Pilgrims of Woodstock: Never-Before-Seen Photos

By John Kane

Intimate portraits by photojournalist Richard F. Bellak of the musical festival’s counterculture attendees celebrating peace, love, and rock and roll.
 
In the summer of 1969, 400,000 people from across the country came together and redefined the music scene forever. Though the legacy and lore of Woodstock lives on in the memory of its attendees, a new generation can experience the real and unedited festival through Richard Bellak’s never-before-seen photographs and John Kane’s incredible new interviews.

Pilgrims of Woodstock offers a vivid and intimate portrait of the overlooked stars of the festival: the everyday people who made Woodstock unforgettable. The photographs and interviews capture attendees’ profound personal moments across hundreds of acres of farmland, as they meditated, played music, cooked food at night, and congregated around campfires. For three days, they helped and relied on each other in peace and harmony. For most, it was a life-changing event. Now, after the 50th anniversary of the famed festival, relive their experiences firsthand in Pilgrims of Woodstock.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684350834

John Kane

John Kane is faculty in the Design and Media Department at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. He is author of Pilgrims of Woodstock: Never-Before-Seen Photos. He is currently working on the documentary The Last Seat in the House about Bill Hanley. Learn more about his research at www.thelastseatinthehouse.com.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

While the Woodstock weekend raged on, I was perhaps a mere suggestion somewhere in the cosmos. Born in 1970, I missed Woodstock by a year. I vaguely recall flashes of the Vietnam War soldiers not being welcomed on their return home. I remember images of Nixon, some remnants of Beatlemania, and rock-and-roll radio. I remember on our way to and from the local drive-in that hitchhikers along highways still thumbed to their destinations. My generation—Generation X—followed that of the Woodstock baby boomers.

During the 1980s, like many others, I became a latchkey kid, a victim of increasing changes in societal values. By 1989—the twentieth anniversary of the seminal event—Woodstock Nation had grown up, raised families, and tuned out a bit. We became part of the MTV generation. And so, I was growing up amid the music-video format. It wasn’t until 1989 that I rented Michael Wadleigh’s acclaimed Woodstock documentary from my local video store. This is when I really became curious about the generation that preceded mine.

One evening, I popped the first of the two VHS cassettes into my VCR. I sat and watched with amazement. The event, although occurring two decades earlier, still felt fresh in some way. The crowd size, the lineup, the hippies! How did it all come to be? How and why did so many show up? I was nineteen years old, and the Woodstock ideals expressed in the film didn’t seem plausible to me. Nevertheless, through the clouds of my naïve youth, I felt hopeful in some way about my generation.

What I watched has stayed with me, and as Woodstock baby boomers reach their golden years, there’s still much to be learned. The influences of Woodstock and what it has meant to a global community are extensive but unmeasured. I believe its legacy can be felt throughout the world, touching a vast audience of race and culture. In some way I suppose I am living proof of this: a career of art, music, and education and then my postgraduate studies on the developing music business of the Woodstock era.

So much has been written already about Woodstock. And with each milestone anniversary, even more. However, I feel there are many questions left unanswered, questions that can only be explored through those who were there. After interviewing more than thirty Woodstock attendees for this book, I learned many things about the Woodstock experience.

Bellak’s Woodstock

In August of 1969, a modestly known independent photojournalist named Richard F. Bellak caught wind of the happenings in Bethel, New York. By then, the thirty-five-year-old New York native was building a resume at Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes, Harper’s, and other publications. Known to be an intellectual with a youthful demeanor, Bellak lived alone in Brooklyn Heights for most of his life.

Not much is known about the man other than by a few who recall him as an introverted thinker. Bellak was a pre-Columbian/African art collector and dealer. He had a taste for fine food, wine, and culture. Some of his interests were in neuroscience and evolutionary biology. But those closest to him recall his life’s journey as troubled. An only child, Bellak grew up on West Seventy-Fourth Street, playing neighborhood stick and street ball. He had older parents who discouraged his artistic career path—especially his father. For a good portion of his life, he lived independently due to a family trust. Such financial freedom allowed him to take the professional path he wanted, leading him eventually into photography. Even though he gained moderate success as a freelancer, Bellak always felt he could have done more with his career. Suffering from depression, he often felt his life was wasted. Toward the end of his life, he could no longer bear the pain of his acute arthritis, barely making it in and out of his five-story brownstone walk-up. Depressed and rarely answering calls from concerned friends, Bellak committed suicide in April 2015. He was eighty-one years old.

Decades earlier, on Friday, August 15, 1969, Bellak wore a press pass from the Guild of Professional Photographers and made his way from Brooklyn Heights to Yasgur’s Farm. He would only stay two days. As he maneuvered his way onto the bumpy roads of the packed site, his camera bags bounced on the cushion of his rental car. He only made it so far and walked the rest of the way in. Big crowds were something he was used to. Previously he had taken pictures of several anti–Vietnam War demonstrations in New York City, but nothing would compare to what he was about to experience. By Saturday night it poured torrentially. If it hadn’t been for two girls from Detroit who sheltered him in their tent, his camera equipment and film would have been lost.

