When the Woodstock festival opened on August 15, 1969, (it lasted 3 days), I was two years old, and by that time according to my mother and my grandmother that kind of music was classified as Modern Hippie music, and was associated at least here in Venezuela with drug use.
In my house we listened to many ballads of Spanish and Latin American artists: Sandro, Joan Manuel Serrat, Leo Dan, Lola Flores, and the most rocker was Miguel Rios with the Anthem of joy.
Of course, there were also records of styles such as: boleros, guarachas and a Latin rhythm that although it always existed for me, it was beginning to become popular as salsa.
Entering the subject, I comment that approximately in 1977 began to awaken in me the rock vein thanks to the first group of the genre that I really began to appreciate: Led Zeppelin. In the 80's there was a program called The Music that Shook the World, hosted by the late Blue Goblin (Alfredo Escalante), a legendary radio and television announcer in Venezuela who dedicated his excellent programs to national and international rock.
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In one of those programs I saw excerpts from the Woodstock performance of several artists, catching my attention very much in this order : Carlos Santana, Jimmi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
Carlos Santana (The name of the group: Santana, theme Sacrifice Soul):
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What a performance for an unknown group that had not yet released an album, I was struck by the fusion of this group with Latin and African music for its percussion (the sound was very similar to salsa), coupled with touches of Hard Rock, and Blues with a unique drumming by Michael Shriver.
In later interviews and many years later Carlos Santana tells that he was very nervous that day and the presentation of the group was after midnight, in the meantime he met Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, who calmed him down and gave him to try a drug called Mescaline. However, two hours after consuming the drug, the band was informed that their performance was early and they had to go on stage immediately (it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon). Carlos Santana went on stage with the band and still with some conscience he prayed to God because he knew he was drugged, he hallucinated on the stage that his guitar was a snake.
The band drew applause from the audience, and is even considered a pioneer of what is known as World Music.
Jimi Hendrix (The name of the band : The Jimi Hendrix Experience, theme: Voodo Child).
With Eric Clapton's permission, this is one of the performances why I assert that Jimi Hendrix was and will forever be the world's greatest guitarist , here at Woodstock he had already broken up with his Gypsy band, and created for the occasion the band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, later known as the Gypsy band along with Mitch Michell on drums and Billy Cox on bass.
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That guitar sounds super-amplified and screechy, many say that Hendrix's playing that sometimes sounded like bombing, popping and screaming reminded his audience that there was a war going on for no reason in Vietnam.
Jimi Hendrix was the last artist to play at Woodstock in 1969, appearing on Monday morning, and was the closing star of the concert, making his honest, brutal performance one of the best known of all time.
Janis Joplin (theme: Ball & Chain).
The Cosmic Witch, the White Lady of the Blues, or Pearl performed at 2 o'clock on a Sunday morning and according to Pete Townshend, guitarist of The Who, during the festival she consumed a lot of alcohol and heroin.
She was not happy with a show in which she performed 10 songs and that seemed to her inferior to the performance she gave at the Monterrey Pop Festival in 1967. Although she did not shine as much as in Monterrey, the euphoria of the audience forced her to return to the stage to perform Ball and Chain to close her concert.
She was not satisfied with the closing of this presentation and requested that it be removed from the final cut of the documentary that was being assembled. Here is that presentation, spectacular, heartbreaking, a gem, recovered for later editions of the documentary:
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If this is mediocre acting, just imagine what the standards were for Joplin herself on stage.
There are several versions of the Woodstock documentary directed by Michael Wadleigh and seen in theaters in 1970, receiving that year's Oscar for Best Documentary. This film is a generational document that is recognized as one of the reference points when it comes to music documentaries.
There are many wonderful artists and groups that participated in this event that is not called as: Crosby, Still, Nash & Young, The Who, Joe Cocker, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Jeferson Airplane, Sly & The Family Stone, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Canned Heat and The Band.
At the end of the year 1999 the Director's Cut of the concert that lasts 228 minutes, there are many inserts of what the public that attended the festival was like and new performances by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Canned Head, Jefferson Airplane, and a song that was background listening to Crosby, Still, Nash & Young.
It is an honor to have made a small but moving publication about this great Woodstock festival (the original) that turns 53 today. Thanks to the community for allowing me to share these details with you.
Until a next opportunity!