The most common question visitors to the Woodstock field ask is “Where was the stage?”
It is a simply enough question to answer when standing at the top of the field or in the field’s corner near Wayne Saward‘s monument: at the bottom toward the gravelly northeast section of the field.
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts has plans to erect a permanent marking of the stage area and the 2019 special exhibit in the Museum used some of the original stage’s plywood.
Where’s the Woodstock wood been?
Not where you’d think.
Woodstock Stage Discovered
Money not nostalgia
In the afterglow of the most famous festival in American (the world?) history, Woodstock Ventures wanted to clean up and move on as quickly as possible. Money worries and lawsuits were upon them and warranted their time.
Woodstock Stage Discovered
Steve Gold
Steve Gold was 15 in 1969 and had attended the concert. Five weeks later he was visiting the Robi-Lane bungalow colony his girlfriend Robin’s father owned in nearby Woodbourne, NY. Dad asked him to help unload wood panels from his truck. No fool Steve and knowing how to keep on both Robin’s Dad and Robin’s good side, Steve said sure.
Dad also happened to mention that the wood had come from the Woodstock Music and Art Fair stage.
Luckily, the story only sort of ends there.
Woodstock Stage Discovered
Reminiscences
As with many Woodstock alum, the Fair’s upcoming golden anniversary spurred old memories. And Steve Gold remembered unloading wood.
Entertainment had become part of his life. His professional career included stints as a concert promoter, entertainment marketing executive, a managing executive of The Saint, home of the famed Fillmore East and what was once the largest dance club in New York City, and executive director of the Palladium.
Woodstock Stage Discovered
Upstate trip
He and a friend took a ride to the site of the now sold bungalow colony. He thought he remembered where the wood would be, but it wasn’t there.
After a search around, they found what they were looking for. A paddle ball court.
Yup. That’s what the Robin’s Dad had used the wood for. The outside of the plywood was well-worn, but after removing nails and getting to the unexposed sides, Steve became surer and surer he had hit gold.
“We removed several panels to look for stage markings we had seen in hundreds of festival pictures and the Woodstock movie to identify it was the real deal,” he recounts. “I knew it had to be because of the Weyerhaeuser (lumber company) logos etched into the stage floor panels and because of the distinctively-colored paint splatters.”
Woodstock Stage Discovered
Confirmation
Weyerhaeuser tested some samples, they reported that the age of the pieces matched those of 1969.
Gold also took some of the panels to Wood Science Consulting, a company specializing in the engineering uses of wood and wood-based products. And after much testing, the wood was authenticated as the original flooring of the Woodstock stage.
Woodstock Stage Discovered
Charitable help
Gold and his two partners, Dave Marks and Randy Garcia, are selling pieces of the stage and some of the proceeds will be donated to charities benefiting Vietnam veterans, the homeless and the hungry, and gun law reform efforts established by families of mass shooting victims.
No time in human history has lacked innovation, but some eras seem to have a plethora of new technology. Of course, technology feeds on itself: inventors spinning a new technology into several new items.
Here is a list of the many technological advances that happened during the social revolution of the 1960s. Of course both fed on each other.
1960s Technological Milestones
Sound
Rudy Van Gelder
Van Gelder studio
February 7, 1960: Hank Mobley recorded his “Soul Station” album in Van Gelder Studios of Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. After having gained a reputation in the mid-Fifties for the quality of the recordings he made in the living room at his parents’ house in Hackensack, New Jersey, Van Gelder moved to a new facility in Englewood Cliffs in 1959. The structure was inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and bore some resemblance to a chapel, with 39-foot ceilings and fine acoustics. Critic Ira Gitler described the studio in The Space Book (1964) liner notes:”In the high-domed, wooden-beamed, brick-tiled, spare modernity of Rudy Van Gelder’s studio, one can get a feeling akin to religion“.
Stereo singles
April 4, 1960: RCA Victor Records announces that it will release all pop singles in mono and stereo simultaneously, the first record company to do so. Elvis Presley’s single, “Stuck on You,” is RCA’s first mono/stereo release.
Enoch Light/Terry Snyder
May 2 – 8, 1960: Enoch Light/Terry Snyder and the All Stars’ Persuasive Percussion was Billboard’s #1 stereo album. EnochHenry Light was a classical violinist, bandleader, and recording engineer.
