A 1968 Draped Painting by Nina Yankowitz: "Oh Say Can you See?"

The Woodstock Festival of 1969 was officially named the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. According to Michael Lang in Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, the inclusion of “art” in the festival name was a nod to Woodstock, NY’s status as an art colony—beginning in the early 1900s with Byrdcliffe and the Maverick Festivals, and later with organizations like Group 212.

Recently I spoke by phone with Nina Yankowitz of nyartprojects about her days at Group 212. A 1969 Fine Arts graduate of the School of Visual Arts, Yankowitz doesn’t recall where she first heard about the fusion collective, but she says that word about it was on the street in NYC’s Greenwich Village. Nina loved Group 212′s fearless collaborative spirit, and remembers that she first installed her draped paintings on the trees in the surrounding Group 212 landscape. She says that Group 212′s propulsive and adventurous style of mixing music, painting, sculpture, photography, electronic sounds, poetry, and performance art opened her up to embrace new technologies and emerging artistic disciplines. For example, she met Ken Werner, a musician, at 212 in the summer of 1968, and she recalls their collaboration. Werner made an audio rendition to realize Nina’s desire to include sound that would mimic the musical score, Oh Say Can You See, on her draped canvas. This embodied the concept of hearing and seeing sounds as they unfolded from her draped paintings. The installation was exhibited later that year at Kornblee Gallery in New York City.

Nina Yankowitz (in Foreground) Dancing at Group 212

Yankowitz remembers running to catch the bus to Greenwich Village from South Orange Junior High School in New Jersey. She would sneak out of school to attend performances by Dylan and Hugh Romney at the Cafe Wha in the Village, returning without her delinquency having been discovered. Her later Woodstock experience put her in touch with many new and exciting musicians and artistic collaborators. She met people like Sunny Murray, Dave Burrell, and Chuck Santon—an artist who spent most of his time at Robert Wilson‘s Byrdcliffe, devoted to experimental workshops/productions. She also met musician Juma Sultan, and it was he who encouraged Nina and a friend to dance while Juma, Archie Shepp, Sunny Murray, and Dave Burrell were jamming. She remembers the music director wanting to “pull the cane around our necks!” Juma also took her to Byrdcliffe to meet Bob Dylan, and they, with others from the community, attended a Sound-Out at Pan Copeland’s farm. Yankowitz recalls people jumping through the fences, lying on the grass and watching acts like Tim Hardin and Ritchie Havens.

One detail eludes Nina about her time at Group 212. She remembers a friend there who created marvelous performances based upon the myth of Icarus. He also made beautiful photographs with his box camera, and she wonders what happened to the fellow who created and played this bird-man role. Can anyone help her out on that?

~Weston Blelock

A Woodstock Playhouse program cover from August 1960, courtesy of Joe Hickerson

The Historical Society of Woodstock’s Folk Songs of the Catskills: The Spirit of Camp Woodland exhibit and related events drew hundreds of attendees this past summer. For example, on August 14 nearly 100 people attended the presentation/folk concert with Sue Rosenberg, Pat Lamanna, Joe Hickerson, Mickey Vandow and Eric Weissberg.

During the exhibit people asked about the linkage between Camp Woodland (near Phoenicia, NY) and Woodstock. As it happens, there are innumerable links. Herb Haufrecht, one of the authors of Folk Songs of the Catskills, and a Camp Woodland music counselor, lived in Shady, NY, a hamlet of Woodstock. Another connection was through Barbara Moncure, a local folk singer. She and Alf Evers (for many years the Woodstock Town Historian, and author of Woodstock: History of an American Town) used to venture over to Camp Woodland for the annual festivals. Barbara performed at them, and eventually recorded an album of Catskill Mountain songs for Folkways. In 1959, Alf organized the First Annual Catskill Mountain Folk Music Festival at the Colony Arts Center. Several Catskill Mountain folk singers like “Squire” Elwyn Davis and Harry Siemson, who had previously appeared at Camp Woodland, performed at that festival. Another instance of Camp Woodland/Woodstock linkage occurred in August 1960 when Joe Hickerson, a counselor at the camp, headlined a concert with Carolyn Hester at the Woodstock Playhouse.

Pete Seeger, a big influence at the camp, was connected to Woodstock via his wife, Toshi, who grew up in the town. Pete played at a Woodstock Playhouse concert in 1962. Funds from that concert partially financed the Woodstock Folk Festival at the Woodstock Estates in 1962. Bob Dylan arrived in town around 1963 and John Herald, a former camper, came up to Woodstock in 1965. John Cohen, a former camp counselor, played the Sound-Outs with his band the New Lost City Ramblers.

Many of these interconnections are spelled out in Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, published last year by WoodstockArts.

Raising Reds: Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture

Woodstock, NY—On Sunday, September 12, from 2 to 4 p.m., Paul C. Mishler, author of Raising Reds: Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture, will give a talk at the Eames House, 20 Comeau Drive in Woodstock. Mishler’s presentation will be titled, “From Camp Woodland to the Woodstock Festival and Beyond.” Camp Woodland was located near Phoenicia from 1939 to 1962 and it helped to spark a revival in Catskill Mountain roots music. This event marks the final day of the Historical Society’s current retrospective exhibit on Camp Woodland.

