Woodstock Scholarship: An Interdisciplinary Annotated Bibliography/Music

Music

Books

Boyd, Todd. The New H.N.I.C. (Head Niggas in Charge): The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop. New York: New York University Press, 2002.

Discusses, in part, the use of the word “nigger” and “nigga” in hip-hop context. Mentions the DMX performance at Woodstock ’99 with a call-and-response with, in this case, a mostly white audience. Offers Woodstock ’99 and the motion picture Any Given Sunday as two examples in which these words of “endearment are used in ways other than to affirm a strong sense of Black unity.” Claims hip-hop music at its core is “this battle over language and representation.” Includes a glossary of hip-hop terms.

Floyd, Samuel A. The Power of Black Music: Interpreting its History from Africa to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Cites Jimi Hendrix’s interpretation of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as an example of his execution style coming from the “practice and proclivities of numerous ancient and modern African and African-American music makers.” Declares the performance to be an important event in the history of American music. Notes the way in which Hendrix comments on the topic of the song using just his guitar playing without singing the lyrics.
Garofalo, Reebee. Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the USA. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011.
Serves as a textbook concentrating on the relationship between popular music and mass culture. Asserts popular music is “a social and political indicator that mirrors and influences the society in which we live.” Notes the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair offered “a fleeting pastoral approximation” of the overall counterculture utopian vision. Touches briefly on Woodstock ‘94 and Woodstock ‘99 mainly to provide and discuss stark contrasts to the 1969 event.
Hopkins, Jerry, Jim Marshall, and Baron Wolman. Festival: The Book of American Music Celebrations. New York: Macmillan, 1970.
Combines reprints of articles and sections of books with numerous black and white photographs to create a single narrative on American music festivals. Includes bluegrass, rock, and folk festivals held in the 1960s. In particular, notes that at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair there was “forged a new definition of performance, wherein the performers and audience are one and all normal barriers are removed.”
Jennings, Nicholas. Before the Gold Rush: Flashbacks to the Dawn of the Canadian Sound. Toronto, Canada: Viking, 1997.
Offers a history of Canadian music in the 1960s, where “bands existed in their home towns on the strength of their fan clubs and word-of-mouth reputations.” Mentions in brief the Canadian musicians who performed at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair (Neil Young, David Clayton-Thomas of Blood, Sweat & Tears, and members of The Band). Quotes Clayton-Thomas explaining how the festival was not the best venue for communicating the subtleties of his group’s music. Notes by having performed at an event that took on mythical importance, Blood, Sweat & Tears experienced a surge in popularity as a touring act.
McMichael, Joe, and Jack Lyons. The Who Concert File. London: Omnibus Press, 1997.
Documents every performance by The Who; sometimes including specific venues, set lists, and commentaries. Remarks on the overall negative experience for the band of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Mentions particularly strong performances of some songs during their set. Recounts Peter Townshend hitting Abbie Hoffman over the head with a guitar during the show. Contains numerous photographs of the group and memorabilia, such as concert posters and tickets. Foreword by Peter Townshend.
Murray, Charles Shaar. Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the Post-War Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
Explores the life of, and world around, Jimi Hendrix through an examination of his music. Claims Hendrix’s performance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as captured in the motion picture Woodstock “defined what Woodstock was about for the rest of the world.” Declares his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner was epic, comparing Hendrix to John Coltrane and describing the performance as “a compelling musical allegory of a nation tearing itself apart.” Provides a description of the allegorical references.
Myers, Marc. Why Jazz Happened. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013.
Presents an extensive history of jazz music, including all of the social forces that have driven its evolution. Delves into the impact of electronic music and the influences of the sound and lighting systems that emerged with the advent of large outdoor concerts and music festivals. Details Bill Hanley’s role in designing the sound system used at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Articulates the thinking behind the massive towers that held the speaker system and the last-minute changes required to accommodate a much larger than expected audience, such as needing to boost the sound levels without creating distortion. Notes a change in audience attitudes toward music as a result of the extended performances at Woodstock. Suggests attendees came to believe “longer songs and solos were musical extensions of their own rebellions and anxieties.” Contends all of this influenced greatly the presentation of jazz music.
Pollock, Bruce. By the Time We Got to Woodstock: The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolution of 1969. New York: Backbeat Books, 2009.
Proclaims 1969 to have been “a year of radical and profound personal risks, changes, and choices in the way music was perceived, written about, experienced, exploited, played, and disseminated.” Scatters throughout the text first-hand accounts of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair from musicians who performed at the festival. Includes interview quotes from Richie Havens and John Sebastian discussing their performances at the event.
Santelli, Robert. Sixties: A Listener’s Guide. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1985.
Includes an “overview of every major rock category that figured prominently in the sixties” as well as brief biographies of selected musicians. Notes whether a performer appeared at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Claims the performance at the festival of I’m Going Home by the group Ten Years After “may be the fastest rock guitar solo recorded in the sixties.” Includes the author’s choices for the top twenty-five albums of the decade.
Unterberger, Richie. Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock’s Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock. San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books, 2003.
Highlights the evolution of folk-rock music in the latter half of the 1960s. Observes folk-rock musicians at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair held their own against big rock acts, such as The Who and Jimi Hendrix. Explores the openness of the counterculture to folk music. Describes acoustic and semi-acoustic performances by Richie Havens, Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian, Tim Hardin, Melanie, Arlo Guthrie, the Incredible String Band, and Crosby, Stills Nash & Young. Also references Woodstock performances that were born from the folk tradition, including the sets by Jefferson Airplane and Ten Years After. Includes an annotated discography.