Bellak was older than most of the Woodstock attendees. Less interested in the music, the photographer found his muse in the thousands of pilgrims who descended on Yasgur’s lush alfalfa fields that weekend. When he arrived, he saw a sea of humanity covering acres of land. Cars strewn about Route 17B were left abandoned as their owners trekked their way to the site. The bobbing of heads, the shuffling of feet, the colorful hum of conversation, and the smell of marijuana and cow manure undoubtedly provided stimulation for Bellak on his two-day photographic journey. Bellak noticed many of the photographers were shooting images of the performers, but he chose not to. According to Bellak, what he did was focused on other things, capturing the way it really was. He took images early in the morning and at night, of people sleeping, of people jamming. He didn’t get much sleep.

His photos embraced the atmosphere of Woodstock, revealing the intimacy attendees established with each other in their new pastoral weekend home—sometimes in comfort but most often not. As the youth counterculture unified and expressed its utopian ideals, Bellak snapped away. An outsider looking in, he was motivated not by money but by the unique beauty that lay before him.

Bellak held on to his collection of over one hundred Woodstock stills for his entire life. These intimate portraits of the Pilgrims of Woodstock have never been seen up until now. Of the photos, he wrote:

These photos are all about peace, kindness, and the camaraderie that took place on August 15–17, 1969. Now Woodstock is a metaphor for the way it really was. But I believe it is the way it can be. These photos capture the gentleness and good will that people were expressing then. Let’s bring this back, not the festival, but the tone. Right now—in this world—in this time. Trust me, it’s catchy. Be who you would like the world to be, and it will happen. Be the message! Believe!

Richard F. Bellak

Half a Million Strong

On the weekend of August 15–17, 1969, the signal event of the decade occurred in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Known as the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, it brought more than four hundred thousand people to a six-hundred-acre dairy farm in Bethel for three days of peace and music. The name Woodstock comes from a town fifty miles away, where the event was initially to be held. After a series of community backlashes, the site was moved, finally settling on land owned by dairy farmer Max Yasgur. Tickets to the festival were eighteen dollars for three days of top-notch music. The promoters, known as Woodstock Ventures, had every intention of making a profit. However, more people came than expected, and the crowds overwhelmed what little infrastructure was in place. The fences came down, and Woodstock became free.

Traffic leading into Bethel that Friday was jammed, and eventually state police refused entry to the site. Even so, people parked as far as twelve miles away and trekked in by foot. Eventually the rural landscape surrounding the festival site became a gigantic parking lot. With so many people, food, water, and sanitary facilities were compromised. Woodstock should have been a disaster. But with its participants united by a love for music, peace, and communal living, it became the perfect stage for those who came to express their alternate lifestyles and utopian ideals.

The buzz around Woodstock had been building for weeks through different media channels. A week or so before the festival, people began to arrive. Early attendees simply hung out or helped the manic production crews with last-minute details. The sons and daughters of America’s urban and rural working classes became curious and somehow convinced their parents they should attend, thus borrowing family cars, only to abandon them on the side of the road.

Others used different modes of transportation. Leaving worried parents behind, hordes of attendees ranging from fourteen to thirty choked the New York City Port Authority. According to some, the bus terminal was filled with young men and women wearing blue jeans, prairie shirts, granny glasses, long dresses, bandannas, and beads. They carried sleeping bags, tents, and backpacks filled with canned goods pilfered from the kitchen cabinets of their homes. Anticipating a music-filled weekend under the stars, they camped out on the terminal floor and waited to redeem their round-trip tickets. It was Bethel or bust.

Others traveled even longer distances, from as far as California and Alaska, Toronto and Miami, Scotland and western Canada. Leading up to the weekend, throngs of refugees streamed into the area, slowly making their way toward the sights and sounds of the unimaginable. Some arrived serendipitously, having hitchhiked across the United States with only a backpack and fifty cents to their name. Their journeys to Woodstock are now mythical.

Some attendees did arrive prepared, packing provisions like coolers, stoves, and tents and even buying tickets. Regardless of preparation, no one could have ever imagined the tidal wave of the weekend events: the traffic, the mud, the rain, the pot, the lack of food, the music, the immense crowd—it affected everyone. The ebb and flow of disheveled youth overwhelmed the communities of the small Catskill villages. Whatever cars were moving often had riders on the hood or trunk.

The music of Woodstock was an obvious unifying factor. Many of the acts and individual performers gave voice to the generation in attendance over that weekend. The songs from the stage were a message of rebellion to the rest of the world. The anthems of peace that so many reveled in were a response to a highly troubled and violent decade. And although many claim that Woodstock was not politically driven, there are just as many who claim that it was.

