You Got a Good Taste is a no-podcast journey through different records labels, artists and historical events, their evolution and how they influenced popular music and entire generations.
Take a ride back in musical time, warm up your ears and learn about some of the coolest events in sound history.
And you never know might find a new favorite artist.
Prepared to be educated.
Episode 1: Woodstock 1979
The Woodstock Music Festival began on August 15, 1969, as half a million people waited on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York, for the three-day music festival to start. Billed as “An Aquarian Experience: 3 Days of Peace and Music,” the epic event would later be known simply as Woodstock and become synonymous with the counterculture movement of the 1960s.
Woodstock History:
The Woodstock Music Festival was the brainchild of four men, all age 27 or younger, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang. Creedence Clearwater Revival was the first big-name talent to sign on and gave Woodstock the credibility it needed to attract other well-known musicians. After an Initial struggle to find a venue, just a month ahead of the concert, 49-year-old dairy farmer Max Yasgur offered to rent them part of his land in the White Lake area of Bethel, New York, surrounded by the verdant Catskill Mountains. With a venue and talent secured, the partners turned to logistics. Fencing, entrance gates and ticket booths needed to be set up and a performers’ pavilion, concession stands, bathroom facilities and medical tents built. But by the time people started arriving a couple days ahead of the concert, the fencing, gates and ticket booths still weren’t ready.
According to Lang, in an interview with The Telegraph, “You do everything you can to get the gates and the fences finished—but you have your priorities. People are coming, and you need to be able to feed them, and take care of them, and give them a show. So you have to prioritize.”
With no efficient way to charge concert-goers, Lang and his partners decided to make Woodstock a free event.
Originally, about 50,000 people were expected. But by August 13, at least that number were already camped out on location and over 100,000 tickets pre-sold.
As an estimated one million people descended on Woodstock, its organizers scrambled to add more facilities. Highways and local roads came to a standstill and many concert-goers simply abandoned their cars and trekked the rest of the way on foot. Eventually, about half a million people reached the venue.
The Woodstock audience was diverse and a reflection of the rapidly-changing times. Some were hippies who felt alienated by a society steeped in materialism.
In 1969, the country was deep into the controversial Vietnam War, a conflict that many young people vehemently opposed. It was also the era of the civil rights movement, a period of great unrest and protest. Woodstock was an opportunity for people to escape into music and spread a message of unity and peace.
Although the crowd at Woodstock experienced bad weather, muddy conditions and a lack of food, water and adequate sanitation, the overall vibe there was harmonious. Looking back, some people attribute the lack of violence to the large number of psychedelic drugs being used.
Others believe hippies were simply living out their mantra of “making love, not war.” In fact, more than a few couples at Woodstock took that command literally and made love whenever and wherever the mood hit.
Upstairs Rogue and Vagabond at the Bedlam&Squalor
Expect to Listen:
Richie Havens, Bert Sommer, Sweetwater, Melanie, Tim Hardin, Ravi Shanker, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Quill, Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian, Keef Hartley Band, Santana, The Incredible String Band, Canned Heat
Mountain, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and The Fish, Ten Years After, The Band
Johnny Winter, Blood Sweat and Tears, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sha Na Na, Jimi Hendrix