Chapters

Allen, Dave. “A Public Transition: Acoustic and Electric Performances at the Woodstock Festival.” Remembering Woodstock. Ed. Andy Bennett. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2004. 111–126.

Argues both acoustic (rural) and electric (urban) music lived equally within the context of popular music during the 1960s, up to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair which was “almost the last very public celebration of the rural within popular music” and the last occasion where acoustic and electric acts shared the stage equally. Notes Country Joe McDonald performed twice at the festival, once as a solo acoustic act and once with his electric rock band. Illustrates the premise using McDonald’s performances (as represented in the motion picture Woodstock) and their subsequent impact on his career. Provides a brief history of McDonald’s evolution as a musician, from acoustic to electric. Questions whether acoustic music still has any significance in contemporary popular music.

Bordowitz, Hank. “From Monterey Pop to Woodstock to Altamont: Innocence Found and Lost.” Turning Points in Rock and Roll: The Key Events that Affected Popular Music in the Latter Half of the 20th Century. New York: Citadel Press, 2004. 155–171.
Traces the history of large-scale rock festivals from the charming Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 through the counterculture’s utopian Woodstock Music and Art Fair to the violence of the Altamont Speedway concert, the latter two both held in 1969. Claims the Woodstock festival was “the highwater mark of the rising tide of utopian spirit started at Monterey.” Notes the decline of such ambitious concerts in America that followed and the rise of the same in Europe. Continues by discussing the traveling caravan Lollapalooza and the Lilith Fair tours that emerged in the 1990s. Explores an underline theme of the evolving relationship between art and commerce.
Clarke, Eric F. “Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Star Spangled Banner’.” Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2005. 48–61. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151947.003.0003
Asserts Jimi Hendrix’s performance of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair articulates a history-making musical protest of the Vietnam War. Traces the impact of the sounds themselves, as opposed to the circumstances of the delivery and/or the political projections of those interpreting the meaning of the event. Draws an analysis from the sound recording so as not to be influenced by the imagery in the motion picture Woodstock. Continues with a second-by-second breakdown of the performance, describing musical notes and how they are rendered throughout the performance. Highlights Hendrix’s insertion of “Taps” (a bugle call played at dusk, during flag ceremonies, and at military funerals by the United States armed forces) into the national anthem. Claims nationalism and counterculture are both “simultaneously and antagonistically specified in the sounds of the performance.” Includes a transcription musical score of Hendrix’s performance of The Star Spangled Banner.
Daley, Mike. “Land of the Free: Jimi Hendrix―Woodstock Festival, August 18, 1969.” Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time. Ed. Ian Inglis. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006. 52–57.
Recounts in detail Jimi Hendrix’s set at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Observes Hendrix’s performance has come to fully represent the Woodstock festival “as a cultural signpost in rock history.” Argues the significance of Hendrix’s appearance at the concert has been a relatively recent development and not evident in the press immediately following the event. Provides insight into Hendrix’s preparations for the festival, including his desire to take his music in a new direction and the associated auditioning of new musicians. Describes the actual performance as “loose and somewhat confused.” Delves into a moment by moment description of Hendrix’s rendering of The Star Spangled Banner. Claims his presentation of the national anthem revealed a “more conflicted view of the war in Vietnam than would be suggested by many of those who have offered interpretations.” Claims Hendrix’s appearance at Woodstock symbolizes both the free-spirit of the 1960s and the “troubled heart of the anti-war movement.”
Fast, Susan, and Kip Pegley. “Introduction.” Music, Politics, and Violence. Eds. Susan Fast and Kip Pegley. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2012. 1–33.
Reveals how music and violence entwine. Suggests music is a “rich medium for perpetuating symbolic violence, which, in turn, often becomes part of a much larger systemic oppression.” Questions what can be learned about intentionality of a “translation’s transformative power to prompt political change” when examining lyrics and music. Points to Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as a prime example. Observes in Hendrix’s performance a “use of extreme distortion and feedback wreaking timbral havoc on the melody” and, thus, framing the national anthem in a new way. Suggests Hendrix transformed the song from celebratory to protest by virtue of digressing from the melody, inserting feedback, incorporating Taps, and conjuring a feeling of chaos and violence. Debates Hendrix’s exact intentions behind such an interpretation by offering conflicting evidence. Concludes that regardless of intent, one may hear the performance “informed by a Zeitgeist and part of a larger critique of American involvement in the Vietnam War.” Claims this is but one example of how music is used to “articulate notions of otherness.”
