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Peace Love Art and Activism

Trump Impeachment Redux

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Trump Impeachment Redux

President Trump had survived his 2020 Senate impeachment trial  and his retaliatory behavior following that acquittal put on full display his righteous view of what it meant disloyalty to him meant.

Then came the November election. It took several days to complete the count, but in the end Joe Biden won despite the President’s immediate and repeated false accusations of election fraud.

Save America March

He declared a “Save America March” for January 6, 2021, the day that Congress formally and Constitutionally counts the electoral votes and officially declares the next President.

On that day, President Trump, Donald Trump, Jr, and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke to the crowd. Trump continued to prevaricate and repeat debunked claims of widespread election fraud. He incited the crowd with statements like, “We will never give up, we will never concede.”

Only seven minutes into the 75 minute speech, the crowd chanted: Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!

His inflammatory words pushed an already embittered and combative crowd to their successful, if temporary, violent takeover of the Capitol building forcing the members of Congress into hiding within. Dozens were injured and  five died, including a Capitol police officer.

Some Trump supporters said that Trump adversaries Antifa had surreptitiously incited the  insurrection. That it had lead the charge into the Capitol. FBI reports found no such evidence.

In the weeks following, dozens of insurrectionists were identified, arrested, and charged.

Calls for Trump’s removal from office immediately followed, albeit mainly from the Democrats, but from some Republicans as well.

The irony of his July 27, 2020 tweet was not lost on those who saw the riot as the insurrection it was. Most Republicans stuck their head in the ground or up their….

Trump Impeachment Redux

Monday 11 January 2021

Monday 11 January: the New York Times reported that House Democrats  introduced an article of impeachment against President Trump for inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol, vowing to press the charge as Republicans blocked a separate move to formally call on Vice President Mike Pence to strip him of power under the 25th Amendment.

The dual actions came as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her caucus sought to ratchet up pressure on Mr. Pence to intervene and push Trump to resign. If they did not, the Democrats promised immediate consequences for Trump’s role in an attack that put the lives of the vice president, members of Congress and thousands of staff working on Capitol Hill at risk as officials met to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

“The president’s threat to America is urgent, and so too will be our action,” Pelosi said.

Trump Impeachment Redux

Pence Called Upon

Tuesday 12 January: the House voted to formally call on Vice President Mike Pence to use the 25th Amendment to strip President Trump of his powers after he incited a mob that attacked the Capitol, as lawmakers warned they would impeach the president the next day if Pence did not comply.

Pence sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi refusing to act.

Lawmakers, escorted by armed guards into a heavily fortified Capitol, adopted the nonbinding measure just before midnight largely along party lines. The final vote was 223 to 205 to implore Mr. Pence to declare Mr. Trump “incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting president.” [NYT article]

Trump Impeachment Redux

Impeachment

from the New York Times

 

Wednesday 13 January: Democrats in the House of Representatives debated and voted on a single article of impeachment against President Trump, charging him with “incitement of insurrection” over last week’s violence at the U.S. Capitol.

Though he said he would not re-convene the Senate until January 19, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, was said to support the effort as a means of purging his party of Mr. Trump.

Trump Impeachment Redux

Giuliani Out

Monday 17 January: the New York Times reported a person close to President Trump said that Rudolph W. Giuliani, his personal lawyer, would not be taking part in the president’s defense in the Senate trial.

Trump met with Giuliani the night of January 16 at the White House and the next day the president began telling people that Giuliani was not going to be part of the team. It was unclear who would be a defense lawyer for Trump, given that many attorneys had privately said they would not represent him.

Giuliani himself at first said he was taking part in the trial and then a day later said he would had no involvement.

He told ABC News on Sunday 17 January that he would not be part of the defense, noting that he was a potential witness since he gave a speech at the January 6 rally.

Trump Impeachment Redux

McConnell Admits Trump Provocation

January 19, 2021: Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said  that the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6 had been “provoked by the president and other powerful people,” stating publicly for the first time that he holds President Trump at least partly responsible for the assault.