For most of the Woodstock counterculture, their experiences embodied what should have been happening in the otherwise tumultuous 1960s. Love not hate, peace not war. Woodstock was an expression of these sentiments. By 1969 the nation had endured many riots and demonstrations, often directed toward the war in Vietnam. However, for those three days at Woodstock, there was none of that. Woodstock proved to the world that it was possible to get along with limited means in peaceful cooperation.

As the outside world watched, what we call now the Woodstock Nation emerged out of chaos and disorder. The community that happened in the rolling hills of Sullivan County in a hamlet known as White Lake was respectful and orderly. Even though it easily could have turned ugly, and it was mostly uncomfortable for its inhabitants (and probably for many anxious parents who looked on), it didn’t.

Communal living for some was a way of life during the 1960s counterculture. The rise of the hippie movement also meant the rise of communes across the United States. Utopian living amid nonhierarchical social structures and cooperatives constructed on anticapitalistic, free-love value systems fit in perfectly with the Woodstock festival dynamic. Famed activist Wavy Gravy, then known as Hugh Romney, founded what is now the longest-running commune in the United States: the Hog Farm. The commune was known for its involvement with both politics and music, so it was a logical decision for Woodstock Ventures to ask the Hog Farmers to assist. Eventually adopting the role of policing the crowds, they successfully applied noninvasive methods of maintaining order, while famously making sure food got out to hungry attendees in what some considered a disaster area.

Those attending were largely self-governed. For the minimal law enforcement in the area, it was impossible to maintain a rule of law. There was no way to apprehend thousands of attendees participating in the activities of LSD and marijuana. The possibility of arresting so many who indulged in pot smoking would be futile. In retrospect, pot was the least of the problem. A staff of medics and volunteers was in place to help with any overdoses or bad trips. Others, like the Hog Farm commune of New Mexico, helped set up free kitchens, trails, and campsites.

The weather was another factor. It was not something you could control or find a solution for. It came to be, for the most part, a unifying factor, as many were forced to give in to the elements. The possibility of physical danger during some of Woodstock’s intense weather was real. The sound and light towers that people frequently climbed on were ideal conductors of electricity. The high winds made them susceptible to swaying and potentially toppling over. For production crews, it was a nerve-racking job trying to keep expensive equipment dry while keeping the crowd safe.

The rain and the mud will forever be part of the Woodstock legacy. The natural bowl muddied with every bout of rain that fell on the blankets and sleeping bags strewn about. Although most attendees were clothed over the three days, the audience members who are most remembered are the ones who wore nothing. Many skinny-dipped in the nearby Filippini Pond. But naked or not, each person at Woodstock was free to participate in whatever declaration they wished. The spirit of community and acceptance at Woodstock allowed such expression.

As the event came to a close, Jimi Hendrix’s legendary rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner reminded the few left in the crowd that it was time to close the door on the Woodstock festival. The real world was waiting. Soon, many made the exodus, wending their way home to wash off the mud. A few hung around to help with the massive cleanup. The rigors and routines of daily life required that many who made the enormous effort to get there now had to get back for work on Monday morning. After the event, some claimed they felt a sense of depression, realizing they would never again experience such freedom. For many, Woodstock was the most important event in their lives, one they most certainly will never forget. It was so significant that a few remained and settled in the area.

The 1960s ideals may have eventually fizzled, yet somewhere Woodstock Nation remains. Fifty years later the festival site has become hallowed ground, and to this day people young and old travel long distances to catch a glimpse and absorb the energy of that natural bowl where so many gathered in peace. Woodstock lives. Currently the Museum at Bethel Woods hosts exhibits, events, and programs that commemorate the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair and the sixties ideals that represent the counterculture.

The children of Aquarius are now old, and their stories are fading as each milestone anniversary comes to pass. Still, so many years later, the question remains: Who were these people that made up the Woodstock festival audience? The flower children—now senior citizens, many with great-grandchildren—still live among us. Even though they have made concessions to retirement in warmer climates—the living Woodstock audience still remembers. They recall the kindness expressed toward each other, the music, and the idea that nothing like Woodstock could ever happen again … although perhaps it is still possible.

Reading Pilgrims of Woodstock

Over the course of three months in the spring of 2018, I researched and tracked down a network of Woodstock attendees. Previous research on Woodstock opened doors to resources that allowed me these connections. I conducted the interviews by telephone. They have been arranged in a somewhat chronological flow, ordered by when the interviewees arrived at the festival. This sequence makes up the chapter titles. I’ve provided only the first names, ages, and the locations from which the interviewees departed in order to reach the event.

Bellak organized his Woodstock photo collection by day, and this order is observed in the book. The photos can be viewed as a stand-alone aspect, but they do powerfully illustrate many things the interviewees remember about their Woodstock experiences; in places, captions draw out these connections. A comprehensive reading of all the interviews reveals common features that almost everyone who was interviewed noted and remembered. In this way a unique