Free The Road to Woodstock by Michael Lang

seriously by artists’ agents and managers, and fees would become more reasonable. Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Canned Heat were the first artists to accept. We got the Airplane and Creedence for $10,000 each.
    Canned Heat had scored two major hits since appearing at Monterey, “On the Road Again” and “Going Up the Country,” so their fee was $12,500.
    I booked Crosby, Stills and Nash before their debut album was released. Their manager, David Geffen, came into Hector’s office one day, clutching a test pressing of their just-completed recording. “Wait till you hear this!” he gloated. We were knocked out. The Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds had been two of my all-time favorite groups, and CSN took their music to a new level. The vocal harmonies were fantastic on “Helplessly Hoping” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” And I loved the guitar and organ interplay on “Wooden Ships,” which I later discovered was inspired by Crosby’s adventures in the Grove. I knew “Marrakesh Express” would be a hit.
    Geffen was looking for the right venue to kick off the band’s first tour, and we all agreed Woodstock should be it. I booked them on the spot, paying his asking price of $10,000. We did a lot of interesting booking that way—signing new acts like Joe Cocker and Mountain to be introduced to our peers at Woodstock.
    Even by late March, buzz began circulating about the festival. One night Garland Jeffreys and I went to see Van Morrison perform in New York at Steve Paul’s Scene, a very cool club owned by Johnny Winter’s manager. We chatted about the festival to Steve and others, and by the next day, I heard from someone in Los Angeles who called to say he wanted his band to play. Artie began calling his friends at radio stations and got them to mention Woodstock on air.
    My philosophy in all areas of festival staffing was to get the very best people available on our team. I looked for those with the most expertise in their field and, whenever possible, people who understood what we were trying to do. When I contacted Stan Goldstein in Miami to see if he was available, I learned he’d left Criteria and happened to be in New York. He was working as a sound engineer (his first love) at the Hit Factory but was about to leave for a job in LosAngeles. I met with him in New York and I hired him for a salary of $500 a week, $100 more than I was making.
    STAN GOLDSTEIN: Michael offered me the opportunity to be in charge of physical arrangements for the festival. I told him I really wasn’t interested in doing a festival. My interest was in pursuing my recording career. Michael disclosed that a recording studio was being built, simultaneous with the development of the festival, on the Tapooz property. Eventually we came to an agreement that I would help him design and staff the festival, and once the major players were in place and the design complete, I would be released and begin building the studio in association with the chief engineer of Media Sound, John and Joel’s studio. We would be cochiefs of this new studio to be constructed.
    Within a fairly short period of time after I joined, the decision was made that it would be a three-day event and the outline of what each of the days would be was established. The Friday concert would start late in the day—gentle music without major, major headliners, so that we could stage arrivals, with some people arriving on Friday, late in the day, after work. Saturday and Sunday would be headliners. The slogan “Three Days of Peace and Music” was determined, and Michael came up with the idea of having a guitar and a dove as the logo—which was later developed into a brilliant poster by Arnold Skolnick.
    Unlike the enclosed location at Gulfstream Race Track, for this festival we needed to build a city, a place where people didn’t depart at day’s end, where they would want to camp overnight and have a longer experience. Stan and I immediately