Hicks, Bob. “Jimi Hendrix: A Memorial (Northwest Passage, 29th September 1970).” The Jimi Hendrix Companion: Three Decades of Commentary. Ed. Chris Potash. New York: Schirmer, 1996. 207–210.
Compiles previously published articles about Jimi Hendrix. In an item published shortly after Hendrix’s death from Northwest Passage, an underground newspaper, Hicks comments on Hendrix’s performance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Claims Hendrix reached the height of his artistic maturity at the festival. Describes Hendrix’s set as “a vision of cultural crisis, of structural breakdown and chaos.” Observes his performance of The Star Spangled Banner was “the vast underbelly of a culture sinking.” Questions whether the audience understood the meaning of the performance.
Jopling, Norman. “Man, Myth or Magic? Jimi Hendrix is Back, and Happy, and Talking...” Hendrix on Hendrix: Interviews and Encounters with Jimi Hendrix. Ed. Steven Roby. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012. 289–292.
Transcribes interview with Jimi Hendrix from September 12, 1970 in which he mentions his favorite performances from the Woodstock Music and Art Fair (i.e., Sly and the Family Stone, Rickie Havens, and Ten Years After).
Nunez, Sigrid. “Woodstock at Max Yasgur’s Farm: Bethel, New York, August 15–17, 1969.” The Show I’ll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive their most Memorable Concertgoing Experience. Ed. Sean Manning. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2007. 52–57.
Relates the author’s experience attending, and thoughts regarding, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Asserts she “went to Woodstock on the back of a motorcycle driven by a Vietnam vet who was on acid.” Describes how unprepared she was for the weather, the crowd, and lack of food. Recounts the amount of drug use among her traveling companions. Comments on her favorite performers (e.g., Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone), but acknowledges that for years she remembered the performance of Ten Years After only to realize much later they performed after she had left. Attributes this to having seen the band play in the motion picture Woodstock. States initially it was a notable distinction among peers to have been at the festival, but it has now come to mainly remind her of her progressing age.
Perone, James E. “Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (1970).” The Album: A Guide to Pop Music’s most Provocative, Influential, and Important Creations. Ed. James E. Perone. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012.
Critiques track-by-track the sound recording Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, released in 1970 and loosely served as the soundtrack album to motion picture Woodstock. Notes although some of the acts featured on the recording are not shown in the film, the album represents “one of the most important live albums of the rock era.” Comments on the re-sequencing of performances away from the actual chronology of events. Offers the record’s producer, Eric Blackstead, did this as well as adding stage announcements and crowd noise in order to convey to the listener the emotional experience of the festival. Includes a brief sidebar on rock music festivals of the 1960s.
Sullivan, Denise. “Rainbow Politics, Woodstock, and Revolution Rock.” Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music from Blues to Hip-Hop. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2011. 99–108.
Bookends an essay on the significance of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair to the black experience with thoughts on Richie Havens and Jimi Hendrix. Provides Haven’s perspective on the festival and its relationship to his life. Notes his performance at the event was so dynamic as to allow him to sustain a lifelong career as a performer. Alternatively, Hendrix’s showing at the event suggested a beginning of the end. Discusses Hendrix’s relationship with both black and white audiences. Suggests “Jimi Hendrix was a freedom rider” despite his apolitical image. Notes that performers of color (Richie Havens, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Carlos Santana) triumphed at Woodstock. Claims Santana’s performance “was in essence the moment that birthed the Latino rock movement.”
“United Block Association Press Conference.” Hendrix on Hendrix: Interviews and Encounters with Jimi Hendrix. Ed. Steven Roby. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012. 215–218.
Transcribes a Jimi Hendrix press conference from August 1969 held to promote an upcoming benefit concert for Harlem’s United Block Association. Hendrix comments on the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, including his performance of The Star Spangled Banner, the wide spread drug use and lack of violence at the festival, and the implications for future musical gatherings.
Walters, Barry. “Nü Metal and Woodstock ‘99.” The Rock History Reader. Ed. Theo Cateforis. New York: Routledge, 2007. 313–315.
Draws from the author’s Washington Post article analyzing the events at Woodstock ’99 (Barry Walters, “The Arson is Blowin’ in the Wind: Why Woodstock ’99 Devolved into a Frat-Style Free-For-All,” The Washington Post, August 8, 1999, p. G1). Notes the mythology of the original Woodstock Music and Art Fair was shattered by the Woodstock ’99 audiences’ desire for “angry, aggressive music.” Suggests the music by such acts as Limp Bizkit, Korn, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers both fueled and reflected the psychology behind the riots, looting, sexual assaults, and mayhem.