“The mob was fed lies,” Mr. McConnell said, referring to attempts by Mr. Trump to overturn the election based on bogus claims of voter fraud.

“They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.” [NYT article]

McConnell Seeks delay

January 21, 2021: Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, asked Democrats  to delay the impeachment trial until mid-February. His request complicated Democrats  hopes of reaching a swift agreement to prevent the proceeding from interfering with the crucial first weeks of President Biden’s tenure. [NYT article]

Trump Impeachment Redux

Date Announced

January 22, 2021: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that House Democrats plan to send the article of impeachment to the Senate on Monday 25 January, triggering the start of the Senate’s trial of former President Donald Trump on Friday 29 January.

Unless senators strike an agreement to delay the trial, it would begin on Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET. [CNN article]

Trump Impeachment Redux

Senator Patrick J. Leahy

Aides and other officials said that Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Senate president pro tempore, was expected to preside over former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial, assuming a role filled last year by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

The Constitution states that the chief justice of the United States presides over any impeachment trial of the president or vice president. But it does not explicitly give guidance on who should oversee the proceeding for others, including former presidents, and it appeared that Chief Justice Roberts was uninterested in reprising a time consuming role that would insert him and the Supreme Court directly into the fractious political fight over Mr. Trump. [NYT article]

Trump Impeachment Redux

Article delivered/Senators Sworn In

January 25: at about 7 p.m. ET, U.S. House Clerk Cheryl Johnson, Rep. Jamie Raskin, and Rep. David Cicilline walked through the Capitol’s Statuary Hall and delivered the article of impeachment for incitement of insurrection against former President Trump to the Senate floor. The prompted preparations for an historic trial.

January 26: U.S. senators, who act as jurors in an impeachment trial,  were sworn in.

The trial itself scheduled begin on February 9, giving the nine House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team two weeks to file briefs and finalize their legal preparations. [NPR article]

Trump Impeachment Redux

February 2…pretrial briefs filed

Democrats

In a meticulously detailed 80-page pretrial brief filed with the Senate, the nine House Democrats preparing to prosecute the case next week argued that Mr. Trump was “singularly responsible” for a violent attack on the democratic process, and would do anything to “reassert his grip on power” if he were allowed to seek election again.

The impeachment managers argued that the riot at the Capitol on January 6 was the direct result of a campaign by former President Donald J. Trump to undermine American democracy and overthrow the election at any cost.

They warned that acquitting him and failing to disqualify him from future office could do grave damage to the nation. [NYT article]

Republicans

Trump’s lawyers filed an official response to the article of impeachment.

In their 14-page filing, the former president’s attorneys largely ignored the factual assertions contained in the House document, denying the allegation without presenting evidence, and asserting that it is up to the House to prove its case.

They argued that Trump did not incite the crowd on Jan. 6 “to engage in destructive behavior.” They focus much of their reply on the argument that the Constitution’s impeachment provision does not apply to a president who is no longer in office. [NPR story]

Trump Impeachment Redux

Trial Begins

Tuesday 9 February

The Senate voted  to proceed with the impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump, rejecting his defense team’s claim that it would be unconstitutional to prosecute a president after leaving office.

The 56-to-44 vote, with six Republicans joining all 50 Democrats, paved the way for the House Democrats trying the case to formally open their arguments on Feb 10 as they seek to prove that Mr. Trump incited an insurrection by encouraging supporters who stormed the Capitol last month and disrupted the counting of Electoral College votes.

The 44 Republicans who agreed with Trump’s claim that a former president cannot be subject to an impeachment trial seemed to all but guarantee that he would have the 34 votes he needs on the final verdict to avoid conviction. [NYT article]

Trump Impeachment Redux

Wednesday 10 February

The House managers presented for nearly eight hours on , walking the jury — senators who were in the Capitol during the attack on January 6 — through footage of the riot and of former President Trump’s speeches in the weeks leading up to it. Most of that had been publicly available and previously televised, but parts of their presentation — like security camera footage of staff members sheltering in offices and radio chatter from Capitol Police officers — had not been released before.

