Woodstock generation looks back, from varied vantage points

Of course it is tricky to summarize the life impact on 500,000 concert goers, but the artists there who didnt die soon after--Jimi, Janis--had pretty good careers. Carlos Santana in particular was launched to national fame by this gig, though it was epochal for Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, Richie Havens etc. Joan Baez was already an industry veteran with a decade of records. Bob Dylan stayed home nearby with a loaded gun to fend off possible intruders.

Woodstock was a three-day gig that had limited relevance to anyone outside the US who wasn't at the event

I was a 14-year old in Scotland at the time. Country Joe McDonald's song seemed very relevant to me.

Woodstock was a three-day gig that had limited relevance to anyone outside the US who wasn't at the event

I wasn’t born when Woodstock took place and watched a video of it as a kid in the UK.

Country Joe’s message is relevant to all eras.

@Toasted Heretic,

It certainly was. Here are two performances from the Harlem Park '69 concerts:

Nina Simone with the great "Revolution":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP7ePzFMfHQ

Sly with "Everyday People":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJt-C6I6EDs

Woodstock, the album, is overrated. Hendrix was one of the greatest artists of all time, but he's overblown and undisciplined. Santana was good, Country Joe, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker - but the rest... meh.

Sly and the Family Stone were good.

On the same day his band, Country Joe & the Fish, played at Woodstock, another audience of thousands was in a Harlem park for a concert with its own sense of community and yearnings to challenge the status quo. Headliner Nina Simone delivered a set infused with songs of black empowerment and a militant poem that asked black people "are you ready" to instigate social change.

Much as I love Woodstock and the various ideologies behind it, the Harlem Park concert sounds much more interesting.

Still missing Nina.

You can see it in the cultural decay that pervades America today.

What cultural decay did peace and love contribute to the US and how did it manifest?

u_s__reamerToday 11:53 am JSTThe “Woodstock Generation” has been a curse in American society and the world in general.

and, You can see it in the cultural decay that pervades America today.

As one of that generation I feel duty-bound to refute these two very emotional responses which, without a shred of evidence, constitute a cruel calumny against a generation of young men and women who paid with their blood for the real "curse in American society", the "military-industrial complex", which a prescient President Eisenhower warned in his valedictory speech to the nation posed a grave threat to the republic. Woodstock, a prominent symbol of America's 1960s' cultural revolution, still serves as a lightning rod for the raging culture wars which 50 years later continue to scar American society.

Stupid hypocritical sheep in America still like to be led around by the hand. Look at the Trumpsters of today. The 'Woodstock' generation isn't/wasn't about irresponsible sex, drugs and debauchery. Previous 'more moral' generations were that way - history, even the Bible and other religious texts describe it all.

The curse is that people are raised to believe in and swear allegiances to something that really isn't there and live for, work for and die for the modern 'military-industrial complex'/machine that governs our lives - and only an elite profits from. It's not a hippie thing, a punk thing or anything but common sense and yes, a moral thing.

Joe Cocker’s Beatles cover is just one assume song.

But I cant agree to the label “Woodstock generation”. So many movements were happening in the 60’s and 70’s I don’t think it’s fair to others who were out in streets as opposed to sittin on a lawn trippin.

Toasted HereticToday 08:41 am JSTYou can see it in the cultural decay that pervades America today.

What cultural decay did peace and love contribute to the US and how did it manifest?

30 years ago, 'peace and love' was really starting to sprout up as the Iron Curtain was falling down. Hungary and Poland had thrown off their Communist regimes peacefully and Czechoslovakia would soon follow. East Germany would soon allow people to emigrate to West Germany and the Berlin Wall was opened up in November. The U.S.S.R. was undergoing perestroika and in the Baltic republics there was the ethnic regional 'Singing Revolution'. Bulgaria's regime resigned from power. Romania's was overthrown violently.

