Frank Spinelli and the Sled Hill Cafe
Frank Spinelli on the Village Green, circa 1965
In the 1960s Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, The Band and later Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were active in the Woodstock area. So, what was it like to grow up Woodstock in the 1960s? Recently I chatted with Frank Spinelli, the photographer and writer, to explore his life and early times.
Frank’s family moved to Woodstock during the summer of 1963. While attending Onteora High School he used to ride the school bus into town. A favorite hangout was the News Shop across from the Village Green. Frank was friendly with the proprietor’s son, Fred, and used to snack on after-school burgers and milkshakes.
Spinelli’s main coming-of-age passions were chasing girls and having a good time. Other hangouts besides the News Shop included the Village Green and the Woodstock Youth Center. In 1965 he was the WYC’s first president.
The countercultural movement was a parallel scene and it didn’t really impact him, but this began to change in 1966 when Frank had to enroll for the selective service and became eligible for the draft. Consequently, he began to pay more attention to the issues of the day. He remembers one time that a lefty told him that he “should not be cannon fodder,” and that he “should go to Canada.”
The summer of 1970 was a watershed moment for Frank. The Woodstock Festival took place the previous year and all kinds of people moved to town. It was also the time that the psychedelic movement hit Woodstock. Kids older than Frank used to hop in a car with a shotgun and head into the woods to shoot bottles and cans. His generation got their recreational high from pot. Spinelli didn’t really relate to the music or the musicians of the day. For the most part they were ordinary folks that he would see around town. One place he saw a good bit of local musicians was as bartender at the Sled Hill Café. Read the rest of this entry »
Underground Screening and Reception
On August 13th the Historical Society of Woodstock (HSW) screened Jud Yalkut’s Clarence and Aquarian Rushes at Upstate Films. The first film is about Clarence Schmidt, a sculptor and sixties pop icon, and the second one is a documentary about the Woodstock Festival of 1969. The event was a fundraiser for the HSW. Over 75 attended on a very busy summer weekend.
Ian Turner, John Sebastian and Jud Yalkut (photo by Letitia Smith)
Jud Yalkut, the filmmaker, was on hand to introduce the films and answer questions. Gerd Stern, who helped to produce Clarence, was also in attendance. Both films were made in the USCO tradition, meaning that they combined film with video plus special effects and live actors. Stern is the current president of USCO while Yalkut was the filmmaker-in-chief during the late sixties. The last time Yalkut and Stern were together was at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era exhibit in 2007.
At the reception immediately following the screening, FishCastle, comprised of Cyril Caster (folk musician and ’69 Sound-Out producer) and Catherine Braik Selin, entertained the audience with exquisite tunes.
Jud Yalkut Underground Film Fest
On August 13, 2011 at 1 p.m. the Historical Society of Woodstock plans to hold a special screening of Jud Yalkut’s films, Clarence and Aquarian Rushes, at Upstate Films in Woodstock. Yalkut, an award-winning film and visual artist, will be on hand to introduce his work. Clarence is a short 16 mm experimental piece on Clarence Schmidt. Schmidt was a local sculptor and pop icon who lived in a found-art house atop Ohayo Mountain. His seven-story house was the subject of a Life Magazine article in the 1960s. The film includes some of the only footage taken of Clarence while living in his home—before it burned down in the winter of 1967 to 1968. The sound is by Mel Lyman, Jim Kweskin and the Lyman Family, and includes a narrative by Clarence Schmidt. The work was selected for the “Anthropological Film” program at the Film Forum in New York City and the “Flick Out” broadcast series on educational television in Houston, Texas. The second work on the bill, Aquarian Rushes, is 47-minute film and videotape of the Woodstock Festival of 1969. This film was selected for the Montreal International Festival of Film in 16 mm at the Musée des Beaux Arts; the Encounter with The American Cinema at Sorrento, Italy (selection of Martin Scorsese); and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris American Underground Film Weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
Woodstock Folk Fest, Part III: Sonia Malkine
Sonia Malkine, an accomplished chanteuse, joined Woodstock’s folk singing establishment in the late 1950s. Together with Eleanor Walden, Sam Eskin, Billy Faier and several others, she co-founded the Woodstock Folk Festival in 1962.
Sonia was born in France in 1923, the daughter of Anarcho-Syndicalist activists. When the Second World War broke out she and her family fled Paris to Toulouse. In 1943 Sonia joined the Spanish Resistance, which fought alongside the French underground forces. She worked until 1945 as a messenger for the Resistance.
Through her mother, May Picqueray, Sonia met and married Georges Malkine, the French Surrealist painter. Together they immigrated to the United States. One day Sonia’s mother came to visit the family in New York City. She learned that Stella Ballantine, niece of her old friend, Emma Goldman, lived in Woodstock, NY. The Malkines visited Woodstock and decided to relocate in 1951. At first they stayed on the Maverick, but in 1952 they moved to the Woodstock hamlet of Shady. Read the rest of this entry »
Roots Pressroom
Fund-Raiser Concert
To raise money for Woodstock’s Zero-Carbon Initiative, Roots of Woodstock LLC held a "40th anniversary" concert on August 15, 2009, at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock.
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