1970 Folk Rock Classic, Inspired by an Iconic Music Festival, Became a Counterculture Anthem

Despite missing out on one of the biggest music festivals, Joni Mitchellstill released a popular folk-rock track titled “Woodstock.” The 1970 song became an anthem of the 1960s counterculture era, and was later reimagined into a rock radio hit that same year.

By 1969, Mitchell had already made a name for herself when she was scheduled to appear at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair alongside the band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. There was only one problem: she was also scheduled that same day to appear on The Dick Cavett Show. Reports from Woodstock revealed organizational chaos that led her manager, David Geffen, to make a decision.

“It was a catastrophe,” Mitchell told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) show The National, “and it was Geffen that decided, ‘Oh, we can’t get Joni in, and we can’t get her out in time’. He took me back to where he lived. We watched it on TV.”

In the end, Mitchell was told to prioritize her TV appearance over the music festival and ended up never attending. “Woodstock” was written as a result, with Mitchell having gotten first-hand account stories from her then-boyfriend Graham Nash. She once commented on how the “deprivation” of not going gave her an intense angle for the song, as well as being inspired by “a kind of born-again Christian trip” she was going through.

“Woodstock” was released as the B-side to her single “Big Yellow Taxi” and released on her Ladies of the Canyon album. It didn’t enter the Billboard charts as a standalone single, and Mitchell even performed the track one month after Woodstock at the 1969 Bug Sur Folk Festival before it was released.

When it was released in 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released their own cover of the song, but reimagined with a rock arrangement. They learned about the track from Mitchell herself while dating Nash. Their version introduced major changes in tone and had Jimi Hendrix‘s involvement early on. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Woodstock” would become one of the more well-known versions of the track and a classic radio staple, which peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Matthews Southern Comfort also performed their own version of the song and was well-received. Frontman Ian Matthews worried Mitchell would disapprove of him changing the original melody, but she surprisingly preferred his version. Bassist Andy Leigh recalls taking the song apart and reassembling it, knowing they had “something special.”

The band’s record label agreed to release their cover as a single, only if Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s version failed to chart in the U.K. When that proved to be the case, the label reluctantly released the track, but didn’t make an effort to promote it. It wasn’t until their manager hired a PR manager that the song got radio airplay. That same year, Assembled Multitude released their own version that also became a chart hit.

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