As a musical indicator, Tears For Fears had a #2 hit with 'Sowing the Seeds of Love' and that summer the Moscow Peace Fest went on, featuring artists like Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Poison and more.

The Cold War ended by peaceful means at the end of the 80s decade. A new decade was coming, it was a time of hope.

I had just got out of the military the previous year and I was proud to have served during a time of glasnost and change. however, even as the USA and USSR buried the hatchet I knew that there would be other despots - like Gadhafi, Iran's ayatollahs and such who love to cause trouble to deal with. Still, the 2 main superpowers settling their differences without war - it was a great feeling! Even the Panama War of 1989-1990 couldn't spoil it.

In 1991 Americans got addicted to war when it was all over the TV and radio, and they loved it. Ate it up. Souvenir T-shirts, coffee mugs, junk were sold in the name of 'supporting the troops' who got neglected by our government and were now gladiators. It was sickening. And America itself is ruled by a hateful immature racist scumpot even worse than the Communist clods who were deposed in Eastern Europe 30 years ago. Very sad.

@wolf-- wealthy and privileged society bequeathed to them? Sounds like a time capsule from the Jay Gatsby Roaring Twenties!

@Toasted Heretic

What cultural decay did peace and love contribute to the US and how did it manifest?

“Peace and love”? You have been taken in by self-aggrandizing propagandists.

The “Woodstock Generation” has been a curse in American society and the world in general.

and, You can see it in the cultural decay that pervades America today.

As one of that generation I feel duty-bound to refute these two very emotional responses which, without a shred of evidence, constitute a cruel calumny against a generation of young men and women who paid with their blood for the real "curse in American society", the "military-industrial complex", which a prescient President Eisenhower warned in his valedictory speech to the nation posed a grave threat to the republic. Woodstock, a prominent symbol of America's 1960s' cultural revolution, still serves as a lightning rod for the raging culture wars which 50 years later continue to scar American society.

@GyGene

Well I was in Vietnam at the time.

I had a summer time factory job at the time. I returned to my university campus in September and heard all the long-hairs (mostly friends) talking with regret about not having gone (to Woodstock, not Vietnam).

It seemed that just saying you knew someone who went gave you special status - a bit like a medieval artisan claiming he knew someone who had made the pilgrimage to the “Holy Land”.

On the other hand, I actually heard a wounded Marine who had returned from Vietnam whom I met off campus called a “baby killer” (not to his face!) by a wish-I-had-gone-to-Woodstocker.

Apart from the merits or demerits of the music, the “Woodstock Generation” became a model for today’s virtue signalers.

Stupid hypocritical sheep in America still like to be led around by the hand. Look at the Trumpsters of today. The 'Woodstock' generation isn't/wasn't about irresponsible sex, drugs and debauchery.

All liberal tenants

Previous 'more moral' generations were that way - history, even the Bible and other religious texts describe it all. 

What’s wrong with that?

The curse is that people are raised to believe in and swear allegiances to something that really isn't there and live for, work for and die for the modern 'military-industrial complex'/machine that governs our lives

Come again?

and only an elite profits from. It's not a hippie thing,

Yeah, it was because most of them gave birth to radicals that are like a cancerous cell in our schools, media and TV and Film as well as government, not to mention the bad fashion they gave us back then. My parents always despised Hippies and always thought even back then that, that movement would be the downfall spiral of America, thank God I always listened to my parents.

Seems to me the results of all that “peace and love” aren’t so good overall. Just look around at USA now...

Agreed. You can see it in the cultural decay that pervades America today. Sad really.

Well I was in Vietnam at the time. Those of us there never even heard of Woodstock. And I still am not a supporter of what they stood for. Seems to me the results of all that “peace and love” aren’t so good overall. Just look around at USA now...

Woodstock generation looks back, from varied vantage points

And all of those vantage points are very selfish and self absorbed with no appreciation for the wealthy and privileged society that was bequeathed to them.