Articles

Abril, Carlos R. “Functions of a National Anthem in Society and Education: A Sociocultural Perspective.” Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education 172 (2007): 69–87.

Examines The Star Spangled Banner in its role as a national anthem. Provides the historical background and uses “various sociocultural conceptualizations of music and social functions as guideposts around which to wrap historical and autobiographical narratives” in order to reject “absolutist portrayals” in school music curriculum. Points to Jimi Hendrix’s performance of the piece at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as being a representation of the freedom to “ascribe personal meaning to the song in transmission and appropriation.” Notes at the time the performance was considered by many as too severe a transgression to be accepted. Observes now the same performance is considered ground breaking and profound.

Araújo, Samuel M. “Brega: Music and Conflict in Urban Brazil.” Latin American Music Review 9.1 (1988): 50–89. https://doi.org/10.2307/779999
Uses the “crowd rain chant” from the motion picture Woodstock as a brief point of reference in exploring the evolution of brega, a form of Brazilian popular music grounded in socio-economic roots. Insists “brega opens a quite provoking field to those interested in the ways music expresses the social dynamics within the global village.”
Auslander, Philip. “Good Old Rock and Roll: Performing the 1950s in the 1970s.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 15.2 (2003): 166–194. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533–1598.2003.00003.x http://homes.lmc.gatech.edu/~auslander/publications/good%20old%20rock%20and%20roll.pdf
Explores two poles of the ideological continuum between authenticity and inauthenticity in rock music culture. Uses the music group Sha Na Na and the musician John Lennon to represent the two extremes. Observes John Lennon’s performances of rock and roll music from the 1950s are authentic because he had a personal biographical connection to the music. Claims Sha Na Na’s performance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair served to anticipate a “historical discontinuity between countercultural rock and what came after it.” States the performance was a harbinger of change in popular music culture, anticipating glam and punk rock. Discusses the “historical irony” of Sha Na Na’s appearance at Woodstock. Sums the significance by observing, unlike all the other acts at the festival, Sha Na Na presented a theatrical and constructed personae without an “authentic personal and historical connection to rock and roll.” Part II of the article continues by discussing instances in which musicians of the 1960s with authentic connections to the music of the 1950s created alter egos in order to perform rock and roll music (e.g., Frank Zappa; Beach Boys). Notes this places them between the two poles. Connects the ideological continuum to that of modernism versus postmodernism.
Chang, Vanessa. “Records that Play: The Present Past in Sampling Practice.” Popular Music 28.2 (2009): 143–159. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261143009001755
Examines the theoretical basis of discourse surrounding the practice of sampling and posits the sampled is a space where “the past both defines the present and is effaced by it.” Refers to previous scholarship regarding Jimi Hendrix’s performance of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Reports that by referencing the composition Taps through integration into his rendition of the national anthem, Hendrix created a sign “encoded with a kind of external logic, its meaning determined by its context.” Claims Hendrix was able to subvert the semiotic system of the national anthem and “the referent of the cited song, the nation, is present, even as its internal nationalistic structure is made absent.” Asserts sampling makes disparate source material coherent and serves as a cultural metaphor with “musical space doubling for social space.” Concludes “sampling creates a tradition that involves the past without deferring to its structures and limitations, restoring a revised mode of agency to the practice,” thus evoking nostalgia without recreating the event.
Clague, Mark. “‘This is America’: Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner Journey as Psychedelic Citizenship.” Journal of the Society for American Music 8.4 (2014): 435–478. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1752196314000364