As A & R chief and vice-president of Grand Award Records, he founded Command Records in 1959. Light’s name was prominent on many albums both as musician and producer. He is credited with being one of the first musicians to go to extreme lengths to create high-quality recordings that took full advantage of the technical capabilities of home audio equipment of the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly stereo effects that bounced the sounds between the right and left channels (often described as “ping-pong”).
He also was the first to use the “gate fold” style album cover that became well-known with the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album in 1967.
Compact cassette
August 30 – September 3, 1963: Dutch electronics company Philips introduced the compact cassette at the Berlin Radio Show (also known as the German Radio Exhibition or Internationale Funkausstellung). Its initial function was as a recording device; only later did prerecorded music become available.
Synthesizer
October 12 – 16, 1964: Robert A. Moog and Herbert A. Deutsch introduce and demonstrate their music synthesizer at the convention of the Audio Engineering Society in NYC.
Dolby noise reduction
August 20, 1967: The New York Times reported about a noise reduction system for album and tape recording developed by technicians Rayand D.W. Dolby. Elektra Records subsidiary, Checkmate Records became the first label to use the new Dolby process in its recordings.
1960s Technological Milestones
Space
Navigational satellite
April 13, 1960: the US launched the first U.S. navigational satellite, the Transit-1B on a Thor-Ablestar rocket. The Ablestar carried out the first engine restart in space to refine the orbit.. The payload, weighing 265 pounds, included 2 ultrastable oscillators, 2 telemetry transmitters and receivers, batteries and solar cells. The Transit system was designed to meet Navy’s need for accurately locating ballistic missile submarines and other ships. It achieved initial operational capability in 1964 and full capability in Oct 1968. Its navigational broadcasts were switched off deliberately on 31 Dec 1996. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided to rely on GPS alone for navigation and positioning, retired after more than 32 years of continuous, successful service to the U.S. Navy.
Relay 1
November 22, 1963: the Relay 1 first broadcast. It was to be a prerecorded address from the President Kennedy to the Japanese people, but was instead the announcement of the Kennedy’s assassination. Later that day, satellite carried a broadcast titled Record, Life of the Late John F. Kennedy, the first television program broadcast simultaneously in the U.S. and Japan.
Armstrong, Aldrin, & Collins
July 20, 1969: Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first men to walk on the moon. They then rendezvous with Michael Collins in the command module for the return to Earth.
1960s Technological Milestones
Communication
Push-button phone
November 18, 1963: the advent of the push-button phone, officially introduced in two Pennsylvania communities, Carnegie and Greensburg.
Instant replay
December 7, 1963: CBS Sports Director Tony Verna used a system he’d invented to enable a standard videotape machine to instantly replay during the Army-Navy game. It was used only once for a touchdown with TV commentator Lindsey Nelson advising viewers “Ladies and gentlemen, Army did not score again!”
TTY
In 1964: in California, deaf orthodontist Dr. James C. Marstersof Pasadena sent a teletype machine to deaf scientist Robert Weitbrecht, asking him to find a way to attach the TTY to the telephone system. Weitbrecht modified an acoustic coupler and birth to “Baudot,” a code that is still used in TTY communication.
April 30, 1964: TV sets would be drastically different after a ruling by the FCC stating that all TV receivers should be equipped to receive both VHF (channels 2-13) and the new UHF(channels 14-83). As a result, TV dealers scrambled to unload their VHF-only models as fast as possible. Antenna manufacturers were kept busy, as the new UHF receivers required new antennas too.
October 29, 1969: the Internet had its beginnings when the first host-to-host connection was made on the Arpanet – Advanced Research Projects Agency Network – an experimental military computer network – between UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif.
1960s Technological Milestones
Miscellaneous
Astrodome
April 9, 1965: (from the AP) HOUSTON, Tex. — There was a bomb scare but President Johnson showed no concern Friday night as he and 47,876 other fans watched air conditioned baseball. An anonymous report that a bomb had been placed in the $31.6 million Harris County Domed Stadium proved false but it caused the President and the first lady to be late for the opening of the all-weather structure. They saw 7 1/2 innings as the Houston Astros opened their astrodome by beating the New York Yankees 2-1 in 12 innings. The President told newsmen he was impressed with the stadium, which permits professional baseball to move indoors for the first time. Because of the bomb scare, the presidential party watched the game from the private suite of Roy Hofheinz and R.E. (Bob) Smith, owner of the Astros. The suite is 30 feet above the right field pavilion and the crowd saw the President and Mrs. Johnson only through its windows. They did not go down on the playing field.
