Woodstock’s Seeds
By Avi Davis

If I had been 17- years- old and living in the United States in August 1969 there would have been nothing that could have prevented me from going to Woodstock. Along with 670,000 other smitten youths, I would braved my parents wrath, the ten miles of clogged traffic, the waist high mud, poor sanitary conditions and the pelting rain to experience what promised to be an American youth’s one in a life time

Alas, I was only eleven years old at the time of the famous festival and living in far off Australia. I only actually became aware of the American event, when, as a teenager in the mid- 1970s, a friend played me the three LP album which caught the essence of the concert. At the time I remember sitting transfixed as the stage announcer warned that there was “ bad acid” going around and Country Joe MacDonald’s incendiary chant. I was astonished that not only could you say things like that in public in America, but that they could be recorded and distributed for public consumption.

I have had a bit of time since then to look back at Woodstock and assess its real role and significance in American history. Now I realize that it was the apex of a youth revolution that began with the Beats, in the early 1950s, flowed through the Beatles in the 1960s, swept up disco and rap and continues to dominate our culture today. Blessed with a purchasing power unknown to their teenage forbears ( indeed the word “ teenager” did not come into vogue the early 1950s) the youth of America had found a destiny and a cause – rejection of middle class values and the assumption of rebellion as a way of life.

But what is forgotten about the famous festival are some of its terrible consequences. Within a year, two of its biggest headliners – Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin- would be dead from drug overdoses. One of its inspirational figures – Sly Stone, leader of Sly and the Family Stone, would soon slip into schizophrenia and spend the next 30 years as a virtual derelict. Other artists such as Richie Havens and Melanie would very soon drift into obscurity. And the youth culture magazines such as Rolling Stone and Creem moved from dramatizing the power of youth to the glorification of decadence ……

Want read more of this article…… See Avi Davis’ Blog

The Western Word - An International Weekly Digest 8-10-09