Characterizes Jimi Hendrix’s performance of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as being “an expression of transcendent political resistance” representing “the most powerful symbol of rock’s potential for protest.” Analyzes in detail Hendrix’s “artistic engagement” with the national anthem by tracing his history of playing, recording, writing about, and discussing it. Looks comprehensively at two years of performances, including stage banter, to gain understanding of Hendrix’s political perspective and rhetoric. Delves into Hendrix’s personal military history (he enlisted in 1961). Reveals it was not planned Hendrix would play the national anthem at Woodstock, yet it has become one the most famous performances in the history of rock music. Suggests he added it to the set as a “celebration of possibility” inspired by his positive experience at the festival. Describes Hendrix’s rendition of the The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock in great detail, breaking the performance down almost note by note. Contrasts this event with previous live renderings of the piece, building the case that on this particular day the musician was making a statement of affirmation rather than protest. Recounts Hendrix’s interview about the performance shortly afterwards on The Dick Cavett Show. Comments on how he enhanced the tune with “increasing amounts of ornamentation” for post-Woodstock renderings. Concludes by noting how the Woodstock version, having been highlighted as the capstone performance in the motion picture Woodstock, has become engrained in American culture as a melding of both the artistic and social imagination.
Gracyk, Theodore. “Meanings of Songs and Meanings of Song Performances.” Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism 71.1 (2013): 23–33.
Purports to demonstrate “the interplay of semantics and pragmatics” in generating differing meanings by different performances. Offers meanings of songs are fixed, but each performance of a song can have different meanings. Contends musical performances are rich in meaning due to the semantic information associated with musical structure, thus creating numerous possibilities for pragmatic contextual interpretation. Highlights the Jimi Hendrix performance of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as one example of how a performance can offer new connotations without altering the intended meaning of the music being performed. Hendrix made a political statement with his rendering of the composition, thus exploiting a cultural context to “generate pragmatic implications that are not part of the musical work.”
Henderson, David. “Jimi Hendrix Deep within the Blues and Alive Onstage at Woodstock — 25 Years After Death.” African American Review 29 (1995): 213–216. https://doi.org/10.2307/3042293
Reviews Jimi Hendrix musicianship as a blues guitarist and comments on his performance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Notes near the end of his performance, Hendrix was “delving deeply into the improvisational mode where blues and jazz truly intersect.” Comments on the band accompanying Hendrix during his Woodstock gig. Contends his talent for playing the blues placed him “well within the pantheon of blues greats,” including Albert King, Muddy Waters and Elmore James. Reproduces some poetic text written by Hendrix at the Woodstock festival.
Kaufmann, Donald. “Woodstock: The Color of Sound.” Journal of Ethnic Studies 2.3 (1974): 32–49.
Argues the Woodstock Music and Art Fair resolved the question of African-American music acceptance into mainstream popular culture. Claims the festival demonstrated African-American music “had finally learned to coexist with white electronics” resulting in a “mulatto sound.” Delves into an extensive history of black music in America. Articulates the ways in which white America has periodically discovered black music and integrated the sounds into its own popular music. Predicts once the Woodstock generation comes of age and assumes political power, cultural assumptions about distinctions between black music and white music will be gone.
Konečni, Vladimir J., Rebekah A. Wanic, and Amber Brown. “Emotional and Aesthetic Antecedents and Consequences of Music-Induced Thrills.” American Journal of Psychology 120.4 (2007): 619–643. https://doi.org/10.2307/20445428 http://konecni.ucsd.edu/pdf/2007%20K.,%20W.,%20and%20B.,%20Thrills-Chills%20AJP.pdf
Utilizes a recording of Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) performing The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair to conduct controlled experiments exploring “the significance of music-induced thrills.” Uses various aesthetics (e.g., national anthems, objects, paintings) to increase the thrill response to the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) and Joseph Haydn (1732–1809). Concludes “thrills may often accompany profound aesthetic experiences and provide their physiological underpinning, yet themselves be of limited psychological significance.”
Manderson, Desmond. “Towards Law and Music.” Law and Critique 25.3 (2014): 311–317. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-014-9142-8
