New Delhi, Aug 20 (Inditop.com) The man who organised the momentous Woodstock concert in the US in 1969 wants to come to India next year to host a music carnival, says DJ Black Jack, one of India’s oldest and leading classic rock and blues disc jockeys.
DJ Black Jack, whose real name is David Masilamani, interviewed this week Artie Kornfeld, a former vice-president of Capital Records who came up with the idea of Woodstock and made it happen 40 years ago.
“I met Artie in August 2008 when he came to India to plan an Indian Woodstock with Bollywood star Jackie Shroff. But he did not quite like the idea because he felt that Woodstock was not a public property,” Masilamani told Inditop over telephone from Secunderabad.
“Instead, Artie hosted a three-day Spirit of India festival in Bangalore with the Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Artie and I got together there and have since then bonded over music.
“Artie now wants to come back to India in 2010 and host another festival – another Spirit of India festival,” he said.
Masilamani interviewed Kornfeld for the “Woodstock Tribute”, an hour-long online music show on Myopusradio.com, India’s first internet radio for international music created by the DJ.
He said he wanted to interview Kornfeld as he decided to dedicate his music broadcasts for August to Woodstock. “The message that music heals rings loud even now as new conflicts ravage the world”, said Masilamani.
It was on the weekend of Aug 15, 1969, nearly 500,000 people descended on a six-acre dairy farm near New York for a rain-drenched carnival of rock ‘n’ roll. For three days, the legends of classic rock, along with Indian musicians like Ravi Shankar and Allah Rakha, let their music lash out against the horror of the ongoing Vietnam war.
“Vietnam was such a major issue for America. Woodstock was a rejection of the war and for all the freedom of human soul. Artie captures the spirit in his book,” Masilamani said.
Forty years down the line, the scenario is not much different, the DJ says.
“It’s worse. We can never have another Woodstock, but contemporary Western music is going back to its mellow roots of the 60s. My prayer is let peace prevail and may the music never end,” Masilamani said.
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair – which according to its producer and promoter Artie Kornfeld saw “12 people bonding over one sandwich, drugs and love” – was a watershed in the history of rock.
It gave music a cause to espouse and became the cradle of the anti-war hippie movement of the 1970s. The flower generation, as the freewheeling hippies were known, flocked to India in droves seeking nirvana in eastern mysticism and music to escape the trauma of war.
As Kornfeld said in the interview: “Woodstock was not so much about music as a medium, but it was a message of equality for everyone in a world where some people have everything and others have nothing. I wanted the people of America to be part of the solution and not the problem.”
The concert, recalled Kornfeld, drew performers like The Who, Santana, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix – and “in their only second live show together Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young”.
The concert began at 5.07 p.m. on Aug 15 with an opening act by Richie Havens and ended with Jimi Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner”.
“Despite the delays, the traffic snarls, the danger of electrical shocks, Woodstock pulled off the ultimate magic act of the 1960s, turning utter rain-soaked chaos into the greatest rock festival ever and the decade’s most successful experiment in peace and community,” Kornfeld said.
He hit upon the idea of Woodstock at his apartment with his wife Linda and friend Michael Lang, whom he described as “the king of underground”, after a late night pool game. He left his job to pursue his dream.
In a new book, “The Pied Piper of Woodstock”, Kornfeld chronicles the inside story of the festival and the history of American rock ‘n’ roll. He has also created a new website “Spirit of Woodstock” to celebrate four decades of the concert.