Trump’s lawyers sought to avoid arguing the case on its merits, saying the trial itself was in violation of the Constitution. [NYT article, NPR article]

Trump Impeachment Redux

Thursday 11 February

The NY Times reported that House impeachment managers had wrapped up their incitement case against former President Donald J. Trump by warning that he remained a clear and present danger to American democracy and could foment still more violence if not barred from running for office again.

With the sounds of a rampaging mob still ringing in the Senate chamber, the managers sought to channel the shock and indignation rekindled by videos they showed of last month’s attack on the Capitol into a bipartisan repudiation of the former president who inflamed his supporters with false claims of a stolen election.

“My dear colleagues, is there any political leader in this room who believes that if he’s ever allowed by the Senate to get back into the Oval Office, Donald Trump would stop inciting violence to get his way?” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead impeachment manager, asked the senators. “Would you bet the lives of more police officers on that? Would you bet the safety of your family on that? Would you bet the future of your democracy on that?”

Trump Impeachment Redux

Friday 12 February

The NY Times reported that lawyers for Donald J. Trump delivered an incendiary but brief defense of the former president , calling the House’s charge that he incited an insurrection at the Capitol a “preposterous and monstrous lie” as they falsely equated his conduct to Democrats’ own combative rhetoric.

Confident they have enough votes from Republicans to acquit Mr. Trump, the lawyers used only about three of their 16 allotted hours, allowing senators to proceed Friday afternoon to a period of questioning the prosecution and defense.

Earlier, the defense team had channeled the former president’s own combative style and embrace of falsehoods to claim, contrary to facts, that Mr. Trump never glorified violence during his presidency and that he consistently called for peace as the rampage at the Capitol unfolded. Showing video clips of Democrats urging their supporters to “fight” and Mr. Trump venerating “law and order,” they sought to rewrite not just the narrative of his campaign to overturn the election but that of his entire presidency.

“This trial is about far more than President Trump,” said Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of the lawyers, as he closed the defense. “It is about silencing the speech the majority does not agree with. It is about canceling 75 million Trump voters and criminalizing political viewpoints.”

Trump Impeachment Redux

Saturday 13 February

Mitch McConnell

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, privately told his colleagues he was ready to acquit Mr. Trump, confirming that an eventual conviction was exceedingly unlikely.

Acquittal

The voted on Saturday to acquit Donald J. Trump.

Voting 57-43, the Senate fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds necessary for conviction. Seven Republicans voted to find the former president guilty of “incitement of insurrection,” with all 50 Democrats, the most bipartisan support for conviction in any of the four presidential impeachments in U.S. history. [NYT article]

Senator Schumer responds

After the acquittal,  Senate majority leader Charles Schumer spoke. His beginning remarks were:

The case of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial was open and shut. President Trump told a lie — a big lie — that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful winner. He laid the groundwork for this big lie in the months before the election, he told the big lie on election night, and he repeated the big lie more than 100 times in the weeks afterwards. He summoned his supporters to Washington, assembled them on the Ellipse, whipped them into a frenzy, and directed them at the Capitol.
And then he watched, as the violence unfolded, and the Capitol was breached, and his own Vice President fled for his life—and President Trump did nothing.
None of the facts were up for debate. We saw it. We heard it. We lived it. This was the first presidential impeachment trial in history in which all Senators were not only judges and jurors, but witnesses to the constitutional crime that was committed.
The former president inspired, directed, and propelled a mob to violently prevent the peaceful transfer of power, subvert the will of the people, and illegally keep that president in power.
[see text for Schumer’s complete remarks]
Senator Mitch McConnell responds

After Senator Schumer spoke, Senate minority leader McConnell spoke. He had voted to acquit because, he explained, Congress could not impeach and find guilty someone no longer President, but still condemned Trump.