Pampers
April 27, 1965: R. C. Duncan was granted a patent for ‘Pampers’ disposable diapers.
Super 8 film
May 1, 1965: after press releases in April, Eastman Kodak Co. introduces its Super 8 film format at a public debut at the International Photography Exposition in New York. One of the main selling points: the plastic cartridge that made loading the film much easier.
Artificial Heart
December 3, 1967: surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the new heart.
ATM
September 2, 1969: America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) makes its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York.
York patiently signing more than a few albums for a fan at an airport
There have been many many members of Sha Na Na over the years, but Donny is one of the only two originals who still remain in the group.
Donald Donny York
Social media footprint
I’ve done many little pieces about the performers at Woodstock, but Donny York is the only one I’ve found a LinkedIn page for. Under Education, he lists the following:
B.A., liberal arts, political science, –
Transformed the King’s Men into Sha Na Na
Activities and Societies: King’s Crown Activities
His Facebook pageexpands upon his personal information:
Studied Political Science at Columbia University
Went to Borah High School (Boise, Idaho)
Lives in Midlothian, Virginia (though it seems he’s back west now)
From Boise, Idaho
Married to Lily Grace
Donald Donny York
Woodstock
From the Woodstock.com site: “My experience of Woodstock was that, for reasons having nothing to do with a drug high, there was just a goofy feeling of magic in the air there. A performer, but not famous and recognizable, I could wander in the crowd and witness that there was an obvious disaster underway–but nobody getting hurt! I encountered nothing but cheerful human warmth, and individuals taking good care of each other, sharing resources. It wasn’t socialism, no people’s committee directing anything in top-down fashion, just one-on-one caring and patience while we waited for the music to go on despite repeated delays. It amounted to a real love-in—not sexualized, just very brotherly. And it felt like heaven. Woodstock’s lesson for the ages was not that “socialism works” (as proclaimed in many of the free urban news weeklies back then, notwithstanding emergency services to the festival from the Nixon-era grown-ups); it was that brotherly love really does have its magical power.” [source]
Pat Boone
In addition to his years with Sha Na Na, he worked with Pat Boone on his 2006 memoir. Of that hesays: “For me, getting this gig was a case of “Wait until the folks back home find out about this!” It was like the gig of a lifetime—even measured against the great gigs I’ve already stumbled into in places like Woodstock or in cinematic majesties like Grease. I appeared in them, along with other worthy young talents by the dozen. But I’m the only guy who assisted Pat Boone in the preparation of his definitive autobiographical career memoir. Back home they’ll be more impressed about my affiliation with Boone than they were about Woodstock or Grease, and they’ll probably have gotten it just about right. (Think effect on history, as opposed to reflection of it.)
Here’s a YouTube “video” which is simply an audio recording of Donny describing the beginning of Sha Na Na and more.
Donald Donny York
Life Is Short
And here’s a video he did in 2015. It was “A loving tribute to Sha Na Na’s SIX DEPARTED MATES.”
In the life we’re livin’ we’re all givin’ hot pursuit
To the time it takes to make it all get done
Oh the time we’re givin’ just to tryin’ to square the route
To the exit from the show we’re s’posed to run.
York says in the YouTube notes: First uploaded on the night before Denny Greene’s memorial service, this reflects the sorrow in the loss of cherished partners too soon among the angels. My thanks to Emiliano Rocky Monroe for assembling these images.and sorrowfully adding some of Lennie Baker, whose passing followed Denny Greene’s by but six months. “ShaNaNa is here to stay” he inscribes at the end. Well, we know that only by the grace of God and the cherishing of people is anything remotely “Here to stay.” So… Thanks to God, and to people like you!
Donald Donny York
Keep the Dream Flowing
On September 20, 2020, I was fortunate to be part of a podcast interview with the Woodstock-themed Keep the Dream Flowing.
Here were some of the things we learned, but go to the link of the podcast itself:
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
