08/15/2026
I fell asleep in an almost empty field.
I woke up inside Woodstock.
August 16, 1969. I’d hitched a ride from Narrowsburg, New York — where I was working that summer — accumulated a couple of vacation days, and sat down in what looked like a sparsely populated field on a Friday afternoon.
Saturday morning, I opened my eyes to a city’s worth of people.
That black circle in the photo? That’s me. Row 1188 in front of the stage.
I was there for Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Ravi Shankar, Janis Joplin at 3am, the Who at dawn, Santana, Canned Heat, Mountain, Creedence, Grateful Dead, Sly & the Family Stone.
I was there when nobody had a name for what it was yet.
56 years later, I sat down with a researcher at the New York Historical Society. My account of that weekend is now part of the permanent archive at the Museum at Bethel Woods.
People ask what I remember most.
Not the mud. Not the rain.
I remember falling asleep in a field and waking up inside something that changed American music, American culture, and a generation’s sense of what was possible.
Most of the defining moments in a life are like that. You don’t recognize them while you’re sitting in them.
Friday (August 16) performers:
Richie Havens
Swami Satchidananda
Sweetwater
Bert Sommer
Tim Hardin
Ravi Shankar
Melanie
Arlo Guthrie
Joan Baez
Saturday (August 17) performers:
Quill,
Country Joe McDonald,
Santana
John Sebastian
Keef Hartley Band
The Incredible String Band
Canned Heat
Mountain
Grateful Dead
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Janis Joplin & the Kozmic Blues Band
Sly & the Family Stone
The Who
Jefferson Airplane
Sunday (August 18)
The Band
Johnny Winter
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Sha Na Na
Jimi Hendrix