January 6th was a disgrace.
American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.
Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President.
They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.
He added later:
There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.
[see text for McConnell’s complete remarks]
Trump responds

Later, former President Donald Trump thanked most of the Senate Republicans for his impeachment acquittal  adding that the political movement he began with his 2016 election has “only just begun.”

“We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future,”

While thanking GOP allies, Trump – who was considering another presidential run – attacked Democrats by saying “it is a sad commentary on our times that one political party in America is given a free pass to denigrate the rule of law.” [NPR article]

Trump Impeachment Redux
Peace Love Art and Activism

Richie Havens Woodstock

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Richie Havens Woodstock

It took 50 years for most people to hear all the music from the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.  The rumors were that It was out there. Boxed. Stored. Warehoused.

Bootlegs of much existed, but where were the originals? We even found out that some of the cuts on the original 3-disc album weren’t from Woodstock!

In 2005, producer Andy Zax found the  boxes. To use the word painstakingly is an understatement, but over the next 14 years Zax worked with the tapes and in 2019  Rhino Records released the 38-disc box entitled Woodstock – Back To The Garden:The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive. Other somewhat smaller offerings were also available.

Over that half century, The Woodstock Music and Art Fair had became an iconic event not just musically, but socially as well, and as with any historic event, the story often took on a life of its own. “Woodstock Haze” is a phrase the late great alum Charlie Maloney coined to describe such inaccuracies.

Richie Havens Woodstock

Richie’s Set

One of the more famous Woodstock stories is that to avoid further delays the fretting and anxious Woodstock Ventures organizers coerced Richie Havens to open.

Havens stepped onto the stage accompanied by Paul “Deano” Williams and Danielle Ben Zebulon.

Richie’s recollection was always that after nearly 2 1/2 hours, singing every song he knew, he  left the stage in a state of sweat-soaked exhaustion. Sweat-soaked exhaustion? Yes. 2 1/2 hours no. 45 minutes.  Woodstock Haze.

Hello. How are you?

Before he began, the caring Richie speak to the crowd.

“Hello. How are you? How are you in the back?  Can ‘ya hear? Groovy…wow…it’s really beautiful to see so many people together. I know it might be a tiny bit uncomfortable, but so can sleeping…be…a tiny bit uncomfortable. “

His set was as follows:

  • From the Prison > Get Together > From the Prison
  • I’m a Stranger Here
  • High Flyin’ Bird
  • I Can’t Make It Anymore
  • With A Little Help from my Friends
  • Handsome Johnny
  • Strawberry Fields Forever
  • Motherless Child/Freedom
Richie Havens Woodstock

From the Prison

Richie Havens is well known for covering others’ songs and at Woodstock he opened with Jerry Merrick’s From the Prison with abit of Dino Valenti’s Get Together in between.  From the Prison had appeared on Havens’s 1968 Something Else album.

To be kind to the next door neighbor
To be kind to the jailhouse screw;
To be kind to a child, in the fantasy wild
Is the best thing you can do
Is the best thing you can do

As simple as Havens’s presentations typically are, his guitar style combined with Williams’s guitar and Ben Zebulon’s percussion create a wonderfully effective and immediately engrossing moment.

From the Prison had appeared on Havens’s 1968 Something Else Again album.

Richie Havens Woodstock

I Am a Stranger Here

His second song is another has a familiar beginning which echoes his Motherless Child/Freedom encore.  The song had appeared on Electric Havens in 1968.

In the late ’60s, as Havens rose to stardom, producer Alan Douglas of Douglas Music had taken some original solo demos and overdubbed them with electric instruments. He called the album Electric Havens and it was one of of two albums (the other being The Richie Havens Record) of similarly overdubbed solo demos probably recorded from sometime between 1963-1965 before Havens’s first official release on Verve,  Mixed Bag  [from AllMusic. com].

