Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival

Cover image of the book, depicting Woody Guthrie at the Cooper Union, 1959

In 2001 powerHouse Books published there is no eye, John Cohen’s photographic memoir of his life and times. He is member of the New City Lost Ramblers and his photographs hang in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He has done field recordings, a number of fine albums, and films.

His book includes black and white images of Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Woody Guthrie and many others. Cohen notes that “over the distance of time, those years on Third Avenue [1957-1964] seem very exciting, but in reality felt mostly desolate and run down. Still, I liked the sober seriousness of my daily life.” It was a time that Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Happenings were gathering steam. During this period Cohen rehearsed in the apartment with The New Lost City Ramblers and had his first photographic show. The mood of his book is filmic, lush and gritty.

Recently a friend recommended that we read the book, because it reminded him of Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to “Woodstock.” The title, there is no eye, is taken from Dylan’s Highway 61 liner notes, name checking Cohen.

No Comments - Add Yours »

Tags: Bob Dylan, John Cohen, New City Lost Ramblers, Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival Posted in Roots Book |

Tracy Bigelow Grisman's Gaslight Trio: Ralph Rinzler, Bob Dylan and John Herald

In 1954, a 15-year old Johnny Herald saw Pete Seeger in concert at Camp Woodland, outside Phoenicia, NY. He was so inspired that he vowed he would be a musician, too. Herald, of Armenian-American background, was born and raised in Greenwich Village. His poet father used to take him around to parties where Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie performed live. On the liner notes to Roll on John, Herald recalls “and here I was, somebody that was in on another sort of bohemian revolution in the sense of the folk part of art; folk craft, folk culture and so on.”

Herald began listening to Don Larkin’s New Jersey radio program on bluegrass music (Larkin Barkin’). Soon he was jamming with Bob Dylan, Rory Block and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. In 1959 he joined the Greenbriar Boys with John Yellin and Eric Weissberg. The latter was a fellow alum of Camp Woodland, although they actually met (according to Weissberg) at a freshman mixer at the University of Wisconsin.  Things started to heat up after Ralph Rinzler replaced Weissberg in the group. He urged the trio to practice more, and they won first prize for bluegrass in a North Carolina competition. Soon they landed a contract with Maynard Solomon’s Vanguard record label. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments - Add Yours »

Tags: Bob Dylan, John Herald, Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival Posted in Roots Book |

Woodstock, NY—October 19, 2009—Weston Blelock and Julia Blelock, co-authors of Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to “Woodstock” will be hosting a PowerPoint presentation and book signing at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 1177 Ulster Ave., Kingston, NY on Friday, Oct 30, at 7 p.m. The book is a finalist in both the “Popular Culture” and “History: Media/Entertainment” categories of The National Best Books 2009 Awards.

Attendees of the upcoming presentation will learn why the festival was named Woodstock, and why it continues to be so closely associated with the town, even though the concert actually took place in Bethel, NY. The first part of the book features a transcript of a panel discussion that took place in August 2008 among townspeople—including Festival promoter Michael Lang—knowledgeable about the music scene in the late sixties. The second part of the book is a “roots of Woodstock” photo essay that chronicles the Arts and Crafts origins of the town, from its glass-making era in the 1800s to the founding of the Byrdcliffe colony in 1902. In addition, it details the town’s hallowed tradition of weekend-long music concerts, beginning in the early 1900s with Woodstock’s Maverick Festivals, and stretching up through the counter cultural Sound-Outs of the late 1960s. Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments - Add Yours »

Tags: Barnes & Noble, Bob Dylan, Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, Sound-Outs Posted in Roots Book Releases |

Cover image is of Bob Dylan and John Sebastian exiting the Café Espresso in the early ‘60s

From the 8/13/09 issue of the Woodstock Times, “Woodstock Nation on the Shelves” by Paul Smart:

“Perhaps the biggest book bash the town’s seen in some time, the bringing to life, via an actual-to-heavens musical concert for the locally-produced Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to Woodstock by Weston and Julia Blelock, with a forward by Bob Fass, another legendary radio presence from the day.

Primarily comprised of a transcript from a symposium on the Sound Outs and bohemian flavor of the town prior to 1969 that took place last August, the book is worth owning for its Who’s Who of local characters and surprisingly evocative (and telling) superbly-captioned photos, filled out with info and anecdotes from a series of interviews the Blelocks conducted in recent years…and as strong a glimpse of what the town was 40 and 50 years ago as any descriptions found elsewhere. As well as the vast information covered in the transcript material itself, from those who lived through the days we’re all now remembering… or at least trying to.

This weekend’s Roots concert at the Bearsville Theater, on Saturday afternoon, evening and night, will include a number of old townies come back to celebrate the Sound Outs that preceded the big festival, including a host of long-awaited reunions.”

No Comments - Add Yours »

Tags: Bob Dylan, Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, Roots of Woodstock Live Concert, Sound-Outs Posted in Roots Book |