Assesses “scholarly directions in the interdisciplinary field of law and music.” Illustrates the “vocabulary” of music through the example of Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Contends Hendrix performed a juxtaposition between America’s polar demographics (the old and the new) and political ideologies at that time in history. Notes through his music Hendrix was able to contrast “patriotism with violence, and victimhood with aggression.” Suggests he was articulating legal subjectivity through his music.
Marom, Maya K. “Spiritual Moments in Music Therapy: A Qualitative Study of the Music Therapist’s Experience.” Qualitative Inquiries in Music Therapy 1 (2004): 37–76. http://www.barcelonapublishers.com/resources/QIMTV1/QIMT2004Volume1_Marom.pdf
Investigates “spiritual moments in different music therapy settings” in order to examine the “personal experience of the music therapists involved in them.” Utilizes a qualitative research methodology. Explains therapists were asked to describe sessions in which the “therapeutic process became spiritual in nature.” Examines, among other things, the role of music in these experiences. Offers one example in which a client was frightened to hear the entire recording of Jimi Hendrix’s performance of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Notes following a session in which therapist and client listened to the entire piece, therapist was surprised to “witness a client have a life-changing spiritual experience to the sounds of this music.” Concludes any type of music can create a transformative experience, as long as it has relevance to the individual.
Maxile, Horace J., Jr. “Signs, Symphonies, Signifyin(g): African-American Cultural Topics as Analytical Approach to the Music of Black Composers.” Black Music Research Journal 28.1 (2008): 124–138.
Calls for more scholarship on black composers in terms of “criticism, interpretation, and analysis of concert works.” Focuses on reviewing and expanding upon current theories in order to address the “analysis/interpretation gap” regarding concert performances by African Americans. Points to Jimi Hendrix’s performance of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair as an example of “signifying” (e.g., satire, reverence, politics). Contends Hendrix transformed the national anthem with bent tones, wide vibrato, etc., thus utilizing “African-American cultural emblems.” As a result, Hendrix addressed the social and political climate of the late 1960s.
Silverman, Alan. “Music at Woodstock.” AES: Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 55.4 (2007): 308–309.
Reports on a meeting of the New York Section of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) held at the Digital Cinema Dubbing Stage (December 12, 2006). Highlights a behind-the-scenes technical history of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Festival technical director Chris Langhart, sound contractor Bill Hanley, promoter Michael Lang, and on-site staff John Chester provide first-person descriptions and explanations. Comments on segments from the motion picture Woodstock used to illustrate the sound recording techniques utilized at the concert.
Turino, Thomas. “Signs of Imagination, Identity, and Experience: A Peircian Semiotic Theory for Music.” Ethnomusicology 43.2 (1999): 221–255. https://doi.org/10.2307/852734
Offers Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotic theory “as an avenue for understanding musical affectivity, different parts of ourselves and experiences, and the special potentials of music for the construction of personal and social identities.” In particular, suggests the theory is “revolutionary for understanding the social effects of music, art, expressive culture, and people’s myriad ways of experiencing the world.” As one musical example of creative indexing, the author points to Jimi Hendrix’s rendering of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Notes the use of guitar feedback and distortion (counterculture ethos) during the performance is juxtaposed with the composition’s “nationalistic contexts” (patriotic ethos), thus “shifts of accent, rhythm, and phrasing, and the use of rock-rift conventions” express sarcasm.
Waksman, Steve. “Black Sound, Black Body: Jimi Hendrix, the Electric Guitar, and the Meanings of Blackness.” Popular Music and Society 23.1 (1999): 75–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007769908591726
Considers in this lengthy article Jimi Hendrix’s relationship to “blackness” as a category of representation, in terms of his music, performance style, and technology. Contrasts Hendrix’s interpretation of The Star Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair with a performance of the same tune earlier in the same year. Claims the Woodstock rendition of the national anthem was “a full-fledged reinvention of it, such that the original can never be heard quite the same way again.” Suggests in breaking from a traditional performance of this particular song, Hendrix interjected a stylistic evocation of African music. Considers also the intersections of race and gender in Hendrix’s style of performance.