I cannot find the person who wrote this song. Perhaps Havens himself.  Jerry Merrick did write a song with the same title, but it is not the song Havens sung at Woodstock.

Richie Havens Woodstock

High Flying Bird

There’s a high flyin’ bird, flying way up in the sky,
And I wonder if she looks down as she goes on by?
Well, she’s flying so freely in the sky.
Lord, look at me here,
I’m rooted like a tree here,
Got those sit-down, can’t cry,
Oh, Lord, gonna die blues.
Billy Edd Wheeler wrote the song. From a Citizen Times article: His songs have been recorded by a musical Who’s Who: Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, Glen Campbell, Judy Collins, The Country Gentlemen, John Denver, Hazel Dickens, Richie Havens, The Kingston Trio, Tim O’Brien, Roy Clark, Tom T. Hall, Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Kenny Rogers, Hank Snow and others.
Richie Havens Woodstock

I Can’t Make It Anymore

Written by Gordon Lightfoot, fans had fallen in love with this song already. It was also from Mixed Bag.

I get too low with no reason
You say its the moon or maybe the season
But something’s not the same
And I won’t let my mind believe
Baby, something’s wrong
Or the feelings gone
I can’t make it anymore
I can’t make it anymore.

Richie Havens Woodstock

With A Little Help From My Friends

Obviously a Beatle song and as good as Havens’s version it (and still is) will be Joe Cocker’s cover on Sunday that will become the Woodstock cover of this song.

Interestingly, Richie Havens said that he was still learning the lyrics as he asked the crowd to sing along and he sort of helps them and they sort of help him. The both sort of succeed.

More interesting, is that the year before, Richie had released his 1983 double-album, which had both studio and live recordings on it.  One of the live songs is With A Little Help From My Friends and how do you think Richie introduced it? Yup…he didn’t really know the lyrics so could we help out! You trickster you.

Richie Havens Woodstock

Handsome Johnny

Richie Havens Woodstock
Photo by Jim Shelley

Havens’ was rarely overtly political, but the song Handsome Johnny is an exception to that rule.  Louis Gossett, Jr co-wrote the song with Havens. At Richie Havens’s memorial service held on August 15, 2013 at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Gossett told the story of how a letter arrived for him just he, a struggling Hollywood actor, was about to be evicted from his apartment.  Inside the letter was a check from Havens. The check was for royalties earned from Handsome Johnny.

Hey, what’s the use of singing this song, some of you are not even listening.
Tell me what it is we’ve got to do: wait for our fields to start glistening,
Wait for the bullets to start whistling.
Here comes a hydrogen bomb, here comes a guided missile,
Here comes a hydrogen bomb: I can almost hear its whistle.

Richie Havens Woodstock

One Hundred Million Songs

After Handsome Johnny, Havens spoke to the crowd.

There’s a hundred millions songs gonna’ be sung here tonight. All of them gonna’ be singing about the same thing which I hope everybody who came, came to hear…really…and it’s all about you…actually. You, me, and everybody around the stage and everybody who hasn’t gotten here and the people who are gonna’ read about you tomorrow. Yes. And how really groovy you were.

He then went on to talk about the clogged roads and that the reason was because though promised at the 1939 World’s Fair, the road construction had never happened. Why? Maybe we didn’t vote.

Sage words even today.

Richie Havens Woodstock

Strawberry Fields Forever

While the Beatles themselves may not have attended Woodstock, their songs were. As he typically did, Havens made the song his own.

Let me take you down
‘Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

Richie Havens Woodstock

Motherless Child/Freedom

He’d been on stage about 42 minutes by the end of Strawberry Fields and he walked away to Zebulon’s percussion. MC John Morris. the crowd wanted more.

A MOMENT was about to happen. Havens began playing and repeating the word freedom.

Eight times.

He then moved into Motherless Child, traditional song that dated back to American slavery. A child torn from those they loved.

