Los Angeles,” (about smuggling drugs
into L.A. from London), a performance
Wadleigh’s Woodstock film elevated to
a countercultural moment. “The tune
plays with a montage of shaggy fans
passing around joints,” wrote Geoff
Boucher in the Los Angeles Times, “and
Guthrie’s song instantly became a gen-
eration’s soundtrack for blowing smoke
in the face of authority.” Guthrie also
sang “Wheel of Fortune,” “Walking
Down the Line,” “Oh, Mary Don’t
You Weep,” and “Every Hand in the
Land,” closing his 50-minute set with
the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Recalling
the event to Smithsonian magazine
40 years later, Guthrie said, “We knew
that it was historic in proportion.
Nothing like this had ever happened
before, planned or by surprise. When
you realize that most historic events
are written in hindsight—you don't
realize you’re in a historic event at the
time—so it was special to be in a historic
event and know that it was just that.”
AFTER WOODSTOCK: Mere days after
Woodstock, Arthur Penn’s film Alice’s
Restaurant, based on Guthrie’s song,
hit big screens around the country. The
singer enjoyed his one Top 40 hit with
a 1972 cover of Steve Goodman’s “City
of New Orleans,” and he has toured
ever since, while occasionally dab-
bling in film acting. Now 73, Guthrie
performs often for charity, notably
raising money to fight Huntington’s
disease, the devastating brain disor-
der that killed his father.
Joan Baez
1:30–2:15 AM
At 28, the “Queen of Folk” was already
an elder stateswoman of ’60s music.
Her personal and musical relationship
with Bob Dylan, which had blossomed
in Beat-bohemian Greenwich Village,
helped cement that reputation. But
above all it was her clarion voice (Dylan
likened it to “that of a siren off some
Greek island”), her songwriting, and
her passion for civil rights and social
justice that vaulted Baez to interna-
tional acclaim. Baez’s first three albums
went gold, and by 1962 her prominence
was such that she landed on the cover
of Time magazine. Six months preg-
nant with her son, Gabriel (now a
drummer), when she appeared on the
Woodstock stage, Baez was a calm and
unflappable figure amid the behind-
the-scenes chaos; she also avoided the
festival’s drug culture. “I was always
running into Janis Joplin and saying,
‘You wanna come over sometime and
have tea?’ ” she later recalled. “She’d
just look at me like I was crazy!” Well
after midnight, Baez began an 11-song
set, belting out a rousing rendition of
the gospel song “Oh Happy Day,” after
which she said a few words about her
husband, David Harris, who at the time
was behind bars for resisting the draft.
She sang Harris’s favorite labor anthem,
“Joe Hill,” and nine other songs, includ-
ing some country-rock pieces co-writ-
ten with Gram Parsons, and a powerful
a cappella “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,”
ending with an encore of “We Shall
Overcome,” which closed out the first
day’s performances at about two a.m.AFTER WOODSTOCK: In 1971, Baez
enjoyed one of her biggest hits with a
cover of The Band’s “The Night They
Drove Old Dixie Down.” (She and
Harris divorced amicably two years
later, and during the early 1980s Baez
dated computer pioneer Steve Jobs.)
Her raven hair now white, the 78-year-
old has worked nonstop for more than
half a century, the voice still powerful,
her reputation only burnished with
time, and her political edge sharper
than ever. In 2017, she composed a tune
about the new White House occupant.
“This thing just came bubbling out in
the middle of the night,” she said. “It was
called ‘Nasty Man’ about He Who Shall
Not Be Named.”
You’re gonna build a wall, the
big-liest wall,
the beautifulest wall ’round our
borders.
But here’s what I think,
You better talk to a shrink,
’cause you’ve got seriouspsychological disorders... (^) l
38 LIFE WOODSTOCK