The Woodstock festival had been scheduled to begin on Friday afternoon
August 15, 1969. The audience had been streaming onto the festival site
for days, in numbers far exceeding expectations, and traffic had already
clogged all roads leading to the festival for dozens of miles. Sweetwater
had been the planned first act, but their equipment was stuck in Liberty,
normally a 20-minute drive away and now accessible only by helicopter.
The time for the festival to start had come and gone, all roads leading
to the festival were hopelessly congested with cars and people, and the
audience was getting restless. As the start time came and went, concert
organizer Michael Lang appealed to Richie Havens, who had already
been flown in by helicopter, to take the stage and open the festival.
Havens reluctantly agreed, even though his bass player,
Eric Oxendine, was still stuck in traffic.
At approximately 5:15 PM on Friday afternoon, Richie Havens and two of
his bandmates, Deano Williams on guitar and Daniel Ben Zebulo on congos
and percussion walked onto the still unfinished stage and began to play
their 20-minute set. With no act ready to follow Richie, Michael Lang
convinced him to do an encore. This was followed by a second encore; a
performance of “Handsome Johnny” from his 1966 debut album Mixed Bag.
This performance of the song would first appear on Woodstock 40 Years
On: Back To Yasgur's Farm, a six-CD live box-set album of the Woodstock
Festival in Bethel, NY. It's release marked the 40th Anniversary of the
festival. At the time of release, Woodstock 40 Years On was the most
complete collection ever released of the music festival.
A Playlist of all HT Class of '73 Songs of the Day is available by clicking below:
SPOTIFY