It would be a vast overstatement to say the primarily white male audience at Woodstock could relate to those lyrics, but enough alienation existed in 1969 among that audience that they felt like they knew.

The next performance was Sweetwater, though Sri Swami Satchidananda spoke to the crowd in between.

Richie Havens Woodstock
Peace Love Art and Activism

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

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Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

Born January 1, 1942

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman
August 15, 2013. Joel Rosenman at the Richie Havens Memorial Service held at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

Each of the four young men, with or without unlimited capital, who formed Woodstock Ventures to create the most famous music festival of all time contributed to its muddy success.

John Roberts is mainly associated with the financial backing with his family’s fortune from the Block Drug Co.

Artie Kornfeld‘s Capitol Records background helped organize the lineup.

Michael Lang’s brought a vision and insistence that the show must go on.

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

Joel Rosenman

So, what about Joel. He was Roberts’s best friend.

Rosenman grew up on Long Island, NY and attended Princeton University, where as a freshman in 1959 co-founded the Footnotes a cappella group. I guess the Footnotes never went doo wop as the members of rival Ivy League’s Columbia University’s Kingsmen had when they became Sha Na Na. Imagine!

He graduated Princeton in 1963 and finished Yale Law in 1966  Shortly after that, Joel befriended John while on a golf course.

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

Media Sound

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

They got into the recording business via Media Sound, a studio located in a former Baptist church built in 1920.  Located at at 311 West 57th St. in Manhattan,  Harry Hirsch (who’d began his career in 1942 as a 13-year-old drummer in The Catskills) founded Media Sound with assistance from Bob Walters, (during World War II a member of the U.S. Army Air Force band stationed in London when Glenn Miller led it), and the financial/business backing from Roseman and Roberts,

Providence NYC

Media Sound opened in June 1969. It is now the location of Metronome Hospitality Group’s Providence NYC, a venue for  private parties and corporate functions.

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

Another Recording Studio

Woodstock Music and Art Fair did not start out as such. It sprang from Lang and Kornfeld’s idea of  establishing a recording studio in Woodstock, NY, the rural upstate area where many  young musicians lived and visited mainly because one Bob Dylan had found its relative isolation a comfortable place to raise his young family and write music with his Band friends.

Albert Grossman had already initiated plans for his nearby Bearsville Studio, so why Lang and Kornfeld thought it would be feasible to open second studio competing with Dylan’s own manager who was also the manager of several other name musicians such as The Band, Janis Joplin, Gordon Lightfoot, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, is an unsolved mystery.

In any case, Lang and Kornfeld pitched the idea of a studio which led to the idea of a party to raise funds for the studio which led to the idea of a festival to raise even more money.  The irony of their vision is not lost on anyone.

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

Another Festival

Rock music festivals were not new by 1969. The June 10 – 11, 1967 Fantasy Fair Festival (in Mount Tamalpais State Park, CA) is typically credited as the first though the Monterey Pop Festival a week later (and about 125 miles north) is far better known.

1968 had more rock festivals and by the end of 1969 had dozens.

So, what could attract big rock and folk names to a DIY and isolated location? Money.

According to Rosenman in a Giving to Princeton article,   “None of the four of us had ever produced anything bigger than a birthday party. Inconveniently, the managers and the agents for the bands knew we were novices. They refused to commit their bands to an event that might never take place. We solved that problem by throwing money at it; we paid the bands twice as much as their going rate.”

And in a 2009 NPR interview, he explained how they never expected the half-million to show up.  “Our first go-round we hoped to get about 25,000 people. That was in say, March of 1969. By mid-April, we realized we might attract 35 to 50,000. By say early June, we were looking at 75,000. By late July, we thought, improbably enough, that we’re going to have 100,000. And by the day before the concert, we had everybody in America.”

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

Money Money Money

Even when the festival finally got going, finances continued to be both the key to its success and the thorn in its side.

