Oklahoma events mark Woodstock's golden anniversary
A half-century ago, Melanie Safka stepped onto a massive stage in upstate New York “an unknown person with a slight industry buzz” and stepped off it a celebrity.
The singer-songwriter known simply as Melanie was among the acts at the now-mythical granddaddy of all outdoor musical merriment: Woodstock.
“I don't regret any of my life. It was all amazing. I mean, who would have thought … I would become a part of history,” Melanie told The Oklahoman in a 2013 interview.
On Aug. 15-18, 1969, a crowd of more than 400,000 music lovers and counter-culturists gathered at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, about 40 miles outside Woodstock, for what was billed as “An Aquarian Exposition” promising “3 Days of Peace & Music.”
Despite intermittent rains, 32 of the top musical acts of the 1960s performed before the vast crowd at Woodstock, including Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Band, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Santana, the Grateful Dead and Arlo Guthrie, the son of Oklahoma folk icon Woody Guthrie.
At Woodstock, Melanie crooned her bittersweet ballad “Beautiful People” so prettily that the crowd raised cigarette lighters and lit candles in response. The now-iconic sign of audience approval prompted the Queens, New York, native to pen the epic “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” which sold more than 1 million copies in 1970 and prompted Billboard to name her its female vocalist of the year. She went on to pen the 1971 novelty smash “Brand New Key” and win an Emmy in 1989 for writing the theme for the TV show “Beauty and the Beast.”
“Woodstock made me famous, and it was a catalyst for my career, but I always knew that Woodstock wasn't really about me or any other performer. It was really more about this coming together and showing a kindred spirit,” Melanie wrote in the foreword to the new book “Woodstock: 50 Years of Peace and Music.”
Although the troubled Woodstock 50 tribute scheduled for this weekend in upstate New York was canceled last month, several events across the country, including some in Oklahoma, are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legendary festival:
The Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W Reno, is continuing its celebration of “Peace, Love and Music” by showing the 1970 Oscar-winning documentary “Woodstock” at 7:30 p.m. Friday on the Devon Great Lawn. The festivities will culminate on the Great Lawn at 7:30 p.m. Saturday with “1969,” a live show produced by Oksessions that will feature local musicians bringing to life the songs of Woodstock. For more information, go to www. myriadgardens.org.
Tulsa's Woody Guthrie Center, 102 E Reconciliation Way, will open to the public Tuesday the new exhibit “In Times Like These: Arlo Guthrie, Friends, and Family.” Curated by the center, it will be the first major display of items from Guthrie's collection and will include never-before-seen photographs, Guthrie's early letters to his father and the guitar he played and the mud-splattered jeans he wore at Woodstock. For more information, go to www.woodyguthriecenter. org.
And six-piece band Paisley Craze will bring its national “Peace and Love Tour 2019” to the OKC area at 7 p.m. Aug. 31 for a show at the Rose State College Hudiburg Chevrolet Center, 6000 S Trosper Place in Midwest City. For tickets and information, go to peaceandlovetour.com.
Grab your bell-bottom jeans and flash a peace sign for “Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation: American Experience,” which will be aired by OETA at 8 p.m. Aug. 20. Relive the concert that became a generation-defining event during this special marking the 50th anniversary of Woodstock.