The Museum at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

Mark Worden (Standard English accent):

The August issue of Speak Up contains a feature on the legendary 1969 Woodstock Festival. In this out-take John Sebastian, a one-time member of the group The Lovin’ Spoonful, remembers the experience of playing there:

John Sebastian (Standard American accent):

Well, up until that point, my concerts after The Spoonful had been more or less 150 people-type affairs in small clubs with brick walls behind them and so I really had no way of anticipating that I was even going to play. I attended Woodstock completely because Paul Rothschild, the wonderful producer for The Doors and myself and almost half of Elektra’s output during that era, said, “You know…” ­– he was a bit of a cultural lightning rod, he always seemed to know when something important was going to happen and he said, “You know, I don’t know, you’re not that far away, if you could make it to this festival, this is going to be something really singular. It’s already outstripping what the creators had planned and it’s going to be exciting.” So, by a strange coincidence, I was at the Albany airport at the same time that The Incredible String Band was taking off. And it just so happened that the Incredible String Band’s road manager had been the Lovin’ Spoonful’s road manager. So we made eye contact, he said… and so I go down on the tarmac, he says, “You’re trying to get to Woodstock?” I said: “That’s right.” He says: “You’re not going to do it on the roads: get in the helicopter!” which I did… (I) arrived… and I saw what you saw… I saw what you see when you see the movie! This incredible panorama of Volkswagen buses and tents and sleeping bags and you had to go miles and miles before you even got to people, and then nowhere could you see green, nowhere could you see ground, and I landed, I found myself helping Chipmunk put instruments away because there were starting to be issues about where do we keep some of these instruments in case of bad weather. I helped out with the little yellow Volkswagen bus tent that you can see in most of these pictures – it’s right in the front – I slept in that with the entire Incredible String Band and their instruments that night! And the next day, at one of those moments when it was raining, and Chipmunk came up to me and said “Look, we need somebody to hold them while we sweep this water off the stage, we can’t use amps, and you’re elected!” And I said, “Look, I didn’t even bring a guitar!” So, anyway, I mooched a guitar from Tim Hardin. And that is why I appeared at that show!

(John Sebastian’s speech was recorded by Lorenza Cerbini at the press opening of “The Museum at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts”)