The (about) 450,000 people who converged on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in the summer of ’69 for Woodstock didn’t all experience three days of peace, love and music.
Some endured miles of traffic snarls on clogged country roads, turned around and went home. Other tribes of music-heads danced through dawn on muddy hillsides, barely sleeping or eating through the driving rain, dazed but giddy to take part in a massive, improbable event.
Yet everyone who went to Woodstock experienced something extraordinary, if you ask Upstate New York’s Museum at Bethel Woods, which is now embarking on a cross-country road trip to capture memories from festivalgoers before these fade away.
The museum, which sits on the original Woodstock grounds, wants to record and preserve stories from folks who attended the Woodstock Music & Art Fair on Aug. 15-18, 1969. Its oral history project will visit three sites across Florida this month:
- Boca Raton, Jan. 18-23
- Fort Lauderdale, Jan. 23
- Port St. Lucie, Jan. 24-25
To avoid “getting accidentally swamped” by hundreds of people, the sites will not be open to the public, says Julia Fell, who leads the project. Local addresses will be revealed to participants who make one-on-one reservations through the museum.
SO, WHY NOW?
More than 55 years after rock ‘n’ roll’s most iconic festival — a generation’s touchstone against the backdrop of Civil Rights protests, presidential assassinations and the Vietnam War — there’s more urgency than ever to record Woodstock’s voices, says Fell, who’s collected more than 1,000 personal histories as Museum at Bethel Woods’ curator of exhibitions.
“The average Woodstock attendee was 18 years old, which means they’re in their mid-70s now,” Fell says. “Frankly, we don’t have forever to collect these stories, and the pressure is beginning to mount.”
Fell helped start the project in 2020 after Woodstock’s 50th anniversary, at first relying on phone calls and Zoom testimonials during the pandemic. But her museum has since received more than $200,000 in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Institute of Museum and Library Services — enough for Fell and other curators to travel the country and collect Woodstock memories in person.
“Going to people where they are is vital,” Fell says. “When you’re in the same room as somebody, you get a level of trust between the interviewer and storyteller, a safe space that makes them feel more comfortable. And besides, our museum is in a remote rural area and a lot of people can’t get to us.”
Fell stresses that the purpose of collecting Woodstock tales of sex, drugs and Jimi Hendrix isn’t pinpoint accuracy. Firsthand memories can be flawed after 50 years — or filtered through the haze of hallucinogenics — and what’s more important is experience, she says.
“We’re looking for any type of story, from the summer before it took place to the aftermath and how it impacted them, or even their drug stories,” she says. “Even if they get something wrong factually, what’s never wrong is the feeling they got from attending the event.”
Fell says the project is especially interested in Woodstock’s place in the Catskill Mountains, a former summer refuge for New York’s Jewish vacationers and a cradle of Borscht Belt comedy. She’s hoping Boca Raton’s Jewish population can share stories about being part of both cultures.
They’re also looking for memories of the 1968 Miami Pop Festival, a Woodstock prototype organized by Ric O’Barry and Woodstock cofounder Michael Lang, and held twice at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach.
To share memories, make a reservation by emailing [email protected] or signing up at BethelWoodsCenter.org/oral-history-initiative. Interviews last 45 minutes and participants must agree to be audio-recorded, although video is preferred.