In Raising Reds, Mishler focuses on the era of 1920 to 1950. During this time the Communist Party was able to make significant inroads into American society. Communists were active in labor unions and universities, and they published their articles in popular newspapers. These activities were undermined and demonized in the early 1950s due to McCarthyism and the advent of the Cold War. However, Mishler contends that the Communist radicalism of the 1930s re-emerged in the New Left’s activism of the 1960s.

Further, in his book Mishler explores how, during the Great Depression, some Americans believed that the music of the people was being forced underground due to the rise of larger, more impersonal instituions of social, commerical and industrial development. Therefore, during the 1930s, the Communists and their allies sought to discover/construct/create an alternative America grounded in the roots of the country’s culture. Camp Woodland set in motion an experiment to bring this alternative democratic model into being. The camp’s organizers felt that the most important way for Woodland to establish new ground was via a celebration of folk music and early American folk values, and that this could be made the basis for societal change. Mishler contends that these same beliefs led to the activism of the 1960s, to the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, and beyond.

Paul Mishler is an Associate Professor of Labor Studies at Indiana University. Raising Reds is published by Columbia University Press. Mishler will be on hand to answer questions and sign books. Refreshments will be served and the event is free. For more information call 845.246.3436 or log onto www.campwoodland.org.

Pete Seeger at Camp Woodland—near Phoenicia, NY—in the 1940s (Photo reproduced courtesy of the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University at Albany Libraries.)

Woodstock, NY—On Saturday, July 31, 2010, a retrospective exhibit on Camp Woodland opens with a reception from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Eames House, 20 Comeau Drive in Woodstock. The Camp Woodland story, its influence and legacy, is told through film, music, artifacts, images and archives culled from the collections of former campers, the Norman Studer Papers (University at Albany), and from the Historical Society of Woodstock.

 Camp Woodland (1939–1962) was founded near Phoenicia, NY, by Norman Studer, a former Ph.D. student of John Dewey’s and an educator at the Elizabeth Irwin School in New York City. Studer sought to bring America’s democratic roots alive to his students. His vision embraced cultural diversity and a multidisciplinary approach. He brought city kids up to the country and put them in touch with old-time Catskill Mountain folks—like Aaron Van De Bogart from Woodstock. Not only did Woodland Campers hear stories from the hill people, but they were put to work collecting and preserving hundreds of folk songs for posterity.

 The camp was an annual destination for Pete and Toshi Seeger and they proved to be an incalculable influence. Pete performed for each division of campers, for the camp as a whole, and—when the campers had gone to bed—for the counselors. In 1954, a 15-year-old camper named John Herald saw Seeger sing and decided to become a musician. The camp’s multi-cultural population was a fertile incubating ground for Seeger. One counselor, Hector Angulo, introduced him to a Cuban song, “Guantanamera,” which became hit for Pete in 1961. Another time Pete wrote three verses based on a Russian folk tune and left it with counselor Joe Hickerson. Joe worked with a group of campers on the rhythm and personally wrote two more verses. This song, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” charted on Billboard for The Kingston Trio as a “B” side in 1961.

Perhaps the most important element of the Camp Woodland program was the annual end-of-summer folk festival. It was at these fêtes that hill people like George Edwards and George Van Kleeck came to perform. Equally important, the campers called and performed their own dances. This gave them the chance to learn and carry on the folk tradition of mixing work, community and music. When the camp closed in 1962, the area’s folk action migrated to Woodstock. That year the Café Espresso came under the ownership of the Paturels. The next year Bob Dylan moved to town and did some great song writing in a studio above the Café. In 1967 the Sound-Out folk rock concert series was launched at Pan Copeland’s farm. This series inspired Michael Lang to stage his Woodstock mega-concert in 1969.

 The show gratefully acknowledges the support of Ulster Savings and Heritage Folk Music. The Eames House museum is open Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. The show runs through September 12. For more info call 845.679.8111 or log onto www.campwoodland.org.

Ad in the Woodstock Aquarian for an August 8, 1970 Sound-Out

In 1970, due to the impact of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, smaller events like the Woodstock Sound-Outs were increasingly shut down by New York State municipalities. The Town of Saugerties, in whose jurisdiction the Sound-Outs fell, put on its books a law preventing mass gatherings of 200 persons or more without a permit.

After Cyril Caster left in 1969, Ian Hain stepped up to co-promote the Sound-Outs with Pan Copeland. Hain made a number of improvements to the site, including the construction of a band shell. He was able to pull off several festivals in 1970 without a permit, before the  local authorities caught up with him. But at the July 25, 1970 concert, a couple of sheriff’s deputies were stationed by the festival entrance gate, taking a careful count of those admitted. As soon as the tally went over 200, Hain—who still hadn’t managed to secure a permit—was arrested. The town lawyers kept his case in and out of the courts for the rest of the summer, and no other concerts were successfully staged. In September all charges against the promoter were finally dropped, but the season was over.