Videos

Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock. Prod. Janie Hendrix and John McDermott. Experience Hendrix L.L.C., 2010.

Updated Blu-ray edition of a video first released in the 1990s. Features all of the existing film footage of Jimi Hendrix at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, re-edited and presented in the original performance sequence. Includes a second disc of interviews with the musicians and others, alternate camera angles of the performance, and a post-concert interview with Jimi Hendrix (September 3, 1969) discussing The Star Spangled Banner.

Woodstock: The Lost Performances. Warner Home Video, 1991.
Contains over an hour’s worth of Woodstock Music and Art Fair performances not seen in the original 1970 motion picture, Woodstock. Some of the acts included here were not featured in the original film. Highlights are songs by Janis Joplin, Melanie, Tim Hardin, The Band, Richie Havens, Joe Cocker, Arlo Guthrie, Canned Heat and others. Compiled for the 20th anniversary of the festival.

Recordings

Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More. Cotillion, 1970.

Contains the first release of selected live recordings of music, stage announcements, and crowd noise from the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Followed by the album Woodstock Two, released in 1971. In 1994 additional musical performances were added for a 4 CD box set release, Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music. In 2009, more content was added and released as a 6 CD box set, Woodstock―40 Years On: Back to Yasgur’s Farm.

Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music. Atlantic, 1994.
Presents the third release of selected live recordings of music from the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Follows the albums Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (1970) and Woodstock Two (1971). Contains additional musical performances packaged in a 4 CD box set release. Followed by a 6 CD box set, Woodstock―40 Years On: Back to Yasgur’s Farm (2009). Program notes by David Fricke.
Woodstock'―'40 Years On: Back to Yasgur’s Farm. Rhino, 2009.
Presents the fourth release of live recordings of music from the 1969 Woodstock music festival. Follows the albums Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (1970), Woodstock Two (1971), and Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music (1994). Contains additional musical performances, all packaged in a 6 CD box set release.
Woodstock Two. Atlantic, 1971.
Presents the second release of selected live recordings of music from the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Follows the album Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (1970). Followed by a 4 CD box set release, Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music (1994) and then by a 6 CD box set, Woodstock―40 Years On: Back to Yasgur’s Farm (2009).

http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0105.04

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