(Credits: Far Out / YouTube / James M Shelley)
Woodstock is remembered as the ultimate music event. The festival is seen as the pinnacle of the 1960s, the finale of music’s brightest decade. In those rose-tinted remembrances, it’s often mistakenly thought that absolutely everyone who was anyone was there, that the lineup was a veritable who’s who of the moment – but the reality was different.
Woodstock was a mess. At every turn, things went wrong. It ended up being a free festival all because they didn’t build ticket booths in time. Tens of thousands more people than the organisers expected descended on the site, causing absolute chaos for the infrastructure, not just of the festival grounds but the roads around it, too, as cars were abandoned. At one point, supplies even needed to be airlifted in.
But that chaos started long before the gates opened. It started back in the booking process when the organisers wanted to make Woodstock that gathering of the moment’s greats, but hit roadblock after roadblock as a majority turned them down.
The reasons varied from the valid to the somewhat insulting. In the first camp, there was the likes of Chicago, who initially said yes but then had a tour date rescheduled, now clashing with the festival. But the group kindly ensured another act, Santana, would take their slot before dropping out, with their mutual manager helping the festival out.
Joni Mitchell was another one who desperately wanted to be at the festival but had a clash. Her regret over missing the event was so high that she wrote about it anyway, penning ‘Woodstock’ despite not attending.
The Rolling Stones couldn’t make it for the incredibly valid reason that Richards’ girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, had just given birth to their son. Meanwhile, Simon and Garfunkel were busy trying to give birth to an album. The Doors turned down their invite for the exact opposite reason, as Jim Morrison had a fear that playing at a big open-air festival would lead to his death through assassination.
Some rejections, however, were more flippant as a decided vote of nonconfidence in the event. Jeff Beck literally disbanded his group before the event, stating, “I deliberately broke the group up before Woodstock,” adding, “I didn’t want it to be preserved”.
Tommy James and the Shondells famously said, “My secretary called and said, ‘Yeah, listen, there’s this pig farmer in upstate New York that wants you to play in his field.’ That’s how it was put to me. So we passed, and we realized what we’d missed a couple of days later.”
Plenty of other acts felt the same, with names like The Byrds, Blue Images, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull all believing it would be no different to any other festival. Frank Zappa turned it down, too, saying simply, “A lot of mud at Woodstock.”
It was Bob Dylan who delivered perhaps the most passive-aggressive rejection, especially given that Dylan lived in Woodstock. He was angry about the festival from the second it was whispered about, annoyed that this event was going to bring in the riff raff to disturb his peaceful life in the country. So while he did have the valid reason that he, like several other acts, played Isle Of Wight festival instead, he never once spoke kindly about the event.
All in all, the list of rejections was long, as the festival was turned down by the following:
- The Beatles
- The Jeff Beck Group
- Blues Image
- The Byrds
- Chicago
- Eric Clapton
- The Doors
- Bob Dylan
- Free
- The Guess Who
- Iron Butterfly
- It’s a Beautiful Day
- Tommy James and the Shondells
- Jethro Tull
- Led Zeppelin
- Lighthouse
- Arthur Lee and Love
- Mind Garage
- Joni Mitchell
- Essra Mohawk
- The Moody Blues
- Poco
- Procol Harum
- The Rascals
- Roy Rogers
- The Rolling Stones
- Simon & Garfunkel
- Spirit
- Steel Mill (Bruce Springsteen’s earlier band)
- Strawberry Alarm Clock
- Zager and Evans
- Frank Zappa
So, who did play Woodstock?
The Woodstock lineup didn’t end up being as extensive as the organisers wanted, or as extensive as history seems to believe. But even still, the weekend hosted some of the most iconic live performances in the whole of music history.
33 acts played in the end, navigating their way through mass delays, organisational chaos and even some accidental drug taking. On the lineup, there was:
- Richie Havens
- Swami Satchidananda
- Sweetwater
- Bert Sommer
- Tim Hardin
- Ravi Shankar
- Melanie
- Arlo Guthrie
- Joan Baez
- Quill
- Country Joe McDonald
- Santana
- John Sebastian
- Keef Hartley Band
- The Incredible String Band
- Canned Heat
- Mountain
- Grateful Dead
- Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Janis Joplin with Kozmic Blues Band
- Sly and the Family Stone
- The Who
- Jefferson Airplane
- Joe Cocker
- Country Joe and the Fish
- Ten Years After
- The Band
- Johnny Winter
- Blood, Sweat & Tears
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
- Paul Butterfield Blues Band
- Sha Na Na
- Jimi Hendrix
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