It was a great pity, for the headliners that summer would have included such icons as James Taylor and Larry Coryell. They are featured in the ad above, for an August 8, 1970 Sound-Out that had to be cancelled due to Hain’s legal difficulties.

Bob Dylan (born May 24) and John Sebastian

In 1964 Doug Gilbert, a photojournalist on assignment for Look Magazine, came up to Woodstock, NY, to do a story on Bob Dylan. The folk singer was on the cusp of superstardom. The next two years saw Dylan release Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Gilbert took a slew of photos, but Look never ran the story. Years later he unearthed the photos in a shoebox.

 On the cover of the Roots book at left, Dylan is pictured exiting the Café Espresso driveway onto Woodstock’s Tinker Street. Riding shotgun on Dylan’s Triumph Motorcycle is John Sebastian.

A Photo of Cyril Caster from 1974

The Woodstock Sound-Outs were mini-festivals after which Michael Lang modeled his mega event in 1969. They were held on Pan Copeland’s farm on the outskirts of Woodstock, New York, from 1967 to 1970. The stage was inches from the ground and the amphitheater was a former cow pasture. Over the years different producers partnered with Pan, but by 1969 a musician from Seneca Falls, NY, named Cyril Caster was tapped to head up the festival production team. That group became known as Coyote Productions. Bob Fass, Pan Copeland, Cyril and a couple of others were in charge of the enterprise.

By 1969 the Sound-Outs were officially renamed the Woodstock-Saugerties Sound Festival, or simply The Woodstock Festival. (That was one reason Michael Lang and his partners called their event the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair.) That season the Coyote team planned eight concerts, signing headliners like Van Morrison, Paul Butterfield, Cyril and his band, Tim Hardin, Chrysalis and Children of God. But due to inclement weather very few of the concerts were staged that year. When festival-goers heading to the Bethel event accidentally came to Woodstock, they were directed to Pan’s field. At least they could say they had attended The Woodstock Festival in Woodstock.

Remembering Woodstock

Dave Laing, the first essayist in Remembering Woodstock, writes that the “Woodstock festival was a part of a distinct history of (non-classical) outdoor music festivals stretching back to the early twentieth century. The earliest festivals were rural events, often celebrating local styles and skills in music and folk dance.” He goes on to suggest that the Georgia Fiddlers Convention held in Atlanta in 1913 was one of the first such events.

That may be, but as Michael Lang, co-creator of the Woodstock Festival of 1969, so succinctly says in Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to “Woodstock,” the festival was named the Woodstock Music and Art Fair because he intended to stage the festival in Woodstock, NY. Secondly, he wanted to reference the Maverick Festivals held from 1915 through 1931 in the Woodstock area. These weekend-long classical music and art events often drew thousands to the festival grounds. For more on the Maverick Festivals see Anita M. Smith’s Woodstock History and Hearsay.

George McKay, another essay writer for Remembering Woodstock, suggests that the Beaulieu Jazz Festivals in England were precursors or mini Woodstocks that helped to pave the way for festivals in the UK. Woodstock, NY’s own mini folk/rock festivals (Sound-Outs) were considered by many a suburban myth until 2009. But Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival was able to persuasively document the Sound-Outs through photos of contracts, players and playbills. It was these concerts that helped to launch the mega festival in 1969. For more on this click here. Also, check out Wikipedia for an article on the Woodstock Sound-Outs.

Ellen McIlwaine @ the Roots of Woodstock concert

“An Air of Magic—Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to “Woodstock,” an article by David Bouton that appears in the winter 2009 issue of Kaatskill Life, offers a great review of the Roots book and concert. Bouton begins with, “[The festival] happened here in the Catskill Mountains. It did not take place at Berkeley, or in the Golden Gate Park near San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. The historic, famous, somewhat spontaneous Woodstock peace, music and arts festival of 1969 in the Catskills was not a fluke either in its nature or its location. Yes, the event eventually was held in Bethel, NY, 70 miles away, but the festival is and forever will be called “Woodstock,” reflecting its origins, its geographical location, its nature, and inherent outlook and attitude: that of the community of Woodstock, NY.”

In writing about Roots of Woodstock Live Concert, Bouton continues, “The performers energized our minds, upped our heartbeats, and had people dancing not only in the aisles but among photos of Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix in the theater’s lounge. In true Woodstock style, some from the stage wondered among the crowd and visited with us. Although the concert began at 8 p.m. and the town of Woodstock drifted off to sleep on that wispy foggy evening, the concert in the Bearsville Theater had no time limits and went on through the night.”

David Bouton sums up, “If you missed the concert with its enhanced emotional understandings as to where ‘Woodstock’ came from, you can still find answers to the larger picture of ‘how come?’ with the words of the original townspeople and the library of historic photographs in the Blelocks’ book.”

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.