natural and man-made strife for the planned Woodstock film and soundtrack releases would be an understatement. “It was a big moment when Richie Havens hit the stage, and the sound worked,” Michael Lang, the event’s chief organizer, told me the first time we spoke about Woodstock over a decade ago. “Everybody could hear him, and he made that connection with the audience. That was a big moment of relief.” (Sadly, Lang passed away at age 77 on January 8, 2022.)
From there, it was up to on-site producer Eddie Kramer—his official job title is credited as “original location music engineer/recordist”—and his audio team to make sure that, no matter what logistical problems they faced in terms of rain, wind, and a host of other physical factors, the recording process had to stay the course. “We left Eddie Kramer and his crew to figure out the approach to recording. He was a pro,” Lang marveled. “The records we released [May 1970’s 3LP set Woodstock: Music From the Original Soundtrack and More, and July 1971’s 2LP followup, Woodstock Two, both on Cotillion] were going to be a reflection of the soundtrack of the film, and I wanted something that had a very live feel to it that brought you back to the actual experience.”
Visually speaking, Lang agreed the March 1970 film itself—a three-hour-long cut directed by Michael Wadleigh, whose crew included an assistant director and film editor by the name of Martin Scorsese—quite accurately portrayed what happened that weekend. “It was presented in such a great way and such a visceral way that it really brought the actual experience to the world. I felt it was captured beautifully,” assessed Lang. As for the audio side of things, Lang also felt that “Eddie and