Again from the Princeton article: The Who and the Grateful Dead had decided at the last minute that they would no longer accept Woodstock’s checks. They wanted cash or they weren’t going to play. Rosenman…had to scramble. He woke up his banker with a phone call and sent a helicopter to the man’s backyard, flying the pajamas-clad financier over the traffic jams and to the bank office a few miles away. Now, as the clock ticked, Rosenman revved his motorcycle and followed the music.

The closer he got, the more congested the route became. But once he reached the periphery of the vast field that had been transformed into a cultural epicenter of peace and music, he couldn’t help but pause to appreciate the beauty and the gravity of the moment.

“Janis Joplin was singing ‘Piece of My Heart,’ and she was brilliantly lit up by the spotlight,” Rosenman said. “And in my backpack, I was carrying the cashier’s checks that would keep the crowd from becoming very unhappy. Threading my way through the audience was difficult, but it was also exhilarating. I felt, briefly, like a hero.”

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

No Walk in the Garden

From the beginning, the event’s logistics had presented constant hoops to jump through, the biggest, perhaps, having been the Wallkill eviction forcing the festival, only three weeks before the festival. to seek another site, which of course turned into Max Yasgur‘s hay field in Bethel.

Because Woodstock Ventures had to build the venue from scratch in a location where nothing was–there was barely electricity–everything seemed a nightmare.

Joel regarding power [from the above NPR interview]:

We were sprouting walkie talkies from every ear at that point and dealing with a dozen problems every minute or two. And on top of it all the phone rang, the chief electrician was calling from backstage. I asked him what the problem was, he sounded pretty shaky actually at the time, even for a man who was going through what he was going through.

He said, with the rain and all of those hundreds of thousands of feet scuffling over the performance area, the main feeder cable supplying electricity to the stage – the musicians, the amplifiers, whatever has been – unearthed. And with additional abrasion from these sneakers and whatever, sandals, it may wear away the insulation on these cables. I’m worried with all those wet bodies packed together that we may have something approximating a – and he paused for a moment and I couldn’t believe that he was searching for the words that he came up with. But he came up with mass electrocution.

And I thought to myself this is the incredible, this can’t be happening. He said, what do you want me to do, should I shut down the power to the stage? Now we had had a philosophy there at headquarters that one of the reasons that this festival was proceeding so well in spite of the adversities that everybody there was facing, the weather, the tremendous crowds, the strain on all facilities, was that the music was so mesmerizing. It was wonderful talent, brilliant artists performing – the kids were just in love with it.

The thought of shutting the power down in the darkness, in the rain storm struck me as an invitation to chaos. Nevertheless, the thought of a mass execution posed additional moral problems. At that point, I remember breaking a two-year moratorium on smoking. I think I lit up three or four Camels at once and stuck them in my mouth and tried to think this one through. Finally, the electrician helped me out. He said, look I think there’s a chance that in the next 20 minutes I can work a shunt from the power source to the stage that bypasses those main feeder cables. And maybe that will solve the whole problem.

I said, give it a try, and hung up. And for the next 20 minutes, John and I sat there looking at each other. I guess we were waiting like in the movies for the lights to dim a little bit, the way they do when they throw the switch in the electric chair chamber. And I think it probably took a hundred years for those 20 minutes to pass. The phone rang and it was the chief electrician again. He said, I did it, I did it, everything is fine.

“There were very few moments when I could just sit back and enjoy…. John and I were just nose to the grindstone, on the phones at all times, tackling problems that were coming in at a rate that was faster than we could solve them.”

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

Financial Disaster

Though a viable entity today, the SS Woodstock Ventures had sunk to its smokestacks by Monday 18 August 1969. It would be a decade before its books saw black.

Roseman continues to be a manager.

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman

Young Men…

In 1999, Rosenman and Roberts published Young Men With Unlimited Capital, which described their preparation for the festival, their shock and confusion when Woodstock turned out to be bigger than planned, and their months of legal hassling after the concert.

Woodstock Ventures Joel Rosenman